London Babyyyy: Arrival

It was my first time on a fancy long distance train... it was a pritty smooth journey. The time flew in with help from the lovely Peter and his jelly baby antics. We arrived at The Generator Hostel which looked like the inside of a Tardis from Doctor Who. The decor was rancid, all blue and metal etc... If only it was boring magnolia it would have at least made it look clean. Our room was a wee bit of a squeeze but we made it work :D 

From left to right: Karen, Angel, & Sinead. 

Apart from the bad decor the Hostel wasn't toooooo bad.... not worth the £200 we spent on it though. Lesson learned for future School trips! Make own travel arrangements. Location was amazing! Couldn't fault it. 

We arrived on The Chinese New Year so thought it was appropriate to go for a feast in China town. 

I love love love all of the lanterns, they made the streets of China Town feel so friendly and inviting. 

Once we finished wandering around China Town we ventured into SoHo. Visited a few dodgy alley ways ;) and shops and then headed to the main streets and visited The M & M store!!!! :D 

From left to right: Peter, Sinead, Angel and Me.

4 floors filled with M&M's = Heaven! 

We then headed for a few drinks. However, the 4hours sleep quickly caught up with us, so we headed back to "the tardis" for some zzzzzzzzzzzz. 

The ABC Project_______

N


NEVIN ARG

NIKKI STOTT

KELLY NEDDERMAN

3hour Crit! ____________

Oft.. Yesterdays crit was a beast! Lasted for 3hours :O But when you do the math (180mins / 20students) ... it only equates to an average of 9mins per student. Which is a decent amount of time I suppose. 

As always it was wonderful seeing how everyone had interoperated the brief. I feel we have an extremely strong class. Everyone puts in the effort and provides positive feedback and suggestions. It's going to be an interesting 4years! :D 

Suggestions - Overall feedback was that everyone liked my piece, so I was really   pleased. Bridget suggested having the text printed onto acetate which I hadn't though of. I think this would look a lot better as you wouldn't see the blank piece of white paper on the reverse and instead see the pattern of the reverse text. Thanks Bridget! :) I'm going to redo the whole set of rings to include this new finish. I think it will make it look more clean and professional. :) 

Also, Im going to play with the 'curosity killed the cat' theme a little. Something along the lines of a chinese finger trap...

...putting your finger through but difficult to get back off. Like the panic of trying on an expensive ring in a fancy shop and not being able to get it off. EK! 

The ABC Project________

M


MOMOKO KUMAI

KATHRYN MARCHBANK 

RHONA MACALLUM

London BABYYYYYY! ______

Just got our London briefing today :D EK! So excited!! I can not wait to see and absorb everything. Also, looking forward to nights out with the Jewellery girls.


Here is our plan of action ...

Need to pack soon :D Feeling sorry for the girls who i'm sharing a room with...  I still have the cold and breath through my mouth. So I currently sound like darth vadar on steroids lol :/

The ABC Project_____

L


LINDA JOHNSTON

JENNY LLEWELLYN

ZHAO LI

Text in Form ______Piece

The finished article...

 I cant help thinking it looks like a BN BN Biscuit lol :O 

Workshop 18.01.11

I really enjoyed my workshop/tutorial today. My lecturer was really engaging had lots of ideas and though provoking responses. It was interesting to see how people interoperated the workshop task. 

One girl looked at the 'fabric' of the city. Specifically looking at pavements and how most of the pavement stones apart from the curbs are shipped over from China. Scottish stone is more valuable and bought from us by countries like Canada. It led to a healthy debate about how to we see Scotland? What does it mean when were in Scotland but were walking on Chinese stone and our "Scottish" gift shops are stocked by items made in China? I found this idea really refreshing and ironic. 

I asked if it would be best to wait until all of the lectures were over before picking a question for the essay. The overall thought was if theres one that already stands out and 'takes your fancy' well thats the one to go with. 

On that note I have chosen question 9

In his assessment of the impact of photography on the visual arts, Walter Benjamin claimed that: ‘…that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.’  What is meant by the term ‘aura’ in this context, and should we regard its loss as something to celebrate or as a matter of regret?

When I first read the questions this one stood out. Then I noticed it was specifically linked to photography and was put off a little as I don't know much about that subject. However, the theme is the impact/pros/cons of manufacturing which I have an interest in learning about. So to prepare I have bought 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin to read and research. 

