May 31, 2022 • 45 mins
In this episode, Tom Borgas and Athanasios Lazarou make time to chat about Tom's practice; from feedback loops, to making the unseen seen, and the weather conditions that constitute a 'Tom day'.
This talk was hosted by the Adelaide Central School of Art as part of the ArtSpeak program.
Show Notes
- Keller Easterling
- Timothy Morton
- James Bridle
- Post Digital Ruins (Splendour in the Grass)
- Researchers Reveal Why We Don't See Cell Phones In Our Dreams [article], The Richest
Photo: Thomas McCammon
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steph (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the SALA podcast. This episode is a
(00:05):
live recording of ArtSpeak,which is a series of talks run
by the Adelaide Central Schoolof Art that have been recorded
in collaboration with SALAFestival.
Tom Borgas (00:17):
Thanks very much for joining us. We'll begin, I'd
like to acknowledge the land wemeet on today's traditional
lands in the Kaurna People, wepay our respects to Aboriginal
elders past, present andemerging. We're very fortunate
today to be joined by TomBorgas, whose work is currently
on display as part of theFutures + Ruins exhibition in
Adelaide Central Gallery. AndTom will be in conversation with
(00:40):
Athanasius Lazaru, who is anarchitectural educator and
commentator. It is across thedesign studio and representation
curricula as a lecturer at theUniversity of Adelaide, where
he's also is finishing his PhDon the relationships between
politics and space during theGreek economic crisis. His
writing has appeared in numerousspaces, including Architecture
Au, and the Monthly Review. Soplease join me in welcoming both
(01:04):
our speakers today. And I'llhand over to them.
Audience Member (01:12):
Thank you for that. And welcome, Tom, good to
see you, as always. So lookingat your work that's currently on
show in the gallery downstairs,one of the words that comes to
my mind is movement. A lot ofyour work really organizes these
hard edged brightly coloredlinear forms in these very, I
(01:33):
think fast vectors, vectors thatare almost reorganizing the
space around them. In additionto that, there's these expanding
topographies of rhythm andspace. Sometimes there's objects
scattered in space and objectsgathered and clustered in space.
And often there's objects eitherrecording movement over time
responding to movement or beingmoved themselves by performance.
(01:57):
I also think there's a reallyinteresting movement in your
process between the analog andthe digital. And I kind of
wanted to start with this ideaof movement, because I think
movement also emerges in yourown creative practice. And it's
something that I think was oneof the reasons we get along,
it's because we have thisshared, shared movement between
our own practices that hasoscillated between education and
(02:19):
practice with a little bit ofgraphic design in between, but
in different directions. Soperhaps you could start to tell
us a little bit about your ownart journey, and how you've
landed at practice.
Tom Borgas (02:33):
Yes, so I guess it depends how far you want to go
back. But I think like it wasone of those things, or growing
up as a kid, I guess I wasvalidated in terms of the
creative things that I didpretty early on, which I think
mainly was at school. And Iremember having a cousin that
was like, really good at drawingwhere you could say, Can you
draw this and off, he'd go andcome back. And you kind of felt
(02:54):
a little bit blown away by whathe was able to do, in terms of
creating images of things. Andthen, the other thing I talk
about quite often is, um, Iloved playing with Lego growing
up, and particularly thattechnical Lego. And so there's
this kind of thing that I loveand I still, I think there's a
(03:15):
real strong relationship, Ipractice between images and
objects and, and so looking at aplan, these images of what you
wanted to build, and then usingthings to put together to create
and kind of match up with thiskind of image thing. That was a
pretty massive thing. So yeah,so going through like high
school, then I really enjoyedart and was really conscious of
doing something that I waspassionate about, and enjoyed.
(03:38):
But I came from a prettyconservative family and so when
I applied to go to art school,and this is back in the day, way
back in the day when Underdalewas the art school for UniSA.
And I got into Visual Arts, youhad to do like a full exam, a
practical exam, within aportfolio, it was quite a lot of
work to like apply and get in.And I got into the Visual Arts
(04:02):
degree, which is my firstpreference, but my parents were
pretty much like nah you can'tdo that, because isn't a job.
And my dad was a teacher. So Iwas like, well, art/teacher,
maybe, what about that? and Ikind of, so I applied. That was
the second thing I think Iapplied for a second preference,
and I got into that. But it wasawesome, because it was like at
(04:25):
that point, it was a four yeardegree where you did education
kind of scattered amongst avisual arts degree. So it was
like a four year visual artsdegree essentially with some
education subjects. And Iabsolutely loved it, but I was
kinda I was very young. Butnevertheless came out of uni got
a teaching job did that forabout six years, but then just
(04:46):
wanted to explore a whole lot ofother things including graphic
design stuff. So that wassomething that I did for a while
alongside of DJing which wasanother thing that I guess those
two things paired up well whatsort of pay the bills for me for
a would amount of time, there'sa bunch of travel thrown in
there. And then eventually, Iwent back and studied sculpture
(05:06):
having not really, I guess,played around with a lot of 2d
stuff. And I wanted to be a bitmore spatial in what I did. So I
went back to uni AC Arts andindeed honors at UniSA. So yeah,
it's interesting, because it wasa big sort of circle, like, from
(05:27):
kind of having an aspiration, Iguess, of being a visual artist,
and wanting to do that as acareer. And feeling really drawn
towards that, especially as akind of, as a pathway that can
kind of incorporate so manydifferent sorts of things that
had a lot of appeal to me that,you know, discovering the visual
art didn't have to be paintingor drawing or sculpture.
(05:51):
Formally, that you could bring awhole lot of other things into
that, you know, even things likeDJing, like, that's always been
something it's interesting tome, you know, how how does DJing
relate to my visual artspractice, and, you know, they
feel all the same kind of thing,which feels really nice. So,
yeah, a long way of getting tokind of where I'm at now. But
(06:12):
also, I love that idea withother things. And that kind of
skill sets it sort of equip mewith,
Audience Member (06:16):
It's great. I actually think I mean, like, it
was a fantastic, it was myintroduction to doing anything
creative as well, which isalways nice. Yeah, I mean,
surely there's a bit ofsimilarity with with DJing, and
a lot of your art at the sametime as well. Not so much in the
technical, but I do thinkthey're fairly public things as
well. And telling, telling yourfamily story, I do find it
interesting, not only perhapstrying to impress your father in
(06:38):
that regard, but now the publiclooks at all your work. A lot of
them are public sculptures atthe same time as well. Talk bit
about the role of the publicplace in relation to your
practice.
Unknown (06:47):
Yeah, um, I think, I talk about both things DJing,
and my art practice. I think abig thing that links them, which
is definitely kind of deals withthis notion of the public is
this idea of feedback loops. Sothe idea that, that I'm creating
(07:12):
something that goes out into theworld. And there's some sort of
feedback or response that kindof occurs when this thing that I
guess, essentially, if you wantto look at it, in terms of what
it is on a really basic level,like, I think when we make art,
you literally are kind ofbringing something of yourself
(07:34):
out into the world and kind ofputting it out into the world.
And so the response to that issomething that's always been a
really motivational kind of partof my practice. And DJing is
exactly the same thing, you kindof vary life. Absolutely, you're
engaging with a group of peoplethrough a medium DJing I love
(07:56):
and again, this is a huge partof my practice. I like short
feedback loops. DJing is a thingthat has incredibly short
feedback loops, but there's sortof layers of that also that kind
of simultaneously occur. So Iguess, to give an example, that
if I'm playing in a club, wheremaybe I'm a resident DJ there,
(08:16):
then when I play a song, peoplerespond to that, and they dance
or, or not, or go get a drink,or nod their head or whatever
their kind of response is thatsomething that I'm sort of
observing and respond toaccordingly. But then on another
level, kind of, I guess, beingsay, you've got a whole night to
kind of build a dance floor overthe over a period of maybe two
(08:37):
or three hours. And so there's alonger sort of game that's
happening there. But then evenon top of that, I think, you
know, as a DJ, people becomeaware of who you are. And so if
I'm a resident at the club, thenthey're going to expect certain
music is going to happen there.And I respond to that. And I
think about shaping that, like,these, these levels and kind of
layers of feedback loops aresomething that when I'm making
(08:59):
things all that still exists forme as well,
Audience Member (09:01):
I think a lot of the visual appearance of your
work makes a lot more sense whenyou unpack your approach to
DJing at the same time. It's aslight tease, but I think it's
true. But I think that questionof short feedback loops is
really interesting. As I said atthe introduction, a lot of your
work oscillates between theanalog and the digital. That
question of short feedbackloops. Is that perhaps one of
(09:22):
the reasons why that youpreference model making so much
in your practice?
Tom Borgas (09:25):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting to see.
Yeah, what sort of media I'msort of have been drawn to
through my practice and howthat's evolved. Because it
relates to those feedback loops.And I think, you know,
modelmaking is, is essentiallylike, they're kind of sculptural
(09:45):
sketches for me and I mean, youwould have seen in my studio,
having done a few of us thatlike, I have, just, like scores
of tiny little models that thatkind of never they're not
necessarily specific maquettesfor larger things. But they're
just a way of working throughthinking about things in space.
(10:07):
That's cheap, and quick. Andtotally, you can flip things
over. So even things like I'musing things like concrete, I
use a mix of concrete that'sactually partly Dental, dental,
plaster, half dental plus ahalf, quick set concrete.
