University Campus Suffolk

Although I have previously mentioned the work that was involved in the making of Heavy footprints, and have discussed possible ideas of what to project onto the screens, I have realised that I have not spoken about what will be.

Only a select few have seen the footage so far, and it might need some alterations after assessment, but I decided to piece together various timelapse’s and slideshows which I believed would work well in relation with the lower section.

Having a representation of a ‘landfill’ at the base of the projection, I felt that agricultural land, and forests were a good subject for the screen, as it brought up idea’s of what could one day be passed on to the next generation, and what they might have to plant crops, or forest plantation on top of.

In order to make a comment on how society deals with waste materials, I also chose to visit the local waste disposal grounds, but after being refused permission for photography, I had to resort to operating from just outside the entrance.

Fortunatley for me, there were queues of vehicles waiting in in order to dispose their waste materials, so I took this opertunity to document this.

Whilst doing so, I realised that it was taking the vehicles longer to be able to dispose of green waste, than that of regular house waste. now this might not seem like an issue, but every engine was still running, and most of the time it was only a minimal amount that each vehicle was bringing.

It occurred to me, that most of these people who were bringing this green waste must have owned gardens/land/rented gardens, why weren’t they composting their green waste?

Surely it would make sense to avoid a trip to the dump, return some of the nutrients to their own soil, and not run their engines whilst waiting in line, adding to their carbon footprint.

Because I felt that this was related to the projection, I decided that it should become a part of the work.

Curating the degree show.

Although I was focused on still producing work, three weeks before the degree show commences, one thing which has taken a lot of my attention, is how I planned on displaying them in the space that I was provided with, in order to make sure that they compliment each other, and did not distract from one and other.

It took some time for me to find a suitable position for my projection and screens – Heavy Footprints, initially, I wanted to place it as close to the entrance as possible, so that the audience was forced to engage with it, but after consideration, I thought this could cause an issue if the viewers wanted to wait and watch the video, as they could cause congestion. Instead I decided that the piece be installed in the corner opposite the entrance, at an angle so that it is facing into the middle of the room, not only would this provide space for any who wished to view the entire film, but it also seemed as though it belonged there, in comparison to the initial set up. Some problems that occurred when positioning it here however was how it left the projector and laptop displayed to the viewer as they entered the room, and so I decided to create a barrier out of cardboard boxes, as I believed that they matched the aesthetics of the screen, and also spoke of waste materials.

I decided that my gravity fed aquaponics system, which I have titled Time to Reflect should take center focus, as It is the one piece which I had dedicated the majority of my time to, and is also visually interesting from many angles. As previously mentioned, one other piece – Put a cork in it, will pair with this work, as I hope to create a bit of dialogue between the two sculptures. My reason for doing so is to hopefully make my audience consider how we take our fresh drinking water, and the systems installed to provide that for granted. On one side, there is the tap, but without a function, and on the other, a functioning system of running water being recycled into itself.

Looking beyond Time to Reflect, brings you to the Diversity series, along with another – Doesn’t compare, which was needed to provide some energy for the plants within itself and Regulation. In an Ideal world, I would not have liked to exhibit both Heavy Footprints and Regulation in the same place, as low lighting conditions were neccessary for the projector, but higher lighting levels would be more beneficial for the plants.

On the walls left bare, I then decided to pin-up some of my designs of Time to Reflect, so that it would bring the focus back to the central work.

Making my own decisions.

Whilst preparing for the degree show, I thought it would be beneficial to discuss my work with my peers and have regular tutorials with my lecturers, in order to discover how others understood my work. As much as I was hoping to be able to take on board most what was directed at me, I soon found myself becoming more confused, and discovered that in fine art, you simply cannot please everyone.

It was in learning this, that I realised I must be the one to make the decisions, wether or not to trust my gut instinct, or to take one persons advice on an idea.

Wednesday 14th May

As the degree show soon approaches, I find myself constanly thinking about my project, and the journey it has gone through over the last year.

Looking back, I now realise how literally I was trying to portray my messages, and after conversations with my lecturers, I have realised that I need to be a bit more metaphorical and symbolical. But why is this?

I think this could be linked with giving my audience too much information, and making it too obvious to understand, and therefore leaving no room for them to find there own meanings in my work.

Sunday 1st June

As above, so below…

Daniel Lobb

“Lobb also creates an indoor vertical edible garden, visitors are encouraged to play a role in its life by watering and nuturing the plants, introducing new species and occassionally removing those that have reached the end of their life cycle.”

www.Siobhandavies.com – 15th may – 21st september

After hearing about Lobb’s work, I started to wonder what it was that made this piece so successful. Even though the concept is a relativly literal one, encouraging the audience to be actively involved in the experience of gardening, I believe that this is made into art as it has been placed into the right context – the gallery space.

Wednesday 7th May.

Today, was the first time that I have been able to test my sculpture in a clinical white space. I am still not 100% sure as to wether or not it is the correct context to display the work in, but it does prevent any distractions, and allows the piece to exist in its own space.

As this allowed me to get an understanding of how I may display the piece, it was also a perfect oppurtunity to experiment with the possibility of displaying it through the form of film. During this process, I discovered that using dramatic lighting was more powerful than that of standard ceiling lights, and so have considered this for the degree show.

The water has really given the sculpture a life of its own, and with every pump, it breaths new life into the cycle.

As a test, I decided to time how long it takes between pumping and for the water to settle, and fopund that without alterations, it generally lasted for 5-10 minutes. Because of this, I haveconsidered the idea of making the piece into a ‘performance’ piece. one issue with it being a mere 5-10 minutes though is the fact that I would haveto constantly return to the piece and operate it.

I considered only operating the pump once an hour could be a solution to this, but eventually scrapped that idea, and settled on trying to prolong the process.

After some initial alterations, I manage to acheive a time of 20-25 minutes, which was certainly an improvement, but after collecting some other materials, I decided to continue to restrict the flow.

To begin with, I did not want to reduce it down to just drops of water, but wanted a steady flow, but as I tested different methods, I found that the drops removed the soothing quality to the sound, and made it appear more aggresive – something with seemed to add to the piece.

I’m still not sure as to why I believe that this has added to the piece, but it certainly changed the way it made me think about it.

Looking back to then.

Before installing the piece in a white space, I was toying with the idea of displaying it dismantled and categorised, in order to possibly make the audience consider the materials which were used within. However after experiening it functioning, i felt put off of the idea, as it made me consider how much we take our water supply and the methods of distributing it for granted.

It occured to me that I had began the piece with the intentions to make others consider the importance of life, and almost forcing the audience to sustain the life within, but through developing the idea, found myself realising how important water is for life, and felt this was important enough to change the path this piece went down.

One thing which I was worried about at the time, was the audience mistaking if for some kind of water feature/fountain, but I hope that they end up reading further into its meanings.

In order to try to reduce this from happening, I thought that perhaps I could use another piece in dialogue with it?

Before making this piece, I created another which focused on water conservation, and so I decided that perhaps this would work well opposite the other.

For quite some time now, I have resorted to using a sketchbook rather than my blog in order to keep track of my thought process as I have progressed. As much as I have found the blog an interesting and useful method of doing so, for me, It just isn’t as practical in comparison.

When I last posted on my blog, I was focused on two primary sculptures, which were still in need of some small adjustments. Since then, I have been developing other works, as well as questioning as to whether the other two works were in fact finished.

As the degree show approached, I found myself more concerned with how I planned on executing my work, so that each piece would have a space of it’s own, and the works would not interfere and detract from one and other. With this in mind, I decided that in order to maximise the positive reception of my work, and to transmit a clear message, that I would take on an almost minimalistic approach. In my eye’s this strengthened my concept slightly, as I aimed at using minimal materials to communicate what I am trying to say, and therefore had less of a negative impact on the environment, by demanding fewer materials.

During the time since my last post, I have developed a small series titled – Diversity, in which I decided to create a variety of different shaped plinths, each showing a different aspect of social and enviromental related issues.

To begin with i decided to keep each plinth at the same height, in order to keep a uniformatiy within the series, as i wanted them to represent organisms.

As the series progressed i decided to adapt the heights, in order to show a wider range of divercity but chose to use white paint to keep them uniform.

I decided to use simple gemetric shape that are often found in natural formations,such as a circle, square, and triangle.

On the circular plinth i placed a terrium (which is a contained, enviroment), with native and invasive spiecies as i hope to make a comment on invasive spieces and how they can have a devastating impact on our eco-stystem and hence keeping diversity.

In my opinion we have learnt from agricultural methods that mono-culture brings many issues of pests and disease, this is why I beileve that divisity is so important, in order to sustain a healthy life for all things.

The glass dome that i decided to use for this piece spoke to me about both humanity’s control over nature, whether positive or negative, and also the way that some of humanity feels a responsibility for the likely hood of all others organisms, and trys to protect them.

I decided to use tree saplings within the piece because even though they have the potential to be come large and strong, at this point they are extreamly fragile, which i felt was a nice way to symbolise how our enviroment is in a similar state of affairs.

For a while i was experimenting with the other two plinths trying to decide what other messages I could portray which would compliment the first.

After tying several ideas I decided I wanted to look at scocitys issues with degridation and litter.

on my triangular plinth i played with the idea of constructing a delapitated building but as i was putting it together, it collapsed in on its self, leaving a pile of rubble.

At this point I decided I prefered the way the pile cascended towards the edges of the plinth and also felt that the fact I had started with a building and finished with a pile of rubble explained the concept better.

Now i was happy with two out of three plinths i continued to experiment with the third, and eventually settled on the idea of placing an ash tray in the center of a soil base and scattering ash and cigettete butts around but not within.

I thought that this showed a clear message about littering and how even when provided with a means of disposal, litter is quite often not put into it.

My reasoning for using cigerette butts is because they appear tiny and insignifiact, but when mounted up they can cause a real issue, in terms of toxicity in the soil.