Ai Wei Wei, Keith Coventry and Pierre Cordiers

Hi, I have been in London the past 2 days :-) I really enjoyed visiting the Tate Modern, I saw Ai Wei Wei's seeds(shown above). The floor of the Turbine Hall is covered in a sea of hand painted porcelain sunflower seeds. I had heard a lot about this exhibition before I saw it, the seeds are a political statement about the nature of communism in China. It is incredible the sheer number of little seeds on the floor, each one unique.

On the trip to London I also went to an exhibition called 'High Society' it was about the history of drug use and art that has been produced by people whilst intoxicated. I find this link between drugs and creativity very interesting. I particularly liked Keith Coventry's photograph above, it addresses the dark side of urban living .  Also I visited the Victoria and Albert Museam where there was an exhibition called 'Shadow Catchers' this explored the technique of creating photographs without using cameras.I was particularly drawn to Pierre Cordiers chemigrams(shown above)I found them calming and hypnotic, I would love one on my bedroom wall :)

Visual Breakdown

Tone,Contrast,Color,Texture,3D,Shading,depth,Shadow, Light, dark.

Finished Phewww

I have just finished my comparative visual analysis essay phewww. Francis Bacon and Arthur Hughes toe to toe like Haye and Harrison in the boxing last night. Talking of boxing last night I went to see my friends boxing match in a social club on Chester Road, there was an amazing atmosphere. I took my new DSLR camera and somehow managed to get access to ringside where i took some amazing photos,two of which is posted above. There was a very nationalistic feel to the night as it was remembrance weekend, and some of the money raised by the boxing was given to help the heros charity. I am planning to make a photo montage of the evening based on Jim Goldbergs - Raised by Wolves.

Create Confusion

In visual communication I have decided to use images and text from contrasting sources to create stimulating collages. Above is a collage made using an old cooking book and an antiques book. From showing this collage to people the general reaction has been - 'What the f**k is that?' or 'Err thats creepy'. I am pleased with these reactions as they show the collage is radnom and chaotic. This idea is remenicent of Dadaism, which emerged in the early 1900s as a reaction to dissilusionment after the first world war. The movement was supposedly anti-art, rejecting any organisation and prefering randomness and non-sense. Also relevant is surrealism which commonly uses bizzare juxtaposition, for example Dali's Lobster telephone. Today I have been experimenting with text and lettering in collages. I looked at the artist Thomas Phillips who takes old books and paints, draws and sticks over the pages to create a piece of art. His famous publication first released in 1970 was called 'The Humument'.

Humanism

Today has been a long day...In contextual studies I attended a lecture about Humanism which was very interesting. Essentially it is a philosophy whereby humans are the centre of the universe. It can be translated into every aspect of Art. Architects such as Le Corbusier use a measuring system based on humans. Leonardo Da Vinci - Vitruvian Man(1492) is a classic visual representation of the humanist ideal. The circle and square around the man imply that man can do the impossible- circle the square. Rationalism was related to humanism, the idea that through rational,logical ideas can prevail, arguably at the expense of religion. We also explored the use of Classical Greek and Roman architecture and how it is a style that reoccurs throughout modern times, for example the White House. This gives the impression that the history of style and culture is not linear. I found the lecture particularly interesting because it related to my previous studies of politics, philosophy and history.

In Visual studies I A0 paper to explore scale. I made a 3D form out of screwed up white paper- a very simple idea- then I used chalk, charcoal and brown pastel to draw the form on a large scale. I was fairly satisfied with the drawing after spending 3.5 hours on it, at first glance it is hard to tell what the picture represents because of the scale on colours used, however it is still visually interesting. One of the main points of this exercise was to explore tone, the paper was white but the folds crated interesting shadows. I need to spend a couple more hours on this drawing until i am happy with it.

In photography I have learned the basics about aperture, shutter speed, focusing and exposure. I did some experimenting with long exposures outside in the dark. I used a technique known as 'light painting' which uses a low shutter speed to capture the movement of light. I created some interesting images of cars traveling past which just show as bolts of light.The image above is one I took at the Custard Factory using light painting. I think its cool how the bolts of light go from the DJ to the speakers like an electric current of something.

Energy

Today I started Fashion and Textiles, Brief = Energy.

Vibrant, powerful, spark, colourful, explosion, sound, light, heat, bang, fuel, natural, man made, human emotion, E=mc2, Matter and energy are one in the same, water, wind, fossil fuel, nuclear, solar, environment, lightning..

I looked at some designers...Rebecca Earley - She specialises in printed textiles, I particularly liked her barbed wire printed scarf. I also looked at Gareth Pugh, some of his catwalk designs use lots of geometric shapes which were similar to the shapes that make up power stations. Debbie Smyth was another artist I looked at she, She uses thread wrapped around nails to create images- a way of drawing with thread. This simple idea looks very impressive, I will experiment with some of her techniques.
I experimented with weaving using some old wires(abocepicture) I found this technique to uniform, I wanted my work to be more random. I explored some photographs of chaotic electricity poles in India. I then tired to make the wires into a much more random structure based on these pictures. I photocopied these structures on to A3 paper. I am planning to print these images on to fabric which will be reminiscent of Rebecca Earleys work.

Too Many Ideas...

I have got so many ideas rushing round my mind....I wanna make a film with dialogue taken purely from real life...like convos I hear out and about, dont want to write many ideas on here gna keep them to myself watch this space.....ps - I made this today :) ^^