A right royal strain on the eyes

My miniature William and Kate, for the royal wedding scene - 

interesting fact- i made the dress out of tissue paper

I predict a riot i predict a riot

For the segment of my film about the recent student riots- now i just have to find a way of making a teeny tiny fire extinguisher.

Today i applied for an internship.....

Information 


The AND Festival is offering an exciting opportunity to work with artist Mark Amerika, pioneer of internet art and creator of the world's first feature-length mobile phone filmImmobilite. Amerika's work experiments with transmedia narrative, live VJ performance, mobile media applications, and Web-based forms of interactive art. Immobilité interfaces low-tech methods of video making with more sophisticated forms of European art-house movies and asks the question, "What is the future of cinema?"

The AND festival is commissioning Mark Amerika to make a new project and he will be in the UK in May to begin shooting. We are looking for an enthusiastic, creative and responsible individual to support the artist in his shoot across the Northwest region and document this unique film making process.
 

You will need to;

-be available between 16 - 23 May (not necessarily all days)

-have experience in film making or photography

-own transport would be an advantage (as some locations will be difficult to reach via public transport)

-a passion and knowledge of new media art and emergent artists' practice would be preferable, but not essential

Travel and expenses will be covered by the festival.To apply send an e-mail with short text detailing your interest in the project (max 300 words) and your C.V. to 

Ruth McCullough, 
AND Festival Producer

Although my aim is not necessarily to create work specifically for mobile phones or even to create movies i feel that this would be a unique opportunity to work with an artist who is exploring how technology impacts on the art work and how this technology can be used within the realms of an art gallery context- although the actual internship takes place the week we are getting the studio ready for exhibition and hand in i feel that that this is too goo an opportunity to miss.

Little boxes

When i originally embarked on this short stop frame, it was meant as a light hearted attempt to show the repetitive nature of life. I originally started out with the intention of having a conveyor belt with little figurines starting off as children and getting older and older until they where finally dumped off the conveyor belt in to a black box- nicely subtle ;) however i hit more than a few bumps on the road. Trying to get figures to stay on a conveyor belt made from black instillation tape, a ruler and some elastic bands didn't really work out- plus i am quite limited in the figures that i can use- as i am buying them rather than making, i get a choice of three different ages- school child- adult and holding a walking stick. 

 The audio for this film is little boxes, which wasn't my original intention the finished piece does however come across as a visualisation of the song- which whilst i don't necessarily feel that this is a bad thing it was not my intended aim 

The context of an artwork's presentation has always mattered.

So im constantly trying to find a way of exhibiting my final major project that stands out from the way we are used to seeing work displayed in a gallery setting. I can't seem to explain myself fully in the way that i want, but i know that i don't want to display my piece in a conventional way and i want the viewer to have some sort or interaction with the piece which i feel is hard to achieve when it's video work that i am showing. So how to display it becomes almost as important as the work itself, and i do have to exhibit in someway within the confines of a gallery setting wether i like it or not and how to do that is a major concern for me. How do i convey that fact that i don't intend for my work to be seen in that context when that is how people will see it for the first time? and whilst i am in a questioning mood how can i have ambitions to be a curator within a gallery when i don't in fact want my own work to be in any sort of gallery. Maybe that is the point - its the fact that it is my own work that is troubling me, when i have conversations with my peers about the possible ways in which their work should be shown i am fine, i can come up with a hundred different ways but for myself i draw a blank. I fear i am becoming less and less the practitioner that i wanted to be for oh so many years and am leaning more and more towards wanting to be a curator and i have to say that scares me i have always wanted to make to create and now i have no will to do so.

Be your own souvenir

Art Is....

Self indulgence, creation, curation, wanting to share your soul with the world, never wanting anyone to see any of it, wanting to keep it for yourself, constantly trying to please someone that probably doesn't exist, not wanting to be part of the "art crowd", trying desperately to be noticed, frustration, giving up, starting from the beginning, getting fed up with peoples bullshit, trying to come up with something original and realising nothing is, getting copied, copying someone else, having your world blown apart by someone else's opinion, realising you couldn't give a fuck what they thought anyway, sleepless nights, sleeping in till 3 in the afternoon, lethargy, thinking your no good, thinking everyone else is better and then worse, knowing that person is making it up as they go along and getting away with it, living inside your head, trying to make it though, not caring, having 3am panic attacks because you couldn't care about anything more, wondering how people are coping better than you, not being able to explain yourself, knowing what you are doing is bollocks, giving up, starting over, hating yourself, hating everybody else, being the arty one in the family and playing up to it, having people find meaning that isn't their, having to nod along, not being able to defend yourself, going to galleries and the magic that was once their has gone, having people look down their noses at you because your not the right kind of "arty", feeling bad because you'd be quite happy to paint miniature figurines for the rest of your life.