NAM JUNE PAIK - exhibition at the Tate Modern
NAM JUNE PAIK:
For my 'Pairs' collaboration project my partner and I visited the Tate Modern for inspiration for our project. I had already been to the Nam June Paik exhibition for my extension project and I focused on how he up cycles old televisions, I really loved exhibition and my partner was interested in it , so we thought it would be interesting to see it with a new perspective.
This time I focused on Paik's use of video , the last room in the exhibition had 42 different projectors which switched at random between 4 separate collages. The result was an audio visual collage that Paik had created over the years. I really like the way he layered all these videos together, distorting the narrative of the original files creating this visual confusion, while I was standing in the room for a while I could see less figures and forms and more abstract colour blocks as it blurred my vision. I made a link to how screens and technology can effect our senses and I thought the idea of technology effecting the way our minds work is an interesting concept that I can translate into textiles and our project. I also think that 'overlapping' and 'layering' are two words that will be essential to our project, during our visit, me and partner each drew on tracing paper so that we could overlap our sketches to create the same visual confusion that we were experiencing.
In one room he had a series of TV's stacked on top of each other, playing videos that were glitching on the screen , which reminded me of an old TV I had when I was younger that dropped and would only play TV feedback, the glitching videos in the exhibition reminded me of the colours that would show up on my screen so I think it would be interesting to use that as a colour scheme for our project.
After the exhibition, me and my partner reflected on our favorite parts of the exhibition, she mentioned that her favorite part of the exhibition was the audio that was playing, it wasn't just the visuals that overlapped but the audio as well and we thought it would be a good idea to create textiles and twiles that make sound when you touch them as well as confusing you visually. I thought about how some nursery's work with visually and audibly impaired children and how they use different fabrics and objects to help them learn about things with their other senses. For this project I want to use this concept and translate it into textiles, perhaps we can make a garment that makes noise every step you take.
SENSORY PLAY
Sensory play:
After a visit to the Nam June Paik exhibition at the Tate Modern, my partner and I were talking about our favourite elements of the exhibition and how we can develop them into a group project, my partner mentioned how she really liked the sounds of the exhibition and wanted to look for a way to incorporate it with our project and into textiles.
It made me think of my mum who works with children in a nursery, I remember watching her watching her study for her Key stage 3 children exam and a book she had on child care, it talked about the importance of sensory play for children.Sensory play includes activities that stimulate children's senses such as sight, sound, smell, taste or touch. By providing this type of activity children will learn more about the world around them in a natural way, through their senses. I remembered when I was in nursery myself, there was a sensory room filled with different textured fabrics and materials and how relaxing it was.
I thought it would be interesting to incorporate these ideas into our project, we could recreate sounds with textiles as a way to improve brain development and to act as therapy for adults.
DIFFERENT SOUNDS FROM DIFFERENT OBJECTS
Stills from our final outcome:
- Sanding paper and Christmas decorations
- Beads
- Plastic chain and beads hitting chair
- Plastic
GRAYSON PERRY MANIEFESTO
YOUNG PEOPE IN PROTESTS
Young people protesting:
- Edelweiss Pirates (1930s Nazi Germany)
The Edelweiss Pirates were a loosely organized group of youth in Nazi Germany. They emerged in western Germany out of the German Youth Movement of the late 1930s in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth.
- Kent state University massacre
Student protests against war in Vietnam were becoming more common (1960s-1970s), Kent state was one in particular that shook the nation. unarmed college students were shot by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, during a mass protest against the bombing of neutral Cambodia by United States military forces.
- London student riots, 2010
2010 riots were a series of demonstrations in November and December 2010 that took place in several areas of the country, with the focal point of protests being in central London. Largely student-led, the protests were held in opposition to planned spending cuts to further education and an increase of the cap on tuition fees by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government following their review into higher education funding in England.
ILLEGAL OIL SLICKING
GLACIER GIRL
@ Glaciergirl
@Glacier girl is someone I have been following for as long as I could remember on Instagram, her campaign Remember the Glaciers stemmed from my school art project exploring the correlation between globalization, capitalist society, mass consumption and the environment. Looking to address the existential threat of melting glaciers by turning capitalism on its head, she makes activism accessible to the Insta-generation via carefully constructed photographs. I really like the way she uses prints and embroidery of shirts to convey her message, I think in a Gen Z society this is a smart way to get your ideologies across. I like the way she takes the Shell logo and re appropriates it to suit her narrative. Shell who is notorious for oil slicking has a natural element as their logo but cause more harm for the environment than good.
I think text is something we could look to incorporate into our banner, its reminiscent of protest signs of and convey our message more clearly. I also like the idea of using known symbols in my work that people can recognize (e.g Shell) and see their destructive nature.
