Process, practice, perspective (Upcoming August 2024)

In 1997 multidisciplinary artist Francis Alÿs pushed a massive block of ice through the streets of Mexico City, until it melted. It took the ice nine hours to melt, turning from something into nothing, and resulting in a five-minutes film titled ‘Paradox of Praxis 1 (Sometimes making something leads to nothing)’. The paradox, we would argue, is that this practice did not lead to nothing. Yes, the trace of ice is liquid on the ground, eventually turned into vapour, therefore unseen and perhaps inconsequential to the process to begin with. Moving through the city in this manner made Alÿs’ block of ice a medium to experience the city, and allowed, at the time, a political message to be expressed, one of discontent and disillusionment at the state of urban space. Outside of this context, the work proposes interesting questions: What should we make of invisible traces of artistic process? How do we (or should we) differentiate between the work of art and the work of the artist?  

How does a piece of art come to be - what was the initial spark? What is the first idea? And what came in between that and the finished product? What do we take out of it, in the absence of a finished product?

This issue of DYNAMO Magazine zooms in on artistic processes, on how they make up and sustain an artist’s practice. We believe that looking at how circus art is being created today can illuminate and inspire better and more balanced models for work and creation in the future.