Specialist reveiw

Tracy Emin My bed

My bed engages the viewer with an embarrassing scene; a cluttered mattress on top of which are stained rumpled sheets, pillows, tights and a towel. Alongside is a collection of items such as vodka bottles, slippers, cigarette packs, a white fluffy toy, worn underwear, condoms and contraceptives. By sharing her personal space and displaying such personal items, for instance the self portrait photographs, enables Emin to establish an intimacy with the viewer and reveals that she is as imperfect as the rest of us.


The piece is a bed of confessions and full of a woman's tortured and raging emotions. It is a memory to her and an insight to every one else involved in her early life. Emin is a confessional 'bad girl' and My bed is an expression of her promiscuous personality. It is a shocking representation of female sexual desire and a new attribute of feminism. Many people viewed Emin's controversial art work as dirt and disgust and left people astonished when Emin was shortlisted for the Turner prize in 1999. It will undoubtedly be hard for any other feminist art to compete.

Using Bridge

After a tutorial on using Bridge, I found that using Bridge to browse photographs can be very useful. The program is a very quick visual organiser. The good thing is that the program does not use up a large amount of RAM . Browsing images is the main purpose of Bridge and users can flick through image images quickly and easily. The good element of the program is that it also allows you to view many adobe file types including, PSD, AI, INDD, ODF and EPS and the program shows a coloured thumbnail preview.

RWA

The Royal West of England Academy is Bristols first art and design museum. The artists programme does not just focus on well known artist names but also new and established artists from Bristol. The Royal West of England Academy is one of only five self supporting Royal Academies of Art in the UK.

The RWA publishes its own magazine quarterly called Art. Most galleries have a gift shop similar to the one at the RWA, the gift shop offers merchandise that mirrors the exhibitions. However the museum also offers the own Art scheme, making it easy and affordable to buy works of art from £100-2000. The cost is spread over ten monthly payments and is interest free. Another area that particularly interested me about the museum was the Mary Feddern Limited edition prints. The prints feature some of the artists favourite motifs,and have been created using a digital process and are reproduced using guaranteed light-fast pigmented inks onto cotton fibre papers. This was of interest because it relates to my specialist pathway graphic design and is an example of how work can be created for the purpose of an art print. 

press release

ABC launch new Type Bike range


Over the last few years ABC have been renowned for producing popular bike accessories which have proved to be such a success, it has developed into type bike co. A new range of work has been released by Matt Hughes designer for ABC (A bunch of creatives). The range is called Type bike and is part of the new brand range that specialises in merchandise for BMX riders. The range has been designed around the fashion of young minded riders. ABC are the first company to create a full line of custom BMX clothing and accessories. Type Bike hit the UK fifty fifty stores today with a limited time only 50% off which had the stores swamped. Among the items in the new range of clothing from Type Bike are a number of printed t-shirts, featuring logo designs, hoodies and zip ups and a full range of Biking accessories. The range has a new look, still remaining relevant to a fast paced British lifestyle with brushed cotton hoodies and a comfortable range of easy to wear coloured tees

M-SHED

The M-shed is a museum of Bristol's history. It is located on Bristols Harbour side, the museum opened in June 2011, with exhibits exploring life and work in the city The museum allows visitors to see film and photographs, listen to personal stories and encounter rare objects from the History of Bristol, the museum gives you the opportunity to add your own memories of the city through interative displays.

Whilst visiting the M-shed I learnt about Bristol in the second world war and how the city prepared for it, this was in the Bristol Places part of the museum. There is also Bristol people gallery on the first flooer which explores the people of Bristol such as the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The Bristol Life area is also on the ground floor which focuses on peoples experiences in the City and teaches more about the lives of people in Bristol and how they have come to live there. The M-shed also holds exhibitions, a recent one being Martin Parr's photography exhibition which closed 27th November 2011.The exhibition center is located on the top floor of the museum. Martin Parrs most recent was the largest exhibition of his photographs, held in the city since his Home Sweet Home exhibition at the Arnolfini in 1974. 

My favourite attraction at the museum was Nick Park's animated duo of Wallace and Gromit. He was nominated for an Academy Award six times, and won four, one of which was for Wallace and Gromit. The reason Wallace and Gromit are associated with Bristol is because the company that produced the film (Aardman), studios are located in Bristol.

Moving image

Thursday 20th October

Today we explored moving image and where it all began. Moving image developed from photography and is an illusion of movement, it began as a novelty and has gradually developed over the past 100 years to one of the most important elements of communication and entertainment. One of the first films to be captured was by the Lumiere brothers capturing a short film of a train pulling into the station in France at La Ciot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlb3XKjnZkE) When people first saw this video they were frightned that the train was coming towards them and ran away because they were so unfamiliar of moving image. For the first 30 years of film it was not possible to capture sound aswell as the moving image so instead non diagetic sound was seperatley recorded to assist the film. different sounds were used to illustrate what was happening in the different scenes.
Humerous phases of funny faces is is a silent cartoon by J. Stuart Blackton in 1906 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dRe85cNXwg). Blackton used early stop-motion techniques to make a series of blackboard drawings appear to move and reshape themselves. The film is 20 frames per second and is regarded as the first animated film. 

