collectingcollectingcollecting

Collecting sweet chestnuts to make an amazing spread and acorns to make a piece of work. The spread tastes great and the work, a homage to disputed oak trees and a piece by John and Yoko is a little sad. A busy week - working on SZC stuff – creating a bookwork for the show at Snape, creating a series of works around concrete and the Dome, looking at the negative space and relating it to the archaeology, and some images rethinking saints. The commission for Battery of Ideas is sorted and just needs to be made on site; it will be tight timewise. Onto screens – managed to endure (in a good way) How are you, Alan Partridge. Freakier Friday – actually quite complicated with so many body swaps! Loved the twist in Woman in Cabin 10.  

enclosed two living sculptures. acorns taken from the ground under disputed trees, mirroring the two domes of Sizewell C. it is hoped that you will plant them.

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Went to see Sleeping Beauty, the pantomime at the New Wolsey – oh no I didn’t – amazing set but maybe not double entendre enough! Brian Eno presented a rich and thoughtful collection of positions and ideas at a talk the other night at Norwich University of the Arts. It was interesting to hear some diametrically opposing thoughts voiced to the audience of educators in the audience who sat listening to him. Ideas around working with chaos, the driving forces of creativity, how to make art, the role of attention, gardening v architecture, and then for me - the lack of process within ai, gotta reflect on that one. Truly wonderful stuff. Friday night was off to Lowestoft to check out Battery of Ideas in the old Tesco on the highstreet. What a fabulous space. Really nice evening full of great conversations with good work - Digital Film Installations: Water Portals by Henry Driver & Arboreal by Emily Richardson going on around you. https://firstlightfestivalcic.com/batteryofideas Snape had a sharing of Bystander - the work of a week’s dance residency with Richard Pye. https://www.instagram.com/richardpye/?hl=en-gb It was one of the most moving pieces I have seen for a long time. It brought me to tears with delicate, studied movements – stunningly powerful. https://www.brittenpearsarts.org/events/richard-pye Onto screens – really enjoying everything about Wolf Hall – The Light – astonishingly taught acting, tight script and fabulous costumes. Juror #2 – will you do the ‘right’ thing? Conclave – you will do the right thing?

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Starting to work on a couple of jobs – mainly Firstlight in Lowestoft Noon to Moon ‘Weather Vanes & Cardinal Points’. Research Tory Lies is quite exhausting - https://boris-johnson-lies.com/ Having spent 4 days quite ill in bed, when not actually sleeping with a cold wet towel over my head I’ve drifted in and out through a whole bunch of stuff so - Onto screens – some programs – A Man in Full – tight script with a great soundtrack – it brought Explosion – Eli Paperboy Reed into my life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onRnUAJOF9Q Ghosts – what larks. SWAT – surprisingly its quite possibly the most inclusive and thoughtful program I’ve watched for a long time. The highly supportive characters are constantly asking each other about their feelings, checking in, when not chasing down hardened gun toting criminals! A rewatching of Sicario, the character played by  Benicio del Toro, when asked about what’s going on replies – “You’re asking me how a watch works – for now just keep an eye on the time” - chilling…. Got out to see the latest show from Eastern Angles – an amazing 2 person show but with a cast of over 20-25 characters – isn’t acting extraordinary. Also, at the Cut art centre in Halesworth an exhibition of stunning work by Richard Pinkney. The quality of printmaking is matched by the lively creativity displayed in the work.

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The Synthetic Anatomy Module at Kings has won an Education innovation Award from the Anatomical Society for an Integrated Innovative Anatomy Teaching Module. We are good – congratulations to Dr Mandeep Gill Sagoo (Team Lead, King's College London), Professor Richard Wingate, Professor Kawal Rhode and Dr Leigh Wilson. I’m deep into Chat GPT and its wondrous possibilities. Working with it to create work for Moon to Moon, in Lowestoft for the firstlight festival. Asked to develop a response to a poem written by George Szirtes It was an interesting exercise to submit the text into ChatGPT - I was fascinated that it deconstructed the poetry, taking out the poetic and making it fairly numbing. Meanwhile in my teaching capacity its assessment assessment assessment time – judging people is a thing. Onto screens - Paint – the discussion after when trying to work out why this doesn’t work is probably more interesting than the film itself – misjudged. John Wick 4 – 1000 more ways to creatively kill people. And then there was Succession – the gloriously devastating ending for all. 

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has the world gone mad - or is it just sad? found this at Peterborough train station - it is a real thing - anyway another way of dealing with the public is trust - which was much in evidence at the free, un-gated festival in Lowestoft.

First light was a thing - Talvin Singh at 4:00 in the morning - playing in the dawn sunrise was very special but Circadian by Rosie Lee was the real highlight - it consisted of 24 on the hour 10 minute pieces. Each time it was the same movement and sound but the dancers were different, the age of the dancers grew throughout the 24 hours. I think I managed to see about 10 ish - it was tremendously moving - the security of similarity enabled the mind to be flooded with ideas about life, rhythms, death. The poignancy of the subtle differences of the dancers movements brought tears to the eyes. The piece growing and changing with each iteration.

The sound was so haunting Isaac Lee-Kronick who was there the whole time playing live was a star.

The film will be great - I hope there is a version where  all the dancers blend into each other over a 10 minute period. The exhibition Print Matters in Poland organised by Majka Dokudowicz and Mariusz Gorzelak at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Art and Design, Wrocław has just closed - I had a piece in the show as it was made up of work from The University of the West of England's collection

Meanwhile on the way to New Designers to hang the NUA Textile Design stand - there is always a sense of full-onness when attending - so many hopes and dreams crushed into such a small hot space.