more images...

 

a novel experiment

 

                                               

a novel experiment

#tubemystery unravelled

Wellcome, London 16th May 2011.
A Novel Experiment.

my public holiday morning...

definitely needed that fire engine to come help get a couple of people (facing bout a dozen police) off a roof

somewhere on there you can find evidence that I have started working on some assignments. *sigh*

Feeling slightly distracted. Have been for a while, trying to follow the news in the Middle East. Getting to terms as to what is going on in Japan. Following and supporting petitions against animal cruelty, ban on herbal medicine and more human rights issues. And now Bristol kicks off and behaves like  a bunch of spoilt, bored, provocative idiots. I understand the opposition to that tescos, to police violence, to the suppression of peaceful gatherings, to the censoring of public screening (to accusations of that being some "secret" meeting to organise the next riot), the squat I don't know much about, what I did see last week was also just a bunch of drunks being idiots, provoking police and vice versa. This isn't about "our streets" any more. Call that wedding today mass distraction, oh yeah, then look back to stokes croft. No one's achieving anything there apart from bad publicity for the area. (and me not getting on with my assignments.)

sleep deprived google analytic-ing.
tonnes of paper. figures.graphs. eye lids falling. maybe a snooze. then read a bit of the actual thing. then carry on.

do not disturb

first thoughts on the multi media production that took place in the Redcliffe Caves, Bristol, 12th April 2011 by Lisa Gaudion.

Six years in the city and I had never been to the Redcliffe Caves but always been curious as to what it would be like to be able to enter this near secret place. The timing was perfect, friends from the USA and Germany were staying and the flat mate and I wanted to show them as much of the city we come to love. No one I went with knew what to expect. The promise of an immersive experience directed by the audience’s presence, as advertised on a poster I saw at the Pervasive Media Studios Bristol inspired a vague idea – one that was completely inverted. We arrived at the caves after dark and were only able to enter one by one. A small circle of ten was then guided through the labyrinth of little caves by a silent guide. It started with a live performance of a violinist went on to beautiful projections of woodlands and waterfalls onto the caves. All along we listened to several people sharing their experiences of lucid dreams. The projection fitted the natural shape and atmosphere of the caves beautifully and accompanied the sometimes eerie stories. It was a meditative and inspiring experience, one that made me remember and rethink my own dreams and experiences and made us all think about how we relate the things we see in sleep to the "real" world. Should the two worlds be separated?

Our guide takes us to the bed room, a bed is erected with his alter ego sleeping projected onto it, when he finishes his theory on sleep he crawls under it, disappears into the projection of him.

One projection tries to make our presence relevant to the piece, to become part of it by filming our backs and simultaneously showing it back to us. This might have been the only part that left members of the audience puzzled as to what to do or where to look.

Overall, everyone seemed mesmerised by the experience and slightly speechless too. Some of what it brought up might be too personal for us to wanting to share and we are left confused as to how to relate to what we see when we sleep.

The location definitely made the production. It could be recreated in a gallery space but the feeling of entering a secret hidden location, a space usually inaccessible - that place truly reflected the subject. And, as in our case, drew people's attention to the project!

let's have one drink after work.

i met a man with a furry four legged mate called noodle.
he asked us to look after her.
he got himself a pint.
he was about to meet his ex to hand over noodle. (shared custody, you see)
could we have a look at the painting he made for her.
he loves her
he wants her back.
what do we think?
the painting was green-blue-turquois...sea-ish.
in the corner was a cartoon version of this


what did we think of it? He is trying to win her back, you know!
"Oh, the colours are really nice!"
We finished our scrumpy and quietly (stifling the giggles) left the scene.
how bizarre.

completely out of context but a story i had to share anyway. noodle.

i-docs/3

so with all the media that is out there and the concept of interactivity being one that the user is a participant who will have to engage with material and possibly not just interpret but reorganise it, does this call for a "talented user"???
a  reactivator
negotiator
someone who comprehends the extent of the material and can/ wants to engage in dynamic semiosis?

i-docs/2

...more random notes

 John Corner

(performative, playful elements in documentaries)

Florian Mundhenke: what about the "truth" in documentary? Examples of "fictional documentaries" that tell reality/ (or one political.../i.e. satirical... view) by mocking reality..--> up to viewer to form opinion/ interpret what they see.
Kevin Willmott: C.S.A
Johan Grimonprez : Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y

