• Artist Statement
• Practice Development
• Tiff Oben CV
• The Interchangeable Tiff Oben
• The House That Balthus Built
• Balthus Gallery 2011
• Cathedral of Erotic Miseries
• Worshipper at the Cathedral
• Disruption 2011
• Chav Grand Tour 2011
• Chav at First Sight 2011
• Tales of the Lost 2011
• Around the World 2011
• Voluptuous Panic 2011
• Business Relations 2011
• In The Loop 2011
• The Cabinet Particular 2010
• Tea Stall 2010
• Made & Undone 2010
• Contact Form
• Links
• Josef Herman Art Foundation
• Celf Josef Herman Cymru

Image by Tiff Oben

Image by Tiff Oben

Image by Tiff Oben

Image by Tiff Oben

Image by Mike Davies

Image by Mike Davies

Business Relations uses the language of business PR's breakdown to relay the intimate details of domestic disagreements as though the analyst has lost the ability to discriminate between work place and home. The work mirrors the twisting of truth commonly practiced within business and advertising. Likewise Business Relations is seriously unethical as the co-producer and collaborator does contributes to the work unknowingly by their participation in, and instigation of, domestic disagreements through the medium of text messaging and letter writing.

Business Relations: Interpretations & Critique:

As installationBusiness Relationstook advantage of a single wall cutting into the main exhibition space in which was positioned a door. The wall had no purpose, extending into the room without partitioning any part of it. The door was also without purpose, leading no-where, opening out into the same room in which it was situated. The wall and door were utterly pointless and absurd calling out to be used within a work.

The installation housed a single table facing the absurd door, at the table there was placed a chair, also facing the door. Both were located within a metre of the door opening creating a feeling of constraint and confrontation for whoever walked into the space through the door. Those who would do so would flout the sign upon the door which read 'knock and wait to enter'; as there was no occupant at the table or within the space, whoever might knock would receive no invitation to enter. Their choice then was to wait indefinitely or until they had given up hope of admittance or enter uninvited.

Upon the wall were colourful and overworked, statistical charts made in Microsoft Excel, laminated, encased in plastic, ubiquitous to any office environment. At first they appear to be left-overs from a business meeting, but upon closer inspection they are seen to document non-business data relating to the disagreements in a personal relationship. The charts were created using information collected from an unknowing participant who remains anonymous to the viewer despite the fact that the very personal details of their private texts provide the data for the charts.

A further item is seen housed in a glass encased plinth, located slightly outside of the imagined dimensions of the room suggested by the pointless wall. Contained within is a broken lap top keyboard, displayed as though a precious object or exhibit. Its slightly awry location suggests it may or may not be part of the wwork, particularly influenced by the other works exhibited on the floor which played with the concept of the plinth and frame and were made by Graham Talbot who is also infamously anti modern communications.

Communications:

The statistical information concerning very personal information and very private failing communication between a couple is given in an inhumane manner. The expression of poor communications is visualised through several elements within the installation, the closed door, the empty room, without hope of access (knock and wait to enter), the empty table and single chair claustrophobically facing the door, the broken lap top encased in glass.

The closed door is expressly readable as a sign of finality, ending or stalemate, of something left behind. The sign on the door creates a play of power, the knocker made to wait until signalled to enter, the signaller absent and likely to keep the knocker waiting outside indefinitely.

The pointless wall destroys any sense of privacy and containment a room ordinarily has. The openness of the space furthers the absurdity of the work and the information contained within in and relayed through it.

Narrative:

There are series of strong narratives pervading throughout the piece, narratives that are condensed into hard, shiny objects, shut up within plastic, laminated, packaged: a narrative of failed relationships and failed communications, a narrative of an analyst who translates personal experience into the language of business and statistics, a narrative of the unethical and ideological nature of statistical analysis, a narrative of modern consumer society and the personal implications of that way of life…

Humour:

There is a pervading sense of dark humour within the work. The behaviour detailed through the charts is generic to every relationship, although here it is given in an extreme and somewhat exaggerated form. There is a moment of uncomfortable recognition when reading the data contained within the charts and graphs. This is something I have attempted to generate repeatedly within my work; self-recognition, self-awareness, self-knowledge. For example, previously I have attempted to make the viewer aware of their tendencies to judge others, to readily accept stereotypes and the assumptions associated with them.