Final cut pro is one of the various software facilities that allows you to edit and create your own video clips. After experimenting with some video clips to create my own, it is fascinating how much the program allows you to edit and create.
[screen shot]
technology has developed so much over the last 100 years that things that were seen as impossible then has been developed for everyone to use.

Today moving image is not discussed it is just accepted where it has become such a big part of everyday life yet it is continuously developing for example video mapping is a new form of moving image. It is a projection technique that that can turn almost any surface into a dynamic video display. Specialized software is used to warp and mask the projected image to make it fit perfectly on irregularly shaped screens. It has recentley become a very popular advertising technique an example of this is a Ralph Lauren's projection in Bond street and in New York last year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7ryMzZQICA&feature=related) at one point in the advert the building is turned into a 4D catwalk.

Photograms

Thursday 29^th October -

Firstly we listened to a song from the 60’s called ‘ill be your mirror’ by Velvet underground.  Whilst listening to the song we had to write down images and words that came into our heads. The reason for this was to help with a potential design for an album cover. What i got from the song lyrics was that a woman was trying to help someone she knew see that they have good in them for example the singer uses the words ‘ il be your mirror’ which sugessts she wants to show them what they cant see about themselves.  

Using a box of scraps and acetate I created a collage/image that I would then use to create my photogram. I chose various materials for my photogram including a flower which I cut petals from and scattered across the acetate. The reason I chose a flower was to symbolize the good of the person and to contrast with this I used chicken wire which is sharp and jagged to symbolize the use of the words ‘twisted  and unkind’. I also used a freyed ribbon to create the shape of a heart which symbolizes the love she may have for the person she is singing to. The use of beads was to wind through the chicken wire and to pull the overall image together.

To create the final outcome of the photogram the image had to be developed in the dark room, so once I had created a test peice I set the filter to 3 and the timer to 12 seconds. Then I opened the lens to the widest and brightest aperture and set the height of enlarger so that light went beyond the masking frame. I then placed a peice of photographic paper underneath the frame and then placed the acetate image over the top. Once I had positioned the photographic paper and acetate in the correct position I then turned the timer on for 12 seconds only. I then placed the exposed image in the developer for 2 minutes, the stop for 1 minute and the fix for 4 minutes. Finally I placed it in the water bath.

I was pleased with the overall outcome of the photogram however where I had used such a dark peice of card in the image it exposed to create a harsh white shape as opposed to the use of the flower which created a softer image. I then created another print the same way but without the rectangular shape, which created a more successful image.

library visit

We visited the Bower Ashton campus to explore the Library which specialises in Art and Design, Culture, Media and Drama. The library offers a wide range of resorces which will come in useful to us when we  do research and when we need to use resorces such as books, journals and printers.  The library also offers:

• 1000s of books - including e-books
• A wide range of databases to search for articles on your subject
• 10,000+ journals - online and in print
• Audiovisual items including DVDs
• A range of study spaces - silent, quiet, group
• Internet access and Wifi
• Online help with referencing and other information skills
• Printing and photocopying facilities
• Alternative formats service

Library Services Values: A desire to deliver the best service possible to all our users A dedication to teamwork and collaborative working to achieve our aims A commitment to continuous learning to realise our potential in everything we do A work culture that is based on mutual respect, inclusiveness, trust and openness The effective use of communication to enable and recognise achievement and to encourage individual, team and library development An understanding of the changing environment and the confidence that we can make a positive difference.

University Aim: “To raise aspirations and widen participation in higher education.”

I found the visit to the library very useful as I now know what is available for me to use and that there is a wide range of resources that will be helpful and an later be an important part of my study. 

Visually communicating

Visual communication as the name suggests is communication through visual aid and is described as the conveyance of ideas and information in forms that can be read or looked upon. Visual communication in part or whole relies on vision, and is primarily presented or expressed with two dimensional images, it includes: signs, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, colour and electronic resources. It also explores the idea that a visual message accompanying text has a greater power to inform, educate, or persuade a person or audience.

In this workshop we were focusing on how to visually communicate using images and symbol. We started by illustrating a visual journey of how we got to Filton collge that day using only pictures and symbols.  Below is an image of my visual journey. I decided to start drawing from the bottom of the page because on my journey to collage we drive up the Gloucester road which is up hill.

We then got given separate instruction tasks in groups that we had to draw. We were given the task of drawing how to brush your teeth.

digital workshop presentations

The focus of this workshop was power point presentations. The software is run by Microsoft and available on windows and apple mac. The commercial presentation program consists of a number of individual pages or "slides". Slides may contain text, graphics, sound, movies, and other objects, which may be arranged by the user. Powerpoint presentations allow us to project ideas in a simple and easy way. The program is often used in business and classrooms and come of use for training purposes.


Projections onto a screen have been around since 1600's. In the mid-1980s developments in the world of computers changed the way presentations were created.


A Powerpoint can be images in a sequence on a wall or it can be on a PC in an exhibition. Dougg Fishbone is an example of how presentation can be used as art. Below is an example of Fishbone using powerpoint to illustrate a talk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nub5EKhL-oQ. Dougg Fushbone also focuses massivley on the presentation of his work.


Using presentations on a Mac can be done using Microsoft power point or by using Apples very own power point presentation program, called Keynote. Which allows slide layouts to have a variety of templates.