Because that sets in about 15minutes. And so I can cast
something, and like, go get acoffee and come back and, and,
(10:30):
you know, smash out like five orsix of them, and really sort of
see something developed quitequickly. So yeah, and I guess,
then, the other part of thatkind of network of, of working
in a kind of achievable scale,in terms of feedback loops, is
using 3d software, which again,I guess, moves or sort of
(10:53):
straddles that thing between 3dand 2d stuff, where you're
definitely creating an imagebecause it's on a screen, and
it's 2d, but also you can getamongst it and move around and
kind of, you know, look aroundit and underneath it, and really
get a sense of how that mightcome to exist in kind of a
physical space as well.
Audience Member (11:10):
I think there's different scales of those
feedback loops are reallyinteresting. modelmaking, I
think it's instant, you kind offeel it in your hands, then at
the same time on the computer, Ifeel like you're not limited by
any possible combination. But atthe same time, you can kind of
design that in a way that thefeedback loops can be very
precise and very quick at thesame time, too.
Tom Borgas (11:30):
And I think even like, just to make the point
that feedback loops, for me, Iconsider that not just being to
them in terms of being betweenme and an audience feedback
loops. Also, I'm engaging inloops between media and and
like, ideas. Yeah, ideas. Like,even something as simple as the
(11:51):
physicality of material, likethere's, they have certain
limitations that I can push on.And so it's interesting to kind
of work amongst that ensembleof, of different things, feeding
back into what I'm doing, whichincludes an audience or putting
things on Instagram, or what Isee on the screen. Yeah it's
(12:12):
quite a complex mesh of stuff.
Audience Member (12:14):
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's quite
Unknown (12:14):
Yeah, it's, um, I think it was probably during honors
interesting. I might expand thatquestion of short feedback loops
that I had, I started to focuslike, like, given the fact that
to towards long feedback loops.And I think anyone that's
honors, is always this more sortof, I guess it's a space of kind
visited Tom's studio, or hishouse, knows that he doesn't
just curate all the littleobjects and experiments in his
of quite open investigation interms of ideas, but also
studio, but you're also a reallyinteresting curator of pages.
And you really collect a lot ofbooks. And some of those books,
(12:37):
I think, coincidentally looklike objects. But they do start
to inform your practice. And Iknow for example, in those
feedback loops, the work ofKelly Easterling and Timothy
Morton, starts to introduceitself as well. Perhaps talk
about them.
(13:09):
materials and, and practice and,you know, even compared to say,
third year, at art school, youstill have subjects where you
have to sort of achieve certainthings, and, you know, there's
assessment, stuff where thatkind of, yeah, I guess, self
generated sort of practice, it'sa really nice chance to do that.
And that was one of the firsttimes that, you know, given the
(13:32):
written sort of component, thatit sort of required that I get a
bit deeper into sort of readingstuff. And it was in honors, I
developed a really nice kind ofrhythm of, of like having the
morning where I have a coffeeand kind of read and really
focus on that as a priority, andgive that like, a significant
amount of space. And that'ssomething I still as much as
(13:55):
possible, prioritize now ishaving that space. And so I
guess, in creating that space,that space is filled with, with
books and and I'm always awareof, and kind of, quite sort of
studious in looking at differentpublishers and, and sort of
thinking about the things I'minterested in, where do they
sit? And where might I findthem? But yeah, I think in
(14:23):
honors as well, I started torealize, initially, it was this
kind of thought, I'm going toresearch and then I need to make
things about my research.Whereas honors, it took me a
little while to get there. Butby the end, I realized that kind
of this research aspect andreading and giving space for
that. Those things alwayspermeate what you make, you
(14:43):
don't, they don't need to beiterative. You don't need to put
you don't really need to putkind of effort into making sure
that the things you make areabout the things you've been
researching. And so I'm prettyYeah, I guess I have a real
comfort around, following kindof different trajectories of
(15:04):
research, if you want to call itthat reading and then just
letting that sit, and then sortof being reflective, in terms of
looking at the things that Imake, like, I guess that's
another thing is important, Idon't really reflect on what I'm
making while I'm making otherthan kind of responding to kind
of what's happening in front ofme is really letting those
(15:24):
things sit, and hence having astudio full of all these
different things, where it'ssort of gives time and space to
sort of reflect on them. Andthat's often where these things
I'm reading that are of interestto me. I start to realize how
they've kind of informed andkind of, I guess, channeled
through the sorts of things thatI make so yeah, and that stuff's
(15:45):
quite broad. Yeah, definitely alot of writing on architecture.
I mean, Kelly Easterling'sthinking writes a lot about
infrastructure. And I guess insome senses, urban planning, but
it's quite, it's almost kind ofon the edge of being quite
philosophical in terms of howshe looks at things. Timothy
Morton is very similar. In termsof him, he writes a lot about
(16:09):
ecologies in a veryphilosophical way, which is,
yeah, quite nice to kind of,again, sort of just see see in
those ideas, and um, yeah, it'svery interesting just to see how
they sort of bubble up into whatI do and the way that they sort
(16:30):
of reveal themselves. Yeah,
Audience Member (16:31):
I always think it's interesting how aspects of
the practice emerge in the workand I really liked the
description of reading as a formof work or part of that process.
I really think it looking atyour work. It does, I think, for
me read like it's inconversation with some of those
thinkers, Easterling and TimothyMorton. I think your work is
(16:55):
quite conspicuous, right? It'svery visible, and it starts
organizing and being framed byarchitecture. And it's quite
interesting because bothEasterling and Timothy Morton,
deal with invisible things,things that we can't see in
Easterling's case, a lot of herwriting addresses invisible
infrastructures. Now, a lot ofthe infrastructures that we
don't see in everyday life, butalmost govern a lot of our
(17:17):
rhythms and routines, and inMorton's work are things that
are so big, we can't reallygrasp them in everyday life.
What do you think theadvantages, I think then, in
terms of expressing them throughthese formal explorations?
Unknown (17:34):
Yeah, you're exactly right, like, right back to
honors, so much of whatgenerated these objects that I
create, um, so much of it was todo with quite simply like, what
would the digital look like ifit was physical? Yeah. Which is
(17:55):
funny, because it sounds reallysort of overly simple now to
kind of think about that. But Iguess, going back to, I guess,
that was sort of around 2011 or12. When I was sort of looking
at that stuff. It was a timewhen things were really
teetering on, on. Yeah, peoplewere still pretty in denial
(18:18):
about the fact that all thistime we're spending online is
actually a legitimate form ofpresence in a in a space. So
that was really interesting tome. But to look at like, yeah,
what might that look like as aphysical thing, like digital
things are in a virtual spaceand have no materiality? But
like, what if, like thisspeculation, or what if we gave
(18:40):
them a materiality? What mightthat be like? And there were
there were a lot there wasactually a guy that spoke at
South by Southwest, James Bridlethat spoke about this idea of
the fact that the digital isstarting to erupt into a
physical space through and had amateriality that was quite
physical. And then there was apanel discussion, and there was
(19:01):
just this really rich littlemoment that kind of happened,
that was the focus of what I wasdoing. And so it was, it was
just really nice. It felt verygenerative, kind of looking at
making the digital stuffphysical. And so then coming
across these other ideas, likeyou say, these other people that
have ideas or are writing aboutthese immaterial, invisible kind
(19:23):
of things that are neverthelessincredibly significant. Like, I
make sculpture, and I enjoy themateriality of physical things,
I also think I am a person thatreally struggles that digital
analog, like when I grew up,there wasn't computers and
slowly there was and so it,like, I literally have a foot in
(19:44):
each kind of space, like,digital stuff is very
interesting to me, but I'm not adigital native. You know, I grew
up making kites and buildingcubby houses and digging holes
and you know, and I'm sure a lotof kids do but that's the thing
that I kind of really value andnow, the encounters that I have
with young people, it's, a lotof people are so heavily
(20:07):
existing in virtual spaces thatI feel...Yeah, there's, it's,
it's really interesting to methese spaces that I don't really
exist in very much. And thatfascinates me, but I can only
kind of reflect on who I am andwhat I am. And so the
physicality of kind of, oftrying to represent something
(20:27):
that's an abstract or a bigidea. And trying to ground that
in, in a in a visual or amaterial kind of sense, is super
interesting to me. And I thinkit is just a way for me of
making sense of the world in alot of ways as well, like it's
sort of a way of making sense ofthe world, where the act is a
(20:48):
thing that has a logic, but atthe end, it doesn't actually
give you much more of an ideaabout how the world works, which
I think is also interesting.
Audience Member (20:55):
Yeah, I think making the unseen seen and he
talks about how present they arein our lives. But in reality, if
we tried to describe them, it'sreally difficult. There's often
that example that in so many ofour dreams, there's never a
mobile phone. Yeah, so most ofour everyday life, we're always
handling these devices, butthey're so hard for our
subconscious to represent. And Ialways think it's interesting
(21:18):
the choices that you make, inrepresenting the unseen and the
seen, and a lot of your forms,they're very intentional,
they're very clean, they'realmost inert in their
simplicity. But there is thiseruption in them. And often that
starts to organize around thesepixelated triangles. To talk
about that choice in using someof that formal language, or the
(21:38):
combinations of those formallanguages as well.
