I started the week off by visiting my brother at our family ‘HOME’ for his 21st birthday. Traveling back ‘Home’ I’m intrigued by as to why it is perhaps the most natural home that I have. Is it the memories that I have attached to the house, the people who are in it, the objects that I used to play with there? What is interesting is that the memories are always incredibly strong, particularly surrounding the house and areas I used to play as a child. My parents created a strong homely atmosphere and still do to this day. There are still many objects in the house which relate to me and my home, many of my, early paintings that I completed as a child and teenager are still in the house.
Memory of where you are placed in the family 1,2,3,4 (one of four children)
Music
Something that I am always deeply connected to and make me always think of home are certain albums that used to be played often. I started to create a list of albums that were played in the house but truthfully more common in the car on long drives to go on family holidays. Some of the albums we listened were mix tapes. I was able to find one with the writing still attached. I created a digital playlist with one song from each of the albums that we listened to at home often. Some 30 albums. I also created the mix tapes as playlists. We always used to listen to albums – creative nature of artists/musicians.
Although I am admittedly unsure of what I am going to do with this I have listened to each of the albums now over the last few days weeks and the playlist that I have created. This is clearly a personal playlist and set of albums. It’s interesting to me that I remember the albums. Interestingly or perhaps not so I had to ask other members of my family to figure out these albums. I have highlighted the albums which I immediately think of though.
Interestingly it is so routed in their sense and memory of home it questions to me can Home be the same for more than one person. Naturally yes because say your location is the same you will talk to people about going home – family and home are intertwined?
Eye to the telescope -Kt tunstall (Under the Weather)
Woodface – Crowded House
Together Alone – Crowded House (CD)
A Funk Odyssey- Jamorquoi
White Ladder – David Gray
Middle of Nowhere – Hanson
1 – Beatles
Hopes and Fears – Keane
Parachutes – Coldplay
A Rush of Blood to the Head – Coldplay
Andromeda heights – prefab sprout
The gunman and other stories – prefab sprout
The best of Prefab Sprout – Prefab Sprout
The Man Who – Travis
The Invisible Band – Travis
Q – Best of Album 98
Mercury Falling – Sting
Moon Safari – AIR
Vertigo – Groove Armada
Ocean Drive – Light House Family
Postcards from Heaven – Light House Family
Sam’s Family Playlist
Corinne Bailey Rae – Corinne Bailey Rae
About a Boy Soundtrack – Badly Drawn Boy
Whoa Nelly ! – Nelly Furtado
Twenty Some-Thing – Jamie Callum
The best of everything but the girl – everything but the girl
Walking wounded – everything but the girl
Play – Moby
Onkers big mokka – toploader
All that you can’t leave behind -U2
The Optimist – Turin Brakes
Photos
While I was at ‘home’ had a look at some of our older family photos – to get an idea of the house or memories attached to the location. It turned into a family deep dive – with 6 boxes full of 90-2000s photos. There was roughly 40 kodak photos in each box each with each one containing roughly 36 photos which equates to 1440 photos per box and 8, 640 photos in total. I managed to go through one box in 2 hours. Why ? Well, my interest was looking at the spaces of the house and seeing how they have changed. My thought was that I could take photographs of similar locations and then create a double overlay. I could use the negatives from the original photos and then overlay them with 35mm photographs that I had taken that day. I took 10 packs (360 photos) back with me to Aberystwyth.
Development
So first I wasn’t sure if this would work, these are colour negatives and the process I was using was black and white. I didn’t know whether the image would go through. I did some tests and it worked out!
The contrast was off, but it wasn’t terrible. Double exposure isn’t always the best but I wanted to show the old location and the new together. There are not many photos of the same place with no -body. I decided to find one’s where the setting had either changed or was momentus or had a memory attached.
Photos of my first test. My dad reading to me ( I think one of the harry potter books). I stayed two of my other siblings so we had divided bedtimes and dad would read to us individually in the parent’s bedroom. The overlay photo is how the room is now compared to how it was then.
The image is a bit convoluted, I don’ think it works particularly well. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say apart from the change of a room and the utility it used to provide. The image looses something to me going to black and white. I should probably include a series of three of the original the current and the overlayed photo.
I enjoyed this process as I like the technical difficulty that the darkroom provides however it perhaps isn’t best suited, and I would have been better off taking scans of the photos and taking digital photos to then overlay in photoshop. Unsure where to progress from here.
The photos are trying to make the point of the location changing and the utility that a room provides and changes. The demand on the home and the necessity it needs to change.
Negatives taken of the house and surrounds including important objects etc. Consciously chosen not to take photos of people here.
Class Week 2
Class that included significant amounts of artists work to inspire us. This class is always interesting because it takes on such a wide and varied set of mediums.
I tried to get down as much information as possible and tried to draw and write a page for each video/artwork etc. (photos need to be inserted)
Next, we decided to look into one particularly piece of work I decided to look into Room – 2015. This is a harrowing movie about a victim of rape and her son who is trapped with their attacker. We watched a short clip from the start of the film. I immediately was interested by the excellent acting. It was fascinating to look at a way in which although in such harrowing circumstances the mother was still trying to create some form of normality for her child. Home is clearly so powerful. Through my 10 minutes of research, the most interesting thing to me was how it was filmed. The director and cinematographer were intent on trying to keep the room small and compact. They constructed the tiny set which was only 3.4m x 3.4m. They then compartmentalized each of the spaces so that they could be taken apart to allow for filming. They went a step further to create the compact feel of the room. In each set the camera would be in the set. Special lenses were used to emphasize the fluorescent lighting. Only 8 people were on set at any time during filming to help the child actor adapt and make the space more intimate.
Additional research on room after class, includes looking at more filming techniques including longer lenses to create large background blur so we as the audience just focus on the actors and the drama – not to get to distracted by the background. Overdub by the director – fascinating.
I intent to watch the film but I keep putting it off because of the harrowing story – not easy watching.
I was particularly interested in how my classmates have approached their research. It was fascinating to see what caught my classmates imagination. Also interesting to see what captured more than one person’s imagination – we have such an eclectic mix of people in the group.
Notes from class below
Bibliography of all the work we looked at.
Audio
-bike shop audio recorded this week on my phone
-needs more work and using higher quality equipment to get the best out of it.
-unsure of whether to include the entire atmosphere of the shop or whether to just get audio of the working clacks of bikes shifting gears, brakes rubbing, tyres being pumped, computers being clacked, e-bike work stand winch being used, torque wrench clicks… all of these different noises I will be able to detect
-not sure if it will work with the video – need to try
-perhaps as a solo piece with sounds of home – could it link with music ? What other sounds are distinctive to me ? paintbrushes, canvas, bikes, cycling on roads, playing video games, computer fans and wiring, the sound outside my house ?