Artist Collaboration

A fellow student from the Interactive Arts course created a space whereby he created stencils for whoever to download and do whatever they like with it.

Here is what the stencil looks like:

And here is the version that I created:

CD Cover and Flyer Designs

One of my friends has started his own business where he deals in band merchandise and he asked me to create a logo for his website and flyers. As well as the CD cover for his own band. Its a black metal band and so the design was to be a bit dark.

Here are a a few examples of the different designs I gave him:

Don't Rock My Boat

I have really been getting into the idea of creating music video's Since I came back from Berlin where techno music was a priority, and after trying to animate a collage from the photo's taken in Berlin my mind has been running on overdrive with the amount of music animation video's that I want to create.

Recently my computer skills have grown and my bond with technology has also developed and I want to carry on progressing in this. I feel that digital art work is fantastic. It's the future and this is the route I am going to go down.

While jotting down my ideas for all the different music videos that I would like to create I decided to pack in the viscous cycle that I always get myself into where ideas are simply ideas and nothing is done about it, and if that means starting all of them at the same time then that is what I am going to do. On my way I have found this to be successful as through the journey I have learned a lot of things that can make the other animation better and so on as I have gone to no one for advice although I have found youtube to be very useful.

The first animation I started was a music animation for a techno tune beginning with a load swirling lights and then a stop motion piece of me walking along the Berlin wall. This is nowhere near finished and so it won't be added on here until it is at least near perfection.

The second animation I started is for the Bob Marley song 'Don't rock my boat' which will be pretty trippy when it is done. It is a rota scope animation. It is taking me a very long time but I am loving the process. Here is an incomplete image taken from this animation:

The third animation I have started is for another Bob Marley song called 'Mr Brown'. This is going to be a frog on a turn table spinning round and acting very drugged up...

A Rebours (Against Nature) Joris Karl-Huysmans

This is a book I read, suggested by Michael Howard. Oscar Wilde quoted it being the strangest book he had ever read and it is that, but it is fantastic. Here are a few quotes that I loved from it:

"It can be stated without fear of contradiction that in his chosen province man has done as well as the god in whom he believes."

"Sophistical studies, super terrestrial semi theological speculations; fundamentally, they are ardent aspirations towards an ideal, towards and unknown universe, towards a distant beatitude, as utterly desirable as that promise by the scriptures"

Schophenhauer came nearer to the truth. He did not drum into your ears the dogma of original sin; he did not try to convince you of the superlative goodness of a god who protects the wicked, helps the foolish, crushes the young, brutalizes the old and chastises the innocent. "if a god has made this world, I should hate to be that god, for the misery of the world would break my heart"

His theory of pessimism was the great comforter of superior minds and lotty souls; it revealed society as it was, insisted on the innate stupidity of women, pointed out the pitfalls of life, saved you from disillusionment by teaching you to expect nothing at all if you were sufficiently strong willed, indeed to consider yourself lucky if you were not constantly by some unforeseen calamity

Accessible to rich in intellect, that made it all the more difficult of attainment for the poor, whose clamorous wrath was more easily appeased by the kindly voice of religion.

The loveliest melody in the world becomes unbearably vulgar once the public start humming it and the barrel organs playing it, so the work of art that appeals to charlatans, endears itself to fools. It becomes common place, almost repulsive

IMPPRESSIONISM

Jules Laforgue 1883
In a landscape bathed with light, in which entities are modelled as if in coloured grisaille, the academic painter sees nothing but white light spreading everywhere, whilst the impressionist sees it bathing everything not in dead whiteness, but in a thousand conflicting vibrations, in rich prismatic decompostitions of colour. Where the academic sees only lines at the edges of things, holding modelling in place, the impressionist sees real living lines, without geometric form, built from thousands of irregular touches which, at a distance, give the thing life. Where the academic sees only things down in regular, seperate positions within an armature of purely theoretical lines, the Impressionist sees perspective established by thousands of imperceptible tones and touches, by the variety of atmospheric states, with each plane not immobile but shifting.
...The Impressionist sees and renders nature as she is, which is to say solely by means of coloured vibrations. Neither drawing, nor light, nor modelling, nor perspective, nor chiaroscuro: these infantile classifications all resolve in reality into coloured vibrations, and must be obtained on the canvas solely by coloured vibrations.
In this small and limited exhibition at Gurlitt's, the formula is clearest in monet...and Pissarro...where everything is obtained by means of a thousand small touches, dancing off in all directions like so many straws of colour-each struggling for survival in the overall impression. No more isolated melodies, the whole thing is a symphony, which itself is life, living and changing, like the "forest voices" of Wagner's theories each struggling for existance in the great voice of the forest, just as the unconcious, the law of the world, is the great melodic voice resulting from the symphonyof conciousnesses of races and individuals. Such is the principle of the Impressionist school of plein air. And the eye of the master will be the one which will discern and render the keenest graduations and decompositions, and that on a simple flat canvas. This principle has been applied in France, not systematically but by men of genius, in poetry and in the novel.

