W9 - Studio Update

This week we presented our idea to the class and then constructed the floor to ceiling enclosure from the same black plastic I used for the first installation and a lot of tape and staples. This includes covering the white side walls. We realised that an essential part of our installation is the lighting effects so we need to be able to test everything under the conditions they'll be displayed under.

We see people viewing the installation through a slot (which keeps the space as dark as possible, but also heightens that feeling of 'another world'). Nicole wanted to use a free standing perspex panel with a square slot in it that we found in the studio so we've put that under the 'front wall' and will cut a slot later.

Katie showed us her flour and water and shredded paper coral, which is below both unlit and lit by a fibre optic toy in the enclosure:



What I noted from this is that drying time is huge - Katie wasn't keen on my idea of drying in a low temperature oven and they are quite weighty forms even when this small - and this small they aren't the right scale for the enclosure. Clearly they will support glow sticks and fibre optic toys for lighting.

We were surprised to find that our experiments with highly watered down PVA glue and shredded paper in more loose seaweedy forms worked very well forming attractive rigid shapes. Katie will keep working on coral forms over the break.

Nicole had found some glow paint which we tried on the umbrella. Glow paint is transparent so it doesn't change the colour of the object, but - once expsed to 3-4 hours of strong light - with fluorese green in the dark. Nicole did a test paint on part of the unbrella but it didn't absorb sufficent energy to glow by the end of the studio. I think this idea will work briliantly, but it's clear she needs more paint, several coats and strong light. Nicole also put a first coat of white paint on the cane supports we found in the studio that we want as the cental long tentacles for the big jellyfish (clearly they need a few more). Katie thinks these cane tentacles will look fantastic if they are coated in glow paint too.

I brought in what is called peeled foam. It's a very thin sheet of foam used to protect the surfaces of large goods when they are packed. Katie was keen that I use this for tentacles on the jelly fish rather than newspaper. It has to be said that it has a lovely shine and tears into much longer softer strips which move in an undulating fashion.

Over the break I've used glass paint - red, blue and purple - to paint the parts for another 9 jellyfish. I'll finish construction in studio time.

I've also created a 1 minute 40 second sea scape soundtrack using an 8 second recording of a truck starting up (from autospeak.com) that I've sampled and manipulated in Audacity. I had been thinking about using souns that we made to represent our impression of the deep sea, but I decide dit was more in keeping with the threme to use an unnatural sound and convert it into something that gave the impression fo the sea

I've created a little film below (which also features our new enclosure) to showcase the soundtrack:

W 8 - Materials experiments

WHAT ARE WE MAKING
A glimpse of a marvellous underwater world: a natural setting constructed with unnatural materials.


SMALL JELLYFISH
I brought in the two Coke bottle jellyfish I’d made (recipes on blog).
We have materials to make about 10-15 more (inc some small ones).
They can be lit using small LED torches – we need to buy a few more.
We talked about colours (using the glass paint) but I don’t think we reached a conclusion.
They can be hung over the wooden rafters I already have and/or from the ceiling using self-adhesive hooks.
I’ve prepared the bottles by drilling the holes ready for construction en mass.


BIG JELLYFISH
I brought in my broken golf umbrella.
Katie took off the handle.
We thought this could be suspended from the ceiling at an angle so you can see some of the spokes underneath.
There are some red and black twisted canes (you use them in big flower arrangements) and we thought these could be taped to the umbrella as its longest tentacles (and then use the shredded paper for shorter tentacles).
I think the conclusion about lighting was probably to use LED torches along the spokes. But Katie wants to try out Christmas lights too.
But we’re not sure about painting the ‘silk’ – Katie will experiment. And she will bring some nail polish remover to see if she can scrub off the company logos on the white ‘silk’.


CORAL
There was a bit of PVA glue in the studio so we mixed that with water and some shredded paper. We tried two experiments: one were we mushed up the paper and squeezed it into a ‘coral-type form and another where the gluey paper was just hung (a bit like spaghetti) to dry.
Katie experiment with homemade clag (four and water heated into a paste) and shredded paper and let us know what works.
We didn’t come to any conclusions about sizes, amounts or shapes or how we’d make them stand up but I did bring in some chunky polystyrene packaging that we might be able to stick it into.
We also talked about lighting the coral with glow sticks and weren’t sure about hiding the sticks or not (if they can be seen that’s what people will look at)…but Katie did like the look of them stuck into the polystyrene blocks.


SOY FISH SCHOOL
Right at the last moment we’ve added an extra element. I had about 25 soy fish (from Sushi) which we thought we could use something like doweling or a coat hanger and fishing line, to make a school of fish and we would somehow illuminate them too.
We tried to drain the fluorescent fluid from a glow stick into a fish. It’s fiddly and there isn’t much volume so I added water. That seemed to work, but the glow faded fast (it looked really good for a few minutes). I also suggested luminous paint.
Katie will experiment with construction.

