academicwhirlwind

a full-on two weeks of an academic whirlwind - I think that there was some breathing in there - somewhere. lateral thinking workshops, introductions to course, days out..... timetravel letters and tutorials. From the initial conversations I feel Year 3 students at NUA are going to be excellent. I have posted a few of the presentations on slideshare - a link to day 1 https://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/thursday-day-1 Teaching at Camberwell is a longer story and I will return to this later. On the Netflix front deep in Maniac https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580146/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1  with its excellent cast/acting and the question of what is real, where is reality and truth at the core, Killing Eve https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7016936/  was a winner. Outside of the screen I managed to get to see the stunning Clocks by Christian Marclay at the Tate - oddly I was watching a piece actually about time showing time but I forgot the time and was late for a meeting!! - its that good. Even though I have seen it several times in different places I plan to go back - meanwhile here's a link to Telephone - another piece of his https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MMfgRg53SU Storm - James Wilton Dance at Dance East - some wonderful movement from the soloists Norikzazu, Ihsaan De Banya and Sarah Jane Taylor. The choreography flowed and I became acuity aware of the dances relationship to the floor! just enough hip hop. Finally got my Spill tickets - can't wait as there is so much to see especially a return to Forced Entertainment's Shakespeare  https://www.forcedentertainment.com/project/complete-works-table-top-shakespeare/  and Shared Saliva https://spillfestival.com/show/rituals-in-romance/ looking forward to Dance at The Place next week and then another evening at Dance East.

interiorsarego

it's been a busy week teaching on the Textile Design Course at NUA - year 1 arrived and their 1 day project was full of colour and surface - what is textiles? - what isn't it? without it you would be alone naked in a field.... to illustrate the overwhelming importance of textiles in the first day we covered fine art, illustration, fashion, architecture, interior design and fashion communication! the new instagram # is #nuatextiles year 3 had a whole day of year and project briefings, NSS briefing and Learning outcomes briefing but I tried to deliver it through work-shopping - the first project is interiors https://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/003a-25-09-17-briefing-ba3a-project-2-interiors so am looking forward to some exciting work.

presentingpossibilitiesattheendofitall

A great day at Camberwell - today on the Book Art Course has seen the delivery of a part of the sequence of sessions set up within the course that explore the process of hanging the final show - thinking about the role of the exhibition in a practice - the meaning of the screw v the nail - looking at past exhibitions - health and safety calamities and working without restrictions in an ideal world. here is a link to the presentation https://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/final-show-2017 It's going to be an excellent show - as diverse as ever, each student has been developing their own voice and the show will contain work that both celebrates and challenges notions of book - it will all make you think. come along - http://events.arts.ac.uk/event/2017/7/13/Camberwell-Postgraduate-Summer-Show-2017/?_ga=2.202896465.1912006096.1497984293-1873703396.1485343360 becoming obsessed with reply all https://gimletmedia.com/reply-all/ and their yes yes yes section - http://yesyesnos.tumblr.com/ hear the more esoteric areas of the internet explained.

linkslinkslinks

nanoDTC has taken over my life! - here is a link to the mass of work and thinking - I am supposed to be there a day a week but most weeks it's 2-3. I am learning so much and really enjoying the experience - especially the professional care that I encounter https://unfoldingthinking.blogspot.co.uk/ but other work is still continuing and am managing to find time to see stuff. Went to London specifically to see the physical incarnation of http://www.isthisitisthisit.com/ which was excellent - some great work and the beer didn't run out at the private view. looking forward to working with the Open College of the Arts work - their short project has at its focus the development of a web presence. Still reflecting on Make:Shift and making sense of the experience and in practical terms getting back to the contacts made. here is a link to the presentation I gave http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/makeshift . students at NUA have started on their next project - fashion - my presentation was around extending ideas of the body and our relationship to it http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/briefing-ba3a-project-fashion-67938524 - I have been thinking about why and how we learn - I have been delivering this presentation - http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/to-quit-or-not-to-quit it is an attempt to enable the students to recognise when to change their thinking/behaviour to get results - influenced by Freakonomics. http://freakonomics.com/archive/ Often students have been bludgeoned around the issue of tests and succeeding within this context but have lost sight of their own goals, their intuition and the idea of learning itself and what they actually want to learn.    

got to see the Green Room - a chillingly dark film that left me with a general feeling of oppression - this was a good thing - but brutal. mainly the weekends have been about regenerating the body through long walks by or next to the sea. 

itsallgogogo

The architects Kirkham Sheidow have got our house up on their web site – they did a fantastic job on the design and it looks great on their site - all the turmoil of the build is but a shadow - http://www.kirkhamsheidow.co.uk/live/evas-place/

Meanwhile the final episode of Boardwalk Empire has left me feeling bereft. The last series cleverly revealed more of the characters with the use of a fractured narrative and the flashback. The gaps between the now and then getting shorter till they flow in and out towards the end which is wonderfully circular and felt right http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0979432/episodes Strange Love - quite a beautiful slice of life - what you think is going to happen does but just not when you think! Worth a watch and enjoy the light. There is an intriguing show at the South London Gallery.  http://www.southlondongallery.org/ By Isabelle Cornaro it’s a study of order and hierarchy which deconstructs the idea of display – the vistas and framing that takes place as one walks around the pieces is the most interesting element of the experience.

An interesting day at Camberwell – two seminars around becoming visible – one about bookfairs  - we are attending three this year – Bristol, Leeds and Norwich http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/004-bookfair and the other was about creating a catalogue – it’s interesting to consider why one would want one in today’s digital age – the materiality of the object is an important factor.

http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/003-catalogue-what-2015