# 16

book project

this week has been entirely dedicated to our book project. we have been asked to think of books as an object, and we have been encouraged to question what a book is (does it need text? pictures? both? does it have to be bound? made of paper?) we need to create 3 books, under different titles, for example .. a slow book, a book that flies, a book that isn't there, a book with a mind of it's own... i have found it a lot easier to brain storm that actually physically make the book. im struggling to understand whether the book actually needs to have a meaning/purpose or whether it just has to look good ... here are a few pages from my sketchbook:

# 15

52 phoenix road, somewhere

this week is just for tutorials. in our slots all of our work will be looked at, talked over, and any problems with our ucas will be sorted out.

whilst walking through my neighborhood i kept on noticing that the dry cleaning store was always open at the oddest of hours. however inside it the walls were smothered with paint, the floor was covered in fake grass, and it was full with people. i decided to go inside one after and ask what exactly was going on ... basically, camden arts converted this old dry cleaners into "make do", a temporary (8 weeks only) platform for community based projects. it invites people to get involved in art through various workshops, film nights, exhibitions, and events for kids. the evening that i went they were having an exhibition. the works ranged from photographs to paintings, and were being sold to the public. i love it when centres make art accesible to the public, especially for decent prices. art should not be an exclusive object for the rich. what was even better about this sale is that over the weekend the prices were lowered.

i also went to see sofia coppola's new film "somewhere". i can't really recommend this to everyone because i know that not everyone would enjoy it (half of the cinema was falling asleep, i guess they felt let down and didn't feel it compared to her previous films... lost in translation, marie antoinette), but there was something quite beautiful that i liked about it. the film was not rushed, the characters grew on you, and it showed an honest portrayal of the "other side" of a privileged life style. i really loved the scene at :55. the long scene shows the main character being forced to sit completely still and wait with his whole face smothered in a plaster cast, breathing heavily through his nose. this helps to highlight and emphasize his loneliness in quite a comedic way.

# 14

mona lisa curse

i watched the mona lisa curse today. the australian art critic robert hughes (art critic of time magazine) honestly tells us his opinions of the current art market and how absurd the commercialization of art work is becoming.  he explores how museums, the production of art and the way we experience it have radically changed over the past 50 years. he emphasizes how much the art market has turned into the "biggest unregulated market in the world" (apart from drugs) as contemporary art sales can raise up to $10 billion a year. what i loved the most was how much he was bashing damien hirst! for my final art essay for my a levels, i was trying to highlight the good and bad sides of the art industry, analysing obsession in the art world. hughes states "“The idea that there is some special magic attached to Hirst’s work that shoves it into the multimillion pound realm is ludicrous,” Hughes says. “[The price] has to do with promotion and publicity and not with the quality of the works themselves.” go hughes! he continues to state that the art world is turning into a "feeding frenzy" in which people are turning up to look at art work just to have "seen it". if you want to watch the whole movie, the youtube user below has uploaded the entire thing.

# 13

helvetica, camberwell, kk outlet, east london design show, white cube

i watched the movie helvetica. i would recommend it to anyone who's interested typography and global visual culture. best bits: michael beirut: "just a beautiful big glass of ice cold cold. the slogan under neath. its the real thing. period. COKE. PERIOD. in HELVETICA. PERIOD. any questions? of course not. PERIOD. DRINK COKE. SIMPLE.

erik spiekerman: "it's air, you know. it's just there. there's no choice. you have to breathe, so you have to use helvetica." 

david carson: "don't confuse legibility with communication and just because somethings legible doesn't mean it communicates and more importantly doesn't mean it communicates the right thing", "there's a very fine line between simple clean and powerful, and simple clean and boring."

our class took a day trip to ... camberwell! we went to have a talk with the course leaders of their ba graphic design course, and illustration course. we also saw their type scale exhibition. it was interesting to see original letterpress material, and work from their students, alumni and staff who had explored all kinds of work using wood and metal type from letterpress through to laser cut letter forms. the works aimed to challenge accepted notions of size, scale, process and methods of reproduction of typographic printed outcomes. one student had even created a chair that when you sat on it, the pressure produced a piece of type work!

busy weekend for me,  not only was i also stalking/following/recording peoples conversations without them knowing all over london (for our overheard conversation project) i also went a bit over the top in old street and saw: the special hema sinterklaas collaboration at the kk outlet, rachel kneebone's delicately worked porcelain at the white cube, and the east london design show! 

i wasnt quite sure about rachel kneebones work... i do enjoy and appreciate the way in which she works, by delicately and intricately using the human body, she joins up these forms to make a larger and powerful sculpture in which she explores the trauma of death, loss and grief. but what i didnt appreciate was that she used so many genitals in her work...! i got distracted and it just made me think about so many other artists who always use that in their work...

