Kate V Robertson: Weird Science

As <strong>Kate V Robertson</strong> embarks on a residency Lab at Glasgow's CCA The Skinny drops by to discuss what she's been up to

Feature by Alex Hetherington | 23 Feb 2011

Kate V Robertson uses several mediums in her practice, frequently moving between sculpture, commissioned public art, collaborative performance and interventionist actions. Other activities, replete with witty ingenuity, include the project Tomorrow’s Another Day at Market Gallery, which saw her install – or impose – a massive fabricated, displaced rock, its sheer volume a Sisyphean obstacle in itself. A commission for Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s annual Magazine survey saw her build a stack of white paper that seemed to ‘reject’ its contents. The ink from the pages formed a black stream of chaos and spatter as it was jetted from the stack. Alongside these actions, which are both spontaneous and highly considered, are investigations on the temporary, ephemeral and temperamental, emphasising the unpredictability and potential for failure inherent in her work.

With this series of presentations behind her, Robertson, over the course of February, undertakes a Creative Lab residency at the Centre for Contemporary Arts; an opportunity described as “a process of reflection and exploration of new ideas and methods”. It is for her a time to comprehend how her interdisciplinary approach coexists and evolves within her singular practice, and how it might further manifest. She will also consider how she engages with the Lab space – which she describes as “invisible and sedate” – by the fabrication of a participatory device that unites interior and exterior, blending artist and audience, public and private.

I meet with Robertson at the early stage of her residency, just as she embarks on the construction of this device, a 10 metre fibreglass tapering horn which acts as megaphone and will protrude from the Centre’s first floor window. Emerging from our conversation is a fluid and varied examination of residency, production and what outcomes might develop from this testing ground: “The space itself was a little overwhelming at first and seems sort of hidden within the public activities in the building,” she observes. “While most of the time, at this stage, I am reading and thinking, I want to make the concealed more evident.”

The Lab’s walls are covered in her pencil drawings, sculptural notes and texts, while on her desk is a stack of books on social sculpture, failure and participation. “These are the subjects I’m considering, and relates to ideas I encountered previously and want to address again: setting up situations where other artists and the public become the ‘voice’ of the work.”

We discuss the physical limitations of the residency and how that might differ from one’s ‘everyday’ studio practice: “The object will be made at the Sculpture Studios and will become a kind of performance getting it from there to here, installing it and making it functional. It is shaped by thoughts I had about revealing the communities involved in making the work, to what occurs in the studio environment and what might happen during the course of its presentation.”

She concludes on a resonant note, amplifying the purpose of the Lab: “It is a real-time experiment on how we might make work and interact with it: the project is equal parts invitation, host, action and material.”

Creative Lab, Sat 26 Feb, 2-5pm

http://www.cca-glasgow.com