Once a building has been damaged in some way, has been abandoned and falls under the title of 'ruin', nature takes over the man-made. I find Alexander McQueen's 'Savage Beauty' evokes some of these ideas:
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
25/03/14
Points of reflection:
Scale is an issue with the current work, or rather the scale of the paper is. The drawing shouldn't feel attached to the confines of the paper, and so by working on much larger sheets this would disassociate the drawing from the edges. Not only this, but the subsequent void around the drawing will then allow me to further explore the theme of 'ruins' in the sense that the drawing appears lost, paused on its journey into degradation.Additionally, the physicality of the work needs to be developed. It's beginning to take place in this piece somewhat with the addition of thread and stitch but further experimentation should hopefully push these pieces out of the restrictions of being a 2D image. There's an energy in the mark making and concept as a whole that an A1 sheet of paper alone cannot and should not contain.
THE NORDIC FASHION BIENNALE PRESENTS: THE WEATHER DIARIES
Visually connecting with my own practice in some ways, there are some really lovely nature-orientated pieces that caught my eye.
RUINS, 25/03/14
Society has developed a capacity to ruin. We see these sites as having a tremendous resonance with us because we can situate ourselves in these spaces and imagine our own absence.
Relevant context and artists:
The search for the missing Malaysian plane, Andrei Tarkovsky Stalker 1979, Chernobyl, Jane and Louise Wilson, the turn of the 21st Century, 9/11, ancient civilisations, The Temple of Zeus, Ground Zero, preservation, The Ruins of Detroit 2008, Jonathan Ankers, Richard Misrach, Robert Adams, The Bechers, John Davies, post-industry, Simon Roberts.
Relevant context and artists:
The search for the missing Malaysian plane, Andrei Tarkovsky Stalker 1979, Chernobyl, Jane and Louise Wilson, the turn of the 21st Century, 9/11, ancient civilisations, The Temple of Zeus, Ground Zero, preservation, The Ruins of Detroit 2008, Jonathan Ankers, Richard Misrach, Robert Adams, The Bechers, John Davies, post-industry, Simon Roberts.
Thursday, 20 March 2014
Jim Bond Lecture, 19/03/14
Anatomised, 2005
"A leg is propelled into space stopping with a jolt, its foot still shaking. From the other side the other leg joins it in the centre. Piece by piece a figure is formed in space and suspended in time. It remains for a brief existence before dispersing again."
Blink, 2008
"A World War II glass eye housed in a copper eyeball, blinks rapidly when approached. Created for Kinetica's 'Creatures Great and Small' exhibition, and shown at the Rove gallery, London and gallery A22 Budapest."
Blown Away, 2006
Giant Leap, 2005
http://www.jimbond.co.uk/
"A leg is propelled into space stopping with a jolt, its foot still shaking. From the other side the other leg joins it in the centre. Piece by piece a figure is formed in space and suspended in time. It remains for a brief existence before dispersing again."
Blink, 2008
"A World War II glass eye housed in a copper eyeball, blinks rapidly when approached. Created for Kinetica's 'Creatures Great and Small' exhibition, and shown at the Rove gallery, London and gallery A22 Budapest."
Blown Away, 2006
Giant Leap, 2005
http://www.jimbond.co.uk/
Julian Germain Lecture, 19/03/14
What I found about Julian Germain's talk was that when you learnt about his work, what the photographs meant, where he was from, where he studied, who we worked with (besides those featured in his photographs) seemed to fade away. His photographs are charged with such sentimental significance at times that it's almost as if there wasn't a photographer present. Prior to attending this talk I found it difficult to imagine how I would use photography as a medium through which I might make work, but having been so impressed with Germain's practice I will no longer exclude it as a possible direction for my work. This talk showed me the power of photography.