Have a look here for a LED soy fish lamp: http://www.tomfereday.com/

FLOOR
Katie played around with heaping the shredded paper on the floor as our ‘sea bed’. My only concern is I’m not sure how it’ll work with the coral – more try outs ahead!
NOTE: We can bulk up the paper by putting the furniture fibre (or even the polystyrene cladding) underneath.
Katie talked about spray painting it.


ENCLOSURE
There is plenty of black plastic at the studio and I have plenty of sticky stuff.
We’ll need to hand plastic from the ceiling at least down to the top of the walls and over the ceiling.
Katie had a look into the space through the window as I suggested, but it’s too low – no one would see our fabulous coral! So we’ll have to drape the front from the ceiling too and put in the ‘peep hole’ you suggested.


SOUND
We can quickly record some sounds and I can manipulate them using Audacity software to make a looping 1-2 minute soundtrack.
We’d talked about ‘underwater sounds’.
I already have portable battery-operated speakers and an MP3 player


MATERIALS STILL NEEDED
50 glow sticks ($5) - http://www.ilumn8.com.au/pd-50-x-8-inch-glow-sticks.cfm
20 LED torches (a pack of 4 is $2) - http://www.ilumn8.com.au/pd-finger-lights.cfm
We can order on-line.

A lot of clag!
Some buckets
Space to dry coral
Nail varnish remover.
Self-adhesive hooks (25)
Nicole you were going to bring in your glass paints.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES FOR WEEK 9
- hand in proposal and journal
- present installation idea to group
- look at Katie’s experiments
- prepare the enclosure?
- Record underwater sounds
- Any other suggestions?

W 7 - Group Installation Discussions...Materials

From http://www.designpublic.com/, David Stark Design and Production designed these vast, planetary, organic, sinuous shredded paper shapes for Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s 2007 Awards Dinner which made us collectively go 'ooo'.

Actually, so did this Umbrella Bloom (http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/01/umbrella-bloom.html)...the kind of art that at first glance induces intense pleasure and then questions about how was it done - with a cherry-picker on a windless day - I assume.

At some point we also went a bit ecological and I tried to show a clip from Japanese master animator Hiyako Miyazaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki). I wanted to show a clip of a forest scene which was so full of life - but not earthly - and almost underwater-like and got the wrong film!

I actually needed his 1984 classic Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausicaä_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film) with an excellent Korean trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wSba9hwCaU and this Disney version of the trailer has excellent shots from the forest scenes with the 'ball on stick' shots I meant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ms-ilMug8A.

The balls were an idea we kept coming back to and the idea of suspension. We ambled through planetary, forestry and seascapes adding the desire to activate other senses through light, projections (words, clouds, sea....), soundscapes (words or poetry spoken, under water noises) and smell (burnt paper for instance).

At the moment we seem to be resting upon the idea of jellyfish - shredded paper tentacles - floating in an in door aquarium. Nicole talked about the idea of viewing the aquarium (there's a panel with a slot in it in the studio) and I wondered if we could get people to view it from outside through the windows?

Excited by all this I went immediately to investigate materials - The Reject Shop and The Nearly $2 Shop are excellent places to find both art materials and materials ripe for 're-purposing'. I found pom-poms, ribbons, pipe-cleaners and fake hair that resembled tentacles. I virtually restrained myself as the original point was to reuse the rubbish rather than add extra things.

But I was also considering lighting. For instance, I might be able to source a theatre light and construct a mixed-colour gel for it. And, I was also thinking about what it would be like to stage this in a toilet - there's a particular one on St Albans Campus which wouldn't be too busy and has huge mirrors over two walls. Acoustics and reflections, the ability to have complete darkness - hmm. Meanwhile I found tiny coloured LED lights and glow sticks. The torches allow one to light individual objects and glow sticks would provide a gentle light, perhaps from the floor (scattered, fixed upright in a 'forest).

I also couldn't resist buying some 'glass paint' to test on a trial jellyfish recipe using PET bottles. The point of such paint is that it dries clear like stained glass. On using it I discovered it was nothing more than PVC glue mixed with acrylic paint...ripped off...but can I mix the colours?

finally, there are some good jellyfish shots here (at the start) as well as a shot of neon tube lighting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rx0lAhBpPo&NR=1).

W 7 - Recipe for Jellyfish

Ingredients

a 2L Coke bottle,
plastic fishing line,
a button,
some sort of furry and sticky industrial off-cut (I'm sure that sticky tape would be fine)
shredded paper
scissors
a hammer
a nail
something to hammer into
a tiny cololured LED torch

Instructions
1. Cut the bottle into thirds.
2. Hammer a hole into the lid and replace on top third of bottle.
3. Hammer a hole into the centre of the bottom third of the bottle.
4. Cut a length of fishing line.
5. Thread it through one hole in the button and pull it out the other so the line length is halved.
6. Thread line and button up through top third of bottle and through the hole in the lid.
7. Turn bottom third of bottle up-side-down and thread line up through the hole in the centre.
8. Cut 2 lengths of the furry sticky industrial offcut long enough to go around the bottle.
9. To one piece stick pieces of shreded paper (the tentacles) and when you reckon there's enough, stick the tape around the bottom-most edge (the top third of the bottle).
10. Stick the other piece of tape around the remaining edge (the inverted bottom third of the bottle).
11. Tie a know in the end of the fishing line.
12. Stick an LED torch on the fishing line aimed doen at the jellyfish and switch it on.
13. Hang it up and draw the curtains.

