Observations and misperceptions.

 

The naming of things foreground the perambulations of words that mediate and carry the autonomic structures of the material world in their ephemeral equations.

 

The title #airedeturner navigates the mind into the tumbling meteorology and pigments orchestrated by JMW Turner whilst connecting surreptitiously the borders of two parts of a continent split by geological tension. These fissures of communication as the title Crossing Borders suggests, draws us the dominance of technologies, inviting travelers into virtual spaces of domestic and public enclosure.

 

Like the great Air Loom imagined by JMW Turner's contemporary James Tilly Mathews, a London tea broker who was committed to Bethlem psychiatric hospital in 1797, or nets haul nothing free from the madness of the moment,

 

Sociable Media.

 

Our moment was frozen, yet still frozen November 21st 2015, the catalogue of interventions curated by Waugh Office in collaborations with Venice Agendas and Turner Contemporary began with these words:

 

"See and here artists from around the world at Turner Contemporary in Margate, during a day of discussion and performance. As part of  the Vencie Agenda's series and in collaboration with Waugh Office, this event responds to the themes of risk and boundaries, as well as cultural and personal borders. Experience live and watch artist interviews and performances from Budapest, Cape Town, Dubai,Chicago, London, Manchester, New York City,, North Carolina and Oxaca. Online and live streamed on Periscope in the galleries Foyle Room and available via Twitter @TCMargate #airedeturner.

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Once More With Feeling.

 

Within the sigh of Dreamland and the seaside shelter where TS Eliot composed verses for the Wasteland, in the aftermath of the First World War, we assembled contributions on the question of risks and borders. A week previous to the event The Devil by the Eagles Of Death Metal was brought to a catastrophic terminus through weaponry in Paris.

 

The images of the audience taken seconds before the music ended depict a typical paradox go our era. Those present looked mesmerised both by the band on stage and their capacity to record and share a moment via social media, we arrived before Newspapers or Television could define meaning. Perhaps, this is what Marshal Mcluhan described as "Hot Media".

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The Medium Is The Message.

 

Of course as Social Media and Emojis relay the discourses around the attacks it was also witness to silences and lacuna in regard to Europe and it's borders. Earlier in that year the context of our scene was set at The 56th Venice Biennial.

 

In All The World's Futures by Okwui Enwezor, Venice Agendas explored the opacity and refutation of borders with a significant focus on the issue of The Cultural Boycott to highlight the ongoing dissonance of a globalised culture. Such mappings have become the cipher for ethical interstices between art and political order of other worlds. Our platform was destined to expand on new territories, but the ennui of intellectuals is always dreaming of total and shocking realities. With the giddy halter skelter we loose ourselves in the footnotes and references are falling fast.

 

Even our advanced warnings arrive as untimely sentiments, how does the past become transfigured through aesthetic reflection and why is the history so critical on marginalised artists? What are the particular issues for diaspora artists? Dr Felicity Allen, David A Bailey MBE and Ala Younis, discuss the risk of an archive and architectural frameworks of storage with reference to The Venice Biennial, The ICA and Turner Contemporary.

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