FutureEverything

I have just signed up to Volunteer for the FuturEverything and EuroCultured festival in Manchester which I'm quite excited about. I just need to hear from them now, so I will keep you up to date. I will be interested to see what they say, as on my application I just said that I really want to help with artists and musicians, as I think it will be a really rewarding experience in learning new skills, and putting my own to use.
The application form to sign up is here:
http://www.surveymonkey.net/FE2011-Volunteer

FuturEverything looks really exciting, I've seen posters around town, and I think it will be a great success, so I'm just hoping I get my chance too.
Here's the website:
http://futureeverything.org/

Telephoto lens

I found some ducks in my back garden back in Knutsford and I couldn't get a close enough shot, so I remembered my dad had a telephoto lens, and so I borrowed it for half en hour. The quality of the lens made the photos look so clear even when focused from far away. Just wish I could keep it for myself! I would love to further experiment taking close up shots of british wildlife, and make the most of the wildlife here and see what I can find. I want to improve my photographic skills so that for the future I may have a slight chance of being a photographer for a national geographic or any travel magazine... well everyone has to start somewhere....

Exploding Art

I found this amazing artist called  Alexandre Farto (aka Vhils) who worked with Portuguese hip-hop/soul band Orelha Negra on a piece of exploding street art off walls. It's a new thing no-one has ever tried before, and I absolutely love it, everything down to the filming to the music, it's just spot on. The use of slow motion in the video just dramaticises the artworks and just gives it so much more of a wow factor. I love the idea of strapping explosives to the plaster and exploding a part of the wall revealing something fabulously incredibly artistic- like a different form of street art. I'd never seen his work before, but I heard that when people saw the video, they went crazy for it, and I can see why. I love the aesthetics of these explosive artworks, as in some ways, no-one can predict how powerful certain explosions are, and so to create artworks that look well planned and beautiful, that's an achievement in itself. The video is here: 


                              
             Orelha Negra - M.I.R.I.A.M. X Vhils aka Alexandre Farto from Vhils on Vimeo.


I had a look on his website and I'm pretty impressed at the work on there too, it's mainly spray painted work. I was particularly impressed with the faces sprayed onto paper and the prints of the city and the 2 kids. They both look so detailed, and with the paint dripping off them, it gives them a really interesting effect.
There was a quote on his page which has kind of stuck with me: 


“Beauty is but skin deep, ugly lies the bone; Beauty dies and fades away, but ugly holds its own”


There is an interview with him on the Creators Project page. It's a really interesting interview and he talks about how he does certain things and why. He says that he likes uncertainty in his art, and for me this is very true to myself too. Spontaneity pushes me on, and makes art and life more interesting. And just like any other artist, he plans on making life more interesting via his artworks, getting rid of these concrete jungles that we live in, and instead out of it, he can create something amazing.
Here is the interview in full:  
http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/scratching-the-surface-of-vhils-explosive-graffiti-work-interview

An example of his exploding art in Moscow.

                                                                                

Beastly

Since Christmas I have been reading. An awful lot actually. And it's all to do with mythology. It has always interested me, and so I took it on to buy a 'Mythology Bible' and have been reading my mother's very very old children's book with loads of old greek mythology stories. Fascinating. This kinda stemmed from my last project last term called 'Masked.' I took this concept of monstrosities being created from me swapping features around and morphing animals with humans and decided to research where these ideas of monstrosities came from, and started to draw these ideas. There were so many different ideas from all different cultures, and originally I was going to focus on Greek mythology, but I decided to just do the ones I found most interesting. The Greeks monsters were particularly human/animal breeds, and I want to focus on the whole animal/human combination as soon as I can. First though, I did a few drawings with a description next to the creature and the beliefs about it.

Medusa of the Gorgons.

