INCON with… offers art as a continuing series of events.
Established in London by Neil Ferguson in 2015, INCON with… aims to explore what working collaboratively on events involves practically and theoretically.
INCON with… is “arting” in practice.
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INCON with(18)…
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”The work followed a trail of interaction between humans and computers. By passing texts, sounds, and images into computational languages that the program designers didn’t plan, the software used threw out unexpected information.
The projected images are scans of linear drawings initially made in response to sounds generated by a score writer program.
Later the words produced by the Image > Text translator application were fed back into a score writer software, generating a new sound file.
Next, this file was converted from .mp3 to .doc format and back again.
Within the exhibition space, the digital equipment created randomized orders of images and sounds, creating a short-lived iteration of a potentially infinite chain of translations.”
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INCON with(17)…”Public Hanging”…
Neil Ferguson & Maciej Blazejewski
18th & 19th June 2021
…an event featuring daily drawing exchanges between Neil Ferguson & Maciej Blazejewski since 14th October 2020 to 27th June 2021
”Public Hanging”, was a collaborative, collective presentation by the audience from 452 black pen drawings. These drawing exchanges reflect each others everyday circumstances, moods and changing interests.
No aims, few words, no titles… just drawing .
We decided to use the audience as the selectors, arbitrators and presenters of the event .
The audience had their selections and tastes hung in public.
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INCON with(16)…
Neil Ferguson & Jenni Hodgson
… conversation through painting.
…a painterly collaboration exploring freedoms and restrictions to an agreed system.
4th – 6th September 2020
It can be too easily ignored how much painters make reference to other paintings and painterly practices.
INCON with(16)…displayed 16 circular paintings, painted in alternative stages without verbal or written communication between the collaborators.
INCON with(16)…arose as an attempt to highlight their interests in specific paintings or painters.
INCON with(16)…was a collaboratively produced set of paintings exploring freedom and restrictions in an agreed painting system.
INCON with(16)…allowed each painting its independence through a directed system of production.
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INCON with… Podcasts for DeptfordX 2019
The series of INCON with… Podcasts were produced by artist Neil Ferguson of INCON with... and Peter Bromley of 1968 Film Group for Deptford X 2019.
The 11 podcasts discuss artworks and art work, the verb, to art , “arting”.
The series features Neil Ferguson in conversation with Drew Adams, Maciej Blazejewski, Peter Bromley, Amanda Francis, Clare French, Chris Smith, Calum Storrie, Karen Turner, Fredrix Vermin, Joshua Freddie Vaughan and Carol Wyss discussing different aspects of the work in art practice and how art works for them.
INCON with… Podcast Launch for DeptfordX 2019
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INCON with(15)…
Neil Ferguson & Amanda Francis
230 Steps Between
Friday 4th & Saturday 5th October 2019
“that part of town you don’t have to go to…you are already there, you know it…”
Gerge Perec
Fact: for over 30 years Neil and Amanda have lived 230 steps apart …
230 steps between… was a collaborative project between Neil Ferguson and Amanda Francis formed out of a series of meetings, writings and agreed activities exploring differing senses and experiences of being local.
What observations do Neil and Amanda actually share? How might the presentation of their selected images, sounds and objects influence what others, notice, see or think? Yes, observations keep being made, but is this what being local means?
What habits do neighbourhoods cultivate? What do we notice or ignore? What is worth recording? The collaboration offers modes of interaction to “place” or “situate” the visitor.
The work explores differing narratives and archiving of information, shared times that Neil and Amanda recognise and allow opportunities for others to personalise.
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INCON with(14)…
Neil Ferguson & Calum Storrie
TING FOR DOT
Friday 7th AND Saturday 8th June 2019
Redacting texts,…applying thinglyness to “things”
…organizing meaninglessness in “things”?
Ferguson and Storrie set about redacting a variety of publications from Beckett plays and short stories to free gallery handout sheets, cookbooks and detective novels.
…TING FOR DOT was an interactive event where the audience were asked to apply their own redacting systems to TING FOR DOT texts.
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INCON with(12&13)…Neil Ferguson & Karen Turner
“THE Same but different”.
“Art is not there simply to be understood. … It is more the sense of an indication or suggestion” .
Joseph Beuys
The events are set up around a mixture of simple and complex visual compositions and assemblages.
The works look to induce an individuals “sense” of something, NOT reduce to a shared understanding.
