With just 5 weeks until our final show, I am beginning to plan with some degree of certainty the installation that I´ll complete.
I don´t like planning things too exactly but by exploring a number of solutions, I feel I´ll know the space very well and what may or may not work visually when I get to the point of actually creating it.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of things I can do to prepare, work that really must be done in advance. I am making a series of “props” that may or may not feature in the final installation. The objects are placed in the installation and become a part of it and can be changed around and different combinations can be trialled before deciding on the final composition. So I need to have a number of possibilities that I will work with.
Through this, an exploration of materials continues – I just tried some cut-out vinyl to stick to the floor. This offers a number of possibilities, which are so different from a painted surface.
On the academic side, completing contributions for our catalogue, press statements and the continuation of documenting work for final presentation. Although this side of the work can be time consuming and sometimes separate, I think it provides a good balance to spend time reviewing work and its presentation. If it is viewed as part of the process, it becomes a necessary and important part.
Spending time reflecting on work done is as important as continually working on the actual physical work – the distinction of what is work is an intriguing one, to me the reflecting and collection of thoughts around what you are doing is part of the work, and cannot be separated one from the other.
Thus, a fair amount of time this week has been spent thinking/reflecting and on how this relates to the planning of the final show. I´m quite interested in careful planning around the many things I can control, but aware of the importance of not planning too much. My work really has an emphasis on intuitive decisions which I wouldn´t want to take out of the process.
So, planning with room for alteration and working in the space at the time is the way I am looking to complete it. So, loosely planning and creating a series of “props” I´ll probably use in the installation has been the focus. I still also feel a need to continue searching for colours and forms – I feel that research in my practice is not something that is seperate from the other aspects, it still goes alongside and continues to influence work in development. Some of the images here show this.
Working again in our bookable space, this time with a longer period of three days, I spent the time creating a large scale installation – a bit more ambitious than the previous attempts.
The longer period of time allowed me to be able to create something larger (it´s physically challenging) and have the time to consider object placings and the thing as a whole.
In a perfect world I´d have spent more time on the planning – I want to have a better balance of planning/working intuitively. Most of this was worked out from rough sketches, quickly, like a drawing straight on the wall. Whilst this appears to have worked, its not maybe good working practice…
However, most of the objects were pre-made and brought into the space. I decided to use my large scale cut-out, which has become something different and really more physical.
This has given me a real idea of the task of preparing for my final show. I now feel I have much more solid idea of how this will look and feel.
This week has been spent on working on a number of different things, including a collaborative project.
At ECA we have a few small rooms which are called “project spaces”. These are rooms which are to be used for a number of different things – working in, exhibiting, projections, installations etc etc. We can book this facility out and it is a great resource. We also have a timetable of collaborative working groups. These happen across year-groups and there is one per week. The idea is to come together with your group and plan how to use the space/work together and then present the work in a tutor led crit on the same day, with other students.
A lot of students, for a number of reasons, choose to install their work alongside each other and present as a mini-exhibition. However, I feel this is a waste and any opportunity to work with others in a different way is exciting and not to be overlooked. The chance to do similar projects out of the university environment are much less frequent. So, it was lucky that the group I was put in had similar ideas.
We had attended a crit of another group earlier in the year and had initially discussed the idea of an installative project, possibly with a response type way of working.
We then met up last week to further discuss the ideas we had. It was quite a natural chat in which ideas quickly came to be solutions about the type of work we wanted to produce. The other two students tend to work with both made structures and used/found materials. Although this at first is not exactly tied to my own practice, I felt that the ideas concerned with forms and surface and reduced colour did have relation and I was keen to work on something in a different way.
Working together seemed quite intuitive and natural – it was easy to come to collective decisions and arrive at solutions through mutual discussion. Finally, the tutor-led crit with other students was successful and raised other questions and points, which was great.
It was a great day out of the studio and has given me more insight to the kind of colaborative projects I´d like to work on in the future.
Still waiting to hear what space we have been designated for our final show, so concentrating on continuing planning for other things nearer in the future.
Playing around trying out things in the studio – painting on the walls to try to get an idea of scale and how some things work in a larger space.
Looking at different shapes and materials to find a way to create the aesthetic I am searching for.
After having used cut-outs on a really small scale, I had the idea to trial these shapes on a larger scale. I wasn´t sure what materials to use to create a similar effect or indeed how to do it. After consultation with some technicians, the best way seemed to be with a thick-ish MDF and cut using a laser cutting machine.
This all sounds great in theory but actually acheiving this has been a bit trying! First, understandibly you must have some training on the machine to be used, but then it is necessary to have some kind of knowledge of the computer programmes used to be able to put your design into reality. Otherwise its a long frustrating process to get help to do so. I do understand staff have certain remits and things they do and don´t do in their roles but just getting something done which at first seems simple can turn out to be a big mission backwards and forwards to find where you can and can´t get help to do it. However, gripes about facilities and resources will soon be over (and we´ll probably miss them…!) and in the end I was able to make the cut-outs I wanted.
So, next I will prime and paint them and stick them together and see how they work together with other painted surfaces/installative things…
