Wednesday 21 October 2009

Burn up in the atmosphere.

Since the begining of the brief; Psycho Cities, in my mind the outcome has been that of a small scale city, built up from collected &found industrial materials; various metals, plastics, glass, or anything that has caught my eye.

Then the penny dropped, why does that have to be the end? Why must the city be the final piece?
I've started to see the city as the beginging, what can I take from this metal structure? Where can this structure be placed? What sort of reaction do I want from this object?!
I'm sure all this sounds nonsensical and ridiculous, but it makes perfect sense to me.

I really didnt want photography to be the final piece, which I guess is why I was so determined to create a structure, but then, photography is a way of manipulating the audience, the viewer see's exactley what you want them to see, they may not feel the way you intend, or even give reaction at all, but they still see exactley what you put in front of them - I would quite like to elaborate on where I'm going with this one, but I've not worked out exactley what I'm trying to get across with regards to my own body of work.

A city moves so fast, yet within the city there are areas where nothing happens for days on end, these are the areas I will explore, quiet carparks, run down old buildings, but the lighting has to be right, it has to be man made, I think?! Placing a city made from a city within a city.

Check out Carl Woolley, his work is amazing. He doesn't seem to capture much apart from silence and stillness, but combined with strong lighting, sharp shadows and a peacefullness that only seems to come at night, he creates some really beautiful photography.

Wednesday 23 September 2009

Psycho-Cities

BA (hons) Interdisciplinary is well under way, the first brief, fortunately for me is all about making. Titled; psycho cities, will provide evidence for the assessment of two modules - Visual studies and Materials and processes. The brief aims to draw parallels between research & recording; and the development of imagery and objects through the process of thinking, experimentation and making.

Beautiful. So, over the summer i've developed an increasing interest in numbers, line and general construction/architecture, this is going to be my starting point for this brief, to look at the construction going on within the city, along with the lack of, this will also keep in line with the theme of 'social commentary' that I developed last year.

To evidence the brief, we are to produce 2D and 3D, through photography, collage and a series of small objects. As this brief will be exhibited on Light Night, at Nation of Shopkeepers & will remain for 1 month (excitinggg) I'd quite like to run with the theme of Wonkaland, this will also tie in with the community art project that Alice and moi have got ourselves involved with (alice, we need to start working on this)

I'm hoping to produce a small scale model of Leeds, but not as we know it.

Watch this spaaaace!


Tuesday 25 August 2009

The summer is almost over, not that it even began over here in Leeds, nontheless, back to school in september. I'm uber looking forward to it, hurrah for education! New faces. New briefs. New building (nowhere near as convienient/well layed out as vernon street) 

The summer brief is perfect in every way, scale models :D! great joyyy. 

Amsterdam on friday, much needed holiday/small break. I can't work out whether i'm excited or nervous. umm. Im gonna take a few memory cards, hopefully get a shit tonne of photos. I also really really really want to go to the small toyshop in the really fancy shopping centre, all of the toys aree oldskool and made out of wood. fuck you plastic shit. 

Thursday 2 July 2009

I think it's the light.




Dave Milligan
Adrian Brearey
Alice Gordon.
Emmerson Shepeard.


So, these are the final images that were exhibited, a photo of the plynth etc will be up soon..ish?!

Saturday 20 June 2009

Closer than you think

The exhibition opened last night, which went suprisingly well, real good turn out too, it was so difficult to move around and the temperature must have been around 10,000,000 degrees. Also the wine was bad, vinegar sort of bad. However, it did take me 4 glasses to work this out ;)

I felt kinda bummed out that noone dare spin my plinth, after all the messing around to build and blag a pottery wheel from dear old diane, but this is no major issue, I along with a few others kept giving it a good whack! 

Everyone has done so well, the standard of work is solid, some really impressive artwork. It feels really really good to be part of something thats creative, something where we're all on the same level, yet so diverse. It's brilliant. I cant wait until september! Interdisciplinary BA (Hons) Yes please!

Naturally, we went for celebratory drinks, this ended up being rather messy but real good times, with real good people. 

Hurrah! 21 on tuesday, good times. 

Sunday 7 June 2009

No calm, just storm.

There are so many things that need to be accomplished this week, no sitting around drinking tea and smoking fags, oh no! full steam ahead im afraid.

- tube lighting/light bulb
- pat-testing (wednesday 10th)
- rotating motor to be fitted
- small plynth (same dimensions as frame)
- paint job.

I feel hugely let down by ASDA right now, the information on the website is awfully misleading, thus leading to massive worries about the final exhibition piece, they only print 20x16 via the internet & home delivery, which takes 3 working days, giving me only 2 days before opening to get it all together, i feel a small disaster heading this way.

Stress!

However, I have every confidence in my determination & friday 19th will be wonderful, everything will run according to plan, smooth as piiee.

Saturday 6 June 2009

Charles Bukowski - Girl on the esculator.

as I go to the escalator
a young fellow and a lovely young girl
are ahead of me.
her pants, her blouse are skin-tight.
as we ascend, she rests one foot
on the step above and her behind
assumes a fascinatin shape.
the young man looks all around he appears worried,
he looks at me.
I look away.

no, young man, I am not looking,
I am not looking at your girl's behind.
dont worry, I respect her and I respect you.
in fact, I respect everything; the flowers that grow, young women,
children, all the animals, our precious complicated universe, everyone and everything.

I sense that the young man now feels better and I am glad for him.
I know his problem: the girl has a mother, a father, maybe a sister or a brother,
and undoubtedly a bunch of unfriendly relatives
and she like to dance and flirt and she likes to go to the movies and sometimes
she talks and chews at the same time and
she enjoys really dumb TV shows and she thinks she's a budding actress and she
doesn't always look so good and has a

terrible temper and sometimes she almost goes crazy
and she can talk for hours on the telephone and she wants to go to Europe some summer soon
and she wants you to buy her a near-new Mercedes and she's in love with
Mel Gibson and her mother is a
drunk and her father is a racist
and sometimes when she drinks too much she
snores and she's often cold in bed and
she has a guru, a guy who met Christ
in the desert in 1978, and she wants to be a dancer and she's unemployed and she
gets migraine headaches everytime she
eats sugar or cheese.

I watch him take her up
the escalator, his arm
protectively about her waist, thinking he's
lucky,
thinking he's a real special guy,
thinking that nobody in the world has
what he has.

and he's right, terribly
terribly right, his arm around
that warm bucket of
intestine,
bladder,
kidneys,
lungs,
salt,
sulphur,
carbon dioxide
and
phlegm.

lotsa
luck