on top of that i felt it would be a good idea to also squeeze in a visit to the gagosian to see james turrells installations and light works. you must all see this if you can before its closing on friday! i tried to take photos but i saw someone being escorted out who was doing so.... so i'll have to make do with online images. these were the 2 pieces that stood out to me the most (and most likely for everyone else who went to the exhibition...) the first entitled "bindu shards" is an interactive piece which involves one person at a time being placed (lying down) into the giant sphere for 15 minutes. what seems to happen inside is a quite unique and visual experience, as bright colours and being shun all around them. unfortunately this piece had to be pre booked :( and had been fully booked since october! the second was "dhätu" which reminded me so much of ann veronica janssens work which i saw at wiels in brussels. you had to queue up for it, and were given 5 minutes inside in groups of 10. definitely worth it though. its described as an "emptiness filled with light". i found it quite confusing as to how this artist managed to actually light the room. 

# 12

sketchbooks

a new week = a new brief. this one is entitled "lists, lists, lists". we have been given a list of 17 lists, and have to choose one of them, creating a visual list that communicated your subject in an entertaining and informative way. for graphic design, illustrators, photographers: your final outcome must be delivered as as a single image. and for filmmakers and animators: make a short film. to be honest i don't even know what i am at this minute, im learning so much but i do know that i like experimenting with animation.

we were asked to brainstorm as much as we could for these lists: "10 rules that should always be broken, 10 things i have lost, 10 ways to procrastinate, 10 things that have made me batch my breath, 10 things i don't want to hear" etc ... and this obsessive form of list taking reminded me of the bbc 3's new show called freak like me. every week they highlight peoples freaky habits and obsessions. one of the lists that stood out the most to me was "10 things that should not exist (but do)".

after discussing with max, i have chosen to make an animation of mostly the animals that i feel should not exist (but do) and then to either show myself shredding these animals into a shredder or having them being ripped and torn into tiny pieces. the animals that i have chosen to destroy are: pigeons that poop, mean cats, snakes eating mice, hamsters eating their babies, spiders (just in general!), llamas spitting, dung beetles rolling poop, and mosquitoes sucking blood.

here is a short snippet from my animation:

# 11

specialisms, bozar

we've now begun our specialisms. here are some of my outcomes from my "30 things to do" project, which i displayed in a mini sketchbook. #11: measure things. lots of things. record. #15: record anything that you see that shouldn't be. #24: go into a public space and leave a message.

all of these were displayed on our first crit, the first monday we arrived back from our break. but we were told that these had to be expanded and developed for a following crit next friday. whilst looking at my version of #11, one of the tutors suggested i looked at the one book: you are here: personal geographies by katharine harmon. we seemed to agree upon the fact that i enjoy doing monotonous tasks and i like the concept of repetition. i found inspiration within that book and decided to create a piece that was purely based on interaction and collection as part of a dialogue. i was in control of what had to happen and asked 40 people to draw an outline of the united kingdom, an outline of a camel with 2 humps, and a portrait of me.

i then scanned all of my collected data together, and what i had envisioned was for all of my images to be printed out onto coloured sheets of paper.. my computer skills failed on me and i was forced to print the images onto acetate and stick coloured paper behind them. i was quite disappointed with my final outcome.

i also went back home to belgium for the weekend! i visited the gilbert & george's (jack freak) pictures exhibition at bozar. unfortunately we could not take pictures inside, and there were so many guards about ... these works explored the themes of religion, urban life, race, sexuality, nationalism, death, hope, life and fear. i had seen their work before however i have never seen such a huge mass of it it one space. out of their 153 jack freak pictures, 85 were exhibited at the bozar (was this too many?!) seemed a bit repetitive at times...). as a complement to the exhibition, there was also the movie "the secret files of gilbert & george" playing. it was filmed in 2000 by the curator hans ulrich obrist for an exhibition in paris, and it highlighted the hysteria of the archive and the collection. this was probably the best part of the exhibition. as all of the pieces being exhibited were created in 2008, i had expected that it did not take so much time to edit these on the computer and churn them all out. however the movie proved my thoughts wrong, and showed how extremely organised these 2 artists are, working obsessively with great care to not create one piece of art with similarities to another one.

# 10

woolff gallery, zabludowicz collection, museum of everything

today i visited the woolff gallery who were showcasing the work of the new zealand artist clay sinclair. his work is quite abstract, humerous and colourful and he uses a lot of text to get his ideas across. he started to paint on normal glass but didn't enjoy the quality of it as he felt it looked too heavy, so he began to paint on perspex/plexiglass. one of the problems with this is that he has to paint everything backwards!

