Flux Without Pause

Sketches and videos

the art of wandering

After finishing my dissertation in December I wanted to travel for a few days in a different country. I had been told about the Transmedia Festival for art & digital culture that takes place every year in Berlin. I had been to Berlin the previous year to see The Knife play. I fell in love with place so many reasons mainly because it is a city that literally speaks to you in so many different ways. There are ways which you can find in other cites in the form of a tourist observing how other cultures act but the thing that makes Berlin stand out is how the buildings speak to you becoming alive with the graffiti written on the walls. At first sight it was slightly intimidating for me because when you se that much graffiti that means your usually in a dodgy area but after a while it walking street after street pass building after building it became a sort of melody for me.

One day I went on the over ground yellow trains which had a curved upward train track which reminded me of a slow amusement park ride. This was great for looking at the graffiti from a closer viewpoint. The word that stood out for me was “Poet” It was in white paint on a high building and it stood out from the other tags. This was poignant for me because walking the street of Berlin was like a visual poem.

The other way the city spoke to me was in the form of the photoautomat booths, which were spread out over the city. There are phootbooths in Britain but I felt like they are more embraced over there. They felt like they where places to freeze time for a moment in the on-going movement of life. The whole process of getting inside the booth thinking of statue poses between 4 quick fire shots which you get caught out while readjusting a pose and then going back into the flux of the world while waiting of the booth using a traditional method that produces these stunning vintage sepia images. While waiting the view of shuffling feet behind the black curtain adds to the mystic of the multiple transactions taking place. Face to camera, image to hand.

The memories of my first visit enticed me to come back again

Footsteps in the dark bring home the light- Project 5am

The aspect of multiple screen work has appealed to me since taking part in the Lars Von trier crowdsourcing project Gesmat. My video was one of the 142 films selected from around the world to capture six interpretations of themes that were selected by Von Trier. The work had its premier at the 2012 Copenhagen Art Festival where it was displayed on four screen which was formed around a circle of benches The multiple screen gave the viewer a chance to look at a narrative from different points of view meaning that no viewing of the event was ever the same. I found the project very interesting because on of the main themes in my work is about looking from different points of view in a phenomenological aspect.

For my first installation seed, nature, grow 2011 focused on the London riots and which ways of action could help a disiinfransihed generation.

Liminal Love 2012 looked at effects of mental health via a family unit.

“There is another way 2012” was a visual take the on T.S Eliot play The cocktail party and The cocktail party effect, the phenomenon of being able to focus one’s auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, That captured the theme of the piece which was about making a choice.

On top of my of my art work my dissertation focused on if crowdsourcing could provide socially engaged art where interdenpencey of inviduals and communities played a key role in discussing the themes stated.

For my last uni installation my aim is to look at using three screens to describe a narrative.

When attending the Isaac Julian 7 screen video installation “Playtime” it showed me how multiscreen can

*Open up the space of a screen

*Give incite into internal thoughts

* Can make the breaking the forth wall effect more dramatic

* Can give the viewer multiple views within one view

The cons of using multiscreen was that:

*So many screens can be distracting

*Some screen can be not as relevant as the other screens.

The themes of Julian’s work related to my project in the way of

* Double consciousness

* Reflections – of the past

* Doors into the unknown

* Making the invisible, visible

* Giving the visitor a choice

On of my lectures in my 1st year had recommended looking at Julian’s

work for my dissertation, so it kind of felt fitting that after 3 years, my work had naturally connected with Julian’s work.

For my last degree installation my aim is to look at using three screens to describe a narrative. Using three screens will able me to capture the theme of intersectionatillty in the way French philosopher Jacques Rancière used the French director jean luc Godard as an example of capturing collage in the form of mystery.

as well as the ability to

* expand a scene

* reflect internal thoughts

The subjects that I will be looking at to display in a multiple screen format will be theme of psychogeogeography

In the book the art of wandering by merlin coverley the contents features the list of types of walkers like.

The walker as a philosopher

The walker as pilgrim

The imaginary walker

The walker and the natural world

The walker as a visionary

The flaneur

Experimental walking

The aim will be to capture the essence of a music album by creating a series of Godard styled intertitles to focus on the different titles taken from the book.

The idea for treating it like a music album came from listening to Joni Mitchell hejira album. It was the first time I had heard it in 4 years time I notices the details that the artist made in the theme of the journey. The album title is a transliteration of the Arabic word hijra, which means “journey”, usually referring to the migration of the prophet Muhammad (and his companions) from Mecca to Medina.

Each track is a story about a character or a location on her journey and the album cover is a superimposed image of Mitchell over the highway landscape of her journey.

By taking that concept into a video art setting I will look to reproduce that in a video art format.

Last week I experimented by filming my walking to uni to see how it would look in multiscreen. I was happy with results and no ill be looking to expand on the idea.

The art of wandering -Project 5am test