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 Well, today I had my 1-day installation at the School of Art. I titled it 'absence and essence,' for want of a better idea. I guess I'm satisfied with how it turned out, although things can always be better... It is still a work in progress, after all. I ended up using 25W bulbs, each housed in an MDF box, with the glass slides fitted in the front. The images were projected onto free-hanging paper screens. I showed 5 images, all of my mother and sister, in a rough semi-circle. It seemed like there were quite a few comments in my little envelope when I checked in at lunchtime - obviously I haven't looked at any of them yet. I hope some of them will be nice! ;) Tomorrow I'll be seeing Chris, and I hope he will be nice as well! If you are interested, video footage of the installation is available on my facebook and Youtube. There are 2 on FB, one long pass over the whole exhibit and a shorter one showing the motion of the screens; but I've only got the longer one up on Youtube at the moment. There are also some still images on facebook, which should be viewable to everyone. I welcome questions and would very much appreciate any comments/suggestions! ( mini-statement )Tags: art, exhibition, mom, phd, photo, sister, video
Current Location: Aberystwyth
i feel:  artistic
groovin' on: Tom Waits - Poor Edward
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I am in need of some plinths/pedestals for a short installation (2.5 days incl. set up and tear down) I am putting up next week. I thought the School of Art had some I could use but they have turned out to be the wrong height. What I need is 2-4 (minimum 2) of these things, waist high at the lowest, to chest high at the highest. The platform area needs to be around 10"x10" - bigger would be alright if it's not obnoxiously so. All of them must be the same size. (I guess if there was one really big table on which I could fit all my objects that might work too, but it would be a miracle to find one the right size to have all the things in their correct positions.) I really, really don't want to build these if I don't have to, as I already have to make a bunch of boxes and I don't exactly excel at carpentry, so if anyone can suggest something that I could do/use it would be extremely helpful. Tags: aberystwyth, art, help!, phd, shows
Current Location: Aberystwyth
i feel:  hungry
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Trudging ever onward to... something... Did I have a goal? I forget! Anyway, I did some more work tweaking the projections and such tonight. I wrote some comments/explanation about them in the facebook album, which I'm too tired to put in here as well... Please take a look there and comment/give suggestions, if you are so inclined! There are also a few new videos as well (again, viewable only if you're on facebook; sorry). Basically the rear projection seems to work ok with a 12W bulb on tracing paper. The paper diffuses the flare of the bulb in a way that my cloth cannot, it seems. So that's progress I guess; if I could get like a roll of tracing paper I could hang that up and project on it. I'm still not satisfied though, really. I'm finding that the candle bulb is just too dim unless it's in blackout conditions. In order to have it throw an image at all, it has to be right up against the glass, which puts the picture way out of focus). I did order some of the LED candles in the end; I hope they come soon and are so fabulous that they solve all my problems. :p I have a meeting with my supervisor tomorrow, and wonder if I will feel better or worse afterward... Tags: art, feedback, phd, photo, video
Current Location: Aberystwyth
i feel:  drained
groovin' on: Faith and the Muse - Soul in Isolation
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I have been having a really hard time doing anything at all, as some of you know. Still, I have managed to do a bit of work on my project in the past week or so. I don't know if I've made any progress, but I did do some work... I put some images (check the end of the album) and videos of the stuff I have on the go up on my Facebook (the photos are publically viewable, but not the videos, sorry). I have an installation to do at the end of the month and I'm trying to figure out how to go about it, since I will not be allowed to use candles (stupid health and safety BS) as I was hoping (see earlier stuff in said FB album). The images I took the other night are shots of rear-projections onto a polycotton sheet, using a 3W flicker-flame bulb and a 12W sign bulb, and both 'full frame' and round image slides. The idea with projecting onto a hanging sheet was that the movement of the cloth (it sort of undulates in even the slightest draft) would act as a possible substitute for the flickering of a real candle flame. Unfortunately the projections don't seem to photograph very well; I wonder if I might get better results with a film camera. Issues: - I don't know if you can even tell it's a person at all in a lot of these shots... I mean, I don't want portrait-quality projections at all, but it would be nice if you could at least tell that the picture used to be a human. - The candle bulb's filament is very visible through the glass & sheet as a bright orange point of light and seems pretty distracting. The flicker is also kind of spastic. - The 12 W bulb doesn't have the flicker effect, seems to produce a clearer and not-orange image on the sheet. It looks more flared out in the photos than it actually was, but again there's a pretty big bright spot where the bulb actually is and I'm not sure how to fix that. I can't just project on a wall because then I'd have the projection box in front of the image, and it would be obscured... I'm also working on some little talisman type things with tiny images on glass beads. I'm not sure how or if they fit in to the rest of my project but I wanted to make them, and I figure if there's anything I want to do enough that it motivates me to do something other than eat candy and be sad, I should probably do it. Anyhoo, comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated... I'm not feeling great about it atm, as you may have guessed. EDIT: Now with non-sideways videos!  Tags: art, feedback, phd, photo, video
