July 2011
4 posts
after the event
Well, the course has finished and I’m still doing a bit of work here and there.
My plan was to start a new blog for anything that I might do, but it seems silly to throw all of this away so I’m just going to keep developing what’s here. In lieu of an entirely new blog, I’ve changed the theme so at least it looks a bit fresh and new.
Now that the course is over I can...
June 2011
26 posts
“Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was...”
– Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Don’t start from the good old things but the bad new ones.”
– Bertolt Brecht
please disregard
the following. I wasn’t going to publish it but I need to try and use it for some positive reflection.
I only posted today that I was concerned that the show had too many elements and that perhaps it needed stripping down a bit. After the private view I’m almost convinced that I’m right. I’d like to say it was the fault of the visitors but I’m the person that...
all watched over by machines of loving grace
is a fascinating series of documentaries by Adam Curtis that’s on iPlayer.
For my part, I’m less than enamoured of the machines after some fairly spectacular technological failures at the private view this evening. Projector - dead.
After some rescue attempts with a replacement I’m not sure what I’m going to do. If I was of the right temperament I’d probably just...
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summative evaluation encore
I already handed the evaluation in, but I have a couple of niggling criticisms that keep bothering me.
Well, just one really. And it’s not really a criticism as much as a statement on where I am at the moment.
As I was putting the work up, I was getting more confident in the drawings and almost felt the need to strip a lot of the other stuff away. Like it was only there because I...
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summative evaluation
I would like to start by stating that I am extremely proud of how this project has progressed. I feel as though I worked with all of the new skills and confidence gained as part of the first two sections of the course and developed them further and have ended up with a selection of work and final presentation that I can be satisfied with. I think I have met all of the aims of my initial proposal...
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environmental data
I keep mentioning how I have been working with the atmospheric reports I had printed from the stored data at the Old House.
My initial plan was simply to use them as a ready made and pin them straight to the wall as a foil for the drawings I’ve done. But they were far too intelligible. Everything else I’m putting together has a sense of impenetrability or strangeness about it.
So I...
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telephones
I’ve managed to rewire my telephone handsets!
I’m really not sure why the idea suddenly entered my head, but I couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work and it has. They now function as speakers. Very happy.
The idea was in response to the participatory part of my original brief. Whilst I’m not so interested in actual participation anymore, I still want the...
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The ambient sounds of the Old House combined with...
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repetition and psychoanalysis
A very vague overview of some research I’ve been doing as I go along. I’ve been meaning to post it for ages. It’s all in reference to Freud’s writing. I think it illuminated some of the reasons I’ve been doing things quite well.
The most obvious reference to repetition in Freud’s work is in the essay ‘Remembering, Repeating and Working Through’. In...
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Drawing sounds.
I’ve layered the more...
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putting it together
I’m really excited at the moment.
As I start to pull the different strands of my work together I think (hopefully) that certain themes I was working with are becoming more apparently.
The one I’m most interested in is the contrast being subjective and objective, and handmade and machine made - and how these terms might become slightly confused.
Again - this is where sound is...
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final show thoughts
As I start to plan what my final show presentation might be, I find myself struggling to communicate how specific everything I’m choosing is. I suppose it’s just because I have quite a strong instinct when it comes to think I do and don’t like, but everything I’m choosing is very deliberately selected.
From the clips I want to hang things with, to a specific tape recorder...
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birthday surprise
So, it was my birthday at the beginning of April. A particularly thoughtful friend decided to put together a package of various creative type things for me. Part of it was this amazing paper. It’s maybe the most delicate paper I’ve ever come across. Parts of it are totally falling apart (almost like tumble dryer lint like in the Gabriel Orozco piece I posted ages ago). And despite...
May 2011
11 posts
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where's the chair?
All the talk of presentation has got me thinking. I have all but finalised how I would like the work displayed in the Old House. Just three large (five litre) laboratory glass beakers spaced evenly in front of the fireplace, with ropes coming out of them and (hopefully) crystals developing. The positioning is key, because when the chair was functional it was kept close to the fire so as to keep...
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tick tock tick
Having realised that time and it’s passing are so important to this project, I’ve been thinking about the most effective way to incorporate it into my work and/or its presentation.
I’ve collected a few time keeping devices - a stopwatch, an egg timer, an wind up clock and a metronome. Trying to select which is most appropriate is proving problematic.
I’m intending on...
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final show shocker
Whilst I think everyone has been trying to immerse themselves in the process of the project and not think about what the final outcomes might be, this was impossible last week when we were forced to start thinking about what technology we might need for the final exhibition. Scary.
Something I would love to do is set up some kind of direct webcam link between the exhibition at the college and the...
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client meeting two
Just after we came back from the easter holidays, we met with Alexia and Jules from the Old House again.
Thankfully it was another really positive meeting and they seemed happy with what I was planning. My worry about whether I’d be allow to place salt in the house was sorted out. Apparently they have some special material that when used as a lining for an object means you can put anything...
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rethought brief
A few weeks ago, I read back over my brief and compared what it proposed to where I am now. Below are a few bullet points that illustrate the ways in which it has adhered to and changed from my starting point:
1. The most important development has been my reconsidering of what a ‘live’ element might be. Whilst at the outset I wanted to stage some kind of performance involving me in...
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specification
The first development of the project that I want to cover is that I have now narrowed down the subject of the work from the various chairs in the Old House to just the salt chair. Although this seemed daunting at first, I realise now that it’s exactly what the project needed and has moved my thinking forward no end.
My reason for choosing the salt chair is the fact that it is the only chair...
back on track
After a not exactly brief interlude, I’m back online and can resume blogging. A broken laptop charger being the cause of the hiatus. This is a massive relief since entries I want to write have been creating a backlog and I can now start to work through them.
Prepare for a flurry of blogging!
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April 2011
9 posts
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what the folk say →
I’m so frustrated that this wasn’t on when we visited Compton Verney at the beginning of the year.
‘What the Folk Say’ is a series of interventions by artists and curators who have selected artifacts from Compton Verney’s folk art collection and repositioned them in telling places within the rest of the gallery.
A few artists that I really like have participated,...
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peer group critique
Thursday was our first peer group critique.
I missed the one the week before so took part in the second one with the few others who also missed out. I enjoyed it, but wished I’d been in the bigger one just to get more perspectives on what I’m doing.
I really loved looking at everyone else’s work, hearing them talk about it, and trying to provide helpful suggestions. I did my...
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assessment feedback
It was the mid-module formative assessment today.
The one at the end of the second part went really well and I got straight distinctions. So today was a bit of a shock. Although it went really well, and there wasn’t any criticism per say, I managed one distinction and the rest merits. The one real plus was actually this blog! Although I think maybe I lost ground because I use it for so many...
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client meeting one
Today the group of us doing the Old House project met with Alexia for the first time. I was just expecting a casual chat but it was actually a semi-formal presentation. This is good, I think. I feel more as though our efforts are actually wanted, as opposed to being accepted by default. I also hadn’t fully grasped that our work may form an actual exhibition there. I still have trouble...
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thought
I’ve realised, I think, that my interest in the techniques and media I’m using is to do with mourning.
My interest in being in the space, and performing such repetitious actions, is a protest against the passing of time. But inevitably the repetitions also mark its passing.
Things change.
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