These too just are incredible...
WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.


Winters of My Life from Jonathan Burhop on Vimeo.


Das Sehr Angry Caterpillar from LICHTFAKTOR on Vimeo.



Monstrous Wildlife from Frank Robnik on Vimeo.



BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.


Fear/Love from Rob Chiu on Vimeo.


These kind of videos are making me want to get into film & animation more than ever. :)
Also, I think I should get out of my head; out of vimeo & into the real world... for now. . .

 I thought this was rather special, seen some pretty awesome videos today on vimeo that really get you thinking artistically, especially this one... 

 The Day Almost Flew By from David Blue Garcia on Vimeo.

Reassessment

So, in the end I decided to go with the postcard idea. Martin went on his own adventure this time, but not through time or space, but to places around the world. He visited London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Agra (Taj Mahal), Sydney, Cape Town, Gaza (Pyramids), New York City, Rion De Janeiro, & finally Antartica. I photoshopped him in each photograph so it looked like he had been there, and wrote the postcards to myself; so it seemed that Martin was writing to me, and I was his lover...Silly as it sounds, I thought it would be fun to write love letters anyway. He travels for a year and then decides to stay as he is feeling more and more forgotten as I don't reply. So the other person is anonymous. I got the general travelling idea including Martin from Amelie where she steals her father's gnome and takes photos of it in certain places around the world and then sends the photos to her father in the hope that he'd follow in his gnome's footsteps. I liked the idea of the movie Amelie in that she tryed to help the lives of the people around her in a kooky kinda way. Especially when she found a man's childhood treasures and then returns it back to him.

I decided to progress with this idea of memory, love letters and travelling so I compilled tons of photographs that I had taken around the world starting from the age of 8 in Italy, then the most recent ones from South Africa 2 years ago.  On the back of them a couple of my friends and I wrote as anonymous lovers sending love letters to their partner. I really liked this idea as love letters today are genuinely forgotten about, or something that is dug up from the past. The photos I used were also dug up from my past, so I quite liked the forgotten memories link between the two. The photos I used made me remember moments that I had forgotten about & moments that I could relive. When I asked a few people to describe memory in one word, MIST is the word that was frequent; and I can totally see why. Memory is odd in the way it stores certain memories and how others are locked away, and how certain senses can trigger a memory, smell being the strongest.

I wanted to run along with this theme of forgotten memories and so proceeded to dig up old photos of myself when I was younger. How does memory diffuse fact?We don't tend to take photographs of the bad times so when we look at photographs they are usually happy ones. In some ways photographs can lie to you to how a certain memory was, being remembered through a photograph, rather than through your mind. This is especially true for photographs of when we were kids as we don't remember much. In some ways this confuses us of our real identities. I wanted to explore this further hence why I added photos of me looking into a reflection and it being blurry; passport style photographs which had been burnt; a polaroid of me holding up a sign saying, "I am just a memory." Because that, in true aspect is what we are in photographs; just a memory. I then took photographs of me as a baby and stuck them down in my sketchbook to remind me of how I was. I then took one photo and put  question marks on mine and my sister's faces just to question what memory the photograph holds. I took photographs from my most recent past and edited them in similar ways by adding words to them such as "Who are we now",  "Could this be real"  & "Memory is just an internal rumour". I liked the fact that some of these moments would be forgotten and no longer remembered unless there was a photograph to prove it existed. 

So, I decided to move onto forgotten places, because just like these memories of ourselves, they can disintegrate. I stumbled upon a wire factory in Ambergate; Derby and an old house that someone used to live in back in the 1800s which was now desolate. I love derelict buildings and this one was the most interesting I had come across. The ceiling had caved years ago and there was glass, wood, &metal everywhere. As i was taking photographs of this broken down house I came across a bath. which I thought was quite interesting in that it was the only household item that was distinguisable. I decided to edit the photographs in a way that shows that the subjects had been forgotten about. I think the grain effect really helped bring this out in the photos. I liked the idea of taking photos of discarded items too that no-one bothered to notice. On many walks I go on, I walk past things I never notice that have been forgotten to the world. I decided to take notice this time though and take photographs of these objects. I came across some pretty interesting things such as a mangled bike, a bucket full of what looked like mud, a gate, cans, coins, toys, and even a little blue clay teddy bear which is now in my room. I edited these in the same way as I had with the other photographs, and also decided to add in a couple of other photographs that I had taken of inanimate objects at a different time such as a buffalo skull I came across in South Africa. With some of the little objects I had collected I decided to use with some light sensitive paper to show off their shape, which was a new thing for me to try out. I also tried some new polaroid film from a project called "Impossible," as they are developing chemicals for new polaroid film. The one I bought was called PX-70 colour shade first flush. This didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. It is a pretty new film but to be honest I prefer the expired film a lot more as this new one was very faint and had a green wash to it, and you can't see the objects very well. I guess also this may have had to do with the fact I didn't use it with an SX-70 type camera. It said it was compatible with all 600 types but the photos would come out slightly overexposed. I did enjoy experimenting with it though, don't get me wrong. Was also a bit odd having to shield the photo from light as soon as you took a picture as it was light sensitive. I'm not totally sure where to go from here now though, I was thinking of maybe taking my own memories & manipulate them in a way that they are no longer mine. Or even taking an object and putting my own memories in it in some way so that it is remembered instead of ignored. 