Shapeshifter

Mermaid

Chimera

Next I decided to bring some of these creatures to life and did a photo shoot of me as certain ones. I intended to do it in a non-realistic way as the creatures themselves aren't real...Or are they?
Here are a couple of examples:

VAMPIRE

MY OWN FAKE HUMAN/ANIMAL HYBRID

I have so many plans of what I want to do next. I have had these plans for a while, I just haven't done anything about it. Along this research, I got a book out of the library called 'Abberrations' by Jurgis Baltrusaitis ( translated by Richard Miller) In the book there is a section on the fable of the beast in man- Animal Physiognomy of which starts with a newspaper article of people being compared to animals- they all had a photograph of themselves next to the animals they look like. Some of them are uncanny- some of them not very similar, but amusing all the same. There were a few artists that have done drawings of men's faces and then putting in features of another animal- with amusing results. Le Brun is my favourite because the drawings really are uncanny. I would like to try this out for myself. But the main idea I came up with was based on this artist I found called Alex Castro who has done typical human style portraits except, instead of their normal head, an animal's head is in it's place. I plan on doing some similar portraits with my camera, and then hopefully go on to painting these in detail. I haven't painted in a while, so this is something I really want to do. Hopefully I can make the time to complete this, as I am very passionate about this project!!

Alex Castro

Charles Le Brun

Multiple Exposures Film Roll 1

I have recently discovered the many joys of multiple exposure photography with my new Diana camera. The first time was an accident as I didn't wind on my camera a couple of times when I was in Berlin, and then got overlapped images on one photograph and absolutely loved it, so I've been slightly addicted to it since. The most fun I have with it is that I never know what it's gonna look like. It's all a suprise. I just want to take more and more photos cause it is so much fun. I came across the artist Dietmar Busse who also uses double exposures in his photography. His style is a lot more refined and constructed better. However, as I'm still in the experimental stage and not much is planned, it's all a bit over the place; but not in a bad way. I have some ideas of how to approach my next roll of film; and that is to keep my camera positioned in exactly the same place so that only the subject is moving... could be like a kind of action sequence, or a ghost in your kitchen, or anything, I just kinda wanna go crazy.
So here they are:

Blue Link

So the Blue exhibition in the Link Gallery officially opened to the public on the 4th April. And guess who was in it! My work did get chosen in the end, out of about 40 people apparently, so hopefully this is just the beginning! Was quite exciting getting my own space in the Link Gallery. The photos I printed off, however were a little darker than I intended, which was annoying, as on my computer it looks totally how I wanted it to look. I have had this problem before, I just wish my laptop didn't make my images look really bright when they are not, as I thought my printer, and every other printer was screwed!
Anyway, Elisa Arthero who is a 1st year interactive arts student is curating the gallery for a year, and she has the Link Gallery online on Wordpress, with pictures from the exhibition, so check it out here: http://mmulinkgallery.wordpress.com/

Panoply

Me backstage at Panoply

I involved myself in Anthea Bush's first ever live art piece at Panoply for the Volkov Commanders who run the event. Anthea Bush is an artist situated in Amsterdam and you can check out her website here: http://www.antheabush.com/
She had these 4 different motorcycle helmets which she covered in nothing but feathers she had found from old vintage items. These helmets really were beautiful. She instructed us to walk or act in a particular way (there were 4 of us) and then for the final performance we had to act it out. This seemed very daunting at first, especially when people were taking photos, but was easier getting into the frame of mind as the performance went on. For the first performance I was instructed to stand outside in the cold with 2 other of the actors all in a line out in Picadilly Place where there was like a water stream built in. That was probably my favourite as it was most effective the way we were lined up and how we looked. (Two of us were dressed all in black, the other one in grey, the other in white.) For my next one I sat down with my legs bent out and hands back, rolling my head from side to side. And then for the final piece I had to hold one of the actor's helmet as it was a huge helmet which was hard to balance when sat up.
It was definitely something different. Wanting me to try live art myself, but maybe in time...!

Here is the Panoply website with all the acts that were at the event on the night:
http://panoply-manchester.yolasite.com/the-next-event.php

Here is a blog talking about Anthea's piece, with photos of us in it: http://copsonstreet.blogspot.com/2011/04/anthea-bush-at-panoply.html


And finally, here are photos of the exhibition:

All 3 of us for the first performance

Me in my second performance

Second performance

Second Performance

Second Performance

Second Performance

The more essay writing I do, the more random memories and dreams pop into my head. These memories and dreams are not recent either-in fact they were almost forgotten- that's what I find odd the most... I remember everything; the places, the feelings, the sounds... why I was brought back there I will never know. Memories and dreams are interrelated to me to the point boundaries between what's real and what's not in the past blurs... Something I will never understand. Something we may never understand...