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness, 2005
One particular story that that he spoke of I really engaged with. He became friends with an elderly gentleman, Charles Albert Lucien Snelling, who owned a shop that sold plants and "bits and bobs." The shop was in fact a house, and was painted orange and yellow. Germain bought a few plants from there and gradually became acquainted with this man, eventually visiting him for cups of tea. What struck Germain about this man was that the walls of his house were covered in photographs, mostly of his wife, whom Germain assumed had passed away. Charles would grow plans simply because he liked their names, and was described by Germain as his "antidote to modern living" and a "simple, gentle man."
http://www.juliangermain.com/projects/foreveryminute.php
Classroom Portraits, from 2004
“….the power of the images is in their direct connection to the viewer. We remember our own schooldays and wonder what happened to our own classmates. By presenting different pupils, different schools, different year groups, Germain asks questions about contemporary educational practices and social divisions. Already we can imagine the life trajectories of some of these young people. Here are faces full of hope and promise. Here also, is the silent threat of failure. Aspiration competes with apathy…..”
Tom Shakespeare. Archive Magazine, October 2005
http://www.juliangermain.com/projects/classrooms.php
Generations
I was really interested in this collection of photographs because of the way that history and memory was documented through families with five generations alive. It was also amazing to note the characteristic that had passed down from generation to generation. Germain noted that he most looked forward to seeing what the families wore, as they often dressed similarly but as if belonging to each era in which they grew up.
Jack Potter 2, Stuart Potter 35, Michael Potter 60, Harry Potter 86
http://www.juliangermain.com/projects/generations.php
Jamie Chalmers Lecture, 19/03/14
Jamie Chalmers started cross stitching to pass the time on a plane journey and because he thought it would look rather humorous, a tall, bald, tattooed man enjoying a spot of cross stitching. However, he became hooked.
Jose Romussi:
Matthew Cox:
Interweb Mastery
The best place to begin using social networking as a platform for your work is through blogging. Eventually, it will be best to purchase your own domain name - it's important that a little bit of the internet is yours. It usually costs around £20 and is worth doing because until then, you don't have true ownership of anything you post onto any website. It's important to note that no matter what your first 10 posts are, they will be awful. He advised to get these out of the way pretty quickly. Write about anything and find your voice, write for writings sake. It is also important that once you set up a blog and begin adding to it to find your pace: you need to manage your audience's expectation in the amount you post, when you post and how often. This can only be once a fortnight if the quality of the writing and content is good quality. The most important thing, however, is finding a pace that suits you and that you can stick to because it makes your blog easier for people to follow.
The message of the blog, it's content, your work etc, is what will dictate which social media site you will branch out into:
What I really enjoyed about the lecture was that it wasn't so much as a way of him promoting his work but rather showing us really helpful ways to get our own work seen by people through the use of social media sites.
He showed us the possibilities of cross stitching, which were incredibly vast it has to be said, through the work of the following artists (many of which also use social networking sites as a platform to get their work seen): Davey Gravy, Lord Libidan, Theo Humphries, Alex Walters, Cakester, Pete Fowler, Alicia Ross, Ana Teresa Barbosa, Frederique Morrel, Stephanie Clark, Mana Morimoto, Harriet Hammel, Holly Levell, Jose Romussi, Bella Leonard, Severija, Sophie Strong, Moosh, Barbara Randall, Lou Trigg, Erin Riley, Ellen Schinderman, Erika Hagberg, Pierre Fouche, Joetta Maue, Meagan Ileana, Matthew Cox, Benjamin Shine, Cayce Zavaglia, Jimmy Mcbride.
Work I particularly liked:
Ana Teresa Barbosa: Combines stitch with drawing
He showed us the possibilities of cross stitching, which were incredibly vast it has to be said, through the work of the following artists (many of which also use social networking sites as a platform to get their work seen): Davey Gravy, Lord Libidan, Theo Humphries, Alex Walters, Cakester, Pete Fowler, Alicia Ross, Ana Teresa Barbosa, Frederique Morrel, Stephanie Clark, Mana Morimoto, Harriet Hammel, Holly Levell, Jose Romussi, Bella Leonard, Severija, Sophie Strong, Moosh, Barbara Randall, Lou Trigg, Erin Riley, Ellen Schinderman, Erika Hagberg, Pierre Fouche, Joetta Maue, Meagan Ileana, Matthew Cox, Benjamin Shine, Cayce Zavaglia, Jimmy Mcbride.
