Asking for trouble: collaboration and constraint as a generative method

© 2014 Julian Aubrey SmithThis research project is a practice-led exploration of the employment of collaborative and constrained working methods as a strategy for producing paintings. Taking cues from the approach deployed by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth in the 2003 documentary film The Five Obstructions, as well as methods invented and adopted by members of the French literary group the Oulipo; this research investigates the utility of collaboration and generative constraints for the teasing out of new possibilities from the conventions of painting. The core studio project is a series of still-life paintings for which collaborators were enlisted to create objects that became the subject matter of each painting. I aim to draw upon the experience of tackling each of these specifically restricted projects to elucidate the value of this working method as well as the ramifications for the reception and interpretation of paintings made in this way. This research applies to painting the Oulipian idea that arbitrary constraints can stand in for a traditional concept of inspiration and posits that they also have an inherent capacity to add unpredictability to the results. This written dissertation will situate the work within the broader context of collaborative and constrained art making and consider the implications of such methodologies on the concepts of authorship and interpretation. An exhibition of paintings will represent the component of the research undertaken in the studio. The paintings will be in oil and acrylic on aluminium composite panel and will be the results of the collaborative and constrained working methods elaborated upon in the dissertation