# 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.