The blog of an art student

Roy-Claire’s practice involves performance and installation that addresses linguistic theories modes of reading, writing and speaking. Which can be seen in their performance pieces such as ‘Posh mans pet’, where Potter used a type writer and gloss card to write their script which caused the writing to only be seen as a blur with an indentation. Roy-Claire then covered the lines with pen so the only way of reading the script was in the indentation, which can only be seen in the right light. Potter performed fragmented elements of the narrative as they read these gloss cards from the ground. When talking about this piece Roy-Claire began talking about reviews they had gotten in response to this piece, where they were described as being “a natural storyteller” by the writer. After this I noticed Roy-Claire mentioned and read from reviews of their work multiple times throughout the lecture, which was interesting iv never had a lecturer talk about this it was kind of weird too, but in...

Whilst I was backpacking in the summer, I was able to make it to the Venice Biennale. There was seriously so much going on no matter how much I ran around trying to see as much as I could, it is impossible to see all of the works or workshops throughout the biennial, but I did manage to see a lot of works I wouldn’t even know where start when discussing them. There where so many works  that I absolutely loved but there  was this one part of the biennial that really stood out to me which was ‘the future is now’ by Phillippe Shangti. His work encouraged us to criticise the effects of exaggerated consumerism and superficiality and reconsider the consumerist present, leading us to an unsure future. Shangti’s work is envisaged as a protest despite the clean finished presentation and techniques he uses such as photography, sculpture and kitch audio-visuals. ‘the future is now’ was deeply about the criticism of consumerism but each piece looked completely different. I first t...

In the lecture I realised that Stephan spoke more about his inspirations , thought processes and other people then he did talk about his own work, but this makes sense for his practice. Sutcliffe explained how growing up television and media/pop culture are a huge aspect in his relationship and understanding of art. Throughout the lecture Stephen when describing his work, he would explain the specific reasons and influences leading to works. For instance, for Stephan’s piece ‘AB…’ where he took an interview of Anthony Burgess and edited the video to be in alphabetical order. I thought this piece was so clever and witty its hilarious and before showing the video , Stephen spoke about how he tried to read this book ‘Alphabetical Africa’ by Walter Abish, which was placed in the top 10 of the hardest to finish books. Stephan edited the interview to be in the same style as the writing of the book. There was a similar kind of book Stephen spoke about being another huge insp...

I had the chance to visit some of the works in the Vienna Biennale and came across the best exhibit ion I have ever seen. It was amazing and it related to my work so much it was crazy. The exhibition included two installations change was our only chance and noise aquarium. The two showed creative use of the Extinction Rebellion Stephan Handschuh’s research. Using art as a medium to raise awareness and reflection on the ecological and economic issues occurring and how this may affect people’s everyday lives. ‘Noise Aquarium’ focussed on how the changes in our ecosystem is affecting plankton, brining awareness of simply how noisy we are disrupts marine life. The installation featured images and videos with facts and information about the issues, but the main feature was the Virtual Reality piece. This audio-visual experience brought plankton to life and the participant would interact with the plankton, bringing the threat of marine life to a visual and audible understanding. ...

I didn’t manage to see all of the art works at the river of light festival, but out of the pieces I did see, there where one particular piece I really liked called submergence. Submergence is an immersive light installation by the UK’s leading digital augmentation companies Squidsoup. The installation in Mann island fills the atrium with strips of LED lights hanging from the ceiling, creating an immersive environment which encourages you to walk through these and interact with the wires. The piece has this playful aspect with the lights and the sound piece, creating an environment that encourages members of the public to walk through the lights and become part of the piece. Creating this kind of playful environment is something I have experimented with in my own practice. However, I have experimented with the use of immersive installations with performance to create a playful environment in hope to encourage audience to interact. Although submergence has a different technique...

Honestly throughout the lecture I was pretty confused, as I as sat towards the top of the lecture hall and peter kept walking around with no mic so already it was hard to hear and there were some people behind me who kept talking and then on top of that peters work is quite complicated anyway. So ye, not entirely sure what was going on most of the time, but I did catch some of the lecture so its fine. So, Peter works a lot with sound being used in different forms and throughout the lecture he mentioned his interest in having the elements making the sound and he draws a lot of inspiration from the environment around him, such as the sea. When researching it seems that Appleton’s 2008 City Of Culture piece is his most popular work. This piece involved the joining of the two opposite cathedrals in Liverpool the catholic metropolitan cathedral and the Anglican cathedral. Peter used lasers and I’m not entirely sure how he did it but he swapped the echoestics of the churches over pla...

Throughout the lecture Patricia spoke about her influences and the processes in her practice. Patricia explained how she’s interested in real peoples, lives and places she then uses the materials found in the areas she’s working in exploring the use of materiality in her work. When listening to Patricia explain her work I noticed how important research is in her practice. For instance, one of her pieces involved Patricia visiting a family’s old tailoring building, she searched around the place looking for inspiration. Patricia found the families chalk and ground it up and used it to make a lace design on the floor from a lace she also found in the tailor’s place. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of Patricia’s work personally but I can appreciate the excessive research and details that are involved in her practice.

