Boards.

One of the live projects I am working on is for Bench in Manchester; their focus is on the modern urban environment, handy, considering my last project was on MY MODERN URBAN ENVIRONMENT, but it was a little more than that, so decided to get the boards out to document exactly what I did, where I am and how it's going to help me in both my projects (the other being commission for GM)...


CONCEPT

AN AMBIGUOUS JOURNEY

'WE NEVER LOOK AT JUST ONE THING, WE ARE ALWAYS LOOKING AT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THINGS AND OURSELVES'

Began thinking about documenting and recording; gaps in time, finding the poetry, strangeness or mundane in the EVERYDAY. Starting point: series of windows.Wanted to carry on, extracting ideas about creating ambiguity, clouding connections, creating narratives and thinking about the everyday obscured. Documented through film camera, a window.

PROCESSES I

'WE MIGHT SET OUT INTENDING TO DESCRUBE WHAT WE SEE, BUT EVEN THEN WE DESCRIBE WHAT WE SEE THE WAY WE SEE IT.'

Thought about how to represent research, thought more abstract, the way I am seeing things. Documenting my everyday not just literal windows. COLOURs of the film processing was important, made places appear stranger, more/less enhanced. Thought about mapping my place/s through mapping colour, thinking about orientation.

PROCESSES II

'SUCH MOMENTS OF NONSENSE OCCUR WITHIN AND BETWEEN THE MUNDANE EVERYDAY ROUTINES OFFER  AN ALTERNATIVE VISION OF REALITY IN WHICH THE LIMITS OF THE REAL WORLD CAN BE TEMPORARILY SET TO ONE SIDE.'

Thought about making things STRANGE. I made objects, plaster windows/viewfinders and juxtaposed, made pockets to HIDE and CONCEAL. Montaging: 'montage offers unusual combination that surprise and disturb habitual ways of seeing things. Thought about maps and how 'MAPS SUGGEST EXPLANATIONS'  but considering ambiguous nature of project, the maps could suggest nothing at all. Thought about creating blank books, making things strange, painting photos and having moments of non-sense. Ideas hinting towards SEEING THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT AND SAMPLES 

Decided to make books, as I have consistently documented through books and thought it would correlate to collate my own ambiguous narrative. Using Art Direction and Indesign workshops to help think about layout, inducted into bookbinding and the Risograph printer, new skills to produce new outcomes.

REFINEMENT OF IDEAS AND OUTCOMES

OUR RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER THINGS. WHAT IS ALREADY INSTALLED EVERYDAY?

Took a new collection of photos pulling together the ideas explored and realised, the journey of my journey in a way. Documented the development and installed in the same locations, resulting in a SERIES OF BOOKS, that reflect the nature of the project [possibly not quite right, but what I thought at the time, and still useful] and suggest ideas about the everyday and ambiguity.

Whilst pulling my ideas together, I realised how my concept had come to change to be about the EVERYDAY, thinking about installation but which considers and involves what is already installed, with a sense of ambiguity.



CARRY ON WITH
sense of ambiguity, strangeness
documenting, lots and using the film camera
communication, the design and layout...