Hamish Muir

I missed this lecture due to illness but thought I'd research him so I didn't miss out :)

cba atm though

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2009 @ Cornerhouse, Manchester

This exhibition was the harvest of current Art School talent or those who have just graduated. There was a wide range of experimental work from new and emerging artists graduating from art and design schools across the UK.

There were several pieces of work which caught my eye, the first was a large scale biro drawing by Amir Chasson of what looked like a drunk who’d clearly wet himself, I just thought it stood out from all the other serious ‘deep conceptual’ pieces because it amused me.

Labelled 'Piss pants.' LOL. If i remember correctly this was an A1 biro drawing, and what a brilliant drawing it is.

'Crying upwards.' A watercolour piece. I just love this image, really surreal and spooky.

The American Scene @ Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

I’d never been to Whitworth Art Gallery before so I didn’t really know what to expect. The work that caught my eye was 2 prints by Leonard Baskin. ‘The Hydrogen Man’ which was a disturbing image of a human figure with its flesh ripped off by a hydrogen bomb. Totally anti-war and represented the post-war anxiety beautifully and powerfully from the raw images.

‘Man of Peace’ was the other of his prints I loved, it featured a half naked man caught in barbed wire holding a bird. I was fascinated by the darkness and scale of the prints and the powerful message behind them.

There was also some really interesting wallpaper on display. The ones I found most spectacular were the foil wallpapers with colour screen prints over, very retro. 

Reality Hack @ Urbis, Manchester

An Andrew Paul Brooks’ Exhibition.

The first thing which struck me when I walked into the exhibition was the scale and quality of the images and how, with the light-boxes the colours were illuminated really bright, yet the dark areas still held mystery and a strong eerie atmosphere.

His digitally rendered photographs explore the hidden depths of Manchester; things we forget exist in everyday life such as sewers, derelict buildings and peeks through broken hoarding. I was mesmerised by the colours, compositions and how he had manage to make the most unsightly places look beautiful like you wanted to be there to explore. 

Kino 4

I decided to design an identity for the Kino4 University Film Club. I figured this identity could run across all posters if created it on a template. I spent a while developing the logo, something I clearly need to improve on. 

The second lot put my first ideas sheet to shame, at first I was struggling with the number 4 because all I kept picturing was Channel 4's logo, something no where near the style I was looking for. I came across the typeface 'Steelfish' which I absolutely love, and changing the number 4 to the spelling four, it added much more structure to the logo design, which I also like :)

Ian Anderson

This workshop was intended to make us think more creatively. We were given the brief:

In the future the world is ran by one organisation, this organisation wants to re-brand, and to do this they need a new colour. Each colour is owned by separate companies, therefore each company would need to pitch their colour to the world organisation persuading them that their colour would be the most beneficial in order to win the contract.

Our team colour was blue, we could do anything with this to create a compelling argument why our colour should be chosen above the likes of red, orange, green and yellow. We began by putting everything down on paper that has a connection with blue as a starting point, from here we tried to expand on possible routes we could take it to make our presentation the most compelling.

We decided to make our pitch factual stating what blue could do for the world organisation. Key points:

• Blue can be extracted from seaweed therefore it is a sustainable colour.
• Blue is tried and tested on signage, easily readable when travelling at high speeds.
• Blue is diverse, the palette offers many tones which are provocative a range of emotions.
• Conveying blue as the natural choice because it surrounds us from the sky to the sea (we really wanted someone to point out the sea isn’t blue, had our argument ready and everything…)

To say we were 2 people down in our group I think we did well, although I only started to think this after the presentation, before all I could think was FAIL. The other groups presentations were for a start longer, humorous & more imaginatively presented where we had opted for short, sharp and straight to major points we thought if there would be a world organisation in the future, what would they worry about, and tried to reassure them on subjects such as legibility and cost. We closed our presentation with ‘Blue speaks for itself’ because we didn’t have any blue cakes or blue carrots to sweeten the judges.

Presenting is something I’ve never been good at, nerves get the better of me and my face falls off. I understand the need to be able to confidently present an idea so hopefully practise will improve these lacking skills. I’m really glad I stuck the workshop out, it’s really hit me how important it is to be confident and voice our opinions. 

Wandering/Wondering

I signed up for this workshop because I’d been engrossed in the silence project for too long and needed something different to focus on for a while, to have a break and hopefully find new inspiration. I didn’t think I’d enjoy walking around taking pictures and gathering information, yet Katrina and I found interest in things we see daily. The main thing I enjoyed looking for was grid structures in things like architecture, gates, pavements, road markings and so on and thinking about how this could be used in creative practise, as a starting point or even an abstract magazine grid. I’ve made a decision that from now on if I’m feeling uninspired or lost in a project to just go out for a wander with my camera, sketchbook and pencil gathering information on anything and everything, which I find interesting.

I think John’s idea of ‘letting work find it’s own way’ is a good motto to go by sometimes and to just experiment and not think about a final piece.