stricktlywrong

totally traumatised by watching 1917 - it truly is an extraordinary film - in part due to the glorious cinematography you are with them the whole way watching and feeling each and every tragic decision they have to make - a must see film. 2 Popes was a little dry but solid acting from Hopkins and Price elevated it. I've been invited to speak at Materials Research Exchange 2020 - the line-up and content for the two days is fairly awesome, luckily my job is to talk about how a maker makes sense of working within a 'science' context - something that I do know about. http://www.materialsresearchexchange.co.uk/speakers/  a day at Camberwell discussing how the final final show can in some way connect to the history of the course, the students are planning something with the Camberwell Book Art collection, working with Rosie Sherwood of Turn The Page. Making connections between their own individual practice and items from both The Camberwell and Chelsea Collection with a view to demonstrating the breadth of opportunity and possibility afforded by the format and concept of the book. the ending of the Book Art course has brought a degree of reflection enabling me to think about what we have been doing on the course alongside the value of the book as a creative tool.  the text for the last catalogue is swirling around my mind - The almost invisible reflective element of teaching enables reinvention, a constant rethinking, the experience of which inevitably feeds back into teaching. The process of creating presentations for seminars is a gathering of current transitory information and weaving it with established historical knowledge to form arguments, new 'truths'. When delivering presentations one cannot anticipate the students input and the subsequent discussion due to their wide ranging subject and cultural reference points. In that moment new hypothesis are born and new thinking established. This is what we did. This is the legacy of the course and the people who came, because it was their time to explore the book. This is the legacy that we created which they took with them...... meanwhile - popped into The British Library to see the new display of Artists Books within the treasures exhibition - really good to see books with Camberwell connections in the case.

beuysstolemyparentsidea

a busy week included the last catalogue conversation seminar at Camberwell for the MA Book Art Course - https://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/21-01-20-catalogue-conversation it was a little odd seeing 26 years of catalogues on a table - so many memories and stories - running a storytelling workshop at NUA as part of developing so called soft skills with the students - confidence is growing as they recognise their inherent skills deeply embedded within their internal file labelled transferable skills  - I have been invited to give a talk at Materials and Design Exchange 2020 by  MaDE  this has involved trying to find a headshot as I don't possess such a thing - see 70 images of me - odd I never realised that I looked so much like my mum - meanwhile in 1965 Joseph Beuys held a performance attempted to explain pictures to a dead Hare 'coincidentally' a year before the event in a street in Coventry that no longer exists young parents held a small child and filmed him stroking a dead rabbit so he could experience the feeling of fur before it was made into stew - can I claim copyright from the Beuys estate?  finally as part of my general 'get rid of it all' clear out I came across my notes from the first ever book arts conference - feel free to take a peek at the past here https://www.slideshare.net/secret/z5E5tJGV4wlC1A

foodartandmorefood

There is a great show at Messums in Cork St of one of the current strands of Laurence Edwards body of work. It focuses on an interesting public art project where the heads of former miners are being modelled and cast in bronze for a proposed piece in the centre of Doncaster. I love the original waxes they are full of movement and energy and genuinely seem to be alive. I'm clearing shelves in my studio, getting rid of stuff that no longer makes sense to have in my life, mainly materials and expired technology no longer needed but I found the notes from the first book makers conference organised by Stefan Szczelkum which was a moment of odd time travel for me. click to go to a powerpoint link to see what we were doing in 1993. https://www.slideshare.net/secret/z5E5tJGV4wlC1A

on a short weekend break to Sète in the South of France in between eating some extraordinary food I slotted in a visit to see apres a multi-part exhibition by Eric Baudelaire at CRAC. It was a mixed show that included some interesting work of other artists to build context for a long community project - it was good to see the work of The Gorilla Art Action Group and some early video work including  John Akomafrah's Handsworth songs with dub cinema and Partially Buried by Renee Green which explored ideas around loss and nostalgia. back to the food Sète  like most of France has specific speciality - this area has Tielle - an octopus pie - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tielle  truly wonderful.   

articulatedtests

The break has given some time to reflect on the recent structural pieces I've been working on. Documenting them through filming enables another kind of understanding away from the haptic. 

The Lighthouse was all look at how odd we can make something and don't we know it but worth it for the soundtrack. Adam Driver was worth watching in The Report, a depressing indictment that people and whole governments can get away with bad things. Driver appeared to be acting when doing nothing in the procedural elements of the film. Uncut Gems is one long shouting experience. Long Shot is  okay-ish but just not quite funny enough and I know complaining about gross out issues in a Seth Rogan film is to miss the point but.....