Monday 28th February

With still no reply to my e-mails from Jess Green (a member of the student union), further plans have not been able to take place in our group as we have a number of questions and ideas which need to be discussed with Jess herself in order to get a better understanding of what we are working with; we have also been wanting to visit the space again as a group to set spaces and become more aware. And so after a lecture this morning, a few of us from the group visited Peter Appleton at his office and explained our concerns and a phonecall was made to the Union. Jess was in a meeting at this point and so we are waiting on a phonecall back in order to arrange a meeting. I myself am getting worried with the whole process now as the dates are getting nearer, but Peter said not to as everything is sorted. We just basically need to get our decisions together and get on with it. In the mean time, I am going to put together designs for leaflets and posters for the advertisment of our group exhibition which will be mass produced when finalised; ensuring that as many people as possible will see the event and hopfully be interested enough to visit the venue. It was also mentioned that the Student Union have a radio station and so further advertisments for the exhibition could be anounced on air...alongside our own facebook invites and individual invites to friends and family.

Paulette Brien

I found the lecture this morning 'On the Outside', lead by the director of the 'International 3' gallery which is based in Manchester really interesting, and definitely helpful; especially around this time with us planning our own exhibitions. I was inspired by Paulette Brien's passion and knowledge of art and the professional industry she works in; most definitely giving me a better insight and understanding of the role of the curator and the research and planning behind a major exhibition held in a venue, such as the 'International 3'.

She talked about the process the gallery takes on how they come about selecting artists; listening to the individuals desires alongside the work itself, making sure the certain works reflect strongly with the venue and theme throughout the organisation, and showed us a number of the different past and present art works exhibited in the gallery; it was interesting to see how the work varied and was presented in the space and the structure of the shows. It was pleasing to hear that they too approach artists to exhibit in the 'International 3'; visiting art fairs and studios to find new and old artists who are trying to get their work out there, who are motivated by the limited opportunities in the competitive art market.  

She certainly got me thinking about my own work and desires after graduating from university, and how I may approach galleries in the future. Also making me realise that I need to learn how to talk about my work more in depth and the reasoning's behind why and how I came about doing it; making it clear to the curators who need to know the information in order to discuss the work further. I suppose I simply need to become more confident in myself and my own practice, questioning my own concept. Like Paulette herself said "In order to develop as an artist, continue your practice, keep developing and keep asking yourself why". This final straight to the point statement gave me a more positive frame of mind towards the end of the talk.
To end the session we spoke in groups about our works and plans for our upcoming exhibitions and what we hope to achieve from them. It was interesting to hear her response to our ideas; especially the positive feedback as she is the role we as students are eager to impress.

I left the lecture thinking a lot about the different art fairs Paulette spoke about which I will definitely be researching into for future visits as they sound really inspiring although I don't understand how I haven't come across them previously. I would like to get thinking more so into getting my work out there and seen, working with more people with similar interests. My upcoming exhibition is definitely a motivating start.

http://www.international3.com/artist.php?A=8

Monday 21st February

Today we had another group meeting with the addition of two more students who have joined our Student Union group and so there is now eleven artists showing in the exhibition. Both of their works link strongly with our theme of 'self reflection'; keeping a flowing connection between all of our ideas. This deffinately works for the better as more pieces shown in the exhibition will make it a little more interesting as a whole. We briefly discussed what everyone wants from the spaces and what exactly we were planning on doing for the show; getting more involved and sharing ideas with each others works. We also discussed possible titles for the exhibition, advertisment ideas and how we would go about putting these together.

After the discussion, I e-mailed Jess Green (a member of the Student Union) suggesting a meeting with the group to have another look around the building so that we are all more aware of the spaces we are working with and to also share recent plans and ideas; getting as much information together as possible at this point. Hopefully the meeting will take place this week so we can start getting everything together ready for the show in April.

