Notes on... a week and a tutorial

Had a good one today, talked with Matt and he was positive that i had a territory but was looking too big, instead of getting in and being specific. He mentioned something that i want to keep up which is small projects rather than sprawling experiments or one massive thing, but a project based on a quote or a drawing or one idea. I like this way of doing stuff, it'll hopefully keep me feeling productive and give me good momentum. I thought i should take the opportunity to recap my key things that i want to keep ticking over. My project is essentially to do with collecting but I've tried to narrow it down into the specifics I'm interested in. Accumulation, Curation and Frames and Boundaries. these drawings help show some of my starting points.

Other important things at the moment (still) are that  frames create context. A box of 'x' helps describe 'x'. you can't have a box of ... whatever 'x' is a description or a name, it helps create a criteria or typology for the artefact(s). Creating a space for that same 'x' helps validate 'x's reason for being there.

That the repetition of something- an artefact- on mass has the effect to impress only when it is extra ordinary in scale. Something uncommon, unseen or disproportionate to it's parts. Words like awesome are good here i think.

Notes on... things i've seen

I went to the John Soane museum at the weekend as i heard he was a collector extraordinaire- there was books and marble everywhere, hanging off every wall- the place seemed to drip and it was awesome. I especially liked the way he catalogued stuff, every thing seemed to be in it's place and had little numbers on things- one room which caught my attention was one where the walls could either slide, or were hinged or something and behind the wall covered in paintings were more paintings- layers of collecting is nice. Links in nicely to my stuff with storage and display. I should also reflect on the bottom drawer exhibition we went to at John Soane's Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing. A great exhibition which looked alot at collecting and display and the way the objects we keep are interacted with. All the stuff from the loft was placed in 2 rectangles on the floor of the gallery and it was weird to see the collection in an order but not be able to be seen or investigated, it had been carefully placed but in piles or on top of each other to invite you to view from different angles- there were also photos from exhibitors homes on the walls- of the things they kept and had either stored or displayed. The pictures picked up tiny idiosyncrasies and detailed the subtle, interesting banality of the homes, they really gave a feeling as to the exhibitors character and what they found important.

I also went to Modern Art Oxford at the weekend- very good, (and some beautiful identity and poster work for the museum i have to say) It was curated well with no explanation as you went round and then a 15 minute documentary with the curator and the artists about the work- that's the way i like it. The work being shown was by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller and was teh sweet. My favourite piece was a sculpture called 'The Killing Machine' and it started with a big red button with a spotlight that you had to press to start it and then there was a light and a speaker moving around this big frame and these robotic arms began to observe and look investigatively at this reclining electric type chair. The music crescendo after a while and the robot arms began to attack the chair with pneumatic pistons- i make it sound whack but it was awesome- the music created this narrative effect, the robots seemed very real, or had personalities or whatever due to their form and also their lights which behaved like eyes, and the best part was the shadow which was cast on wall which was horrifically menacing and scary. Good art. It seems more relevant than it did at the time in relation to my project, when i think about pinning butterflies to boards and about the button at the beginning and the choice/ viewer initiated horror.

Pres

Seriously I'm so behind the times with these posts. This is from a 4 day project about bringing about an upgrade through decay (like a snake shedding it's skin or muscle tearing to grow stronger.)

These are some pretty pictures of decay- looking at tearing, ripping, and dying things rather than the dead.

Messing about with time in decay looking at how time plays a part in it.

This was an experiment where a book cover was photocopied and then the copy was copied and so on for 150 pages creating a distorted, pixelated version.

These coins were created by leaving in coke for different amounts of time- they followed thinking around the ideas of wholeness and subtraction and asked 'when is an artefact at it's best?'

I created this stamp that would degrade over time to produce a smudge of its former self- this and the photocopies and the inbuilt change and decay in the outcomes produce interesting limited editions and groups.

This is as still from a short animation where the original shapes were copied and then that was copied, similar to the photocopies but more human and much more varied- the interesting part is that when 3 consecutuive frames are placed next to each otehr it is impossible to distinguish the first from the last. The decay is subtle and gradual. Each new variation is a change from the one before and if we accept that decay is change and that, as the saying goes, a change is a holiday (where a holiday is considered an upgrade) then decay = upgrade.

This is an image which hit me hard and fitted the brief well. It speaks of conservation and challenges the perceptions of decay.

Repetition, repetition, repetition. Another 4 day project, this time concerned with accumulation and the effects of repetition.

These clock represent the start of my interest in collections and collecting- the separatley mundane clocks are brought together on mass to create an engaging collection.

I began to think about how many trees make a forest- separatley there are 15 trees, but when put inside a frame the trees become bounded and layered creating a forest. I began to look at proximity through this aswell.

This experiment is concerned with rhythm and pattern, using the most basic form: a black line. I began to put these lines inside frames giving the image a greater pattern like appearance. Maybe the frame or boundary gives it's contents a context in which to be a pattern or collection.

