Again I’ve been busy!
Today I’ve had a meeting at the cardall collection to further discuss my project with them. Bernard (collections chairperson), Glynis (warwickshire, coventry and soilhull’s community museums officer) and two members of the friends of the cardall collection as well as myself we’re present and I feel like it was a really productive meeting.
I began discussing my ideas with them and gave them typed versions of these ideas which read:
“1) To create in-depth www.facebook.com profiles for ‘characters’ that feature hevily within the collection such as Jack and Rene (possibly others).
2) Use these profiles to create portraits of them, there relationship to each other and to southam via the fcilities inherent to www.facebook.com such as the relationship status, the ability to post photos and the status update feature (this could become performative over the course of a month for example).
3) Then to make this digital work present in the town it is describing through printed media using paper and dye sourced and made in southam. These would feature colour coding for each ‘character’ and QR codes linking them to the relevent www.facebook.com accounts. These would be large scale (made to fit) and displayed in windows throughout the town.
This process explores how smaller communities engage with their own histories through the development of web 2.0 (and various nomadic devices with the ability to run web browsers) as well as how they use the towns present architectural state to access this history.
The use and manipulation of natural resources from around southam brings the physicality of the printed material into this dialogue around history and place by becoming a point of referance for both the town itself and an access point for the www.facebook.com profiles.”
This proposal was met with a mixed response from the other meeting attendees. There was enthusiasm, some confusion and a lot of talk about things to develop or research! I was given the most recent copy of The Friends of the Cardall Collection Newsletter so I can begin to get to know the organisation better and it was arranged that I would attend a commettiee meeting on tuesday evening to introduce myself and my ideas to a larger cross-section of the collections friends. I’m planning on having some very basic mocked up versions of the prints and facebook profiles I’ve been discussing to help explain the work more visually.
I’ve been working a little on making inks and dyes from materials sourced in southam as well, which has ment a lot of time spent in fields and on wikipedia! I’ve got a very pale purple made from sloe’s, a brown from privit’s, a deeper purple from elderberry and an orange from cotoneaster franchetti… these have started growing mold, but the sketchbook pages I treated are absoultly fine and the colour is holding well!
I will post more about all of this and the developments as and when they happen – but I’m very excited about this project.
I’ve been getting quotes for the print works for we’ve been re-distrubuted and am yet to find one that I’m pleased with so will carry on talking to commercial printers! And I’ve been involved in conversations about showing marking the internet and the physical 2.0 which I’ll post more about soon!
I have had meetings about working at The Event which open accross digbeth in birmingham on friday and i’ll be working at this project – http://the-event.org/projects/b42/ so if your attending The Event come and say hello!
I’ve also been becoming aware of how important my own facebook is to me… so if we’re not already friends add me @ http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=547524741 for daily updates into what I’m upto and what I’m intrested in at that moment!
