Thursday 31 March 2011

Cambridge Satchel Company for Dover Street Market.

OH SWEET LOVE.
Literally I feel as though the heavens have opened and a little magic has rained down, in the form of these four amaaaazing fluoro coloured satchels by the Cambridge Satchel Company for Dover Street Market.
OK so Ive been admirer of the satchels for a while since I first saw ELINA's purple one (or it might have been turquoise? Shes removed the post and I've forgotten. By the way I really mega reccomend you check her blog out it is actually beautiful. I mean I actually can't understand any of the swedish, but in terms of a visual blog it is one of my favourites. Truth).
And then Arianne decided to utterly torture me by parading hers around the art department (sooo nice!) and that was that, I was in love and I want one SO BADLY.
So now Im pretty much like losing my mind because these are just so perfect, but literally I dont have any spare cash right now so I just know they will never be mine!!! I think I like the green best but maybe pink. Or yellow. Not the orange though. OK yeah the orange too. argh!



 

Wednesday 23 March 2011

P E T S









I made an exhibition. It's called PETS and I will probably talk more about it another day.

Tuesday 22 March 2011

EAT SHIT!


Part of my museum intervention at The Museum of English Rural Life. It's on til Friday, and I'll take some more pictures of it soon. This is the colouring page which was designed to look the same as the museum's existing ones. I was interested to see how people would react to the obviously subversive tone of the work. They mainly reacted like this:


EAT YR MEAT
Museum intervention: Opinion wall and colouring page.
The work is a response to the comment wall at the end of the museum, evoked by the opinions of the public and in return provoking a response. I am interested in the way humans percieve the animals we share the planet with, and the ways in which we act out dominion. We love animals, we need animals, we hate animals, we eat animals.
To see how visitors will react to this confrontation is just as much a part of the work as the pieces themselves.

Sunday 20 March 2011

Friday 18 March 2011

You & I are Synonymous


You & I Are Synonymous is a small exhibition I'm currently involved with, along with other members of my studio group at the UoR.

Where is the location of art? Is art inherent in the idea, the process or the final outcome – or even in the experience of it? Is the way that you create art and the way that I create art any different to one another? And if you were asked to restrict your art idea into just a sum of words, do you really think you could do it enough justice?
15 artists were asked to devise an art piece that could represent their overall practice... autonomously. Then they were asked, rather than to complete the art piece themselves, to simply restrict it to a set of instructions that would then be passed along to the next artist anonymously, who would in turn pass theirs along as well, in a chain-like fashion. It was then up to each artist to form an artwork based on the instructions that belong to another artist, and make all the secondary decisions themselves.
The aim of this exhibition and the methodology used by these artists is a simple investigation into the decision-making processes of art. Are all the decisions for an art piece made prior to the completion of it, or is there a case for the adaptation of art ideas in the process of making, which solely depend on the circumstances that may arise – or quite simple the individual’s whims! This exhibition endeavours to probe, possibly answer and still question further the incongruencies between original idea or the ‘formula’ and the final product. The space in between these two stages -the persuit of the idea - is a grey area which only the artist themselves can make sense of…


It was actually alot simpler than it sounds... the idea was to create a series of instructions for another artist to be able to make an art work, in return you got a list of instructions to make someone else's work.
I guess in many ways it was nice to be able to make a piece of work without having to think too much, but then on the otherhand it definately meant each work was based more on superficial elements, rather than really considoring the aim of the exhibition. Well, this is how I felt anyway. My instructions where as follows:

1. Use found objects from the kitchen to make a dress.
2. Take inspiration from such designers as Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen.
3. Collect spoons.
4. Make the dress out of spoons.
5. Use plastic shopping bags to make the top.
6. Find some cutlery to use as accessories for the models hair.
7. Take pictures of the model in the dress.
8. Hang the pictures in the gallery.
9. Display the dress next to the pictures.
10. Dress complete and hanged in the gallery.

OK BLEUGH. See what I mean? I was very not happy when I recieved these instructions. For me it felt like something that had been done s o o o o many times before, taking inspiration from VW and AMcQ? Obvious and unoriginal in the context (For example, even instructions asking me to make a dress out of spoons taking inspiration from Calvin Klein would have been more interesting... plastic minimilism. Or even high street shops. But christ...). I think the person also ran out of ideas pretty early on, I mean I could probably fit these instructions into 3 points. Anyway this is what I came up with...

So yeah I changed it a bit, but it had to be done.
Despite my reservations, the show itself is looking pretty good, and its nice to see my studio group producing some new work. Actually to be honest some of the work Ive seen in the exhibition has been some peoples best work... I guess considoring theyre working from instructions, this isnt exactly good news...

I should also probably show you the work made from the instructions I gave.... which was pretty much just 'Buy a massive piece of paper and some felt tip pens and draw loads of animals the end'. And this is what they did:

By EMILY SMITH.... I fucking love it!!!!

Thursday 17 March 2011

BJORK: BIOPHILIA



OMG, dont often make these sorts of fanboy posts (not for ages at least!), but I just read the press release for Bjork's music residency in Manchester, and now I'm FREAKING OUT!!!!

