Listen! It’s World Listening Day

Simon & UrsulaArt of Collaboration, Projects

A couple of days ago we did a mobile phone field experiment in preparation for World Listening Day 2020.’The Collective Field‘. We were both amazed by the size of a herd we came across on a walk on the outskirts of Maryport. Simon was fascinated by the sounds of the three different groups of sheep—above, below and beyond—in the vast rolling field. Unfortunately, he neglected to bring his main recording gear and had to make do with a brief documentation with a view to returning the next day. Ursula found the voices of the sheep very human. She always carries […]

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Out-O-Space Gallery #3: Rob Miller

Simon & UrsulaExhibitions

Work produced for the Playing at Change series reflects the incalculable absurdity of a global economy fundamentally at odds with our shared ecology – the [im]material flows of commerce, a fiction of progress constructed from pure human exceptionalism …. Rob Miller This month ArtCouple has the great pleasure to introduce the work of Rob Miller to the Out-O-Space Gallery. We’ve never seen any of Rob’s work in the metal, but we’ve been constantly drawn into his jarring assimilations—light and playful forms heroically coping with with their leaden materiality. As David Cobourne, one of Rob’s former students, puts it: They’re ‘like very […]

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Out-O-Space Gallery #2: Jeremy Hight

Simon & UrsulaExhibitions

It is our great pleasure to introduce our first (apart from us) artist to exhibit in the Out-O-Space Gallery—Jeremy Hight (writer/artist/photographer/theorist) whose shiniest things are having a work in the permanent digital collection of the Whitney Museum, and pioneering locative narrative in 2002. Check out some of his work on Instagram here. For this exhibition, the artist has chosen the following selection of 7 intriguing images that he shot on toy and cheap cameras. The scheduled opening on the 18th May was delayed due to rain, but we managed to unfold the platform and install the images on the MirrorScreen […]

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Out-O-Space Gallery #1

Simon & UrsulaAssemblages, Exhibitions, Projects

In which we discuss an unexpected opportunity in the lockdown: first Ursula, then Simon. Ursula: It’s on a scaffolding! What has become our outdoor-gallery, or gallery out-of-space, as now outside the house, out of the inside. A job had to be done that required scaffolding, they didn’t take it down before the lockdown – and now it is here to stay until whenever it finishes. Typical for the weird time we have entered: things, jobs had been put on hold, all our work had been stopped in its tracks, society at large on its head, it’s a kind of waiting-to-exhale […]

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Walking’s New Move(ment)s

Simon & UrsulaConferences

Last November ArtCouple presented a paper ‘Micro-Psychogeography: Walking as a Re-source for Re-imagining Place-Identity’ at Walking’s New Movements, Plymouth University (1-3 November, 2019). Our Paper:We were kindly invited by Phil Smith and company to deliver our presentation ‘Micro-psychogeography: walking as a re-source for re-imagining place-identity’ which provided a great opportunity to discuss some of our ongoing work with a host of fascinating and creative walkers temporarily assembled there. The following is from the abstract discussing our individual and collaborative walking practice via two routes: Ursula described how her ambulations became an ‘open studio’ after picking up sheep’s wool on Ilkley […]

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ArtCouple at Open Studios

Simon & UrsulaExhibitions

ArtCouple is very excited to announce that we are exhibiting at the Open Studios & Art Trail, put together by Eden Valley Artistic Network and West Cumbria Artistic Network. Our little show will be on view at Ouse Bridge House, Dubwath CA13 9YD, on the B5291 (off the A66) at the edge of Lake Bassenthwaite, a short bus ride away from Keswick. We’ll be exhibiting a selection of ongoing works, including the world premiere of our film ‘Slag’, which is part of an investigation of the incredible coastal slag formations between Workington and Maryport. Other works include eco-hybrid collages, found […]

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The Last Path (1st Movement)

Simon & UrsulaProjects

Here we are on a double excursion: first Ursula, then Simon. Where is the end of town? The end is at the end, or the ends. Many ends then, which all must come back to one another. Because in the end, a town comes round to itself. I mean, it’s not a line, it sprawls out. It can be quite line-like, but not totally – it could have a linear form but not just a line. Not a line, so several ends then, not just two! One of them is one of the main roads, on which the sign ‘Maryport’ […]

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Liquid(border)Lines

Simon & UrsulaProjects

Liquid(border)Lines is an ambitious overarching project that combines all of our art forms, and more! It starts off from where we live, by the Irish Sea, and follows all of its coastlines making a flowing circle. We are currently exploring ideas, meeting people and applying for funding from various sources to help launch the project on a public scale. For this article, we move from Simon’s outline to Ursula’s. Moving from the centre of England to its northwest corner opened up a whole new perspective on what Britain is. Nothing much changed on the level of the country itself, aside […]

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Pulp Non-fiction

Simon & UrsulaAssemblages

During our explorations of Eco-Art we have found ourselves overlapping and intersecting in many, often surprising, ways. Here we discuss a ‘sculpture triangle’ that happened over Time and Material. We introduce: ‘Private Member’, ‘Network’ and ‘Eggsbox’. Private Member February~ongoing, 2019 (Torn paper, PVA, and black nail varnish) This piece came about through addressing a mounting problem. How to dispose of private papers? Shred, burn, pulp? I am not keen on putting bank statements, personal identity data, eco-plots and the like into the standard recycle process. Therefore I keep a bag where I put my private papers until the time comes for […]

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On Being an Art Couple

Simon & UrsulaArt of Collaboration

‘Our experiments were fast and furious’, Ben Nicholson (1920s) What does it mean to be an art couple? A lot: lots of discussion, lots of art, lots of double forms arising from the fact of being both oneself and a double act/art. We had worked for many years independently on a range of projects and collaborations, when we decided to explore our shared disciplines and passions. We found an ever-increasing set of overlaps and intersections as our ways of working began to unfold to one another. Our work became a dialogue, an ongoing conversation, making our art not only self-reflexive, […]

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