Tim's FAD

 On Thursday I met with a friend to look around a retrospective exhibition of work from Japanese/US Sculptor Isamu Noguchi . The Exhibition was an interesting one showing a diverse body of work ranging from such things as early baby alarms to lampshades alongside the main works of his career (sculpture). The exhibition included some history of his upbringing and US internment (during WW2) . The exhibition was not chronologically organised and the programme needed  to be consulted as itmes were not labelled.  An example of work that shows Noguchi's design skill.  Noguchi worked across many disciplines and gained a lot from a connection to Buckminster Fuller and Branusci was another major influence. Here's a sculpture that Noguchi made of Fuller, it looks quite contemporary . . I like these two, one showing the shadow of rope and another about lightning.  

An image from Dresden Dynamo   Last week in the Moving image session we were shown a piece of work that was created in the days of 16mm (this film format is still around but less common these days)the work we saw was 'Dresden Dynamo ' by the experimental film maker Lis Rhodes and was made 1971-72. (More about Liz Rhodes here )  Liz explains the way the Sound track was created  and the reason for it's unpredictability and other-worldliness here. The image is read by an optical sound head and this is not the usual way (normally a distinct  separate sound track of audio/music would be recorded ) conversely the pattern and shapes in Liz's film correspond with the soundtrack so we see the sound and here the pictures. We also got a chance to see Berlin Horse by Malcolm Le Grice (with soundtrack by Brian Eno) - we were told that the film was colourised black and white (printed to add colour), the film includes found footage, superimposition and various distortions (including

Books are a great gift  It was nice to be able to fit in a Tutorial with Heidi as a face-to-face and I had the benefit of  hearing suggestions and Heidi's  thoughts around ways forward for me . Although I'm comfortable with what's involved in the Foundation Course   it was very useful to be reminded of what's coming up and also have a suggestion on reading books about photography by   Geoff Dyer . [Nice talk by Geoff on Photographers' Gallery here  ] Plenty of work around Utopia/Dystopia dichotomy as well as mission statement and Critical assignment on a contemporary work of Art/Artist 

 Heidi as with other course teachers has clear goals from sessions and it's great to create something and also understand something of the exercise. Resources for Monday 18th that we brought along were Coloured Tape along with String/Tread/wool. Working area After Heidi talking about some ways that Artist used space ( Bruce Nauman's Walking in an  Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square 1968 ) this was a filmed performance and for me what I saw was not a great realisation of a challenging idea). (This was a long way away from other work I have seen by Nauman ). We also looked at some other examples of Tape and thread being used - Jim Lambie is  a figure working in this area of art - his work  looks (to me) as 'decorative'.   I preferred the example of the Korean artist Sun K Kwak - the work suggests motion and direction. Duchamp's a mile of string was considered too as was the Drawing in the air  and Uncertain Journey of Japanese Artist Chiharu Shiota

  Another Camera-Person at work  On Friday it was day 2 of the  'Moving Image' and although we focused on shooting and editing we were also able to find out a little  about a renowned practitioner  Sam Taylor Wood who has a history of creating waves with her works which include those of 'Lookalikes' . The piece that Dr Pete alerted us to (and showed us some of) was The Last Century (2005) and he also provided a resource for us to use ( UbuWeb ) . The Last Century which we watched some of was a thought provoking staged  recreation where the central conceit we were invited to be a part of was that we were looking at a 'Freeze Frame' which was actually made up of people being as still as they could (rather than made via the use of technical wizardry). It confronts the staging used in moving image and reminds us of the Director's influence and the artificial nature of film which calls for us to suspend belief.    Like Steve McQueen Sam Taylor Wood has also mad

 On Tuesday we had the chance to hear directly from a practitioner in the Arts who is teaching regularly at St Martin's, is now working with Tracy Emin  and was formerly a part of the FDA team at CityLit.   A mini tripod from Ebay about £5 Oliver spoke about how he was brought up around photography with his father working in Photography (at the time when it was a chemical and darkroom process), he then studied at Goldsmiths (in Communications and Sociology)  after which he was able to take on an internship at the famed international photographers' co-operative Magnum. After this experience Oliver pursued what I'd describe as an ethnographic immersion in  South East London Life (New Cross area) as a programme that he described as a 'cleansing' /social engineering exercise that created a 'new' district for the 2012 Olympics London - Artists were given favourable terms for working/living areas in buildings that would be demolished - I think Grayson Perry has sp