Tom Borgas (21:41):
Yeah, the triangles really came out from they came
from the idea that in in 3dmodeling, these triangular units
are usually what to use todescribe sculptural form in 3d
space. And so a lot of us to dowith being unapologetic about
(22:06):
the materiality of digitalthings. And so as a starting
point, you know, when Idownloaded an STL file, and took
it into mesh software, andzoomed in and zoomed in, you
realize it's all these trianglesthat are kind of making this
complex, you know, classicalbust of Apollo or whatever. So
(22:26):
for me, again, like heaps, somuch of what I do has a real
directness to it, which Iremember initially being a bit
self conscious about how direct,you know, our 3d software uses
triangles, so I'm going to makethings out of triangles. But I
think it's really interestingwhen you are decisive about
something, even if it's quitesimple. These things have a
(22:49):
richness about them anyway, thatkind of starts unpacking. And if
you kind of let that sit,there's a lot to be sort of
learnt and sort of generated outof something that might seem
quite simple at the start. Sothe triangles sort of came from
that space, the vektory Hyperobject sort of really long sort
(23:13):
of bar like lengths. Theyactually originated in a work
that I did at the jam factory,where I made 100, boulders out
of polystyrene, that went rangefrom about this big to quite
tiny, and I numbered them allfrom one to 100, from the
biggest to the smallest. And itwas in the glass cabinets on the
(23:37):
side of the jam factory, whichare class small, so they were
kind of almost bursting out ofthat. But I was I didn't even
know why I was thinking abouthow, how could I put myself in
the work, like sometimes thework felt like somewhere where
it felt a bit sterile and a bitmaybe overdesigned and, you
know, graphic designing, um, Imean, this is not much of a move
(24:00):
away from that. But I decidedwhat I'll put is a, like a
reference surveying poll thatthey use an archaeological sites
that's striped every 10centimeters, and I cut it to my
height. And so if this objectit's made to kind of exist in an
image and gave a reference interms of the scale of the work,
but also in some abstract kindof way, put me kind of into the
(24:24):
work as well. So that's how thatstarted. Then I ended up going
to on that Splendour In TheGrass, I made a work, which was
an archeological site where wedug up the sculpture Iburied a
couple of weeks earlier. So theperformance over the three and a
half days of Splendor In TheGrass was digging up this
(24:45):
archaeological site, which willprobably pop up there at some
point, everyone's wearing pinkand looks dirty, and it's all
muddy and whatever. And so I hadtwo of these poles there, and
they were used in that work.Soon after that, I went to
Portugal and I started I made 20of these As poles because I was
interested in like, how might Idocument my movement in a space,
by placing these poles indifferent ways in a landscape,
(25:07):
they kind of ended up beingimages where things were all
sort of crossed over andwhatever. And then I thought,
well, what if I sort of move outof that sort of image digital
space into a physical and so Iactually constructed them as a
cluster of sort of thing. Sothat's where that kind of
started and just kept evolvingthrough and through. And I think
(25:28):
we talked about this before itkept recurring, like, over and
over, it was weird how much Ididn't really want to do that
work anymore, that you use thosekind of motifs. But I think when
I started using 3d software, itwas also just a very easy like
to make a cubic or rectangularprism kind of form, is like one
of the simplest things you cando. And my knowledge of 3d
(25:50):
software is incredibly limited.And so again, just doing
something that was reallysimple, was kind of where that
came from, in some ways. But Ithink I also find that really
interesting, because then thekind of, I guess materiality, or
the the nature of that mediumseems, becomes really evident in
(26:12):
what it is you kind of make,rather than trying to work
really hard to make somethinglook like something real, I sort
of just roll with what I wasable to do quite simply in that
suit.
Audience Member (26:22):
Well, I think what's really evident in that
negotiation between the analogand the digital was it's really
playful. At the end of the day,you talk about an archeological
dig, and what they're surfacingin that dig are like neon pink
triangular forms. I think it'sreally fun. And it really, I
think, forces people toreconsider the role that these
(26:42):
other invisible things have intheir life, or they're just
beneath the surface at the sametime. That playfulness, I think,
also extends to the making ofthe work. For those listening to
this in an audio format, it's areally gray cloudy day in
Adelaide. And often when it'sthis really gray, clear skies, I
(27:03):
think it's a real Tom day.Because that's always like a key
day for you to go and startmaking some work. And can you
explain why that is?
Tom Borgas (27:10):
Yeah. So again, it goes back to just making life a
lot easier, because my skillsare pretty limited in terms of
using 3d software. So when whenthe light is so flat in the sky,
you can probably overexpose interms of taking a photo. So the
sky sort of maybe ends up beingalmost a kind of white color,
(27:30):
like right on that kind of edge.These are the days that are best
for me, because the flat lightmeans that when I'm rendering
things, the way I render lightcan be a lot simpler, and I
don't have to worry aboutcomplex shadows falling over
complex surfaces. So, you know,for the, I guess the example of
say the work in the show,there's a couple that are sort
(27:54):
of wedged in amongst buildings.With a really nice blue sky
clear day, you can imagine thosesuper complex forms, the way
that light would fall and sortof fall over the architecture
would probably require me torebuild the whole scene in a
virtual space, and then placethe object in and then render
(28:16):
the light, and then take thatout in Photoshop, which is just
a lot of work. You know, at theend of the day, it's the
feedback loop thing, I don'twant to spend two weeks
meticulously renderingsomething. And also I just
enjoy, there's something kind ofweird about that sort of flat
light as well, which is veryinteresting to me. The ones in
(28:39):
the show, all taken on the sameday. And it was a weird day in
Adelaide where fog, a sea fogrolled in across the city. And
so the whole sky was like thissoftbox that had it was just the
strangest light ever. And I wokeup and I was I remember waking
up and looking at the window andgoing what's going on with the
light? Like, it was reallyweird. And when I realized that
(29:02):
it was this fog that wascreating this really low cloud
across and filtering the sun. Istarted on my bike and with my
camera and just went out andtook tons of photos.
Audience Member (29:12):
It's good. I think whatever makes makes it
easier. Often reintroducesitself again and again in the
practice. Yeah, because itbecomes quite seamless. I find
that quite funny as well, thatidea of the gray days, bringing
rise to these really bright neonquite fast forms that start
(29:32):
occupying these liminal spacesaround the city at the same
time. I think it goes withoutsaying that the contrast between
the form and the building or thespace itself is exaggerated by
this gray day at the same time.I think there's always a really
interesting relationship betweenrepresentation and power. And I
really think that the way a lotof the forms organize in
(29:55):
relation to the environmentaround them in a really
interesting way it goes back tothe start where it engages the
public in quite a peculiar waywhere it forces them to see the
world around them in a differentway. They have these quite alien
forms surfacing amongst keylandmarks of the city. Perhaps
you could speak to that a littlebit more?
Tom Borgas (30:14):
Yeah. I guess I've lived amongst the city and had a
seat on the city for like yearsnow. And I've always been really
conscious of the city as a grid,that's a huge influence on, I
(30:35):
actually believe it has a hugeimpact on the way people exist
in Adelaide. The fact that welive in an incredibly planned
gridded city. But more thanthat, it's flat, because you can
think of other cities that arequite gridded, that have a
different feel to them. Yeah,that's always something it's
been really interesting to me,like, what what is what is the,
(30:55):
the shape and the and the kindof, I guess, the infrastructure
of the city? How does thatinfluence the way we think about
the world. I mean, just assimply as if you live, like,
I've lived in some really badhouses that made me feel pretty
shitty about being in the world.And then you exist in a place
that has good light, and, and anice arrangement of rooms and
(31:17):
airflow and these things, andthat makes me feel better about
the world. So kind of expandingthat out and thinking about the
city in terms of that is superinteresting. And so for me,
that's sort of that's sort of, Iguess, in like, its colonial,
it's kind of a grid of somethingthat suggests an extensiveness
(31:37):
that continues on and on, tointerrupt that with these
things. It's the perfect kind ofcontext, to throw something in
there. That's kind of not that.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yeah, I think it really challenges that colonial
infrastructure.
Tom Borgas (31:52):
And I think a lot of, you know, the high project
works are as much about the factthat digital, and the virtual
world, of course, has a physicalpresence in terms of the the
physical infrastructure that'srequired to support that,
whether it's, you know, likesome of the high projects I've
done, I've been namedafter...each undersea cable has
(32:15):
a name, essentially. And you cango online and look it up. And
they give them all these weirdnames. Some have like letters
and numbers, but some are namedafter. I don't even know what
they're named after be honest.But they're just weird. Like.
Yeah, yeah, they have reallyweird names. But I've used that
in naming things before just tosort of like, like, I guess,
(32:36):
these interruptions of these bigphysical things in this kind of
monotonous context. It's alsoabout the fact that it sort of
challenges the mythology aroundthe materiality of digital
things that, you know, andexpands out to huge amounts of
different political and kind ofecological sort of ideas around
(32:59):
how extractive it is, and howmuch you know, as depending on
that, is kind of perpetuatesthat extractive sort of, yeah,
approach to the world generally.
Audience Member (33:12):
Yeah. It's a nice line by the poet James
Conway, where he says that arose in a Cabbage Patch is a
weed, it is not our nature, wemust change but are setting. And
I think I think it's, as yousaid, you know, the these
broader forces at play, right,these broader politics as well
and surfacing them and enforcingthese conflicts with the city as
one example. I think it reallyspeaks to the role that art can
(33:35):
play, particularly art that isoften viewed in a public
context. A lot of these broaderforces that some of your work
references, such as climatechange, or COVID or things like
that. They are measurable, youknow, we can measure temperature
change, we can measure deathsand infection rates have COVID.
But I think the fact that it'srepresented in these
(33:57):
conversations through art, Ithink, changes how we start to
talk about them.
