Week 22

This week was painful there is no simpler way to put it. Frankly the entire week felt very disorganised, with two large collaboration projects taking place within the one week. Not to mention one which in my opinion at least required two weeks to become evenly slightly beneficial. Starting with the interchange project which I thought really should have been an ongoing project with several of these cross-course workshops each week for four weeks. However I understand with budgetary restrictions and other year groups demands, this could not be achieved but even so The workshops I chose to re immerse myself in a digital medium which, I have not touched for several years now, was a complete waste of time; the first being an introduction to zbrush, which I am very familiar with and really enjoy yet I need to refresh myself on the software. The workshop was meant to be and I quote "hands on" implying we get to use the software and therefore would be useful. NO, when I got there me and a friend realised this was a 2hr 30 min speech on zbrush not a "hands on experience" after we spoke to the workshop leader he explained that it was a talk but if we wanted inductions on zbrush we could go through the usual channels we would have used if we didn't have interchange anyway, So we decided to leave. The next day was the Photoshop workshop how to get really good edges, which I had hoped would have been an advanced look at Photoshop, except it realistically was a reaffirming look at what I had learnt in sixth form. So over all the interchange project has been a total disappointment and frankly a rather stressful experience as now I feel I have lost valuable time which I would have dearly liked to use working on my own studio work or research for my 1000 research report proposal.

Secondly this week we had to conduct a cross course collaboration with Games art (firstly I don't understand why we were paired with Games, the only really interesting merger of fine art and games I can think of is the trailer for death stranding yet that is a collaboration which has taken years not a week to develop.) We were asked to develop a short video(5s to 1min) in a group of 5, within 1 week except with interchange and the lack of uni resources on the weekend this was really four days.

For our video we were assigned the topic "CUBE". we started the project by creating a group chat on Facebook and a Trello account so as to all be able to share and document our progress throughout the project. My Fine art pier was unable to attend most of the week understandably because of a family death, however despite this she was very eager to try and contribute as much as possible, therefore we assigned her the tasks of storyboarding and Research. On our first group meeting only three of us turned up myself one of the Games artists Will and Arianne my fellow fine artist, the others gave no reason for their absence one of who did not show throughout the entirety of the project which slowed the development even more. Nonetheless I must say Will's contribution to the project was astounding It was great to work with someone who for the little time I've known him was an all round decent guy and good worker.

The three of us settled on the concept that the Cube is an unnatural man made object which related to buildings and other man made structures. We decided to try and incorporate each others wishes therefore with my sculptural practice and changing form themes, Wills digital painted mediums and Landscape paintings and Arianne's nature reclaimed building themes we came up with quite a nice concept. We decided to make a plaster cube which would be chiselled down and photo stage by stage for stop motion. The new form we were looking to create was a natural mountain ridge sort of form. This would then be added to a time lapse video of a landscape growing around the mountain in a digital painting this would then be reversed and return to the start. I was assigned the tasks of creating the cube, creating the rig on which the cube would sit, sculpting the cube and photographing the process for stop motion, furthermore I was given the tasks of creating preliminary sketches and additional research to support Arianne's. Will's Tasks consisted of helping me take the photos, creating the digital painting and editing. Owen and Campbell we asked to help edit and render the video, also to assist Will in any way to create the digital landscape.

 Overall the project turned out well the video was 11 seconds long yet was satisfactory considering the time and complications we had. Unfortunately due to the Blitz speed of the project we all had to focus on our own specialities therefore were unable to learn from one another which I felt was the whole point of the project. Therefore this became a one week project to make an unnecessary video when I really wanted to be focusing on a new collaboration I have been planning to work on with Paul Bryan based on the work of Oliver de Sagazan. Here is the link to the projects joint documentation page on Trello: https://trello.com/b/jbY98JpF/fa-and-gad-collaboration-project

Furthermore below is the finished video we created...

Outside of the collaboration and Interchange projects I have not been able to really progress in my own practice this week, despite sketchbook work and preliminary discussion with Paul about the new collaboration. I wanted to create a video piece inspired by Sagazan's work which both me and Paul are fascinated by; my aim was to create a piece which showed the shifting form of a humanoid figure using clay and stop motion, based on my thematic focus around the grotesque qualities of the human condition. II wanted to work with Paul as I really like his video work therefore we have a similar interest in Sagazans work, I have the sculpting skills needed to work the clay and Paul has the filmography skills required to make the work. I have also secured a model for this project I simply need to inform her When and where I will need her, The model being my friend on the Fine art course Beth Bartlett, therefore Beth can now also be considered a collaborator. I met her at the Playhouse bar on the Tuesday all I needed was to mention the collaboration and Sagazan and she was in; it Would seem Sagazan has become something of a celebrity within the year group.

I met Paul at the Golden star pub on Duke street on the Thursday with Beth, to discuss the project. I had been making sketches and drawings in my sketchbooks to inspire the forms we created, however we decided the best thing to do would be to cover Beth in Clay then working very dynamically and energetically we would change the forms rapidly allowing the material to dictate how the work progresses not worrying to much about what we are creating (so much for my sketches:)!). Paul then mentioned that he has asked his manager and boss at the Birdcage bar if we could use the stage room with perfect lighting and space for this project, so now we have a venue and a model we just needed to decide on a time. Furthermore Paul expressed an interest in painting Beth before hand in a very vibrant red or dark black to emphasise the clay and her form to greater effect.