WORKSHOPS AND TALKS
Paul Tarrago
4.3.19
Experimental Film - How and Why - Television
Monitor, 1974, Steve Partridge
Television being turned around, showing video of the same television being turned around at the same time, this is repeated so you can see about 4 televisions inside each other. Changes to moving at the same time to moving at completely different times. Feels surreal.
Documentary on Cash From Chaos/Unicorns & Rainbows, 1994-7, Alex Bag
Gave artists an opportunity to show on cable television in the public access area. Tried out drugs, messed around with the camera, made prank calls
CNN Concatenated, 2002, Omer Fast
Created new texts out of CNN broadcasts. Theme of death, how to avoid death. Uses clips of famous new stories such as 9/11.
Deodorant, William Wegman
Spraying whole can of deodorant on his armpit while talking about how much he loves the deodorant he's using.
Schweppes Ad, 1995, George Barber
Germs, 2013, Rachel MacLean
Channel 4 commission. Making fun of TV adverts. E.g. Beauty products, perfume, cleaning, yoghurt. Ongoing theme of masks, trying to cover something up.
TV Interruptions, 1971, David Hall
At same time as Edinburgh festival. Screen filling up with water from tap. Makes television look like it is filling up.
TV Shoot Out, David Hall
Court TV Unknown,
Consumerism,
Portable film cameras completely changed the documentary scene. Became more open to people. Look at Ant Farm.
Nam June Paik
Used video and technology. Made sculptures out of things such as radios.
Virile Games, 1988, Jan Svankmajer
Mix between film and animation. Surreal. Stop motion. Cutting faces made of clay, disturbing but funny. Fantasy ways to die e.g. Toy train going through mouth and breaking through the back of his head or cutting up face using cookie cutters. Made to look like some sick kind of football game being watched on television, like it is something completely normal to watch.
Research Workshop
5.3.19
Hito Steyerl
Being an artist an being a human being gives you a way to step outside and get different views about a certain topic, you don't have to be an expert.
Book: How to Write About Contemporary Art: Gilda Williams (2014)
academicsupportonline.arts.ac.uk
The Stuart Hall Library
The Women's Art Library
Wellcome Library
theedit.site
Westminster Reference Library
National Art Library V&A
LUX
Video Data Bank
Ubu Web
BOB
Finding a Topic
Describe three activities that you do that you would call research
Going to museums and exhibitions, researching artists and artwork online, learning how to use materials in different ways and experimenting with using materials
What is historical research - within the contexts of your practice
How art has changed and different art movements such as Dada
What is material research - within the context of your practice
Experimenting with different materials and seeing what outcomes you can get from different materials/what works best for you. How different materials can change the meaning of your artwork. For example, only using your hands or your body to create artwork may make it more personal or reflect that you are interested in the human body.
What is contemporary research - within the context of your practice
Things that are going on at the moment within the art world such as disagreements or controversy. I am interested in artists working with different organisations that may be funded in unethical ways and if artists are in the wrong for doing that.
Review what you know already
What is the field of your research? Is there a theme that is already running through your work that could become the subject for further investigation?
Identify artists, writers, researchers, theorists
Who is in the field already? Where did these ideas originate and who is talking about them/making work on this subject right now?
Finding your question
What do you want or need to ask about?
Before you start writing, you may want to make a mind map, think of keywords and do a literature review.
The literature review refers to gathering your sources and getting to know the material.
Primary Sources
Artwork, film, music, literary texts
Unedited, first hand access to words, images, or objects created by persons directly involved in an activity or event speaking directly for a group
Before something has been analysed, interpreted, commented upon, spun
Secondary Sources
Commentary upon, analysis of, artworks, exhibitions, ideas or primary sources
Bibliography
Books
Journals
Magazines
Panel discussions
Your subject can be explore through a variety of voices and texts
Using The Library For Your Research
5.3.19
Start off with short guides to the subject you want to look at and go from there
Find e-journals on libsearch.arts.ac.uk
Using databases 'database a-z lists'
Special collections across UAL e.g. LCC Zine Collection
Sconul access, resources of other college and university libraries for reference, www.sconul.ac.uk
Keep detail records of all your research, even page numbers
Can book 1-1 session at library
Art Full Text - found on database
Bob - television
Kanopy - films
Group Tutorial
7.3.19
Greek sculptures
Something between lots of things
Unstable, look like they should wobble
Also look classical, like sculptures that are in stately homes
Gender fluid, sexless
Alien
Ghost
Some have more of a body than others
Historical
Political - white male dominance
Are they on a plinth or is that the body
Are they speaking to us?
Look like they are facing other ways depending on perception
Not readable, not a natural posture, frozen in a movement or uncomfortable
Wrinkles and veins, straining?
Look more man when they are placed in a line rather than placed away from each other
Mark Quin - sculptures portraying people with disabilities
Looks like they could exist with historical pieces
Comment on history, who gets historicised and who doesn't
Whiteness
History of the bust
Rebecca Warren
Contemporary sculptors
Graffiti on busts as a political statement
Surreal but real at the same time
Anonymous
Loneliness or lost
They look wrapped up, like a body bag or a mummy. In Islam your wrap bodies in a white sheet, so no coffin, so you can see the silhouette of the body
They are all individual, they need to be powerful on their own
You can see muscle and the backs of necks
Think about the context, the way they are placed completely changes what they mean e.g away from each other or crowded and huddling
Don't double up, don't need to say things twice
Soil or fire?