The lectures on Impressionism to Post Impression really inspired me. I really wish I was more aware of the history of art at an earlier point because now I feel that I can appreciate art more knowing where its roots are. I also feel that I am more aware of the depths and allegories of art works. Now that I understand paintings more I have started painting and seeing things with a different eye. A lot of quotes have inspired me like the one above and :

Impressionists "develop their own originality." by abandoning themselves "to their personal sensations".

Cezanne said "To paint after nature is not a matter of copying the objective world, its giving shape to your sensations". Monet and Rouen did not want common sense conceptions or prejudices about how things ought to look to interfere with his personal impressions. Monet told Perry not to paint objects and events in the world but patches of colour, advising her: "When you go out to paint, try to forget what object you have before you. Merely think, this is a patch of blue, here an oblong of pink and to paint it just as it looks to you". Cezanne says " I see in stains" "see like a man who has just been born".

Cezanne also said "Treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, everything in proper perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed towards a central point. Lines parallel to the horizon give breadth, that is a section of nature or, if you prefer, of the spectacle that the patter omnipotent: Acterne Deus spreads out before our eyes. Lines perpendicular to the horizon give depth. But nature for us men is more depth than surface when the need of introducing into our light vibrations, represented by reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of blue to give the impression of air".

Baudelaire's opinion of photography

This is an opinion that I find interesting as the topic has numerously crossed my mind. I believe that their is a truth in what he is saying but obviously when considering the use of photography in art today, it is not as applicable as photography has broadened into many fields of art especially when considering digital art and photo manipulation.

"An art of this type no longer created life, but merely reproduced it. It was this 'realistic' cult of nature which he was disturbed, its confusion with the beautiful, and the absence of dream and fantasy."

Photography was perceived as unfeeling, to be used by painters not as a model but as aide-memoir.

I've become more fascinated with drawing and painting:

Voluntary work - Developing an Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustain Development

Today - 16th March, I volunteered at Manchester Museum to take part in a study whereby the higher education academy (HEA) used me to find out how higher education courses can use museum spaces and their collections to aid interdisciplinary learning about and for sustainability.
For this I visisted different parts of the museum, examined a particular collection, reflected on and discussed sustainability issues with my peers. We each recorded our thoughts on a spider diagram and then discussed further. Over the 5 hours we had explored our thoughts and discussed more and so then kept going back to our spider diagram and adding further thoughts on the topic down in a different colour therefore showing how our thoughts had developed as the session had gone on and jotting down a key to show which colour came first etc. This was very interesting as everyone in the group had a different idea of what it was and I suppose a lot of it came down to what course they were studying. Purposefully HEA had asked for volunteers that studied art, materials science and social anthropology and so combining people that have been taught to or simply naturally think in an "abstract/Creative" way helped us gather a broader range of ideas and perspectives. The outcome was brilliant because not only were the outcomes great, we also learned a lot from each other. We then got to discuss with a member of staff from the museum questions that had been raised; one being, how can all of the correct information be gathered about an artifact especially when being faced with the issue of a language barrier and/or once translating what has been said, the discriptive words they used could be completely different to what british people use. Another issue would be that word of mouth through hundreds of years may have changed the purpose and meaning of a certain object. He agreed that this is an issue in some cases especially when a lot of the items were stolen through war times as trophy's/souveneers or to sell, which most often was the case with brass and ivory objects and then over time they've have been passed on through the family and then donated to museums. This way it is very difficult to retrieve information and usually archaeologists and historians come into place to estimate a story.
From this I learnt information about how museum spaces and their collections can aid interdisciplinary learning about and for sustainability and I developed a familiarity with the Manchester Museum and it's collections. I also expanded my understanding of sustainability and experienced a new way of working involving critical enquiry, listening and presenting ideas. It was a really great opportunity for me. I will soon be sent a report including what they have taken from the group of volunteers today as well as from two other museums, it seems like we were a great help to them.

The personal meaning mapping tool that we used was developed by John Falk and his colleagues, to measure learning in 'free-choice' learning settings such as museums. It is designed to measure how 'a specified educational experience uniquely affects each individual's conceptual, attitudinal and emotional understanding'. They used it today to record how our thoughts and ideas relating to 'sustainability' change throughout the day.