Throughout the lecture Matthew Merrick didn’t really talk or explain his work too much, which lead to me researching and looking at his website and honestly I’m not a big fan of his art work, which was annoying because I thought the lecture was actually quite interesting and useful, a lot of what Matthew spoke about was his inspirations and the way in which his practice works. Merrick explained how he didn’t have a studio anymore, which led him to begin making work in conventional places such as his train journeys. His practice becoming more dynamic allowed him to think of his work in new ways and with new approaches. In my practice I feel that having a studio is so important I barely ever work at home the studios are literally my 2 nd home but I feel like this can have a negative impact on my work in times I can’t access the studios etc. I find it really interesting that Mathew made this change to his practice and this ended up leading him down completely new approaches to his ...

Mark spoke a lot about technology but in an interesting way, stating technology isn’t important it’s how you interact with it, making it art. He continued to say that every art material is technically a form of technology and that technology is spectrum of embodiment. I’ve never really thought to much about technology and even though I do use it in my art work and everyday life I never realised how much further I could manipulate and use it before. Even though I found some of the points Mark was talking about I didn’t find many of his work that interesting. Such as the video piece where he motioned captured dancers and applied this to figures. Mark stated that this new embodiment of the dance changed the meaning, which it did, but in my opinion it just kind of reminded me of a music video. I just didn’t really find it that intriguing as I felt like I had already seen similar work to it before. However, there was some work of Marks that I did like. Which was mainly the work wh...

The Keith Haring exhibition coming to the Tate Liverpool is one my favourite exhibitions I’ve seen in any of the Tate’s. Before the exhibition closed I went to see it 6 times. Every time I went I felt like I still kept seeing more, for instance with the large mural piece you can see in this video every time I went I saw a new element/character. One of the visits to the gallery I spoke to one of the information guides working at the exhibition and I had such an interesting conversation with him, he explained how he has a theory that Keith Haring had ADHD, he came to this conclusion by observing things Haring's had wrote in his journal and noticing how much energy Keith Haring puts into his paintings. The guide also then went on to mention Keith Haring also having Kenophobia (fear of empty space) which can be seen in almost all of Keith’s work, he creates a border then he tries to fill the inside of that border as much as possible, leaving no space. I found this so fascinating ...

I love Jorge’s work and practice so much literally so much of what he was discussing relates to my practice, the lecture even related to my essay right now. Throughout the lecture and the Q + A Jorge explained how his practice heavily involves site-specific projects as he lets the site decide what he will build/create and even what he is going to eat. He showed this quote to the right in the lecture when explaining his inspirations and thought of investigating the relationship between agroecology and site-specificity in his practice. Many of Jorge’s works are environmental sculptural installations that explore the complexities of food and its relationship with society and nature. For instance, in the Bienal de Sao Paulo 2016, Jorge showed ‘Restauro’, which began with Jorge exploring this forest, working with farmers, investigating the foods provided by the forest whilst also recording the sounds of the forest. Using this research Jorge created ‘Restauro’ which is an environmental...

Ariel’s works is so fascinating and mystical yet scientific it’s amazing, they trick the human eye and it is no surprise that they are so complicated and most of the lecture I was completely confused and literally had perhaps the smallest grasp of what Ariel’s practice is and how he does these artworks.   Ariel described his practice by comparing it to magicians, explaining how magicians skip how they get to the trick, they skip the mechanisms. Whereas his work is the mechanisms, he of how getting there is just as important if not more important than the piece. Schlesinger’s practice involves very technical and complicated ways of making what may seem like a simple and minimalistic sculpture/installation. I was amazed by so many of Ariel’s works I wouldn’t know where to begin when discussing his work, there’s ‘Two good reasons’ which can be seen in this video link below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK9osuIWXGE . When watching this piece, you can see two giant pieces of pa...

Adam Carr is one of the tutors in my university whilst also being a practicing curator holding a number of guest curatorial positions around the world. Throughout the lecture I realised that Adam has a lot more creative input into the exhibitions then I thought, and this was interesting as I never really knew too much about curatorship. One of Adams most recent exhibitions ‘Post-It Columbia’ that was in Bogota, Columbia just this September 2019. This exhibition featured 60 emerging Columbian artists all making art works out of post-it notes. Adam original began this idea around 15 years ago when he filled an office in Manchester with post-it notes. Only using Post-It notes for the exhibition gave the show economic and ecological sustainability. As the art work was easy to travel, saving money and reducing the environmental impact of exporting large works and their materials where cheap. Other than this I actually loved ‘The Show Is Open When The Show Is Closed’ exhibition, which ki...