The Bare Necessities...

So since starting 3D/Spatial, I admit, the work has distracted me away from blogging, but thus far, I must say although the work load seems a little intense, the projects are in fact very interesting. Our "re-use, re-make, re-invent" project had us tearing apart one piece of furniture in order to assemble it all back together as another piece of furniture. This project had me thinking in all different directions, first and foremost the design of my new piece of furniture, I wanted to create so much with too little a piece of furniture but in the end I decided on a small, multi-purpose household item that would ideally be placed by the door to keep you from forgetting your keys and wallet or phone. The hammering, screwing and sawing might I add, was definite fun! =D

Then came the "10x10x10" project. As much as we beg for it, complete liberty isn't always easy...a weekend of work where we had to photograph 10x10x10 left me a little dazed for ideas but I managed to torture my dorm mates into helping me out in my photographs. But then the week progressed into some very interesting group scale work as well as material experimentation...two days that I can definitely say, were by far my favourite. Manipulating the different materials and working with new ones like metal and wax and plaster was very exciting! With the scale work we had to act out the theory of 10x10x10 in a small, medium and large scale, measuring distance or time. My personal favourite photograph of the bunch was my "10 steps away" >>






Designing the spatial project for the 10x10x10 was very experimental. I worked with several different scales but came out with a design that I actually quite liked, and am possibly considering making apart of my future home =P

And then came the pop-ups and pop-downs, the project we're working on right now where we began by researching things that were "temporary. desirable. exclusive." The catch?...nothing christmas related, yup, no santa's, elves or reindeers, were allowed to be seen in our photographic research, so amongst christmas crazed crowds we had to find those few decorations which weren't specifically christmas related, my favourite photographs happened to be of lights...

and now the design and building process where the one necessity is for the structure to be able to pop up and pop right back down again, AKA finally a project that slips right into my suitcase without any worries...temporary. desirable. and exclusive. here I come, hopefully! =)

A.

A balanced scale is more problematic than it looks in a poster for justice...

Vis. Com v.s 3D/Spatial

To all that have ever gotten to a cross road and wondered left or right, I now know exactly how you feel; with visual communications and spatial design being just that (opposites) I’m quite confused on which to choose. Both seeming entirely appealing but in so many different ways I don’t know whether to satisfy the story telling and imaginative side of me with vis. com, or whether I should choose to build on that constructive and design based drive that I have; an internal argument clearly worth settling.

            With regard to fashion and textiles and fine art, at least I’m dead set on them. With fine art, the lack of a client based agenda (in the future that is) worries me and the idea of spending a lifetime creating for the purpose of just creating although very appealing, just wouldn’t sit right career wise for me and the fact that I don’t necessarily conform with the tutor’s ways of thinking artistically definitely doesn’t help. With fashion and textiles, I enjoyed the rotation. Very much so actually; the experimentation and lucidity behind the concept of just letting go and letting it come to you was an intense difference to the way I usually operate with my artwork. However career wise, I don’t think it’s the right path for me either. Which leaves me with visual communications and 3D/spatial.

            I was always astonished with the work of architects and interior architects, their ability to create from nothing, which I know is what any artist does really, but with buildings and structures it’s different; your building something, you are creating a structure that is storey’s high that marks your definite presence in the world and the effect you have had on it, a signature that’s a building high or a room wide. Not to mention the variety of career choices I can opt for, the countless ideas I can translate out of my mind and into reality and the countless ways I can use my education to change (and I realise how cliché this is but it has to be said) the world somehow; assistance to those unfortunate is something I am intensely passionate about and so if I do happen to choose a career path in say architecture or something of the likes, I would more than likely feel more capable of providing that assistance and offering my services.

            I feel like creating is something I can and would ultimately like doing, however when it comes to comparing it to visual communications, a field where telling stories and conveying messages in cunning and dexterous ways is your career, how can it not be appealing? I must say my imagination is the well I dip into most for ideas and so in an area like this, I can’t help but think, not only would I enjoy it, but I would get to express myself while doing so, something I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to do in 3D/Spatial. Not to mention, after seeing the works of Dominic Wilcox, temptation to such a lifestyle increased to unmentionable levels.

