Sunday 17 October 2010

atchoo

This week I haven't been as productive as I would have liked due to a highly irritating cold. I'm still recovering, but that might be more to do with the various celebrations I've attended this weekend. I tried out the acetate idea, using little layers of circles to create a sphere.



It sort of worked but it was a lot of effort for such a little thing, and it got all fluffy because my fingers got gluey. I noted that the way the glue spreads as you squeeze it between acetate is quite interesting, I'm sure I can still find something to do using glue and ink and acetate. I couldn't hang it on fishing wire without waiting for it to dry and using a pin, and by then I'd lost it somewhere, so I've left it.
I did however have quite a successful play with the OHP. here are some smaller images of the results, but I've created an album on my photobucket for higher quality images. They will always be found HERE










I had a go with them on photoshop and made a few experiments using 'trace contours'. I'm quite pleased with these two:







I went to a fantastic exhibition on friday, James Turrell at the Gagosian Gallery. I saw it on timeout and realised how relevant it was so after a brief trip to see the Tate's sunflower seeds I popped to Kings Cross and braved the tourists to find the gallery.
Aside from the 2D work there were three main pieces. The first was what appeared to be a projected rectangle of light with a bench to watch it from. The colours morphed slowly, usually with a different shade glowing in the centre. I was completely mesmerised for about 5 minutes and must have looked a little odd. What was going on in front of my eyes was magic. The room around the piece became darker and it seemed to grow towards me with dark shadows around its edges. Some of the colours burned out my eyes and changed the way I saw the next colour, so that I had no idea what I was actually looking at any more. It felt like my eyes were changing the colours, as though the colour was on the surface of my eye.
I later realised that there was no projector, which meant it was lit from behind. The piece is called 'sustaining light'. Amazing.


The second piece was a metal chamber with a sloped walkway leading to it. Next to it a woman in a lab coat was watching a computer screen. Every 15 minutes a prebooked visitor would lie in the person sized drawer and be slid into the chamber. Through the cracks of the drawer flashing lights can be seen.. Very surreal indeed!
I had no idea about the prebooking but went on the iphone right away and booked myself in for the 11th November. Apparently it is some sort of light show with accompanying sounds that plays around with your senses. I can't wait!
I queued for the third piece for about half an hour. From a distance, there appears to be some steps leading up to a bright projected square of colour on the wall. As you get nearer you realise that people are climbing the steps and disappearing into the square. There is a room beyond a hole in the wall. around ten at a time are allowed in the room, with shoes replaced by plastic socks and belongings left in a pile with the queue.
As I climbed the steps I realised the room had perfectly curved white walls and a floor that sloped down towards a curved rectangular shape. I decided the shape must be another backlit projection. I stood so that I had no points of focus and stared at the shape as the colours morphed into one another. I had the same strange effect on my eyes as with 'sustaining light' except that this time I was completely surrounded by vivid, perfect colour. I spoke to the attendant man and asked what the shape was, and was amazed to discover that it was in fact another space that went five or six metres deep. My eyes had trouble getting around that one.
What was also good was that there was a laminated artist's statement handed around that mentioned how he had been inspired by the way that the light during the day prevents us from seeing the stars, but they are always there - a space influence!
I'm not sure at the moment whether James Turrell's work will influence mine but I am sure that his is the sort of thing that I absolutely love. I hope I can incorporate both light and installation into a piece this term if not the crazy eye effects, I'm not sure I have the budget to go around perfectly sculpting and lighting rooms!
One last thing, here is a random image from a New Scientist article - I can't remember what it was about but its beautiful!



I have my first tutorial tomorrow, I hope I am keeping up.
Over and out!

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