Manchester International Festival welcomes Björk to Manchester for the world premiere of her Biophilia live show.
Björk will be at MIF for a three-week residency; six intimate shows in the striking space of Campfield Market Hall for audiences of 1800, her first UK dates in over three years.
Where do music, nature and technology meet? Björk introduces Biophilia, an extraordinary answer to this fascinating question and her most ambitious and exciting work to date. A multi-media project encompassing music, apps, internet, installations and live shows, Biophilia celebrates how sound works in nature, exploring the infinite expanse of the universe, from planetary systems to atomic structure...
 For these six special shows, Björk will be performing new tracks from the forthcoming Biophilia studio album as well as music from her genre-defying back catalogue with a small group of unique musical collaborators. The show will feature a range of specially conceived and crafted instruments, among them a bespoke digitally-controlled pipe organ; a 30 foot pendulum that harnesses the earths gravitational pull to create musical patterns - creating a unique bridge between the ancient and the modern; a bespoke gamelan-celeste hybrid; and a one-off extraordinary pin barrel harp. These devices make visible some of the physical processes that are the subject matter of tracks.
Literally I MUST GO! Just the description of the instruments is beautiful enough 'A 30 foot pendulum that harnesses the earths gravitational pull'... jesus CHRIST that is INTENSE.

It reminds me of one of the opening paragraph's in Jonathon Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close;

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboard down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time... That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

I AM VERY EXCITED.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Vegan for Lent: Day 1

Guess what! I've decided to become Vegan for Lent!!
OK, I will try and make this not-boring, but I thought it might be nice to document this a bit.
There a few reasons why I've decided to do this, and I would firstly like to point out its not for any religious reasons. While I obviously realise that Lent is a Christian tradition, Im pretty sure that (in Britain at least) its not really about that anymore for alot of people, and instead its just a chance to give up something we find 'bad' in the hope of making us better people, at least for the 40 days. And this is what its about for me really; I've been thinking about trying veganism for a little while now, and I think that these next 40 days will be the perfect time to test the water a bit.
My decision was spurred by my university's Vegan/Vegeterian Society - which I actually didn't know we had. Aparently its not a very active society, however I did happen upon one of their posters in the art department advertising VEGAN FOR LENT. After speaking to one of the members of the society, who also happens to be a fellow finalist in the art department, I was pretty convinced, and she even sent me a great pdf (compiled by the society) with loads of vegan recipes in, some of which I was really suprised about!
And so for the last few weeks Ive been preparing myself for the change. This involved  telling lots of people about my plans - this was quite important for me because often I plan to do something and then at the last minute I think, well, maybe I wont. However with the expectations of alot of people on my shoulders I can't really back out of this one! And I don't want to!!
Next I began a process of weaning myself off cheese and chocolate - my two biggest vices in life. This weaning was not so successful and I probably ended up eating more of it, in a bid to savour the experience. In fact I ended up eating a ball and a half of mozarella, only yesterday - oops! Also I have 3 ferrero rochers that I didnt get to eat before today, which are going to fucking TAUNT ME!!!
On monday I took a trip to Holland & Barret (I am lucky coz there are two large stores right in town), as I know thanks to my BFF that theyre great for the vegan/vegeterian substitutes. I bought fake cheese, fake ham and fake mayonaise, as well as a pasta sauce to get me started - I plan to start making better meals throughout though, once I get more confidant with the ingredients available to me. I know it seems strange becoming a vegan and then just loading my fridge with substitutes of the real thing, but this is something I think I will discuss another time. Maybe tomorrow?

And so here I am on day one, googling all the ingredients of Tesco Frosted Flakes to see if I can eat them with my soy milk (I can), and this is how it starts! Wish me luck!!!

Monday 7 March 2011

We both matter, don't we?

HOLY SHIT I MISSED MY TWO YEAR BLOG ANNIVERSERAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ANIVERSARY ANNIVERSERY ANNIVERSARAY? how the fuck do you spell that?? I DONT KNOW. spelling suxxx.
Anyway, late happy birthday to me! This is officially the longest I have ever stuck at ANYTHING, ha ha ha!


Saturday 5 March 2011

Missoni in The Museum of Everything

I wish so badly that I had been more organised and found myself at The Museum of Everything Number 3 just before Christmas. After missing the previous ones I was pretty determined to go, but as usual was too busy busy busy to get a chance, which really sucks because it looks as if it was the destination of DREAMS.
Arianne managed to go again and she said it was truly wonderful, so hopefully Ill catch the next one.
Anyway while I failed to view the wonders in real life, luckily I have been able to catch a glimpse of the magic thanks to the Missoni S/S campaign, shot by Jeurgen Teller. In the latest issue of POP (SO GOOD) theres a pretty big spread of them, but theyve been in pretty much every other seasonal mag too. Theres some more of the images via Dazed Digital

Thursday 3 March 2011

He thinks hes people.

Ok I give up trying to make you think this blog is about anything other than my obsession with animals. My cat is AMAZING.