Wow, all the presentations were phenomenal last Friday. I learnt so much! So many fantastic artists I want to keep all the PowerPoints! So hopefully, a lot of it will appear on the blogs.
I had a great tutorial with Miranda on Monday, and that face-to-face time is so valuable and helps distil and focus my project… I went away with a clear vision to make the final cut.
I am enjoying curating my theoretical takeover and the two research trips to the Art centre. I couldn’t do it all on Monday as I was tired after the tutorial. That’s the thing with a dodgy heart; you might have all the mental energy in the world, but if the engine is misfiring, the car just won’t run!
Also, Miranda needs a waiting chair outside her office for next semester! Though it allowed me to wander into the ceramics archive… did you know we had one… and learn about a potential Raku course!
Haphazard meetings in corridors and chance encounters have been among some of the most critical learning opportunities I’ve had at university. I was reminded of meeting Miranda on the stairs in the second year. Miranda told me, ‘Don’t think about what you can’t do; think about things you can do!’ That has been the most tremendous discovery this semester, and how to pace myself, not drive an impossible physical agenda
… I hope my husband doesn’t read this blog, as he would be laughing so hard right now…
But he would be proud of me when at the Arts Centre I was pooped, and I thought … you know what, I’ll go home and rest and fight another day… that’s a Big Woop for me…
So, who did I meet at the Arts Centre… well, all sorts of people!
The lady in the main gallery … why don’t I write down names… she was amazing and listened to my fantasy football exhibition pick… she loved it. We talked about how we could make it happen… but only theoretically. The gallery’s air con is not sophisticated enough to maintain a steady temperature for the required 5 months that is needed before excepting a major work… I never realised there was so much to it, which is stupid of me. Obviously, the blooming things are fragile if you have significant works that are old on a massive support. Galleries are really museums…. That got me thinking. I told Miranda that my real studio of unlocked creativity within a digital practice, lives in my head. We also discussed how Art can’t continue producing carbon-heavy emissions … more thinking… artwork holographic projections for major exhibitions… if it’s good enough for ABBA could it be good enough for Rothko?
Talking to Des, who runs the Cinema, was equally helpful… I remember Des’s name … he looks like a Des… He was telling me about cinema age ratings and how complicated it was how a screening must be timetabled… But he did say that if it was Art and part of an installation, you didn’t need a rating. However, you couldn’t screen it immediately before or after a film that did have a rating!
We also talked about how you would supply a film. You can provide it in an MP4 format, but projectionists would prefer and would have to translate it anyway to a DCP format Digital cinema package…that, of course, takes staff hours, and a cinema/gallery would charge for that.
I came home and asked Eddie, my son, the fount of all film techie knowledge, how do you do that?
the answer: Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve
Great, so I can process it on that… he laughed and said no, my kit wouldn’t do it, and I’d need to send it to him. No, I can’t use his computer… well, to be honest, his set-up looks like NASA mission control, and I think it’s probably responsible for my extortionate electricity bills…
My brain hurts, so I’ll go back to another gallery conversation… ‘slow looking’… latest research apparently suggests 20mins looking at an artwork to complete a meditative understanding of that piece… I think there might be something in that; remind me to tell you one day about me, the red curtain and the Sistine Chapel
However, I suspect 20 mins staring at a Rothko may induce some form of visual psychosis … it’s that powerful…
Even on my second visit, I didn’t make it to the round gallery but looked at it from outside… like looking at Everest or anything in the Karakoram, it will probably allude me, and I’m not a fan of dodgy lifts… or ladders I don’t like ladders…
On a massive positive note, the Italian cut of Wrestling with Everyday Pain was awarded 3rd prize in the Eleanor Worthington Prize, and I am properly chuffed….
For all the rest of this week’s work, you will have to, Take a Chance on Me, and wait to see the proposal run down for next week’s Theoretical Takeover… It’s going to be a Super Trouper….
A wonderful week for you – you must be on cloud nine! how fantastic to be acknowledged and recognised so quickly for this fresh new exploration, it will help with the momentum and in reaching wider audiences with which to work with. Great you got up to the arts centre and asked staff questions, wow that has never happened before! but maybe they didn’t know about the TAKEOVER, because we get some special treatment! for example we only have to give the projectionist USB sticks and MP4’s not DCP’s.. well done for being so thorough and tenacious. photos of you up there would have been an extra. Yes I will put a chair outside my office, i used to have one, but it enouraged people to sit and wait rather than interrupt and stop me when i am going over time..