In this version I used glass paint to change the colour of the plastic and a white LED torch. I also used part of the centre third of the bottle to form a cylinder that fits into the inside of the construction. Provided its the longest part, sticking paper to this cylinder gives a second layer of much longer tentacles.

W 7 - Rubbish Theory

In the windows of Degraves Street Subway, Julie Shiels is creating patterns and creatures from plastic packaging: http://citytraces.julieshiels.com.au/?p=803

W6 - Groups begin

We ended the assessment class by assembling into our groups: hi to Nicole and Katie and we had the briefest of chats about what we might do. I mentioned my ideas about rubbish - particularly re-using what's there rather than carting away and these ideas about animals made of rubbish. Hopefully they'll check out this blog and that'll generate other ideas they're more interested in.

Nicole showed us work by Shadow Artists, which you can see at this blog: http://millzyville.com/blog/?p=190, who have used rubbish and recycled materials to project an image completely unlike its constituents. Clever. Difficult.

W6 - Mr Welcome in action

Today the class individual installations were assessed. These videos show students interacting with the work, one shows the reaction from outside and one from the inside:

And then it was time to start to remove the installation and I thought one last photo of Mr Welcome Undone was appropriate to show its construction.

Hopefully my new teammates will be able to incorporate some of these materials into a second group work! I thought I'd leave the plastics in place as it's easily to select what you want.

W6 - Australian Pastoral

Following on the idea of sculpting a group of animals from rubbish, there is a need for a reason to do so. The following are a selection of Australian pastoral paintings from the 19thC.

'Jeremiah Ware's stock on Minjah Station', 1856
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/TLF/972p9/
'View from Borodomanan Station homestead of sheep being herded across a river'
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/detail.jsp?ecatKey=107
Cattle. The last gleam of the setting sun, john Glover, 1816
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/detail.jsp?ecatKey=1485
Winter Sunlight, Frederick McCubbon, 1908
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/detail.jsp?ecatKey=1863
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/TLF/01889/
Dogging a Log, Tom Stretton, 1924
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/pub/itemDetail?artworkID=20007
'Evening, Templestowe', David Davies, 1897
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/pub/itemDetail?artworkID=47731
'Ford at Wollondilly', Conrad MARTENS , 1839,
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/pub/itemDetail?artworkID=59642

A couple of references:
Horn, Jeanette, 2007, 'Australian Pastoral: The Making of a White Landscape', Fremantle Press
Dixon, R. W. (2004).

Two Versions of Australian Pastoral: Les Murray and William Robinson. In Judith Ryan and Chris Wallace-Crabbe (Ed.), Imagining Australia: Literature and Culture in the New New World 1 ed. (pp. 285-304) Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Harvard University Committee on Australian Studies/Harvard UP.

These paintings tend to echo European romantic yearnings for a 'Golden Age' as populations become increasingly urbanised. Here they are important in the formation of European-Australian national identity - a population that identified with mastering the harsh Australian bush but which, in fact, grew up in urban centres.


So here is the idea of a double identity the constructed bushman versus the actual townie and the reality of rubbish from manufacture versus a desire for naturalness (usually mediated via popular culture, advertsing, tourism etc).

Here's a sheep constructed from telephone cords by Jean-Luc Cornec:


The imported sheep, especially, is used as a historical symbol for Australia's growth and prosperity. Rubbish is also evidence of our propserity; our increased leisure time, our convenience food, our pharmaceuticals, our lifestyle diseases. And rubbish, like sheep, is in plentiful supply, covering the landscape and ruining it.

So I'm thinking we could build sheep of rubbish (possibly with plastic bags using some of the techniques I've found) and restage the essential elements of a famous Australian pastoral landscape!

Appropriation Art reuses elements of pre-existing art and in some cases restages the complete work as Anne Zahalka's photographic work. This link takes you to her Bondi exhibition:
http://www.zahalkaworld.com.au/pages/bondi.html, where she recreates other works, such as Max Dupain and Charles Meere 'The Bathers' on an undisguised fake beach background. Bondi is an Australian icon and surf culture another supposed facet of Australian lifestyle / identity. The point of her appropriation is to re-appropriate and re-populate the beach with 'bodies expelled' from it (Perera, 2006).

For a fuller description and evidence of Appropriation in history rather than a recent post-modern phenomena: http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/image_rights.htm

...which includes the much copied American Gothic (the original is here: http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Modern/pages/MOD_5.shtml)

and here's a Google image search of of the many images:
http://images.google.com/images?q=appropriation%20art%20%22american%20gothic%22&rls=com.microsoft:en-au&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

Perera Suvendrini 2006, 'Race Terror', Borderlands, vol 5, No 1, viewed at http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol5no1_2006/perera_raceterror.htm, on 3 September 2009.