Self Evaluation Unit 11

Self Evaluation Unit 10

Bibliography

SKETCHBOOK/JOURNAL/DIARY

THISHASALLHAPPENEDBEFORRE.BLOGSPOT.COM This is my extensive visual diary where all insights into my artwork can be found. As a plus point, if you click the images, they link to other images, like a visual joke for the quick witted and intuitive.

Authenticity In a City Mediated by Images

Risk Assessment for Degree Show

Exhibition Agreement Form

Blackboard and Studentship Induction Form

Risk Assessment Induction Form

Health and Safety Induction Form

Library Induction Form

DMC Induction form

PPD Lecture Notes

The Laces In My Shoe: Degree Show

As a collaborative project with Milo Creese, we each interpreted a merge of two main ideas; the recent trend of captain jack sparrow style pirate boots and a hallucinogenic experience of which the Bob Dylan lyrics, “in my shoe”, from the song ‘Tangled up in blue’, became the focal point. This is my interpretation. You can see Creese's video here: (link coming soon) This video was made with help from the Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon Artist Moving Image Fund. Special thanks to voice actor - Shawn McCrory
This is the final version of my video for the degree show.

Degree Show Progress

Built wall to make the space a bit more neutral. Ceiling and lighting still very much portray the aesthetic of a portacabin, also not allowed to cover fire escape and fire extinguishers.

Artist Statement 2013

I understand art as a set of on-going questions that can be learnt and understood, but never answered definitively. I have found practices of sociology and semiotics are the best ways of understanding how to engage with the world on a creative level. Les Back suggests having, ‘ the humility and honesty to reflect on our own assumptions and prejudgments’. This, combined with a quote from Barthes, ‘to live the full contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth’, are good ideological tools and a pretty accurate basis for how I currently approach my art making. Aesthetically, I prefer to fall blindly into the future, grabbing hold of my immediate surroundings than to spend too much time looking backwards for familiarisation in the past.

CCW Artist Moving Image

The CCW AMI screening took place last night at South London Gallery. Overall the experience was quite bad. The film we submitted had been pixelated beyond belief and the sub woofer connected to the audio equipment sounded like something from a teenagers Vauxhall Nova, it drowned alot of the speech out of Milo's part and massively exaggerated any wind noise in mine. Along with these technical errors, I realised how much effect it has on the perception of your work when being part of a show-reel. All the other films were deadly serious conceptual pieces about dancers interpreting speech or space or notions of authorship, meaning that our film had a high chance of being lumped in to the same pool of ideas. I would probably choose not to be involved in a screening like this again unless it was curated more specifically. It also made me think the film was probably not best suited for a conformed screening environment and to plan an installation based one for the degree show is a good idea.

In the Shoe - Progress

After spending a couple of days trying to merge mine and Milo's footage, we decided it would be better to create 2 separate parts. I have developed ideas around an established filming style which wasn't fitting with his synthetic/cgi sequences. I think this film is the strongest work I have made so far and am glad for it to be my final piece as it shows pretty much everything I have learnt in the last 3 years.
The original concept for the film was based around 2 main ideas, a hallucinogenic drug experience which involved a repetition of the words "in my shoe", from a Bob Dylan live video, and the fashion trend of Captain Jack Sparrow style pirate boots. The 2 parts will be our separate interpretations of these ideas. Mine will be part one, an idea of the filming style is shown in the above stills. I have chosen to use the pirate boot and the plinth as the central character or object for my film. It represents the main idea of the boot trend in the film, this boot that is so common and fashionable in this country, sitting on top of a slightly repulsive podium that was once the height of furniture style (I'd say mid nineties, next to a cream leather sofa and animal skin rug, supporting a large television remote). The juxtaposition of this central object against the many back drops, is the first level of abstraction in the work. The backdrops add to the transcending absurdity that is led by the narration. The narration also follows the two main ideas for the film, merging faux psychoanalytic ramblings about the boot with actual descriptions of the hallucinogenic drug experience. Fiction and reality are merged in a way that almost parodies Patrick Keiller's film, 'LONDON'. The boot/plinth shots are interrupted by scenes that attempt to re-create the drug experience, in parts they link to the narration. A further idea is to parody the established film essay style by self sabotaging shots, in one I leave the camera rolling as I step in to spin the boot hanging from a tree and in another, a dog runs in front of the plinth with the boot on it. This intentionally raises questions of professionalism, as the viewer may initially familiarise with the established HD aesthetic, then be confronted with 'mistakes'.

CCW Moving Image Fund/Degree Show Piece

A few months ago I applied and received funding for the CCW Moving Image Initiative run by UAL. I proposed a collaborative film, with first year student Milo Creese, which uses particular types of shoe or boot as a flag for fashion and consumer trends. Through this idea, I am able to speculate on the humour found in everyday passing observations on these subjects. The film will consist of a neo-psychedelic experience that runs across a loosely strung narrative of absurd situations involving said shoes and characters from our imaginations. As well as this piece being screened alongside the other recipients of the funding at South London Gallery, I have chosen to use it for my degree show. I originally wanted to show my previous work, 'The Orifice', however, upon finishing this project I felt there was more than enough time to create something new and further develop some ideas I had encountered.
I want to push absurdity further with this piece, exploiting the viewer's familiarisation with established styles of filming. I have previously spoken about a lo-fi aesthetic that may come about from the priority of conception, now I would like to try and exploit people's familiarisation with established HD video styles, including high quality shots as a way of making the work more accessible. Then in turn throwing the people off that seek this familiarisation as the majority of the video fill feature my usual working style. I believe that if you give yourself freedom in visual aesthetics on a video project, there is nothing to break out of, and its those parts that break through boundaries where things get interesting. Creating a loose narrative through anchor points that touch down on reality or the viewers typical perception of reality in video, will allow something to work against and create an absurd alternation of that perception/familiarisation. Here are some stills of the work in progress: