wizlaartsgallery

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A photo of me during the music video shoot in Ghana.

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A Selfie on the British Airways flight during my journey to Ghana for my music video shoot. I had to wear a mask as part of observing the COVID-19 protocols whilst on board the flight. 

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Some Photos I took during my practical research into video whilst editing my reggae music video with  Adobe Premiere Pro video editing software. 

Below are some Links to the cut away use in the video

 StreamOVG (2019) This is Nigeria EP 1 - The Perpetual Cycle of Poverty: Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sWqZTgsRnI (Accessed: 6th April 2021)

 BBC NEWS (2014) Rare video shows Boko Haram attack - BBC News: Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiaFQB6t5tE (Accessed: 11th April 2021)

 BBC NWES (2018) Anatomy of a Killing - BBC News: Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9S-eoLgX4 (Accessed: 11th April 2021)

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Exhibition Rationale for my Reggae Song (Peace In Nigeria)

My rationale for this practical research methodology was to explore the world of music, specifically to use reggae music for social change. As a key genre in addressing socio-political issues to its audience, reggae music has played a valuable role in educating the people and influencing social justice. Historically, works of artists such as Alpha Blondy has impacted my enquiry. In 1985 Alpha Blondy released ‘Come Back Jesus’. However, the wars he talked in his song about still continue to exist in the continent (Onyebadi, 2018. Pp. 13). Similarly, Lucky Dube released an Album in the year 2007. Dube claimed he title the album Respect due to the fact that he believed what the world urgently needs now is respect. Further, he stressed that; one can live with others even if they don’t share in the same faith/beliefs, or even when they don’t like similar things; what matters is that individuals have respect for each other (BBC, 2016). This means that respect for all human rights is highly significant in building social integration to help promote social change. In Nigeria, a Christian dominated government has marginalised the Muslims, which I stressed in the song that I believe resulted in violent crimes such as Boko Haram kidnapping schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014.

Assessing the lives of children to ensure that their basic human rights are met within society is highly significant to my research. In view of the foregoing, Local Libraries suggest that "Through music, videos,   books, and web sites, parents, teachers and librarians can examine the lives of children throughout the world (Local Libraries, 1998. Pp.4). Hence, my works present a piece of reggae music with the title "Peace in Nigeria". Furthermore, I produced a music video that will make it easier for the required audience to connect with the artist to impact social change. My practical research methodology foregrounded in using digital media platforms such as Vimeo or YouTube in uploading my reggae music video to reach my audience easily across the globe by using the internet to promote my agenda to advocate for social change during these trying times of the COVID-19 pandemic.  I use Cubase music engineering software to produce my beats and recorded my song, after which I hired sash and bass guitar instrumentalists to infuse live instrument rhythms to breathe more life into my work since I could not play those instrument myself. During the production of my music video which took place in Ghana, I used my iPhone 11 to shoot scenes of my work; afterwards, I used Adobe Premiere Pro in editing as I’ve been practising with it for some time.  

  Reference List

Onyebadi, U. (2018) Political Messages in African Music: Assessing Fela

Anikulapo-Kuti, Lucky Dube and Alpha Blondy. Available at:

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/7/4/129/htm# (Accessed: 5th May 2021)

 “Local Libraries: Global Awareness: A Librarian's Guide to Global Programming for a Sustainable Future.” American Libraries, vol. 29, no. 6, 1998, pp. 1–16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25635019. Accessed 7 May 2021.

 BBC (2016) Lucky Dube Respect Review: Album. Released 2007. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/pjqv/  (Accessrd: 8th May 2021)

 Links to the cut away use in the video

 StreamOVG (2019) This is Nigeria EP 1 - The Perpetual Cycle of Poverty: Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sWqZTgsRnI (Accessed: 6th April 2021)

 BBC NEWS (2014) Rare video shows Boko Haram attack - BBC News: Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiaFQB6t5tE (Accessed: 11th April 2021)

 BBC NWES (2018) Anatomy of a Killing - BBC News: Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9S-eoLgX4 (Accessed: 11th April 2021)

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Another photo of my studio session at Croydon in progress. Reggae Music kept me alive in the studio. 

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A photo of me taken during my studio session and infusing live recorded sash and bass guitar into my reggae piece. After using Cubase music engineering software to record my song at my home in Mitcham South London, I had to send my work to a music studio at Croydon for a bass guitarist and a sash instrumentalist to infuse live rhythm of both instruments into my song since I did not know how to play them.

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Taylor (2007, Pp. 232) "Even more important is the way that visual culture forms such as music videos become catalysts for understanding the social and political implications of both the representation and interpretation of ideas and meaning, when studied in critically contextual ways".

Taylor, Pamela G. “Press Pause: Critically Contextualizing Music Video in Visual Culture and Art Education.” Studies in Art Education, vol. 48, no. 3, 2007, pp. 230–246. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25475827. Accessed 12 May 2021.  

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Exploring Music Video for my Final Art Exhibition

Having critically explored diverse perspectives including going live on Instagram with my song, and also uploading my reggae music on Audiomack for streaming and downloads in an attempt to get my music across to communicate my socio-political message to my audience and educate them to influence social change, it is now time for me to practically develop my enquiry into film making to produce a professional music video of my reggae song to further reach out the vast majority of my targeted audience.

 Music videos are a significant aspect of the artist's effort to connect with the people because the audience gets to identify who the artist is, how the singer looks in physical form and not only in vocals or sound. Music videos are symbolic perspectives of telling stories or narratives behind the sound or a song, they play a significant role in the artist representation and the message they communicate to the audience. According to Taylor (2007, Pp. 232) "Even more important is the way that visual culture forms such as music videos become catalysts for understanding the social and political implications of both the representation and interpretation of ideas and meaning, when studied in critically contextual ways". Hence, exploring music video in my practical research for my final art exhibition will increase the artist chance of representing and interpreting his works to the audience for a better understanding of the theme of the artwork "Peace in Nigeria" for education, considering the social and political approach of the reggae piece of a song.

  Taylor, Pamela G. “Press Pause: Critically Contextualizing Music Video in Visual Culture and Art Education.” Studies in Art Education, vol. 48, no. 3, 2007, pp. 230–246. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25475827. Accessed 12 May 2021.  

[wizlaartsgallery]

You can now also stream Peace In Nigeria on Audiomack. Audiomack is global music streaming platform that I decided to upload my music there for streaming after all attempts to get the song directly uploaded on Tumblr failed because the file is too large. You can follow the link and it will take you straight onto the platform.  

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Critical Art Practice Year 3 Journal: Week 18 – Session 18

Week 18 – Session 18

Curating and Exhibition:

  This Seminar section was used to support students in the development of our final art piece. A prerecorded lecture by Miranda Matthews was uploaded on the VLE for students to watch on curating as a practice before this online seminar, and during the seminar, students were asked to reflect on their own online curating practice. Further, we discussed how students can start thinking about curating our final exhibition shows. We reflected on and considered diverse ways to assemble our artworks to bring value and meaningful interpretation to our audience.

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Critical Art Practice Year 3 Journal: Week 17 - Session 17

Week 17 - Session 17

Individual tutorial Session with Esther Sayers on Teams

Week 17 was used for an individual tutorial with Esther Sayers on Teams. During this session which lasted for 15 minutes, I had the opportunity to discuss how my practical research work into exploring reggae music for social change was progressing and my preparation for the final exhibition show. Esther also suggested some new ideas for me to help improve on my work which I considered taking on board as I advance gradually into the final stage of my work.  

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Critical Art Practice Year 3 Journal: Week 16 - Session 16

Week 16 - Session 16

Exploring Criticality in Art Practice:

Session 16 was used in exploring critical arts methodologies in education. Critical art assessment is a way of analysing and evaluating our artwork through critical art discourse analysis. The meeting for this session was done online and Miranda Matthews was our seminar tutor on the day. We discussed how artists can take constructive criticisms and relate them to their work. This module explores how the artist can make their work better based on how others view their work. Criticality in the art and learning in education means to reflect on the views of the critics of the artist work as a functional process of making the art, and how the artist can become critical in thinking in the context of producing their art?

 The social and cultural context of art can illuminate the prevailing factors upon which the art was produced. critical perception cannot be imposed. Thus from the very beginning, thematic investigation is expressed as an educational pursuit, as cultural action.’ (Freire 1970/1996, p. 92). We studied how to apply Criticality in our practice to make the art better. This module helped students to develop critical assessment into our practical research work.

 Relating this module to our previous session, I now understand why Esther Sayers was very critical concerning my work and some of the ideas I was working with. Esther suggested new ways such as organising a virtual concert on platforms such as Instagram which could help me get my music to a vast social media audience as my practical research methodology is aimed to use reggae music to effect social change. Initially, I found this very challenging to take into account comparing how I had originally planned on shooting a music video for my art. Reflecting on Esther's suggestion critically,  I realised that, adopting this new virtual concert idea in addition to my initial idea of shooting a music video could both work out to my advantage in getting my work out to reach my audience considering the current Covid-19 pandemic situation.

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Critical Art Practice Year 3 Journal: Week 15 – Session 15

Week 15 – Session 15

Interim exhibition

 In preparation for our final practical art exhibition, students had the opportunity to display our work so far that has been practically developed from our proposal. This exercise was done on Teams and Esther Sayers was our seminar tutor of the day. I had to present the piece of work I have produced from my proposal to demonstrate my ideas and after that, my colleagues will, in turn, ask me a question for me to explain how my practical artwork can be related to the ideas from my proposal or what makes it a physical representation of the ideas and theoretical framework in my proposal.

This session was to demonstrate the progressive development of our art proposals and to explain the process of transforming our art proposals into physical objects. Students took turns to display and talk about what we have produced so far on Tumblr, Wix, Instagram, etc. from our proposal. However, I could not produce the physical art piece of my work and ideas from my proposal on either Tumblr or any of the other platforms. My work was the composition of reggae music and the production of sound piece. At this particular point in time of my practical research project, I have been able to produce my reggae music from a music recording studio in town which belongs to a fellow artist and I was left with my music video production.

The entire project from the composition to recording the song cost me £140.00 to create as I had to rent the recording studio space for the three hours production period of my work. Additionally, had to hire a bass guitar player and a sash player to infuse a live sound of bass guitar and sash into my work as I did not know how to play neither of both instruments. Nonetheless, I couldn't complete the recording of my song to my creative expectation and abilities until I had those two sounds to complete my work. 

During the session on Teams, I tried to play the song I had produced from my computer and share the screen with my colleagues to see whilst still on a play but did not know how to do that so I had to play it from my phone instead as they listened on. After I had played my music for them to listen to, I had questions to answer and comments on my work from my tutor and colleagues. Esther Sayers also picked up on my strong political message in the song and suggested new ideas for me on how to bring my work to live audience. Overall, this session had a positive impact on my work moving forward because I learned new ways and ideas from the works of my colleagues and tutor to make my practical art research project better.

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Critical Art Practice Year 3 Journal: Week 13 & 14 - Session 13 & 14

Week 13 & 14 - Session 13 & 14

Developing our Proposals into Practical Work:

Both session 13 and 14 were a two week live to meet up the session to help students develop our work from the proposals. Intro to Session 13 with Esther 27 January saw students extensively developing our ideas from our proposals into a practical research art piece towards our final art installations for the exhibition. Using the material that we have gathered, we were tasked to demonstrate the practical research art and the ideas that we explored and discussed in our proposal. From week 13 to 14, we had two weeks to produce our practical art in response.

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Critical Art Practice Year 3 Journal: Week 12 - Session 12

Week 12 - Session 12

Poster Conference on Teams:

The week 12 session with Esther was used to look at our proposals on Tumblr, going through each other's blogs on Tumblr and watching video presentations from our proposals helped us in exploring new ideas in developing our practical research towards the preparation for our final exhibition work. Students took turns in looking at all blogs and watched films during the session and everyone had the opportunity to ask questions in the live 'chat' whilst the was on play. Before the session, students looked at each other's proposal works from their uploads link on the VLE, and at 10 am, we all met on Teams to discuss our proposals and asked questions. The feedback from the sessions was very educative and helpful to me in developing my proposal from moving forward because I benefited from some of the new ideas that were shared by my colleagues and tutors.

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Critical Art Practice Year 3 Journal: Week - Session 11

Week - Session 11

Presenting My Practical Research Proposal: 

I used Loom in presenting my proposal which allowed me to make a video recording of myself doing the presentation, and after my Loom video presentation which was originally supposed to be 5 minutes long but ended up to be 7 minutes due to the complexity of my proposal concerning other artists and theorists.  I uploaded my all work together with the link to my presentation video from Loom on my blogging page on Tumblr and shared the link from my Tumblr with my tutors and colleagues for grading, reflecting and discussion.

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Critical Art Practice Year 3 Journal: Week 10 - Session 10

Week 10 - Session 10 

Creating Proposals - Communicating and Developing:

Week 10 and 11 was used in creating our proposals and further developing our ideas towards our practical research. Session 10 tutorials were used to discuss the creation of text and images to go along with our proposal. We further extended our discussions into how to label and produce a bibliography to illustrate our work. Before this session took place, each student was tasked to make a 5-minute long presentation film of our proposals and upload them on the VLE for discussion during our online tutorials. This enabled us to explore our communication and problem-solving skills to support us in developing our final art piece for the exhibition. This task was fun as I enjoyed developing work on Tumblr.