teachingfoldingtime

A busy week ending with a great day of science on Friday with the unfolding thinking project https://unfoldingthinking.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/afmtaptaptap.html Teaching has a new twist - in an effort to improve the experience for all I have decided to send students the presentation I intend to give in the timetabled session with them before the actual time we meet. It's my intention that enabling access to the presentation in this way will allow the student to work through the material in their own time and at their own pace - hopefully there will be less time talking at the front for me - less passive listening from the students - there will be more student interaction - which will all leave more time within the session to discuss work. Of course this works if the students read emails. I had some of my best recent teaching with year 3 at NUA on Monday. It was empowering watching students being empowered.  At Camberwell this was a real triumph where the actual ideas behind the work were deconstructed - fantastic. This is something I will continue. 

Its less than a week to ALL https://artlanguagelocation.org/all2016-showtime/ I cycled past my piece at Land Economy and it's still going strong - Looking forward to seeing all the work.  Yes I have succumbed to a folding bike which was a great choice as the clowns Abellio in their ceaseless quest for 'customer' satisfaction chose to have a train consisting of only 2 carriages - this out of Cambridge on a Friday night at 5.44 - the same day there was racing at Newmarket - thank you for your care and attention we loved standing for the entire journey pressed up against each other - oh yes it was also late so another case of missed connections again. Although transparent,  I watched the supposedly very dark the good neighbour from start to finish we all knew where it was going. Using all the standard tropes Triple 9 wasn't that bad but wasn't that much - lots of stars acting almost in their own films. 

busybusybusyallgood

after a week attending the NanoDTC Autumn school I'm back  - for more information on this follow https://unfoldingthinking.blogspot.co.uk/ which is the blog that will document the project with NanoDTC at the Maxwell Centre. meanwhile Its been a busy week of opportunities - The Crafts Council have invited me to present my work in Manchester as part of Crafts Council's Make:Shift conference - already looking forward to it as it's an opportunity to share the advances my practice has had as a result of working within a science context. Nicola Naismith has contacted me to be part of her interesting project Postures of Making - exploring what happens beneath the surface of the skin when engaged in art practice and how we work with the idea of repetitive acts. I have several art related body malfunctions!!! as a result of creative making over the years and have been interested in the ergonomics of art practice for some time, especially when considering the of concept of the space of reading and idea of page turning as a performance. Confirmation of the upcoming work for Open College of the Arts has come through - I'm running an interesting project which focuses on creating an online exhibition. meanwhile managed to read  I love Dick by Chis Kraus it's a wonderfully incisive book. I loved the descriptions and general critique of a number of art pieces, films and artists I am familiar with - it really is very funning, I now want to go back and check out the work I was unfamiliar with - this book should be read by all artists. I've been invited to Unfold a show at The Roundhouse on October 8. The Catalogue for ALL is out and the work looks good - can't wait to see a physical copy in my hands - the events on the 13th October if you are in Cambridge https://artlanguagelocation.org/ Dan Tsu of Lyrix Organix very kindly mentioned that this is the project I inspired them to develop last year! but I think that is really down to all the hard work they do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SQ_K_WQl0A

inthewindowrunning

the work is hung for Art Language Location (ALL) in the window of the Land Economy building in Silver Street in Cambridge.

whatisinpetmince?

a great day of structural thinking on the MA Book Arts on tuesday - some excellent folding and conceptual bookness went on. http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/001-a-what-is-book-bookness-2016 as part of Southbank Centre Young Adult Literature Weekender some students from Camberwell MA Book Arts - Muqiu, Lena and Charlotte are running a workshop at the South Bank Centre - it will be good - go get involved.

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/book-binding-workshop-1001990

I'm working for Open College of the Arts on a really interesting project - supporting final year MA Fine Art students in creating an online exhibition - thinking of using www.isthisitisthisit.com  as an example of good practice.

thursday saw the induction workshop and day at NUA - the whole week exists as an instagram feed #gotextiles check it out.

meanwhile the film The Brothers Grimsby manages to envisage and then enact scenarios that I could not even conceive of - this is not necessarily a good thing but it is a series of open mouth is-that-really-happening-moments

thisisathing

this is a thing!!! this is a thing to make a plaque for!!!

it's week one of textile design students at NUA - the whole week will be documented by the first years on instagram at #gotextiles

the poster for the NCCS upcoming talk looks good so if you are in the area....meanwhile  a journey of discovery and understanding Hunt for the Wilderpeople - just a lovely film.

managed to see 2 bad plays in a poor uncomfortable space as part of High Tide Festival on Sunday - just bad.

bookwordsfuture

A great day at Camberwell - the first symposium on the MA Book Arts course always presents the opportunity to project onto the students possible futures and to consider one's role in getting them to where they want/need to be. As ever the experience reminds me as to why I love teaching so much - my notes include the phrases - preserving something that is not - brand installation - putting content into paper - density of thought - invisible visible - manual collages - where does book take place? - memory of the evidence of a thing - Buddhist frustration - invisible violence - building lines for people to construct space in their minds - unfolding minds - real v perceived space - abstract landscape - doubling invisibility - the destruction of destruction - the public book - rock library - the space of the book - testing to negotiate your own space - books, I smelt all of them - process as metaphor. how wondrous is that. meanwhile a run of films - Mechanic: Resurrection - solid Stath action with shooting weaponry material but wooden beyond belief. Free State of Jones - solid life affirming Southern racist narrative with good work by good guy McConaughey. Blood Father - solid drug violent wayward daughter biker story with Mel sporting marvellous face hair. Spill festival program is out and am already looking forward to it - highlights have to be of leonardo da vinci quills a black giant deluge with Elaine Mitchener, David Toop, Barry Lewis and Dam Van Huynh, Mem Morrison in the Wills building, the wonderful Jade Montserrat  who I actually taught many moons ago, well she was in the room when I was talking!! and Entertainment Island who I saw at the Barbican in a previous Spill festival - it will be excellent. https://spillfestival.com/

decidingwhattowatch

The Art Language Location website is up and running - the whole project is extensive and bright with lots of individual work going on in lots of different places around Cambridge. https://artlanguagelocation.org/

my page

https://artlanguagelocation.org/les-bicknell/

at the end of the break last week I had a couple of days in Marseille - I love this slightly dysfunctional city, it feels so quintessentially French with a huge range of fantastic 'outside' influences - sited on the sea with great food it always appears to be sort of writhing. Went to see the collection at Musée d'Art Contemporain - some good but eclectic pieces hung without any practical care or seemingly curatorial skill or interest. They did have a disturbing yet excellent Annette Messager piece which was a dark joy squishing nature and its cartoon image together. The Cathedral had huge flags which looked like a form of medieval clip art and the redeveloped area around the port is extra-ordinary - especially the Museum of Old Marseille which is one of the oddest-brutally-beautiful clever spaces ever - a must see.  Got back to see Jason Bourne - a rollicking rush of a JB experience, set pieces were a blast. I Am Not a Serial Killer is a 'not-bad' twisted dark 'indi-thriller'.