21 Aug – A busy week editing bits of film and trying to make the whole thing shorter. Experimenting with projecting film onto wall space and trying to loose the hard rectangular edges – looks best aimed through torn paper – but that’s prob. a fire hazard !
Usual fight in my head between being literal and trying somehow show what I’ve said I was going to do and letting the thing make it’s own journey. Plenty more to do and not much more time !
Re-filmed bits of Dungeness as previous film rather wobbley and got close up to sound mirrors which are amazing – whole area is a bit like being in a science fiction landscape. Also went to see bones and skulls in St. Leonard’s Church in Hythe – then onto Canterbury and a quick and late look around catherdral and town – very busy and full of tourists – but the sun shone through the tower and I got a nice bit of floaty film.
Off on holiday tomorrow and will have to take editing with me. Also doing a photo-tour workshop in St.Omer on Wed. so will have to update my french visual language vocab. . . . soon !
12 August – have given up trying to be chronological and regular – and just put things in when I get time.
Last week had a productive meeting in Dover with D.A.D – everyone was very supportive and helpful which was great. But it remains hard to envisage how the projection is going to work and although I took lots of photos of the station, once I was home and explored a few different angles I found I hadn’t taken photos of the right bits ! However when I tried it out in the studio it came together nicely – I just want to keep adding layers of structure and imagery – but a more mixed media approach will work better in Dover where I will have an enclosed space which lends itself better to this approach. Just need to keep it clear and simple for St. Omer.
Dover looked particularly shimmery and summery – walked and flmed on the pier – it was a bit like being in the Med. with little yachts bobbing around the turquiose harbour and a vast expance of concrete which must have been the old ferry port – the light around 6 pm was just beautiful.
Also struggling to plan for the next year – trying to juggle some teaching/gallery work and finalise dates plus do work for 2 other projects and maybe do an MA – the latter may well be the one that goes out the window. Could do with being 20 years younger !
26 & 27 July – moved up the coast and visited Cap Gris Nez and could see White Cliffs of Dover – Very exicted to find lots of bunkers and traces of Henry II’s fort. Found an enormous doughnut shaped blockhaus or bunker on the way back – wandered around in the still hot air – the faint sound of a framer spraying his crops behind me.
These structures have a strong sculptural feel – coarse and certainly theres is something chilling about them but they remain stubbornly lumpen tucked away in copses and up quite lanes. Also caught site of the Tod Musee further up the coast -this place also has plenty of guns, guard posts and crouches sullenly looking out on the Channel.
The haunting aspect of all these defensive buildings is the role they played in the bombing of London and an intended invasion of the GB. The methodical, well recorded and systematic annihilation of millions of people all done on an industrial scale remains astonishing in its scale and ambition.
25 July – Wandered around Boulogne all day – did all the tourist stuff and then felt confused about what I was doing – so many ideas and words swimming around my head …. kept getting side tracked. The place is heaving with holiday makers and people enjoying the sunshine … feels strange to spend so much time alone – thinking about art, trying to make some kind of response to the place – it’s not unpleasant but decidedly odd.
French people don’t seem to use mobiles/camera/camcorders/iPods etc the way we do – felt quite conspicuous getting my various cameras out every 5 minutes – only seen about 2 people use a mobile let along a camcorder !
24 July – blustery, dark sepia skies and the threat of rain -sat in Intermarche car park and filmed very dramatic skies wafting past Napoleon’s column – it is so tall that it was a good navigational landmark. Drove up the coast to Wimereaux with a road systems that felt like a mini-golf course – coloured tarmac and curvey entrances to roundabouts. Wimereaux stretches along the coast and into low lying sand dunes, which I wondered around filming bits of coast and the shadows of passers by. Very windy and the sea extremely rough. In the distance I caught sight of a fort on the seafront – so drove round the headland to Fort Mahon – strangly squatting offshore looking rather incongruous in a seaside setting. Then on to Ambleteuse which is choc-a-bloc with squat stone/wood semi gothic houses – not unlike the house in Psycho – all very quiet apart from the crashing of waves over the promenade and the screeching of happy children running in and out of the spray.
Beginning to feel like I’m making a travelogue rather than an artwork -need to separate the scenic and appealing from the nitty gritty of the brief….location residence migration…..
