Its cold, blooming freezing!, Its Friday afternoon.
However I am sat at the bar of the Nuffield Bar with chocolate cake and a nice strong and hot cup of tea so I am very happy, for some reason tea always perks me up, no matter what the weather or mood, it is always there to numb the pain, in a relaxing and soothing way.
This week there has been two main things that I would like to talk about. On Tuesday morning I was in Morecambe (it is situated about 20 minutes away from Lancaster on the bus), I was there to help a friend of mine an emerging artist: Saoirse Crean, film some short films on the promenade for an exhibition she is preparing to launch next week as part of the Liverpool Biennial, which is incredibly exciting and I am so pleased for her to be involved with it, and I wish her all the best of luck with it. I am planning to visit the exhibition in the near future, but it was a privledge to help out and it was a really interesting experience being able work in a new environment and get an insight into a new way of working. We shot three, four minute films which were all one shot, simple in its final product, but complex to organise the shot in order to keep interest in the shot and the action in the frame. I am fascinated at how they appear, but from the rough cut of what I say it was interesting aesthetically and narrative wise. Working with Saoirse made me think about my work with film in the course of my artistic practice and me think about simplicity, making the shots simple in execution and production, being able to not only make a certain aesthetic for myself but also slowly build up a skills set in video and photography, which I can only really do from starting with the basics and building up from that. My best friend Tom Greenidge is someone who I take great inspiration from, he's an excellent film maker and actor and has received numerous awards and recommendation for his work. I have been involved with a few projects of his at college and at University, he's one of my closest friends and I have always admired his work ethic and building upon each piece of work he has done, we share a common passion in theatre and film and I am so proud of him in what he has done, please check out his website to see his work:
http://www.tomgreenidge.com/
Today (Friday) has been an important day for me this week, I had a meeting and showing of work with Matt Fenton. I showed him the 'Re-Mapping Lancaster' exercise complete with text and soundtrack. It was great to have Matt into the space to see what I have been working on and as hard as it is as a solo artist to have criticism, it is extremely necessary and very productive. It allows for new ideas to emerge and ideas to be teased out further, Matt suggested that the words which go with the photographs work better when they say 'Show me' rather than tell me, because it creates ambiguity over weather the performer is asking the questions or it is the audience, which I hadn't thought about, when I was devising it. The other interesting piece of feedback was that off some of the text and the pictures were a bit cliché in the sense it was a bit to obvious such as 'The city is big, everything seems bigger' - it does seem a bit simple, not really giving the offer I was wanting to give to the audience of them being able to interpreate the piece in anyway they wanted. Matt said that the only pictures that really work at the moment are those of How you would enter and leave the city, because they are not what you associate with travelling into and from the city, you mostly associate this practice with air, road or train. By showing a stretch of the Lancaster Canal, it could be seen as reflecting on a time when the Canal was the most technologically advanced system of moving around, and that surprises the viewer because it is not expected. What I need to concentrate on is keeping surprising the viewer in simple and tiny ways which keeps it exciting but offers them the opportunity to experience something new about the city. I am meeting with Matt in 2 weeks just to update him on progress and in about 3 weeks I will show a snapshot of work from this term.
Over the next week I will be working on interrogate Low - Fi technologies such as still camera photography and video, video phone recording, blogging and social media. Researching using the following two primary sources: 'The Culture of the Amateur' by Andrew Keen and 'Youtube and Video Marketing' by Greg Jarboe, to investigate the links between the personal user and the wider community, the moving from producer to consumer and the other way round. The distinction between authentic video recording and moment capture on low - fi media technologies and the mass production and video sharing on Youtube. For the end of next week I am aiming to have three short films of two minutes long on a particular subject and focus, which is still to be decided.
To finish, I feel I have learnt a lot from this week mainly connected to my practice and how I feel it is evolving. Being able to communicate effectively with people involved in supporting your practice is vital, being able to express your own ideas but also take on board people's criticism is very much a necessary part of creative production, because at the end of the day you are making work for a specific audience, so it needs to be of the highest standard, not just artistically but also to be able to offer an experience which is entirely different to anything they have experienced before. Networking with your peers, being able to see what they are upto and being in contact not only makes your engage in discussions but offers you opportunities to collaborate to find new artistic inspirations and keep your ideas fresh and new.
Hope you have a lovely weekend!, Hope your not to cold!
Marcus
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