{"id":45,"date":"2017-04-17T01:39:04","date_gmt":"2017-04-17T01:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/?post_type=jetpack-portfolio&#038;p=45"},"modified":"2017-07-17T22:12:45","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T22:12:45","slug":"susanna-mcalpine-2","status":"publish","type":"jetpack-portfolio","link":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/?portfolio=susanna-mcalpine-2","title":{"rendered":"Susanna McAlpine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\"><strong>What are the main concerns of your practice?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\">A lot of my work focuses on investigating obscure histories, and engaging with them in a fictional way. I enjoy approaching these moments with an acknowledged subjectivity \u2013 as opposed to some impossible objectivity \u2013 that blurs the line between fact and fiction. I\u2019m thinking a lot about confabulation, elaboration, exaggeration \u2013 ideas that condition a false testimony.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&#039;Noise (and this she did say)&#039;\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/215200778?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"880\" height=\"495\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\"><strong>What are your influences?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\">Well, as you delve deeper into this mess of fact and fiction, you can pick up anything along the way \u2013 references to literature, music, film. For example, recently I\u2019ve been focused on my own Irish ancestor, Violet Gibson. In 1926 she attempted to assassinate Mussolini, but she missed \u2013 she only shot his nose. This reminded me of Gogol\u2019s \u2018The Nose\u2019 and Kovalyov\u2019s obsession with losing his, and at the time there was a new production of Shostakovich\u2019s adaptation of \u2018The Nose\u2019 on, with all these tap-dancing noses, so these ideas surrounding the given authority of the Nose were ignited by literary and musical influences. Also, studying in Italy last year was when I began to focus on my familial link to Mussolini. And each day, in the art academy, surrounded by all those classical marble sculptures, most of them noseless, noses left for the Nasothek\u2026my experience in Italy must have led me here. Plus I was trying to learn Italian by reading Pinocchio \u2013 his dreaded nose! It feels at the time like these things are coincidences, but I must be seeking them out in some way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\"><strong><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"357\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/?attachment_id=357\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?fit=4500%2C3000&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"4500,3000\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?fit=880%2C587&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-357\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?resize=880%2C586&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"880\" height=\"586\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?w=4500&amp;ssl=1 4500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?resize=880%2C587&amp;ssl=1 880w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?resize=220%2C147&amp;ssl=1 220w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?w=1760&amp;ssl=1 1760w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2017\/04\/IMG_2317-Large.jpg?w=2640&amp;ssl=1 2640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px\" \/><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\"><strong>What is the first thing you do in your process?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\">Usually I read. Actually, my research is quite formal at first, before the performances begin. I\u2019ll let one reference lead me to another, but I\u2019ll consider what argument it\u2019s forming. Sometimes I consider my practice a kind of performance essay \u2013 with arguments that are not necessarily bound to reality, but can also be irrational. Well, I recently found the word <em>essay<\/em> has roots in the Old French <em>essai<\/em>, meaning attempt, try out. I think that\u2019s what I do. I read and research, then use the performance to work out ideas. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s always important, or even possible, to come to the conclusion, especially when the arguments are so alien from reality, but it\u2019s important for me to have that line of enquiry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\"><strong>What do you enjoy most about the studio?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\">Our studio is great because we\u2019ve organised more formal open studios, where we properly clean out the space for a curated show. It\u2019s really useful for seeing how pieces work in different ways before exhibiting them. 24-hour access is the main thing I enjoy about studios. It means you can try things out off-peak without worrying about anybody walking in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px\">How has your work changed over the course of the degree? <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px\">Early on I was playing with fiction, but in a different way \u2013 inventing characters and worlds, and creating work ostensibly by these characters. It wasn\u2019t until my year abroad I started involving myself in these narratives. When I first started thinking about Violet Gibson, I imagined a \u2018Guylette Fibson\u2019 \u2013 her reincarnation, as a kind of heteronym to make work by, as a way of negating my own artistic persona. She would make her own little drawings, plasticine sculptures, really bad puppet shows. Now I\u2019ve moved away from these heteronyms in favour of an explicit familial link between myself and Gibson. I think this personal involvement happened as the work became more performative<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\"><strong>What are your plans after graduation?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lato, sans-serif;font-size: 29px;color: #000000\">I\u2019ll be at UCL from September, doing a PGCE in Art and Design.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are the main concerns of your practice? A lot of my work focuses on investigating obscure histories, and engaging with them in a fictional way. I enjoy approaching these moments with an acknowledged subjectivity \u2013 as opposed to some impossible objectivity \u2013 that blurs the line between fact and fiction. I\u2019m thinking a lot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"jetpack-portfolio-type":[],"jetpack-portfolio-tag":[],"class_list":["post-45","jetpack-portfolio","type-jetpack-portfolio","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio-entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/jetpack-portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio\/45\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"jetpack-portfolio-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fjetpack-portfolio-type&post=45"},{"taxonomy":"jetpack-portfolio-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sowhatofthefuture.leeds.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fjetpack-portfolio-tag&post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}