wearebackinsciartworld

So after 10 years I was back at the Maxwell Centre in Cambridge - very other - like a muscle memory I arrived at the station and retraced all my cycle cut-throughs as if it was yesterday. The space is the same, but surrounded by very shiney beautiful new buildings, in one of which I experienced an experimental sound piece over lunch. NanoDTC is a space very dear to my heart, where I first started working in a science context, which led me to so many wonderful people in tremendously interesting places and ultimately to Richard and Leigh and Synthetic Anatomy at Kings. A day of posters, talks and workshops - truly inspirational. The students are thoughtful and intelligent, always up for thinking laterally and creative problem solving. I ran a couple of workshops focusing on taxonomy, genetics and storytelling. It was a great to make art/science connections and to rethink my own practice as a result. When asked what complexity is their drawings were interesting in that the images resembled the ones drawn by under 7s when asked to draw energy as part of the Sizewell residency. Meanwhile onto screens – just started Last seen – harrowing but intriguing enough to continue. Spa Weekend - what was I thinking?

busysteaming

During a STEAM event this week a very small child came up to me and explained that "you can put all the elements in a bag and mix them to make anything. Some are bad some not so. Some will kill you and make you go to hospital. Helium is one of the good ones you can lick". I thought - well that’s about right. Science is done.

Anyway - a full week started out in Norwich, then working with the Kingfisher School Trust people at SZC, finally hanging the children’s interpretation of Energy and then two days at a STEAM event brought some great conversations within the sci-art workshops in SZC’s new visitor centre. My Saturday started out early - leaving the house at 7:20, boarding a train to London, then New Designers, then home at 9:20, a ‘usual day’.  Onto screens – The Devil wears Prada 2………………..uummmh.

whatdoesenergylooklikefinally

It’s taken over a year since the idea was mooted by Sizewell to put children’s drawings on the fences around the Sizewell C development. A version of this request now hangs in the new visitor centre awaiting a STEAM event. In between those two points over 1500 children have engaged in the process of thinking about the role of a power station and been asked to draw energy. The images look impressive all together, it’s a cohesive body of work.

naturaldrawings

I have finally started using the ‘inks’ made from materials that were on the site of where Sizewell C Power Station is being constructed. Its day one and I am slowly working out what the materials do. A truly magical evening at Snape last night – 2 concerts – the first a selection of ‘protest’ pieces, mainly bonkers and a little dated, a kind of period piece, but still interesting. After that the second concert by the Britten Sinfonia had a sublime first half, a highlight was a piece by Brett Dean, Carlo. There was also a splendid recorder piece played by Genevieve Lacey. After the interval it was difficult to take your eyes off the dynamic cello playing of Laura van der Heijden, truly awe inspiringly magnificent. But I think the real star was the exquisite conducting by Gemma New. She elegantly held both the orchestra and the audience. It was a live event.  Meanwhile onto screens – In the grey – yes out there is a parallel universe of highly organised illegal enforcers. Madeline – whimsical and a little sad.

whatdoeselectricitylooklike

A day at Suffolk Show on the SZC stand.  It was quite a surprise to turn up and find a large picture of me on the stand. In amongst the incredibly professionally printed display and children’s colouring in activity I decided to ask the public What does electricity look like? I spent the day finding answers from young people through drawing. I noticed that there was a point (around 4/5 years old) when drawings that attempted to capture what is quite an almost impossible act, that of drawing something that we cannot see, where the actual feeling or experience of electricity turns to drawings of circuit boards and other examples of what we use it for. education…... don’t you love how it changes the mind. I had some extraordinary conversations with the public – about creating sculpture in the brain, realigning neurons in the brain as an artwork and how design works when attempting to provide solutions within restricted spaces – fascinating. Suffolk Show throws up lots of questions and a few answers.

exposingunderneath

Week 3 on the synthetic anatomy module at Kings was fantastic – the bag anatomy session was a treat as proto scientists gave meaning to inanimate objects, just as I said artist's have titled their work, the titles giving entry points and meaning. The module goes from strength to strength It’s great to value each years’ experience, with our learning building on and with each years knowledge rather than a wholesale rewriting of the course every year. What is it to communicate without being able to talk? I like the idea of rules, systems, choice and how intuition is navigated within the workshop.The afternoon was spent drawing in the dissecting room. Alone in a room with dead people and fridges of many random parts of dead people was 'interesting', a strange privilage. I spent a lot of time looking, and marvelling at what I had on the table in front of me. It was only after that I realized that I had focused on hands and feet, the places I had just tattooed. Exploring the bones and tendons under the skin explains the intense pain the week before! Juxtaposing the images of my tattoos with my drawings seems to make sense as resolved outcomes. It was a real privilege. Onto screens – Ferrari – a strangely predictable story but set in beautiful countryside. Welcome II the Terrordome – more odd dystopian future. The Beekeeper – the Stath doing Stath things (killing people creatively) American Star – yes I am a killer, but with a heart! Started Mr and Mrs Smith – nonsense but great fun!

yourattentiondidn'tcollapse.itwasstolen

I’ve been working on some drawings of my hand with tattoos – not sure what they are leading to but if anything, it’s an excuse to get some drawing practice whilst sitting in the garden. onto screens – 2/1, an interesting premise, beautifully filmed, both strange, and awkward with a nice twist or extension in the last frames. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3842684/ Prey, a kind of origin story to Predator was beautifully shot with some good action scenes. Brian and Charles is bizarrely awesome, Wedding Season was full of stuff that we have already seen but not a crime scene. Along for the ride was longingly wistful. Not my thing but well-conceived with great special effects the pilot of Sandman was well conceived but won’t be followed up. Season 3 episode 4 of Atlanta, The Big Payback is fairly mind blowing. A huge recommendation. The Rehearsal by Nathan Fielder is truly mind bending, although the premise of rehearsing important things in our life is taken to an extreme you start to think about how you move through life. Two series that I am dipping into - Girlboss and Great News both fairly tight writing with some comic relief.

booksforjubilant!

