london day

murmurs and whispers

murmuration  [mur-muh-rey-shuh n]

noun

1.

an act or instance of murmuring

2.

a flock of starlings.

collective noun:

Starlings: Chattering, affliction, murmuration



i spent sunday dusk at Shapwick heath, trying to get some DSLR footage of the murmurations.
I wasn't prepared for the sounds. Minimally threatening whooshing in contrast to the hypnotic shapes and movements of the starling flock.
interested in maybe working with static shots of footage, using tripod. 

After looking at the footage on imovie and spending ages faffing with trying to isolate a freeze frame still to export and print, edited to B&W and changed exposure. Will also think about playing with the zoom and cropping all using imovie.
Interested in creating mood. REmoved all audio from original footage as it was distracting and erratic windblowing anyway.

Thinking about possible additional audio,music froma friend was too jarring and distracting and would be impossible in the time scale I have to edit footage to music which is what I had thought ofmore as an additional project.

moving through footage and moving backawards and forwards definitely highlighted the hypnotic element of the footage.

Liked easily being able to manipulate the exposure=>mood of the clips


Decisions to be made:=
-length of film ?90secs
-after d/w VBK ?3 different moods eg sinister, anxious, calm, movement
-need to decide, emotion, composition, use of stills, editing cuts

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/01/artists-assistants-hirst-emin-dean

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/feb/02/framing-view-artists-landscape-tate

drone doodles and birds

1st quick practice doodles of drones, white ink on sugar paper

sketchbook invert drones vs birds practice, black indian ink

the drawings above are amateur, the black on white works better, I should have used acrylic but love the flow and controls from using the ink. Trying to paint geometric shapes takes patience, a steady hand, only one cup of coffee and my photocopies. it shut my head up nicely on a wednesday when my head creaks from the necessity of being non-judgemental, controlled and empathetic, to  suddenly feeling like i need to do/made/create because it's a wednesday. It's been a heavy week at work, going over a history of someone that died suddenly whom i was fond of and trying to find the words to write a coroners report about them in sharp succinct cool prose. death wishes, near death misses, 2 days that felt like a week. so painting drones and their sick associations was lovely light tongue-in-cheek relief.

i never got why people would paint toy soldiers or aeroplanes. think i it felt embarassing. a smack of regressive nostalgia to it or some such crap. but i've grown to love the concentration, and stillness that comes from concentrating on something and painting drones is mindless in its own way so who i am to judge.

slow copying somewhere quiet, how resentful voices would be drowned out, shouts of we'll start without out you, all the intrusive noise of others, meanwhile the slow silent dip of brush in ink and mark making away the racket.

research: Oscar Munoz

Born in 1951 in Popayán (Colombia), Oscar Muñoz is regarded as one of the country’s most important contemporary artists, whilst also garnering attention on the international art scene. A graduate of the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Cali, he has built up over a period of four decades a body of work whose images deal with the realm of memory, loss and the precarious nature of human life. Muñoz’s work defies systematic classification because he works in so many different media: photography, printmaking, drawing, installations, video and sculpture.

“Protographs“ (a term coined to evoke the instant just before or just after that split-second when the photographic image is captured and frozen for ever) presents his major series grouped by theme. These themes poetically and metaphorically juxtapose Muñoz’s own past and the different material states of the image. For example, he combines the dissolution, deterioration or disintegration of the image with the inherent fragility of memory and the impossibility of making time stand still; or the image’s evaporation and transformation with the tension between rationality and chaos in our urban societies. Finally, in the main part of his work, he creates ephemeral images that, as they disappear, invite the spectator to share in an experience that is simultaneously rational and sensual.

http://www.sicardi.com/artists/oscar-muoz/artists-artist-works/

research: brian clarke

Two Spitfires I (detail) Silver metallic ink on paper
84 x 59 cm   2010

Site Plan (detail) Oil on canvas
152 x152 cm 1978

Darkness Visible 2012 (detail)  Oil and oilstick on canvas (diptych)
200 x 400 cm (overall) 2012 

Dangerous Visions 2 (detail) Acrylic on panel, canvas with varnish and pinned paper
122 x 122 cm  1977





Contemporary stained glass artist who came to prominence in the swinging 60s, compadre of the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Rising star who made his name as a bad boy artist, but whose media attention and fame was backed up with a unique talent and vision for use of stained glass art. 

“Stained glass has the potential to contribute to the urban fabric of the
21st century as successfully as it did to the 15th …"

Clarke is an enduring radical, whose past is as colourful as his works. 

I first came across his work after a chance viewing of a documentary about him on IPlayer. His gentle, humour, lack of pretense and pioneering approach to what has been seen as an outdated medium (glass) was pretty riveting viewing.

I love the uncomplicated nature of his work. I feel it has feeling and depth beyond the seeming simplicity of his designs. Working in multimedia, his sketches, sculptures and installations have taken on more personal meaning over the last decade following the death of his mother. Timeless themes permeate his work that make them relatable and enduring.

From the point of view of impact on my current projects, seeing him draw on black paper, must have stuck with me. I hadn't consciously rememebered the content of his paintings but now I've been playing with silhouettes of drones,it looks like a plain poor mans plagiarism.

murmur returns







can you see the drones in the last one?...

moon water reflection

back at shapwick heath

some stills this time

amazing reflections and hypnotic formations again

only 3 weeks left before the murmurs are over til next winter
love the delicacy of the way some of the murmurs photos have turned out. tweaked things a bit in iPhoto, the cooler tint is realistic and adds to the chill dreamy quality of the 'blue hour'.


There's a certain voyeuristic nature to watching these formations, it's an experience that my video work is trying to capture and that I'm having to distill down and analyse as the course progresses.

The noise, the goosebumps, the involuntary smile, the wonder.

It's all based on being there when something else is doing something, about being present and outside at the same time.