Category: Subject Year 2 (Erasmus; Cardiff Met)

Collections and the Everyday

This short video documentary on Theaster Gates in discussing Art and Collections  from the Art 21 website is interesting because it broaches themes of the every day and legacy. It is also interesting because I also am compelled to collect and hoard discarded objects or materials. I don’t like things going to waste and would like to understand why I feel compelled to ‘rescue’ unwanted things.   Gates touches on these feelings questioning the meaning and the value of things people have gathered and how these meanings change when they are presented in a new context.

Sourced from Art 21 website under ‘Extended Play’, 26/6/2017 https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/theaster-gates-collecting-short/

 

Guest Speaker Paul Granjon

Paul Granjon is a tutor at Cardiff Met who makes artwork involving ‘Co-evolution of humans and machines, robots in performance, home manufacturing, role of electronic arts within humanities and science and technology studies.’ He came to give us a talk about his projects and practice.

I found this quite engaging as I am interested in the part technology plays in society today.  Granjon picks apart how society interacts with technology and makes comment on it by literally taking apart bits of everyday technology and reassembling them, creating robots, media installations and performance pieces it in order to make a statements on the relationship we have with technology today and what those relationships may be in the future.

In his talk, Granjon raised the idea of the ‘amputation’ from humanity and human processes technology can bring, giving the example of how today, we store all our phone numbers remotely  in our phone whereas 20 years ago we would memorize the numbers. This is an amputation or transferal of human memory usage to technology.

He also talked about the amputation and sanitation of the physical world or organisms due to digitization. A piece he made dealing with this is Forest Automative which was in response to the restricted access to the countryside during the the foot and mouth crisis in 2001. He created a sanitized forest within the gallery space where viewers could sit and hear forest noises, experiencing the sounds and visuals of the countryside in a safe clean environment.

What really struck me about his work is how he invites the viewer to engage in serious ideas about use of technology through humour, pastiche and poking fun at our attitudes to it  and his creation of funny machines with which we can interact. This element of fun is what draws the viewer in and what makes his work and his messages memorable.

Here are some links to his websites

Earlier Machines

New Website

Source of Quoted Text  Cardiff Metropolitan School of Art website, Staff, Paul Granjon, Current Research.  – Here, links to academic papers he has written on robots can be found. I would like to take a look at these in the future. These are in the Cardiff met D-Space repository.

Fittings

Browsing the Ikea Catalog

Pole fitting: I need curtain rail of sorts or a rod from which to hang some strips of shiny white viscose cloth from. This would be part of the presentation of the piece I am currently calling  ‘Bubble Trouble?’ for the 2nd year Ba Artist/Designer:Maker end of year exhibition.

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/tools-fittings-curtain-rails/curtain-rods-rails/r%C3%A4cka-curtain-rod-combination-white-spr-59929243

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/tools-fittings-curtain-rails/curtain-rods-rails/vidga-draw-rod-white-art-00299118/  draw rod

Shelves for book

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/wall-shelves/lack-wall-shelf-white-art-50282177/  ‘Lack’ concealed wall fitting 30x26x5cm 3kg max., cost:  5 pounds. This one would probably be best for my exhibition if I am to exhibit a project book or a collaged lampshade alongside my piece.

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/wall-shelves/lack-wall-shelf-white-art-50282177/

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/wall-shelves/lack-wall-shelf-white-art-50282177/

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/wall-shelves/lack-wall-shelf-white-art-50282177/  19cm depth

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/wall-shelves/ekby-st%C3%B6dis-bracket-white-art-80142067/ bracket suitable for 19cm by 79 cm shelf – too long and narrow

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/wall-shelves/ekby-laiva-shelf-birch-effect-art-50178703/ 24 by 59cm 2.90 + brackets 2(.50) =3.90

Today’s Progress

Close up. Digital Embroidery on black cotton organdi
Close up. Digital Embroidery on black cotton organdi
Close up.Digital Embroidery on black cotton organdi
Piece in progress. Digital Embroidery on black cotton organdi

These are details of my smaller organdi screen which will be part of a trio of wall-mounted, hinged screens that viewers will be invited to move and engage with.

I have also developed better registration techniques over the last few weeks when positioning the embroidery hoop to get it to stitch in the desired spot.

I discovered today that it is possible to re-use the backing paper once it has been torn away from a completed embroidered ‘bubble’. Embroidering a new bubble using this backing paper means I do not have to cut away the site of the ‘bubble each time. It’s just a matter of marking out where the embroidery hoop  was positioned on the piece before releasing it so it can be centred on the hoop again for the next piece.

Scanner Collages.

These are the result some collaging of some scans of my heat transfer prints and some black synthetic mesh material which cut into circles as part of my sampling for a piece I am currently referring to as ‘Bubble Trouble?’. I hope to compile these into books eventually. I have been exploring the settings on the printer in college and it is possible to build a book in the copy settings. I’very taken note of the model number and will look up instructions on how to compile a book with photocopies to be printed as one whole thing.

There scans didn’t work out how I wanted them to. I was trying to scan more than one image into a page but it doesn’t seem to do that when you are sending the image to yourself from the printer. It would seem it only puts more than one image on the page with the ‘build job’ selection while photcopying. These zoomed in too much and scanned with the wrong originals orientation

Sketching with photos/generating images

 

This is just a train of thought really.

I like the way the splotches of grease show through with the light and the way the plastic mesh touches under the paper.

I have ideas for attaching it to a lampshade frame that I found in Splott Market on Saturday. Layering grease spattered paper and photocopies with translucent cloth cut outs,  I would collage other past imagery with it such as my scans of my heat transfer prints. I might put less light-permeable  materials behind some of the imagery to get a nice contrast.

Light wouldn’t  lend to some of the digital prints I have in mind.

Like with my swinging organdi screens I would like the viewer to interact with this piece too. It would be like a carousel.

Canvas making Workshop.

Workshop week one

I can hopefully put this skill to use to aid the presentation of my work. I would like to try stretching some screen prints onto a frame or perhaps create an embroidered stretched canvas. In these cases I probably won’t have to paint the canvas with rabbit glue or primer in the same way I would have to if I was painting with oils. It could be interesting to paint rabbit glue over a canvas that had embroidered material stretched over it. I might give it a go.