What Does An Artist Do All Day? (Artist Books)
Without the infrastructure of an art school or formal gallery exhibitions, we all began to ask the question: what does an artist do all day?
Drawing on texts such as Moyra Davey’s Index Cards (2020), these books present the ephemera of an artists daily routine such as diary entries, data logs, food intake and background doodles in order to attempt to deconstruct and demystify the work pattern of an artist.
Throughout the year I have been tracking my own body data for medical reasons; logging information such as oxygen saturation, temperature, water intake, sleep quality, food consumption and hygiene habits. I wanted to apply the same meticulous scientific investigation that was being carried out to analyse the efficiency of body to also analyse the effect of these conditions on my efficiency as an artist.
The typewriter has been used specifically in these work to attempt to sever the words and data from my intimate self. As the conceptual waste of my own personal data and thoughts morphed into finished works, I had to start to address the dilemma of exposing myself and navigate the boundaries of biography and how much of myself I was willing to present as artwork.
Using the typewriter was a tool to help me negotiate this since the lack of decisions that accompanies it (font, size, formatting) helps to remove my personality from the work, as it becomes absorbed into a pool of references such Robert Morris’s Card File that place the pieces more firmly in a context of labour and work rather than biographical.
