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The Imagining Machine

This project does not stand alone but is part of body of work representing a shift in emphasis in my practice; I am exploring the notion of withdrawing from my practice as the principal participant and producer and enabling a range of others to take a lead within the work. This can include other artists or “professionals” through collaborations or a section of an “audience” through other means of engagement. My role is variously that of a director or editor or curator and deliberately tries to blur the boundaries between these. The media I have used in these projects include publication and the curated show; strategies revolve around rule-based processes and instructional tropes. It fits into a critical framework for practice reflected in the work of a number of artists internationally, many of whom I am in contact with.

For the Imagining Machine’s first “iteration” in East Street Arts’ Project Space I hypnotised visitors to an empty gallery space and helped them to “see” works of their own imagining in the space the descriptions of which were recorded and transcribed. The “outcome” was a publication - the “Journal of the Imagining Machine Volume One”, with a background essay and transcripts of the hypnotic sessions. The project was conducted according to the protocols of academic research and was, to an extent, a deliberate parody of research as well as a very serious attempt to explore the boundaries of what might constitute an artistic practice. Since 2009 I have conducted a number of experimental sessions of hypnosis and a number of public projects. In 2012 I performed a group hypnosis in SALT GALATA in Istanbul on the occasion of the CICA conference and will be continuing to develop the project in new ways.