10.11.10. the peaceful protest! on this day its estimated that 30,000 students demonstrated on the streets of london against the planned tripling of tuition fees. the march was the biggest education demonstration in more than a decade. coaches from all around the uk joined us from trafalgar square all the way down to westminster abbey. the march was extremely peaceful and friendly when i was there from 11-2 (i left early for an open day at lcc) however after that there have been  unfortunate reports that it escalated into violence as a small minority of protesters (who hid their faces...) smashed their way into the headquarters of the conservative party. they from the roof, then threw fire extinguishers, bottles, and burning banners into the crowd... below are pictures of JUST the art students who took part in the peaceful protest.

a friend suggested we went to the zabludowicz collection near chalk farm. i had never been before and was amazed by how light and spacious the main room was. in that room held, toby ziegler's mixed media installation entitled "alienation of objects". for the other rooms, ziegler had selected works from the zabludowicz collection, which were linked to his practice. these were mainly all video art. my favourite video was by peter fischli and david weiss entitled busi (kitty) which was simply a video of a cat drinking milk!

a little walk down the road led me to the museum of everything. unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside (or, as the museum wrote, the penalty was death... so i didnt want to risk it!). i saw exhibition #3 which was curated by the british pop artist sir peter blake, best known for his design of the sleeve for the beatles album sgt. peppers lonely hearts club band. the exhibition had everything from self taught work (art work done by chimps), to found objects and artefacts (punch and judy) dolls, discovered art (circus posters) and even taxidermy from walter potters museu of curiosity, which was re-assembled at this museum for the very first time. this was a fascinating exhibition as you never knew what to expect around the corner. every nook and cranny was covered in something from photographs of midgets to concaved mirrors.

# 9

crossroads 2 (chelsea set topic), lisson gallery, kensington gardens

CROSSROADS II

(blog set topic: state your choice of area, reflecting upon and analyzing your reasons for this choice) :

Now that the eight weeks of rotation is complete, I need to make a decision about which area I would like to pursue as a specialization. Entering the Chelsea Foundation program with enthusiasm and an open mind has helped me through these challenging weeks, and has helped clarify my mind and highlight the courses I would like to choose and in which I can excel.  So far I have been particularly drawn to the Vis/Com and Fine Art rotations, more so than to the 3D Spatial and Fashion/Textiles ones. I struggled with the 3D aspect of both of these courses, and I think that the final pieces I produced for the crits were not up to my expectations. 

With Vis/Com being the first rotation, what I enjoyed was working to specific briefs and the clarity of what tutors were expecting of me. Working to a brief helped stimulate and explore numerous creative ideas.  A lecture from Dominic Wilcox (an ex-Chelsea Graphic Design student) inspired me, especially as his works were entirely ideas-based, and he playfully explored and tampered with all aspects of design.  I particularly enjoyed how we were encouraged to manipulate and work with images alongside our own drawings. I grew to enjoy the fast pace of this two-week rotation, even though during the first week at times I felt slightly overwhelmed, as I was settling into my new life and my new course.  However, I was thrilled with the outcome of my final piece for the crit, and was delighted that the tutors appreciated it also. This gave me a huge confidence boost as I realised that I could apply my skills to achieve clearly defined goals.

With Fine Art being the last rotation, I was eager to see what was in store for me.  One aspect of this rotation that I did not particularly enjoy was that there was no brief to work to, and I felt a bit lost at times. You could argue that it is better not to have a brief, so that it is possible to freely explore your own personal creative ideas, but this did not reassure me entirely.  I was unsure of what was expected of me (as Fine Art could literally be anything), so I chose to produce a series of drawings, and an animation for the first time. I felt that during this crit, I got more feedback than during the others.  This was invaluable considering that, with the animation, I had tried something that I had never attempted before.  Even though the tutors’ feedback was mixed, one tutor particularly appreciated my drawings and suggested that I worked with Max (a Vis/Com) tutor later on in the year. 

I am quite certain that I would like to continue my Foundation at Chelsea working in either the pathways of Vis/Com or Fine Art, combining invaluable skills that I have learnt during these two rotations. These final weeks will allow me to build on my strengths and challenge some of my potential weaknesses in order to achieve a successful conclusion to a great year!

---


i had my assesment on tuesday with a 3D spatial tutor and it was extremely positive. at first i was really nervous but i soon understood that assessments at chelsea were quite informal! after 20 minutes of looking through all of my work, together we decided that i would be suited best by specializing in lens based vis com!

we were also given briefs a few days later on friday in our specialisms. my vis com class have been asked to complete a list of 30 things to do that we have to bring in on the first monday. luckily for me, ive already done something like this (rob pruitt's 101 art ideas you can do yourself) which i brought for my portfolio reviews, so i know what kind of root i should take to complete these on time. some of them include: draw every chair you sit on today, 11.11.11, count something pointless, words fail me.


i also visited csm for their open day. the course i was interested in was a BA in criticism, communication and curation. i find this course fascinating, but i need to take into hand that its very academic and there is a lot of writing involved...