BRUNDTLAND (1987) Definition of Sustainable Development
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The definition has been criticised as too vague and more recently UNESCO have proposed three interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars for sustainabile development - economic development, social development and environmental protection. This formulation suggests the inclusion of social justice, health and poverty issues under the umbrella of sustainable development.

More voluntary work

I recently worked with the worldwide known artist Ben Pepper. He has done various commissioned work all over the world and this time he is setting off over to Berlin to work over there and asked for help in screen printing large monopoly money designed by him at Islington Mill. And so I helped him print them out in a range of different colours

The Love heart in the centre of the print is Ben's personal design that goes on most of his art pieces.

Here is a look into some of his other pieces of work

Panopoly

I volunteered to work with Panopoly. They are an organization dealing with artists across the world. Particularly performance artists. They organize events and exhibitions and I was asked to volunteer as a model, hospitality worker or a performer, I didn't mind which one and so was asked to perform which was a bit scary but I was excited to face a new kind of challenge. The artist that I was working for was called Anthea Bush who is based in Amsterdam and created four feathered helmets which were initially just sculpture pieces but she was asked if she would perform with them. My job was to wear one of the helmets but with it being so heavy I just had to sit or lay down with it on whilst the other performers with lighter helmets were able to wander around and perform different acts.

Here are a few images of the helmets:

This is the helmet that I was wearing...

Voluntary Work - Hulme After School Club (Adventure Playground)

I started working at an after school club on a thursday night with kids from the age of 4 to 16. Unfortunately I was late finding out about it and had to wait for a CRB check to come through so I missed out on a big chunk of the term but I still managed to get involved at the end and get to know a few of the children. They were great! Although pretty scary at times!

The objective was for 'childrens university' set up by the Manchester Metropolitan (MMU) to go into the adventure playgroung youth club in Hulme on a thursday night to get involved with the children and teach them about art and the environment. The kids were taught all about how recycling benefits the world that we live in and given examples of the damage that we put on the world like the melting of the ice caps. They were told that by recycling we can prevent it from happening.
All of the children then got together and with the help of the volunteers gathered objects that they wanted to recycle and took them into the youth club. So we had a huge collection of cereal boxes and egg boxes and milk cartons and cardboxes. Because the children had been told about the recycling benefit on the rainforests and the icy areas of the world, they started to make a rainforest including all of the animals and trees out of recycled objects and the same again for ice land. The ice land also included under water so there was lots of fish! The kids also set to work on making a model of Manchester as it produces a lot of polution which is very hard on the environment. The kids loved finding out about these factors. They could be factors that would be very boring for a child but it is important and so by encorporating art and fun into their learning they were happy and willing to participate.
One little girl in particular I grew a soft spot for. She was adorable. I helped her make a two story house with an attick and a stair case. And it was beautifully decorated in dots because as she explained "My mummy says I'm dotty, so I'm guna make my house dotty!", and it had an ace little man with a dog and a sofa and TV.
There were a few chalenges in the work as a lot of the kids had finished school and consumed however many E numbers before they had got there which made it all...Interesting. Luckily there was a few youth workers on hand that knew how to sort them out and break up fights which was very useful as even in the short time me working there I saw plenty of punched noses...Aren't they cute! There were also challenges in that the child isn't allowed to be handled which can become a problem if a child falls over and they want a hug. This is all down to happenings in the past with stories of child abuse and other unimaginable things. People are trying to be so careful now.
In the last week of working with the kids, we took them all over from Hulme adventure playground to MMU link gallery which was a scary experience trying to shift that many kids over busy roads but we got there safe in the end. In the link gallery the volunteers set up all of the children's work into 3 sections, the first being Manchester, the second being the rainforest and the third being Ice land and the sea. This was a great experience for the children as they got to see all of there work up on the gallery walls which must have made them feel really proud of themselves. The children's work was also put into a competition where three pieces of work were going to be selected as the winners and the wining children got a reward. All of the children from this also got a certificate and the those children over 7 got a passport which they can get stamped every time they complete something from children's university again.
This was such a great thing for these children as without trying to sound stereotypical, unfortunately due to living in a disadvantaged area only few of these children will experience higher education. In their situation very little people around them will go to university and so the child wouldn't be very likely to aspire towards this. And so by introducing childrens university to them they are getting and insight into the achievements that they can make.
Because of the economic crisis that out country is in now there has been a cut in the grant to Manchester Young Lives (an organisation run, providing the same facilities across Hulme, Whythenshawe, Ardwick and Moss Side) of £75,000 meaning that Hulme adventure play ground has had to shut down. This is a major problem! The children of that area needed the youth centre. It provided counciling if they needed it, the safety of a confined and supervised area for them to play in. It kept them from the dangers of the street and even gave a few of them an escape and an insight into a better life. It is really sad to see this taken away from them.

