workonatforSZCcontinues

 

work on/at/for SZC continues – Started to sew into the large-scale connection prints, really pleased with them, they are looking exactly as I wanted them or maybe even better! Archaeology pieces are coming along, I’ve solved the future archaeology idea – going to recreate a time team trait – the small piece of material that is extrapolated into a large complex thing. Thinking about SZC as an extension, an idea that relates to planning laws but also thoughts around electricity consumption. onto screens – the Replacements underdogs get to win. Mickey 17 holds up a mirror to some of our current concerns. The Gorge – a relationship is built over a ravine with duplicitous shooting. Formular 1 Drive to survive season 7 – more over the top bloated reasons why we are all going to environmental hell alongside some excellent racing. Waynes World – a rewatch and yes, it is even funnier than you thought the first time around, with some dodginess.

moreandmoreSZC

Another great sauna on the beach at Dunwich for a birthday with another in a couple of weeks. Work on the Sizewell residency continues – I’ve decided that a way to navigate the immense project that is SZC with all its huge independent but linked departments is to become several artists that have different interests and approaches to making art. It has delivered an immense freedom to be able to do anything. Two visits to the public facing version SZC. The Archaeology display was full of interesting objects with some insightful commentary An evening at a community film event was lovely with the children in the films delivering a clear steer on what was needed. The first session at Alde Valley Academy went okay – introduced them to an alternative way of thinking. The work itself keeps coming. Woke up at 5.00 today – by 5.30 I was working on the communication pieces, creating couples, the idea of duality seems important, sort of oppositional I have found myself making moulds and using all sorts of materials to cast the voids. Onto films – Nickel Boys – really powerful cinema, filmed in a way that you feel implicated, although it was a little like reading an essay with great footnotes. The Brutalist – challenging, in all sorts of ways. Flight Risk – I wonder what will happen. Kneecap – AWESOME. Lockerbie – it’s a tough but insightful watch, with superb effects of a plane falling out of the sky! Brian and Maggie, lived it but a great illustration of what happened. Gave up on Squid Games – there were no surprises left. 

8setsinaneditionof6

Just added new work to my website – information about the 3D printing I’ve been involved in – looking good. The prizes for synthetic anatomy are ready – some 3D printed pieces for individuals who contributed to the classroom discussions making the sessions work for everyone. There are 8 sets of prints each in an edition of 6 for teams who have attained impressive examples in a range of categories.   

editionsprayer

I have been developing imagery from ideas first started when I encountered crystallography. The shapes are derived from exploring Penrose tessellation and manipulated in illustrator. Lazer cut forms are then used as a masking device which offers unlimited possibilities, the choice after making is where the work happens, as layers are added the work becomes more complex, especially after cutting into the prints and juxtaposing the many layers. The spray-painted imagery seems to blur and move in and out of focus. The images are a series of prints, and the film is made from pages of a bookwork. Onto screens - The infernal machine – full of slowly dawning ah-ha revelatory moments. Inheritance – twisted and dark. Athena – lots of shouting and running and explosions. Bullet Train – unsure if it was intentionally knowing or if it was delusional, the former would make it hilarious….4 episodes into the frantic and fast paced The Bear and yet to breath out.

booksandreading

Working on a new approach and using some new maths around the receptor pharmacology work. Recent reading on holiday included the gloriously disturbing Liarmouth: A feel-bad romance by John Waters, you will be repulsed in clever ways reading things you didn’t think possible. Exit Stage Left: The curious afterlife of pop stars by Nick Duerden details what happens next. PIHKAL: A Chemical Love Story by Alexander Shulgin, Ann Shulgin is a record of psychedelic exploration, travelling in uncharted territory. Kinky Boots at The New Wolsey was, if you like a gritty glamour sing along was the epitome of a good night out. Meanwhile onto screens - I’m deep into Wecrashed a crazy ride into the depths of the dubious start-up.

structureplusmotif

working on some articulated structures – I’ve been focusing on structure, but visual motifs could also be a potential way to explore and construct connections. The circles are completed when the structures are in a particular place, the various articulated panels must be manipulated into specific positions. Onto screens – The Premise – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10731840/ a truly mind-blowing series full of excellent ideas. The Butt Plug episode is a wild ride. Finally finished Better Call Saul, the sad and wistful ending was truly tragic as many individuals from the past returned to give or enable testimony, joining dots and crossing t's.

invisiblethinkingmadevisible

I’ve hung a display of some starting points, samples, and paths of investigation within my recent material development research in the foyer at NUA. Its inception derives from ‘we work everywhere’, part of a new iteration of initiatives. The plan is to demonstrate that tutors have a practice that informs the teaching we engage in with the students, one could argue that without a public facing personal practice that includes research and reflection we do our students a disservice, that what we do outside of the institutions we work in enables us to work within them. Onto screens – the wonderful yet totally stupid nonsense that is Moonfall, the slow yet focused Coda. Just started the painful and disturbing series Anatomy of a scandal.

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. 

whatif

What if the joints were at an angle? This question has sent my research around the zebra plate work off in an interesting tangent. The angles make the form behave in a seemingly more random way, the tensions within the structures feel exaggerated.  The other day a friend was playing me an important but terrible punk track from their youth, and it reminded me of School Meals – a band my French teacher at the time (1979) was in. It was a double A side Headmaster and such a spiv My copy has been lost in the midst of time - just attempted to buy back my youth only to find it would cost me £43 plus shipping – seems a lot for something that must of cost me around a quid at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaLjIjNMtXA&ab_channel=MusicWithoutBorders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlpw0l_wnHA&ab_channel=Feugwtwra onto screens – Vacation Friends – you will laugh, the ‘I’ve taken hallucinogenic mushrooms’ scene is glorious. West Side Story – why? Pirates – there is a good film in there with some tightening up.

adayofdeepthinking

A day of deep thinking - spending time in the dissecting room today was fascinating - the body is full of stuff - who knew! Layers upon layers upon interconnected layers. Holding a person’s head in my hands was strangely comforting whilst taking out parts of the brain and examining them oddly not odd! Seeing bodies laid out brought a whole range of new ideas to the zebra plate project. After being in the DR the conversation was full on and focused on how to encompass the new ideas that were brought up around affordance and its relationship to self-selection and determination. The idea of spaces in between and what determines the functionality both inside the individual structures and around in the external spaces. The role of proteins in determining how the material in the body evolves from a similar place, the concept of fate (an actual science concept)! Analogies like the idea of a flat sheet of paper and that same paper folded into a 3D form were incredibly helpful in developing my understanding. How to create and move the ideas and a project forward, not replicating structures but providing a form of commentary that enables new and deeper understanding of the development of the cells in a body. The experimental models were sketchy and involved a range of new methods - filling latex gloves with water, sewing the modular forms together with elastic, containing the structures within 'frames', changing the material - remaking the forms in foam. What does 'stuck' or 'sticking' mean in the context of the microscopic? What do forces and stuck have in common? What is their relationship? Are magnets an answer?  

printingparametersisallaboutcontrol

I am deep into the 3D printer. Still working with the 3D printing software; Google sketchUp, 3D Builder, PrusaSlicer – to work out what can be achieved, whilst also trying to figure out how to be in vague control of the activity. The parameters of printing possibilities seem endless, at one end an object can be formed solid like a block of non-material, it is all about the physical structure. At the other the delicate strands of PLA align with textile activity, weaving and basketry. I enjoy the feeling that the object seems to of been conceived in another universe, somehow they just arrive but the latter gives the work a deconstructed tone, not just in its physical making but also in that when viewing the mind can and does try to work out how the object was made. Onto screens - Rare Beasts – glorious storytelling https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8419594/ Cruella – glorious retelling yet overly long. Wrath of Man - Stath gloriously doing Stath.

foundandaltered

I’ve been busy in the studio the past couple of weeks playing with a found birdbox and working on a new set of images looking at the large articulated structures in rape fields. It is the beginning of assessment time in Academia – looking forward to seeing the students work all brought together for their final submission. Onto screens - The Fuck it list – fun and unnecessary but definitely fun. Now deep into Mare of Easttown, series 3 of Master of None and The Underground Railway. All good dramas but I would recommend reading the excellent book by Colson Whitehead first. My new favorite radio station - https://www.nts.live/ has an extraordinary range of eclectic music.

