Its been a while, but only because I have been so busy working!

Important announcement: I am writing this post on my brand new Macbook pro! My old laptop has almost completely seized up so it was time to get myself a new little companion. It has slowed this post down a lot because I'm missing things on this laptop that are only on the old one.

Painting Space Experiment

I rented out the brand new painting space for the Luxury show on the 3rd December.

It was such a kerfuffle to rent it because I had my heart set on the soundproof room on the 2nd floor, spent a day chasing technicians to book it only to find that they were refitting the sound equipment and there was absolutely no way I could use it.They suggested the film and video room but I really wanted a small space. I heard that a 3rd year had blacked out the ceiling of the painting space and managed to persuade a painter to leave it early for me.

It was such a shame that Luxury was cancelled due to snow, but I decided to go ahead anyway, and was a little relieved to not have the pressure of making a full installation. It was still really valuable to do as an experiment.

I found some really lovely paper balls that I bought a bunch of, they have a much nicer texture on the surface and are a warmer colour but they are a little small. I decided not to use them in the experiment because they would have hardly shown up in that sized room, and because the cleaner white of the polystyrene balls I found had a better glow to them when light hit them in the dark. (I'm going to use them for something else though)

Working out how to hang the balls was a tricky problem but it was made easier having the walls of the space to rest the frame onto. I went home for the weekend and my Dad got me a huge wooden pole which I cut down to just over 8 feet so that it was the right length to rest on the walls. It also made it just the right length to close the boot of my car which was lucky. I realised that the wooden board that I had used for my start of term exhibition piece was just the right size so I took my old work apart and started mapping out some orbits to arrange the spheres.

I set about putting together some basic footage to project onto the balls. My original plan had been to film the colour changes on the OHP as they had worked so well in the previous experiment, but I got really excited when I realised that I still had all the footage from when I made my Wonders of the Solar System video. I went through some episodes and kept the parts with planets and magnetic fields and things. I made a frame of seven circles of varying sizes in a line to was to go on top of the footage so that the only light projected would be hitting the spheres.

Here is the video that I projected onto the balls

When I mapped out the positions of the spheres I made sure that from one angle the balls were in a line that matched the edited footage. (roughly.) I couldn't be doing with being completely precise because I just wanted to see how it looked first!

I hammered little holes in the wood where the balls should go and threaded fishing wire through them that was attached to a needle neatly stuck into the top of the balls. It was pretty much the neatest way of hanging them that I could think of and it had worked well in the previous experiment.

After that I nailed the board to the wooden pole and after only 15 minutes or so of untangling the wires managed to get the frame in the right place in the room.

I had rented nearly all the AV store's blackout material and set about stapling it over the ceiling with the help of borrowed hammers and stapleguns and anyone i could persuade to join me. I now realise that the idea of doing that job by myself was more than a little ambitious.

Because I was no longer making a full installation I only covered the walls floor and ceiling of the far end of the space, which meant the balls were surrounded nicely.

I ended up dropping another idea I had had for the space which was to put sequins and glitter on the blackout material to create the space feel. I was hoping they would just catch the colours in the projection and make the whole room glow with the changing colours. (and not look like a crappy christmas card.) In the end the footage I used was mostly monochrome and I just didn't have the time to try it out.

I had spent a lot of time making glow in the dark orbits for the room. The idea came when I realised that there was nothing to link the hanging spheres together, and they may as well be arranged randomly. I wanted there to be a few circular orbits directly beneath them to clarify that they were meant to be orbiting. I planned to use another projector facing the floor but the logistics of arranging the projectors to cross beams was just too tricky, so I came to the conclusion that I would need to use glow in the dark paint. I tried to chase down some nice blue paint but ended up with Fielder's "white" stuff, which was disappointingly a revolting yellowy green colour when placed in the dark. I tried mixing blue ink with the paint and using it over the top of dried paint..

but it just stopped the paint from glowing. I spent hours trying to make perfect glowing circles, first with string and then with thinly cut paper, but it just didn't work very well so I didn't include it in the end.

I have SO MANY PHOTOS that I've just decided to put the good ones up unedited. Here is a link for all the photos.

And also here is a little video of the footage being projected.

When I projected still images they came out better on the camera because the camera could take more of it in, but the footage was better for an installation. It was interesting to see that instead of the balls being the focus, most people watched the back wall because it was more interesting to watch. I was pleased with how it all looked but its annoying that it took so much effort to get something so simple, especially as I had to take it down again pretty much straight away. What I really need at college is my own little pod, blacked out with completely adjustable lighting!!

