MOVING FORWARD MGM

So after talking about the MGM project with the tutor group on Thursday I have been thinking of ways to push the projects forward, and possibly pushing it in a slightly different direction. Basically after talking about the true lad website and the badges it has given me some more ideas, which bring another aspect to the work.

What I want to do now is sort of formulate something that has this True Lad aspect to it, and then convert it into something to do with a true gent, or something along these lines, and with these deeds or things you do you can earn yourself some badges that you can either sew on to clothes or like a pin-badge which can be placed on various things.

The whole point of this is to half question the fact of the stereotype of a gentleman and then also half question the other spectrum that is this lad culture that surrounds many men around Britain at this current time. I think it is interesting because as the two subjects of lad/gent are at two spectrums of the cultural line, they still have a lot of similarities between them, things like gaining respect of peers and doing things that boost your stepping, which is quite interesting.

One person who wears a kappa shell-suit and drinks super-ten from a can on a street corner could gain as much respect from his peers as opposed to a person dressed in a Saville Row suit and gaining respect from their peers. All interesting stuff and something that is constant within our society.

Just been looking through the true lad website and some of the stuff that is written on there is utterly ridiculous, but also pure genius, check it out.

TRUE LAD

PLAN 4 ASFS

This sound installation is inspired by the piece at saw at the Pompidou Centre in Paris back in 2005, it was all to do with the sound waves hitting each other at a certain point. Waves travel up and down, so when the exact same sound is played through the same speaker at the same volume and at the same time...

PLAN 3 ASFS

This is another concept that I was talking about with influences Bruce Nauman and UVA, with a field of sound coming out of each set of speakers and when the listener walks past each one a new sound is heard, then when you set out of the line of the speakers then all you can hear is noise from all three...

PLAN 2 ASFS

The second rough drawing I have done is of the main stairway in the Leatherby building, this plan is quite similar to the other in that it will be using the heartbeat sound and using this space as sort of the core to the space around it. This ultimately means that the sound will reverberate around the stairs and up to the dome...

PLAN 1 ASFS

Here is a rough initial drawing for my first idea. The whole notion is that this courtyard is the core of the Southampton row building, or the heart if you will, which when the speakers play the heartbeat ambient soundtrack it will echo around this central point and would be able to be heard from around the school at various point by various...

VP CRIT MGM

Today was the crit with the tutor group about our self initiated project, we spoke about half of the groups projects and one of those people was me.

I talked about the newspaper idea and possible ways of taking it forward. We were discussing how I should maybe start off with my perception and the motive for why I have created the work which I think is a good idea as it sets the tone. We then moved onto the website 'true lad' and how it is linked with my work, due to the fact that there is almost this unwritten rule of being a 'lad' that the people on this website write about. Fernando then brought up this website about nerd merits, and how they could earn badges for stuff they did in their daily lives. This I thought would actually be quite a nice way of linking all this stuff together, so will look into this further in the next coming weeks.

ASFS VISUAL

I went back to college today to take a few videos of some of the proposed spaces for the sound, (recording taken from my iPhone) The first video is of the courtyard, where I would have the speakers outside and if this wasn't possible maybe having them inside pointed into the courtyard from an inconspicuous place...

SOME SPREADS FOR THE NEWS

I have been doing bits on the newspaper for the MGM work that is for my first self initiated project, which I plan to have done and sent to the printers first thing tuesday morning. I have been looking at alot of papers that I have picked up in the past for inspiration, I think I am going to have the paper folding up twice...

SPACES FOR SOUNDS

Today I went to college to go and hunt out some spaces for the work I am doing at the moment. I thought it was going to be a relatively straight forward trip, as I thought I knew where I wanted to do it and that was pretty much that. I first went to the library and that was where it all started...