newworkroadtrip

New work - after time in the studio. Works that initially explored the space that the structured bookworks I make for the hand. Having found that I have fixed them in time by their solid state I have been looking at re-exploring the element of time through the layers on their surfaces I add and take away. A surprise trip to Wiltshire to check out the set up Messums have in that part of the world, exciting to be on a road trip in a new place to see their great spaces. https://messumswiltshire.com/ Meanwhile walks around my own house are full of the joys of Spring.

cleaningandorganising

After repainting and cleaning the studio, it was time to use it to set up a photo studio to document the recent work. They are all about initially creating a space, thinking about volume, whilst also looking a surface. Painting, repainting the shapes with a variety of materials from paint and varnish to gorilla glue and plaster and then sanding to reveal the layers. Textile students had a photo shoot last week, documenting work for this year’s on-line degree show. I took along a folded structure to have a bit of fun…….Some screens – I blame society – no. we are who we are – no. Ammonite – yes https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7983894/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 Black Bear – the wonderfully clever meta narratives will make you think https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9601220/. After watching Babylon Berlin a series centred on the post WW1 Berlin scene it’s interesting to think about the many parallels with today. The rise of nationalism, corrupt politics, runaway capitalism, add in Covid, and the post Brexit vote/landscape - are we heading into the cycle that is roaring 20s and everything that follows? Searching for a series – so far it’s a no to Salvation and Big Sky.

workinginstudio

Spending time in the studio – working on the surfaces of some structural sculptural pieces. Their starting point was an agreement to be part of Firstlight Bird Box project but/and/so this input has taken the practice into interesting places.

busybusybusy

Wood-Sun-Stone - Friends of Roger Ackling, a Group exhibition and presentation of the book ROGER ACKLING - OÙ POINT L'INVISIBLE by Lydie Rekow-Fon. I had a couple of pieces in this – I can remember a conversation with Roger about locating where the work was and maybe the smoke was the work, rather than the glorious wooden pieces. This has stayed with me and informs my own practice every time I think I’m making work. The studio is full of large scale folded structures waiting for a day of sun and no wind to be able to make some videos of the articulated pieces. Meanwhile another strand of work is looking at reflections - the work is both there and not there! Looking forward to being part of RESPOND - what will I receive? – how will I respond? @essencepress #BABEartistsbooksRESPOND. Just came across me sounding vaguely coherent and supportive of the use of architects in the architectural process - https://www.ribasuffolk.com/why-to-employ-an-architect check out those sideburns. Onto screens - Mollys Game – there is an interesting film in there but a little disjointed, Babylon Berlin – looks great but I think we know where this ends up. Lockdown – some great performances but….  Mitchelle and Webb, Back – not quite Peep Show!

behindthemagic

The truth behind the magic! – the on-line bookmaking sessions for Leicester Print Works appear to be going well – there are two courses at the moment and some interesting work is coming out of the workshops. It’s been an interesting exercise rethinking 26 years of thinking about books, reconfiguring and embedding it into the two program. Meanwhile the screen delivers The Dig – all very lovely and everything, Call my agent – probably missing the point about the role of the French actors. James Cousins Company has a great site with links to some beautiful dance pieces – The Secret of Having it all is especially excellent -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBAG7foEu_4&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=JAMESCOUSINSCOMPANY

doyoustartfromquestionsorfromanswers?

Do you start from questions or from answers? a day spent at a foundry exploring the potential of the activities peripheral yet integral to the actual casting of work. Working with the negative spaces within the sand casting of ingots was interesting - working inside out with negative space - a great day of rethinking. 

onto films - The Act of Killing https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375605/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 if you want to watch it - you can on YouTube - your life will be altered - truly one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen and there is no actual violence, bad language or sexual oppression. But the casual way in which these things are talked about and then reenacted will change you and your thoughts on human nature - haunting.