Susan Hiller talk at the Freud museum and methodologies

Having visited the Freud museum and Susan Hiller's conversation with Susie Orbach yesterday evening I wasn't sure on what to expect. She spoke candidly about specific pieces of work that I was not particularly familiar with. I thought she would speak more about her work in relation to psychodynamic thinking as well as Freudian theory but it was more a general conversation about a variety of works, which was great in a sense as this gave me a concrete idea on what her art is about. She gave great insight into how she works which was of interest to me as I am in the process of reflecting upon exactly how I work and think about ideas.

Susan Hiller sisters of Menon, 1972 -79
Section I: 4 L-shaped panels of automatic writing, blue pencil on A4 paper with typed labels (1972)
Section II: 4 panels, typescript and gouache on paper (1979)
35 7/8 x 25 1/4 in. / 91.2 x 64.2 cm 12 1/2 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.8 x 23 cm http://www.susanhiller.org/otherworks/sisters_of_menon.html

The main element she spoke of was how she generates ideas. Hiller stated that she creates ideas secondly; ideas for her artwork do not come first, her interests are at the forefront. This happens rather naturally for Hiller, which filled me with a sense of calm as I do hear of people who work in a way in which starts with consciously thinking ‘What shall I make art about today?’.  I have a similar method of thinking when generating ideas myself. I first think of what I am interested in. The 'idea' comes to me when I find something interesting enough to engage my attention. Then I consider how I can represent that object. In my current art practice for instance, I choose an object in a way that it chooses me. If I am drawn to an object I generally spend time looking at that item for a long period of time so that it is virtually abstract to me, this is only when I begin to think about it in an art sense; or in a representational sense.

Hiller's work exploring the conscious and unconscious ways of working interest me, in particular her automatic writing pictured here. What intrigued me was when she said she stopped automatic writing because it lost the automatic value which was only apparent in the first few writings. This made me think how conscious or unconscious they are… this is something to think about further. I can relate this to my personal art therapy sessions where I am at first consciously making a drawing for instance, but as I talk at the same time I am thinking less and less about image making. Rather it is more a sense of moving my hand across the page in the direction it wishes to. It is almost as though the hand is a separate being from the rest of my body. Hiller spoke of a similar notion of consciously and unconsciously writing. She stated of the dipping in and out of exact consciousness when making this piece of work. I can relate to this in art therapy rather than my art practice as my art tends to be more systematic than a realm of painterly expression for instance!

Susan Hiller sisters of Menon (1972 -79), (2013) [image online] Available at: http://www.susanhiller.org/otherworks/sisters_of_menon.html [Accessed 26 November 2013]