The next stage for the project is that I will be a part of an exhibition in January with a group of mostly painters. We have rented out Acquire in Battersea and will be having a private view and a short exhibition. I will be exhibiting in one of the little enclosed spaces and may have a little wall space, so I need to work out what I can make for that leading on from what I've learnt and possibly make some 2D work. I'm in charge of designing the leaflet and poster.

Ideally for the exhibition I would like to make a small motorised solar system that interacts with mirrors..then there would be different alignments of the spheres all the time, and every time there was a gap in a specific place all the mirrors would suddenly light up for a second or so. There would also be all the stages of eclipses playing out on the surrounding walls. I can't really see myself making that before january but hopefully I can get some help and materials at home.

Realistically I think I will make a use a piece using either a digital or overhead projector. I'm limited because the AV store at college doesn't let you take equipment off site. I am thinking of using one of my old pieces.

I saw this the other day and had to post it up. It's amazing to find something that can be both beautiful and terrifying at the same time!

Elective

I did a few experiments along the theme of health and safety.

It was fun making these, but I have to say I started getting pretty nervous messing around with the petrol can - ridiculous I know considering I drive around with it in the boot of my car which is much more dangerous. In the last session I handed them around and was given a list of new experiments to do for my folder…

Metal in a microwave

Running with scissors

Plug in water

Sulphuric acid in a water bottle

Plastic bag on a child / on someones head

Eating out of date food

Necklace sweets on an electric wire

Rake at the bottom of stairs

Cigarettes (!)

Untied shoelaces

I have been looking at the work of Chris Burden and David Blaine along the theme of dangerous artwork.

I have also found a guy from my friend's foundation who made a relevant piece, which was projected footage of a swinging axe and then the place to view it from had a bar behind you forcing you close to the screen.

I spent a long time trying to think of a piece which involved the paradox of not being able to experience a work with the health and safety theme. I wanted the audience to be forced to make a decision that endangered themselves in order to experience the work, or that with audience input triggered a series of 'dangerous' events.

In the last session I showed my final idea which I will be making over the christmas holidays, my 'Paradox Box'

Basically it will be a small box with space to put your head inside, and a projector above the box that points to a mirror at one end. the mirror reflects the projected image to a screen at the other end of the box. When no one has their head in the hole, the system works and the image reaches the screen, but as soon as someone tries putting their head in the hole they interrupt the light beam and prevent the image from being projected. To add to the absurdity of the piece I am hoping to use a live feed of the person trying to view the work being projected. I'm not sure how to do a live feed though so I'll have to work that out.

I've got a lot to be getting on with, I hope you can see why it has taken so long to put this post up.. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
Theodora

Through light, space can be formed without physical material like concrete or steel. We can actually stop the penetration of vision with where light is and where it isn't. Like the atmosphere, we can't see through it to the stars that are there during the day. But as soon as that light is dimmed around the self, then this penetration of vision goes out. So I'm very interested in this feeling, using the eyes to penetrate the space.
--James Turrell

Bindu Shards
I went back for my booked session in the chamber at the James Turrell exhibition to see the piece called ‘Bindu Shards’. I was actually quite nervous waiting to go in, as I watched the woman before me be inserted into the side of the huge metal sphere. When it came to my turn I was asked whether I wanted to do the hard or soft setting. Apparently the hard one was more intense visually with more kaleidoscopic images while the soft one had breaks inbetween of just colour. The woman described it as going through a wormhole, which clinched it for me – I decided to go with that one.
I had to sign a form saying I wouldn’t sue them if I had a fit or whatever, then I took my coat and shoes off and lay on the bed inside the drawer. They gave me a panic button in case I wanted to come out, and told me it would last 15 minutes ‘but feels like less’! I put the headphones on and they pushed the drawer into the chamber. I had a little look around once I was inside, basically the inside surface was completely smooth and white, and the bed was held in the centre by metal supports, then around it was a circle of LED lights facing outwards, so that the white walls reflected the colour and lit the entire space. It was very strange being inside there. I held my hands up to my face but otherwise all I could see was the outline of my nose.
The colours started gently, with slow fades from one colour to the next. Inbetween there would be fast changes, which immediately conjured beautiful patterns and colours which I was sure weren’t really there. The sound fitted perfectly, it was a deep mechanical hum which would sort of make a ‘wowwwowww’ sound in time with the colours. I forgot it was there after a while but it made the experience really involving. It was really relaxing, and easy to just allow these crazy things to happen to my eyes with no effort at all. Most of what I saw was perfectly symmetrical and kaleidoscopic, but here are a few of the other stranger things.

