selfbookwork

Focal Point Gallery in Southend have asked for a self portrait to celebrate 30 years of exhibiting - I had a show of digital images created with 3D software titled reading landscapes, work that developed from a commission for Suffolk County Council in 2000. The black and white gif is created from a number of the versions. The digital bookworks gif is made up of images from the exhibition.

meanwhile some films - lost bullet - a long drive to get to a point, plus one - a glorious leave your brain on the side romcom  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9076562/ Irresistible - a clever punchy comment on the dysfunctional system looking at how America goes about doing politics - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9076562/

housebecomeshome

This week on the Book Art Course at Camberwell the email project has been all about mapping home - where it starts and stops - I used the video the RIBA Suffolk Design Awards made when the extension that was designed by architects Kirkham Sheidow was up for an award (we won!) thinking about my mum and the idea of a house becoming a home and then a house. Adding time lapse films made of the site of the house I grew up in was a little too much and video of the last time I saw my mum was just too sad.

Above are some screen grabs.

Irresistible by Adam Alter is an addictive book about addiction, focusing on the screens that surround us - there are some truly frightening and instructive moments that will see me altering my behaviour. http://adamalterauthor.com/irresistible

Who you think I am - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7552686/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0  Juliette Binoche is extraordinary as a woman adrift from her sense of self, developing narratives within narratives to make sense of a/the world. Truth with Binoche and Catherine Deneuve https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8323120/ explores versions of truth within collective and individual memories. Days of the Bagnold Summer was so sweet, you feel for both sides until they become at one The King of Staten Island had great moments of thoughtfulness where you are taken out of your own soul to reflect on oneself https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9686708/  Da 5 Bloods, Spike Lee's  latest is a long mixture of every film genre you have thought about and a few you haven't. there are some extraordinary moments worth watching.

endingsandmaterials

I was invited to a really interesting network meeting the other day - I gave a short presentation and took part in a Q&A session with the Cambridge University public engagement team, it was great to revisit my time at NanoDTC, to reflect on the work I did there and consider how it continues to fuel my thinking  within my practice. Meanwhile at Camberwell College of the Arts we are reinventing the final weeks of the Book Art course to really reflect on needs and wants of the students. Each week mini projects are being set by the students and shared through Zoom, it will make a great collective legacy. So far we have created posters - one based on Russian typography and another on Film titles. In the studio I have been photographing and filming some of the material experiments I have been working on.  

and onto films - Aniara - a twisted sc-fi dystopian tragic tale, Just Mercy - an oppressive tale of human ugliness, High Note - lovely but doesn't really go anywhere apart from a twist nobody will see coming, The Lovebirds - an interesting premise that should be funnier ditto Space force.  

floorceilingfloorcorner

I have been re-reading If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Calvino and thinking about the physicality of books - books that are not about reading - or roles other than reading - this has crashing into my thinking about solutions to mini projects that we are working on at Camberwell on the final weeks of the Book Art Course. What is the role of the book if not to be read?......floor ceiling floor corner

I went to see Julia Backwell last year talk and bought Time Song - Looking for Doggerland, just managed to get round to it this week - her thoughtful writing liminally slips through time and place through objects and moments - a thoroughly beautiful read.

I have just come across Prof. Scott Galloway - his refreshing honest around education and its costs is shockingly brutal -you might start with The Algebra of Happiness which covers a lot of ground - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gfEjOgxBfI and is another strand of his straightforward thinking.

So onto some entertainment - two important films that you must see but are not an easy watch - Just Mercy was relentless and important Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a brutal suppression around women's bodies. An easier but another indictment on how we live our lives - this time capitalism re-watching doesn't make it easier to see the lessons within The Big Short. Two cartoon recommendations are the freaky darkness that is The Shivering Truth - season 2 is out https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6905458/  and the Quirkiness goodness of Central Park https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8129006/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 Series include Snowpiercer (unsure if its necessary as the film exists) and Little Fires Everywhere (uneven and moments of overacting).