Really enjoyed Peter Dukes talk on found footage film making. goes back to creating your own debate with existing material. taking it further into film making and back to our first term project trying to encourage remix!! With decades worth of wonderful material it is easy to make your point - politically, aesthetically,... .
what happens if the filmic documentation of situations is provided as raw footage and left as database free to view and possible edit own film with? http://detdom.nanostate.org/

check out
Michael Renove (remix---REACTIVATE!) Renegotiate?????
Michael Zyrd
Keith Beattie - ..."ambiguity as a productive polysemy within the documentary text"
Bruzzi - perpetual negotiartion between the real event and its representaion

i-docs/1

vit c,zinc,enchinacea,ginger,lemon, caffeine. i can do it. here we go.

i-docs was one of the most inspiring, interesting, thought provoking, encouraging...and quite draining days in a long time!
I want to  just try and use this to archive my notes in chronological order(of what I got to see/hear that day).

it was a shame there were so many interesting presentations and discussions happening at the same time and we had to chose which one to attend.

Alexandre Brachet brilliant start with what seemed one of the most successful/ popular examples of truly interactive and engaging documentary presented. I mentioned Gaza Szerdot on here before. It's an extraordinary example for design made to fit the content. How do we virtually jump that border between the two towns of either side of the border? Split screen on a website! The participant (not user!as the panels agreed) chooses where s/he wants to be and whom they want to listen to. Brachet's team has some really beautiful ideas of engaging people/ giving voice to the unheard and creating content which also encourages the participants to share what they experience easily (via twitter, facebook, on their blogs) and "use others' content to create their own debate"!!
I loved his idea of Prison Valley - to connect a community seemingly cut off the outside world with strangers from all over the world. It seems curious how these documentaries let us peek into strangers' lives and encourage us to spend time exploring other worlds. In a way his project was beautiful that it might give the prisoners a chance to connect with others but at the same time it just gets me thinking again about the time we spend infront of our computer screens, consuming, networking, maybe interacting but whilst doing that also forgetting about our immediate environment we could explore "in real life" (yeah, "real 3D"! ;) ). Nevertheless, it might be a good alternative to watching a soap or rubbish movie, I guess we cannot hide the fact that we all need a little procrastination sometimes and we are also curious beings most of the time  so maybe it really is a good alternative but maybe it rides the Big Brother wave of reality TV too!? I'm not ready to make up my mind about it just yet, especially when having to think about the essay that is trying to explore immersive pervasive methods of distributing museum content/ exploring unknown spaces. (note: this bloggin business is not helping writing a coherent 3000word piece!)

(random notes: check out agifreu.com.  metamentaldoc multimedia - I wish i remembered what that means...will have to leave that for later)

•

why is ted so awesome???

they even have the talk transcribed. for us to get amazing quotes. this is just brilliant.

art isn't supposed to change the world. it changes perception

Teding

AH!!!
JR!! that is weird now. I used him as an example for public art, art with and for the community in my degree three years ago.
Put it in my presentation last week again. and now here he is:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jr_s_ted_prize_wish_use_art_to_turn_the_world_inside_out.html


I love his works!!!

TED ing it for a bit now

http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html

He is really changing my mind. So technology isn't necessarily replacing human interaction but helping one on one communication and education; in a way bridging fear/ awkwardness/ embarrassment, making education playful.

So i wil have to reassess my anti thoughts on pervasive media thinking they might just glue us to screens even more rather than encouraging confidence and free exploring of the city and it's possibilities for contact. I guess a little help, something fun and playful can connect people who might find it difficult otherwise...

reading:

this might actually help to get organised:

James Bohman in After Habermas:

what makes the public sphere.

habermas talks about the dialogical qualities, Boham expands that notion saying the public sphere has to be an open forum for everyone to express their opinions and expect response. But this doesn't mean an immidiate response as you would expect from a face to face/ one on one conversation but a response indefinite, spatial and temporal.

A social space needs opening up for a particular kind of repeated and open ended interaction.

According to Boham for this to be successful technologies and institutions are required to secure the continued existence and regularise opportunities and access.

I wouldn't agree with that completely. The most important part of being in and using the public sphere to me is it's open access - by it's nature - and the spontaneous interaction this allows. It was the idea of getting out of institutions and allowing a widest possible audience to experience art and communities and getting involved in creating a shared creative space that encourages communication. 

balance

I'm glad I can still appreciate the beauty of photography too and don't just look at it as a means to uncover cruelty.