"The relation of exterior light to interior light is explored further in the work Bindu Shards (2010), a fully immersive visual and auditory work to be experienced by one person at a time. Part of the ongoing Perceptual Cells series, Bindu Shards possesses the same invasive qualities of “behind-the-eyes” seeing as could be experienced in Gasworks (1993) which was first shown at the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust in Halifax, and then at the ICA, London in 1996. In the late 1980s, Turrell resumed work on the Perceptual Cells, which stemmed from his university studies, then continued from 1968 through 1970 as a collaboration with the artist Robert Irwin and two psychologists. Each cell stimulates an experience in which there is no object of perception; the light which is presented is light "not seen.” This produces the “Purkinje effect,” a transitional patterning that is perceived uniquely during the transition from light to dark. Together with the Dark Space series begun in 1983, Shards shares this dissolving of the juncture between the light outside and the light inside. During the eight to twelve minutes required for the eyes to adapt to darkness, the realm where the difference between “in-front” and “back-of-the-eyes” seeing dissolves and allows the iris to open.”


Here is a little research on the Purkinje effect and eye adaptation.

I wonder if I could make an installation where people have to be exposed to either light or dark for a set amount of time before going in.
What I’m thinking of is the effect that you get in theatre when the person on stage is the only thing lit in the room, and over time they start to glow and the surroundings become darker.
Im sure if i could get a dark enough space I could achieve a similar effect.

Sound
I wasn’t really thinking of using sound in my piece because in my experience sound is so often done badly, unnecessarily jarring to seem arty and pretentious... Rosie gave me some names to research on sound in art and I looked them up but just wasn’t inspired at all – they all seemed to be just the sort of things that annoy me. I wonder if I am not an auditory learner or something and that my brain is just not as interested in sound as visuals; after all I am making this work through a process of fumbling through what I like the best, so I’m bound to cut out what I don’t find particularly interesting.. HOWEVER. My experience of the use of sound in James Turrell’s work has shown me that it can be done well, so I have been converted to using sound.
I was put off initially by the thought that surely there is no sound in space – surely to add sound wouldn’t make any sense, it would just be recordings of me scratching things or clattering around a kitchen and it would be completely pointless. But there is sound in space! And there are art projects devoted to it!

This one also looks great but unfortunately there’s a link broken so I can’t listen www.radio-astronomy.net I’m assuming that its pretty similar to the Radio Astronomy video though.
Hopefully I can try using some of these real space sounds or if not try out a few atmospheric sounds such as the ones from films – possibly from Apollo 13 or something.

Experiment
I strung up one of the polystyrene balls using a needle tied to some thread and then bluetacked up. The balls are really light so it’s easy to hang them, and also dense enough for the needle to stay firmly in place.
I blocked out all the light on my OHP with paper except for a perfect circle made with a sellotape roll. Then I experimented with lining up the lit circle with the ball to create different shadows and to look at the way the light falls onto the curved surface. Because of the way the OHP is made, sometimes you get a spectrum of colours which appeared in some of the photographs. I especially like the purples and blues because they look like real planet colours.

From this experiment I can see that the polystyrene balls are a definite possibility in a final piece, and that they are almost exactly what I would like.
I have had a problem with the textured surface, and have blurred it out in all the edited images. I think in an installation it may not matter so much.

Tutorial
It was good for me in the group tutorial today to summarise my ideas out loud and in chronological order, as it gave me a good overview. As a result I feel clearer about the final piece that I would currently like to see myself making.
The next experiment I want to do is the animation projection onto a cluster of hanging spheres. I can take my time putting the footage together then splitting the screen into darkness with a few pin holes that I will line up to the spheres.

Here is how it would look from above.
I will be looking into getting some basic motors but for some reason the idea is really daunting! If I could have all the balls on different orbits they would align differently all the time, and I could play with the light and maybe include beams of light bouncing off mirrors.

Elective
For our group work we did a piece called ‘Out of Order’ which was a college wide performance. I won’t put in all the pages I’ve been doing for the folder supporting it, but it was basically the outcome from the starting point of Wimbledon college plus the theme of performance. Our group was clearly looking for something that commented on college life in a humorous or satirical way and when we started talking about how the girl’s loos are always out of order it didn’t take long to reach our final idea. We made hundreds of out of order signs complete with the UAL logo to look as official as possible, and in a coordinated attack we handed them out to students on the following Tuesday instructing them to put them up wherever they didn’t like something. The effect was quite satisfying, while most of the signs were on silly things like fire extinguishers or clocks, some were really used to voice a problem – on the opening times for the shop or on some tutor’s office doors. I really liked the ones on the security cameras because I agree that we shouldn’t be being watched all the time.
Now that the group project is over I have been working on my idea for my individual work.
My inspiration came from the sunflower seeds at the Tate Modern. I was really disappointed to hear the story of how they had been closed because of visitor’s “enthusiastic interaction” with the piece which had “resulted in a greater-than-expected level of dust in the Turbine hall.” The seeds were designed to be walked on. It was the *entire point* of the piece – “the trampling of the seeds ..represents the horrors [the Chinese] suffered under Mao’s rule” in reference to the comparison made during the cultural revolution that Mao was portrayed as the sun and the Chinese people as sunflowers turning towards him.[sky news online]
I’m really interested in the idea of a piece of work being made to be experienced in a specific way but for whatever reason is impossible. Health and safety is one possible angle to use, as it’s also quite a current issue in art. I’m not sure where to start but I like the fact that its a challenge. In my tutorial James basically told me to go and do crazy things like putting heaters in the middle of puddles so if I end up in some bizarre accident over the next few weeks readers will know why.