MOFFAT TAKADIWA - Multiples research
MOFFAT TAKADIWA:
Moffat Takadiwa is an artist originally from Zimbabwe but now works in Hareare, he creates large scale sculptural pieces from ordinary and humble materials that have been discarded such as keyboard keys, tooth brushes and tooth paste. He then uses these discarded materials and weaves them together to create huge sculptors, The resemble organic forms and shapes, in the image below the bottle caps almost resemble a jewel encrusted piece of jewelry. He initially used found objects as a necessity but it then became an aesthetic that could translate his political views on society and materialism. Some of the themes in his work include materialism and inequality , you can see these themes by the way he is sourcing materials, looking closely at his work it is crazy to think how many bottle caps we waste to allow him to make such huge sculptors.
I like the way he weaves all the objects together, in my experimentation for the multiples project I was struggling to find ways in witch I could connect all my objects together but looking at his work I have been inspired to look more at weaving as a way of connecting them. I also like the themes he explores in his work, a lot of my objects are mass produced and disposed of after a few weeks, this project has made me realize how unsustainable they are how I can recycle them to give them a new meaning.
Tooth brushes
Toothbrushes:
Key words to describe object:
- Hard
- Plastic
- Rubber
- Malleable
- Replaceable
- Disposable
- Mass produced
- Comes in a vary of colours
History and personal connections:
-The toothbrush as we know it today was not invented until 1938. However, early forms of the toothbrush have been in existence since 3000 BC. Ancient civilizations used a “chew stick,” which was a thin twig with a frayed end. These ‘chew sticks’ were rubbed against the teeth.
-The invention of nylon bristles allowed for simpler, cheaper mass-production of a toothbrush less likely to harbor and grow harmful bacteria than the traditional animal bristle brush.
- In January 2003 the Lemelson-MIT survey asked participants to rank items on a list of inventions including the automobile, the personal computer, the cellular phone, the microwave and the toothbrush. The toothbrush was selected as the number one invention Americans could not live without.
- I use toothbrushes to lay my edges everyday, its a trend that black Americans started to smooth down their baby hairs.
Jewel - Flume
Scans from book : African hair
Primary research of the girls in my family
HISTORY OF CHICKEN SHOPS
High rise flats - Finsbury park
Looking at the type of high rise flats in the Finsbury park area:
Finsbury Estate is a 'mixed development' of the High Modern period. It was designed by Emberton, Franck & Tardrew in 1965 for Finsbury Borough Council, though completed after Finsbury had been absorbed into the new Metropolitan Borough of Islington. This style of estate is something I saw throughout Finsbury park and appears as a rec-curing motif throughout the area, I like the repetition in the windows and the overall layout of the building. Its one that I want to draw more from and can create patterns from. Also a high percentage of residents live in social housing similar to this so its key to the community.
Andover Estate was built in 1938 and famed for its pyramid design. The estate is made of three triangular buildings - Didbin, Noll and Docura Houses; named after local architects. The older part of the estate along Andover Road was built in 1938. The newer buildings, which make up the majority of the estate, were built between 1973 to 1979. I like the brutalist style to them and the shape is unique and can be used in patterns.
Digital native assessment
Art and the internet
The book ‘Art and the internet' highlights art influenced by, situated on and taking the subject of the internet over the last two and a half decades. The book examines the legacy of the internet on art, and, importantly, illuminates how artists and institutions are using it and why. Net art has been something that I have been interested for a while, it highlights issues and topics on one of the biggest social change of our life time : the internet.
One artist in the book who I was particularly interested in was Martin John Callanan who 2007 -2009 used google earth to continuously publish his exact physical location online, when I first heard about it I thought it was insane and ridiculously dangerous. I imagined as a woman how it would affect your life, If any one was dedicated enough they could find where I live, work and go to school. But then it got me thinking about myself and my screen time, if I spend an average of 5 hours on my phone a day for the past 7 years than I must have left traces of myself everywhere and I wondered how much information you could find out about me. I may not be leaving my information on the internet as drastically as Callanan but throughout my life I have connected to hundreds of public WiFi's and forgot to turn off my location on my phone, it begs the question ' Am i ever really secure online?'
Jenny Odell
Jenny Odell is a Net artist who I like a lot, I first saw her work at the photographers gallery, Her series 'All the People on Google Earth' is an ongoing series of modified snapshots of crowds found on Google Earth, with everything but the people (and their attendant blankets, umbrellas, dogs, etc.) removed. The angle reveals each person's shadow, which is often the only thing that identifies a particular shape as a person at all. Occasionally we may see a leg thrust out in the act of walking; there are suggestions of tennis-playing movements. In All the People in Dolores Park, the only sign of order is the bathroom line in the middle of the park. Otherwise the people exist on the very limit of the recognizable, dissolved into pixels. Seeing ourselves this way calls up the strangeness of a world in which we take for granted the ubiquity of (often unmanned) cameras and the proliferation of our own images, unbeknownst to us. But more importantly, something authentic about us is captured, if peripherally or by accident. In this context, a non-human photographer -- the satellite -- has taken a picture in which people have never looked more like people.
I like the way she uses google maps as a medium, the Ariel view on google earth can create quite beautiful shapes that I could subtract and use in my denim project, since all of my ideas are quite conceptual so this could be a good way of creating patterns and samples that link to my work.
The Ariel view of where I used to live in Portugal
Views from my webcam
DORA MAURER - exhibition at the Tate Modern
DORA MAURER:
For my primary research for the 'Pairs' project my partner and I went to the Tate Modern, one particular exhibition that I liked was Dora Maurer. The exhibition brings together some 35 works, revealing the diversity of her output, including graphic works, photographs, films and paintings. Spanning more than five decades, the show highlights the playful conceptual approach that she brings to her experiments across all media. One of my favourite parts of the exhibition was her paintings, the paintings were overlapping shapes is different colours that would join to create a pattern, this series is quite simple but I can see the patterns and shapes she has created as print.
The use of layering and curved shapes makes the paintings look surreal in a way they remind me Bridget Riley's work, they both use simple shapes in elaborate patterns to create illusion, I also got a sense of De ja vu from this series. The colour and shape remind me of the orginal windows logo.
I think from our visit to the Tate my partner and I were definitely more inspired by the Nam June Paik exhibition but there are similar themes in Dora Maurer, in Paiks exhibition I was particularly drawn to the way he layered videos and imagery. Overlapping is a theme I want to explore in more depth for my Pairs project. Maurer looks at layering in a more simplistic way, so for my initial drawings, I can experiment with layering shapes using cellophane or tracing paper to create a pattern.
A philosophy for our 'pairs' project
' An era is only confused by a confused mind'
- JEAN COCTEALU
NOSTALGIC TV , ADVERTS AND IMAGERY
- Gif from Princess Mononoke
- Shin - Chan (1992- present)
- BOOHBAH (2003-2006)
VIKTOR AND ROLF
VICTOR AND WOLF:
- Scan from book
In looking at sound as a key theme in our Pairs project, I found the Victor and Rolf Autumn/Winter 2000 show 'Bells', where they made garments embellished with bells, in our initial ideas for this project I thought to look for objects that make sounds and turn them into a garment or a sample. However I was also really interested in the runway.
In this collection the catwalk was covered in fog which made it hard to see things unless they were right in front of you, most runways have music in the background that has similar themes to the collection to create a mood for the show. However, Victor and Rolf choose to have a silent runway and the only sound you could hear was the bells getting louder as they got closer to your seat. This show was as much about the experience as it was the garment , it turned the runway into a sort of performance piece, I found the idea of creating a video or a performance with our final out come really interesting and wold like to develop this idea.
Scans from book: Resist! 1960S PROTESTS
EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS AND OTHER ANCIENT LANGUAGES
PROTEST SYMBOLS OF THE 60S
PROTEST SYMBOLS:
The 1960s were an era dominated by change and the counter culture movement, it saw many protests which vastly led to changes in government policy, supporters of these movements questioned traditional practices about how people were treated. Young people played a key role in movements for social change during the 1960s, numbers alone made them important, more than 76 million babies were born during the post world war || "baby boom" . With young people in America given more freedom, they were able to distance themselves from traditional American values and make their own opinions thus creating movements such as Civil rights, LGBT, Students against Vietnam war. Each group had distinct symbols and signs that represented their ideologies.
The peace sign, is probably one of the most famous symbols of the sixties, it was originally designed by Gerald Holtmanas the logo for the British campaign for nuclear disarmament, and used as a peace symbol in the uk, it was the adopted by the anti- war and counter culture movement in the US and has now been used worldwide and a key motif you see in protests, on badges, t-shirts and banners.
flower power was a slogan used during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and non-violence ideology. It is rooted in the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. It used bright coloured flower motifs that connate happiness and positivity, colour is essential to the logo and often incorporates the peace symbol.
Black panther logo circa 1966
' All power to the people' is a cultural expression and political slogan that has been used in a wide variety of contexts. young people began speaking and writing this phrase as a form of rebellion against what they perceived as the oppression by the older generation, The black panthers used it to protest against the rich and upper class.
Sponges
Sponges:
Key words to describe:
- Soft
- Squishy
- Craters
- Stretchy
- Mass produced
- Rip
- Foldable
Combs
Combs:
Key words to describe Combs:
- Smooth
- Sleek
- Hard
- Pointy
- Rigged
- Breakable
- Come in various different shapes
History and personal connections:
- I have owned a dozens of combs through my lifetime, my favourite is an Afro comb.
-The earliest comb of this form to emerge was patented in 1969 by two African Americans, Samuel H. Bundles Jr., and Henry M. Childrey (Tulloch). It was not long before variations of this useful new tool began to emerge and be patented
Flexi rods
Flexi rods:
Key words to describe:
- Flexible
- Rubber
- Foam
- Mouldable
History and personal connections:
- Used for curling hair, is a heatless method that can be used on most hair types
-In 1968 at the feminist Miss America protest, protesters symbolically threw a number of feminine products into a "Freedom Trash Can". These included hair rollers, which were among items the protesters called "instruments of female torture" and accouterments of what they perceived to be enforced femininity.
- My mum and her sisters used them in the 80s and they are popular among st the black community, creating looser waves and curls, I used to watch my mum put them in overnight if she had somewhere important to be the next day.
- I use them myself and it takes about 30 minutes to put in
Glue - Bicep
Richard McVetis
Richard McCVetis:
McVetis uses a range of media, including drawing, installation, and textiles, to explore our perception of space and time. His minimalist work is an endless exploration, not just of form but of the reclamation and potential of process and repetition — a step-by-step examination of perspective and scale which unearths the human condition.
His process is labor-intensive, using hand embroidery he records time through multiples of dots, lines, and crosses. Meticulously drawn and stitched, his work reflects a preoccupation with the repetitive nature of a process, exploring the subtle differences that emerge through ritualistic and habitual making. Also, the mapping of space and marking time and form are central themes. I think his themes of repeated processes is something I can adopt into my 'multiples project'. I wanted to look at hair as a concept in my project but I wanted to look at it in a less obvious way. I started to think about the repeated process of doing my hair and similar experiences other black girls have. So I started drawing and mark making these experiences and turning them into samples.
FINSBURY PARK HOMELESS CRISIS
SKIP Gallery- Finsbury park
The idea of re appropriating rubbish
Zhandra Rhodes
Zhandra Rhodes:
Battling mental degeneracy before my brain turns to mush
My weekly average, quite concerning, when I look back at this I feel quite ashamed LOL. I remember telling my friends 'I actually don't spend that much time on my phone' well turns out I'm in denial. I guess its a Gen Z thing to make yourself seem like a more productive and progressive human than you are. I think I've tried to reduce screen time but it always flops, one time I deleted every app on my phone and every time I opened my phone I would just laugh. I knew there was nothing there but I still have the urge to check. It must be a reflex now, What a sad little life Jamila, I think now if ever is the best time to tackle this situation. Before my brain turns to mush.
Philosophy- 'Kaizen'
Looking at my screen time I notice a recurring pattern, I find my self overusing my phone and spending more than the daily average. I then decided that I need to do something to change , so I delete all apps on my phone and it works for a while but then , I fall back into the same cycle.
I wanted to find a way to actively combat this issue. I started researching ways to combat procrastination and found the Japanese philosophy ‘Kaizen’ which is an approach to creating continuous improvement based on the idea that small, ongoing positive changes can reap major improvements. Typically, it is based on cooperation and commitment and stands in contrast to approaches that use radical changes or top-down edicts to achieve transformation.
It follows the idea of progressive improvement and getting 1% better everyday. I started practicing Kaizen by putting down a print of my thumb print every time I had the urge to use my phone, so that I would be creating patterns and art pieces while trying to reduce my screen time.
- In 10 hours
By doing this I found my thumb print is a motif that I want use throughout my project, it’s a physical representation of my ‘digital finger print ‘
Stalking Jamila Leal Fernandes
- Everything I could find about myself online
1. My Postcode, Age guide, Borough
2. My Mum
3. My school
4. My Depop
4. My location at all times
Information is beautiful : Book
The book Information is beautiful is A visual guide to the way the world really works Every day, every hour, every minute we are bombarded by information - from television, from newspapers, from the internet. I like the way it takes data we would normally find boring and makes it visually 'beautiful', I have a lot of data in my research and I was looking at ways to make it more interesting and translate into denim.
I particularly like this image which shows search results on the internet, When I first saw it I got an idea of connection, which relates to my idea of me leaving a digital fingerprint around the internet over the years. So its one that I want use and respond to in my work.