THE Same but different “… are “surrational” objects as events that make expectation “irrational “.
Each object and drawing invites the viewer to form their own narrative from the displays.
A 5 point/parts rule directs our decision-making. It is appropriated from Miro’s sketchbook drawings linking the 5 points of a human cell to figurative movement and structure.
This rule evokes wider considerations on potential narratives in things rather than simply their construction and component parts.
Connecting Miro’s thinking on figurative structure to Beuysian analysis of histories in things offers wider potential for engaging with the works in “The Same but Different”…
… 2 very different events in 2 different venues.
INCON with(13)…“THE Same but different”, at CAVESPACE, 81 Tachbrook Street, Pimlico, SW1V 2QP
25 – 28th October 2018
IN Conversation with(12)… “THE Same but different” at INCON, Brockley, London SE4 1YR. 13th & 14th October 2018
http://www.neilferguson.net/?page_id=2416
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IN Conversation with(11)… wrong for the right reasons
Neil Ferguson, Maciej Blazejewski and Fredrix Vermin…
“We know what we are doing…but… we can be wrong for the right reasons.”
8 -9 June 2018
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IN Conversation with(10)… Neil Ferguson & Drew Adams
DRAWINGS into INSTRUMENTS… into MUSIC… a TRANSFORMATION PROCESS … an interactive workshop.
Saturday 28th April 2018 2.30 – 5.30pm
Sunday 29th April 2018 2.30 – 5.30pm
An experimental music workshop featuring 9 unique instruments . The instruments are hand made by Drew Adams following forms and lines from drawings exploring senses by Neil Ferguson.
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IN Conversation with(9) …Neil Ferguson & Gareth Jones
“Raw Rewards”, Incidents from Dungeness
Raw INCIDENTS: decisions in an inhospitable environment.
3rd & 4th March 2018
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The Reward:
“If we had not done what we did at Dungeness we would not know what we know now. We would not have that knowledge.”
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The collaboration involved walking on the stony barren beaches of Dungeness in mid December 2017 in seasonal, but wholly inhospitable weather; locating ourselves in particular unsheltered spots that anchored, drove and shaped our actions.
All actions were relative to the circumstances, directed by the environment. Records were made on pre-prepared paper working only with what was found, extracted, mined in the cold, wet and windy conditions. These “works” looked to capture the moments of their production where scraping, grinding and pulling boards across rocks and sand left “histories”, capturing the physical and sensory connections involved. Would they reflect what was being felt? Would the outcomes measure up with the sensorial difficulties?
“Raw Rewards”, Incidents from Dungeness, are products of “touching with the earth”, where the environment refuses interaction – sandwiched between the savagery of the elements and the coping strategies for recording in extreme discomfort. No transference of pleasantries…more the exhilaration of coping with raw difficulty; strategies sustaining efforts “keeping us out there“.
Short Film,
“Raw Rewards” available for viewing on YouTube.
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IN CONVERSATION with(8)…a Play with Maciej Blazejewski, Fred Vernon & Neil Ferguson
“Those Rehearsals” BYOB, Corkage £5
The 2 Act play took the form of a meeting about previous meetings about writing a play about a play.
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IN CONVERSATION with(7)…Carol Wyss & Neil Ferguson
“Beyond Controls”
Beyond Controls is formed out of 10 sets of 32 drawings.
From initial lines, each drawing was scanned, emailed and printed to be developed further by hand. The repetitive nature of these procedures regularly exposed the limitations and idiosyncratic qualities of scanning and printing.
The structure of the collaboration would always be infinite, sequences without final drawings, statements held in digitized time becoming cycles of series that cannot be closed, like circles that cannot be joined.
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IN CONVERSATION with(6)…Peter Bromley, Matthew Vincent-Townend, Neil Ferguson et al.
“Duchamping”
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IN CONVERSATION with(5)…with Maciej Blazejewski, Fred Vernon & Neil Ferguson
Epistographing
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IN CONVERSATION with(4)…John T.Freeman, Hugh Gilmour, Irene Godfrey, Qing Qi & Neil Ferguson
“From where YOU sit…”
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IN CONVERSATION with(3)…Lucy McGeown & Neil Ferguson
“Ivy Road is an Artwork”.
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IN IN CONVERSATION with(2)…Matthew Vincent-Townend & Neil Ferguson
“Circulating Air”
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IN CONVERSATION with(1)… Fred Vernon & Neil Ferguson
