THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MODERN GENTLEMAN

The newspaper for 'The Changing Face Of The Modern Gentleman' is here, and arrived a few days ago. 12 pages of black and white newspaper, with all the images from the supreme gentleman series, more images after the click...

BADGES - PATCHES - STAMPS

This week i'm moving on to the next step of the modern gentleman work, this is the patch/badge/stamp, whatever you want to call it. There is a lot of pride that comes with gaining something that shows you have had to work hard at something to earn this accolade, from your first badge at cubs to your first cap at international football level, every step is an achievement that is marked by a small patch of material that can be attached to clothing or kept as a constant reminder of what you have achieved. I have found a few places that specialise in the embroidered patch field and have hopefully found some people that can produce some for me, designs will be shown soon.

DUSTIN YELLIN - OSIRIS ON THE TABLE

Last week I went round a few galleries in the Hoxton area of east london, the first of which was the 20 Hoxton Square Projects which as the name says is located in Hoxton Square which was launched in 2007 by Alex Dellal...

ACCESSORIES TO AN ARTWORK - PETER SAVILLE

From 1979 through to 1986, Saville shaped the perception of Factory as much as Joy Division or New Order. His reputation as an extraordinary designer grew on the back of sometimes enigmatic, other times painstakingly luxurious, but always individual and innovative album sleeves...

SOUNDART

Found this website today which features a bank of sound art and interesting things to do with sound, its all in German but its still pretty interesting.

KLANG MUSEUM

100 CLUB FINAL DESIGN

Over the last week or so I have been working on the 100 club brief that I got given at the start of term. The new poster is similar to the old ones, however it incorporates the words, SAVE and SHUT into the panels where the photos of the 100 club are...

TIME FOR TEA

Yesterday the unit 10 mid terms were looming, however the pdf was sent away and the presentations are this coming Thursday, now going to start thinking about next possible self initiated work, to move on from 'The Modern Gentleman' series.

PERFORATION

I have just been putting the perforation rotary cutter to good use once again on the new installment of the 100 club poster. Great little tool, really sharp though, as you'd expect. Will put some photos up of the new improved version later.

THE NEW GENTLEMANS JOURNAL - GRAIN & GRAM

At the start of this week when I was in the midst of designing the newspaper for the modern gentleman work my brother Ben emailed me a link to this new website called 'The New Gentleman's Journal'. The notion they are trying to get across to the viewers of the website is very similar to the points and issues I am looking at within the modern gentleman work.

The website basically takes men who they think epitomise the new gentleman, there are musicians on it, carpenters, letterpress makers. They interview each one of them and take photos and a short video to go with it. I find it interesting that within the interviews and photos it shows a wide variety of different males who not only visually look different represented by the clothes they wear but how they all do different things and have different beliefs, this is in essence the beauty of the modern gentleman, which is exactly the point I made within the first instalment of the modern gentleman work.

Truly interesting website and defiantly worth looking at.

THE NEW GENTLEMAN'S JOURNAL

THE CORE - LISTEN

This is a link to listen to the sounds that I played into the courtyard, best listened through speakers or headphones.

ASFS THE CORE

ASFS FINAL CRIT 18/02/11

Yesterday was the final crit for the work that was produced for the 'A Space For Sound' brief. The day started pretty mad, I had to gather up the equipment I needed for the piece (thanks to Ariane for her speakers). This consisted of Ariane's speakers, and my speakers, I also needed all the necessary cables, a laptop...

THE 100 CLUB OUTCOME THREE

This is the third poster of the 100 Club set. The photos that are in it are a close up of the floor on the stage, with a very dirty carpet on it, which the drums usually sit on top of and a overshot of the speaker system.

THE 100 CLUB OUTCOME TWO

With this second poster the two photos that are in it are one of a close up of a red curtain at the back of the room, and then the close up next to it is the red curtain with the (some would say) iconic plastic chairs that are in the 100 Club.

THE 100 CLUB OUTCOME ONE

It's been a while since I got the 100 club brief but I have finally got round to editing my final outcome slightly so that it would make it a better project. The set of three posters were designed for my final crit. The main concept behind them was to raise a debate amongst the public about the 100 club in an unobtrusive way...

TEST RUN N & M

I have just been playing my chosen sound to my man Nicholas and his brother Matthew, Both of them coming back from the freshest galleries in the east end I thought that they would be a good audience to choose. So we turned off all the lights and listened to the sounds, it is basically lots of sounds merged together to make a larger heartbeat sound. After it had finished we switched the lights back on and they both seemed to like it, and both would like to come to the crit tomorrow, however I think this may be a one off piece. Anyway, was good to play it to some people to gauge their reactions, watch your back lethaby, the sounds are coming...

