Cat-a-logue entry

Martin designed the catalogue with (some) guidance from us. We had to write our own artist statement describing our work co-insiding with an image. It wasn't compulsory to write in third person, it's just what I chose to do. Turns out I was the only one in the catalogue to do so! Here is my entry:

Hannah Wilmshurst is fascinated by the daily routines we abide by and the way in which we conduct ourselves.  By focusing on the nature of human beings and how we differentiate ourselves from one another, Hannah explores how individuals present a unique identity by observing and recording their characteristics within mundane environments.  She captures simple actions such as walking, whilst the subject is absorbed in daily routine.  Hannah uses the resulting images to exaggerate the way in which we create our own system within a matrix designed world.  Using photography and printing methods, she blurs the boundaries between what is real and illusion by heightening elements of distortion and perspective.  She seeks to unveil the guise that people strive to keep by catching her subjects off guard, which in turn makes us query why we feel so pressured to protect our identity.  Hannah confronts the ‘Big Brother’ society that we are all inevitably part of and questions the role of surveillance other than for purpose of security.  In one series of works Hannah, ridicules CCTV by forcing them to partake in an absurd surveillance game with other cameras.  Influenced by artists such as Sophie Calle, she directly challenges what is considered an acceptable means of observation by pushes the boundaries of photography.  Hannah exposes feelings of vulnerability for both subject and viewer and reveals our inherent desire to be a voyeur.  She juxtaposes moments when her subjects directly confront her role behind the lens with moments when they are blissfully unaware that their identity has been captured.

You can also view it online and order the catalogue through Blurb: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2067285

Labyrinth

Here is the poster that Luke designed for our movie night at the Porters monday 14/03/11 Kitty did a fantastic job organising the event and getting us the venue. I throughly enjoyed the night (even had dinner in there beforehand) The crowd was good and we'd made a profit. However it wasn't as popular as the previous film night. But still good!! we raised about £60. I printed out about 15 posters (boardless) and littered sion hill with advertisement. Ella assisted with Dartmouth.

Tuesday 11th January 2011

A friend of mine Maja Beattie put up an exhibition at the Walcot Chapel with two others Astrid Foreman and Kimberley Fairbrother. They all studied fine art at Bathspa and last year they graduated. This exhibition was called "Impromptu" I took this opportunity to go along and spy out Walcot Chapel. It's been difficult to view this space so I suggested it to the group. I went with Lucy, Mike and Luke in the end. It was nice chatting to Maja about her new pieces and properly be introduced to Kimberley and her work. Difficulties about the space that I noted was the location of it, (it's slightly tucked away from the roads view) you need to be careful when curating and the space is very cold!! Issues that I thikn our group need to work out.

OVADA: Stammtisch evening JAN 11

Adrian put on a night of video play. This was one of his ideas! He had a camera on his head that took a photo a minute (demonstrated in video) and another of his games consisted of a ball and a camera in it. I think that video is yet to to be edited!

Can you hear the person fart? hilarious!!! :)

Film Nights

Whilst I've been away from blogging for a month (apologies) Kitty came up with the idea for a film night at the Porter (where she works) unfortunately I was away for the actual evening due to previous commitments. But from the sounds of things it was a roaring success!! So we've planned to do another one. Hopefully on the 14th of March. At the last one we provided a raffle when brought with an entry ticket, and sold popcorn at a reasonable price! However my popcorn machine got busted :( very very sad. It was shaped like a duck! So we might not be providing that service at the next one...

Here is the poster that Kitty and Tom designed. Porters provided the print out for us. So very grateful! Thank you! 'Withnail and I' was a great choice, we're hoping to do 'Labyrinth' for the next one (David Bowie)

We littered posters around Dartmouth, Sion and Porters. Kitty turned up to our session at Dartmouth (before the major group crit on posters) and asked who was heading up to Sion. Since I was the only one..I hung up about 6 in some prime locations. (which I think worked!!) The film night was also advertised as an event on facebook

Dot Matrix Project: Visual Design

I absolutely love this course. I've learnt a lot about lay out and being precise with the eye. Here we had to create our own font with our own grid and rules. We were then asked to associate our font with words of recognition. Brands and adjectives. I've produced six for the moment but intend to double it. I scanned my drawn fonts onto the computer and then manipulated them on photoshop.

quite ironic really?!!


