Careful Not To Stare, Careful Not To Look Away

A model, grey and black plastic sits on a metal shelf. A square of dark paint is behind the model and shelf.
Attention Points (A), model, shelf, paint, 2022.
Installation view at Catalyst Arts, Belfast.

Careful Not To Stare, Careful Not To Look Away, is a collection of works consisting of models (Attention Points) a text, initially sent as a mail project (The Inner Room) a video of models and animated text (Scene From After Now) and a text sent initially as an email (The Theft).

This group of works describes from different positions, interactions that occur within a complex dedicated to a particular form of looking, and the presence and threat of a demanding entity that dwells there in The Inner Room.

Scene From After Now, video 7mins (loop), 2022.
Installation view at Catalyst Arts, Belfast.
The Inner Room Text, 2022. Mailout View
The Inner Room, Text, 2022. Mailout View.
Postcard (double sided)
The Inner Room, Text, 2022. Layout View for Mailout. Text layout by Paula Kolar.

“It was uncertain how long you would have to wait until accessing the inner room, and indeed, many never did enter. I remember the first time finding out we, a trium, a set of three parts, would be sent, this was announced casually by setting out our respective numbers on the announcement panel. Supplicants were always sent in threes, presumably for symbolic reasons, triadic structures were held to represent the most distinct distillation of the inherent inner tensions between principles of dynamic movement and stability, but this of course raised the problems of coordination, not something to be lamented, but appreciated as an opportunity for the favourite activity of the complex: practice.

The procedure for movement within the inner room was set and would require, at a minimum, a day of focused practice within the antechamber—the group would slowly advance, holding formation, ideally equilaterally spaced, shuffling forward, feet never leaving contact with the floor, eyes downcast yes, holding the practice object at the edge of vision quivering, of course, and repeating fragments from the set of cantations. This was not required to be synchronised, in fact it was preferred it should not, as that would imply to great a deal of clarity. Somewhere between a mutter and a mumble was judged best—I would have it so not no other, repeat this so my fate forever—at all times this material usual and familiar never too familiar and not to exceed the regulatory groan of the filtration unit…”

Two models, in grey and black plastic, of desk type structures.
Attention Points. (BC), Models, 2022.
Installation view at Catalyst Arts, Belfast.
The Theft Why did I leave? Have you ever stolen something, not because it was in a drab manner needed, food, coat other extensions of this admittedly fuzzy category I accept, but knowing, felt knowing, that it was unnecessary, but beautiful. Perhaps if you understand this unnecessary need we will understand one another. I must have it says that quiet voice, never before so sure, never again. Let yourself be there and seized with this. As if this need arrives sudden and large with ridiculous sureness, a commanding toddler, claiming room, absolute, booming small wonderful and unignorable, holding this whole world from the corner against all other slight thoughts and possible shapes until it is all that is there, loud, simple, insistent. There. I was not sure of the function of it, the object, I took. I could look at it directly, not like the form and the procedure surrounding that it, terrible, laborious, loving-powerful ever looming it. This was immediate. It had an almost continuous surface, seemingly dented, deliberately, into planes, yet with a simple cavity of unlikely darkness, a shock offering dashed across the form. This moment had the slowness of the sudden, as if all my own heart my own secret unknown yearnings for another life, another being, revealed themselves to me. Here and now returned, am unknotting of this self (yes, yes, the knot, sure, take it out—and now what) I must have it, this object. This need was, afterall, not so distinct in its categorical nature but in its absolute intensity. Must. It could be other, this world, it might be other, this me, I might be like it, this shining matter: this object. I fell through myself through my own body, through the floor, through floors below floors, through subbasements of mega subbasements, concrete, soil, rock water, chasms then chasms, heat impossible cold, I was there, I was no longer. Joy, yes, beside and above, beyond myself with everything other than what limited matter I had not so far been, you, meaning I, cannot describe it, you, meaning one, can only describe it, inadequate wise nods say nod, double nod, know pause, right. Later I came to think of it as a component, for it, this component was certain, as if just about to be placed somewhere, within a whole context of a wider opaque process. I later guessed residue handling, or, extraction. Important, in its way, not grand, something from the background, but needed. But, beyond anything that it needed to be. It was needed, but needed not be so. I needed it. I needed to be like it, become it, become something needless to what was needed, insistently more. So I took it, the object, it the component, it the residue extraction part, it the guiding star. I barely made it, my journey, to the end of the service corridor. The door closed. My private joy was disjuncted. They, that looming composite figure of them-all, were to have me, what me I was no longer. I was out. The return was awful, back to limits, impersonating the gone self. Back to the pretence of edges and form, how ridiculous, there were no edges to my matter any longer, cold and constant not. Yes, we know. Nods. Heavy sighs. Shrugs, shrug, we get it, you get it, I—. I was out.
The Theft, Text, 2022, Email View.