Tom Borgas (34:02):
Totally. Yeah, just what they mean. I think that's,
that's the stuff that TimothyMorton talks about really well,
is, these these hyper objects,whether it's COVID, or climate
change or the stock market, theyincomprehensibly huge in terms
of their extensiveness spatiallyand, and maybe across time and
whatever. But the reality is, wealso encounter them in a on a
(34:27):
really intimate kind of level,like climate change, for
instance, means that maybe inAdelaide, we get a lot more dry
days, and I can go skateboardingmore than what I used to, you
know, like, there's all theselittle things that affect us.
COVID is a classic one wherethis thing that if you try and
think about it as in terms ofhow big it is, and, you know, at
the point where the US washaving, what 700,000 cases a
(34:49):
day, I'm like, I can'tcomprehend that. But then my
partner comes down with COVIDit's the same thing. And I have
to stay home for seven days. Andso it's really interesting to
think about these things areexpansive, but also very
intimate. And I think TimothyMorton also writes art is
(35:09):
actually a thing that does thatas well, I guess essentially is
a hyper object as well, thatkind of we experience- you can
go to the art gallery, andexperience an artwork and see it
and not touch it. But like, youknow, in your own way you can
come with with your world tothat thing and encounter it, and
(35:30):
be influenced by what that thingis doing. And that might be
about these huge ideas, and alsorelate back to an artist who has
an idea about this is, you know,about where that's come from, in
terms of their context and whatthat's about for them. And, you
know, it's the same kind of ideaof expansiveness that also, we
encounter in a way that's superintimate, which I think, is
(35:53):
super powerful. And one of thesekinds of, you know, has this
ability to do that, which is thekind of thing that we need in
order to deal with so many ofthese issues that just seem
insurmountable, and just out ofcontrol, and whatever, there is
a way of approaching them. And,and this not giving them this
(36:14):
kind of objectness, it's is kindof a way of tackling that, I
guess.
Audience Member (36:19):
In neon blue and neon pink, no less. Where
you can't touch the work, butyou can ask the artists the
questions. So to start toconclude, you might open it up
to the floor, if anyone's got aquestion they would like to ask
Tom about his practice.
I'd like to know more about yourcolor palette, or the neon blue
(36:41):
and pink.
Tom Borgas (36:42):
Yep. That's a good one. If I feel like some people
have a real natural affinity forcolor, and I don't. And so,
again, so much of my work comesdown to making something
achievable. Like I did a work inmy final year at AC Arts, where
(37:07):
I decided, like, I remember itwas summer holidays before my
final year, and I'm like, whatam I going to do? Like the
pressure of like, your finalyear going to make, like, what
are you going to make what'syour work about? And I'm like, I
don't know, like, and so Idecided I was gonna go to this
pile of rocks that I knew, andI'll, I'll collect 100 rocks,
and each one will be a granddifference in weight. And that's
(37:29):
what I decided that I will dowithout chipping any rocks off
or changing them or. And it wasjust one of those things where
like setting out to do somethingthat had a certain limit was a
way of kind of dealing andcreating a parameter, which for
me makes creativity. It's sortof bubbles up data like that,
you know, like, color is exactlythe same. So by limiting for
(37:53):
ages, I just did everything inblue. And part of it was that
the blue, part of it was theblue was so intense and kind of
flat, it became a material aswell, like, most people ask me
questions like, oh, like I say,you know, what do you do for a
job? Or I'm an artist, andthey're like, Okay. And mostly
(38:14):
people that was, like, I don'tknow what to do with that, like,
and so they say, oh, whatmedium? Do you like, what, what
sort of art and so I saysculpture? And then the next
question is always, what mediumdo you use, and I've worked out
my medium is things you can getfrom Bunnings. That's literally
what I make my stuff out of,mainly because I didn't have any
money to make art. Like, youknow, I'm not a person that kind
(38:37):
of was brought up with a kind ofability to think outside of the
box financially. And soeverything is within those kind
of limits. So I came across hispaint, and it was mind blowing.
And it was pretty cheap, becauseit was just a sign writing,
originally, and so I was likeOkay, then let's just do that.
It just took the complexity outof things. And then to kind of
(38:57):
also be aware of people thateach climate spent a huge amount
of their career just obsessedwith one color. And this blue is
very close to that blue as well.I was like, Oh, if he can do it,
that that's pretty arty thatblue is pretty arty. So like, it
kind of it also, you know, endsup sort of artifying and kind of
distracts from the fact that thewood I bought is from Bunnings.
(39:19):
You know, like, the other thingyou might have seen is, um,
there's some statues in herethat I'm like a bust of Apollo,
that's a garden statue from theinner Magill Road. And I just
paint it blue. And then someonethinks that that's like, heaps
more arty than... do you know?Like, I know, it's kind of
(39:42):
taking the piss a little bit.Yeah, but um, but there's
something interesting aboutthat. But I think definitely the
materiality, it's a blue thatsort of shocks you into
reevaluating something, whichwas interesting, the pink came
out of the Splendour In TheGrass work. So with Splendour In
The Glass being an archeologicaldig, I wanted it to be a kind of
(40:04):
high-vis scenario. But I didn'twant all the baggage that like
fluorescent orange, say oryellow sort of comes with. And
so I guess the pink was kind ofa queering of that, like, hyper
masculine sort of space, butstill wanted to appeal as
something that was kind of abouta seriousness of work and like,
(40:26):
yeah, so that's where thatstarted. And then again, I was
like, Cool. Let's just run withthat. I think at one point, I
was thinking maybe I would useblue for public art and pink for
things that went in galleries,like, just as a, you know, and
more recently, I've got a littlebit more brave, and there's some
yellow, the yellow is, refersprobably a bit to Melbourne
(40:49):
Anyway, it was quitecontroversial and got moved
actually. The big yellowsculpture by ACA... now I'm not
around a lot. It wasinteresting, just that the idea
going to remmeber the guys name.
that a sculptural work,everybody had an opinion, that
Unknown (40:57):
This is the graphic designer come into play good,
was a big problem, and you hadto move and put it somewhere
complementary, contrasting atthe same time. Yeah, I want to
else and like everyone had anopinion on that. And I just now
I see that yellow, sort ofreally permeating Melbourne in a
big way. And even some of thoseforms. I even remember going to
see a hyper object at Bunnings.That's what I'm gonna say. Are
Melbourne one time and takingphotos of everything that was a
(41:18):
yellow. That was ages ago. Butyeah, so different things come
in for often, kind of practicalor obscure reasons. Like,
there's definitely always areason, I very really go, 'oh
I'll just chuck a bitof...whatever!' So there's a
lighter pink that I've beenusing more recently. And that
comes from this weird buildingin Berlin that I came across,
(41:39):
that I bought a book on, thatwas an incredible book. And so
that had the blue in therealready with this soft pink,
that was kind of an insulationcolor for the outside of one of
the sections of it. And so Isort of lifted that off for a
couple fo works.
(42:05):
there any more questions?
Audience Member 2 (42:07):
I wanted to put, I guess, comment and
question around ... first tocomment on the very obsessive
nature of the patterns and theorganization, your work and like
this need to you know, kind ofreorganize an environment in a
way that you understand reallylinear structures. And I guess,
(42:33):
how that plays into your ideaabout, about humans, and how we
kind of understand the world andwhat your relationship to
organic material is, then likelythis sort of yeah, having to
reconstruct these form these,these very human made forms
(42:54):
around organic objects?
Tom Borgas (42:57):
Yeah. I think again, that's, I've always found that
my work can steer towards beingincredibly designy. And often
that's been the criticism ofpeople with my work is that it's
so kind of nicely finished andprecise, and it has all those
(43:19):
aspects. Introducing theseorganic forms is a way of kind
of disrupting that. And to behonest, I wish, I wish my work
was looser and less designed.That's what I'm always trying to
battle. But it's that thing thatwhen you sort of enter into a
process, or you've got anexhibition, or like, like, we
all revert back to doing thingsthat we know, and kind of
(43:41):
playing it safe, and whatever.And so by introducing organic
elements, whether it's like theone that had like a stick,
there's ones that are broken,concrete, rocks, all these kinds
of things, it's a way of, yeah,it's another way of disrupting
that order, where the agency, Ikind of outsource to another
(44:03):
thing, to kind of, then see howthat rearranges that kind of
default of mine to be structuredand precise, and, and regular,
and those kinds of things. Yeah,and I guess that's a bit of a
design thing as well, this wholetension between like, like most
things, engage through a tensionbetween whether it's regular
(44:25):
and, you know, irregular orsynthetic and organic, or I
think that's a nice way in towork. And I think sometimes work
that people find less engagingof mine might just feel a bit
sterile. But then often, I thinkthat's about the relationship
between the person looking atthat thing thing and, and
(44:46):
something that's less or thespace or or maybe it has doesn't
exist in a context that is goingto exist in yet or, you know, I
always kind of welcome that. Andit's funny because when I have
my little collections have say,on Instagram where I where I
save or tag things I like, ifyou look at what they are,
they're all loose, messy. Likethere's this part of me that
(45:10):
just like, 'I just wanna be morelike that!' you know, like,
yeah, like people that CyTwombly you know that's just
like woosh woosh woosh and makethese just like mind blowing
things like I dream of, youknow, being able to... I mean,
even like, truth makes workwhere I'm just flat. How do you
just make that though? Icouldn't deal with it, you know,
like, like, I just want to pullit back and pull it back. And so
(45:32):
by kind of introducing differentagencies of other things that
are kind of be more chaotic,chaotic or organic. Yeah, that's
what that's about.