Things that once were or have been through objects, places and people.

I think this quote is very true: 
"There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory."- Josh Billings. 
This is what I want to explore. The borderline between memories & our imagination.

Dorothy Bohm

...is actually one of my new favourite photographers. FACT. I saw her work at the Manchester Art Gallery, and all I can say is that all of it was incredible. You can tell that each shot was thought with precision and creativity. The exhibition that was put on spans her work for 70 years which is a hell of a long time to be practicing photography. This is why I loved her photographs; because you could see the change in cameras & photographs through the ages and developing and colour etc. .. But all along her work stays impeccable. It started from typical black and white vintage 1940s portraits then onto landcapes and then onto poloroids which almost looked fairytale like in the colours. Finally she moved onto Colour, with some of her last photographs being in Manchester in the new millenium. You got to see how she developed her photographs in a demonstration room. I've developed my own photographs before, so it was quite good in already knowing how it was done. However looking at hers made me realise how precise she was. I'd love to go back to developing my own photos once more; she has got me very enthuistic about it all again. I love taking photographs all over the world whenever i go away, so it was quite interesting to see where and what she took photos of abroad; always with an artistic twist. I know most of my work is photography, but I guess it's cause i enjoy it so much and i know i'm decent at it. I think I got my first camera at the age of 8. Disposable, yes but it was when we went on a tour of Italy when I was 8. I still think the photos look pretty good. :) However I really want to explore more with it, as there is so much more I need to learn. I want to be inspired to be influenced by her work and explore as much as possible. I think it would be a good idea for my current project including Martin and his adventures. He is turning into an Amelie character when in the movie she took her father's gnome and took him to certain places round the world and mailed poroloids to her father. I love the idea of taking an inanimate object and making it seem real. I'm thinking of taking my project down the route of postcards.. So Martin can travel the world just like Amelie's gnome. I need to buy more film for my poloroid and for a while now I've been desperate to get a Diana camera.. so I'm hoping for the best... :)

Scale

So scale is the project name we got given. In Manchester. So of course we went round Manchester and took loads of photos..the hidden areas are the places I like the best..seeing Man-chest-hair from a different side. The project name 'Scale' is pretty versatile.. instantly i thought of scale as in the size of things.. as did most people. I thought of using this little model man that we used for the sweded 'mission impossible' movie project at the beginning of the year. I decided to use him compared to Manchester; he is tiny and obviously a city is huge. I also decided to call him Martin. So Martin embarked on an adventure around Manchester.. he went sightseeing...burger eating...coffee sipping...magazine reading...i even found a builder's site for him! I guess this idea was influenced from Slinkichu, the guy who had little model people and created tiny scenarios for them involving everyday objects we use, kinda like i was doing. I saw his stuff in the art bookshop 'Magma' ages ago, and really loved it. So after Martin had his LITTLE adventure, I made sure he went on to have his BIG adventure and basically made him grow in size so that he would become like godzilla and storm the city. I photoshopped him as a big character, as of course I couldn't make him grow in size literally as i didn't have any magic potion. However I did make a comic strip, collages, acetated layered drawings & also made photo/painted miniature cardboard models of this in real life to give people more of an idea. So in this way, small scale has comparison to large scale. I thought of doing animations, making a full scale model doll version of Martin, paintings and more collages. These are all ideas and for the presentation deadline back in June, I ran out of time.. i however think my development needs to go elsewhere. I have read the definition on scale, and there are about 9 different variations on the meaning, so I'm thinking about exploring this a little further. I also thought about taking Martin elsewhere.. out of Manchester... 'Wish you were here' on postcards in front of the pyramids or maybe in front of the Eiffel Tower. I want to experiment with photoshop a bit more and photographs. I could also take the postcard idea and create some of my own.. with Martin as a tiny feature.. or without him at all. Maybe he could time travel, go back to the past or the future.. not sure where that would go though, as they are all ideas at the moment. This week i will be developing my ideas as much as i can, and see where that takes me. . . .