Inspiration of the Week - Nina Katchadourian

Nina Katchadourian is an artist who works within many different areas of art including photography, sculpture and video.

The piece that I am going to talk about is her ongoing project "Paranormal Postcards".

In this she has placed different postcards on the wall after stitching into them with red thread and also connecting some of them with red dotted lines.

I really like this work as it allows the viewer to follow almost a global narrative even thought there might actually be one, I am also really interested in them and do collect them from the places I go. 

For my final project as part of my final display  I want there to be some postcards available for people to take away with them. I am also using this project as a source of display inspiration as I am looking for a different way to document my work. 

NB - all photographs here have been taken from the artist's site:

http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/
http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/chartssystems/paranormal.php

I do not own any of the pictures on this post.


Until next time
byyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Róisín -x

Inspiration of the Week - The Fallen 9000

The Fallen 9000 was a project organised by Andy Moss and Jamie Wardley, the project saw outlines of 9000 bodies draw in the sand to represent the lives lost during D-Day in the Second World War. 

Each of these stencils represents a person that died in the D-Day landings, be them a civilian, a German soldier or a an ally soldier, each of the died before their time and had a family, loved ones and things they cared about.

This is a very poignant piece as the amount of space that each of these drawings take up really illustrates the point the artists were making well, as 9000 is just a number when we hear it however when we see all the bodies laid out like this we are able to see just how big a number really is. 

The reason that I am looking at this proect is that I am looking at the idea of remembrance and looking at the marks we leave behind. 

I also want to leave behind my own temporary marks within the environment and thought about using sand to do this as over time it would disintegrate and should cause too much harm to the surrounding area.

This project demonstrates the idea of remembrance pretty well and has a great deal of impact on the viewer.

NB - all photographs here have been taken from the project site:

http://thefallen9000.info/

I do not own any of the pictures on this post.


Until next time
byyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Róisín -x

Examiner Week!!

So I never got anything to do with this  project on the Monday as I had an interview for Glasgow City College (which I think went pretty well) and I then spent the day in Glasgow with my boyfriend and then we went to go see Frankie Boyle at night.

Needless to say I was pretty worn out on the Tuesday but I did manage to organise my research file and add some additional notes in my sketchbook after someone suggested I do this after the sketchbook swap. This week has pretty much been examiner prep as it was this week that we were to have a quick discussion with them about our work. This went quite well I think as she seemed to be quite interested in my work and has given me a few ideas and things to think about.

I have also been looking more into using pinboards to display my routes

When walking my dog I went looking for some of the survey messages I left behind and here's what I found:

I also added a few new sketchbook pages this week:

I'm at the end of my little concept sketchbook and am now going to move onto an A4 one now, it's weird because now that the examiners talk is over and the Easter holidays are coming up soon, it almost feels like the beginning of the end of this year.


Sot that's all for this week,
see you next time,
byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,
Róisín -x

Inspiration of the Week - Francis Alÿs

Francis Alÿs is a Belgian contemporary artist currently based in Mexico.

The work that I am going to be discussing is his piece titled "Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing" where the artist moved a block of ice along the streets of Mexico City.

It took over nine hours for Francis Alÿs to do this until the ice had melted completely.

I find this piece really interesting as the idea seems to me that the artist is trying to make the point that all of the time and effort that he has put into this work has been for nothing. 

One of the points that I want to make with my work that no matter how hard we try we will all eventually be forgotten, so everything we do will be for nothing, sort of the point that I take from this piece. 

For my next project I also want to follow route/ maps whilst leaving a trail of marks to decompose and one of my thoughts on how to do this was to use ice as it melts naturally and will pretty much vanish without doing much harm to the environment. 

In all I find this piece to be quite different and more thought provoking than most work that I have seen previously, and I think it was good for me to see another artist explore the idea of making something temporary and also going on site with the project. 

NB - all photographs here have been taken from the artist's site:

http://francisalys.com/
http://francisalys.com/sometimes-making-something-leads-to-nothing/

I do not own any of the pictures on this post.


Until next time
byyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Róisín -x

Inspiration of the Week - Graham Grafx

Graham Grafx (Graham Smith) is an artist who mostly works in forms of digital media. The project of his that I am most interested in in terms of my latest project is "Digital Painting: Social Network".

In this he went around all of the friends he had on facebook and took their pulse and also a souvenir.

He used the information from their pulse to create this digital form of painting where each of his friends is represented by a 'lightening bug' which blinks at the same rate of their pulse.

In my work I want to investigate people on social media and ho they try to be noticed.

I like this piece as it is a new way to investigate portraiture and is also interesting in the fact the the source of this is digital and social media, where the most prominent and obvious form of portraiture and representation is the "selfie".

What I also like about this project is that normally people are represented by a digital image of themselves, whereas here we get to see all of the artists friends represented by something real and tangible. 

NB - all photographs here have been taken from the artists site:

http://grahamgrafx.com/
http://grahamgrafx.com/digitalpainting.php

I do not own any of the pictures on this post.


Until next time
byyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Róisín -x

More Walks!

So this week I got some feedback on my work and also managed to go for a couple of walks.

The first walk I did was my so called 'Drifting walk'. In this I had premade up some instructions like "turn left" and "at broken wall or fence" and I took out a random pair and followed the instructions. I think this was a good initial drift walk to do as it gave me a basic gist on what to expect if I was to do this again. I really enjoyed this walk as I ventured into places I had never been before, although I think I could be better off getting a compass and then using instructions like "go north" as sometimes there wasn't a left or right to go down.

The next walk I did was where I left phrases from my survey that I did and left them in places around the route I took around Stenhousemuir.

Seeing as I have an interview at Glasgow City College tomorrow, I asked my mentor to look through my sketchbooks at the start of the week. In this he suggested I further an experiment I did way back at the start of this project with involved pining string on a pin board to follow some sort of route. So I did an experiment with this to work out how I could pin my map route onto the board. I went up town to get a few things on Friday so I bought a couple more boards to try and see how they look and I am planning on trying to mount them in frames.

This also gave me an idea on another display methods by having holes in paper and having light shine through so that is shows light on the wall.

So this week one of our lecturers suggested that we swap each others sketchbooks in class and give each other some feedback. I thought this was a really good idea and think that it worked well, and was extremely helpful to me. The two main points for me was to try and focus down my ideas for this project, which I think I am starting to do, and also maybe label my sketchbooks and try and show where the idea originates in my research file. After getting this feedback this is what I'm focusing on at this very moment so I can get everything organised for the examiners on Thursday D:  So far I've labelled and numbered the files in the research folder and have added a contents page so it's easier to navigate, and I am going to go back through my sketchbook and add notes on what page they should look at in the file if they want more information.

I also did some more experiments with taking catalogue pictures by trying to take advantage of daylight and using a tripod and no zoom or flash. I think what might be better for me would be to take these photos in college as the studios have off-white desks and plenty of light.

So that's all I have for you this week, I'm hoping to try and find time next week to do a walk leaving diary notes and also leaving a premade ogham mark, however next week is looking pretty busy, seeing as I have an interview, Frankie Boyle Live, the examiners coming in and babysitting duties.

Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.

anyways...

byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Róisín -x