The ABC Project________

K


KELVIN BIRK

KIRSTY SUMERLING

INDRA KARPAVICIUTE

Text in Form ______DAY 5

Slept in today. I set my 5 alarms, acknowledged all of them, switched the last one off then somewhere between switching it off and getting up I fell asleep again for an hour and a half! Tomorrow I will need to set a 6th back up one to be sure I don't fall back asleep. I decided to work from home since i'm working later and the  traveling back and forth wouldn't have given me much time in the studio. 

My project is EPICALY FAILING!! ahhhhhh Painting my blocks didn't work out so good. They have marks and just don't look good enough. Also, I tried drilling holes through them and its just not for happening :( 

So ... Panic has sunk in and I have resorted to my original idea. I like it but I just don't think its experimental enough. Feeling deflated! 

FoCI Workshop Activity #1

It's been a week since my first FoCI lecture - Modernity, Time and the City: lecture 11 January 2012. I've needed the entire week to try and get my head around it all. I think I understand it now so i'm going to attempt to tackle the workshop task. 

THE TASK

City spaces and the experience of modernity

With reference to the ideas of last week’s lectures, the VLE notes, your own personal knowledge and prior reading, and most importantly personal observation and analysis, prepare a short description and analysis of ONE space in the city that conveys some aspects of modern city experience. 

The lecture notes highlight the importance of not confusing modernity with modernism - "...modernism is something completely different from modernity and it is important not to confuse the terms.". Therefore, I am going to quickly jot down their definitions to ensure I don't mix them up. 

Modernity - The term ‘modernity’ means the experience of modern life; the infrastructure, trappings, and social systems that developed from the industrialisation of manufacture.

Modernism - Modernism was founded on the following concept... Public expectations began to shift to an assumption that, through technology, life for the next generation would be very, very different (better) and that the past was ‘old fashioned’ and outmoded.

I THINK I have to choose a space that doesn't necessarily look modern because that would be an example of modernism. Instead I think I have to choose a space that displays Glasgow's change into modernity. 

MY SPACE - ARGLL ARCADE 

Consumerism is the defining element of modernity. 

"Consumerism relies on the effective production of goods, manufactured in previously unheard of numbers and levels of quality and finish" - lecture notes.

Argll Arcade was built in 1827. A time when the bourgeoisie lifestyle could be observed via these semi-public, controlled-entry shopping arcades of the 1830's. Spaces Arcades were created to house selections of shops filled with manufactured products to capitalise in on the new trend of consumerism. 

Today, Argll Arcade still represents high end consumerism. Even though it is housed in an old building (now) the intent is still of modernity - buy buy buy! Shops crammed in all selling similar stock at competitive prices. Precious diamond rings become unified in the search to find the cheapest. There is a sense of loss between the connection of maker and wearer. Now it is machine to wearer and somewhere along the production line there is a sense of loss between man and craft. 

We need craft to connect us to the earth. It is embedded in our primitive genes. Taking our craft and giving our knowledge to machines is almost like us making ourselves voluntary redundant. 

The recession has seen a rise in desperate sales tactics. A few time now when walking through Argll Arcade the sales assistant have came out of their stores and approached me to try and come inside to buy. Times are hard but the Argll Arcade was built on the image of middle-class life and people go there to purchase high-end items. One-off lifetime purchases and therefore the person going into make possibly one of the biggest purchases of their entire life want to absorb the middle-class atmosphere if only for a second! By resorting to desperate sales tactics they are damaging the image of the Argll Arcade and turning it into nothing more than an indoor market. 

Photos of Argll Arcade. 

The ABC Project________

J


JAHYUN RITA BAEK

JOANNA HILL

JENNY LAIDLAW

Text in Form ______DAY 4

I've been working over the weekend so haven't done anything else to my project. I did start to worry though that I was going completely off track. So I re-read the brief to try and ease my worries. It does say;

"Design and create a wearable object with text as the central conceptual theme."

I think because I got the idea from a quote it should be ok that its not actually made of text or paper. But I think maybe the intention of the brief was more literal hmmm confused! But too late to start over so onwards and upwards. 

I ran my idea of the wearable game challenge past Gillian (Artist in residence) but she had no input so i'm not sure if this a positive or negative but i'm going to carry on with it and see where it leads me. 

I've started to coat all the shapes in white so the become unified. 

First coat of paint. 

Now im going to work on rough designs to manipulate each shape. 

The ABC Project________

I


IRIS ALGOM

ISABEL DAMMERMANN

MARI ISHIKAWA