Manifestos and other Assorted Texts 

Adrian Hall 1st February, 2020. “ untitled (the Field) ”

two emails received during the N.S.W. climate emergency fires, in January/February 2020. Used with permission.

They came from two individuals whom I had known when they each were students, and since have become longterm friends.

Used with permission.

" i survived the fire storm but lost everything, home, cars cameras, just left with the clothes i fought the fire in, another fire storm hits tomorrow so very traumatic, neighbours lost their lives , a number badly burnt and most homes in the area destroyed, looks like a war zone, ”

“ We are not under real threat but had to get out because the south coast will be cut off today. Sad to hear ——’s story. That is happening again today for many friends. I prayed last night for the first time in decades, for today. I weep when I think of what is happening today. ”

An installed image in the Backroom at Articulate, with two concomitant anonymous texts . . . (above)

All attempts at making art have a context of creation, and necessarily are indicative of concerns-of-that-time in attempts to create. All attempts to deliver a shudder or otherwise, from the present toward the enormity of time, can only tremble lightly against the truths, which become more evident and more terrible every actual day. Progress in anything, anywhere, is a moot point at this time, even within the multiple worlds designated, or colonised as a.r.t.. Nevertheless we who have chosen - must continue to make whatever noises we can, however we can, and for those noises to gather and reveal significance over time, poetic allusion has to prevail. Whether made evident or not, a realisation of history will direct or encourage the speculation or questioning resulting from evaluation of the-experience-of-being in that designated space. Sensing and realising the elements of content; ensures provocation over time, which will unravel slowly within the consciousness of the spectator/participant. Sensing the disquiet of gaps of logic, sensing scale or space in that experience; can lead over time to realisations within that person, of congruity, awareness of similarity, dissonance, anger, or social sympathy. Even rebellion.

For what more can we hope? 

Visual and verbal and other souvenirs,

from trying to make sense of our world; through trying to make and do stuff - inside and outside the arena known as a.r.t.

This in the continuing belief that this ‘unknowing practice’ is a branch of philosophy or a kind of practical process-of-reflection, to do with the experiential, sensory, and cognitive, pragmatics of being.

April 2012

Once I used to be a Logical Positivist, but now I am not so sure.

Random is hardly a viable term, but arbitrary does bear scrutiny,
and our human scrutiny which insists upon categorising, every-thing,
is counter to deep understanding.

Memory, experience, history, is riddled with riddles - and confused 
by the collisions of objects and other things, which engender other
nuances of sensations, understanding and does crystallise experience. 

Objects in themselves, embody through their histories diverse meanings
and further understanding of the state which is - pertaining to ourselves and our place in time. 
And so in history.

The deliberate dislocation of regular metres allow new rhythms to be felt,
and re-arranged vistas, conjure with new perspectives,  
they jostle with sedate accommodations or complacencies.
We are settled by the norms, persuaded on to us by power elites; 
from educators, politicians, or advertisers so that expectations,
meet only expectations.

Even the art worlds - jockey within permitted parameters, 
and the cautionary function of speculation, 
which has been the backbone of the hitherto avant-garde 
no longer fits the elasticity of the financial models created, 
maintained, and sustained by the auction houses, 
or those hegemonic systems functioning 
within what is known erroneously as the art world.
The word style emerges once more,
this time to describe new batches of whimsical product;
contrived to meet the demands of the market.

The continuity of my art practice, now truly nudging on sixty years, 
relies on the labour of viewer/participants to activate their own experiences, 
sensations and thinking; to construct a poised engagement with a new set of relationships 
which both recognise, interrogate and supplant, individual and societal groups.
Above all else; to look, question, and trust the senses, 
regarding the work posited, and thus - selves, and society.  

Sensational!

October 2018

Adrian Hall. another manifesto.

Articulate, Sydney, Australia. November, 2018.

As a resident of Aramoana, Otago,  Aotearoa, I brought to Articulate Project Space, Sydney, Australia - objects which had been in my mind, and a two terabyte hard drive of photography, from around my Aramoana living. Local sights, fauna and flora, and social visitations at our remote house and studios. In dialogue with William Seeto, and through him with Sibylle Hofter, we attempted to enter a discourse of intent and a dialogue of sensibility. 

Out of this a feeling for the space of Articulate emerged, and I started to work with the spatial manipulations of William. I selected imagery for printing from Aramoana which I thought resonated with the intense imagery harvested by Sibelle. These images were recent, from the previous month. 

My imagery is simple, and though seeming celebratory, is in fact in mourning for the extinction to come, With the rising water, declining fish stocks and so on. The frivolity of the sports wear, and that of human labour, laments the tragedy unfolding: in parallel with the human criminality exposed in the work of Sibylle on the beaches of Bangladesh. Where on the beaches of Aramoana, we are in constant torsion with residents, and bureaucrats, and councillors -who are also in active denial of responsibility.