Foundation Year
Fictional Worlds – Everything At Once
Sorry for the delay in this being posted, but hey, it’s finally here! Enjoy.
My project is about how we create our own fictional worlds, and how we can create objects, people, and even space out of the most minimal idea. The piece I have created is to illustrate my own worlds and everything that happens within them; as we can’t see everything that’s happening in our world, I decided to illustrate everything that happens in mine, so you can see everything at once.
This project began with the plan of using mark-making and drawing to music, this idea came from the Visual Communication project in the exploration stage of the year. I began to listen to music from the game ‘Minecraft’ and started to draw random shapes and designs, which slowly turned into a landscape. ‘Minecraft’ is a computer game, where the landscape is made from cubes and pixels and you can change, build and create your own world. I then explored the idea of fictional worlds and to create more detailed and meticulous drawings, evolving them to what they are now.
For a while, my drawings developed on their own, I would place them on my wall to give influence to the next and that created a chain of drawings which then started to illustrate different dimensions of my fictional world. I researched Paul Noble’s work and gained some influence from his ‘Nobson Newtown’, an illustrated world of his own creation. I was also inspired by Sarah Sze’s work and how she collects and groups her work and creates her own world in her installations.
Once I finished drawing, I decided to collect my work and develop the piece further. I went back to ‘Minecraft’ and decided to use its architecture; I then created cubes out of my drawings and using my influence from Sarah Sze, I invented some ways to group my work and how it was to be displayed. With ‘Minecraft’ being a constructive game, I decided to use it as a basis for the presentation of this piece. The outcome is a world of my own which is driven by imagination and creativity. A world where everything is happening but nothing built in the same way, where you can continue to change, manipulate and play with the architecture to make your minimal ideas expand.
Drawing has been a massive part of this project, but drawing is a minimal part of my life; I’ve realised that I have my own style of drawing and I now understand its importance. I will be continuing to draw in the future, now that I understand its ability, and mine.
Critical Studies Three
Tomás Saraceno – In Orbit
Tomás Saraceno’s piece, In Orbit, is a truly fascinating display of interactivity, design and style. In Orbit was opened to the public on 22nd June 2013, it is a construction of steel nets which are laid out in three levels. Within the nets are half a dozen spheres, the spheres are up to 8.5 meters in size and have been placed within the installation. The net structure overall covers 2,500 square meters and floats over a 25 meter drop within the gallery. Visitors to the gallery can enter the installation and walk between the three layers between the spheres.
In Orbit is designed to be a network which moves and flexes when the viewer walks around within it; when more than one person walks within the space, the movement of one person effects the others, making the piece act as a sort of spiders web; every connection connected to itself, constantly altering the piece to accommodate the viewer, due to the vibrations of the viewers. Saraceno talks about his piece as a new hybrid form of communication, with reference to the vibrations being transferred from person to person.
In Orbit was planned over a three year period, and was constructed with the help of engineers, architects and biologists. Out of all of Saraceno’s work, this piece Is the most complex, and weighing in at three tons on the net structure alone, is one of his heaviest pieces. Saraceno, for years, has researched many species of spiders, and the structure of their webs. Saraceno has studied the network construction technology of webs and uses the functionality, strength, and beauty within his own artistic practice.
Every single piece of Saraceno’s work, including In Orbit, is a part of a larger project ‘Air-Port-City’, a floating city of the future; a utopia in response to global pollution, growth, and dramatic ecological problems, which is making the Earth an increasingly uninhabitable place.
In conclusion, Saraceno’s piece is a construct of years of research and thought, which is beautiful in its architecture and design. A truly fascinating concept, for which we may have to take inspiration from if the world does in fact become uninhabitable.
Final Major Project
Here is an update on my Final Major Project.
My project is about creating fictional worlds, using mark-making to create landscapes and planets. During the project, I have been listening to music from the video game ‘Minecraft’, and from that I’ve been drawing out the music, creating organic shapes and designs. ‘Minecraft’ is the main force behind the formation of this project, but it also backed up with the Visual Communications project, where I drew to music and created my own window into space. I chose to use mark-making from the beginning of this project, but I had no idea that it would lead to creating multiple drawings.
I have recently came to a point in which I need to focus on a different pushing force and create something from these drawings, so I have took more inspiration from ‘Minecraft’ and have created boxes which have my drawings printed onto the faces. I’m trying to bring the ‘Minecraft’ world into reality, and using my drawings to create a new style of landscape in the ‘Minecraft’ style. I also have the idea of using animation, and collage to enhance the drawings.
