Holdon Gallery -

The second D&AD exhibit in the Holdon gallery for 3rd years opened up last week and this time I decided to exhibit part 2 of my silence project, a film called '9 minutes ago'. This was a great opportunity for me as I wasn't happy with the final version of the film I handed in for assessment, a few last minute technical hitches meant it was really bad quality. After spending so long working on the film I decided for my own piece of mind that I was going to try and fix it in the couple of weeks we had off before we got our results. I thought this would be an easy task, but no, this film I swear had a vengeance on my sanity and refused to make anything easy. (I will probably explain more of this when I can finally figure out how to upload the film onto here, which it won't do at the moment). Anyway, this exhibition meant I could finally draw a line underneath my silence project and put it to rest.

I think this gallery space is a really great opportunity to come up this year and I'm glad Allessandra is making the most of it for us, we don't often get a chance to see people outside our tutor groups work, or even to print things off nicely before assessment so this is a great chance to do this as well as let the rest of the university know what we're up to.

The Holdon gallery

Some other D&AD work...

Some work from Interactive art -

My work! I am really pleased that I put my work into this exhibition. I wasn't going to because I didn't think I had anything to show, but then I decided to enter these and i'm so glad I did. I realised when I was there that I haven't shown any work in an exhibition outside of just the course since foundation, so it was nice to let and see other people looking at the photo's. Well done Alessandra and others, they did a great job of organising it!

Silence take one

Yesterday I spent the day in the studio filming the first part of my silence film. I had some technical help from my boyfriend who luckily for me is a photographer, but it was a lot of trial and error.

I dropped each of the seven sets of letters in front of the camera about 20 times, but most of the time was spent picking up the tiny bits of paper off the floor. I haven't put the footage on the computer yet so I don't know if it has worked, i'm not technically sure we have the equipment at uni to do what I want to do, and if we do i'm not sure I'm capable of doing it... ha ha... so fingers crossed for the next stage!!!

Tutorial 24.11.09 - silence round up

Yesterday we had our weekly tutor group with Liz. Because we missed last week as Liz and I were both helping out with UCAS in London, we spent the first half recapping the silence brief.

My review was in the morning before we flew to New York in the evening. As soon as we got back I went home for the weekend and spent most of the time working on my essay, then as soon as I got back to manchester I went of to London to work at the UCAS fair for a few days. So really I felt like I'd had two weeks off and not got very far at all with anything, especially silence. At the weekend I had looked through my silence work for the first time in what felt like ages to try to re-evaluate where I was and what I needed to do and I totally began to freak out and worry that my moving image piece wasn't going to round up everything I'd done, worrying that I had bits of work that I wanted to include that just wouldn't fit into it.

A good chat with Helen and Liz got me back on track again though. I calmed down and realised that I don't have to include every little reference to what I've done and that my moving image piece will be contextualised to my work if I do it properly. I also finally got it clear in my head that I, personally, need to contextualise my work. I find it really difficult to just go off and do something for the sake of it just to see what happens if there is absolutely no link to my idea and work. This doesn't mean I can't experiment and push boundaries, but I need everything to be done for a reason otherwise I don't feel there is any point to producing it.

So, I decided with Liz that my plan of action is to brainstorm some narratives that can tie my work together into a moving image piece and begin to draw storyboards up. On Thursday I am going to see Gary about equipment and technical stuff, and then it'l just be a matter of a day in the studio filming. I know I have a lot of work to do to make this work, but it's manageble and I feel a lot better now I've got a definite plan!

off on a tangent

After my wacky week tutorial with Mack and a quick chat with John Walsh I'm moving my project on finally. I made a great start with it, but the last week has been a bit stagnant and I was struggling to move it on. I realised that I 've been so close to it I started to find it difficult to see new potentials in my work. At first when Mack told me to try scanning some stuff in and experiment with it just to see what happens I wasn't sure that would take me where I wanted to go, but then when John said a similar thing but in a different way, I realised they were both right. So I'm not going to play with the photocopier just yet =) but I have realised I need to let my concept go a bit and push it in any direction that comes. Then I can explore just how far my ideas can really go! I admit that I am no photographer - I like photos but I'm not great at taking them and although I want to do some experimenting and let go I don't want to do things i'm not good at just for the sake of it...

