Installation Room - Pinhole Photos

I spent the day in the installation room, using it as a dark room to develop more pinhole photos. I was hoping to make some through lenses and be more experimental but I became distracted by the kaleidoscope patterns once more. These images are just much more exciting to make, they're pretty ...and i'm worried about lens photos going wrong and wasting paper as I don't really understand the science of how lenses direct light. My prediction is that I'd end up with very vague minimal images, wwhich wouldn't be very exciting to look at. (Nevertheless I really ought to just try it and see).

Although pleasing to the eye, the kaleidoscope images are a bit empty and I feel disappointed with what I achieved this time round. Really there is no concept to it, and therefore no interest or matter to contemplate. They are lovely images to have but clearly these experiments using the kaleidoscope end here.

One question that I have been asking myself is how, If I were to want to show these photos, how would I display them? Would it need to be the pinhole photos on the photography paper to be true to the process? I think I would be most comfortable with this approach because it is the process of using light to make images that I find interesting (otherwise they are just any other images made in a digital way for all the viewer knows). When I put the images on Instagram however, i edited them and made them look more vibrant with more contrast - they were very different images to what is really on the photo paper. Does this matter... that I gave a misleading impression? Or are they both valid images made through different processes?

Quick Idea - Contact Lenses Through Taleidoscope

No real reason behind this a I've given up on the taleidoscope, but actually the camera seemed to cope better photographing the projected slides of the contact lenses through it. I was struggling to take a photo of the projected images made by the carousel projector because of the contrast of the light in the dark space, but these photos show the quality of the image that is produced. I actually find the lines quite interesting - they remind me of old maps or the images in reference books that are just line drawings. Focusing on areas like these circles might be quite interesting, maybe to produce some drawings or prints. 

After discovering how expensive it is to have slides made up from digital files I have printed the contact lens photos on acetates to test out the format of using the carousel slide projector without having to spend a lot. It looks as if the quality might not be the best with the images having to be so small - I can see the pixels with my naked eye so it will probably be very obvious once enlarged on the projector. 

I love the associations that are made when this is held against the sky... a planet in space, or a moon in the clouds? A friend also has said that it reminds her of a cell, which I really like and hadn't thought of before. Cells make me think of identity, and as we discussed in my Death Cafe, a contact lens is an identity object, very personal to the person. How curious, that one image can be both a planet and a single cell. 

Contact Lenses with Macro

Lionel

I was asked to make a papier mache ape for this year's End of the Road Festival. I have made paper heads for the festival before as well as for school plays, but I was yet to make anything on a larger scale. It took me about two weeks to make and reminded me how much I enjoy using my hands and physically making things, an aspect of my art practice that has reduced since I started working from a more conceptual perspective. 

I found it a little challenging to work to someone else's brief without having much contact with them - I was communicating over email and didn't really want to ask too many small questions. It was tricky to decide what approach to take with the colourings and style of the ape - whether to make it very realistic or more vibrant and cartoonish, which I knew would suit the festival. I decided just to go with my instinct and use the colours I thought looked best. 

As I was repeatedly studying reference images of chimpanzees and carefully sculpting the facial features with paper, I began to observe the similarities/differences between peoples' faces and chimps'. In the same way that drawing makes you more observant and aware of small details, I started to look at people's faces with this increased analysis, thinking about the contours of the brow bone or the shape of the nostrils - imagining how it would need to be sculpted and arranged, what colours I would mix together to find the right skin tone. Sometimes when I'm bored, usually on a train, I decide to look at things in this way - ignoring what I know, what I've grown up being taught about the colours of objects, and consider what hues I am really seeing (e.g. yellow leaves, brown trees, white skies). Making the monkey, this started to happen involuntarily. 

Nb. My mum called him Lionel, I resisted but it stuck.

End of the Road Leaves

Ed and I very willingly volunteered to cut lyrics into leaves for the second year at End of the Road Festival in Dorset. When we arrived, we discovered that the tree/bush we had used last year had been completely cut back so had to relocate. There were several factors we had to consider in choosing a new location - how many people would be passing through the area and whether it would be noticed; whether it was a 'pretty' area that would suit the poetic lyrics; we also had to discuss our choice with the festival decor crew to determine whether it would fit with the other installations they had planned. It was decided that we could us ethe fairy light trail this year, which we were pleased with as it is a really beautiful area, the leaves could be seen at night as well as during the day and it is a popular pathway for people to use. It is tricky to describe the experience of the fairy light trail at night, but it is a pretty ethereal and awe-inspiring place... (the first year we worked at the art department we were tasked with putting out the fairy light so I am all too aware of how many sets of lights are used).

We went and stood in the clearing where he had cut the leaves at various points throughout the weekend - it is so enjoyable to watch people discover and experience the leaves. We also witnessed people taking photos of them, with them and even sneakily stealing them (which we don't mind). I decided to pick up some of the dead leaves from the floor and cut 'End of the Road 2015' as momentos for the keen eyed - I just love people coming across them, almost as a perk of being observant. I dropped them surrepticiously arounfd the place and then sat and watched people find them... or completely miss them. One very little boy picked one up and showed it to his dad; the dad photographed it and then hung it back on tree. I thought that was really touching. 

The response on social media was even greater than last year because of the more popular location. It's been facinating to see the ;eaves appear on twitter and instagram, and to read the comments. Ed also discovered that Sufjan Stevens (headliner and all round incredible person) had posted a photo of a leaf with one of his lyrics that I had cut) - achievement of the year! How wonderful for it to get back to the artist who wrote those words.

Venice Biennale - Vitrines and Display

On my visit to Venice I kept a particular eye out for the way in which works were displayed as this is becoming increasingly important to my work. With such a vast amount of artworks it was an ideal place to carry out some research on this and to get some ideas. I observed a huge range of inventive ways of exhibiting works.

I particularly liked this way of displaying sheets of paper (above right) in a very long display cabinet that stretched across the room. Elongating it made it into more of an architectural piece, and drew you long from image to image; to me it was just a really elegant piece of design as well. In the dark space the underlit works were also made inviting and mysterious. 

Again, I was drawn to this long, elongated vitrine used by Shilpa Gupta, it shows that its very effective to use a display case that follows the shape of the work - something to bare in mind.

This image above I just found quite curious; they had managed to illuminate the picture in an oval shape, which I just thought was quite unusual. A I don't really make images all that much I never consider how they might be displayed in interesting ways, but lighting is clearly a really key device. I like how it acts as a frame in the darkness.