Kaleidoscope Design for End of the Road

As an extension from the kaleidoscopes/taleidoscopes I was making at the beginning of this year, I came up with the idea of making one for End of the Road this year. It is a very different setting to gallery situations so requires the consideration of different things. Instead of being really conceptual,I wanted to make something that would be visually interesting and entertaining to a broad range of people. I also had the  idea that people would be able to have their picture taken through it, as that is what many people have to show from their time at a music festival. It is a little painful to think so literally, even commercially, in this way but the making and design of the object will be enjoyable. 

These were some images I too as a quick mock up of what the view might be like when the kaliedoscope is positioned in the woods. 

New Images of Contacts

On Monday I met up with Max, who is a second year MNHP student, and who photographed my lenses before Christmas. The surface of the lenses had changed so much that I felt it would be worth taking another set of photos... even if I don't use them now I will have them for a future work, and it is much easier to get hold of someone who can take macro shots now than after I leave.

Unfortunately the same equipment as last time wasn't available so Max had to manually track the shots instead of using a digital one, which makes it easier to take more photos. I do feel like this impacted the quality of the photos slightly as before I had used up to 20 images to make one photo and this time was using as few as 5 images on some lenses.

Editing and stacking the images was tricky to  begin with because I had to remember or re-learn all the processes but I found that I was far more compotent on photoshop this time round and sped through the editing to get them ready for making into slides.

Overall I am really pleased with the edited images, some of them more than others. It always seems to be the ones I don't think will look right that look the best.

Two Carousel Slide Projectors

(studio) space

 My studio is such a beautiful setting for these pieces. I wanted to see them in a different, less domestic environment as well as suspending them for the first time. Although they look very lovely, I still have quite a disconnection from them. I'm not feeling like they convey anything meaningful, and instead are trying too hard to be some sort of replica of planets, and failing because they are so fake, so unscientific. I can't allow that.

Burning Surface

Degree Show Work - Decisions

It is very slowly dawning on me that there is really not much time left until the degree show so I need to stop researching and even experimenting and making in order to get on with the work that I willl actually be exhibiting. At the moment I am finding it really hard to picture my degree show at all - I can't imagine the space and I can't imagine what work I will display in it. I  think i will just really have to think about which are my favourite and most successful works and focus on how they might be displayed.

I will definitely be showing the images of the lenses on the slide projector because I think that is a really effective piece, but I am going to try and get some new images of the lenses and have them printed professionally onto slides so that they are in colour as opposed to the black and white acetate slides.

I also have it in mind that I will make a print of the surface of the lens as a map in the style of the moon maps and am starting to think how I might display this.... I think displaying it in a cabinet would be really effective and further the idea that is like an old map in a museum.

I would like to have something 3D/sculptural as well, but I am not sure what that will be yet as I'm not entirely happy with my wax moon experiments.

Including the Everyday

Just logging a quick thought htat I had about my work: sometimes things just dawn on me about the way I work and why it might be. I tend to use things that I see in my own environment during everyday life, but as well as this being the result of how I think, it is perhaps an intention as well. Including everyday things, such s dustpan brush bristles and contact lenses and candles, maybe a viewer will think of my work when they next encounter these objects in their own lives.That would be ultimate ambition - for someone to look at a really ordinary thing in a slightly more profound way because of something I have shown them.