E3-HS9, 2011

Tree Drawings, Nightwalks, Insect Flight Paths, Restorative Device, For the Baron, Postal Works, and his latest Recorded Delivery.  Those are the work titles of UK based artist Tim Knowles. You can pick up on the artist’s sensibility simply from those titles – simplified to bare bones – no more, no less. When I first experienced one of Knowles’ Nightwalks photographs at Bitforms Gallery, I was indeed speechless. One could easily muse at Knowles’ Nightwalks images and be inspired to write. Understanding the process behind this creation though, shows us a slightly different story. The artist uses all the natural elements as his materials, which forms a spontaneous and performative act. No, this has nothing to do with performance art, more like behavioral studies. Looking at Knowles’ body of work all together leaves me at this comfortable space that is somewhat ambiguous yet extremely familiar. Who would have the guts (or time) to wire-tap the inside of a package with audio/visual recording devices and send it off on a 902 mile journey?  I wouldn’t. It must’ve also required a period of trial-and-error before the package is ready to set off. The result, “an artwork which captures the topsy-turvy world of a parcel in the post.”  Recorded Delivery, created with permission from the Royal Mail, is currently on view at the Bitforms Gallery, NYC, until the 27th of May.

E3 3TT 18:21:41[E3-HS9

HW: I am fascinated by your Post Box project. It seems to be a progression from your previous Postal Works.  What is the inspiration that led to this entire series of work?

TK: I had been making drawings produced automatically by systems beyond my control, such as a series made by a pen suspended below a buoyant helium balloon which traced out the wind’s movements on paper. I was exploring different possibilities and began to think about ways in which the act out delivering an artwork might produce the work.  The postal drawing works and the vehicle drawings were conceived at the same time – the postal works particularly as a low cost and simple way of making a work for exhibitions further afield.  For my exhibition Music of Chance I drove down to Milan, Italy producing a drawing onto a roll of slowly moving paper in the back of the car. As I traveled the drawing recorded forces at work within the car as it drove along motorways, up and down mountain passes and around city streets.  Departing with a blank roll of paper a drawing is created over the duration of the journey, which maps the roads and traffic conditions with very distinct sections.

TK: Similarly, with the postal drawings, I seal a blank piece of paper into the parcel and neither myself nor the recipient (gallery / collector) knows how the piece will work out until it is opened when it arrives.  And with Post Box E3-HS9 when I downloaded the 20,000 images taken over its 902 mile journey there is a real sense of excitement to see what has been captured.I had been working with long exposure photography and experimenting with time lapse so Spy Box the first camera parcel was a logical progression.

HW: Do you plan to further develop it?

TK: Yes, and the crate work presented in the Bitforms 6th floor project space was a first step in that direction, but I don’t really want to give further developments away at this stage.

Recorded Delivery (Installation view), 2011

HW: A large part of your work seems to be based on the natural phenomenon of chance vs. control. Can you tell us a bit about working in this method?

TK: Akin to scientific experimentation, a situation is engineered and the work carried out – rules, limitations and boundaries may be set and to some extent affect the outcome of the work but with the exception of ending the experiment, I relinquish control. The work frequently utilizes tailor made mechanisms in its production, be they custom made parcels, weathervane helmets.

Roman Signer describes his practice as using actions (such as an explosion, a fall, etc.)  to sculpt  - cause and effect – he presents the results of actions. Similarly, my work presents the results of processes and experiments.  The situations I construct though carefully and genuinely adherent to the process are not scientifically rigourous and a multitude of external factors come into play.

My more recent works such as the Windwalks made in London are less predictable and allow for greater number of possibilities and outcomes, and a greater potential of the unknown for me the participant.  I set off guided solely by the wind venturing into unknown territory, the constantly changing wind is channelled, diverted and redirected or blocked and reversed by buildings, eddies shift, passing vehicles create air currents, etc.  The drawing produced as a part of the final work accurately maps my random meandering, which collides with the city’s structure and obstacles.

The Post Box work takes an image every 12 seconds. These images capture random moments, at times the parcel moves through the postal system, at others sitting still observing the system working around it. With works such as the tree drawings the outcomes are relatively predictable – clear connections, characteristics and patterns often existing between trees of the same species, though all the drawings differ.