Audience Member (45:45):
So I think that's all the time we have for
today's feedback loop. Would youplease thank Tom for joining us
today.
Hello and welcome to the SALA podcast. This episode is a
(00:05):
live recording of ArtSpeak,which is a series of talks run
by the Adelaide Central Schoolof Art that have been recorded
in collaboration with SALAFestival.
Tom Borgas (00:17):
Thanks very much for joining us. We'll begin, I'd
like to acknowledge the land wemeet on today's traditional
lands in the Kaurna People, wepay our respects to Aboriginal
elders past, present andemerging. We're very fortunate
today to be joined by TomBorgas, whose work is currently
on display as part of theFutures + Ruins exhibition in
Adelaide Central Gallery. AndTom will be in conversation with
(00:40):
Athanasius Lazaru, who is anarchitectural educator and
commentator. It is across thedesign studio and representation
curricula as a lecturer at theUniversity of Adelaide, where
he's also is finishing his PhDon the relationships between
politics and space during theGreek economic crisis. His
writing has appeared in numerousspaces, including Architecture
Au, and the Monthly Review. Soplease join me in welcoming both
(01:04):
our speakers today. And I'llhand over to them.
Audience Member (01:12):
Thank you for that. And welcome, Tom, good to
see you, as always. So lookingat your work that's currently on
show in the gallery downstairs,one of the words that comes to
my mind is movement. A lot ofyour work really organizes these
hard edged brightly coloredlinear forms in these very, I
(01:33):
think fast vectors, vectors thatare almost reorganizing the
space around them. In additionto that, there's these expanding
topographies of rhythm andspace. Sometimes there's objects
scattered in space and objectsgathered and clustered in space.
And often there's objects eitherrecording movement over time
responding to movement or beingmoved themselves by performance.
(01:57):
I also think there's a reallyinteresting movement in your
process between the analog andthe digital. And I kind of
wanted to start with this ideaof movement, because I think
movement also emerges in yourown creative practice. And it's
something that I think was oneof the reasons we get along,
it's because we have thisshared, shared movement between
our own practices that hasoscillated between education and
(02:19):
practice with a little bit ofgraphic design in between, but
in different directions. Soperhaps you could start to tell
us a little bit about your ownart journey, and how you've
landed at practice.
Tom Borgas (02:33):
Yes, so I guess it depends how far you want to go
back. But I think like it wasone of those things, or growing
up as a kid, I guess I wasvalidated in terms of the
creative things that I didpretty early on, which I think
mainly was at school. And Iremember having a cousin that
was like, really good at drawingwhere you could say, Can you
draw this and off, he'd go andcome back. And you kind of felt
(02:54):
a little bit blown away by whathe was able to do, in terms of
creating images of things. Andthen, the other thing I talk
about quite often is, um, Iloved playing with Lego growing
up, and particularly thattechnical Lego. And so there's
this kind of thing that I loveand I still, I think there's a
(03:15):
real strong relationship, Ipractice between images and
objects and, and so looking at aplan, these images of what you
wanted to build, and then usingthings to put together to create
and kind of match up with thiskind of image thing. That was a
pretty massive thing. So yeah,so going through like high
school, then I really enjoyedart and was really conscious of
doing something that I waspassionate about, and enjoyed.
(03:38):
But I came from a prettyconservative family and so when
I applied to go to art school,and this is back in the day, way
back in the day when Underdalewas the art school for UniSA.
And I got into Visual Arts, youhad to do like a full exam, a
practical exam, within aportfolio, it was quite a lot of
work to like apply and get in.And I got into the Visual Arts
(04:02):
degree, which is my firstpreference, but my parents were
pretty much like nah you can'tdo that, because isn't a job.
And my dad was a teacher. So Iwas like, well, art/teacher,
maybe, what about that? and Ikind of, so I applied. That was
the second thing I think Iapplied for a second preference,
and I got into that. But it wasawesome, because it was like at
(04:25):
that point, it was a four yeardegree where you did education
kind of scattered amongst avisual arts degree. So it was
like a four year visual artsdegree essentially with some
education subjects. And Iabsolutely loved it, but I was
kinda I was very young. Butnevertheless came out of uni got
a teaching job did that forabout six years, but then just
(04:46):
wanted to explore a whole lot ofother things including graphic
design stuff. So that wassomething that I did for a while
alongside of DJing which wasanother thing that I guess those
two things paired up well whatsort of pay the bills for me for
a would amount of time, there'sa bunch of travel thrown in
there. And then eventually, Iwent back and studied sculpture
(05:06):
having not really, I guess,played around with a lot of 2d
stuff. And I wanted to be a bitmore spatial in what I did. So I
went back to uni AC Arts andindeed honors at UniSA. So yeah,
it's interesting, because it wasa big sort of circle, like, from
(05:27):
kind of having an aspiration, Iguess, of being a visual artist,
and wanting to do that as acareer. And feeling really drawn
towards that, especially as akind of, as a pathway that can
kind of incorporate so manydifferent sorts of things that
had a lot of appeal to me that,you know, discovering the visual
art didn't have to be paintingor drawing or sculpture.
(05:51):
Formally, that you could bring awhole lot of other things into
that, you know, even things likeDJing, like, that's always been
something it's interesting tome, you know, how how does DJing
relate to my visual artspractice, and, you know, they
feel all the same kind of thing,which feels really nice. So,
yeah, a long way of getting tokind of where I'm at now. But
(06:12):
also, I love that idea withother things. And that kind of
skill sets it sort of equip mewith,
Audience Member (06:16):
It's great. I actually think I mean, like, it
was a fantastic, it was myintroduction to doing anything
creative as well, which isalways nice. Yeah, I mean,
surely there's a bit ofsimilarity with with DJing, and
a lot of your art at the sametime as well. Not so much in the
technical, but I do thinkthey're fairly public things as
well. And telling, telling yourfamily story, I do find it
interesting, not only perhapstrying to impress your father in
(06:38):
that regard, but now the publiclooks at all your work. A lot of
them are public sculptures atthe same time as well. Talk bit
about the role of the publicplace in relation to your
practice.
Unknown (06:47):
Yeah, um, I think, I talk about both things DJing,
and my art practice. I think abig thing that links them, which
is definitely kind of deals withthis notion of the public is
this idea of feedback loops. Sothe idea that, that I'm creating
(07:12):
something that goes out into theworld. And there's some sort of
feedback or response that kindof occurs when this thing that I
guess, essentially, if you wantto look at it, in terms of what
it is on a really basic level,like, I think when we make art,
you literally are kind ofbringing something of yourself
(07:34):
out into the world and kind ofputting it out into the world.
And so the response to that issomething that's always been a
really motivational kind of partof my practice. And DJing is
exactly the same thing, you kindof vary life. Absolutely, you're
engaging with a group of peoplethrough a medium DJing I love
(07:56):
and again, this is a huge partof my practice. I like short
feedback loops. DJing is a thingthat has incredibly short
feedback loops, but there's sortof layers of that also that kind
of simultaneously occur. So Iguess, to give an example, that
if I'm playing in a club, wheremaybe I'm a resident DJ there,
(08:16):
then when I play a song, peoplerespond to that, and they dance
or, or not, or go get a drink,or nod their head or whatever
their kind of response is thatsomething that I'm sort of
observing and respond toaccordingly. But then on another
level, kind of, I guess, beingsay, you've got a whole night to
kind of build a dance floor overthe over a period of maybe two
(08:37):
or three hours. And so there's alonger sort of game that's
happening there. But then evenon top of that, I think, you
know, as a DJ, people becomeaware of who you are. And so if
I'm a resident at the club, thenthey're going to expect certain
music is going to happen there.And I respond to that. And I
think about shaping that, like,these, these levels and kind of
layers of feedback loops aresomething that when I'm making
(08:59):
things all that still exists forme as well,
Audience Member (09:01):
I think a lot of the visual appearance of your
work makes a lot more sense whenyou unpack your approach to
DJing at the same time. It's aslight tease, but I think it's
true. But I think that questionof short feedback loops is
really interesting. As I said atthe introduction, a lot of your
work oscillates between theanalog and the digital. That
question of short feedbackloops. Is that perhaps one of
(09:22):
the reasons why that youpreference model making so much
in your practice?
Tom Borgas (09:25):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting to see.
Yeah, what sort of media I'msort of have been drawn to
through my practice and howthat's evolved. Because it
relates to those feedback loops.And I think, you know,
modelmaking is, is essentiallylike, they're kind of sculptural
(09:45):
sketches for me and I mean, youwould have seen in my studio,
having done a few of us thatlike, I have, just, like scores
of tiny little models that thatkind of never they're not
necessarily specific maquettesfor larger things. But they're
just a way of working throughthinking about things in space.
(10:07):
That's cheap, and quick. Andtotally, you can flip things
over. So even things like I'musing things like concrete, I
use a mix of concrete that'sactually partly Dental, dental,
plaster, half dental plus ahalf, quick set concrete.
Because that sets in about 15minutes. And so I can cast
something, and like, go get acoffee and come back and, and,
(10:30):
you know, smash out like five orsix of them, and really sort of
see something developed quitequickly. So yeah, and I guess,
then, the other part of thatkind of network of, of working
in a kind of achievable scale,in terms of feedback loops, is
using 3d software, which again,I guess, moves or sort of
(10:53):
straddles that thing between 3dand 2d stuff, where you're
definitely creating an imagebecause it's on a screen, and
it's 2d, but also you can getamongst it and move around and
kind of, you know, look aroundit and underneath it, and really
get a sense of how that mightcome to exist in kind of a
physical space as well.