Work I particularly liked:
Ana Teresa Barbosa: Combines stitch with drawing
Jose Romussi:
Matthew Cox:
Interweb Mastery
The best place to begin using social networking as a platform for your work is through blogging. Eventually, it will be best to purchase your own domain name - it's important that a little bit of the internet is yours. It usually costs around £20 and is worth doing because until then, you don't have true ownership of anything you post onto any website. It's important to note that no matter what your first 10 posts are, they will be awful. He advised to get these out of the way pretty quickly. Write about anything and find your voice, write for writings sake. It is also important that once you set up a blog and begin adding to it to find your pace: you need to manage your audience's expectation in the amount you post, when you post and how often. This can only be once a fortnight if the quality of the writing and content is good quality. The most important thing, however, is finding a pace that suits you and that you can stick to because it makes your blog easier for people to follow.
The message of the blog, it's content, your work etc, is what will dictate which social media site you will branch out into:
- Facebook - if you are starting a business or raising your profile as an artist, Facebook possibly isn't the best place to start but is good for using it as a secondary way of getting the information of your blog and about your work or product out there. Most importantly, when using Facebook it's extremely important to make a distinction between you as a brand and you as a person.
- Twitter - great for first-hand information but it's difficult to filter through all the traffic on Twitter, and thus, it will be more tricky to get your twitter posts seen. The Tweet Deck, however, is a useful tool.
- Pinterest - this is a great inspiration station. The boards allow you to display your interests and inspirations as well as your work while making a distinction between the two. This is the newest of the social networking sites and is greatly ambitious - its aim is to be the next Google in terms of the most used search engine. However, it is important when using this site to remember that producing is of the most importance to you, not consuming.
- Flickr: this site is heavily base on photography and has a very strong community. It's a good tool to find other artists who have something in common with you, no matter its obscurity. It's a useful tool to reference the images of your work from. If they're all in one place, they're easier to reference back to and dip into if you want to put them on other sites via html link etc.
- Tumblr - the introduction of micro blogging. It is the easiest blogging site to use but is very much orientated around the re-posting of imagery. The source of the material you upload to tumblr is also very easy to change, and so it's advisable that if you do use tumblr, add a small watermark of your main website in the corner of the image so that it's possible to link it back to you.
- Instagram - a great example of visual storytelling and is user friendly. It is owned by Facebook which is positive in many ways, financially especially so. You can really make Instagram work for you if you find your voice and when it works, it works.
- LinkedIn -this is more of a site for professional development but is an extremely useful tool and it's greatly advised that we use it at some point. The look of the site is very formal and can be tedious at times but the benefits make it worth it.
- Google+ -a dark horse of the world of social networking, Google+ has many wider benefits if you can establish yourself quickly and strongly. Once again, it's all about finding your voice and getting it out there (mostly before anyone else does).
Full Group Meeting - 18/03/14
Further introductions to the following themes:
- Chance - the book is a compilation different writings that is useful to dip into occasionally to ground yourself in the theme or to look for further sources, ideas, etc. Intention, consequence, spontaneous, accident - observing the gap between intention and consequence. There's always an element of chance in every piece of art you make. Chance is not a new device - why, in which case, is chance still a key strategy in artists' investigations into the contemporary world?
Artists: Vito Acconci, Susan Laxton - Memory - it's important to consider these questions: how do we define memory? What is memory? How does it relate to us now? How does it dictate what we do and know? How do we capture and craft memory? How do memories exist? Memories are sometimes translucent and the exploration of them is complex. Possible lines of investigation - photo albums. They are windows for you to look into the unobtainable past. It's an iconic symbol of recording and thus, memory, and is charged with sentimental significance. Images on a laptop or phone screen are as vague and intangible as the memory itself, whereas an actual photograph is physical evidence of the past in itself, without even yet considering what it is a photograph of.
Artists: Chiharu Shiota - Room of Memory, Uta Barth, Michel Rovner, Hiroshi Sugimoto, John Blackmore
Books: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat - Oliver Sacks (already own), The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard.
Russell Mills Lecture, 17/03/14
Mills was originally an illustrator but through collaboration now produces work that falls under the umbrella of Fine Art. He graduated from the Royal College of Art and worked among the likes of Jackson Pollock as a group named "the radicals."