I loved Kai Fagerstroem's series on an abandoned house. Aesthetically gorgeous but at the same time a nod toward nature reclaiming space.

 

went to see the wild life photographer of the year award at bristol museum

I used to gte quite irritated by super HD digital photography with it sometimes surreal looking bright colour and feel quite old fashioned being upset about the lack of grain. The perfection just made the real look exaggerated and "hyper real" to me.
Today changed my opinion. I saw some amazing compositions and awe inspiring landscapes, funny and interesting animals and eye opening thought provoking documentary. Next to the bright and shiny pretty images of plants, night skies, cute mammals and funny birds were also black and white prints, grainy under exposed night shots but of main interest to me the documentary portfolios, "telling stories without the need of words". Going in  hand with the next part in the exhibition which points out the documentary photographers' importance to conservation/ raising awareness.

Brian Skerry on the exploitation of the seas:


(this is Tuna. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/prevPhoto.do?photo=2584&category=58&year=2010)

 (Fishing boat's waste)

Mark Leong: "It's just an animal"  poaching, abuse and torture

(making a pet)


(extracting bile for "medicine")

Always need these little reminders of what can be shown and how powerful photography can still be. The problem we face is a culture over saturated with visual products especially of both extremes - beauty and horror. These are shocking but have been shown for many years now and the change in people's emotions and empathy still shockingly slow.

...

there is so much to type up at the moment that for now, I will have to get back to the reading. I will be back with notes from past readings and this week's meetings.

What is happening?

Essay on pervasive media-post museum-public sphere.

360 project. Who will I be working with? deadlines are approaching at a scary pace and the organisation of project work still seems just above non-existent.

Research Methods: Identifying Criteria!

What will the final project be? Haven't heard from my personal tutor. Getting in touch is on today's to do list. Italy might fall through. Meeting inspiring people and reading up on the essay and looking back at unfinished work from the past couple of years is opening up new possibilities.

continued

Going out. Taking people out. Exploring cities and art, pointing toward environmental issues?, education, just play... All the notions that came with talking about pervasive media had me remember "my ideal exhibition", an intrusion of a public space to create an exhibition of collaborative documentary photography of artist and residents.
The modules are starting to come closer together again when looking at inspiration, research and practice criteria. I have been reading up on post museum, the public sphere again.
Gaza-Sderot an account of Palestinians and Israelis living on either side of the border, a dense website through which we can explore very personal/ individual stories, mini- documentaries that give people a voice and by directly mirroring the stories of each site try to inform about the complexity of the conflict.

Public parks and Squares as mirrors of society...! Why not make more of the ideas of reclaiming open spaces and exploring possibilities for either/and/or creative constructive use of them.together. What triggers my criticism is the seemingly attachment to screen. Still. After years of cultural studies and media criticism, minorities influencing the mass we are still glued to a screen, consuming. There is, of course, the interactivity and being outside engaging with our environment. Nevertheless, when trying Calvium I found it more confusing, having to check the tiny screen time and time again, not quite sure what we were looking at/ for. A convetional - are they "old school" now?- map with signs and a legend describing places of interest might, something that just sends you in the right direction and not has you checking your digital (battery run!aren't we trying to use less energy?) device every other minute; to have the freedom to just wander explore a place, maybe even make you ask people for directions/ information to a place.

...time...

As the course really is getting more "360" it seems to become more difficult to keep up with writing this too. Which completely makes sense as most of us seem to be rotating around several projects, reading a very diverse range of texts, absorbing what is shown in exhibitions in bristol and further afield. (I only managed Arnolfini and Susan HIller in the Tate and have still to explore Sean Edwards at the Spike, gutted I missed the Maelfa screening). It's difficult to squeeze everything in when still trying to be productive and constructive rather than just consuming what is on offer. Oh and there's the private life too. Having to pay the bills, socialising that isn't just online, organising moving again...etc. it's definitely not getting boring.
It is inspiring and challeneging nonetheless. We got to test the new Calvium, an Application which is taking the user around Bristol, exploring the city's old architecture (1800s?!) via an interactive story/ map on your iPhone. I couldn't quite grasp the validity of it. Is it for tourists wanting to learn about Bristol's past? An alternative fun day out for residents? The App doesn't give away much information about the history of the city it rather takes you on a slightly confusing long winded walk around the harbour and college green - places with lots to see and learn. It did make me wonder what kind of audience these "games" are created for. There seem to be successful projects running with places like the tower of London that will send visitors on a journey through the historic place while recreating stories from the past as means of immersion.
whilst talking about how we have to consider different traveling speed and the possible complications with the gps/satellite system, Jo didn't express an opinion on how much access could be a problem to the promoting of new technologies. Even though most people in our immediate environment have access to the internet I feel biased to the apparent presumption that most people have smart phones or want to invest in them.

