ambitionarego

back from the Venice Biennale. i am a little overwhelmed just thinking about some of the wonderful work i saw over the 4 days. in my role as lecturer i have several hundred images that i have taken with a view to talking about them to students over the next 6 months – the subjects range from – the idea of archive, the role of documentation both as art form and how to display and access, the floral, the role of the artist as protagonist, activist and testifier, materials their use and meaning and the idea of how to exhibit process. in my role as artist the idea of ambition and scale has sparked in me a desire to get some things printed very large!
and then there are the highlights – Venice! – i will never tire of riding the vaporettos late at night but in terms of the art moments there are so many - but to name a few they have to be Lee Yongback in the Korean Pavillion, especially the video piece angel soldier, the painful madness of Christoph Schilingensief’s German pavilion – the design of the Austrian pavilion, Fernando Prat’s act of printing actual disasters, the warmth of Domink Langs collaboration with his dads sculptures, Hungary’s car crash opera, the darkness of Serbia with Dragoliub Rasa Todosijevic, the subtly of Alejandro cesarco’s photo drawings of cloth, Dayanita Singh series of photographs of archives titled File Room and Yto Barrada, Family Tree and telephone books will stay with me alongside the wondrous ambition of The Clocks by Christian Marclay.
now to work.....

journeytotheprocess

a sharing session as part of the journey to the podium enabled the artists to present a range of interesting work but the individual process of making and thinking rather than the outcomes was more useful.
during the day i added some images to my collection of public non-designed designed spaces and a pond that I have been documenting over the year.

http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/journey-to-the-podium-share

lateralcaravanthinking

just back from Hopton Holiday Village after 3 days of a residential course with year 1 textile students from nuca – a wonderful creative experience of drawing workshops, bonding exercises, lateral thinking and problem solving all within a holiday complex. It will stay with them forever!

http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/hopton-2011

workworkworkandsomeendings

it was good to show a group of teachers the plan for the big book for firstsite at a learning to look presentation last night. the presentation included some sample pages from the contents of the 10 books which go to make up one large bookwork. the images range from a collection of mind bending optical illusions to a collection of images from my ongoing archive juxtaposed with each other - all an attempt to generate a range of possible narratives.
the feedback after the presentation that focused on the idea of a book as a tool was positive – i now have to finish the designs, get it printed and then bind it – so still a fair bit to go.
meanwhile I have finished the bookwork for journey to the podium. the folder has two sections sewn into it - one a colophon and the other a text piece written by Dan and typeset by myself that gives a real flavour of Boccia.
and finally I have in my hand a copy of the firstsite berryfield leaflet with the perforations – i am really pleased with the feel of the print and it really has gone down well.

brassbandcollaborationwithsound

faster than sound – quite possibly the most complete combination of sound and visuals so far with the wonderful Christian Marclay creating a film sound collage piece that was responded to by live musicians including a brass band. I was first taken with his work when I saw telephone – a collaged film of people answering the phone amassed from various films and then mesmerised by a huge projection of Video Quartet at Tate modern – Iooking forward to seeing the clock when we go to the Biennale in a month’s time – can’t wait.
before that we were treated to Ephemera – a piano piece with a graphic score of torn printed matter with pieceds of both actual and invented musical notation which was performed by Steve Beresford and Manga Scroll – sound effects collected from manga comics and graphically written into long text piece a interpreted by vocalist Elaine Mitchener in the intimate space upstairs at snape.