CY TWOMBLY

Cy Twombly is a great artist from america, I really like his fluent style of work, it looks so haphazard, however there is a flow within it, great work, quite graphic within its style too.

SARDINES

Here is the second piece of great packaging to an ongoing list, this is a really strange one, due to the fact you find it in Sainsburys, and pretty much with every other piece of packaging they do they have made it into something very commercial and either boring or garish, however they have kept the essence of the...

THE VALIDITY OF IMPERFECTION

The written thesis is done, after many hours of writing, checking, writing, checking, designing, checking, rewriting and so on and so forth its all done, handed it in on tuesday, thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, i felt the whole experience of writing a thesis on a subject of your choice was an interesting one, as the last time i wrote an essay was probably at least six years ago, so it was a shock to the system, but a good one never the less! It taught me to think about what i was trying to say, and puts your subject in the spotlight and in context to the bigger world outside jsut design... anyway now i can concentrate on doing some visual designing, check back for more updates.

FORMATTED, PRECISE & WRAPPED IN IMPROVISATION

My plan now is to have a very specific and formatted outcome, with very strict guides and boundaries, and design it as well as i can to make it look great and read well (one spread is in the picture above, great fluro colour!). Almost the complete opposite of improvisation, a complete contradiction to what i am writing about in...

THE CONTRADICTION

"To write a book about improvisation is partly a contradiction in terms. Improvisation is spontaneous. It's in the moment."

Sally Schneider

MOVING ON

I was talking to one of my tutors today about my visual outcome for my thesis, and as i have previously said in other posts to create a space in the book/magazine that i am doing that illustrates the point of myself having to improvise around a set of rules and time limit, now i think this would work on some levels, however it may be to pre-determined, and the issue was raised that i could reject some ideas on the basis i could not do them etc, so we were discussing how we could relate this issue, the fact of the matter is i dont think there really is a proper way to show improvisation of something, in something as pre-determined as a book/magazine, because they are conscious decisions that i will have taken to lead to the "improvised" outcome. It is a vicious cycle that i have got myself into really.

DARK DAYS

A while ago I watched a film with a few friends called Dark Days directed by Marc singer, it is a documentary about the lives of these squatters who live in the underneath the subway in New York, next to the train tracks, and films their stories of childhood, jail time, losing loved ones, drugs and many other things, at the...

LOUISIANA

I was just looking through some past flyers and things i have picked up over the last year or so, and one of the things that was there, was this great little booklet from a museum in Copenhagen, called the Louisiana I was there with friends at easter, Copenhagen is a fantastic place and good times were had there, anyway...

BROWNS - HOWARD SMITH PAPERS

Browns are a fantastic design company based in Bermondsey, who have an amazing archive of work. One of the many great projects Browns have done is a set of posters to promote the second Howard Smith Paper Graphic Design and Print Awards and the Howard Smith Paper lecture series, these posters were simply...

DIMENSIONS

I have thought long and hard about the format of my thesis, thinking about what size its going to be, what sort of binding am i going to use, how many pages am i going to have in it, and so on. I have however decided to use a paper size of roughly 21cm x 25cm possibly a little less than 21cm on the width, because i need...

ONGOING

At this current moment in time i am getting my visual side to my written work done, its going well. It looks like my written work will be within a 54 page book/magazine style object, should turn out to be pretty interesting, keep checking back in the next day or two for updates on the work, it going to be a hectic week...

FILOSOFO

Was out yesterday around Roman Road, just trawling the pound shops, as you do... and the market was being cleared up, I saw on top of one of the bins this great box, which was left by one of the fruit and veg stands, I was drawn to the logo on the side, so decided to pick it up and take it home, it lead to a...

TITLES

For the writing i have also been thinking of titles, ever since i started to write it, as we were made to have a working title right away from the offset, which of course was subject to change, however i have thought of quite a few titles to date so have had trouble trying to pick a definitive one. Here are a list of the titles...

SETTING OUT THE GUIDELINES

So over the last week or so i have been thinking of ways to present my written work, there are many ways that i could do this, however i would like to represent the notion of improvisation, and how we use it in all sorts of ways. Having thought of ways around this in the 'what if' series i came to a holt, in the sense that showing improvisation within a written piece is just a predetermined thing, because i would have made the decisions consciously and that would mean the outcome is not improvised. Within the group discussion we looked at the problem from a different angle, and thought maybe i could get people to set me a confined set of rules, and a confined set of time and do something that was within the rules but was improvised, due to the time that i had to do it in, and this outcome therefore would be totally improvised, for example, the "brief" so to say could be, make a chair out of paper within three hours, basically i would have to improvise to make a chair out of paper within three hours, and with this outcome photograph it and then display it within my written piece.

So there would be two pieces within my final outcome, the written and perfected bit to it, then a section that is within it, with all these improvised pieces, displaying what you can achieve within the rules and time given to you, and as with improvisation, there will be glimpses of brilliance which would never occurred if thought through thoroughly, however im sure there will be mistakes within it, which i guess is also the beauty and charm of improvisation. I think im going to ask a range of people to set me these small tasks in the next few days.

SARAH CHARLESWORTH STUDIO

When i was in New York this summer i went to the Guggenheim Museum which is a fantastic building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, however when i went it was a show called Haunted, which was connected to contemporary photography and video and how it seems to be haunted by the past, by ghostly apparitions that...

