Tag: Me And My Friends

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Dice Project Reflection

It was so funny, towards the climax of the Choice Project – ‘Scrap That’ (Ars Moriendi), when, glancing over my shoulder, my husband saw his image (collagraph print) on the internet. He immediately set up an Insta account and followed the foundation course. Equally funny this evening then, when he turned to me and said (showing me his phone) ‘Isn’t that yours?’…….

Chance Lighting

Who captured that picture with that chance lighting I wonder? It wasn’t me! The whole project has been about chance and I have enjoyed it enormously! I understand that it was conceived as a way of “getting Fine Art pathway ‘moving and making'” instead of just sitting around contemplating things. I am not a sit-arounder in that sense…. I like to just get going and find where working and making takes me so, perhaps I didn’t ‘need’ this project as such but, I have learned a lot throughout it. For example, I hated the idea of working with ‘plastic’ at first but have ended up rather pleased with the ‘Neuroimagining’ outcomes. On the other hand, I adore textile work and have some uncomfortable feelings about the final outcome of ‘Me And My Friends’ that I can’t quite explain except by reference to Bruce Mau’s ‘Love your experiments as you would an ugly child.’ Speaking of Mau, I can add that, running alongside the practical work we have done in the Dice Project, I have really enjoyed the Dada oriented contextual studies input we have had. It has been fascinating to learn about (and research deeper) into Mau, ‘The Oblique Strategies’, Lomography etc. Also, we have looked at ‘Early Experimental Film Makers’ and I have rather fallen in love with Marie Menken, Hans Richter, Lotte Rieniger and of course, Jonas Mekas and John Smith. The Girl Chewing Gum is refreshingly hilarious but, in my YouTube playlist it is ‘Associations’ (1975) that I keep going back to. I’ve put quite a few examples on the playlist (particularly Mekas interviews) and will look forward to watching them all over the Christmas break.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/john-smith-12243/john-smith-playing-power-language

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No dice rolls: Project hand-in week.

A busy few days finishing things off and doing some playful extension pieces before final group crits for The Dice Project. Next week we move on to a new Pathway project. Next week also includes a day trip to Glasgow galleries and museums and the start of UCAS personal statement tutorials following the trip most people went on to the UCAS fair in Manchester on Tuesday. Rather than doing that, I had a quiet day in the studio completing ‘Neuroimagining’ and doing some research about M.A. courses on the computer.

Cutting perspex is an awful chore! However, I resolved the piece eventually, finding some smart nuts and bolts to put through both layers of plastic and hold the sculptural pieces in place. I did some PVA experiments on some of the perspex off-cuts and decided to add some into the ‘Neuroimagining’ composition to add a different ‘plastic’ texture – I like the way it puts a bit of punctuation between the polystyrene elements and sort of bridges the materials gap between that and the flat perspex layers. Final refinements included cutting and carving a polystyrene border/frame to fix between the perspex layers that will hopefully seal the piece up and help to prevent dust getting in – it has a huge static charge and attracts dust like a magnet!

Just the protective polythene layer to peel off the front.
Placing in different light (above). And doing a photographic exploration of the details. (below)

Printing with the polystyrene practice cutting pieces.

Finally, use photographs I have taken throughout the Dice project to do some image manipulation….. rather nice surface pattern results I think.

Neuronprint experiment- Manipulation
‘Me And My Friends’ digital image manipulation
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Perspex and Textiles.

A trip to where you get perspex sheets from – horribly expensive stuff! Nevertheless, materials have been purchased for mounting the ‘Neuroimagining’ piece. While I am contemplating how to accomplish this …. more work on ‘Me and My Friends’ dual brain textile piece – it’s hand in next week so there’s a lot of finishing off to do!

Clear perspex for the front and box profile perspex for the back I think. I like the way the latter catches the light.

I have experimented with a variety of arrangements of the bowel, brain, microbe and neuron motifs before attaching everything to the hessian backing fabric. The pieces are appliqued to the backing using the sparkly thread that represents the vegus nerve connecting the gut and the brain. Little shiny french knots help to secure everything and represent the ‘communication’ through the system …. the electro-chemistry of the neuron-bacteria link sort of idea.

Microbes in the Bowel
Neurons in the Brain
Finishing off the edges with a macrame binding stitch…… thread by thread VERY TEDIOUS!

The Finished Piece – except for working out how to mount it. Photographed with different lighting effects.

As Bruce Mau might say …… ‘Love your experiments as if they were an ugly child’ …. this certainly isn’t very pretty!