Sunday, December 12, 2010
Turner Prize 2010 exhibition at Tate Britain: Susan Philipsz
Turner Prize 2010 exhibition at Tate Britain: Susan Philipsz
susan philipsz - i haven't experienced any of her work but I love the ideas. I heard about it quite a while ago and it stuck in my mind. I probably heard about it because she had been nominated for the turner prize but I didn't catch that bit at the time. I just scanned the other artists, I read that the painter who's nominated is ground breaking and all that but I'm just not that interested, I took a peek but it still looks like painting to me. It just didn't strike me in the way that, i hope, the first viewing of a cubist painting might have struck me were I around at the time. Maybe it would be different face to face. I suppose you could say, and i'm sure plenty of people are saying, that susan's work is just singing. This is true but it speaks to me! It's not about creating a musically beautiful sound, its about creating emotional responses to a place and hopefully inciting a response from the audience too. It's using voice in art. Its using sound in an almost non-musical way or at least in a non music establishment way. That works for me. Its almost the equivalent of an artist looking at, for example, the paintings nominated for the turner prize this year and seeing the complexity and quality within them but a lay person looks at them and just sees them as paintings. Susan is using music in that way in that it's a tool in her art, the art of site-specific installation. A musician might listen to it and hear that she's no musical professional, that she's not treating the music itself in any new or ground breaking way. In the same way I might use, for example, slackrope walking in a piece. I'm no great circus performer, just as Susan is not a trained musician. Its what we do with it that counts.
susan philipsz - i haven't experienced any of her work but I love the ideas. I heard about it quite a while ago and it stuck in my mind. I probably heard about it because she had been nominated for the turner prize but I didn't catch that bit at the time. I just scanned the other artists, I read that the painter who's nominated is ground breaking and all that but I'm just not that interested, I took a peek but it still looks like painting to me. It just didn't strike me in the way that, i hope, the first viewing of a cubist painting might have struck me were I around at the time. Maybe it would be different face to face. I suppose you could say, and i'm sure plenty of people are saying, that susan's work is just singing. This is true but it speaks to me! It's not about creating a musically beautiful sound, its about creating emotional responses to a place and hopefully inciting a response from the audience too. It's using voice in art. Its using sound in an almost non-musical way or at least in a non music establishment way. That works for me. Its almost the equivalent of an artist looking at, for example, the paintings nominated for the turner prize this year and seeing the complexity and quality within them but a lay person looks at them and just sees them as paintings. Susan is using music in that way in that it's a tool in her art, the art of site-specific installation. A musician might listen to it and hear that she's no musical professional, that she's not treating the music itself in any new or ground breaking way. In the same way I might use, for example, slackrope walking in a piece. I'm no great circus performer, just as Susan is not a trained musician. Its what we do with it that counts.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Tack tack tacky
I am a snob. I hold my hands up, I've been caught red-handed sneering at the stuff they sell in galleries. It's it's tacky, un-inspired, expensive and mass produced. Sometimes the exhibitions are no better...
I am, of course, talking about the obligatory shop. There's a certain gallery, which will remain nameless - for now - which seems, in my eyes, to position itself as the pillar of art society. I walk through it frequently, i sometimes look at the exhibitions and occasionally like what I see but in the shop, by the entrance, there is a vast amount of 'tack'! Gift shop fodder, not even art related... To me it suggests that this behemoth and it's patrons are not really thinking about what they are seeing. It may not wish to be cutting edge but I'd still expect a gallery to stake its reputation on quality.
Lets think about other galleries - how about the Arnolfini - large shop, small amount of 'tack' but lots of books and other items relevant to its exhibits. How about Antler, the nomadic gallery? Well they have a shop but it's selling small, affordable art works.
I am, of course, talking about the obligatory shop. There's a certain gallery, which will remain nameless - for now - which seems, in my eyes, to position itself as the pillar of art society. I walk through it frequently, i sometimes look at the exhibitions and occasionally like what I see but in the shop, by the entrance, there is a vast amount of 'tack'! Gift shop fodder, not even art related... To me it suggests that this behemoth and it's patrons are not really thinking about what they are seeing. It may not wish to be cutting edge but I'd still expect a gallery to stake its reputation on quality.
Lets think about other galleries - how about the Arnolfini - large shop, small amount of 'tack' but lots of books and other items relevant to its exhibits. How about Antler, the nomadic gallery? Well they have a shop but it's selling small, affordable art works.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
storyboarding
so the technicians help me make a contact sheet. now it's stuck on the wise computers. can't upload it to blogger. it all seems fairly pointless.
i wasn't told that being able to use a mac was a pre-course requisite. neither are we being taught how to use one. there's something missing from the structure.
i wasn't told that being able to use a mac was a pre-course requisite. neither are we being taught how to use one. there's something missing from the structure.
storyboarding
http://dsnake1.blogspot.com/2010/03/gods-are-watching-over-us-in-morning.html
i could easily put a storyboard together if i was using a PC but i just don't know how to use Mac's efficiently and there's no one teaching us.