He works a great deal with installation and through collaboration with Mark (Fearon?), a sound engineer, has been able include sound pieces in his work.
He works a great deal with installation and through collaboration with Mark (Fearon?), a sound engineer, has been able include sound pieces in his work.
Tuesday, 18 March 2014
Sally Denton Lecture, 17/03/14
The topic of the lecture was trends and how learning to predict them can keep you a step ahead as a creative practitioner.
The two types of trends are:
Future SciencesA great deal of this trend is about looking to the past as a way moving forward into the future. The current post-recession nature of society at the moment needs an injection of big thinking and big ideas that have the potential to change things for the better. We live in a decade of turbulance, exploration and an awakening from the self-indulgent lifestyle in which society once previously operated.
Space is currently a huge topic; we have never been as obsessed with the future as we are now. The chances of the next generation going to space are high, and things that we could only imagine before are now becoming realities. Dreams are coming true and being realised.
Human 2.0The changes that human beings and the human race will undergo will be huge. People are living longer and better lives and so we see an increase in positive reprisentation in the media. Age is now celebrated, and the age at which you become 'old' is ever decreasing. We are undergoing a re-alignment of our lives, so much so that people can live to be 120 and Google are developing a new technology that could increase the human lifespan to 170.
We are becoming aware as a society that a great deal of the 20th Century will be lost with that generation. There will be no one to tell the stories, no one to validate that the 20th Century even happened. With these realisations, further questions are raised about the relationship between the elderly and technology.
Bill Gates has donated all his money to curing different kinds of diseases. Alongside this, a new satallite system is being developed that will be able to track who has and who has not received the required vaccinations around the globe.
The use of robotics in human biology is also something that will come to a realisation in the near future. With the development of 3D printers, we have the ability to generate organs and subsequently, replace our 'faulty components.' There will come a day when we will not need to carry doner cards. People will optionally have their limbs exchanged for robotic arms and legs - a pain-free and practical existence.
Generation X-YWomen throughout history have been sexualised, but in more recent decades overly so. However, a dramatic shift towards a more modest world is a likely movement. While women's fashion will look to modesty in its realisation of the problems with the over-sexualisation of women, men will transition from highly groomed, tanned and moisturised to be jointly more masculine and feminine. This will show in the male fashion industry and work interestingly in an androgenous society.
GlobalisationFashion designers can no longer simply market their clothing to English women only. The world is becoming more international, and that includes fashion too. East will join West in this respect.
In addition to this, we are moving towards living a more 'stripped back' life. More basic materials will start to appear in homes, such as chipboard and concrete, as a more economical approach to living and a shift in the nature of interior design.
The world is finally appreciating Africa for the incredible country that it is. We are moving a step forward in the way we think about what Africa does for us, rather than the other way around. Africa has become more technologically advanced than other continents such as America or China and have done in a much quicker space of time. Not only this, but Africa has all the minerals necessary to support future life. Nigeria alone has enough potential solar power energy to power Europe. In addition to this, the continent possesses all the componens needed to make a material that is lighter than air but stronger than steel.
Creative Consume
For 20-30 years we have slept-walked through our lives thinking of nothing but ourselves. We have not considered the consequences of out actions and because of that, the planet is in the state that it is now. In response to this, there is a greater interest in the possibilities of being self-sufficient: allotments that can be stored in your kitchen, making furnature, utensils and clothing and the like out of degradable materials.
A new method of genetic modification will mean that plants will naturally grow the lace rather than it having to be made. There is also a new technology looking into building technology in plants and harvesting their energy.
The future, ultimately, will be about how we can use the resources we have as a way of increasing our sustainability. The introduction of nano technology means that if the products made are smaller, the fewer resources are needed to make them.
The lecture as a whole was endlessly interesting and I enjoyed the different content and the way that it was displayed. I had never even considered the importance of trends, nor appreciated their importance to creative practitioners across all disciplines. It can't hurt to be in the know.
The two types of trends are:
- Macro Trends - small, seasonal, niche trends that have little impact as a whole. These trends prevent the world from looking the same.
- Transitional Trends - the underlying trends running through society and are of the most importance for artist and designers wanting their work to have an impact.
