ONE MONTH TO GO
Four weeks and counting to my show. I had a blitz over the last month and have ironed out what goes where and, most importantly (bar tweaks to the technicals like colour grading and audio balancing) the content for the various video pieces is all complete. I suppose I always knew I would be flying close to the deadline, but by virtually living and breathing this piece for the past month I have wrestled it into shape.
There was a point the other morning where I was just about to squirt shaving gel onto my toothbrush. It was a close thing. I will check back into the real world shortly.
Typically my daily routine involves making cardboard plectrums mornings and late evenings, out of the content of whatever is left to go out into the recycle bin. I hardly give it a second thought. Will I miss the routines this piece has imposed on me? Hmmm.. I’m sure I will get over working 7 days a week (including bank holidays) but no doubt something else will replace it in due course.
Getting so close to the show’s opening has made me reflect on its shape. When I first imagined this piece it was going to be a number of mute video projections in a darkened space with one audio track. Over 18 months it has evolved into a much bigger beast. Six unique video screen narratives, each with their own audio, plus a projected video to be viewed in its own discreet viewing area. Added to this, I now have two glass cabinets which include such things as a trumpet, a box of coal, my Marion doll, an electric guitar; the aforementioned plectrums applied to the inside of a display cabinet… a Lambretta wrapped in organza…two banners on which is written the back story of a constructed character, a gramophone which will play the now complete and mixed bigband song I wrote, my 1950s typewriter on a plinth which invites contributions to the narrative echoes on the wall that will be dotted around the gallery…. various framed prints and a 9 meter length of 8cm square photographs that will traverse the walls in a way that invites the viewer to consider the powerful tool that is the frame of authorship .
In short – there is sooooooo much more here than I initially envisaged. It has been a journey and a half for me and I am now hoping that some of what I intend will transmit to the visitor and that perhaps other unknowns will pop up along the way.
I have had two vinyl records pressed of my song (I am hoping nobody pinches them from the gallery) and a short run of vinyl cds. I am really pleased with these – they look like smaller versions of the real thing… grooves and all. I did worry that the making of the musical element of this piece was taking up a disproportionate amount of time and effort, but now I have it in my hands as an actual real thing it seems worth it. In fact it was never just about the song itself but more about the process of working through the idea and gleaning experiences along the way that I couldn’t have obtained any other way.
Sifting though some of the photography, juxtaposing my own photographs alongside still frames I have taken from archive Hartlepool shipping company films, has been an archaeological journey of magic. Blowing up details of pics I took a year ago, I have discovered things I didn’t initially realise were there. In the same way, taking still frames out of 70 year old film stock gives you the feeling of being the first person to examine them in such detail. Enhancing and selecting has allowed me to bring alive material which I am sure has never been seen before. Digging through the past, sifting it and reforming it, provides a unique medium to model something that hopefully has a relevance to the world of today.
I knew there was a reason I enjoyed museums so much when I was a kid.
