anythingicandoisnotartbecausei'mnotanartist

enjoying the deconstruction within this video and its addition to the what is/can be art discussion. the extensive conversations in the year 1 proposal presentations at Camberwell this week were wide ranging, leading to many many creative thoughts and the titles of the year 2 dissertations illustrate the wonderfulness of the course and its coverage -

what are the different aspects of interactive arts, and is it still possible for artworks to be interactive without the use of technology? RESPECT TO NATURE A brief analysis of land artists' Natural consciouness - take Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long as example. Haptic Communication of Imagination and Reality. Nothing Matters: Situating the Audiences' Experience of Katrina Palmer's 2015 Artangel Commission on Portland. Behind the Line. Comparing and contrasting approaches to mathematics applied in the aork of Agnes Martin and Cam Wong  

ideasofbondedopposites

The bonding experiments continue - there are so many possibilities - here I'm working with a felted material and foils - the final fabric has opposites at its core cold/warm, dense/light, anarchy/order. The cape is coming along with a fashion shoot around the corner. meanwhile some films this week - Superbob - what if a superhero lived in Peckham and just wanted  to meet someone because he was a bit lonely? a great premise and funny in a melancholic way - I loved the people of Peckham defending him - "he's doing something important and its none of your concern". 71 - a slice of bloody, brutal divided Ireland - excellent acting but not for the squeamish. Suffragette - well I felt a little like asking where is Dick Van Dyke? it alludes to many issues but....but I get it that it's an important film but it only just makers it because of the narrative arc Carey Mulligan brings to the idea of loneliness. A highlight has to be Dope - it's a coming of age film with many many twists that take you to exciting places - the 'speech' given by the main character about not fitting in was wondrous. And then there is the great music! Our teams proposed presentation to be given at the festival of ideas this Saturday is coming along - there are some incisive questions happening which we hope will spark others. http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/nanoart-perceiving-smallest-scales

bondinginblood

I've spent the week in Hunstanton with the year 1 Textile Design students from Norwich NUA. It's an opportunity to meet 'off campus' and all that that gives to the relationships. A glorious Tuesday saw a day of drawing on the beach and around town meanwhile Wednesday was visual games, getting thinking, challenging received wisdom and skill share - what a really nice group of students - I look forward to spending time with them over the next 3 years.
a night of boxing and milk - a pointless fighting - the fight we are all involved in - I have language on my side - don't cry over spilt milk - Franco B cuts a forlorn figure in glorious garb, he is reminiscent of boxers past their prime or saturday afternoon wresters on TV from the 70s - he is fighting for us and for himself - we watch and it's an illusion, it's all in the mind. A wonderful night at Norwich Arts Centre - if you get a chance see Franco B: Milk and Blood somewhere I would recommend it to you. http://www.franko-b.com/milk_and_blood.html

bondingforthefuture

as well as teaching at NUA and having a day out in London looking at exhibitions with the MA Book Art students at Camberwell its been a busy week of working a little on the many projects on the go - a sort of snowplough effect, moving along everything a bit at a time. It's become all about presentations at the moment - really pleased with the presentation and paper I'm giving at Futurescan in Glasgow - I've put back images of the 8 exhibitions that were part of the outcomes, the work for BAM at the Southbank will involve a sort of workshop/talk/demonstration and the presentation for the Nano project in Cambridge has a range of excellent questions which I hope will galvanize the audience. Meanwhile I've managed to play with the effects of bonding on the lazer cut materials I've been working on over the Summer with a view to creating an outfit - its moved on to the idea of a creative cape (with tassels). font - the Fiona Banner show at the Frith Street Gallery is quite intreguing with the layered dense intention behind its making. http://www.frithstreetgallery.com/shows/view/fiona_banner_font

consciousmakinghatwearing

My experience of Nano Technology has led me to clean rooms - How does the oppressive otherness of the clean room enable free thought? I thought that maybe I could explore this with creative capes! - but have started off smaller - how can ritual and uniform make one hyper conscious of one's actions and thoughts within an art education context? 

ok another reason why both studying an art subject is so wonderfully expansive and that my job is so great - my favourite conversation this week......  discussing the role and position of British folk customs, the characters and their costumes, for a Research Report led to talking about English traditional music, thinking about folk music and its roots in notions of tradition. Now consider ....if there were a group of individuals who thought that the ideas behind the BMP, NF, EDL, UKIP etc were a good thing and these individuals wanted to explore and celebrate their version of what it is to be English - Englishness etc but they also liked folk music. What would they be called? What would be the name of their band? - yes we came up with the answer - Fascist Folk -  this could be both a group and a genre. A bit like Minimal Gothic - an architectural genre for the guilty who like to think they want a sparse, functional space but harbour a rapt obsession about Cath Kitson. And then... a quick Google search of my new idea - Fascist Folk takes you to straight to Neo-folk....oh well.

notthatkindofweek

a good week on the teaching front - the learning agreement presentations with year 3 at NUA were excellent - fantastic energy, potentially there is a really wide range of work that challenges the idea of textile design and ambitious all encompassing projects.  it promises to be an exciting year. camberwell was all about deconstruction, book structures and reflective thinking - a link to the bookness presentation here.

http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/what-is-book-bookness-2015

CONCEAL | REVEAL at the dance house in Ipswich was a marvel of restraint precision - the Russel Maliphant Company presented Broken Fall, a piece I've seen with the BalletBoyz - it really is such a fractured, clipped piece with trust and weight at the centre. The other pieces were a lighting joy by Michael Hulls with serious collaborative thought going into the relationship between movement and light - I thought about book relationships and an element of a workshop I run that I now realise is really about dance.

working on a presentation for NUA about home and came across some devastating gifs of buildings falling down, well being blown up - it's going to be fun!