Monday 11th was another Fine Art day (aren't they all) with Heidi Some of the interventions identified    Masks were a big part of the art of Momento Mori & 'Behind the mask another Mask'   was a phrase we  reflected on from the 2017 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery exhibition of the work where YBA artist Gillian Wearing  looked at the oeuvre of Claude Cahun   who lived a very individual life.  many artists have been involved in areas that confront themselves and the masks they construct.. Cindy Sherman, Leigh Bowery (painted as a nude by Lucian Freud) , Maurizio Anzeri  and Marlene Dumas   (I visited an exhibition of Dumas' work in 2015 ) ere used as starting off points.   Other artists mentioned were Turner Prize winner Lubaina Hamid and John Stezaker And the experimentation we looked at  was around working/intervening with an image of ourselves using the above artists as influences . I suppose the idea that we all work behind a mask can be powerful

 Man  (and Woman) with a Movie Video  Camera  So actually we were Men and Women with Video Cameras and what a lot of fun it was. Quick Release Plate for the camera on the tripod Dr Peter Gomes our teacher said he'd get us out with a Camera and Tripod as quickly as he could and kept his word, after some basic instruction and a look at some of John Smith's ' Girl Chewing Gum'(1976) we were sent out into big bad world. The instructions and requirements of our shoot were simple and attainable 4 shots for editing together  taking into account  Location, Framing and Positioning . It was suggested we used static tripod shots and considered Light Height and Angle when we chose our shots. Above is an example of the sort material that was waiting for us -  After we cam back we loaded clips onto Apple PCs for  compilation using Adobe Final Cut and some of the rudiments were explained to us - I think we as a group had an awful lot of fun and hope that the streets around Holborn a

 On Wednesday I met a friend to take a look around British Museum's, it's called  The Great Picture Book of Everything  - which could be over playing it a bit but it does seem that in the Japan of his time he was pretty one of the go-to-guys for illustrating books There's a lot of stuff that I got from the exhibition including that not having seen various things in the flesh does not rule out making illustrations (various animals). The exhibition is of material held by the British Museum and chronologically visitors can see the work of the artist developing.  Of course much as Mona Lisa dictates a certain link with Leonardo Da Vinci so 'The Great Wave is forever Hokusai - There are quite a number of prints from the blocks of the famous woodcuts The British Museum has 3 of them and the vintage of them can be seen by the quality of the print (older ones have bits missing) Craft Week  After Design week it' time for the Artisans and London had a week of craft kicking of

Colour is a complex matter, a science  as well as part of art. When we look at an area of colour it can be described as being made up of 3 variables  Light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans perceive (via Rods and Cones in their eyes) in a particular way. Numbers can be apportioned to give a defined colour via    Hue -  the attribute of a colour by virtue of which it is discernible as red, green, etc., and which is dependent on its dominant wavelength and independent of intensity or lightness Tone  - this  refers to the relative lightness or darkness of a colour. One colour can have an almost infinite number of different tones and  Saturation  refers to the intensity of a colour. This is different from hue,  Saturation is the strength of a surface colour, its degree of visual difference from neutral grey. paint behaves differently from light in mixing, the primary colours with paint are Red Blue and Yellow - mixing these in varying proportions produces tertiary colo

Heidi was able to communicate some of the challenges around 'Fine Art' - the concept and parameters of fine art are disputed.  Like quicksilver Fine Art can be difficult to hold - it's not just Drawing and Painting, typically it tends towards work that is self initiated and is ideas led. Contrasting with the nature of the more commercial  Visual Communications which is more likely to have  a goal or involve working to a brief.   Fine Art can be described as risk taking with the possibility of failure. Having had a look at the territory we had a go at some Drawing approaches the subject matter of which was Popcorn...   The Kernel of the exercise - Popcorn We looked at the popcorn and approached it via different methods and using different media - for me there was a real interest in looking, seeing and scale  - we used techniques that involved looking at the object but not what we were drawing, using our 'other' hand - holding the drawing device in different ways (lik

 We were shown a still life picture that posed something of a quandary - you may see it and think it inoffensive and of little consequence.  Here is a link to the story of the  work and the artist responsible - now what should we think? Is it political? There are many questions we can now consider. We then moved on to look at work of Barbara Kruger who started  her art career working with materials ( described as  re claiming craft for women) but in tandem she was involved with Poetry and critiscm. Her work then became a  text based critique of consumerism and the perceived misbalance of the genders which has been successfully  critically and commercially. Discussions in class questioned her use of copyright free images in many of the works  and their long term credibility as works of art that remained 'interesting' beyond the period they were created in (and the values they reflected at that time) - you can see some of her work here and I have noticed some of it in Public spa