Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The Space Inbetween

I'll make a start: I was thinking about radio. I love radio. Not the content necessarily, I'm not bothered for Clara Amfo or Scott Mills, I'm not bothered for Eddie Mair or Jenni Murray. I'm bothered for the Space Inbetween.
What I mean by that is the white noise, the weak signals, the indiscernible transmission that happens on the dial from one station to another.
There used to be a lot going on in that space, that's where the unseen one way communication happened: beeps, short tunes, numbers, random words and foreign voices reading codes. It's where the rebel djs were, with their illegal broadcasts. There were remote stations on small islands teaching language and culture to assist with travel to the rest of the world. There's also radio stations that are just too far away to make sense, let alone comfortable listening.
I love that space, it's rich, and it's overlooked.

My partner is an artist and I do go to galleries, shows, opening night's and exhibitions. While I'm there I look at the works on display, obviously, but what I look at more is the Space Inbetween, (it's measured more accurately than the works themselves, I promise you). I look at the frame, the mount, the fixings, the construction and assembly techniques. I look at the finish of the walls and the logistics. I look at what joins a sculpture to the ground at least much as the sculpt itself, if not more.

So, it follows that I look closely at the Space Inbetween people, people an their friends, people and their families, people and their work, sometimes more than the people themselves. The white noise, out of tune curiosity and often bizarre transmission of information is there in exactly the same way. The Space Inbetween people is such a rich resource, it's the primary source of constructive education in my daily life. It's warmer than radio, more thought provoking than radio, it's ultimately more frighting than radio but, the tune in/tune out option is still there. So many people forget that they can just turn the knob and focus elsewhere, choose the remote island instead, choose the Lincolnshire Poacher, look at Space Inbetween.

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