Furiously Mad: 300 Year of Legal Insanity

Day 1 London.

so how was today?

at the start of today i thaught “nar ill never be able to stay in the libary for 5 hours” how wrong could i have been 5 hours wasnt nearly enough. i have learnt today that mental health wasnt always so hidden away yep it wasn’t always taked about in a PC way but in the 1700’s people were just accepted for who they were. ok they were given names like idiot and lunatic but those people were accepted into society much more than the people of now adays with mental ill health and learning dissabilities they were much more intigrated it seems. so when did we start hiding? i dont know but its food for thaught.

i have found a cure for dementedness. here is the recapie if anyone fancys giving it a go:

A lithe drink against the devil and dementedness.

Put into an ale cassock, roots of lupin, fennel ontre, betony, hindheal, marche, rue, wormwood,nepeta, helenium, elfhone,wolfs comb; sing twelve masses over the drink, and let the man drink, it will soon be well with him.

i have learnt that as well believing that madness was cause by a stone in your head that needed to be removed by a physician in the 1400’s that also it is caused by the fiery beets of spirt in the mind in the 1700’s. im undecided on which to believe right now. ill leave it up to you to make your own mind up.

i think that everyone in the group has had a interesting day at the libary or wandering about checking out the welcome centre. evevyone is still in the pub i have come to my bed as its 10.30 and my bed time. it is rare i get a lie in these days past 7.30 so im making the most of it. thank god i brought my ear plugs london is well noisey!

tomorrow Bedlam!

Trae

The British library

so after an imense amount of faf im in……

my first book from 1700 is entitled The art of curing sympathetically. Herwig

Smells good. It has been repaired each page has been lovingly stuck onto a new piece of paper.

It is sooooo amazing holding a book 313 years old when was the last time you held anything that was 313 years old?

What is madness? Herwig defines this

Madness is a daily commotion of the mind, arising from the fiery beat of the Spirits, attended with Audacity and Fiercenfs, but without a Fever, or madnefs is when the function of the principal Faculties of the Brain is depraved, accompanied with a raging paffion, which is void of a Fever, and proceeds from a fire that beats the brain.

Quick call the fire brigade!!!

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My First Blog Ever:

so here goes my first attempt at blogging. obviously i have meant to do this before but you know life, kinda gets in the way or blogging gets in the way of life.

so far so good we are all on the train to “Landan Tarn”. well minus a couple so as far as the laws of avarages go thats quite good going.

today we are visiting the British library. i thought it was tomorrow so i have ordered my most fantastic books for then but eeeek its actually today! quick phone call to my friends there (LOL) has sorted it!

im realy interested in seeing what books the rest of the group have ordered. i have concentrated on the earlies books i could find. how fantastic to be able to touch and smell a book from 1743.

more later.

Trae

MOSI Brains: The Mind as Matter

This curatorial research trip was to evaluate the design, layout and content of the exhibition. I posed a series of research questions to Pool Arts. I felt this exhibition was a good example to look at as it succesfully combines museum artefacts with artworks which we aim to achieve for our upcoming exhibition at the Peoples History Museum in March.

Blog images are taken from the MOSI website video of BRAINS, The Mind as Matter (http://www.mosi.org.uk/whats-on/brains-the-mind-as…). Listed below are Pool Arts responses to the different elements of the exhibition.

Branding and design:

• Each piece had a label

• Whole wall as label

• Too much text

• Maximised use of space

• Too clinical and text too small

• Good mix of media

• Strong graphic titles

• 2.D and 3.D title for show

Good Example of how an artwork is hung:

• Photos without frames to the edges

• Clips hanging paper works

• Images incorporated onto picture frame

• Suspended drawing “had its own space” precisely at eye level

• Photo portraits with recorded interviews

• Exhibition brought “nature and “nurture”debate to life

• Refer to book to get further information and focus on the artwork

How are the artifacts displayed?

• Same level for everything

• A flat Journey

• Lots of white space around everything

• Display units you could look through

• “like lego”

General Content:

• Variety of artefacts/ art/ video/sound/text

• No warnings about content, felt hemmed in some of the exhibits

• Needed a “quiet” “breakout”space

• Mix of old and new things worked

• Not much interaction within the exhibition

Design/Story- How you moved through show:

• Themed sections of exhibition

• Route through evenly spaced- easy to move- not too cluttered

• Felt forced round in a particular way- conveyor belt

• Person actually directed us

• Structured maze

• ‘opened’ and ‘closed’ in different places

• Subtle changes in lighting

• Medical Science and art working together

• The Catalogue and Imagery/branding didn’t make me expect what I saw

Thanks to Annette Ebanks for writing up the notes from this research trip

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Curator Session 2

For my second presentation to Pool Arts I felt it was really important to show examples of strong and weak curating. It was also a good opportunity for me to reflect on previous exhibitions I had co-curated. Working with Pool Arts assisting the curation of their show is a collaboration with us all learning together which I am really enjoying. Looking at the overall visual impact of an exhibition opened up the possibility of different display structures, using colour instead of white and the layout/spacing of artworks.

A weaker show we reviewed was a good example of how too much artwork in a small space can have the effect of wallpaper, with no real focus. After this I spoke about planning a performance piece titled Black & Gold which was made for the Chinese Arts Centre. As a performer I think spatially and always consider how the audience will interact with the work. Thinking in this way has fed into how I curate spaces which again I wanted to share with Pool Arts. The group really enjoyed watching the performance video and I felt another session around performance should be planned in.