Masses of stitch...

Todays use of the laser cutter, I assume, will be the last use of that machinery, due to over booking and suspended use! I have tried other options (Fred's, FAB lab) but too expensive, too late! SO to overcome this little problem, I am going to continue using lots of handstitch which I think is going to work quite well and visually will perfectly reflect connections/wires/networking systems...

I need to fit as much into my little laser hour as humanly possible.

It will link in to the idea of EXCESS and  MASS, I will no doubt be spending a MASS amount of time stitching and this connects to my idea of 'hand operated' telephone exchanges, quite time consuming compared to todays methods.  There is most likely to be a considerable amount of thread because of the stitches that I am using.. Also the supermodern theme will me running through, it will be clean clinical, simple colours, perspex and plain, generic fabrics.

I think this is going to work, as I think the handstitch side needs to be explored more, I have been hesitant as I didn't want to add stitch as a decoration or didn't want it to be seen as such.

It has been hard trying to sync my time and my thoughts with the laser cutter, as I like to over think fabrics/colours etc, so I have really had to have a go in-get it right-get out! attitude.

For now, on with the hand stitch!

Tactile

As I plan to be working only with a few materials (as with a few of us in the group) , and our space could possibly be quite Blank, I have been looking at a few artists exploring quite a minimal theme...

Thomas Raschke; 'avid model builder' using a number of materials, frequently experimenting with iron-wire welded and soldered, his work questions edges and structures, lines and space.

Quite interesting, regarding the space.  Also, has a very thready characteristic, quite wire-y, something I am trying to achieve with my work...

Antonia Low;  Another artist from the tactile book...Amazing installations! They are, in fact, inspiring me to possibly work more with the wire/fabric/perspex element to my piece...

Very minimal qualities, materials and structures give an almost haunting feeling, a bit odd... I like odd.

Great book, as Mark said it was, so I will bring it in to the studio to see what peoples are thinking.

FAT

Fashion. Architecture. Taste.

'FATs design, installation and gallery based projects explore the potential of objects to perform as critically engaged entities. Through material, form and use they develop a culturally rich approach where design is not only a solution to a problem but a way of describing the contemporary world.'


Fat is a pretty interesting design group, who are based in architecture but do a bit of design work too... 


The bit about ' a way of describing the contemporary world' caught me! And I think this what I am trying to do, or this weeks theme, trying to map and represent the dead and empty spaces in Manchester.
I am going to try and get hold of snowcrete and use plaster and maybe see what setting flour paste achieves...


Konran SHOP.


A few objects were made for the Konran Shop in London...

'FAT's Konran Shop was a range of products exhibited and sold at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Recognisable icons of design - Philippe Starck's Juicy Salif, the ipod, Alessi coffee pots - are crudely remade in clay. Lumpy, slightly grotesque and functionally useless, the pieces satirised our obsession with accumulating designer objects for the home, 

FUNCTIONALY USELESS. Makes me think about the telephone exchanges -LOST functions, DEAD FUNCTIONS. And makes me think about the non places, car parks, train-stations; the functions are to wait, strange transitional places and periods. 

Its all quite repeitive, the function, and the aesthetics of the places, which relates back to a little comment by E.H on the minimalist period of industrial, identical serials and systems

'Such systems were hardly rational, serial art is another way of repeating absurdity'

It is all absurd! 

Shopping Hour

'A magazine bringing art, philosophy, poetry and critical theory together in exposing the naunces or contemporary life and culture'

I bought this the other week and it has been an excellent read! The focus of the issue was 'the critique of science' which is rather fitting with all these thoughts of science and future designing buzzing around our heads.  

It has a mixture of short articles and interviews by scientist and artists (and it seems a fair few graduates of  MA Aural and visual cultures at Goldsmiths-note, possibly interesting course...)   and also illustrations and illustrated pieces. Lots of SOUND ARTISTS and alternative ways of thinking and exploring...

Best bits

-'We are just playing' -the observation and relevance of child's play in adult life and culture. (Jonny Briggs interview linked in with this, commenting 'all children are artists, the problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up').

-Mike Hulme - scientist and professor of climate change commenting on 'Transparency and the limits of the see-through knowledge' and world that we are living in.

-'The misunderstanding is that science is considered more precise than poetry'.

Its all very philosophical and questioning and in this issues quite sciency, questioning the effect of science in our culture, its necessary, but damaging...