Recorders Exhibition vs Designed Disorder

Today I visited Manchester City Art Gallery and The Cube Gallery, to see two separate exhibitions.

At the Manchester City Art Gallery was the exhibition 'Recorders' by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. I had not heard of him before went into the exhibition without any information at all. When looking around the pieces, it seemed to me that they may not be classed as pieces in the traditional art sense. They were very audience based and it was the audience that initiated and made the pieces work and what they were. When walking around the space, there were different objects around the rooms that you had to interact with. In the centre of the room were a circle of microphones on stands which invited the viewer to speak into them. There was another piece in which you placed your personal items on a scanner that gave the illusion of scanning objects at an airport. In the entrance of the exhibition it also appeared that the first piece was a screen with blown up finger prints on, in which the audience placed their thumb in a scanner and it appeared on the screen, getting smaller and smaller every time one was scanned until it could not be seen anymore.
The exhibition was very enjoyable, but I didn't really know what the work was about and found myself just giving into interacting with the pieces as if it would give me some kind of answer.

Following on from this, I went to The Cube Gallery to see the Designed Disorder Exhibition.

This Exhibition, was part of the AND Festival, (Abandon Normal Devices) in which different events were held around Manchester.
Immediately I found myself dismissing the work and not really taking it in. Again, I didn't take the time to find out what the work was really about and I found that in this exhibition the lack of information I chose not to gain, really effected my opinion on the work to begin with.
James Gilpin was an artist there who spoke about his work, and how he created whiskey from Diabetic urine. His talk was interesting about his piece and how he created it, through distillation and other means. It also invited the audience in as they could taste a sample of the whiskey. It became clearer after hearing James speak that the work for Designed Disorders was about science and products, not art pieces.

When discussing the two exhibitions back at University with the course, they both unveiled different outcomes that were not expected. It appeared at first that the majority of the course enjoyed the Recorders Exhibition more so than Designed Disorders, because we found it entertaining and easy to interact with, it didn't matter that we didn't fully understand what the work was about, because we seemed to be too distracted by the things we could touch and speak into or scan.

Carrying on from this, to me out of the two exhibitions this one was more memorable. It didn't strike to obvious to me at the time, but everything that had gone on in the space was recorded, if you scanned your thumb, it was now recorded, same when speaking into the microphones. This idea seems quite un nerving and intrusive, but because we are so blind sighted with the fact we can touch things, and in an art gallery you usually can't, we don't realise this. This seems quite an intelligent aspect that may have been deliberate by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

Comparing it to the Designed Disorder exhibition, it became clear that the pieces were not art pieces but products. Each designer had created something that questioned something or experimented with an idea and changed it. It became evident through the discussion on the course, the Recorders exhibition was momentarily fun and entertaining which is why it seemed more preferred. The Designed Disorder was less obvious and allows the audience to take it upon themselves to find out more about the work when looking around.

It could be said Recorders was more popular because it was entertaining as opposed to Designed Disorders where the audience had to think, and in reality we didn't really want to. We expect to be entertained, and have become ignorant to Art. What we gained today, from discussion is that we have to not judge as quick and under the layer of work.

Summer Project

Over the summer, I was given the project of creating a wearable gallery, portraying where we had been over summer and create something out of it. In summer, I had travelled to Rhodes, and it was there I received the email for the project. When looking around I didn't know what to do.
I found that the area I was staying in was very British Friendly, and catered a lot to British taste, making sure that when they were on holiday they were at home, away from home. I found this quite tacky and embarrassing being English myself. The idea of going to Greece and being able to get a Yorkshire Dinner there seemed really bizarre. The tourist shops were very interesting. They sold traditional things to very novelty things, such as rude postcards to phallic bottle openers.
It was this home away from home idea that I wanted to make a piece out of. I bought adult themed playing cards and knew that was the item I wanted to do something with.

I created a playing card bikini, and covered all the rude images on the cards with novelty items, such as objects and food, in a touch in cheek playful way, because it was still obvious what I was trying to cover up on the cards. I thought the idea was quite interesting and was a lot of fun to create. I looked at artists work such as Martin Parr and Jeff Koons. Martin Parr's photography work captured British Culture beautifully, and also in a quite endearing way. The cards I had bought were very seventies-esque. I saw a connection with the highly saturated colour in Parr's and also Koons' work. Jeff Koons' work also had a very sexual theme in some parts but also very tacky.

When making the bikini it became a challenge in itself to come up with ideas to cover up these adult themed cards.

It was a very light hearted project and was fun to show the rest of the course. Sharing ideas in which it had came from and the piece itself.

Very late.

I have started my blog again very late on. My blog this year will discuss, demonstrate and criticise my work and personal development. Showing my experiments and what I have been working on will allow me to progress with my ideas, dismiss them, or go in another direction with them, helping my self become a better practising artist.
I propose that I will visit a lot more galleries, research more artists and take chances with my own personal practice, documenting them on this very blog.
Watch this space...

Envelopes

Continuing with the theme of everyday things and how we never notice them. Moving on from the barcode I noticed that in envelopes we get different patterns on the inside, this is due to privacy and not being able to read the content of the envelope even when held up against light. I found a page on flickr dedicated to finding different prints inside envelopes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephking/sets/72157594547931731/


Image found on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephking/3524260806/in/set-72157594547931731/) , contributed by Alicia- (www.flickr.com/photos/halix)


contributed by nina mettler- (http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephking/2877728305/in/set-72157594547931731/)



contributed by keith leber- ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephking/666550212/in/set-72157594547931731/ )


contributed by Kariann Burleson- ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephking/446783165/in/set-72157594547931731/ )

polaroids continued

Other images found that I liked, also can see a resemblence to the colours and tones used in my work.



White blossom, shot by- angie_lemon (image taken from:http://polanoid.net/)imaged loaded onto site- Apr 18, 2010.



No title, shot by- compulsive, (image taken from: http://polanoid.net/) uploaded onto site- Oct 09, 2007.



Morning at the donut plant, shot by- futurowoman, (image taken from:
http://polanoid.net/) uploaded onto site- jan 16, 2010.

These images are not mine, they can by found by typing in the name of the artist on the website.

Polaroids

Early on in the term for the food project, not knowing what to do or where to go with it, I did take some photos made with a home made polaroid edge, giving an illusion of an actual photo but framing just a significant part of it. I did not follow up on this as I have always found that photographing through polaroid is more of a personal hobby.
Recently, I have found myself wanting to explore it more once again. When researching different polaroid sites, I found www.polanoid.net. A site where people load their images, taken with different cameras and film and explaining different effects that they got. A few images stood out for me, and made me want to make my 'home made' polaroid shots again.


The following images are ones I found on the website, that stood out to me more than others.


Image is not mine, taken from http://polanoid.net/cover
This image entitled, 'Sunshine City', taken by Lilou (http://polanoid.net/).

I liked this image more due to the content rather than it being taken on a polaroid. The city scape at the distance the image has been taken at has created marks that seem very monotone, giving a similar effect to the barcode collages I am currently working on.

ABC3D