Work Experience
I emailed Eddie Hamilton who is a family friend about needing a placement and he very kindly has offered to give me ten days experience working with the editors of the new X-Men film! It isn't definite so I will be looking to do a back-up placement, but I will know in February whether I can go ahead.

Finally here are the latest videos on youtube that have been inspiring me...

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html

That's all for now!
Theodora

I ordered 30 polystyrene balls from the 4D model shop..

I bought them thinking they would be completely smooth like in the photograph but annoyingly they have a slightly textured surface. I wanted to use them to try out photographing the way that light falls onto a perfectly curved surface, like this photo of Uranus

but I still may be able to do that or at least use them for a few of my other ideas. My main idea for the balls is to line them up with a digital projection of animated circles.

I think its quite a simple idea but I could project lots of different things onto them.
I'm wondering about whether I should keep the balls all at roughly the same height, in keeping with physical laws!

I don't know how to string them up, I want to use fishing wire but I don't know how I can attach it. Possibly with needles. I need to book out a *properly* dark space and a projector. I really wish I could just get a digital projector for christmas.
I'm getting excited about orbits at the moment but I'm not sure about using motors in my work.
(I've realised how circles are becoming a recurring theme in my work! I had a petri dish project two years ago and for my dreams project in foundation I nearly made a spinning nightlight)

I'm doing another idea which I got from watching the Horizon programme about asteroids. I saw an image of an ice asteroid which on the tv screen was all darkness with the little glowing shape. I want to print out the black and white image onto acetate and have it backlit in a deep frame. I'm thinking it could need two layers to make the black dark enough. Or maybe I should do it by hand with ink? Here it is, had to hunt for it on iplayer

I think backlighting is a good idea for this project. I went to the Astronomy Photography of the Year exhibition at the Royal Observatory yesterday and all their images were on screens. I think having them printed out just wouldn't do them justice. That's why all my ideas involve light, because I couldn't communicate the beauty of space without it.

While I was there I hung around to see some fireworks from the top of the hill. The view there is incredible. I've never been there at night before so I didn't realise about the time zone laser!

It was so cool.. and glitters a little bit as it catches dust in the air.. I would love to use lasers in my work.
A list of possible mediums!

Spheres
Lasers
Mirrors
Light
Glass
Aerogel

nothing too ambitious there then.

Elective
Wimbledon College has a surprise coming its way on Tuesday. Possibly a few surprises. I'm hoping our tutor doesn't get into too much trouble... I'll say no more!

Work experience
After I didn't get the Horizon placement I have sent my CV and a covering paragraph to a film editor that I know who is helping me out. I'm really hoping for something to do with editing because I suspect that I will absolutely love it!

Black space Experiment
I rented the black space at college but it was a bit of a disaster. When I got in I found the room was full of wood and left about a metre square to work in. Also there was light coming in from the white space next door which I couldn't cover up without getting a ladder. To cap it all, I couldn't collect the digital projector I had rented because I had missed the 10- 10.30 collecting slot.
I went ahead anyway, using a white plinth as a backdrop, and a small plank to hang my acetate planets off.
I had made them by cutting two circles of acetate and putting ink and glue between them. Putting little patches of glue made more interesting patterns of bubbles. I tried to place the different inks to emphasise the circle shape, with a shadow on one side to suggest a curve.
I glued the planets to fishing wire and tied them up. I had wanted to use different projections on them but instead had to use my phone's torch light. It still worked alright.
Here are some of my favourites that I have played around with on photoshop.

What I really learnt from this experiment was how well light shines through glue, it really makes some lovely effects. I also learnt that 2D acetate circles are very hard to position where you want them because they often spin and end up facing the wrong way.