            However, one thing that definitely scares me, with both areas, is that I tend to opt for simplicity and with such competitive attitudes now-a-days, I worry that in either area, I wouldn’t be noticed, simply fly under the radar with things that aren’t appealing to a society which has proven itself to be for complex indeed.

            So when it comes down to it, the two areas present me with careers and a lifestyle that I can imagine myself loving entirely, the only question left, is which one do I choose?

A.

The last rotation...access to the "other" building at last!

Horizontal meets vertical

Angle

 Yup, it's 3D/Spatial. Into the new building we went and onto what was possibly the rotation with the most amount of work. 

They had us building things in class and then tearing them down just as fast so we can have time to run around outside taking photographs and sketching, which for me was the funnest part of the rotation, especially because of that list of words they gave us I found myself taking pictures of things I usually wouldn't and coming out with some pretty strong images! 

Junction



Boundry



Levels. Angles. Shadows. Also, if you look real close, it says look right on the left handside and look left on the right handside, making this, a favourite of mine.

Levels. If you can see it, I was trying to concentrate on the foreground, but also trying to capture the levels of the building in the background.

Angles. Angles. Angles.

Slice.

The hardest part for me, was the sitting down and creating. The 3 objects that they wanted us to make; 

"something to walk through, that wasn't a building"  

"something to support someone, that wasn't a chair"

and

"something to contain an object, that wasn't a box"

Safe to say I had a few ideas, I thought I knew what I wanted to make, it was the actual making part that didn't go too well with me. The lack of materials and then wanting to deform them in unrealistic shapes, I suppose is what left too many peices of wood broken and too many wires snapped. I was leaning towards more circular objects before i realised that maybe I was being slightly unrealistic. Sooo, I decided to venture out a little bit more, true it meant starting all over, but I still had 2 days till crit.

In the end I came up with a multi-purpose container, which could both hold something as well as let you hang things on it.

Something on the likes of a bridge.

And last but not least, a lounge bed.

Put in it.

Hang on it.

Cross throught it.



Overall, I quite enjoyed 3D/Spatial, true, I struggled a little in the beginning, but as soon as I picked up the hang of it, I felt like it came naturally.

And thats that. Eight weeks of work come down to 30 minutes of assessment. Monday 10:00 am, here I come.

A. 



Class...it's Story time

Oh Vis. Com, how much of a difference it was in that class. Art had purpose again! After fine art, I wasn't so sure of that, but vis. com restored my faith. I like having something to say about a peice of work; my source of inspiration, the reason behind it, anything really to validate it's creation. Ofcourse I know that not every artist thinks that way, but I like to and so when we got to vis. com, whoo the fast pace was intimidating, but I really enjoyed executing the class projects, only because the first project had my mind churning and brainstorming which I quite liked because I ended up with so many thoughts I wouldn't have otherwise come up with...which then put the rest of the projects into perspective. It was all pretty much think on the spot from there on; with having to come up with ways of telling a story, with 13 images or less and in a significantly subtle manner I had my work cut out for me. Thankfully though I was happy with the end product, simple but it said what I wanted it too.
Project number 3. That's it, that's the one i loved.
                        "Create an original and clever way of sending an unspoken message....Send a message on behalf of someone"

Again, I was slightly imtimidated by the concept of the idea of sending the message on the behalf of someone else, wondering if I could actually get my message across, but the sun that day helped...I marched to the grassy area in the courtyard and planned my project and after a final ok from one of the tutors I was quite excited, only because I really wanted to convey this message because of how close to me it was...



change

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

                      Thanks, Maria Robinson.

A. 

Where did the "fine" in fine art go...anyone?

The fast track lifestyle of London has in fact derailed me slightly from blogging, but that's what I'm here to do now! :)

I suppose I should go back to where I left off, which was just at the end of Fine Art and at the beginning of Vis. Com. When it came to fine art, I. was. excited. There was nothing else to it other than that. I was expecting technical skills and maybe some life drawing lessons, experimentation with art, but instead, I was intensely shocked; being an artist that admires detail and percision I was horrified to discover that if in fact your drawing resembles the object in front of it in any manner what so ever, it is in fact entirely inadequate. After having my work somewhat laughed at and entitled "anul" (a word I'm sure anyone would love to relate their artwork too) my artisitc self-esteem was low and confusion had settled in pretty deep, accompanied by a certain degree of panic and fear; drawing and painting is what I'm good at and if I couldn't prove that in fine art, I felt pretty sceptical that I was going to be able to do it anywhere else.

I realise that the tutors' aims were to try and make us see differently and rather than drawing everything so exact, we should try and draw things by not just seeing them, but seeing the world around them too, but does that dismiss entirely other ideas of art? I mean i realise that art now-a-days can be something as simple as a close up photograph of a pin in a cushion, but does that automatically dismiss the art of capturing detail too?

Safe to say after a week of drawing from the installations and reaching a level of tediousness that I had never come across while doing art and then having a week to myself to create what I wanted, but not getting any particular feedback on it, I felt quite disappointed.
I did end up liking one of the paintings that I came out with and it wasn't until the rotation had actually finished and we had to moved onto Vis.Com that I talked to a friend of mine that made me understand the reason behind the fine art tutors' ways of thinking that I actually understood fine art, but didn't necesserily agree with it.
John, my friend, had said to me that if we all drew with percision and detail and all from the same installations, then we would all end up with exactly the same artwork. Thanks John, that actually gave me some clarity on what the tutors were on about.

And so it was time to put fine art behind me and bid the likes of scribbling and smudged paint, farewell.

Onto Vis.Com it was.

A.

Ophelia

So...Other than stumbling in, say oooh 10 minutes late to the first contextual studies class and not having my images either (which i wasn't aware we had to bring), I thought this part of the course was going to be somewhat dodgy and supposedly unenjoyable. That however, changed within the first five minutes though; the friendly environment of the class made it easy to talk and our Tutor, Kate, was pretty cool too. We discussed the few images that had been brought to class and then went on to discussing the first chapter of the book "Ways of seeing" by John Berger, and although his twisted and lengthy ways of writing didn't appeal to me, i liked his subject matter and general underlying tone as well as his ways of questioning social outlooks on artwork and presenting issues like the statistics of educated people and they're likelihood of going to galleries in comparison to the likelihood of uneducated people visiting galleries, which i found was quite interesting. For me though, the part of the discussion that was most interesting, was the discussion of that photographers work (who for the life of me i can't remember his name) but stages these set-ups which generally could take up a staff of, I believe it was said, 50 people and up to a year of creating the actual set and all for a single, intensely dynamic photograph. My personal favourite was the photograph entitled Ophelia, it encapsulated the essence of Shakespearean Ophelia with a modern day twist and adaptation to modern day society with the same implication and suggestion of women's depression/possible oppression.

Safe to say it was a good start and introduction to Contextual Studies. So...here's to hoping the rest of the year goes like first class went, minus the late entrance and abscent work that is! :P

A.

Head's Up, fresh meat comin' through...

Everything about me seems to shout either "fresh meat" or "the tourist" amongst a crowd...whether it's the permanently attached maps to my palm or the way I stop and stare at everything I see that amazes me, ergo the countless photographs of somewhat normal sights, I suppose.
Nevertheless, i think moving to London has definitely been a great experience and whilst I must admit I still feel slightly intimidated walking the streets of London and being flushed by crowds pouring in from all different directions and feeling like I've experienced the apocalypse on a Saturday on Oxford Street, I can't wait for the rest of the year to pan out; to see what on Earth I'll end up specialising in after the diagnostic period and to maybe discover a little bit more about the places and people of London without clutching my bag in fear of a pick-pocketer :p

A.