What's the most obvious and what isn't obvious?
Think about shadows
Terracotta Army
Could just project something simple such as water, something understated
Mona Hartoum endoscopy piece
The Wellcome Collection
Rachael Kneebone
Bea Haut
8.3.19
Film Workshop
Sound is 28 frames before the image
Jeff Pope
Han Jung Lee
Scratching the film
Draw on the film
Can scratch or draw on the film while it is playing
The dull side has the emulsion on it
The Magic Of Animation With Andy Symanowski
1.5.19
Influenced by Phil Tippett
Training course at Aardman for 6 months
Morph was the first character that training animators would have to animate as he was made completely of plaster so was hard to work with
Digital film has made it easier to film animation, especially post-production
Film: Adam 1986/7
Creature Comforts
The bodies hardly move, it's mostly facial expressions and hand gestures
80% of your movement is in your eyes/eye area
Create the script
Create story board
Create animatic
Have to be careful with post-production budget
Technical drawings are important so multiple models can be mate
Pirates
Had to make a ship
The ship was put onto a computer controlled rig so it was always bobbing as if it was on water
Characters have an armature skeleton
Series of mouths in different positions
Unit 7
1 to 1 Tutorial
2.5.19
Museology
Exhibition Lucy Steeds Whitechapel Gallery
Exploring the museum
Joseph Beuys
Terence Koh
Link sculptures to the environment
Kew Gardens seed bank
Drawers
Ideas for third year:
Richard Serra
Artists working with metals
Absorbing
Paul Tarrago
Experimental Film - How and Why - Super 8 Film
8.5.19
Super 8 was invented in 1965 as a replacement for Standard 8
Super 8 has one sprocket hole per frame
Super 8 has a kind of jiggle in the image, the image is less stable
Films shown in this lecture are super 8 shown digitally, there are no film prints of them, does this take something away from the film?
For some makers it is important to show the actual film
Super 8 has an amateur feel as it was so cheap and easy to use
Andrew Kotting - Gallivant
Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley - Seven Days Til Sunday - 1998
Black and white
People falling down stairwells
Industrial feel
People falling from tall building in slow motion
Exaggerated sound of bodies hitting the floor
Scarecrows blown up in corn field
Electric guitar soundtrack
Bodies being thrown from bridge into water and then float down river
Bodies floating around underwater - strangely calming
Pans across waterfront of New York - suggests living in the city causes suicide?
Film has a more of 'this happened' about it because it is an old format
Grain moving around
Andrew Kotting - h.b. 1829
Colour
Uses camera filming at different speeds such as 6 frames per second which speeds up the image
Showed films in person and sang along, becomes more of a performance and becomes more intimate
Uses different sounds from records, films, got his friends to speak
Film is a material so sometimes you see scratches on the film or dust etc
Duncan Reekie - Stickleback
Was originally a film that went wrong
Scratched on film so it kind of became animation interacting with the people in the film
Coloured in the film
Used bleach
People having fun on the beach
Derek Jarman
Would film at a slower speed but also project at a slower speed so the film is very jumpy e.g. Gerald's Film
Superimposed film
No post production
When there is no editing it can be a constraint
Means that each shot is choreographed in some way
You have to react to something there and now
You have to be in the moment
With video we are more careless because we can edit and cut things later
Helga Fanderl
Tours with her films
Doesn't plan the film but organises the way and order in which the films are shown so creates a sort of narrative using the short films she has which changes the meaning
No sound
Looks for expressiveness of images
Creates 'music for the eyes'
Each projection becomes a kind of performance
Polar Bear - polar bear swimming around, looks like it's having fun
Like home movies done by an artist
Girls - girls in bright dresses playing a came involving running to trees
One girl is made to sit on a bench, presumably for being naughty
Falling water - water falling from a fountain, peaceful
Decasia - made using old and detached film
Jennet Thomas - Maldoror
Jennet's approach was animation
Hand made feel
Paul Tarrago - Magic Explained
Stop motion animation
Unit 7
Group tutorial
17.5.2019
Like a shop
Something sinister
Needs to be bigger
Feel like they are alive, not objects
Unique in their own way
Reminds of society, some are up high and some are at the bottom
Pyramid of society
Something too neat about it
Like an elevator but stuck
People have to
Colonialism and busts of famous rich people
Need to lose the cuteness of it
Too organised - firstly didn't think of social classes - just a display of figures
About being on display rather than saying something
Numbers important - makes it cruel that these people have numbers
Cage is quite harsh - hasn't been made especially for this piece
Too polite
Archaeology
They are not joined for a reason
Don't look fragile, would have broken if they were ceramic
Material makes you want to hold them and touch them
What happens when he sculpture is taken apart?
Inventory
Archival
What happens when they fall down into a pile?
Reminds me of war
Look like bones
Rubble
The fall is greater from the top - the harder you fall
When you have nothing you have nothing to lose
Gigi Scaria
Film about moving through different houses in an Indian city
Louise Bourgeois
Cells
The human body being encased and unable to get out