Artist in Residence Week 1 - Tim Long.

The first exhibition in the summer season of The Old Lookout is by Tim Long, titled I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside. I went to chat to him yesterday on the final day of his residency about how he had found the experience of showing at this gallery. However, before I pass on his feedback, I should probably give an outline of what the exhibition was all about.

Tim presented an interactive experience for visitors, taking the form of a kind of coconut shy, with 5 beautifully carved heads sitting on plinths, waiting to be knocked off their perches by a well aimed ball thrown from a distance.

The fellow down in the corner in the bottom left is a huge puppet style head, who watches (and probably judges) whoever is having a go. This in itself links to other seaside attractions such as Punch and Judy shows.

You can also have a watch of this fantastic video about the exhibition by Ben Rowley. It sums the exhibition up much more interestingly than I can by simply rambling:

Tim Long Exhibition 2013 from Benjamin Rowley on Vimeo.

One of the main things that Tim noticed during the exhibition was the amount of people who were too shy, timid and self-conscious about taking part. People would look in to the gallery and then not want to have a go. One of the reasons they stated was that they were worried about not being very good. However, he also said that children who came in for the most part understood it immediately, and all wanted to have a go, even if it meant using nearly the whole bucket of balls to knock them all off! One of the reasons we discussed for this difference in people's reactions was the tradition in things designated as art of the 'DO NOT TOUCH' sign. Perhaps it is simply ingrained in people's mind sets that because these items have been made by an artist, they shouldn't be allowed to potentially damage them. The installation encourages people to commit what could be seen as a violent act (the human features carved into the heads humanises them to some extent) by throwing wooden balls at the 'art' piece, and this can be seen to counteract the way we are normally expected to behave around art. The expected preciousness of the sculptures is not followed through, Tim described the act of throwing things at the installation as "changing the status of the object." To me, this was not only a fun and active installation art piece, with a sideline benefit of being a fantastic stress reliever, but an opportunity to question how the public is expected to behave around art pieces.

This piece was unfortunately also met with an occasional slightly hostile comment, things like "Isn't this supposed to be an art gallery?" To me, this probably just comes down to people perhaps just not understanding the concept, maybe expecting to see more traditional paintings or photographs as they ascend the steps. However, Tim noted that showing his work in The Old Lookout provided him with feedback from the public, with people making observations that he hadn't thought that they would make, which can in turn inform future projects. He has also been provided with some off-shoots of the exhibition, including photographs and videos that he could use if, for example, he ever wanted to do a presentation about his practice. He stated that hearing visitors comments and opinions about his work was one of the most valuable aspects of exhibiting this project at The Old Lookout.