One69A

SO me and a few people on my course were given this opportunity with this company One69A in Salford at Islington Mill. Jermyn who actually came in one tuesday at uni to talk about the stuff he did was really interesting, and kinda got me game to go and help out a little bit every week. They are a screen printing based company.. I've never done screen printing or actually known what the process involves, but I really wanted to have a go. We got a group of us together who met up with Jermyn one Thursday to discuss projects we could do for him. As for a start there were various different products he wanted us to research which were- caps, stickers, labelling, packaging etc. Me and Emma chose to research into caps and what different caps we could screen print onto, how expensive each cap would be, what materials could be used, and the processes into it. We had a look at other screen printing companies to see what prices or what else they offered. I thought it was quite handy getting first hand research done for a company, and seeing the science behind each process. After the initial presention of our work, we then went in a few times to the mill and helped out a bit by cleaning the screens with this special chemical which smelt quite nice but also irritated my legs which left rashes and a burn (which we were warned about, but I didn't really think about it) the chemical was really hard to get off your hands as it was kinda like a waxy substance (even though I was wearing gloves.) Anyway what the chemical did was take all that nasty stuff off the screen which doesn't come off with a normal power spray. You leave it on for about 10 minutes then power spray it all down. They always had people popping in and out all the time and I got talking to a few of the guys who worked there. Everyone is really friendly and helpful which makes the working environment totally relaxed, especially in aid with the odd beer every now and again. I eventually went on to do my own screen print which was of Captain Spaulding from House of a Thousand Corpses. It was Sam's idea to print it onto T-shirts but it's better to use the ink as much as possible as not to waste it, so I had a go and did my own T-shirt which I then gave to my boyfriend for Christmas. I had designed an illustration of a robot destroying a city which I was going to give him, but I eventually ran out of time.

Me doing my first ever screen print.

Shelter

When we were intially gave this project back in October, I was quite unsure about the whole concept. BUT I drew a mind map and then i got a few ideas that way- definately a way to approach a new project in the future. I thought about maybe basing it on homeless people, feral children or escapism- for example like the abuse of drugs & alchohol. However i came up with the theme of 'fear' and how that links into shelter just like opposites do; like for example how for some people a place may be where they take shelter, but for others it may be somewhere that they fear or connects with them to fear in some way. I thought about maybe doing a documentary of people walking outside, and inside unawares to show the difference in emotion between open spaces and closed off spaces, and the contrast between fear and safety, which definately varies from person to person.

However, after much thought, i decided to go for this idea of sheltering yourself from society, and how beauty is such a forced image down our throats and how we are supposed to look a certain way to be accepted. I looked into how we cover ourselves up; from the extremities of covering yourself head to toe in tattoos to making yourself unidentifiable from your past self, say from plastic surgery or sex changes. I eventually went with this idea of masks which led on from this idea of hiding ourselves from our true selves. I liked how masks vary from making a person look beautiful, if maybe haunting- for example venetian masks and then to ugly masks such as the ones we use on halloween. I went on to create my own versions of these contrasts. One beautfiul mask and one ugly mask. I did this by decorating typically pretty accesories on one mask and fake blood and tissue on the other. My results are the photos above. It was a lot easier to make the ugly mask scary by the light and the setting, rather than the beautiful mask was just worn on my face, and i couldn't really think of a way to edit it so it looked even more stunning. However I did layer the image up and made it look more refined, whereas the scary mask is blurred and dark. I'm quite pleased with the results afterall as it gave people the affect I was looking for.
I then went onto swapping the two by taking a photo of a model (who most would deem beautiful) and putting burn marks and blood over her using photoshop, and using a photo of a burns victim and putting the beautiful mask over her disfigured face. I wanted to see how they both worked for each other, and even though my photoshop skills on the photos aren't that great, you basically get the jist of what I was trying to do. I then did the same thing with my face, but instead got 2 of the same photos of myself and made each mask look a part of my face. I think the horror mask worked the best on my face as the colours blended better to my skin, whereas the pretty mask looked a bit overexposed.
I then created four photos of me wearing the masks but in different outfits. For example two were done of me wearing 2 different dresses wearing the 2 different masks, and then I wore 2 different scruffy hoodies and 2 of the masks again. I wanted to see how stupid and what looked good with each. My 2 favourites are of me wearing the pretty mask with the dress and the ugly mask in the hoody as it stands out as quite a powerful image as they both look quite suited to each outfit. The photos are pictured below.

Liverpool Biennial

 
When the interactive arts crew and i headed to Liverpool for the Biennial, FACT was the first exhibtion we visited as a group, where i came across a room full of photographs of this japanese man- of which had been taken every second for- if i remember- for every second over a year. it was quite fascinating to look at- there was also an accompanied video.




We then hit the exhibition at 54 Renshaw street, which personally was a little confusing to me at first. When I first went into the basement, I came across these 3 videos by Ryan Trecartin called 'Trill-ogy Comp: P.opular S.ky 2009.' I have come across Ryan Trecartin before as my tutor for my art foundation course told me to check him out. I however didn't like him mush when I checked his videos on youtube. His filming style is brilliant, but what was creepy was the way these tranvestite men were talking to each other being really over the top americans. It was a little bit too much for me, so I decided to head upstairs. My favorite exhibition i came across nearly got avoided by me as I didn't realise there was an upstairs to visit too. But this photo to the right is NS Harsha's 'Sky Gazers.' The reason this was my favourite was because it really let you interact with it and was a lot of fun to play with. It involved this huge room with a mirror for its ceiling and for the floor it was a load of illustrations for different types of people looking directly up so when you look at the mirrored ceiling you get the impression they are looking at you. I really liked how this messsed with reality. The photo I took of myself taking a photograph of the ceiling was my favourite as there is a ninja character right behind me, and it looks like he's about to creep onto me and assassinate me. as pictured above.

However, the next exhibition at City States art gallery was just as enjoyable, mainly because it involved lots of video/animations. The artists were mainly of asian orgin, so it was cool to see videos and animations from the other side of the world. The one I enjoyed the most was of this simple animation of an outline of a man doing horrible things to himself like exploding himself up or cutting his penis off etc. I thought the simplicity in the animation found it enjoyable to watch as the cartoon was simply very effective. I liked how outside the gallery there was a mini skate park where there were a few skaters practising. I tried to get the perfect shot of them in the air, but proved it was quite difficult! Was quite fun to watch them skate nevertheless.

Finally we had the Bloomberg Contempories exhibition which I personally didn't pay as much attention to in the end as I was extremely tired and just wanted to visit the beach, which I should point out was very windy and cold! It was fun to visit the Anthony Gormley sculptures nevertheless. I liked how rusted and weathered they were; all convered in seaweed. It showed that it had lived a life. I like how the further out to sea they are, the more worn and torn they look. In this particular picture, it was actually quite hard to get across to as there was a load of water in the sand of which I thought would be easy to walk across with my big doc boots on, but it was just sinking central! It was quite fun to try and wade across though!

Then on the walk back from the beach to the coach for the journey home, I got Rhys to take photos of me jumping simultaeously in the air and I then edited it in an action series in one photo as shown above. :) All in all it was an adventure this trip. Seeing new sights and experiencing some new art pieces; even if I didn't like all of them. But that's what art is about right? Having many opinions!