One thing that Matt pick up on was the kerning (the spacing) between the 1 and the 66 of "166bpm" due to the nature of the font and the point size, the space was somewhat larger then the space between the '66' I set about playing around with the spacing but then I thought it looked too squished. So I made an executive decision and  decided against it for now. Matt wouldn't be so pleased though!!! (sorry!) :( But I've learnt about this visual aspect from this module of the course. So thank you!!

Tom's Press Release

This is Tom's Press Release that he's created for us. Fantastic don't you think? This will then be moulded to form our group statement. It's formatted in a word document with an image and then sent out to for listings. Trying to get the exhibition noticed! Milk magazine and Bath Life have been our first target.

166 bpm

A diverse and exciting exhibition by ten upcoming artists:

Vanessa Bowden - Sophie Cowan – Ella Garrud – Sophie Jillard

Tom Maryniak – Kitty McCarron – Luke Moore – Mike Smart

Josie Thomson – Hannah Wilmshurst

29 March – 3 April, 10am - 6pm (Sunday, 10am -4pm)

Private View: 29 March, 6 - 9pm 

                         

WALCOT GATE, WALCOT STREET, BATH BA1 5UG

ADMISSION FREE     

Ten enthusiastic young artists are pleased to announce their upcoming exhibition – 166 bpm (Beats Per Minute) to go on display at the Walcot Chapel gallery in late March.

The concept behind the exhibition derives from the colour of passion and rage, excitement and fire, danger, and of course, blood.  Scientifically known to increase ones heart rate by around 14%, the colour red and its effect on our physical state are the underlying themes of this innovative collection of work. 

Viewers should prepare themselves for an energetic and variable show which features disciplines ranging from sculpture and ceramics to printmaking, photography, textiles and painting with work as equally diverse in their red related subject matter as their medium.

Of the artists, Hannah Wilmshurst explores the absurdity of human surveillance and the inherent desire to be a voyeur, while Tom Maryniak’s interests lie in the moments between peace and chaos, time and destruction.

Whether it is to shock, excite or nauseate, all of the artists will be attempting to increase the heart rate and leave an impression which will echo in the aorta for years to come.

Additional information can be found at:

www.166bpm@bloggerspot.com & www.bacalive.co.uk

 

 Sponsored by: www.kempandkemp.co.uk

166 bpm have their own blog!!!

Thanks to Kitty we have gained the right for the blog title!! www.166bpm.blogspot.com!! fantastic news!! The site is still under construction but getting there!! We intend to use this site as a final clean demonstration of our groups work. An artist statement, (with image) our group intention and sponsorship details. Our group showcased out into the world! We chose the red colour as that was one of our first ideas (until we realised that red wasn't particularly a theme) but it was then that Tom came up with the fact that the colour red raises one's heart rate. Hence the background. Mike suggested that we use the poster image as the background. I handed the relevant sized image to Kitty but she said it looked overly complicated. Shame as I think that would've been a nice touch, but it was a complete judgement call!!! :)

Sponsored by Kemp and Kemp

I have to say a big thank you to my Dad. Over christmas I asked him about the professional manner in approaching companies for sponsorship. Whether it was better to just send a letter. Act as a door by door salesman. Or simply give a telephone call. Possibly a combination or a mix of all three? My dad being a busy man said probably letter or email. But it's about being noticed. I know in the restaurant business that that tactic is very difficult (having first hand experience working in the industry for two years) His bit of advise was that it's about the personal connection to the exhibition, the possible gain? Particularly in the climate it's difficult to 'cold' business involved in your work. Would they really want to hand over that kind of money? It was there and then that my Dad said he'd happily sponsor us.

http://www.kempandkemp.co.uk/

Christopher Wilmshurst works in the commercial side. But is the partner to the whole business

166 bpm invitations

Again there were a few compositional issues and alternative lay out designs until we came to this conclusion. I had suggestions from Matt my Visual Design tutor which very much assisted in our design. Thank you! However he would argue that the back of the invitation design should replicate the bottom half of the poster. However the logo for Kemp and Kemp had to be on the front (the whole idea of sponsorship!!) and we as a group liked the inclusion of the artists names.

166 bpm Poster

This is our final poster design!! Took awhile to get here! After the professional practice session where everybody put their work on the wall, no one reacted to our work until Ella put up her first design of her brother 's drawn hands. It is from there that we thought we had to get something eye catching. Straight after we went to the butchers to buy our 85p frozen pigs' heart We then collected Ella's digital SLR and set up the photography studio at Dartmouth. Tom, Sophie J, Ness, Ella and myself then played around with lighting and photos. A few images were compiled!!! We then set about playing around with images and met up the next day at Sion. Mike came up with the idea of having black and white with a red heart. It has a stunning factor about it. However some would argue that the blood stained hand had a interesting characteristic about it.