Though notions around determinism, free will, chance, randomness and prediction are a significant aspect of the work, it is certainly not solely about these concepts.   The work does not assert a particular fixed position with regard to the concept of determinism,  certainly not a hard determinism incompatible with free will.  I’m currently developing works which explore the idea of the butterfly effect, and the way in which events are connected in an infinite global network of causes and effects, the world in constant flux.

Crate work #1, London - New York City, 2011

HW: Your Tree Drawings are delightful and hint at a playfulness that most of us as adults have forgotten. What influenced you to make this project?

TK: I think a sense of playfulness is very important and often goes hand in hand with a desire to explore, sadly can be looked down upon by some as connected to childishness. According to Stephen Nachmanovitch, play is the root and foundation of creativity in the arts and sciences also as in daily life. Improvisation, composition, writing, painting, theater, invention, all creative acts are forms of play, the starting place of creativity in the human growth cycle, and one of the great primal life functions. Play may also serve as a pretext, allowing people to explore reactions of others by engaging in playful interaction. Flirting is an example of such behavior.

Tree Drawing - Hawthorn on Easel #1, 2005

HW: What is your system of research, from concept to realizing an idea? Do you put aside project ideas and revisit them in the future?

TK: Ideas are refined and resolved over time until they are realised or not, as the case may be – in many cases there is a level of logistics, organisation, the production of mechanisms, before the project can be executed and/or realised. There are a number of different but connected strands running through my work be, it the mail art works, the Nightwalk photographs or the Windwalk series. There are connections between the strands – long exposure photography was used in my Insect flight paths, Full moon reflection photographs and in the night walks – which connects with the Windwalks and Restorative Device #1 and Suit which spills a trail of seeds as I walk through a barren landscape, creating a living trail. The notion of drawing a line, a pathway recorded is central to all of the work.

HW: What was the experience like producing the Nightwalk photographs?

TK: The Nightwalks are performed over a new moon so there is no moonlight. A large format camera is set up on a tripod looking out into the landscape, the shutter is opened and then I walk away from the camera into the dark night landscape carrying a number of very powerful flood light torches.  As I move through the darkness the lights illuminate the landscape revealing my path. Whilst one can see the ground within the bubble of light immediately around you – as I walk, my position in the landscape and orientation to the camera are steadily confused and I just try to follow the ridge I’m walking, a path or a compass bearing.

TK: For different works I have walked for between 45 minutes and an hour & a half, subject to the landscape and the camera’s view point.  When I reach the point that I want the walk to be finished or I’ve moved out of the camera’s view I turn off the lights and turn to the direction where I think the camera is, carefully retracing my steps in the dark until I can see a light signalling that the camera shutter has been closed by an assistant, I acknowledge with a signal back and then make my way back to the camera with a head torch. Each of the long exposure photographs takes 2 to 3 hours by the time I’ve returned to the camera and 2 or 3 walks are made each night.

Nightwalk - Valley of the Rocks #1

HW: Have you thought about other ways of capturing the light other than using photography, ie. shooting with video?

TK: I have looked at other ways of capturing light including video but photography also has the quality of being able to compress time into a single image often revealing things that weren’t apparent to the eye – the pattern of the full moon’s reflection on undulating water or an hours walk captured in one of the Nightwalk photographs.

HW: Your work addresses some environmental concerns (eg. the Seed Suit and Wind Walks), yet romanticized in its own right.  How do you feel about the environment that you’re living in now?

TK: Much of my work, particularly the Tree Drawings, Windwalks explore and investigate the natural world, drawing attention to it but without taking a political position. The new works made for the Horticultural Society introduce the notion of a restorative environmental gesture – I find the idea of restorative environmental design fascinating and something that will be required more and more if we are to preserve the world around us.

The world is changing fast, and in many ways that are deeply worrying – I feel that we need to pause, consider what kind of world we want to live in and change a lot of the values we currently hold.

HW: What are you reading these days?

TK: A little time back I read Our Ancestors – a collection of 3 great stories by Italo Calvino one being Baron in the trees from where the title for the Horticultural Society Exhibition originates.I’ve just started reading The Gift by Lewis Hyde.

HW: Any upcoming projects to share?

TK: I will be presenting a collaboration with Brazilian Artist Carlos Eduardo Costa (Cadu) at Galeria Vermelho, Sao Paulo in June – the project explores weather both on a local and global scale. There are others upcoming projects but they are staying under wraps at the moment!

(Images courtesy Bitforms Gallery)