just been introduced to the fmp - my social life is over.
the fmp stands for final major project. it's a self-initiated project with will run from the 21st of february to the end of the course. we have to write our own brief (proposal) for a project and a timeline that will last us over 6 weeks. it's quite exciting but daunting at the same time... we need to keep sketchbooks, and a reflective journal through out the entire period. for tuesday we have to come up with 2 ideas which we will present to small groups.
i crossed the road to tate britain to see susan hiller's exhibition. i had no idea it would be so big! the presentation of her work is said to be the largest yet. it ranged from bookworks to multimedia installations. i didn't realise it but i had already seen one of her works at the camden arts centre ("magic lantern" picture in the post below). i enjoyed how she recycled a lot of her work to create new pieces- "painting blocks" which were recycled paintings which had been sewn together to create sculptural blocks, and "hand grenades" which were made of ashes of her paintings. she was also showing works based on dreams. she chose to investigate peoples dreams. i have always been interested in dreams, and think this could be a possible way to tackle my final major project. my favourite piece by her was an installation entitled "witness". the entire room was made up of 400 headphones, with each headphone transmitting a voice telling a story. it sent shivers down my spine. my video of the voices:
below our my final pieces for the "shorts" brief. the first picture illustrates "a flock of gulls wheeled down from the sky", the second; "a hundred arms pointed towards the sea" and the third; "a dozen ladders swung in the wind". our tutor seemed to be quite happy with my progress from the beginning of the specialization. i've been able to see it too! it was a good way to end the mini projects.
wednesday brought us our 5th movie session at leicester square. we were introduced to the quirky world of silent movies. the first movie we saw was "sherlock jnr" (45 minutes long) made in 1924. buster keaton (who plays the main character and is also the director of the movie) plays the part of a cinema projectionist who dreams of becoming a detective and through his dreams he projects himself onto a movie. whilst being projected into the movie he becomes "sherlock jnr", a detective who finds out who the baddies are, solves the case, and gets the girl of his dreams. i thought it was a charming movie! here is the closing clip to the movie:
the second silent movie we saw was "man with a movie camera" (1929). this was an artistic, experimental take on a documentary, presenting urban life in the soviet union (communist russia). the director, dziga vertov believed it was his responsibility as a filmmaker "to present life in its purest form - as it lives and breathed". and this is what he achieved in his approach of showing the day in the life of being in this city. here's the first 9 minutes:
i think i went a bit overboard with my tate visits this week. as i have a membership i thought it would be a good idea to visit gabriel orozco's exhibition at the tate modern. it was lovely! orozco is an artist who is "not inventing, just reinterpreting". he takes existing objects and alters and reconfigures them for the public. he enjoys playing with their new contexts and the wider associations that they hold. below are two photographs i chose to buy. the one on the left is entitled "my hands are my heart" (1991), in which orozco picked up a piece of clay and squeezed it in his hands, to give it the form of space between them. it is a rather humble piece. the second, i thought was quite humorous. and is called "cats and watermelons". what i enjoyed about this exhibition is that he played with so many simple ideas and turned them into something amazing. for example his piece "lintels" in which he took the lint out of washing machines in new york, and carefully hung these "works of art" on washing lines. for such everyday objects they looked absolutely stunning. another idea which i particularly enjoyed was his piece entitled "obituaries". he took obituaries from the new york times, removed the persons names, and just left the descriptions. for example: "a dreamer, "innovator in developing frozen juice", "sensational human cannonball", "british cheese crusader" ...! these were large scale pieces and the size of font of each phrase reflected that of the original cutting. this is something that i need to think about for my fmp- to play and explore scale.
No comments:
Post a Comment