For part of the project I collected photos of house numbers: a seldom appreciated artefact- and created this book which displays them numerically, both as a collection and, due to separate pages, on an individual basis. In this format the numbers can be appreciated singularly and favourites can be concieved.

I also displayed them as a poster giving thought to their posisiton on the street in the layout so as to give more context. In the poster the whole group is viewed at the same time, leaving the space for similarities to be recognised- these similarities begin to form small patterns.

Last Slide.

100 Post-its

I guess I'm kinda behind the times with these next few posts- not been hanging at my computer as much as normal i guess. As part of identifying what we want to do for our final project we began by writing 100 hundred ideas on 100 post-its, easier said than done i found. After that we put them on the walls of the studio in categories which we found common ground on and approximately 24 headings developed containing in total approx 5000 post-its (54 people in the class). Every heading was assigned two people- and then these guys split the post-its in their heading into categories based on similarities or whatever. Then 3 brief ideas were presented and voted on for the 2 to be carried on a be written up- From these resulting 48 briefs we individually picked 2 to run with for 8 days- after which we presented what we had done and what we aimed to do in the next couple of weeks.

These are my 100 post-its:

clocks,

shaving/ coffee ritual,

goosebumps/ hair raising,

opposites,

anesthetic/ numb,

stair politics,

echoes,

game theory,

stale/ stagnation,

breathing in sync/ walking in sync,

repetition,

collect & accumulate (validated through it's peers),

collector as subversive and transgressive,

collector as organiser + criteria,

collecting trophies/ memorials,

raymears total canoe,

labyrinth,

insurance,

fortification,

dead photos/ slides,

piano tune/ roll,

house numbers,

keats and the imagined,

palimpsest,

advertising through artifacts,

valid/ invalid,

polarity,

locke and temporal flux,

multi valued logic,

moths,

using existing forms/ structures,

volume (sound etc),

pattern,

type in real,

fade/ decay/ texture,

tidal swimming pool,

numerals/ counting,

self contained things- crabs & mussels,

guilt,

hand written notes,

excess materials,

accumulation,

choice as a limiter,

constraints as liberating,

light as a material,

exhibition touching,

swarms,

sacrifice, hornets/ holey ice,

end grain, end cardboard,

symmetry,

stencils,

mushrooms,

prosaic,

implication, pragmatic linguistics,

mnemonics,

sticky tape,

immediacy of use/ feedback,

pain- ache - desire,

prioritising,

the act of staring something,

guild,

compromise,

joints/ fixings,

power in consistency,

metal type,

trains/ tracks,

tickets,

toilet door signs,

habits,

tautology,

spectacle,

slow design,

sleep in a book, sheets of a book, bed time story,

where you are = how you are,

non- action,

las vegas hooker cads,

facile,

irrational,

complete,

loneliness,

gray(-)scale,

inevitability,

mutant,

entropy,

segment,

gargoyle,

scythe,

some chemists mean contrivance,

mittens on string,

compassion fatigue,

canal locks, woman on phone "are you here?",

drawing machines,

originate,

tattoo fonts,

peg type boards,

cathartic (sis),

copy,

perennial/ ephemeral.

No Shows Forever Poster

Fun poster- good show.

Blue

Photos of underwater blues- looking at shadow, pattern and perspective.

Blists Hill Posters

Found these from my time in the printers at the Victorian museum in Blists Hill. The second is Victorian Lamination i.e. dipped in a big vat o' wax. It gives a beautifully see through quality and sets the ink instantly. I long for the olden days sometimes.

Own It

I went to a lecture on the 23rd at the LCC on the could-be-boring topic of copyright and infringement. I turned up  because some sweet dudes were talking: A lawyer (whose name i forget, apologies), Michael Johnson of Johnson Banks, Paul (i think Brazier) from AMV BBDO, and Kjell Ekhorn of Non-Format fame. Incidentally Kjell is one of my favourite guys ever- I've loved his work like most for, years but he talked with intelligence, conviction and wit too- good guy. Actually all were, especially Paul who was great to listen to and, whilst described (in a negative way) by the MC Michael Johnson as an Ad-Man, he spoke more like an academic, despite obviously being a highly competent practitioner- i think that's how i want to be. Anyway the subject predictably wasn't bland and shit and moved rapidly from copyrighting to cliche, pop-culture, originality and working practice. Really interesting stuff- thought I'd note down as much for myself, some of the notes i made. Start with what you don't want and work with the opposite. (i.e. for a boat company don't draw a boat) - Originality. Originate. -  Looking. Appreciation. Regurgitation. - Graphic design is Craft. - Make your own voice / language. - Culture as language = style as language. - the problem occurs if you copy the current style (or does it become a movement?), no-one would stop you copying modernism. - rip off pop-culture and make it your own. - "when we feel we're in a crowded space, we just move on." (Kjell Ekhorn on Non-Format's style. - We're all one big studio.