The Student Union

A few problems have come about recently with the Student Union and our upcoming exhibition because of available dates. On first deciding on using the Student Union, the 24th-26th of March was said to be the ideal date for us to hold the exhibition, which was agreed upon by a member of the Union. Although we recieved an e-mail this morning stating that these dates were no longer possible due to meetings taking place in the rooms and basically said that the only dates available were the 4th April. This date is not an option for us as a few members of the group are on holiday, it also wouldn't be the ideal date as its the spring break and the majority of the students in the area will be going back home...etc, and so there would be fewer visitors for the exhibition. (To be honest I was a little dissapointed and angry at recieving this as they came to us very eager to work with the group, getting our hopes up and so we dropped all our other plans and stopped looking at other venues as it seemed set.)

However, I visited Peter this morning before my assessment and we contacted Jess Green (a member of the SU) explaining our concerns as a group and the problem with the dates. She took note of this and moved a few things about for us and so now the venue is available for us from the 21st April- 28th April (which is the date of our final assessment), which is leaving it a liitle late but there is no other alternative. It is also Easter weekend on the saturday to the monday and so the building will be closed, and so we will all set up our works in the spaces on the 21st and 22nd, and have a two day, two night exhibition from the 26th-27th April. Giving us one day before the final hand in of our work and docmentation.

Assessment Point One (Practice and Publication)

First of all I want to start by saying that I took some great pictures of the finished piece for the assessment, purposely for this post but because I am such an 'idiot' I accidental deleted them whilst arranging the order and so all that can be shown for now is just the act of me setting the strips up as I have now taken the work down *sigh*.

However I feel that the assessment overall went well; I basically explained how I am going to set the work up in the room for the exhibition, (obviously to a much larger scale than shown today taking up the whole space of the room) along with the sound piece and other factors. In the exhibition, the room will have no main light on like it did today but will have separate spot lights around the floor of the room; in my opinion creating a stronger illusion focusing more so on the pathway leading the viewer through the piece, whilst keeping the room quite dark. Also, today I simply played the sound piece from my laptop but for the exhibition I will have transferred this media onto a small mp3 player with three speakers hidden in each corner of the space as I don't want any of this seen by the viewer, or by myself! It wouldn't look particularly great. I also mentioned a recent idea of incorporating the ticking sound of a clock, either incorporated into the sound piece or standing separate on its own but still hidden. This came to mind as time has a majour part of my eating pattern, making me feel anxious at times. I feel embarrassed writing this as its stupid but it's out of my control. the mind is a powerful thing, over ruling the body; being the main focus point of this project.

At the minute I am feeling very confident about my work and the exhibition as I received some great feedback from both Miguel and Peter, especially from the incorporation of my sound piece, which was said to work perfectly together with the set up of the visual; because of the link between the words, order and the repetitive process whilst also creating a strong contrast between the delicate paper strips and the more obvious effects from the sound.

Tuesday 15th February

As my assessment is tomorrow, today I set up a selection of the strips in the studio ready for the morning; giving an insight into how my work will be presented in the exhibition space. Although this took much longer than I had expected and so didn't end up leaving the building untill 9.30, without finishing the presentation of the strips however it gave an idea as to how it will look.

Friday 11th February

Again we met up as a group with Peter to discuss the progress of our plans and Individual works. The Student Union is still our first option at the minute and plans and ideas for the space are looking good although we are still waiting on an agreement to the dates we suggested on holding the three day exhibition.

My work itself is still progressing, I am continuing with the process of the cutting of my text strips, keeping them in large plastic bags untill the set up of my work will be taking place. I also recently decided on incorporating the black and white grids of photography of myself from previous development to cut into individual strips alongside the others. And so today I printed off 300 copies of these to begin cutting, although I will be using much more as the room is a little bigger than I originally thought.
My sound piece is also complete, although now I need to figure out how I am going to play the piece in the room without speakers or wires been to visible or the sound been to quiet. I will be transferring the media to some kind of hardrive or a disc but either way I will have to buy the suitable equipment. Ideally I would like some kind of surround sound so it's not coming from just one part of the room, using seperate speakers, Otherwise I would most probably use a small CD player or device; hiding it in the corner of the room.