I’m still in the process of making work and planning an exhibit, so there will be more of this project but for now, enjoy.
Final Major Project
For my Final Major Project (FMP), I have decided to do ‘Fictional Worlds’. I’m still not 100% on what the main idea is or how to fully describe it, but what I’m doing is listening to ‘Minecraft’ music and then translating that music into drawing. I started this project looking at mark-making, and the translation between other forms of art (e.g. music, sculpture, paintings.) to marks (drawing). I started to look at Sol LeWitt, and how his methods use precise rules. I then started to look at my previous project Visual Communications, and how I translated that music into drawing; from this, I then started to go straight into drawing the ‘Minecraft’ music.
From then to now, I don’t really know how to explain the project, so I will update you all when I am further on with my work.
Below are a few images of my drawings and a link that will take you to YouTube; the video will contain the music I am listening to. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obgSqOyM8Q0
Critical Studies Two
Martin Pfeifle – The Artist Who Inspires Me
Martin Pfeifle is a German Artist who over the past decade has appeared in dozens of exhibitions with a variety of Sculptural Installations. Pfeifle started his professional practice in 2000, even though he only graduated with his degree in 2004. I first discovered Martin Pfeifle while working on my A Levels; it was during the Personal Study unit, which meant that I could create my own theme to follow, allowing me to explore anything I desired (within reason).
Martin Pfeifle inspires me because I am greatly interested in Installation, and Pfeifle shows how you can explore the environment using installation and how you don’t particularly need the environment to create a solid sculptural installation. I’m using ‘particularly’ because the majority of Pfeifle’s work uses its environment, but if you were to have it in a wide open area, he could construct a piece that is completely different and stands out above the rest. I guess, in a way, this is how he inspires me; when Pfeifle creates his art, he leaves room for the viewer to think of their own definition of the piece.
To be completely honest, I just can’t choose which of Pfeifle’s works I adore the most; there are some which don’t grab my attention, but the number of works that do… If, and only if I had to choose one, I would choose the one I found first, Ichoderdu ROTEMARTHA; mainly because I was amazed by the scale of the work. Ichoderdu ROTEMARTHA, in my opinion, shows that there is always a heart within a structure that may show no life or feeling, that there is always one section open to let those in who are worthy of entrance. I may be babbling here but with this piece being the first I saw of Pfeifle’s, I just love it, how it wraps and hides and covers an area, making the viewer curious of what’s on the other side.
I can’t say I know what each of Pfeifle’s works is about or where it comes from as his website doesn’t contain this information, but I assume that his work is based on his thoughts and his research into the topic. That aside, his work influenced mine by expanding my knowledge and understanding of a special awareness and how art fits into its environment. I definitely look more closely now at how I present my work and how it interacts not only with the environment, but with the viewer as well.
There is not much to say about how Pfeifle uses his materials; simply because he uses them to only to underline their everyday uses, nothing more and nothing less; the simple approach. To me his work does make me feel warm inside; knowing that there is someone else with similar interests in sculptural installation as I do.
In Conclusion, Martin Pfeifle is an amazing artist who I will look up to and gather inspiration from.
GamePlay – Playlist
Right then, this is the last time you’ll here about these videos as even I got a bit tiered with posting them all up. The following link will take you to a playlist called ‘Gameplay – Card Tricks’ which is located on my YouTube channel. Feel free to browse at your leisure and to comment on the videos. I thought with all the posts being in parts on the blog, that I should create a playlist for them so they’re all in one place. I hope you enjoy them, feel free to browse my channel as well (there isn’t much). My channel is set up just for Art videos and general some other videos that I intend to do in my free time. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?feature=edit_ok&list=PLYwNumlPH_OHIV1PPjoPSTybK0C8J-nmd
GamePlay – Digital Drawing
Hi everyone!
I’ve been doing some digital drawing of stills from the videos. All I’ve done is sketch over the image in Photoshop and then done a another (more refined) sketch on top of that.
Minecraft – Digital Drawing
Here is a couple of digital drawings I’ve done for GamePlay. I originally started GamePlay with looking at how gaming has affected people/what gaming means to different people, I was a bit unsure about what to do so I played a bit of MineCraft and did a couple of drawings before I changed the idea to look at reversing video to make magic.