this week i also visited the marina abramovic exhibition at the lisson gallery. her works, comprised of new and key past works in the form of video, photographs, and sculptures were shown across the two galleries. i preferred her works in the 52-54 bell street gallery, the rhythm series, which were her early performance works more so than the newer work from her back to simplicity series in the other gallery. her shocking rhythm series works have allowed abramovic to explore performance art as a visual art form and has been described as "one of the defining artists of radical performance". abramovic continuously broke boundaries of what was acceptable in art, performing shocking experiments on herself, challenging not only her endurance but her audiences as well. below, a section from rhythm 0, which was performed for 6 hours in naples. it was made up of a table with 72 objects on it that the spectators can use on her in any way they desire. the objects ranged from whips to safety pins, alcohol and boxes of razor blades, to olive oil, apples and perfume.

i then walked to the kensington gardens to see anish kapoors "turning the world upside down"  outdoor sculpture installation. his stainless steel sculptures were placed in 4 different areas of the park, and lasts until spring, reflecting and distorting the different colours, elements and moods of the changing seasons.

# 8

tate modern

this week i visited the chinese artist, ai weiwei's installation at the turbine hall (tate modern). his piece entitled sunflower seeds is poured over the entire floor of the hall, looking like a carpet and is made up of 100 million sunflower seeds. it explored the relationship between the individual and the masses. these realistic sunflower seeds are actually made of ceramic and were both hand crafted and individually painted. this piece was originally intended to be walked upon however on the 22nd of october it was forced to be inaccessible due to the amount of dust that was produced and it was said that it could harm public health! when i saw it, it was roped off to the public.

for the second week of fine art we were asked to research and select your own images and objects which have interesting disparate cultural references. from this we had to produce a series of works that explores and exploits some of the following qualities: photographic, naturalistic, historical contemporary, trashy/kitsch, pop, culturally significant, abstract in the form of either drawing, sculpture, digital media, or painting. i chose to look back at the images i took from the previous tuesday (people walking past me at oxford circus) and to draw from them and possibly create an animation.

the tutors seemed to take interest in my drawings (well one of them!) and advised me that i should talk more to max about animation.

# 7

hayward gallery, haunch of venison, royal academy

fine art now (and our last rotation wooo). our project is entitled "epic tour" exploring cultural identity. we were asked to bring in a 3D domestic ornament on our first day, and i brought in a touristic lamp in the shape of a gondola! the fine art studio was much larger than i expected, and was divided into 4 sections/rooms. within each room there was different 3D structure made up of 2D and 4D imagery which we were asked to draw from. i decided to take certain sections of each structure instead of drawing the structure as a whole.

this week i visited the hayward gallerys "move, choreographing you" exhibition. what i loved about this exhibition was that it was extremely interactive, and each piece invited you to touch it, play with it and even move it.  the exhibition was made up of installations and sculptures by renowned visual artists and choreographers, aiming to explore the relationship between visual art and dance. there were many scheduled live performance art, but unfortunately not on the day i visited. 

following on from that i visited the haunch of venison. the smaller rooms included "transmission - 3 young artists from london", and "loud flash" an enormous collection of british punk art taken from newspapers and flyers, but the main artists work that was being showcased was that of tom wesselmann. this painter, sculptor and printmaker is regarded as one of the leading figures of american pop art and the haunch of venison was lucky enough to hold the title of the most extensive exhibition of his work to date in the uk. what i enjoyed the most about his works were the larger pieces, that used assemblage as well as collage. 

a long trip around the royal academy's "treasures from budapest" left me quite disappointed. even though their collection of paintings was extremely vast (ranging from paintings by raphael and goya, drawings by durer and da vinci, landscapes by claude and canaletto, to impressionist works by renoir and monet)  i was hoping to see more of the works of egon schiele, as advertised ... being an admirer of his work, and as his drawings were the main images on the billboards and flyers "european masterpieces from leonardo to schiele" there was only one of his drawings there at the exit to the exhibition.

tuesday led us into an independent project "carnival of the street". i chose to go to oxford street to photograph a busy area, with a passing procession of human figures. my main focal point was a traffic light. i really enjoyed taking these photos on a fast shutter speed to get the feel of  a moving image. when i printed the photos out for class, my printer ran out of ink and gave the photographs this pink ghost like quality to it. i decided to scan them back onto my laptop and create a little gif/animation. heres the result!

thursdays studio time was dedicated once again to the 4 structures in the 4 sections of the fine art studio. we were instructed to stand in a circle around the structures, focusing on a small section. we had to draw that section on an acetate sheet, 3 times, each time moving one step to the left or right. max (the tutor) also introduced us to more artists who worked with animation including david lynch (6 men getting sick 6 times) and william kentridge. 

quick linear drawing from friday on A1 paper and further image based experimentations with a cardboard box.