storyboarding is easy. computers aren't.
i'd rather draw it and scan it.
i'd rather use a pc.
i'd rather not have to cycle all the way to wise in the snow because i wasn't able to finish it during class time as i don't know how to use a mac and i have to get back in time for nursery.
i like storyboarding. this course isn't doing it justice.
i could easily put a storyboard together if i was using a PC but i just don't know how to use Mac's efficiently and there's no one teaching us.
storyboarding is easy. computers aren't.
i'd rather draw it and scan it.
i'd rather use a pc.
i'd rather not have to cycle all the way to wise in the snow because i wasn't able to finish it during class time as i don't know how to use a mac and i have to get back in time for nursery.
i like storyboarding. this course isn't doing it justice.
bike trip journal/research?
ok so here's where the journey went
obsessed by bikes (agreed?), lots of background but right now wanting to ride a mini-bike on a slackrope, juggle wheel rims, the colour wheels project, the white bike (a la white horses on the hillside - it's an iron horse after all) and the automata bike band.
so i heard of martin who sells bikes, rang him up, asked about mini-bikes, told him what i wanted it for, he say's I've got a mini-bike but i also have a clown bike, do you want it? 'Oh yes' i say as you can probably imagine. So i took away a mini-bike in poor condition and a bike with off-set wheels so the axles are not central meaning you kinda 'lollop' along in a genteel fashion. Not perfect nick but not bad. no idea what to do with it. The mini-bike turns out to be not worth saving so I took the tyres off and will be de-spoking them for juggling. The mini-bike frame was a joyful learning experience, i took it apart piece by piece, breaks, head set and handlebars, pedals, cranks and cassette - the whole lot. While I was doing this I thought about making a normal automata thing but making it out of bike bits. Could chop a frame up and mount a box over it, use the pedals like normal - i have a sketch of what i mean to put on top.
so automata. i visited Machinations in Llanbrynmair the other day. it's a home of automata, including the gorgeous stuff that i saw at an eisteddfod a year or two ago. crazy automata by Charles Byrd. He trained in aircraft stuff at filton i beleive. http://www.artinwales.250x.com/ArtistsBy.htm I asked them about work experience, they're looking for someone to take over who's ready to just run with it. i'm not quite there yet... they weren't sure about having a work experience person but say'd it'b be worth approaching the boss.
I'm going to order the cabaret mechanical whatsit book and also remembered the paper automata that you can make. I'm going to try my idea with stiff paper I think. see if it might work like that. Thinking make a bike running down a hill into a pond.
So i have lots of bike ideas. all good ideas but i'm not getting round to making them. if i listed them there'd be too many to think about
obsessed by bikes (agreed?), lots of background but right now wanting to ride a mini-bike on a slackrope, juggle wheel rims, the colour wheels project, the white bike (a la white horses on the hillside - it's an iron horse after all) and the automata bike band.
so i heard of martin who sells bikes, rang him up, asked about mini-bikes, told him what i wanted it for, he say's I've got a mini-bike but i also have a clown bike, do you want it? 'Oh yes' i say as you can probably imagine. So i took away a mini-bike in poor condition and a bike with off-set wheels so the axles are not central meaning you kinda 'lollop' along in a genteel fashion. Not perfect nick but not bad. no idea what to do with it. The mini-bike turns out to be not worth saving so I took the tyres off and will be de-spoking them for juggling. The mini-bike frame was a joyful learning experience, i took it apart piece by piece, breaks, head set and handlebars, pedals, cranks and cassette - the whole lot. While I was doing this I thought about making a normal automata thing but making it out of bike bits. Could chop a frame up and mount a box over it, use the pedals like normal - i have a sketch of what i mean to put on top.
so automata. i visited Machinations in Llanbrynmair the other day. it's a home of automata, including the gorgeous stuff that i saw at an eisteddfod a year or two ago. crazy automata by Charles Byrd. He trained in aircraft stuff at filton i beleive. http://www.artinwales.250x.com/ArtistsBy.htm I asked them about work experience, they're looking for someone to take over who's ready to just run with it. i'm not quite there yet... they weren't sure about having a work experience person but say'd it'b be worth approaching the boss.
I'm going to order the cabaret mechanical whatsit book and also remembered the paper automata that you can make. I'm going to try my idea with stiff paper I think. see if it might work like that. Thinking make a bike running down a hill into a pond.
So i have lots of bike ideas. all good ideas but i'm not getting round to making them. if i listed them there'd be too many to think about
Friday, December 3, 2010
tipping point
it's been amazing doing this commission proposal. Horrible too but amazing in that it makes you think about your idea much more than before. a more rounded idea of what i intend to do. It also takes a very long time to get it all together and really doesn't play to my strengths. I needed help with structuring the text (my ideas, my words), i let myself down by not having good evidence of previous work. organisation basically - it's the primary feature of my dyslexia. oops, out of time!
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