BREAKING THE MOULD

I find this picture fascinating, not only because the man in the photo is a very interesting looking man, but the way his face has been dissected by these red lines and circles with handwriting all over the place, not dissimilar to something you would see in a butchers. However i think the contrast of the black and white photo...

BLOCKED OUT

Just found this image in a file on my computer, it is reminiscent of the experiments i was doing for the 'what if' series, with the faces of people that appear in my written work taken off. This is that sort of vibe, with the whole picture except for the edges completely blocked out, i think even though you cant really see what is...

THE FREEDOM OF STRUCTURE

I am currently thinking of things to produce as my final piece for my dissertation and is proving more difficult than I had thought it would be, basically however I think after my discussion on thursday with the group, and looking at the 'no waste' book by pentagram, I have come to a conclusion of having something within quite a structured format, such as a book, I know maybe it is an obvious thing to do, but its obvious because it makes for such a great artifact, and physical thing to read out of. I dont know weather the book will take a normal format or a slightly different format, but i feel setting myself this rule, like the rules that are set out within improvisation all the time, my work will be pushed forward, and i feel i want to do something within the book that is a little different and somehow connects with the user in some form, check back for updates, there will be plenty more...

APOLIS VIETNAM

Here is a company named Apolis, they are a company that are all about empowering people through oppotunity instead of charity, they co create products with manufacturers which directly allows the market to determine the future of each item. So for each season they go somewhere new in the world and collaborate with...

NO WASTE

Was talking to the group today about the 'What if" series and think i had got the wrong end of the stick possibly, basically we were discussing that maybe i should have looked at things around me and tried to relate improvisation to them, for example a piece of wood and a hook, and making it into something improvised. I...

SISSEL TOLASS

Have just found this magazine and its main story is for a lady called Sissel Tolass, who is a professional scent expert, it is in a magazine called MONO. KULTUR, which is a sort of interview series of magazine, each having a different person within it, basically this magazine has 12 different scents within it, i thought about...

WHAT IF... IMPROVISATION WAS REPETITION

I have just done another experiment for the 'what if' series, in which i have asked the question of what if improvisation was repetition, i have asked this due to the fact that repetition is the opposite of improvisation, however it kind of work because it was an improvised outcome, confusing? For this test i simply did a quick...

NOVEMBER MUSIC ONE

Was in playing fifa with my man Nicholas on sunday and we suddenly remembered that there was fireworks at victoria park due to the massive banging sounds that we heard from outside, so we rushed into the kitchen and jumped out the door onto our balcony, and there it was, fireworks from victoria park lighting up the sky...

WHAT IF... YOU DID IT

Just thinking about possible outcomes for the 'what if' series, I am now thinking about maybe having my written work in some form that is given to the user and then they decide in what they do with it, so maybe they are given an example of how to make a book and then they do it how they feel best, basically im trying to connect the end piece with the user, due to the fact that improvisation is so connected to the end user that the improvised outcome sculpts itself from there reactions and the atmosphere they create around the performer who is improvising. I think this sort of outcome would communicate this idea quite well, its just the way i am going to go about doing the final piece...

IMPROVISATION... THE IMPERFECT ART

So just giving a quick explanation to what my dissertation is, in one sentence... it is about improvisation within creative disciplines and asking weather improvised outcomes can communicate an idea better than a pre-determined 'perfect' solution. So basically looking at improvisation within things like music, theatre and...

HORT EXPERIMENTATION MASTERS

So the 'what if' series at the moment is all about getting out of your comfort zone and experimenting with things you wouldn't usually do and would not necessarily work, basically to have a bit of fun, i was just looking through previous pictures on my computer when i came across this piece by HORT, who are a studio from...

FACELESS

Here is another test for the 'What if' series, this is questioning 'what if improvisation was faceless?' basically what im trying to achieve here is asking weather or not the person playing or acting or painting the improvised piece of art is actually important, in the sense that anyone could be playing this spontaneous second of...

FRANZ KLINE

I have only just found out about this painter Franz Kline, he was an abstract expressionist, who was based in New York, he was labeled an 'action painter' due to his spontaneous and intense style, however apparently he would practise his works before doing them, but i feel practise is a massive part to play within the...

LAMBO ROOM

Here is an amazing room, in which the guy who owns it can raise a Lamborghini into his living room, such an odd concept but i guess if you had such an array of cars you may as well have them as a bit of art, think id choose a more classic car though.

THE HAMMERSMITH LYRIC

My friend Joe came round to my flat the other day and he was wearing a tshirt with the word lyric on it, i knew he worked at the hammersmith lyric theatre so instantly started to take the micheal out of him for wearing it out, however he was saying that it was his new work uniform as the branding for the theatre had...

WHAT IF TYPE

Here are a few experiments for the 'what if' questions, this question was, 'what if improvisation was type?'. Basically looking at what type would look like if it was improvised, but i dont know if there is a definitive answer for this question, due to type being preset? however within these tests i photographed a sheet of...

WHAT IF

At the moment we have a project at school which is concentrating on getting ourselves out of our comfort area, it is also helping us to generate ideas for our context projects, which mine is on improvisation, will post the dissertation soon so that you can read it, however for the moment im concentrating on getting lots of experiments on the go, for this 'what if' question you have to question your context subject, and ask a what if question about it, there is no real limits to what it can be so i guess the more insane the better? anyway im going to be getting on with that and post some initial experiments up soon...

THE BEGINNING

This is a beginning, there will be photos, videos, writing and developments of my work going on in this space so come back regularly, if you want any information just message me, for now let it begin...