PAUL CHANEY

2004 - 2012

 

An experimental 4 acre smallholding and off-grid settlement in the Southwest of the UK.

 

A small bender hut with no planning permission provided shelter for seven years while a model post-carbon food system based on a theoretical equal division of the UK’s agricultural land among the UK population was implemented—designed using the FieldMachine software.

 

Far from being a success as an experiment in self-sufficiency, the FIELDCLUB project developed into a useful realist critique of 'back to the land' utility. The principles of dark ecology were illustrated 'in vivo', and human/non-human enmeshments were viewed and revealed through the prism of durational embedded artistic practice. The protagonist was to become just another species in a geographically restricted food web prey to the rules of a Hutchinsonian model of biological niche dynamics. 

 

The project generated a substantial body of artistic research and documentation, and provided the theoretical subtext for subsequent works.

 

Elements of the original experiment were developed in collaboration with curator Kenna Hernly, and £50 — a stray cat that showed up one day.