Here bleak humour is tinged with a horrendous sense of tragedy…

Absence:

Due to my previous works in which performance of characters has been a key issue the question arose as to whether this installation should have been inhabited by a character. This character could have analyzed viewers and their interaction with the work as well as continue to collect responses to the work and translate into statistical data, furthering participation and contingency.

This character could have been myself as the subject to whom the texts were directed or the fictional business analyst who translates human relations into the language of business. This would have been an ideal opportunity to directly gauge the responses and translate them into visual objects. This is something I have wanted to deal with in previous projects such asChavat First Sight, but have been unsure how to do so.

The general consensus was that the installation did not need an inhabitant and the absence of an inhabitant worked well. The absence suggested a presence and enabled the viewer to imagine the creator of the charts unhindered by an actual presence who would have directed their thinking/furthering of the piece.

The installations of Dominique Gonzales-Foerster operate as a signifier that the viewer can fill, evoking an absent self which is entirely fictive.[1] The room here works in the same way as the absence enables the viewer to concentrate on the information rather than be constrained by a watching and annotating presence within the space who would create feelings of discomfort and hinder viewers from fuller engagement.

The absence also suggests a room just left and the viewer is left with the raw and brutal analysis of a dysfunctional relationship visualized in jolly coloured charts.

And so does absence make the suggested character stronger, more fuller? The individual who would inhabit the room seems to have no interest in their job, in people. They appear hard-headed, hard-nose, rational and logical to the extreme, clinical and cold. If female are they similar to the great heroines of Renaissance art, of Judith assassinating Holofernes, Delilah destroying Samson? Would Judith & Holofernes be an apt title? I have long desired to re-imagine classic subjects of Renaissance art - is this the route to do so?

Statistics & Ethics:

Statistics lack empathy for the individual mirroring the lack of empathy the analyst (and apparently the artist) feels for the sender of the texts. Statistics lack individuality. They are information made into easily read visual material, manipulatable and manipulative. They offer one-sided analysis, dehumanizing emotional activities between a couple and reducing it to a graph. They mirror the fact that statistics are essentially unethical and developed to get a certain viewpoint across, often used inappropriately and ideologically. The charts inBusiness Relationsaccentuate this fact by playing upon it and exaggerating it, offering utterly and instantly recognizable, one-sided details from private communications between a couple. The unknowing participant whose texts provide the data analyzed within the charts is exposed, their privacy is invaded, intimate details of their life and mental state are made public in easily read, diagrammatic graphics. Further the relational situation between the couple is manipulated by not relaying the whole story, information is withheld, how did the receiver of the texts respond? It makes for very uncomfortable viewing.

Is this work utterly new and different from my previous works?

The project is an on-going investigation into collaboration, the different ways we can collaborate on a work, which ways are successful, which do not work so well and what can come of those collaborations; new ways of working, indistinct egos, merged processes …

The viewer becomes the observer hence there is an element of participation, they are invited to participate with the installation through the instructive sign upon the door, knock and wait to enter.

The space has become of greater significance than in previous works and a more inhabitable environment that suggests a character rather than providing a space or vignette (as in Made & Undone - pockets for characters to inhabit) for a performed character to work within. The performance become unnecessary, through absence and object placement the character is suggested and therefore fuller, less directed.

The issue of ethics runs through my performative practice as I steal identities and trick others into revealing their prejudices through my performances. This is part of my aim to unsettle what appear to be natural ways of being and raise the possibility that there are other ways of being outside normative paradigms.

Conclusion:

The work is symptomatic of a failing relationship, packaging a horrendous situation and turning it into a positive, pragmatic, creative and witty work.

The unethical subject matter has a sense of danger and gives the piece an edge and makes it more powerful. The work plays with ethics, operating within a microcosm of relationships and macrocosm of society and ideology.