Future SciencesA great deal of this trend is about looking to the past as a way moving forward into the future. The current post-recession nature of society at the moment needs an injection of big thinking and big ideas that have the potential to change things for the better. We live in a decade of turbulance, exploration and an awakening from the self-indulgent lifestyle in which society once previously operated.
Space is currently a huge topic; we have never been as obsessed with the future as we are now. The chances of the next generation going to space are high, and things that we could only imagine before are now becoming realities. Dreams are coming true and being realised.
Human 2.0The changes that human beings and the human race will undergo will be huge. People are living longer and better lives and so we see an increase in positive reprisentation in the media. Age is now celebrated, and the age at which you become 'old' is ever decreasing. We are undergoing a re-alignment of our lives, so much so that people can live to be 120 and Google are developing a new technology that could increase the human lifespan to 170.
We are becoming aware as a society that a great deal of the 20th Century will be lost with that generation. There will be no one to tell the stories, no one to validate that the 20th Century even happened. With these realisations, further questions are raised about the relationship between the elderly and technology.
Bill Gates has donated all his money to curing different kinds of diseases. Alongside this, a new satallite system is being developed that will be able to track who has and who has not received the required vaccinations around the globe.
The use of robotics in human biology is also something that will come to a realisation in the near future. With the development of 3D printers, we have the ability to generate organs and subsequently, replace our 'faulty components.' There will come a day when we will not need to carry doner cards. People will optionally have their limbs exchanged for robotic arms and legs - a pain-free and practical existence.
Generation X-YWomen throughout history have been sexualised, but in more recent decades overly so. However, a dramatic shift towards a more modest world is a likely movement. While women's fashion will look to modesty in its realisation of the problems with the over-sexualisation of women, men will transition from highly groomed, tanned and moisturised to be jointly more masculine and feminine. This will show in the male fashion industry and work interestingly in an androgenous society.
GlobalisationFashion designers can no longer simply market their clothing to English women only. The world is becoming more international, and that includes fashion too. East will join West in this respect.
In addition to this, we are moving towards living a more 'stripped back' life. More basic materials will start to appear in homes, such as chipboard and concrete, as a more economical approach to living and a shift in the nature of interior design.
The world is finally appreciating Africa for the incredible country that it is. We are moving a step forward in the way we think about what Africa does for us, rather than the other way around. Africa has become more technologically advanced than other continents such as America or China and have done in a much quicker space of time. Not only this, but Africa has all the minerals necessary to support future life. Nigeria alone has enough potential solar power energy to power Europe. In addition to this, the continent possesses all the componens needed to make a material that is lighter than air but stronger than steel.
Creative Consume
For 20-30 years we have slept-walked through our lives thinking of nothing but ourselves. We have not considered the consequences of out actions and because of that, the planet is in the state that it is now. In response to this, there is a greater interest in the possibilities of being self-sufficient: allotments that can be stored in your kitchen, making furnature, utensils and clothing and the like out of degradable materials.
A new method of genetic modification will mean that plants will naturally grow the lace rather than it having to be made. There is also a new technology looking into building technology in plants and harvesting their energy.
The future, ultimately, will be about how we can use the resources we have as a way of increasing our sustainability. The introduction of nano technology means that if the products made are smaller, the fewer resources are needed to make them.
The lecture as a whole was endlessly interesting and I enjoyed the different content and the way that it was displayed. I had never even considered the importance of trends, nor appreciated their importance to creative practitioners across all disciplines. It can't hurt to be in the know.
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Group Meeting 13/03/14
We worked in groups to try and decipher which printed images of artists' works fit into which theme. We found that numerous pieces of work could have been placed in a number of themes, emphasising how these themes overlap and revealing what kind of content might be situated under these words. We delved further into what each theme could mean and the kinds of words and concepts that would fit under that umbrella. The following themes are of my greatest interest:
- Memory: "This anthology investigates the turn in art not only towards archives and histories, the relics of modernities past, but towards the phenomena, in themselves, of "haunting" and the activation of memory. It looks at a wide array of artistic relationships to memory association, repetition and reappearance, as well as forms of "active" forgetting. Art that engages with memory embodied in material and spatial conditions is examined beside works that reflect upon memory's effect through time, and yet others that enlist the agency of remembrance or forgetting to work through aspects of the numerous pasts by which the present is always haunted.