THE PULSE OF

I was thinking about the restrictions I have been given with the ASFS work and one of the main ones is that it has to take place somewhere within the CSM Southampton Row building. I was trying to think of ways to make the installation relevant to the space we have been given. After looking at the various works that have been inspiring me within the project so far, I started to think about the space being closed at the end of the 2011, and how it has been 115 years that CSM has been open in this particular spot, which threw all sorts of interesting ideas up in the air. One of which is looking at the heartbeat of the building, and making a piece of ambient sound that is 115 seconds long, or 1 minute and 55 seconds. This meant that every second that passed symbolised a year that the school had been there. then a heartbeat recording would be played for the whole duration and then every 3 seconds (symbolising every 3 years) a new heartbeat would be added, as if another year of students would join the school. These beats would then come and go but the main heartbeat of the building would always be there.

I then want to incorporate this idea of the heartbeat with the sort of thing that Bruce Nauman did with his 'days' work. This means I would assign each separate heart beat to a set of speakers, so when you walked past it your line of listening would zone into the specific heart beat, yet the other heartbeats would still be able to be heard just not quite as loud, I think this would make an interesting outcome, I now just have to construct this ambient sound, find a place to use the sound, set it all up and bobs your uncle. I am going to college in a bit to take some photos of possible spaces...

UVA - CHORUS

One of my favourite art and design practises at the moment, United Visual Artists are an exciting and innovative company that produce work at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, live performance, moving image and digital installation. I have seen many of their works around London in the last three years, each one...

CATS EYES VATICAN

When talking about churches and how they are almost a instrument within itself, I remember seeing this video of Faris Badwan of the horrors and Rachel Zeffira a classically trained multi instrumentalist coming together as one to form the band Cats Eyes. There first performance was at the Vatican in rome, which as...

GHIN THE SOUND WIZARD

Today we had a talk with Ghin, who is an awesome guy, he spoke to us about all sorts of things to do with sound, here are some points that I took from the talk today...

BRUCE NAUMAN NYC MOMA

The summer just gone I went to NYC with my girlfriend, one of the many things we did while we were out there was go to the MOMA, there were two things that were relevant to the ASFS project, one of which I really loved and the other I liked for about a minute and then it started to annoy me and everyone else...

SOUND MIRROR

In times past I have seen a few of these sort of cup shaped things in some of the countryside's across britain, be it sat on a train or in a car, I have always wondered what they were, and about a year ago found out that they are something called a sound mirror. A sound mirror is a passive device used to reflect and...

A SPACE FOR SOUND - ASFS

The second set brief of the term comes in the form of a sound brief, it is all about learning to design aesthetics of interaction, rather than aesthetics of sound. The brief is to engage with this idea of aesthetics of interaction, and then design a space within the southampton row building for an ambient piece of sound...

THE NARRATIVE

To go with the series of images I have made for the MGM work I am going to write some short stories/things that a gentleman should. I basically want to highlight the fact that the things a gentleman was expected to do years ago and what in reality a gentleman is perceived to do now is completely different, these guides to...

MR GREEN

Just stumbled upon these videos, they are a funny take on being a gentleman. It is an adverting campaign for the casino Mr Green. The ethos behind it is play with Mr Green and be a gentleman, its funny because gambling isnt particularly seen as a gentlemanly thing, I guess the point to these videos are to make fun of this gentleman figure, whatever there trying to do though you should watch one of them because the guy who plays Mr Green is pretty funny. Click on the links below...

Mr Green's Guide to How to Treat a Lady

Mr Green's Guide to Being a Gentleman

Mr Green's Guide to Facial Hair

1/2/11 - DP CRIT

This afternoon was the crit for the MGM project with David, it was a really useful crit. Everyone seemed to like the photo collage/illustrations that I had been doing, and we discussed about the focus of the narrative that should go with it, and what sort of context it should be put in. For the narrative a few things were talked...

JOHN STEZAKER - WHITECHAPEL

Today at the crit Margo B told me about the exhibition at the Whitechapel gallery with the British artist John Stezaker showing there at the moment. So straight after the crit I walked down to Whitechapel to have a look at his work. His work incorporates classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustrations...