INTELLIGENT TROUBLE
Intelligent Trouble (IT), ia a London based collective of makers who have sought to explore the possibilities of working together whilst ‘shift(ing), change(ing) and remain(ing) the same’ IT began when a group of 4 makers, (Helen Carnac, Lin Cheung, David Clarke and David Gates) decided that they wanted to work together, with no particular outcome but as a response to showing works together during the exhibition In Transit in 2009 in Munich, which was installed in a working foundry. During its four day duration they responded to each other and their works, (re)positioning pieces, toying with juxtapositions and modifying works. ‘three days in there bored…for 35 hours and out of that came the conversation that gave rise to this’ (Intelligent Trouble, 2010)
Consequently IT’s first project began in August 2009 with a walk and a boat ride in London. ‘It was there that we decided that each of us would make an edition of four small works or assemblages of materials that we felt represented an aspect of our own practices to exchange with each other. These were, a month later, simultaneously exchanged, retaining one for reference, and working on or responding to the others by the other members of the group’
Intelligent Trouble shifts, changes and remains the same, in different formations, exploring the possibilities of working together. So far seven artists have made work between them: suggesting, prompting and responding with objects, materials, sounds and words.
‘Helen Carnac, Lin Cheung, David Clarke and David Gates. Four established makers who are known for their inquisitive and challenging approaches to their disciplines have come together to make work for this unique four-way collaboration.
This project began as with so many other things in a conversation, we found that we wanted to explore the possibilities of working together having realised that beyond the visual and material differences in our more visible outputs there was a space where our practices and our thoughts overlapped. In collaborating and working together we have used words and objects. Passing and exchanging half formed ideas, starting points and statements, making and waiting for responses. This dialogue allowed for conversation to be part of the workshop toolkit but it also quickly and purposefully located the centrality of making as a way of thinking through things. We want to use a gallery space to further explore these ideas, to engage the viewer – if a gallery is a space for thinking about objects is the finished object enough of a thing to show? The fluidity of the process will be carried over into the gallery where exchange, joint-authorship and trust will generate further iterations in an overlapping space of thinking, making and showing’
Words David Gates