But conservatives hey! All for the rich and none for the poor

BERLIN

Berlin is by far one of the best cities I've visited. The overwelming essence of culture is mind blowing. Every street corner was packed with history and stories that in my opinion are far better than any art gallery I've been to. There seems to be mass freedom to all artists, if they want to "paint the town red" they will do it and do a fucking good job, a lot of these artists are non commissioned and purely doing their work to strongly express something or maybe even just purely to go crazy on a huge paint/spray paint piece across a huge wall just for the hell of it! Either way their free spirits and they're having a bloody good time!

Whilst in Berlin I visited a few art galleries. The first one being the Hamburger Bahnhof which was strange, as most art galleries are, but I didnt enjoy it much at all apart from the very few pieces that I felt I could relate to. The work that I came across in this gallery is typically the work that puts me off art and the only inspiration I feel from it is to make my work better. A lot of it was modern but nothing that made me overcome with thought. The first art piece you came to was a holding pin full of live reindeer and above them little birds in cages which drew us all to the conclusion that this is why the gallery stank of shit. The idea was based around a ritual that a certain tribe took part in where they would enlighten their spirits through the consumption of fliagaric mushrooms and for some reason they decided to drink the urine of animals such as birds and reindeers and rats etc that had been eating the fliagaric mushrooms. I thought the concept was quite fun but I can never help but think what is the point.
I did feel excited though to come across a few famous pieces by Andy Warhol such as the Elvis Presley print:

Tacheles
Tacheles was originally a department store in Berlin but later became used by the Nazi's as a prison. After the second world war it was damaged and abandoned. Now a group of squatters live there and create fantastic art pieces. Living there now for them is soon coming to an end as the police are trying the force them out but they're fighting back and building up barricades to stop them from coming in. Here are a few examples of the work produced within the Tacheles society:

The collage above inspired me the most from the Tacheles site and I have began to create my own collages using images taken from Berlin and creating pictures of the friends that I went to Berlin with.

I am pleased with these images but I am going to re-do them with smaller images because then I feel that more detail will show through. The next step I am taking with these images is to work out how to animate them so that the faces move because I want to make a Techno music video. The relevance is that Berlin is where techno originates. This will be brilliant once it is complete.

Animation Inspirations

I was attracted to this video because I feel that it looks very similar to my painting for the shelter exhibition...

I really want to try out animations again. I feel that they are frustrating but I am always so proud of the outcomes

I have bought a load of clay and I am going to create some animated shots. I love the jittery effect of the clay animation. It is so effective and somehow feels a bit more realistic and relative to normal life. For example Wallice and Gromit episodes. Absolutely brilliant

Site project

First day back to uni to start off 2011. And it wasn't too freshly I might add. And we are given the "site" project.
We were asked to define what makes a "a site specific work". Site specific work is art work that is created to to exist in a specific area. The work doesn't just have to be physical art works such as paintings and sculptures, it can also created through dance and performance. I guess that site specific art is also linked with environmental art. Environmentally I would consider the contrast between a natural area and a man made one. Or taking something from one environment and putting it into another where it doesn't normally belong for example taking snow from the Northpole and putting it in Africa. Or putting a country farm in the middle of a busy city such as New York.
When I think about the environment I am struck by the devastation that is currently in the pacific ocean. The trash vortex:

Over the years rubbish has ended up in the pacific ocean. The majority of it is plastic which is non bio-degradable which means the plastic will stay there reaking havoc, death and destruction. There a reports of sea life and birds being found dead with plastic inside of them such as lighters and tooth burshes etc as well as animals that have become trapped. I feel that this needs to stop and people need to have more concern for the world they live in. By simply cutting down on the amount of plastic they buy would be really beneifical. Even by carrying around their own bags instead of taking plastic carrier bags from shops would be a great help and recycle whatever plastic they use.

People need to be aware of this crisis as it is being held under wraps and I want to change that. I tried thinking of a place within the uni area which I could try and alter which had either a relevent or ironic characteristic. I starting thinking about areas that use a lot of plastic and areas that contain and/or are made from plastic. I then thought about an area in the uni that takes the use of plastic for granted and this is the plastic workshop because there is a huge disposal bin for wastage of plastic which will have no purpose other than to be disposed of into some derelict area which could become the ocean.
I decided to make posters and place them on this bin to make people aware of what they are doing. They must recycle.
Here are the posters that I made: