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Part of the forthcoming 'Induction' Album following the same priciples from 'midnight blue' with new techniques.//

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Midnight Blue is an experimental album that attempts to reflect a perception of life within metropolis and the surreal and often dark nature of urban environments. Influences for the album range from techno artists such as scuba to the hero's album by Bowie and tin Drum by Japan/

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Transference

Current Production of Work for the A-level exam this year can be found at : http://submergedalevel.tumblr.com

However once private practice resumes I will continue to post work on here unless my next place of education demands I post it elsewhere.//

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A Functional Installation

Having spent some time negotiating the loan of a sound system from the head of department, the installation is now fully functional. Instead of using the overhead projector that had been decided on previously, I have opted to use another projector that can be strategically be placed on the over side of the studio in order to generate a full size image on the installation.//

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This piece attempts to further explore the concept of situationist psychogeography by exploring small elements of environment in order to explore the the building of a metaphysical environment within the perception of the viewer. In addition to this I have introduced elements of anthropomorphism into the piece in the form of layering the eye into the film. Hopefully the result of which will be a reference to romanticism and the sublime, in relation to depicting man as a insignificant in comparison to the awesome power of nature, in addition to trying to level man with nature in a battle of ego's.

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Film in Space: An exhibition of film and expanded cinema selected by Guy Sherwin

Film in Space is a group exhibition selected by British artist-filmmaker Guy Sherwin. The exhibition focuses on expanded cinema, a film movement which came to prominence in Britain in the early 1970s, at the time Sherwin started making films. The movement was closely associated with the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative, an organisation set up in 1966 by artist-filmmakers to exhibit and produce experimental film work which challenged mainstream cinema. Sherwin worked at the LFMC in its early years and was highly influenced by his experience. For Camden Arts Centre he has selected a number of key works from this period and is showing them along with works by younger artists who are continuing to experiment with the versatility of analogue media, as well as others who have started to take on board the advent of digital technologies. Throughout the exhibition there is an emphasis on film, light, and sound as material to be constantly re-worked, manipulated and experimented with.

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Jonas Mekas – 365 poems for Laura - Marquis de Sade

    The 365 series of films was proposed by the visual artist Jonas Mekas in the fall of 2006 in order create a transient impression of poetry within the medium of film. The fundamental prospect behind this series of films is to convey an emotive portrayal of the poet Patrarca’s (1304-1374) series of 365 love poems written to a woman known only to the reader as Laura. The film series indulges the viewer with a range of locations that combine to form direct links to the sublime and the romanticism that one might see in a poem such as Shelly’s ‘Mont Blanc’. This combines closely with the introduction of layered pieces, with particular reference to the film that explores the site of a coastal castle of the Marquis de Sade. Following on from this the work of Mekas also attempts to engage with mundane and highlight the sense of beauty and grandeur within the most delicate elements of nature.

  The piece follows a strictly Avant-Garde structure in terms of its isolation from formal narrative. Instead Mekas bombards the viewer with an almost metaphysical approach to the surroundings he is attempting to portray, providing an alien perception of the given environment. This fundamentally charges the piece with romantic energies as the viewer is unwillingly focused toward elements of nature, which in many ways reflect qualities of Patrarca’s lover in terms linking to the Judeo-Christian perception of humanities origin in genesis.  In situationist style Mekas attempts to create an investigation of the psychogeography by portraying small elements of an environment such as the view from a window or the edge of a cliff, which link together to form and influence a precise impression of a certain location in a similar mannerism to the employment of language and imagery within the context of a poem inspiring the genesis of a metaphysical perception of an environment and the emotive context of an environment.

  In coalition with the romanticism and sublimity of nature and poetic of the everyday also holds vice within the contextual message of the piece. Mekas employs close range camera shots of everyday plants and coastal formations that could generate the perspective that it is the small everyday elements that generate sublimity and creativity by portraying the insignificance of the uncreative human being in order to initiate the challenge to rival natures majesty.

  In conclusion the 365 series of pieces by Jonas Mekas is a celebration of the poetic power of both the grand and miniscule elements of nature to inspire creativity. This combines with a perspective that uses the mundane as a structure of psychogeography to generate the genesis of a concept. Mekas work is highly reflective of the avant-garde style that has dominated my work of late, pieces such as concrete-vault roof that deduct an abstract impression from the most simple elements of everyday psychogeography by observing from an alternate perspective. From these analytical perspectives of the mundane one can build influence to form a metaphysical image of an environment, leading to the viewers further enticement as the alien nature of the pieces that consider such mundane elements of environment.

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Gaspar Noe - Enter The Void

After doing some research into independent film-makers in my spare time I came across the work of Vice media and the 'vice guide to film' ( http://www.vice.com/en_uk/the-vice-guide-to-film/gaspar-noe-part-1-of-3--2 ), which highlighted a style of film which is sublime in terms of both beauty and aggression.

The piece is described by critics as a psychedelic thriller by a visionary french Maverick and received standing ovations at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals. In terms of narrative the piece negotiates what has been decried as the 'neon club scene of tokyo' exploring life, death and the possibility of rebirth within dark and often perverted circumstances. However the attraction to 'Enter The Void' for my self is seen within the visual portrayed by Noe, though an application of effects such as strobe lighting and seemingly metaphysical camera shots, in addition to an interesting application of environment as means to influence the viewer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKRxDP--e-Y

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365 Poems for Laura - The Irony Of The Staircase

This is a piece that attempts to play with a Stan Brakhage style in order to form a coalition with the work on situationist style observance of psychogeography. The framework for the piece uses two layers (four including sound) to create a piece that induces the impression of both focused and broader shots. Building on the pretext of the journeys though the city pieces there is an inclusion of both urban and rural shots in order to generate juxtapositions within the environment of the piece, combing with the application of some sound recorded within a market place.//

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Avant Garde Surréalisme - Terracotta Focus

This piece attempts to further the application of the Avant grade and surrealist work that has been produced thus far by looking at the work of Artists such as Stan Brakage and creating more post modern impressions. The piece consists of three quintessential elements such as editing light, burning books and the sea, which combine to hopefully overload the senses.

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Mirroring the Brakhage style of production digitally using layering

The fundimental difference that defines both Brakhage's and my own work is the process of construction within the building of a layered film piece. While Brakhage was using traditional 8mm and 35mm filming equipment and combineing tips of film to form an image, digital formating of layers, while less difficult, has become increasingly tedious due to the long periods of time needed to process multiple layers of HD film in primitive move editing software, meaning the rate of work produced has been stalled to some degree, much to my dismay.//

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Stan Brakhage and layering within event-garde film

The recommendatons of my tutors within the last week has highlighted an interesting link in the form of Stan Brakhage, a well known visual artist from the 1960's, In who one might reconise strong similarities to my own work with more abstract pieces. What makes Brakhage's work so interesting is his application of layers to form a piece (A skill I have not yet aquired in iMovie) in addition to a careful balance of figurative and philisophical context as a means of implanting motif within a piece.//

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Outdoor Screening

In coalition with the advice of one of my tutors I came to the conclusion towards the end of last week that it may be interesting to attemempt some form of screening outdoors on the site of repton school in derbyshire, which is currently under a reasonable amount of snow. The initial concept I devided revolved around the prospect of projecting film onto the ice of an ox-box lake that lies behind the school house / hall building. This however was prevented due to the loss of the ice that would have formed my projector screen. After furthur exploration of the area behind the house I decovered an embankment that sat around two meters above a pristine, snow covered, pitch that could be projected down onto, conviniently located in close proximity to a socket in a near by cottage. The school kindly loaned me the nessesery projector and speakers that I installed at around 6:30 pm in order to screen for an audience at 7pm. The content of the visual was mainly focused around films from this years coursework such as the topography and journeys though the city, night time fog, the tube journeys piece and concrete vault roof. in additon to this I also included the piece 'abstraction 217 from last years work as an example of previous projects, focued on a similar perogative. The audience was composed of around 15 people who seemed to reflect possitive attitudes to the work displayed although requested a longer run time, which i had avoided due to the cold weather. This experiment does however open up the prospect of introducing the concept of gorrilla screeings into my coursework piece. These screening could occur anywhere there is power to screen and would essentially tie closely in with the actions of the situationists in relation to psychogeography.

In summery I intend to make these screening a much more common occuernce as they fit in closely with breaking the paradigms of conformity and allow for an alternative culture to develop within this quiet rural setting.// 

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This ideology behind this piece is the concept of analyzing a small element of an environment or journey and forming an abstract form from what is figurative. This combines with the concept of psychogeography in terms of the way by which an environment can significantly influence the way humanity thinks and perceives reality. The main development of the work through this piece would be the incorporation of something that has occurred through random chance, in this case an unchecked affect on the lens of a camera, which comes to define the whole piece or way of looking at a piece. In terms of soundtrack I’m still divided as to whether I’ve found the right sound. the original animation had a recording taken from a tube train running in coalition to create the affect of traveling. However for the end result I have attempted to create an atmosphere by using a track from a recent flying lotus album.//

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an exchange of gifts from blackheath london

in addition to the coursework production of work there has also been an irregular exchange of gifts between blackheath girls school art dept, under the direction of former repton tutor Ian Whitfield, and sixth form art students at Repton. In return for a sculpture created within the paradigms of the drawing course, as displayed above I recieved a length of measuring tape covered with blue paint from the number 27.

in many ways this could fundamentally link to the work on realities topography and psycogeography in terms of grasping a measure of society and the affects of removing proportion from reality

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Cutting and Cropping film to form abstract representations

Development of my stop-start piece continues and the images are now put in sequence that reflects the motion of a journey, thus exploring environment. However, if left in broad format the sequence may appear to figurative, meaning the journey illustrated may not have the desired affect on the proposed viewer. Because of this I have decided to crop closely into the sequence to isolate the viewers experience to noticing the surreal within reality in the form of abstract light formations.//

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Sequencing and motion within the still

With a burst sequence of photographs forming the affected sequence for my stop-start piece, I am now left with the difficult job of sequenceing the lens flare in a manner that mirrors motion (something that wasn't present during the shoot) though the arrangement of stills to form the individual frames in a two to three minuet piece. This combines with lengthening the stills to form a smooth running speed.//