MA work

digital story telling - journey back to self, personal and creative process:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYhEDXhuOS4

Remix

http://global-remix.blogspot.com/

Traffick

http://humantraffickingexposed.blogspot.com/

blogs in general

I still find this bizarre, the blog will be -or trying to be anyway- a mixture of learning journal, diary, collection of links and a memory aid or notepad going back and drawing together what I have been doing.

The start of this is the first Assignment for research Methods which asks us to introduce our influences and own practice and what we expect from the M.A.

First influence would have to be my dad's passion for photography. It introduced me to pinhole photography, the fascinating process of retrieving an image in the darkroom (including a love for the smell of the chemicals involved) and an ever evolving inventory of cameras and lenses. At the same time, a growing repulsion of having a camera pointed at you and sympathy for people who would not want to be in front of one either. I hate having my picture taken. Which made my pratice shy at times as I would be super conscious of the ruthless approach of some photographers.
Works then: exploration of self and surrounding/ environment - self portraits, distorted, face painted, semi nudes etc. Exploring neglected spaces, observing the city, shapes and colours and reflections within the city.
eploring the portrait and documentary by taking part in workshops (working coal mines in Germany and the city of Prague)
Works now:
travel photography, documenting places and people on journeys through India
Finding stories in the community: degree project photos of Sean and his bike shed Bristol-Montpellier; docu film of Remix/ Basement project Bristol Colston Hall - learning to handle video cameras, managing a project, interview techniques; Cultural Studies and research and analysis of visual culture -
both comparative analysis (essay Visual Culture.....) as well as researching various modern and classical photographers and visual artists for own portfolio

Research into visual culture as medium in the context of war news. Dissertation on war photography and it's changing aesthetics, perception, distribution and importance.

One of the more challenging and widely researched projects was into exhibition and the issues around the final year project.
I worked on a photographic project documenting the hostel on Mina Rd, St.Werburgh's Bristol.
Simultanously, I tried exploring possibilities of having a community based exhibition that wouldn't just show my images but get the audience/ neighbourhood involved by providing information on support projects and actively encouraging (especially the residents of the hostel) everyone to voice their experience of and opinion on the neighbourhood.
for this i researched, primarily by reading text and visual evidence of previous projects, Space and place, art in public spaces, the concept of the public sphere as well as museum and gallery spaces/ cultural institutions.

I then embraced challenges of trying to document the work of orphanage based charity in India.
During a MA programme in Germany 2009/10 I produced the Making Of for a short film collaboration between my University and the National Film School in Lodz, Poland. I was (jointly) responsible for arranging interviews and holding them as well as the edit of our own and the polish producers' material.

I came back to the UK and to UWE to join the MA in order to specialise/ professionalise and make my practise more focused and precise.
Research so far has been either theory based (cultural studies, visual culture) or analysis of existing work.
Documentary projects have also required a lot of time spent on gathering background information on the topics, making contacts, looking into other producer's work, research and various opinions on the topic in order to define the unique and fresh approach the work needs to be interesting to the audience (what type of audience?) TBC...(work so far in MA)

Only slowly getting into the second term of MA Media Practice and Culture. Working every day apart from Thursdays makes it more difficult to concentrate on the (full time) course than I had thought.
This is even more true for someone who isn't as much of a "practising artist" as most other people on the course/ the Research Methods module.
My interest stems from an early passion for photography which I was able to explore during the degree. The academic work was mainly around analysis of (moving/) image and the production of a varied body of work representing different genres of photography with my final pieces focusing on documentary.  TBC

What Why When

Why is media important
What media interests me
Who is important - the research methods module's look toward media producers/ anyone who influences our thinking and work