I then produced a few layout designs, a jiggle here and there and this is what we've got!!

Karla Black

So in conjunction with my previous post. The photo I personally (and sneakily took) was at a Modern Art Oxford exhibition of Karla Black's work. Very beautiful and most appreciative in the effort it must've taken to do. I was honoured when they chose my work to be displayed in the Flickr account 'No Photography Allowed'

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1323260@N24/

I've also attached a screenshot of the double page spread I'd formed from Visual Design Yr1 Unit4 2010 I'd posted my images onto the Flickr account, therefore qualifying to be shown in my 'copyright' book. (literally the page before Susan Philipsz!)

Susan Philipsz

I was watching the 3 minute wonder Channel4 were showing in the build up for the Turner Prize. Susan Philipsz was the winner and ironically she showed a piece in conjunction with Modern Art Oxford in 'You are Not alone' 31.10.2009 which I went to see. She had a sound installation piece that was showcased in the Radcliffe Observatory. A building that has secretively been locked away from the public. A personal reason for wanting to go. But it was very moving..being in a beautiful historical building looking over the entire city of Oxford.

http://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/whats-on/you-are-not-alone/additional-resources/
(click the film clip to the right of the screen)

But the piece that won was a scottish lament (sung by herself) that echo under george V bridge in Glasgow, as demonstrated in the video:



To add. In my first year of Visual Design we were asked to do a blogging project (which I loved) I picked Modern Art Oxford as my subject, to research it's web life. How it reflects out on to the world via the internet. After that project we then had to create a publication from our findings. Modern Art Oxford created a Flickr account called 'NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED'



They were hidden photographs people weren't supposed to have taken within the gallery but did so anyway. (it's a breech of copyright laws for the artist) people uploaded them onto the Flckr account. I must admitt I was one of them!! BUT from this I created a 96 page booklet and Susan Philipsz had a few sneaky photos taken. Here are some screen shots demonstrating my work, and highlighting Philipsz'

There is more information about her winnning Prize at Channel4 news. The actual video I watched had run out on 4oD:

http://www.channel4.com/news/turner-prize-susan-philipsz-wins-prestigious-art-award

A photo a day

I found this video a while ago. But I feel some kind of connection to the previous post. I would love to achieve this one day. Maybe next year?

Eyes in the back of your head?

I'm interested in surveillance. This artist took another step in the meaning. He's actually had a camera placed in the back of his skull, taking a photo every minute of his day, except, ironically in his photography class at NY University. He intends to have this implant for a year. Live images are streamed to Museum in Iraq and can also be viewed online. I first came across this article in the news...I've added a link to the BBC news page and then searched youtube for a video.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12105199

Idea Station

We initially thought of a theme RED. But then when speaking to a friend who works for a gallery...she kindly pointed out that a colour isn't particularly a theme. We re-thought our idea to when Tom mentioned what emotion the colour red initiated. It supposedly quickens the heart rate, it can induce feelings of anger, passion, energy, excitement, sacrilege, love. So we thought red could still be used throughout the exhibition  as an underlying factor but have 'heart racing' as a potential idea?

Being a keen charity shop hunter (and living near many of them!) I somehow got onto a conversation with April (and Ness) and word on the street had one of them selling an old heart monitor (£8) we thought maybe we could have that as a central piece to the exhibition and display it at the front, to demonstrate our unity as a group.

However when Ella and I went for a closer inspection it wasn't quite what we anticipated..

It was a dated heart pressure gauge. Not what I was anticipating or hoping. It had a mercury measure which is cool if it had actually worked. Maybe we could display a metronome instead?

Needless to say...the cleaning up wasnt so fun!! :(

Ella took the other shelf and it was too harsh to ask Mike for too much..considering he has to walk 40mins to get back home from Dartmouth!!!

Put another bacon bap on the BBQ (wednesday 15th)

Ness, Sophie and Josie were at the helm on the tuesday and Mike, Ella and myself were on the wednesday. We took some photos in the process! It went well as we managed to make a profit. Mind you...we brought a lot ourselves. Needless to say it was very cold too!!

Putting up the posters..

Ella and I set out to put the posters up at Sion and Dartmouth. It was done at a late stage I must admit..but it got done eventually!! Martin also helped out...so..thank you!!! Apologies on the poor quality..can you guess where the posters are yet?!