BoW: the final push

I want to use this post to record what I have been up to with my project over the last few (several) weeks and how it is developing.

Having shown my work at several review sessions recently, and subsequent to my last Assignment 4 submission; including the Barnsley residential and 2 Scotland study group sessions, I concluded that this work needed an extra push before deciding that it is finished. This is in itself a bit of a risk as I only have Assignment 5 to go which is when I should really be putting the finishing touches to it rather than creating quite a new presentation to it. If I make a mess then I will have little opportunity within the OCA structure to recover it again. Having said that, I think that it is an important process I need to go through before relying on my own judgement of its completeness.

While the three critique events have been really useful to gain feedback, reactions and advice, I haven’t taken all of it literally. I have taken bits and pieces from all the feedback but the main message and consensus was that I needed to do a bit more to engage the viewer with the work. I have therefore been doing a lot of thinking about the work, perhaps more so than actually doing the changes, but I think that I am now at a stage where I have a good idea of where this is going and what the eventual outcome will be.

As a teaser, these are some of the decisions and changes I am working on:

• The title of the work will most definitely be ‘Land Values’. I have played around with alternatives but have now realised how important this is to the focus of the work and how it binds the different elements together.
• The two halves of this project will now be split into two books which are further bound down one edge to create a single product which creates a four page spread book layout. Two pages will relate to Thornhill and two pages to Glasgow; but with the book working best when all four pages are viewed together.
• I have shifted away from the plan to have juxtaposed photos from Thornhill and Glasgow being composed along similar structural elements i.e. similar position of strong horizontals or verticals, etc. This has allowed greater freedom to ‘play’ with the dialogue between the two sets of images.
• There is going to be a greater use of text interplayed with the images which will use research on the term ‘value’, as well as introducing a more political edge to some of the commentary on society’s differing values for land. This should make the work a little less vague, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but I have been inspired a little by the work of ‘Kennardphillipps’, and thus feel more comfortable in introducing a slightly more political edge to the work.
• In relation to aesthetics, the work will retain its ordinary and banal selection of images which is important in its slightly ironic presentation of these places, but there is likely to be a more edgy and run down feel to the Thornhill images and a more upbeat presentation of the Glasgow photographs – but don’t want to go over the top with this though.

That’s about it really, except I now need to do less thinking and begin to pull this work towards its conclusion.

Photo book format idea

I wanted to share this link which is a Youtube video of a book layout I am really interested in.

It is very similar in concept to how I have been think about creating the book for my work.  If you can’t see the video, the concept is that the book folds out into three sections with the middle page being created from the overlap of pages either from the right or the left.  It is a very clever concept which seems to create an interesting experience for the viewer.

My idea was for the book to fold out into four pages and thus become, in effect, two books joined together and which should be enjoyed together.  I hadn’t even thought of only having three pages open and overlapping the pages in the book – not sure if I will use that specific technique but what I did notice was how the binding of the book allowed the pages to open flat which is exactly how I want my book to work so that there is then no issue over curved pages folding back over themselves etc.

This is just a placeholder for an idea at the moment but is something that I will keep in the back of my mind.

p.s. I picked up the link to this video from Beyond Words who are selling the book on their website:  http://www.beyondwords.co.uk/p/2387/moises

 

Study Visit to ‘Here Comes Everybody’ by kennardphillipps

I went to another really interesting Scotland study visit the other weekend which was the exhibition ‘Here Comes Everybody’ by kennardphillipps (a collaborative practice of Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps). It is being held at the Stills Centre for Photography in Edinburgh between 31 July and 25 October 2015.

I think that it is easier to repeat the introduction information issued by Stills than try to explain the work myself, and then I will go on to describe my reaction to the work:

The exhibition includes a major new installation consisting of an accumulation of photographic imagery, photomontage, digital prints, newspapers and found materials, exploring ideas around image consumption, production and surveillance.

The work in the exhibition was installation based with pallet crates used to creates structures upon which some of their work was loosely hung. There appears no precision in their work and there is quite a distressed sense to it all. I quite liked how whilst walking through the work you became engrossed within it and began to pick up on the political messages behind the work without having to direct your attention to any particular piece. In contrast though, there were also two videos installations shown in a separate room. Whilst I still got something from these, for me they were a little too direct in their political message, to the extent that I felt that they were quite advertorial in their presentation.

We were so privileged while we were looking at this work that the artist Peter Kennard came in and joined our discussions. It was great to get a sense of the artist himself and how this work wasn’t created just to make a point to others but that the work was also expressing something about himself and his own values. It was interesting to read elsewhere that neither Peter or Cat create work to make money, both of them have other jobs that help to supplement their livelihood; Peter is an educator and Cat is a printer. They both make the work because they feel impelled to do so and it is great to see how this comes out in their work through the freedom of expression and ability to play with the materials to create something – the Stills leaflet is keen to give us Peter’s year of birth as 1949, yet he has no inhibitions about playing with papier-mâché, prints and pallet crates to create an absorbing installation.

One of the key things that I took from this visit, other than the lesson to give yourself the freedom to play when creating work, is how politically motivated Peter and Cat are. They state in the Stills leaflet that they both “see the work as the visual arm of protest”. I know that my work has a political element to it yet I have been reluctant to be too expressive about this, however, this has certainly given me food for thought and some ideas on that aspect which I might think about incorporating.