The books for the jubilant! project arrived - l have to say that they look great, the pages flow and the students work is something special, so proud of them. The book has captured the project wonderfully – the students loved them too. After a busy morning, first at the food museum  to look at the garden exhibition there, then onto Red Stables where the frames are now in the space waiting for the celebration and sharing at the weekend. Onto screens - STILL – A Gecko Film is truly beautiful – my eyes filled as the woman dances with her hands after playing with a blanket and the balloon sequence is gloriously mad – most excellent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJTL5Lcag1U&t=763s&ab_channel=Gecko

 

thefutureishere

Some drawing/thinking - attempting to work out how to create a structure that explores some of the functionality in the zebrafish brain plate as part of an ongoing investigation at Kings that is generating strands of investigation in my own practice. Onto screens - In the shadow of the moon - time travel consequences of living and letting go. Take me – lessons learnt the hard way, iboy – sci-fi light with added menace, Parallel Mothers – a deeply meaningful layered work from Pedro Almodóvar, Choose or Die – a by-the-book controlled horror infused, Furioza – the futility of violence, Dune – fantastic spaceships and beautiful sets but….All the old knives – sad twisty spy tale. The final episode of Severance went beyond the idea of a cliff-hanger - can't wait for season 2.

The Every by Dave Eggers should be required reading about where we are going before we get there! The satire is so close that at times it feels like a documentary. Sections that describe a trip out of campus and the future of marking in universities are disturbingly close to life experienced, and the plethora of insightful observations is alarming - Capital-P Play was last year’s management theory, following multitasking, single tasking, grit, learning-from-failure, napping, cardio working, saying no, saying yes, the wisdom of the crowd, trusting one’s gut, Viking management theory, Commissioner Gordon workflow theory, X-teams, B-teams, embracing simplicity, pursuing complexity, seeking similarity, creativity through radical individualism, creativity through groupthink, creativity through the rejection of groupthink, organizational mindfulness, organizational blindness, microwork, macro sloth, fear-based camaraderie, love-based terror, working while standing, working while ambulatory, learning while sleeping, and, most recently, limes.

Subjectivity is just objectivity waiting for data. “You hear about the art students?” he asked. She had. A growing number of undergraduate and graduate art students were lobbying for the Hermosa app to be given equal or greater power than the subjective assessments and grades traditionally given by their professors. Fairness and Objectivity in Beauty, these students insisted in a fast-moving meme, quickly nicknamed FOB. Humans are error-prone knots of biases, they insisted, and should not be involved in determining what was beautiful or good. 

joyfuldayatkings

Another joyful day at Kings working with Celia and the synthetic anatomy crew. Seeing the work in the lab brings more connections in my mind to the creative activity and thought  processes in a studio. We talked about flow during which I had my own revelatory moment aligning the ideas between two distinct workshops and making connections between a book: its sequence of pages and the limitations and constraints of a bag. Both contain the idea of revelation when engaged with. It will be interesting to think on this when preparing new workshops. A morning of drawing exercises working with Celia Pym using anatomy models sought to introduce the synthetic anatomy students to thinking through looking. Slowing down, speeding up and rethinking what it is to communicate were some of the creative routes explored in the session. There were some excellent drawings created in the session, as well as the development of their teamwork, problem solving skills, and general openness to possibilities. Links between the historical models and 3D printing were created through the activity of making observational drawings. There were some awesome drawings created during the process. After a thought provoking discussion over lunch it was good to have a meeting to see the final layout of the Garden of Emotions in the gallery space - looking forward to running workshops there. It was the first session of working with Double Elephant this week – a nice open workshop, introducing many many ways of starting the creative process. It will be great to see the ways in which the brief has been interpreted. Meanwhile onto screens - the end of season 3 part 1 of Ozarks was brutal, Mass with its twists and turns, although theatrical was truly devastating. Lamb was beautiful in its stillness and Ongaku Our Sound an interesting comment on media and music My latest obsession is Salvatore Ganacci - start with Step Grandma and work your way through his work from there - truly some of the oddest film I have ever seen, alongside some sweet Swedish house music

affordancetheory

Working on various iterations of 3D printed flexible structures that can be manipulated in the hand. Starting with quick sketches to make sense of how they might work but the affordance of the structures can only really be understood when the structures are actually printed and in the hand. https://www.learning-theories.com/affordance-theory-gibson.html Onto screens – Tokoyo – Leos Carax, Michel Gondry and Bong Joon Ho have created an extraordinary triptych of a movie - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0976060/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1  Titane – too slasher too brutal for me.

drawingtomakesenseoftheworld

more drawings in an attempt to rethink or plan the nets - added the image of book structures so the idea of maybe not making sense in terms of being built in the mind could be a part of the work. As ever the tangram is a way of thinking out this puzzle part of the project.

drawinglanscapes

A busy week so far – 2 days in N Norfolk staying in a holiday camp with year 1 textile students – a time to get together .......drawing outside and bonding. There are some really extraordinary landscapes to work out on the coast - its a great experience which stays with the students and they build with on throughout their practice within the years to come.

oldskooldrawing

a creative day of large scale and experimental drawing for textile students at nuca. working with martyn Blundell - http://martynblundell.blogspot.com/and year 3 students we looked at scale and touched on collaboration all within the context of their work within unit 7 which is a precursor to their final projects which they start next term – there is some interesting work within the student body and it felt good to set up something ‘old skool’.