- Ruins: "The abiding interest of artists in ruination and decay has led in particular to the concept of the modern ruin - an ambiguous site of artistic and architectural modernism, personal and collective memories, and the cultural afterlife of eras such as those of state communism and colonialism. Contemporary art's explorations of the ruin can evoke on the one hand diverse experiences of nostalgia and on the other hand a ceaselessly renewed encounter with catastrophes of the recent past and apprehensions of the future. For every relic of a harmonious era or utopian dream stands another recalling industrial decline, environmental disaster, and the depredations of war.
- Time: This anthology contextualises art that proposes alternatives to the models of linear time that have underpinned both capitalism and progressive modernity. Contemporary art has explored such diverse registers of temporality as 'wasting and waiting;regression and repetition; deja vu and seriality; unrealized possibilities and and idleness; non-consummation and counter productivity; the belated and the premature; the disjointed and the out-of-sync - all of which go against sequentialist time and index slips in chronological experience.'
Artist Talk - Marvin Gaye Chetwynd 12/03/14
I was surprised at how personable she was: she was greatly sincere and charming and spoke clearly about her work. Unlike many of the artist talks I've been to so far, she sought to make her work uncomplicated and thus, it was.
Video played: "An Evening With Jabba the Hutt" @ The International 3
I knew of her work having followed last year's Turner Prize, but I disliked it a great deal because to me it came across as being intentionally unreadable. However, having listened to her 'presentation', a word which she used with great satire, I noted, I found that her performances were the exact opposite of that: from what at first seems to be a collection of nonsensical, absurd re-enactments emerges performances with great sincerity that illuminate the artist's obvious love of collaborating with unlikely people.
There was no particular way in which she found people to participate in her performances. I was surprised at how many of these people she had simply met on a night out, or through a friend of a friend. For example, the actress who played the role of the conservationist Joy Adamson in the re-enactment of the story of Born Free was a friend of her mother's. Her father also featured in this particular performance. It became apparent to me that these people volunteered to participated not only because they admired Chetwynd's performances, but because of the artist's obvious passion and belief in what she did.
As Chetwynd explained, she makes all the costumes and props included in her performance with her "little hands", thus enhancing the authenticity and modesty of her practice, I believe. She was not unaware that these costumes and props could simply be seen as badly made, and in fact found this observation greatly humorous. The cause for this 'home-made' effect was due to the tight schedules with which she worked and also, more interestingly, because she made them as and when she had the idea, but noted that this "turned out to be a quality in itself". She emphasised that no designing went into the making and realisation of her performances. She would sometimes only know what the performance was about the night before its showing, when everything was complete and all the themes suddenly interlocked.
Described as a "momentum" that she is not really in charge of, Chetwynd's relationship with materials is an intuitive one. She noted that if she did not do this as a career she would continue the process of making nonetheless and would be equally comfortable putting on small scale performances at house parties.
The talk as a whole was engaging and I could not help warming to Marvin Gaye Chetwynd.
Other videos played in presentation:
"Thriller" performance and documentary style video of later performance.
Clips from "Born Free" and "Erotics and Beastiality: Depraved Creativity."
Introduction to Unit X
This unit will provide myself, as a Fine Art student, an opportunity to work with students across the Film-making and Photography courses at MMU as a way of exploring collaborative practices to push towards developing our investigations and responses towards professional contexts of display.
The culmination of this unit will involve the realization of an exhibition based on the following themes:
Students across the three courses will work in groups towards producing a body of work that sits within one of these themes. Whether that body of work is a continuation of what we have done previously or has stemmed from completely new ideas is our decision.
The culmination of this unit will involve the realization of an exhibition based on the following themes:
- Memory
- Ruins
- Time
- Chance
- Appropriation
- The Everyday
Students across the three courses will work in groups towards producing a body of work that sits within one of these themes. Whether that body of work is a continuation of what we have done previously or has stemmed from completely new ideas is our decision.
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