Enjoy
Life Drawing
During the Drawing week I progressed massively and it has improved my confidence to drawing the human figure; plus, I learnt the method of using a pencil to measure the scale of what my drawing should be. Enjoy.
Photoshop Workshop
Today I did a workshop in Photoshop where I had to choose two images to take sections from and create a new image only using those section. To my surprise it was really fun, even though it had to be the simplest technique you could ever do in Photoshop.
These are the outcomes from the workshop.
Critical Studies One
What Is Drawing? Review
The What Is Drawing? exhibition is being held at Customs House Gallery and is open from 21st September – 17th November 2013. The exhibition is about how different artists view drawing and it shows artworks that each of the artists have created based on how they view drawing and how it can be presented.
The Artists exhibited within the show were asked to create a piece of artwork based on their idea of what drawing is; the artists also had to write one hundred words explaining what they thought drawing was – and what it was about. The artists in the exhibition were selected because they represented a wide cross-section of drawing in a range of media, from pencil and charcoal to light, from 2D to 3D and from black and white to colour.
The project and exhibition were planned in a way that allowed the viewer to take their own view on the concept of drawing. At the end of the exhibition, there is a board that invites the viewer to write about their own take on what drawing is. The way the exhibition is presented gives the viewer time to examine the artwork at their own pace and come up with their own explanations for the pieces.
One piece that caught my eye was Jennie Speirs Grant’s Farne Island Sketchbook. This work shows a long strip of paper with drawings representing her journey between the Farne Islands and also includes her expressions of the sounds around her; the piece can be described in either length or time. The part that fascinated me was how you can express time within a drawing whist showing the surroundings and sounds. I believe that the artist is trying to give the viewer a taste of what it would be like to go on a journey around the Farne Islands. The way in which Grant has drawn the lines shows different forms and can also be an indication of what the scenery looked like; if the sea was calm the drawing would be smooth and flat.
I agree with the concept of the show as it explains how everyone has their own views on drawing and how they express it. The exhibition shows multiple methods of drawing and many ways on how ideas can be expressed through drawing. This exhibition lets the viewer draw their own conclusions about what drawing is.
In conclusion, the exhibition has a wide variety of art based around an exploration of just what drawing can be. None of the artworks exhibited show a right or wrong way to draw; many of the works capture the idea about someone/anyone can record their daily life. This exhibition has taught me that drawing is not just life drawing with a pencil; drawing can be walking over a piece of paper to record how far you walk or that it can record time, or that can even be a three dimensional installation.
Link>>>Customs House – What Is Drawing?<<<Link
Glass and Ceramics
The Glass and Ceramics rotation week was a week of experimentation. The week started off with four workshops: Ceramics, Hot Glass, Architectural Glass, and Print on Glass. Out of the four workshops I had to choose only two; the four workshops were only testers and were only an hour long, whereas the two I chose would take place over a day each.
Out of the four workshops, I chose to do Hot Glass and Architectural Glass.
The first workshop was Hot Glass and I have to admit, I was scared to do it; It also didn’t help that I was chosen first for the activities so I didn’t have an idea of what to do. The first activity was drawing with glass, where you take a ‘glob’ of glass and let it drip onto a damp piece of paper, the glass would burn the paper and leave a burnt drawing on the page. If you left the glass on for too long it would act like a pair of scissors and cut through the page.
The second activity was to make a paperweight. You started of with a small ball of glass and then dip it in different colours of powder, you would then manipulate the glass to however you wanted, then you cover that with another layer of glass and then shape it into a ball, after that you cut if off and let if cool, you then flatten the bottom.
The second activity I wasn’t that scared for. For Architectural Glass I had to design a few shapes and patterns which would be sandblasted onto 6 pieces of square glass, then after they had been sandblasted I had to glue the squares together to make a cube of glass.
The images below are the finished outcomes of the paperweight and the cube.
3D Design
This weeks rotation is 3D Design. At the start of the project the class was put into groups, given different materials and then told to create a 3 dimensional sculpture, the meaning behind this activity was to open our minds a bit so we could understand 3D Design that little bit more.
After that, I decided to look into different ideas for what I could make. I thought about different materials like wood, paper, plastic, and card, and looked at the different methods I could use to make a sculpture. After I had a little brainstorm about materials and methods I got a little stuck so I decided to look at some artists for some inspiration. The first artist I looked at was Tomas Saraceno; instantly when I looked at his website it came up with his current piece In Orbit. In Orbit is a fantastic piece that shows how space can be used and distorted. I then went onto looking at Richard Serra’s ‘Matter of Time’, an installation/sculpture piece that I believe is designed to pull in the audience right to the heart of the artwork.
