SUNDAY HOPPING
Now that is what I call cold. Just hovering around freezing – but the wind had the sea crashing and rearing like a Perfect Storm. Poor Erin… I had arranged to film her in Hartlepool over the weekend and we lucked out with the weather. Well lucked out in terms of my hand nearly froze off and she, being just a wee snip, was none too pleased about hanging around staring at seascapes and industrial landscapes. I tried my best to minimise her exposure to the cold… parked the car close, only got her out when I was all set up…but it is probably only something you could ask a relative to do (with the promise of a present afterwards). The sea really was amazing though… all churning and dangerous looking. Timeless really.
Luckily one of our locations was inside a shopping centre. Unluckily Erin trapped her fingers in the car door as we parked up. For a moment it looked like a trip to A and E would cut the shoot short. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as it first seemed. We cajoled her into the shopping centre and pretty soon she was happily spinning around the concourse to my direction (after a protracted episode with security. I had got advance permission to film but let me tell you…those shops are VERY well guarded and nobody had told security we were coming).
A bizarre Sunday perhaps, but one of the final elements in this project. I wanted my Marion doll to go on a little trip… helped by another generation. These short sequences will link my other video episodes. I had also filmed E against green screen the day before so that I have some flexibility as to what I put behind her. I’m not looking for realism so much as hyper realism… which isn’t the same thing of course.
Easter looms but I need to push on. For the last couple of weeks I have been concentrating on the artwork side of my show so need to get back to editing video if I am to hit the deadline… failure is not an option Mr Bond.
Our re-cycle bin is just outside the back door but boxes always get left in the kitchen for yours truly to take out. One of the benefits of this system is that I am now making plectrum shapes from these boxes before binning the off-cuts. Morning and evening. I have a ‘plectrum maker’ die cutter. One of the installation pieces I plan to put together in a glass case is called ‘Assuming the means of production’. It involves an amount of coal and lots of plectrum shapes made from random stuff scattered as a layer above. A white Stratocaster guitar wrapped in organza sits on top. It alludes to the decline of local industry and how society drifted into change like a boat let loose. Make of it what you will. It links to some of my video stories.
Pizza boxes and cat food cartons are ideal… though they’re rubbish (literally) as real plectrums.
Oh and I finished ‘Lanark’ by Alasdair Grey the other day. Now that’s an odd book and one I would definitely recommend if you haven’t read it. Art school and surreal socio politics…right up my street.
