Invisible City – New work in Schiedam

Wednesday 31 August

Notes from my sketchbook today:

200-6=194/2=97
150-6=144/2
41cm down, 48 cm in
77/2=38.5
101.5+97=198.5
200cm
296-200=96/2=48

Reposition the camera? – Ceiling Mounted?

Screws into wall?
Camera mount on front
Screen off doors
Hardware shop/screws, washers, plugs
Drill?

List of things I still need:
Cable ties (tick)
Permission to mount the camera on the bracket above the pipe

Screws, Washers, plugs (crossed off)
Check I have enough rice paper/fabric for a 1.5m frame?
Tiny screw for attaching to dowel (crossed out)

Also to do.
Series of 1 minute videos from same location e.g Schiedam Centrum. Rush hour/daytime/nighttime
Ideas about including architectural elements from elsewhere in Schiedam in the interior drawings.

Generosity of other artists for tools and wood.

So full of ideas, places to respond to.

Rice paper How To:
Paint frames
Glue paper (should be sandwiched betwen 2 frames)
When glue has dried, spray each screen with water
Blow warm air until it tightens
———————————–
Tape Temporarily
Straighten roll of paper
glue
unroll
trim once dry
if any wrinkles or sagging spray lightly with water on the wrinkled area.

Rice paper drying.

Passages from J. Tanizaki;s In Praise of Shadows

—>Shadows, Half light, Shoji Screens
= Ryoanji screens
———————————
Interesting how I keep returning to materials and methods.

Cables – lay across front for screens
lay inside for back wall
Staple fabric to frame.
———————————–

Something I didn’t think of. Projector does not project large enough to cover the screens–>

(Drawing of how projection does not fit – later overlaid with a possible solution)

Could project smaller panels? Like in novas (can then slice em up and take em home)

Tonight: make some tests with pencil, pen ink, grey ink drawing on all 3 substrates.
for use on/with architectural details

Am I putting too much/too many processes into these 3 days.
Good to take the opportunity to experiment in a space.

—>I work best in response to a space.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Work in Progress, Tuesday 30 August

Today I went to work out how to produce my work in the space I have in Invisible City. As I am using a projector, I have a space off the main hall. I’ve been experimenting with the projector in that space, with the cameras that I plan to connect to it, with drawing surfaces and also thinking about making some test drawings.

I’ve ventured into Rotterdam (on a day where i’ve felt a little clumsy due to leaving my mobile behind not being able to open the apartment door with the key, trying to board a metro with a train ticket and dropping the tube of rice paper that I bought from one art shop whilst leaving another.) I’ve bought inks, paper, fabric and a possibly uneccessary brush. But the fact that Rotterdam had 2 amazingly well stocked art shops (where you can buy hunks of marble and potters wheels next to the pencils canvases and paints) meant that I gave into my weakness for spending money in anything resembling a stationers.

I’ve since made some test marks on each of the types of paper that I bought and considered ways of setting my intervention up. I’m mulling over it this evening and will have a meeting with Liat and Ans from the Shadowing Cities production team in the morning.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

So, I arrived last night for a group meal at Ruimte in Beweging where I met many of the artists involved in Invisible City – the inevitable repetition of who I am, where I come from and what I am planning on making circled around the table as each conversation happened, and it was good to put faces to names and project descriptions that I had previously read on the website.

So far I’ve met:

Mateja Bucar
http://www.dum-club.si/mateja/zelenaluc/green_ligh…

I’m sharing an apartment with Mateja (who’s from Ljubljana, Slovakia) and i’m really interested in her performance that is planned for some pedestrian crossings around Schiedam. I’ve seen her rehearsing with a group of dancers today and we’ve been chatting over dinner about how she will use the crossings – i’m wondering if there is a link between some work I have done with drawing on pedestrian crossings or bridge crossings previously (www.claireweetman.co.uk/crossings.html)

Daan Den Houter
http://www.daandenhouter.com/

Daan is working on ‘Money Floor’. Today I have seen him devote himself to routing €1cent sized recesses into 20 panels of wood – tomorrow he will begin to lay both the floor and the coins.

Ozlem Uzun
http://ozlemuzun.blogspot.com/

Ozlem will install homely furniture in a bus stop on the main street in Schiedam, making an unexpected intervention for the public who use the stop. I learned last night that Ozlem has had to get a permit from the council to be able to do this – i’m not sure if that would be the case at home, but i’d probably go ahead and try without asking. Ozlem will be filming the intervention and screening the documentation as part of the weekend’s events. Chatting to Ozlem I also learned what a small world it is – she knows one of the Istanbul based artists that POST met in Austria last year, and has also met another Liverpool based artist whilst she was in Lyon – by heck we get around do us Liverpool folk.

Jan De Bruin
http://www.artnews.org/artist.php?i=4329

See Jan’s video below. Jan will be reporting on the Invisible City as it unfolds

I’ve also met many of the other artists, and i’ll describe their work as I learn more about it over the next few days.

Jan De Bruin reports on Invisible City

I’ve arrived!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

So i’ve packed, and I’m enroute to Scheidam. There’s no production happening at Ruimte in Beweging over the weekend, so I’m taking a 2 day break in Amsterdam.

The life of an artist means that even a holiday brings with it work interests – that’s a good thing though I think. Uitmarkt is on in Amsterdam this weekend (http://www.amsterdamsuitburo.nl/uitmarkt/english) – that’s the cultural opening season and today i’ve caught some open air concerts. Also saw this exhibition on the way round the city: http://www.artpocalypsecollective.com/ Maaike Ann Stevens drawings, reliefs and sculptures – her use of greyboard as a drawing/construction material made me think about how I could use that with may recent ‘Tearing Space Apart Drawings’ (http://claireweetman.blogspot.com/2011/07/tabloid-…).

Tomorrow will hopefull bring a bit more Uitmarkt, and some gallery visiting. I’ve also been reading some news items on the Invisible City website about some of the artists already working there. I’m looking forward to meeting them all on Monday and getting to work: http://shadowingcities.com/2011/08/artists-of-invi…

• 
•