More ideas
I have two new ideas that I'm hoping to do over the next week.
One is based on this image that I got from astronomy magazine, which shows the sequence of an eclipse in twelve pictures. I haven't scanned it in but here is a similar image.

My idea is to somehow make this 3D with mounted bulbs and black hanging spheres. It would be about positions in space - the onlooker and the cosmic bodies involved, precision, and light.
On the subject of eclipses, I made this in about 10 minutes, using a little light a white sheet and a plate. I think they make an effective eclipse.

My second idea is this..

I already have the sheet of glass and basically just need to wait for a clear night over the next few days to give it a go. I can move the planets around in orbital shapes and put the photos together to make an animation. hopefully the stars behind will be visible as well.

I'm also pondering the idea of using circular mirrors. I want to try projecting images onto a circular mirror and maybe bouncing it off a few others.. Perhaps the image could hit the viewer dead on? Maybe coloured spheres could move in orbit, interrupting and distorting the light beam?
I've wanted to use circles and motors in my work before and never got round to it. I need to try and step out of my comfort zone and use some technicians.

I think my work is going through the experimental phase - I actually don't want any more concepts now, I need to try out lots of different materials and setups and one of them will make sense with one of the concepts. :)

I've done a little more research on Dan Goods and Liliane Lijn.
I found this website through Dan Goods which has some more artists interested in space, so that's useful
I also found a lot of relevant things in Lijn's book of works 1959-80.

James Whitney was "convinced that the graphs and photos in Scientific American were a natural non-objective art form dealing with the same concepts as Jung or Krishnamurti."

I was really excited to see that Liliane Lijn was influenced by Richard Feynman because I've just finished reading his autobiography, 'Surely you're joking Mr Feynman' and am currently reading his second book 'What Do You Care What Other People Think?'. I think he's one of my favourite people to have ever lived.

"Lijn was drawn to the scientist Richard P. Feynman's visualisations of physics in the sixties and seventies. Feynman was at the forefront of the development of post-war quantum mechanics and Lijn was particularly fascinated by his vision of the supremacy of particles, with the photon: the most elementary particle of light, as the key element in the electro-magnetic field; that conjunction of magnetism, electricity and light.
He had addressed himself to overcoming the abstracted formalisations of a quantum physicist's "impossibility of visualisation". How was one to perceive the atom or the electron in the act of emitting light? What mental picture could guide the scientist?
Lijn, aided by her assiduous reading of books and articles about physics, had reached what could be thought of as a quantum theory of art and culture.
This was based on what Feynman called 'the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms: little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another" The illustrations for Feynman's lectures showed a pictorial idea of quantum physics particles in motion, yet gathered together in clusters and arrays.
These suggest Lijn's circled and dotted notation of particle structures in process in her graphic work through the sixties and seventies. Matter, Feynman observed, allocated structures and positions to particles so "that in a solid the atoms are arranged in some kind of array, called a crystalline array"
But movement, Feynman's 'jiggle-jiggle-jiggle', was key to Lijn's art and was identified by her as that universal form - electrical energy incarnated as
photons: "There is radiant energy, the energy of light, which we know is a form of electrical energy because light can be represented as wigglings in the electromagnetic field."

SO, interesting to know that Lijn had similar interests to me as well as a visual style that I am drawn to.

On a vaguely related note, the iphone game Osmos has been inspiring me. Which is good because even when I'm wasting time playing games on my phone its reminding me of art.

Its a beautiful game. They describe it as being relaxing but I find it terrifying at times when you're getting eaten by huge pulsating orbs. Its 'physics based' which means that momentum is affected by size and so on.

Context / Site / Audience
I'm really enjoying my elective at the moment. It is mostly about sculpture which is something I am fairly unfamiliar with, and is dealing with stuff that makes my head hurt. I am enjoying forcing myself to understand the stuff in the readings.
We have to make a group piece in a few weeks, based around College, like something that college is missing. I like the idea of making some stairs that leads up over the roof with a signpost reading 'stairway to your glittering career'
I think its supposed to relate to sculpture / not sculpture or architecture / not architecture... That's not as vague as it looks, but I don't think I am at the stage where I can even explain what I mean by that yet!
We also have to make our own piece of work ( I think) and I'm really excited about the idea of making something impractical, like the sunflower seeds at the turbine hall piece - designed to walk over, but now we all have to stand behind a little fence to look at it. Like I could make a piece inside a viewing box, then put it up a ladder so that health and safety meant noone could go up there. They'd have to take my word for it what the art was like.

I am making a little film at the moment but I'm going to explain that properly when it's finished. Its nothing to do with college work, I just cant help myself.

I'm feeling really frustrated about not making anything solid with my ideas. I'll get on it.