Current Location: Aberystwyth
i feel:  crappy
groovin' on: Billie Holiday - Big Stuff
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I am desperately in need of a new digital camera. Mine is on the brink of death. The 'down' button no longer works, so I can't zoom out. I also can't scroll down in any menus (they don't roll over), meaning if I set my camera on any mode above the default ones, I have to completely reset it in order to get back there. I can't set it to any of the modes below the defaults at all. This includes video, which is very disappointing since I wanted to be able to show people what the flickering projections really look like. Sadly, I can't afford even a little piece o' crap digicam, let alone a nice one that would be more than just 'adequate' for documenting my work... So I don't know what I'm going to do. Theoretically the school has cameras to borrow, but when I went to the designated equiment sign out place today at the designated equipment sign out time, the tech was nowhere to be found -- I looked all over the freakin' school! Having one's own camera is always vastly preferable anyway, as besides being often unavailable, or only available for restricted amounts of time, school equipment tends to be handled carelessly... Nobody takes care of crap they didn't have to pay for. :/ Anyhoo... A new batch of images taken with my moribund camera is up on my facebook from the latest round of experiments. This time the prints are on round lenses. I'm not sure whether I like them as much as the flat ones, although I can't say 100% why. I feel like I'm on the *verge* of something with these glass pieces, but I don't know what the next step is. Feedback would be greatly appreciated! Tags: art, money, phd, photo, wish list
Current Location: Aberystwyth
i feel:  sick
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Well, I just don't know what to do with myself today... It turns out that the magnifying glasses I bought to test out Heather's theory were actually plastic (fooled me!), and melted into spectacularly creepy paperweights when I tried to fuse the lazertran on last night. I could go get more plastic lenses and use the plastic process for L-T but since I know I don't want to use plastic lenses in a final piece (they are inferior for light transmission), I don't know if there's any point in doing a test with them. I spent an hour this morning running around town looking in any store that might conceivably have magnifying glasses, to no avail. I then spent another hour looking around on the internet, but even the cheapest ones I can find (on ebay) are about 4 pounds each after shipping (might be able to get some kind of deal on combined shipping for multiple items, but I haven't heard back yet). And then if I do like the lens effect, I really need to be paying less than 8 bucks a lens. That would get retarded very quickly. My plan for today *was* to take the completed test-lenses to school and photograph them with the candles in the studio, see how that looked, and go from there, either proceeding with the flat glass or switching to the lenses. I guess I could read but this is supposed to be my practical day and I feel like I should be *doing* stuff. I guess it doesn't help that I'm tired and bummed out and all I *really* want to do is go back to sleep... Suggestions? Tags: phd
Current Location: Aberystwyth
i feel:  cold
groovin' on: This Aversion - Just A Dream
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After improving steadily since Saturday, I woke up this morning to find that my lungs had gone completely to shit; possibly even worse than they were on the weekend. It was at the scary level of 'I can't breathe' until I could get to my inhaler... I quickly crossed 'running' off today's to-do list. Suspect I may have an infection. If it's not improving by tomorrow I'll go back to the doctor; I don't have time today. I feel so incredibly tired, despite having slept reasonably well all week. Although I've had no results yet, I would say that the job search is going okay... I applied for three positions on campue (one at the school of art) and put my name in at an employment agency. I have to prove I'm looking for work in order to get the National Insurance Number I need to actually work -- sort of a catch-22. I have a few acknowledgement notes now though, and I will take them to the interview next Friday. Woo. And who knows, maybe I'll actually get hired for one of the campus jobs, or find something officey through Travail, and not have to resort to retail, which I both suck at and hate. Had a meeting with Chris yesterday, and he gave me a few very helpful leads to get me started on my research. I have some books, articles and websites to sift through, which should get the gears turning, with any luck. I plan to start making *some* kind of images next week, if even just to build some I still don't really know where to begin on the 'mandatory professional development' portion of the degree... Chris mentioned that at some point I might do a paper to present at a conference, which kind of fills me with D: as I've never done anything even remotely like that. Today I need to put together a scholarship list -- there are a few I'm going to try for, although I'm not going to bother with CBIE and SSHRC this year as I won't have anything new to show before the deadline. Other than that it will just be reading... @_@ Tags: health or lack thereof, phd
Current Location: Aberystwyth
i feel: exhausted
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longpig's journal
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