TESTING SOUND

I was at college today testing the levels of sound that you can hear when played through speakers which are directed into the courtyard. I had Henry with me to help with gauging what the sounds was like at different point in the building...

ACOUSTIC ENVIRONMENT OF COURTYARDS

I have always thought throughout this brief that courtyards due to the way they are made, hold sound and project sound very well, this is because of their shape and size. If a sound comes from the bottom of the courtyard it is going to be able to be heard from the top, possibly louder than it is at the bottom, due to the sound reverberating throughout the space, kind of acting like the cone of a speaker. Apparently it depends on the depth of the courtyard and the position of the sound (or in the case of this work speakers). Thus meaning that the courtyard of the Lethaby is the natural place to do it, as it is the core of the building and it projects sound around the space and other parts of the college.

THE CORE OF LETHERBY

The Idea I am going with for the 'A Space For Sound' brief is the 'The Core Of Lethaby'. The concept behind this is inspired by the building that many people are surrounded by currently and have been surrounded by in past years, this is the Lethaby Building on Southampton Row...

ASFS CRIT 11/02/11

Last week we had a crit with the group and Sadhna. It was an interesting crit, with some very conceptual ideas and sounds exuding out of the projection room. I talked about two of the ideas I had come up with, one being the standing waves idea and the other the heartbeat of the Leatherby building. Both ideas went down well, however we decided that the standing waves idea had been done before, and was just a idea that would have been really interesting to do, but not relevant at all to the brief that had been set. So with this we talked about the heartbeat idea.

First of all I played the sound that I had found which was the sound of a heartbeat, which I guess is a natural starting point, however we discussed about using other sounds that represent the heartbeat of the school in other better and more interesting ways, this is something that I am looking into at the moment, maybe taking sounds from within the school or something could work.

In terms of being able to install this piece I am not really sure how to go about it and who to ask, so this again is something I need to work on, however I am keep to create some form of video or something to go with the sounds, as I think it would be an interesting way of documenting the sounds and reactions or people as they heard it.

Anyhow a few things to think about, and a few days to get on and do it.

THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MODERN GENTLEMAN

I have just sent the newspaper for my self initiated project off to print, it is titled...

'THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MODERN GENTLEMAN'

It is basically a short ride through the readers pre-conceptions of what a gentleman is and takes them through the stereotype of a gentleman and then starts to deconstruct this pre-conception, and questions the factor of appearance and behaviour and the inter-relation between the two of them.

By the end of it, it is basically saying there is no written rules anymore for the modern gentleman, and that the only person that is able to comment on weather someone is a gentleman or not is the person who is making the judgement, and not what these pre-determined rules are, from guides and rules books that exist at the moment.

Throughout the newspaper there is images of the SUPREME GENTLEMAN, which are basically made up of peoples views of who they think the modern gentleman is. However this is also picked apart and leaves the reader making their own decision to who the modern gentleman is.

The reader is then given the option of giving an embroidered patch to either themselves or someone who they think deserves to be given the accolade of the modern gentleman, in order to provoke them to think about what their characteristics of a gentleman are.

It was a long slog to get it done for the printing deadline but I had twenty five minuets to spare so guess it was all good. As soon as I receive these newspapers back from the printers I will post photos of them, I am really excited to see how they come out, in the meantime I'm off to design the patch that comes with the paper, and you may be seeing a few more in the coming weeks, so you can build your patch collection up like a boy scout...

THE 100 CLUB / CONVERSE

I have just been on NME and there is news today that the 100 club has been saved. Converse released this statement about the partnership.

'Converse and the 100 Club both share a love for music and this partnership is a great opportunity to reunite the 100 Club with a generation who experienced history inside its walls, as well as introduce it to a new generation with a vow to bring the best in music to its legendary stage.'

Lets hope they keep the integrity of the club intact and it becomes a venue that has new exciting music all the time... and make some money along the way.

DENTSU SOUND SCULPTURE

Was just looking through some videos and stumbled upon this by Dentsu London. It is about visulisation of sound through paint being placed on top of a speaker, its amazing how they do it. Such an interesting way of looking at sound.

SOUND SCULPTURES

NERD MERITS

The nerd merit badges are a range created for the nerd within people, for deeds they have done in general life, as I said Fernando told me about it, they are really great. the story that comes with each badge is also good too, guess it is a interesting way of acknowledging someone who has done something of merit...

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...