Slide Library- Ailsa Lishman

I really enjoyed the talk from John Davies about the slide library, and I think it's great that he's so enthusiastic about saving the collection. I think it would be such a shame for a collection of over 300,000 slides to go to waste. I'm really keen to try and make use of slides within my project. 

It's given me all sorts of ideas about making my own slides, using acetates etc, and projecting them, using layerying, projecting imagery onto walls to draw from. 

www.flickr.com/photos/mmuvisualresources is the link to look at just a section of the collections!

I went in myself to ask about slides to do with gardens, and the amount that he came up with was amazing and I ended up spending at least 2 hours going though them all and choosing 30 slides to take out. He was so helpful with it all, you can take the slides out for 2 weeks, but that can be extended if you want, and also you can use the projectors and take them to the studio to draw from etc just need to check when it's free first! 

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It's really worth just asking him if there's anything at all relevant to your project just to get new inspirations. I found some images I would have never thought to look for before if I hadn't had a look through the slides. 

 

Hotspur House Film Nights Part 2- Ailsa Lishman.

I went to the second film night at Hotspur House last night, and i'm pleased to say that this was a much more cheerier film! I'd really recommend everyone going to at least a couple, as they seem to show films that you wouldn't normally watch. This week it was a comedy called 'Airplane!', I had heard of the film, but never watched it before, and don't think i'd ever have picked it out to watch. 

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This film was basically about a couple who were on the verge of seperating, as the man is 'too stuck in the past' and his partner says she can no longer deal with it. She works as an air hostess, and says she's changed her shift to go to Chicago, so she can no longer see him. He cannot bare to lose her so buys a ticket onto her flight. 

What was to follow throughout the film is hilarious, I found it a really fun film. The whole thing was a parody of a disaster film, with absurd jokes and slapstick comedy throughout.

I don't want to say too much about what happens incase anyone fancies watching it at anypoint themselves, but I'd really recommend it. 

 

Andrew Brooks talk- Emma Senior

This talk was very interesting as he spoke about how important it is to get connected with Manchester and as an artist/ designer to get your work and ideas seen by the public. He told us about the companies such as Crowdfunder and Kickstarter that help fund unknown artists to get exhibition space. Also different artists studios such as 

  • Islington Mill Studios
  • Rogue Studios
  • Hot Bed Press- these concentraite on printing
  • Black Media

He also told us about the Skyliner blog that he works on with another artist.

Emma Senior- Arriving Task- Kynance Cove, Cornwall

My window is wound down in the car, country air blowing through my hair brushing against my sun warmed skin. All I can see around me is greenery. The car turns off down a gravel path, the bush fences give way to a large field filled with busy bodies and cars. Families start unloading their cars. I see the ocean on my left, calm and still, nearly blending with the blue sky, clear of all clouds. I step out of the car grabbing my bag, following the other tourists down the steep declining pathway, dusty mud whips up in the air by the movement of peoples eager feet. We finally get to a platform where you can view over the whole cove. This feels like no where else in Britain, the air clean, no stench of rotting fish and seaweed; the water and sand so clean, the sun shining so strongly it warms your body right through. I continue down the pathway toward the sand, large boulders start to appear so we have to clamber over them. I finally reach  the sand and take my sandals off to feel the warm, soft dry sand envelope my feet.

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Special Collection Visit- Emma Senior

This visit was very useful and gave me lots of ideas for the project, such as

  • old sketchbooks of students journeys, which made me think of small stories we see everyday such as a way a human or animal does a certain thing. A journey for a bird from one tree to another and the things that influence this.
  • I was also interested in the way the students from the early 20th century learnt and the different processes in art they would have used, and how this differs to the students now.
  • I found the artists books interesting as it gave me ideas of different ways for me to present my work

Hotspur House Film Nights- Ailsa Lishman

So every Wednesday at 7pm there's a film night at Hotspur House, I've been to two so far. It's such an interesting building to have a film night in, it has quite an eery feel with the lights out! 

The first film was The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover - probably not the best film to start on, as I think a lot of people would be put off by the gore of this film & presume that every film after it would be the same! 

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The film was about a really awful & disgusting man, who owned a restaurant, where he took his wife to dine every night. You can tell from the beggining that his wife no longer wants to be with him, but she cannot stand up to him as he will beat her. Across the restaurant is a book shop owner, a regular diner, who the wife begins to have an affair with. This continues throughout the film, with the help of the workers of the restaurant, they sneak off into the back numerous times. The husband, of course, finds out about this affair, and tortures a young boy who works at the restaurant to find out where his wife is, the boy is carrying a book from the lovers bookshop, which of course has the address of the bookshop. The boy is taken to hospital, which his wife learns of, & she goes to visit him. Whilst she's away, her husband storms the bookshop, to find his wife's lover, and when they do, they torture him to death by force feeding him books. - this part was awful!!

The wife later finds the body, and as revenge on her husband, asks the chef to cook the body and serve it to her husband to eat, he eats a bite, then she shoots him in the head.

Not a particulary cheery film, but it did keep your attention the entire way through, I did really like the way the film was shot, the wife was wearing some gorgeous outfits designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, which changed colour everytime they entered a different room, which was a really interesting touch. Most of the film had quite dramatic music throughout also accompanied by a young boy soprano, singing opera most of the way through. It was definitely full of odd touches! 

Rhian Bell- Exterior of buildings..

Whilst walking down Oxford Road I seen something that really caught my eye. The art work that was on the street walls really excited me and inspired me. These wall paintings are expressive and interesting. I like the way the boring brick wall has been transformed into something alive and full of colour and energy..

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We can think about the exterior of a buliding as well as the interior..

Creating an exciting exterior for a building can give it character and make it almost come alive..

Invading spaces... Yarn bombing!

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4305406/Knitters-turn-to-graffiti-artists-with-yarnbombing.html

'Yarn bombing' is something that has interested me for a while now.... to be it is the perfect way to transform something everyday... the best way we tipsters know how?  Why not transform a space in Hotspur house? A great way to make our mark and start bringing some life into that old basement.  Get your knitting needles out girls?

 

Cornerhouse Exhibition: Samantha Donnelly, Contour States

'Contour States is the first major UK public solo show by British artist Samantha Donnelly. With a strong interest in the images presented in today’s media that continue to idealise and objectify the human form, the exhibition features new work that explores representations of female identity in photography, TV, film and advertisements.'

http://www.cornerhouse.org/art/art-exhibitions/samantha-donnelly

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Although this work isn't something that usually interests me I think it tied in with the idea of expression through sculpture... something which we are thinking about?  The idea of representing our identity as students in a new educational environment. Food for thought...

Lucy