So a break from Silence to finish of my Kino posters (more on them later) for the review has given me a welcome break and I feel refreshed for a weekend of tangents!!

Tate Liverpool

Liverpool continued!

Here's some stuff I found at the Tate... Again I've tried to select just the best bits, the stuff I really liked.

The first few things are really relevant to my silence project and will be reappearing in my sketchbook!

David Lamelas - Time

Each person has to count 60 seconds before they turn to the next person. A visual way to record the movement of time. I guess time could be thought of as silent - a clock ticks but time itself just goes on and on without any interruptions, it doesn't make a sound yet it dictates everything.

Francis Alys - A personal repertoire of possible behaviour while walking the streets of London town.

I really love this work (there were many of them but I can't find images). Posed scenarios of a journey around town displayed next to a list of verbs which all could describe what is going on. The work is simple and beautifully presented and links with my silence ideas.
Luis Camnitzer - sentences

'Six chrome plated cubes each with an inscription describing a visual situation in raised typeface.' I have a lot more research into this artist to do - what I've seen so far has really inspired my project.

Rebecca Horn - pencil mask

This looks quite sinister in the picture - maybe its meant to - but the mask fits perfectly on the artists face and she used it to draw. I'm not sure what it was that drew me to this concept, I like the fact that the marks would be different for every face, that they respond to the way that your body moves. You could never create the same drawing twice.

Richard Artschwager - tower 2

This tower is about communication. When two people talk through the wall the artist leaves only space for the face to be seen, highlighting the eyes and mouth and forcing them to focus on this. In my project, working with words, I want to experiment with removing all of this communication, to see how it effects people's personal interpretations.
Richard Long - Here the artist records his journey in writing with one line of physical descriptions and one with descriptive imagery.
Another piece which really caught my eye - Robert Morris - location space. Little indicators on each edge adjust to the space which the work is placed to measure how far away it is.

Allen Jones - chair

Antony Gormley - Three ways, Mole hole and passage

John Coplans - self portrait
Jeff Koons - Three ball equilibrium tank

Bob and Roberta Smith - Make Art not War
Bruce Mclean - pose for work on plinths

'Iconic and humorous commentary on what he considered to be the pompous monumentality of Henry Moore's large plinth based sculptures. Use of plinths is a reference to the dogmatic rejection of plinths as a legitimate base'

Charles Ray - Plank Piece

Dan Flavin - creates pieces of work that are dictated by the place they are to be exhibited. In the corner of Tate, the dimensions mean that it can hang in the middle of the wall with no support from below or above. The cross shape has no symbolic reference.
Heinz Mack - Light Dynamo

The best optical illusion I've ever seen!!
Helen Chadwick - Ego geometria sum : The labours

John Davies - The redeemers

extremely creepy, I found this very difficult to look at!!

Julian Opie - You see an office building

Edgar Degas - Little dancer aged 14

Man Ray - indestructible object

This object was made by Man Ray when Lee Miller left him. It is her eye attached to a metronome creating a beating, pulsing object that could watch him while he worked.

Michelangelo Pistoletto - door

This door is about personal identity in a world full of symbols and signs. I just realised when looking him up that I posted some more of his work earlier that was at the London Tate gallery.

Reg Butler - girl on a round base

Richard Serra - patience

This reminded me of a massive cliff face/mountain on a dark night, with two figures making their way across the top. I have no idea why.

Ron Mueck - ghost

I've seen some of his work last year in London at an exhibition called 'statuphilia'. His work is so lifelike but always the scale or shape is out of place. I don't usually particularly like work that places with scale, but his work is so effecting.
Rene Magritte - The future of statues

Thomas Demand - Zeichensaal (draft room)

Thomas Schutte - untitled

Yayoi Kusama - the passing winter

What struck me about this mirrored box, something I had never thought about with reflections like this, is that they are infinite. That just completely blows my mind!!

I got so much out of this trip it was a really productive day. The exhibition was split into three sections and layed out very nicely... particularly the 'remixed' part. This room was transformed into a silent disco complete with music choice, dance floor, and disco lights. It explored the human body and how it has been represented in sculpture throughout the ages. It was a refreshing change from the norm and we had a nice little boogy!