Audience Member (11:10):
I think there's different scales of those
feedback loops are reallyinteresting. modelmaking, I
think it's instant, you kind offeel it in your hands, then at
the same time on the computer, Ifeel like you're not limited by
any possible combination. But atthe same time, you can kind of
design that in a way that thefeedback loops can be very
precise and very quick at thesame time, too.
Tom Borgas (11:30):
And I think even like, just to make the point
that feedback loops, for me, Iconsider that not just being to
them in terms of being betweenme and an audience feedback
loops. Also, I'm engaging inloops between media and and
like, ideas. Yeah, ideas. Like,even something as simple as the
(11:51):
physicality of material, likethere's, they have certain
limitations that I can push on.And so it's interesting to kind
of work amongst that ensembleof, of different things, feeding
back into what I'm doing, whichincludes an audience or putting
things on Instagram, or what Isee on the screen. Yeah it's
(12:12):
quite a complex mesh of stuff.
Audience Member (12:14):
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's quite
Unknown (12:14):
Yeah, it's, um, I think it was probably during honors
interesting. I might expand thatquestion of short feedback loops
that I had, I started to focuslike, like, given the fact that
to towards long feedback loops.And I think anyone that's
honors, is always this more sortof, I guess it's a space of kind
visited Tom's studio, or hishouse, knows that he doesn't
just curate all the littleobjects and experiments in his
of quite open investigation interms of ideas, but also
studio, but you're also a reallyinteresting curator of pages.
And you really collect a lot ofbooks. And some of those books,
(12:37):
I think, coincidentally looklike objects. But they do start
to inform your practice. And Iknow for example, in those
feedback loops, the work ofKelly Easterling and Timothy
Morton, starts to introduceitself as well. Perhaps talk
about them.
(13:09):
materials and, and practice and,you know, even compared to say,
third year, at art school, youstill have subjects where you
have to sort of achieve certainthings, and, you know, there's
assessment, stuff where thatkind of, yeah, I guess, self
generated sort of practice, it'sa really nice chance to do that.
And that was one of the firsttimes that, you know, given the
(13:32):
written sort of component, thatit sort of required that I get a
bit deeper into sort of readingstuff. And it was in honors, I
developed a really nice kind ofrhythm of, of like having the
morning where I have a coffeeand kind of read and really
focus on that as a priority, andgive that like, a significant
amount of space. And that'ssomething I still as much as
(13:55):
possible, prioritize now ishaving that space. And so I
guess, in creating that space,that space is filled with, with
books and and I'm always awareof, and kind of, quite sort of
studious in looking at differentpublishers and, and sort of
thinking about the things I'minterested in, where do they
sit? And where might I findthem? But yeah, I think in
(14:23):
honors as well, I started torealize, initially, it was this
kind of thought, I'm going toresearch and then I need to make
things about my research.Whereas honors, it took me a
little while to get there. Butby the end, I realized that kind
of this research aspect andreading and giving space for
that. Those things alwayspermeate what you make, you
(14:43):
don't, they don't need to beiterative. You don't need to put
you don't really need to putkind of effort into making sure
that the things you make areabout the things you've been
researching. And so I'm prettyYeah, I guess I have a real
comfort around, following kindof different trajectories of
(15:04):
research, if you want to call itthat reading and then just
letting that sit, and then sortof being reflective, in terms of
looking at the things that Imake, like, I guess that's
another thing is important, Idon't really reflect on what I'm
making while I'm making otherthan kind of responding to kind
of what's happening in front ofme is really letting those
(15:24):
things sit, and hence having astudio full of all these
different things, where it'ssort of gives time and space to
sort of reflect on them. Andthat's often where these things
I'm reading that are of interestto me. I start to realize how
they've kind of informed andkind of, I guess, channeled
through the sorts of things thatI make so yeah, and that stuff's
(15:45):
quite broad. Yeah, definitely alot of writing on architecture.
I mean, Kelly Easterling'sthinking writes a lot about
infrastructure. And I guess insome senses, urban planning, but
it's quite, it's almost kind ofon the edge of being quite
philosophical in terms of howshe looks at things. Timothy
Morton is very similar. In termsof him, he writes a lot about
(16:09):
ecologies in a veryphilosophical way, which is,
yeah, quite nice to kind of,again, sort of just see see in
those ideas, and um, yeah, it'svery interesting just to see how
they sort of bubble up into whatI do and the way that they sort
(16:30):
of reveal themselves. Yeah,
Audience Member (16:31):
I always think it's interesting how aspects of
the practice emerge in the workand I really liked the
description of reading as a formof work or part of that process.
I really think it looking atyour work. It does, I think, for
me read like it's inconversation with some of those
thinkers, Easterling and TimothyMorton. I think your work is
(16:55):
quite conspicuous, right? It'svery visible, and it starts
organizing and being framed byarchitecture. And it's quite
interesting because bothEasterling and Timothy Morton,
deal with invisible things,things that we can't see in
Easterling's case, a lot of herwriting addresses invisible
infrastructures. Now, a lot ofthe infrastructures that we
don't see in everyday life, butalmost govern a lot of our
(17:17):
rhythms and routines, and inMorton's work are things that
are so big, we can't reallygrasp them in everyday life.
What do you think theadvantages, I think then, in
terms of expressing them throughthese formal explorations?
Unknown (17:34):
Yeah, you're exactly right, like, right back to
honors, so much of whatgenerated these objects that I
create, um, so much of it was todo with quite simply like, what
would the digital look like ifit was physical? Yeah. Which is
(17:55):
funny, because it sounds reallysort of overly simple now to
kind of think about that. But Iguess, going back to, I guess,
that was sort of around 2011 or12. When I was sort of looking
at that stuff. It was a timewhen things were really
teetering on, on. Yeah, peoplewere still pretty in denial
(18:18):
about the fact that all thistime we're spending online is
actually a legitimate form ofpresence in a in a space. So
that was really interesting tome. But to look at like, yeah,
what might that look like as aphysical thing, like digital
things are in a virtual spaceand have no materiality? But
like, what if, like thisspeculation, or what if we gave
(18:40):
them a materiality? What mightthat be like? And there were
there were a lot there wasactually a guy that spoke at
South by Southwest, James Bridlethat spoke about this idea of
the fact that the digital isstarting to erupt into a
physical space through and had amateriality that was quite
physical. And then there was apanel discussion, and there was
(19:01):
just this really rich littlemoment that kind of happened,
that was the focus of what I wasdoing. And so it was, it was
just really nice. It felt verygenerative, kind of looking at
making the digital stuffphysical. And so then coming
across these other ideas, likeyou say, these other people that
have ideas or are writing aboutthese immaterial, invisible kind
(19:23):
of things that are neverthelessincredibly significant. Like, I
make sculpture, and I enjoy themateriality of physical things,
I also think I am a person thatreally struggles that digital
analog, like when I grew up,there wasn't computers and
slowly there was and so it,like, I literally have a foot in
(19:44):
each kind of space, like,digital stuff is very
interesting to me, but I'm not adigital native. You know, I grew
up making kites and buildingcubby houses and digging holes
and you know, and I'm sure a lotof kids do but that's the thing
that I kind of really value andnow, the encounters that I have
with young people, it's, a lotof people are so heavily
(20:07):
existing in virtual spaces thatI feel...Yeah, there's, it's,
it's really interesting to methese spaces that I don't really
exist in very much. And thatfascinates me, but I can only
kind of reflect on who I am andwhat I am. And so the
physicality of kind of, oftrying to represent something
(20:27):
that's an abstract or a bigidea. And trying to ground that
in, in a in a visual or amaterial kind of sense, is super
interesting to me. And I thinkit is just a way for me of
making sense of the world in alot of ways as well, like it's
sort of a way of making sense ofthe world, where the act is a
(20:48):
thing that has a logic, but atthe end, it doesn't actually
give you much more of an ideaabout how the world works, which
I think is also interesting.
Audience Member (20:55):
Yeah, I think making the unseen seen and he
talks about how present they arein our lives. But in reality, if
we tried to describe them, it'sreally difficult. There's often
that example that in so many ofour dreams, there's never a
mobile phone. Yeah, so most ofour everyday life, we're always
handling these devices, butthey're so hard for our
subconscious to represent. And Ialways think it's interesting
(21:18):
the choices that you make, inrepresenting the unseen and the
seen, and a lot of your forms,they're very intentional,
they're very clean, they'realmost inert in their
simplicity. But there is thiseruption in them. And often that
starts to organize around thesepixelated triangles. To talk
about that choice in using someof that formal language, or the
(21:38):
combinations of those formallanguages as well.