Having looked at these artists, I still had trouble coming up with ideas, mainly on how to execute them. I then came across a very clever video called ‘Box‘. ‘Box’ is a video which shows very technical use of projection-mapping, this is where a projection is being displayed on a moving surface allowing the user to create optical illusions. So after watching this video, I decided to create an origami shape of my own design and display it in its own environment, two foam boards that will hang behind the origami.
I originally wanted the concept that the boards would be the same as the boards in the ‘Box’ video, but then my tutor shed some light on the matter and said that he liked how the origami sat in its own space between the boards, and that the origami gives off an unreal feeling, that the origami should be some unknown material that could create its own laws. My tutor then told me that if I was to extend this project, I should maybe consider doing some form of animation and give the origami its own physics and laws and an unusual quality. The images below is the final piece.
Fashion
For the Fashion rotation, I decided to do a ‘protest’ and not do fashion and instead create something different. The topic that I was given was ‘Black is the New Black’, so I did start off with looking at a bit of Fashion, but nothing appealed to me. So I took a different approach and kind of took a step back into the Visual Communication rotation and decided to do another drawn based piece of Art.
At first I did struggle to find any artists to be inspired from, but after a small chat with the tutor, I came across Marina Abramovic. Abramovic is a performance artist who shows how far the human body can be pushed over it’s limits, and then some. A lot of her work is endurance based, where she doesn’t stop the performance until she psychically can’t do no more. The one piece of Abramovic’s work that influenced me was ‘Freeing the Body’, in her piece she stood naked with a scarf around her face and danced to the rhythm of an African drum beat; this piece continued for six hours until she collapsed on the floor from exhaustion.
I intend to do a similar piece of work (not nude), where I will wear a white box on my head and draw to the sounds I hear around the studio that echo inside the box. I will also still stick with the ‘Black is the New Black’ theme by wearing black clothes.
The images below are a time-lapse of the performance, the final image is the Final outcome.
Visual Communication
This is the Visual Communication rotation; to start off the week I was asked to respond to multiple pieces of music by drawing, painting, and cutting. After the workshop I was asked to focus on one of the pieces of music and use one or multiple methods to express the music. I chose a piece called ‘Window‘ by ‘The Album Leaf’, A piece of music that to me sounds calm, smooth, and peaceful. When I had a day to collect my thoughts in what direction I would take this piece, I had the idea to make a drawing with my own imaginative solar system; I chose this because the piece sounds ‘spacey’ and puts me in my own dream world, floating through space and seeing the planets as I pass by.
So when it came to doing the final piece, I decided to get together four A1 sheets of paper, tape them together and start drawing my imaginative space theme in response to the music. It felt strange to do this as I have never drawn to music before, but it felt peaceful, and relaxing compared to the manic haste of creating a sculpture. As most of the drawing is circular, it felt as though it was a form of ballet, the charcoal dancing across the paper creating a smooth, seamless piece that shows how music can be expressed through something you can see and not just hear.
Below are images of the artwork that I created during this week’s work. The last image is the Final piece.
Lens Based Media
The second rotation is Lens Based Media; I can do anything from photography, through to film. I started out with a brain storm for all the ideas I had which included documentation, storyboards, anything that I could link to photography/film. After a bit of thought I decided to do a storyboard/timeline which over the series of the photos would decay or evolve into a different environment. I chose to use a daily diary of sorts, my daily diary; a storyboard of me waking up, getting ready, going to uni and falling asleep. But then I hit a bit of a barrier of how to decay the timeline, so I decided to make it a dream within a dream, a continuing loop of dreams that never ends; the decay will the characters will to continue, that he will never ‘wake up’, he will become more and more distant from finding the real world and will either accept his fate, or give up. For this loop to happen, I had the character fall asleep while working, which he would then wake up in bed to start the loop over again.
I have only made three of the millions of the cycle; these three are at different points of the story. The first line is towards the beginning where he is starting to realise what’s happening. The second line is towards the middle where he’s deciding what will become of him and weather he should continue or stop. The third line is between the middle and the end, he’s stuck between what he should choose, but because he still cycles through, he gets further and further from reality and is slowing running out of time………this is the third option he can chose to never decide, to see if he escapes in the end.
Railston Artworks 