OLIVER SMART
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Pink Wings

16/4/2021

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Freedom
From (figuratively) sitting down
From divisive rhetoric
From controlling systems
From being ruled through division

Human
We
Together

Stand*
Discuss
Govern yourself
Mix like muddy water**

*Sly & The Family Stone, 1969
**Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu, Hackett 1993, Translation Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo
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That this is not magic but Work

13/4/2021

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In this poem (early 1950s) Bertolt Brecht expresses that the technical and functional happenings in the transformation of the staging are to be given to the view of the audience, if they lean back on their seats.
The choice belongs to the viewer in their dynamic action of viewing.

The peace dove by “brother” Pablo Picasso is to be painted onto the curtain (or in the case of the photo below embroidered). This action treats the work of this artist as an open-source visual devise, rather than as the original creation of a genius-art-god.

Art here is a collectively shared method, transparent in its performance and shared between people as members of the same uniting family.

Togetherness rather than exclusivity.
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body as experiential tool

6/4/2021

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Dance as exploration of mechanism experientially

To move is to feel and to be movement

By dancing am I doing a "useful" thing?
Why must the way I move be "functional"?

Surely to be focused on the "useful" and "functional" is limiting to any notions of (body) mechanics

The useful and the useless are together in the same room

I make a fire to keep warm
then

I dance
I sing

all night long
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Imaginary Mechanism

22/2/2021

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The poetic and fantastic is my preferred method of devising mechanical systems.

A niggling doubt
can be a starting point,
a place to depart from.

Here I become accustomed to the frustration of not knowing.

I dodge working rationally and functionally in favour of
digging in the dirt.

More like archeology than engineering.
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Artist and Puppeteer

2/2/2021

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A continued exploration of puppetry in design and performance feeds into my sculptural practise, providing a method for playful and experiential experimentation with objects and character.


Performance is intrinsically time-based, character is expressed through often subtle changes of movements through to stillness and back to movement.


Relationships are suggested through variations in the proximity between protagonists, in puppetry these are physically represented imaginary characters. 


The physical techniques of puppet performance allow a viewer (and the puppeteer) to be convinced of an object character’s realness to such an extent that we feel an empathy towards them and the situation they are in.


Character and narrative have been devices for the preservation and communication of knowledge and wisdom throughout human history.


The puppet aspect of my creative practise can be found at www.foldedfeather.com

​
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Picture
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Clumsy Precision

19/9/2020

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The tools of precision are used for the imprecise
the cogs
and gears
wear with friction

causing another quality of moving

The machine
is released from functionality

then it is wild
can work
can break
can wear out
​

can be in any way
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Cam
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This Organ

3/7/2020

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Picture
This Organ

Most extraordinary of devices

What is this?

A solid thing

opening 
closing

geometry
material

variation in all

knowledge here applied practically

gifting function

sensed and felt

feeling harmonics

apparent complexity conceals fluid abbreviation towards a most simple interface

elegance of integration through many centuries of refinement

flow allowed
flow altered

pipes open to space

a manufactured lung
a voice box simulation

resonance connecting deeply to a human

body 
heart
soul
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Picture
Picture
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seed reflections

16/6/2020

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Picture
out from
ground up
across
cluster
spread
nucleus periphery
each takes makes
beyond the centre
from then becoming
centre anew

strength in numbers

outward flow
being done
mechanical
integration
(design?)

being
this is what it is

rather
alternative
iteration
there is none other

there is no design

only there is becoming

a consistent status of being that and this
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Picture
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most recent works

10/4/2020

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Picture
Chair Projection 1
objects
components
(systems)
broken
busted
reformed
(become)
an other thing

sole purpose
to be
to hold
to remain
thing 
unmade 
made
held flexible
easily

a body
a system
connective tissue
seen
unseen

These precarious bodies are less about system failure than the unleashing of flexible and dynamic structures open to change.
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Precarious Balance 2 - Tower
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Chair Projection 2
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Notions of Balance

17/3/2020

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in a system

rather than that of fear- that balance will be lost unless the present status quo is maintained

Instead

that balance and authenticity are not lost ever
they merely shift so that a previously unknown and unfamiliar point of balance is illuminated

nothing is lost

a newly uncovered dynamic relationship is discovered

what is to be feared?
what is to be secured?
​
all is allowed the freedom to alter and change
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Precarious Balance 1 (2020)
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  • Art Works
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