Tom Borgas (21:41):
Yeah, the triangles really came out from they came
from the idea that in in 3dmodeling, these triangular units
are usually what to use todescribe sculptural form in 3d
space. And so a lot of us to dowith being unapologetic about
(22:06):
the materiality of digitalthings. And so as a starting
point, you know, when Idownloaded an STL file, and took
it into mesh software, andzoomed in and zoomed in, you
realize it's all these trianglesthat are kind of making this
complex, you know, classicalbust of Apollo or whatever. So
(22:26):
for me, again, like heaps, somuch of what I do has a real
directness to it, which Iremember initially being a bit
self conscious about how direct,you know, our 3d software uses
triangles, so I'm going to makethings out of triangles. But I
think it's really interestingwhen you are decisive about
something, even if it's quitesimple. These things have a
(22:49):
richness about them anyway, thatkind of starts unpacking. And if
you kind of let that sit,there's a lot to be sort of
learnt and sort of generated outof something that might seem
quite simple at the start. Sothe triangles sort of came from
that space, the vektory Hyperobject sort of really long sort
(23:13):
of bar like lengths. Theyactually originated in a work
that I did at the jam factory,where I made 100, boulders out
of polystyrene, that went rangefrom about this big to quite
tiny, and I numbered them allfrom one to 100, from the
biggest to the smallest. And itwas in the glass cabinets on the
(23:37):
side of the jam factory, whichare class small, so they were
kind of almost bursting out ofthat. But I was I didn't even
know why I was thinking abouthow, how could I put myself in
the work, like sometimes thework felt like somewhere where
it felt a bit sterile and a bitmaybe overdesigned and, you
know, graphic designing, um, Imean, this is not much of a move
(24:00):
away from that. But I decidedwhat I'll put is a, like a
reference surveying poll thatthey use an archaeological sites
that's striped every 10centimeters, and I cut it to my
height. And so if this objectit's made to kind of exist in an
image and gave a reference interms of the scale of the work,
but also in some abstract kindof way, put me kind of into the
(24:24):
work as well. So that's how thatstarted. Then I ended up going
to on that Splendour In TheGrass, I made a work, which was
an archeological site where wedug up the sculpture Iburied a
couple of weeks earlier. So theperformance over the three and a
half days of Splendor In TheGrass was digging up this
(24:45):
archaeological site, which willprobably pop up there at some
point, everyone's wearing pinkand looks dirty, and it's all
muddy and whatever. And so I hadtwo of these poles there, and
they were used in that work.Soon after that, I went to
Portugal and I started I made 20of these As poles because I was
interested in like, how might Idocument my movement in a space,
by placing these poles indifferent ways in a landscape,
(25:07):
they kind of ended up beingimages where things were all
sort of crossed over andwhatever. And then I thought,
well, what if I sort of move outof that sort of image digital
space into a physical and so Iactually constructed them as a
cluster of sort of thing. Sothat's where that kind of
started and just kept evolvingthrough and through. And I think
(25:28):
we talked about this before itkept recurring, like, over and
over, it was weird how much Ididn't really want to do that
work anymore, that you use thosekind of motifs. But I think when
I started using 3d software, itwas also just a very easy like
to make a cubic or rectangularprism kind of form, is like one
of the simplest things you cando. And my knowledge of 3d
(25:50):
software is incredibly limited.And so again, just doing
something that was reallysimple, was kind of where that
came from, in some ways. But Ithink I also find that really
interesting, because then thekind of, I guess materiality, or
the the nature of that mediumseems, becomes really evident in
(26:12):
what it is you kind of make,rather than trying to work
really hard to make somethinglook like something real, I sort
of just roll with what I wasable to do quite simply in that
suit.
Audience Member (26:22):
Well, I think what's really evident in that
negotiation between the analogand the digital was it's really
playful. At the end of the day,you talk about an archeological
dig, and what they're surfacingin that dig are like neon pink
triangular forms. I think it'sreally fun. And it really, I
think, forces people toreconsider the role that these
(26:42):
other invisible things have intheir life, or they're just
beneath the surface at the sametime. That playfulness, I think,
also extends to the making ofthe work. For those listening to
this in an audio format, it's areally gray cloudy day in
Adelaide. And often when it'sthis really gray, clear skies, I
(27:03):
think it's a real Tom day.Because that's always like a key
day for you to go and startmaking some work. And can you
explain why that is?
Tom Borgas (27:10):
Yeah. So again, it goes back to just making life a
lot easier, because my skillsare pretty limited in terms of
using 3d software. So when whenthe light is so flat in the sky,
you can probably overexpose interms of taking a photo. So the
sky sort of maybe ends up beingalmost a kind of white color,
(27:30):
like right on that kind of edge.These are the days that are best
for me, because the flat lightmeans that when I'm rendering
things, the way I render lightcan be a lot simpler, and I
don't have to worry aboutcomplex shadows falling over
complex surfaces. So, you know,for the, I guess the example of
say the work in the show,there's a couple that are sort
(27:54):
of wedged in amongst buildings.With a really nice blue sky
clear day, you can imagine thosesuper complex forms, the way
that light would fall and sortof fall over the architecture
would probably require me torebuild the whole scene in a
virtual space, and then placethe object in and then render
(28:16):
the light, and then take thatout in Photoshop, which is just
a lot of work. You know, at theend of the day, it's the
feedback loop thing, I don'twant to spend two weeks
meticulously renderingsomething. And also I just
enjoy, there's something kind ofweird about that sort of flat
light as well, which is veryinteresting to me. The ones in
(28:39):
the show, all taken on the sameday. And it was a weird day in
Adelaide where fog, a sea fogrolled in across the city. And
so the whole sky was like thissoftbox that had it was just the
strangest light ever. And I wokeup and I was I remember waking
up and looking at the window andgoing what's going on with the
light? Like, it was reallyweird. And when I realized that
(29:02):
it was this fog that wascreating this really low cloud
across and filtering the sun. Istarted on my bike and with my
camera and just went out andtook tons of photos.
Audience Member (29:12):
It's good. I think whatever makes makes it
easier. Often reintroducesitself again and again in the
practice. Yeah, because itbecomes quite seamless. I find
that quite funny as well, thatidea of the gray days, bringing
rise to these really bright neonquite fast forms that start
(29:32):
occupying these liminal spacesaround the city at the same
time. I think it goes withoutsaying that the contrast between
the form and the building or thespace itself is exaggerated by
this gray day at the same time.I think there's always a really
interesting relationship betweenrepresentation and power. And I
really think that the way a lotof the forms organize in
(29:55):
relation to the environmentaround them in a really
interesting way it goes back tothe start where it engages the
public in quite a peculiar waywhere it forces them to see the
world around them in a differentway. They have these quite alien
forms surfacing amongst keylandmarks of the city. Perhaps
you could speak to that a littlebit more?
Tom Borgas (30:14):
Yeah. I guess I've lived amongst the city and had a
seat on the city for like yearsnow. And I've always been really
conscious of the city as a grid,that's a huge influence on, I
(30:35):
actually believe it has a hugeimpact on the way people exist
in Adelaide. The fact that welive in an incredibly planned
gridded city. But more thanthat, it's flat, because you can
think of other cities that arequite gridded, that have a
different feel to them. Yeah,that's always something it's
been really interesting to me,like, what what is what is the,
(30:55):
the shape and the and the kindof, I guess, the infrastructure
of the city? How does thatinfluence the way we think about
the world. I mean, just assimply as if you live, like,
I've lived in some really badhouses that made me feel pretty
shitty about being in the world.And then you exist in a place
that has good light, and, and anice arrangement of rooms and
(31:17):
airflow and these things, andthat makes me feel better about
the world. So kind of expandingthat out and thinking about the
city in terms of that is superinteresting. And so for me,
that's sort of that's sort of, Iguess, in like, its colonial,
it's kind of a grid of somethingthat suggests an extensiveness
(31:37):
that continues on and on, tointerrupt that with these
things. It's the perfect kind ofcontext, to throw something in
there. That's kind of not that.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yeah, I think it really challenges that colonial
infrastructure.
Tom Borgas (31:52):
And I think a lot of, you know, the high project
works are as much about the factthat digital, and the virtual
world, of course, has a physicalpresence in terms of the the
physical infrastructure that'srequired to support that,
whether it's, you know, likesome of the high projects I've
done, I've been namedafter...each undersea cable has
(32:15):
a name, essentially. And you cango online and look it up. And
they give them all these weirdnames. Some have like letters
and numbers, but some are namedafter. I don't even know what
they're named after be honest.But they're just weird. Like.
Yeah, yeah, they have reallyweird names. But I've used that
in naming things before just tosort of like, like, I guess,
(32:36):
these interruptions of these bigphysical things in this kind of
monotonous context. It's alsoabout the fact that it sort of
challenges the mythology aroundthe materiality of digital
things that, you know, andexpands out to huge amounts of
different political and kind ofecological sort of ideas around
(32:59):
how extractive it is, and howmuch you know, as depending on
that, is kind of perpetuatesthat extractive sort of, yeah,
approach to the world generally.
Audience Member (33:12):
Yeah. It's a nice line by the poet James
Conway, where he says that arose in a Cabbage Patch is a
weed, it is not our nature, wemust change but are setting. And
I think I think it's, as yousaid, you know, the these
broader forces at play, right,these broader politics as well
and surfacing them and enforcingthese conflicts with the city as
one example. I think it reallyspeaks to the role that art can
(33:35):
play, particularly art that isoften viewed in a public
context. A lot of these broaderforces that some of your work
references, such as climatechange, or COVID or things like
that. They are measurable, youknow, we can measure temperature
change, we can measure deathsand infection rates have COVID.
But I think the fact that it'srepresented in these
(33:57):
conversations through art, Ithink, changes how we start to
talk about them.
Tom Borgas (34:02):
Totally. Yeah, just what they mean. I think that's,
that's the stuff that TimothyMorton talks about really well,
is, these these hyper objects,whether it's COVID, or climate
change or the stock market, theyincomprehensibly huge in terms
of their extensiveness spatiallyand, and maybe across time and
whatever. But the reality is, wealso encounter them in a on a
(34:27):
really intimate kind of level,like climate change, for
instance, means that maybe inAdelaide, we get a lot more dry
days, and I can go skateboardingmore than what I used to, you
know, like, there's all theselittle things that affect us.
COVID is a classic one wherethis thing that if you try and
think about it as in terms ofhow big it is, and, you know, at
the point where the US washaving, what 700,000 cases a
(34:49):
day, I'm like, I can'tcomprehend that. But then my
partner comes down with COVIDit's the same thing. And I have
to stay home for seven days. Andso it's really interesting to
think about these things areexpansive, but also very
intimate. And I think TimothyMorton also writes art is
(35:09):
actually a thing that does thatas well, I guess essentially is
a hyper object as well, thatkind of we experience- you can
go to the art gallery, andexperience an artwork and see it
and not touch it. But like, youknow, in your own way you can
come with with your world tothat thing and encounter it, and
(35:30):
be influenced by what that thingis doing. And that might be
about these huge ideas, and alsorelate back to an artist who has
an idea about this is, you know,about where that's come from, in
terms of their context and whatthat's about for them. And, you
know, it's the same kind of ideaof expansiveness that also, we
encounter in a way that's superintimate, which I think, is
(35:53):
super powerful. And one of thesekinds of, you know, has this
ability to do that, which is thekind of thing that we need in
order to deal with so many ofthese issues that just seem
insurmountable, and just out ofcontrol, and whatever, there is
a way of approaching them. And,and this not giving them this
(36:14):
kind of objectness, it's is kindof a way of tackling that, I
guess.
Audience Member (36:19):
In neon blue and neon pink, no less. Where
you can't touch the work, butyou can ask the artists the
questions. So to start toconclude, you might open it up
to the floor, if anyone's got aquestion they would like to ask
Tom about his practice.
I'd like to know more about yourcolor palette, or the neon blue
(36:41):
and pink.
Tom Borgas (36:42):
Yep. That's a good one. If I feel like some people
have a real natural affinity forcolor, and I don't. And so,
again, so much of my work comesdown to making something
achievable. Like I did a work inmy final year at AC Arts, where
(37:07):
I decided, like, I remember itwas summer holidays before my
final year, and I'm like, whatam I going to do? Like the
pressure of like, your finalyear going to make, like, what
are you going to make what'syour work about? And I'm like, I
don't know, like, and so Idecided I was gonna go to this
pile of rocks that I knew, andI'll, I'll collect 100 rocks,
and each one will be a granddifference in weight. And that's
(37:29):
what I decided that I will dowithout chipping any rocks off
or changing them or. And it wasjust one of those things where
like setting out to do somethingthat had a certain limit was a
way of kind of dealing andcreating a parameter, which for
me makes creativity. It's sortof bubbles up data like that,
you know, like, color is exactlythe same. So by limiting for
(37:53):
ages, I just did everything inblue. And part of it was that
the blue, part of it was theblue was so intense and kind of
flat, it became a material aswell, like, most people ask me
questions like, oh, like I say,you know, what do you do for a
job? Or I'm an artist, andthey're like, Okay. And mostly
(38:14):
people that was, like, I don'tknow what to do with that, like,
and so they say, oh, whatmedium? Do you like, what, what
sort of art and so I saysculpture? And then the next
question is always, what mediumdo you use, and I've worked out
my medium is things you can getfrom Bunnings. That's literally
what I make my stuff out of,mainly because I didn't have any
money to make art. Like, youknow, I'm not a person that kind
(38:37):
of was brought up with a kind ofability to think outside of the
box financially. And soeverything is within those kind
of limits. So I came across hispaint, and it was mind blowing.
And it was pretty cheap, becauseit was just a sign writing,
originally, and so I was likeOkay, then let's just do that.
It just took the complexity outof things. And then to kind of
(38:57):
also be aware of people thateach climate spent a huge amount
of their career just obsessedwith one color. And this blue is
very close to that blue as well.I was like, Oh, if he can do it,
that that's pretty arty thatblue is pretty arty. So like, it
kind of it also, you know, endsup sort of artifying and kind of
distracts from the fact that thewood I bought is from Bunnings.
(39:19):
You know, like, the other thingyou might have seen is, um,
there's some statues in herethat I'm like a bust of Apollo,
that's a garden statue from theinner Magill Road. And I just
paint it blue. And then someonethinks that that's like, heaps
more arty than... do you know?Like, I know, it's kind of
(39:42):
taking the piss a little bit.Yeah, but um, but there's
something interesting aboutthat. But I think definitely the
materiality, it's a blue thatsort of shocks you into
reevaluating something, whichwas interesting, the pink came
out of the Splendour In TheGrass work. So with Splendour In
The Glass being an archeologicaldig, I wanted it to be a kind of
(40:04):
high-vis scenario. But I didn'twant all the baggage that like
fluorescent orange, say oryellow sort of comes with. And
so I guess the pink was kind ofa queering of that, like, hyper
masculine sort of space, butstill wanted to appeal as
something that was kind of abouta seriousness of work and like,
(40:26):
yeah, so that's where thatstarted. And then again, I was
like, Cool. Let's just run withthat. I think at one point, I
was thinking maybe I would useblue for public art and pink for
things that went in galleries,like, just as a, you know, and
more recently, I've got a littlebit more brave, and there's some
yellow, the yellow is, refersprobably a bit to Melbourne
(40:49):
Anyway, it was quitecontroversial and got moved
actually. The big yellowsculpture by ACA... now I'm not
around a lot. It wasinteresting, just that the idea
going to remmeber the guys name.
that a sculptural work,everybody had an opinion, that
Unknown (40:57):
This is the graphic designer come into play good,
was a big problem, and you hadto move and put it somewhere
complementary, contrasting atthe same time. Yeah, I want to
else and like everyone had anopinion on that. And I just now
I see that yellow, sort ofreally permeating Melbourne in a
big way. And even some of thoseforms. I even remember going to
see a hyper object at Bunnings.That's what I'm gonna say. Are
Melbourne one time and takingphotos of everything that was a
(41:18):
yellow. That was ages ago. Butyeah, so different things come
in for often, kind of practicalor obscure reasons. Like,
there's definitely always areason, I very really go, 'oh
I'll just chuck a bitof...whatever!' So there's a
lighter pink that I've beenusing more recently. And that
comes from this weird buildingin Berlin that I came across,
(41:39):
that I bought a book on, thatwas an incredible book. And so
that had the blue in therealready with this soft pink,
that was kind of an insulationcolor for the outside of one of
the sections of it. And so Isort of lifted that off for a
couple fo works.
(42:05):
there any more questions?
Audience Member 2 (42:07):
I wanted to put, I guess, comment and
question around ... first tocomment on the very obsessive
nature of the patterns and theorganization, your work and like
this need to you know, kind ofreorganize an environment in a
way that you understand reallylinear structures. And I guess,
(42:33):
how that plays into your ideaabout, about humans, and how we
kind of understand the world andwhat your relationship to
organic material is, then likelythis sort of yeah, having to
reconstruct these form these,these very human made forms
(42:54):
around organic objects?
Tom Borgas (42:57):
Yeah. I think again, that's, I've always found that
my work can steer towards beingincredibly designy. And often
that's been the criticism ofpeople with my work is that it's
so kind of nicely finished andprecise, and it has all those
(43:19):
aspects. Introducing theseorganic forms is a way of kind
of disrupting that. And to behonest, I wish, I wish my work
was looser and less designed.That's what I'm always trying to
battle. But it's that thing thatwhen you sort of enter into a
process, or you've got anexhibition, or like, like, we
all revert back to doing thingsthat we know, and kind of
(43:41):
playing it safe, and whatever.And so by introducing organic
elements, whether it's like theone that had like a stick,
there's ones that are broken,concrete, rocks, all these kinds
of things, it's a way of, yeah,it's another way of disrupting
that order, where the agency, Ikind of outsource to another
(44:03):
thing, to kind of, then see howthat rearranges that kind of
default of mine to be structuredand precise, and, and regular,
and those kinds of things. Yeah,and I guess that's a bit of a
design thing as well, this wholetension between like, like most
things, engage through a tensionbetween whether it's regular
(44:25):
and, you know, irregular orsynthetic and organic, or I
think that's a nice way in towork. And I think sometimes work
that people find less engagingof mine might just feel a bit
sterile. But then often, I thinkthat's about the relationship
between the person looking atthat thing thing and, and
(44:46):
something that's less or thespace or or maybe it has doesn't
exist in a context that is goingto exist in yet or, you know, I
always kind of welcome that. Andit's funny because when I have
my little collections have say,on Instagram where I where I
save or tag things I like, ifyou look at what they are,
they're all loose, messy. Likethere's this part of me that
(45:10):
just like, 'I just wanna be morelike that!' you know, like,
yeah, like people that CyTwombly you know that's just
like woosh woosh woosh and makethese just like mind blowing
things like I dream of, youknow, being able to... I mean,
even like, truth makes workwhere I'm just flat. How do you
just make that though? Icouldn't deal with it, you know,
like, like, I just want to pullit back and pull it back. And so
(45:32):
by kind of introducing differentagencies of other things that
are kind of be more chaotic,chaotic or organic. Yeah, that's
what that's about.
Audience Member (45:45):
So I think that's all the time we have for
today's feedback loop. Would youplease thank Tom for joining us
today.
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