The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

7th March 2012 - at Hotspur House

So this was the first film night of Unit X at Hotspur House, also my first time visiting. So I was interested not only to see the film but to have a look around the place itself. It's a really interesting venue & I'm sure it's going to look amazing when it's full of busy people producing work.

It was the sense of mystery that added to the atmosphere, as it was a new environment & also nobody knew what film it was we were going to be watching.

 The film is written by Peter Greenaway & starring Helen Mirren. The added bonus for me was that all the costumes were designed by Jean Paul Gaultier.

The basic plot of the film is as follows:

Georgina is the ever suffering wife of a well known ganster named Albert Spica, who has taken control of a high class restaurant. Albert's behaviour is constantly rude, loud & just generally pig - like. Being unhappy in her marriage causes Georgina to go astray & start an affair with a man who regularly eats at the restaurant, name Michael. Eventually Albert finds out & threatens to find Michael, kill him & then eat him. So after finally tracking him down, Michael is killed at his own bookshop by being force fed pages from his own books. A distraught & angry Georgina wants nothing but revenge; so she asks the chef at the restaurant if he will cook Michael.
The film ends with the restaurant full of guests as Albert is presented with Michael's cooked corpse - after all he did say he would 'kill him, then eat him.' Georgina then shoots Albert in the head & there is a sense that his reign of terror is over.

The film is quite violent & gruesome & at some points was difficult to watch. There was a moment in the film were a lady at the restaurant was stabbed in the cheek with a dinner fork & the whole room squealed.

The thing that I honestly found most interesting about the film was that, when characters entered a different room, the colours would change - including their clothes. In the restaurant toilets everything was white, in the restaurant dining room everything was red & in the kitchen & outside everything was green. 

I enjoyed my night at Hotspur overall, it was a really friendly & welcoming atmosphere. Hopefully I will be able to attend a few more film nights in the future. 

TERRY WYKE AT ZION ARTS CENTRE

The Zion Arts Centre in Hulme is an arts centre for young artists and creative thinkers to come and think and explore possible ideas that may come to them, a multi art-form place where like minded individuals can come and experience many types of thing, including workshops in painting, digital art, visual, music or video art. Terry Wyke, a historian did a brief talk there explaining about the history of the surrounding area, and of Manchester as a city, and how it's influences are still being felt both here, but also on a national and even global scale.

Manchester as a city has a vibrant history, but this mainly started during the 18th Century, when the Industrial Revolution began, and Manchester and the surrounding towns is in fact where the Industrial Revolution began, bringing with it a completely new way of thinking and living for many people. Before this time life had pretty much simply been a means of struggle and survival, there was a much lower life expectancy than we're used to now, what with public and personal health issues and many people didn't survive past childhood. This area was where people started to accumulate wealth, through the new factories that were being built, some of the first of their kind. This gave Manchester a worldly significance in terms of innovation and one aspect which really cemented this is the cotton industry. This was the basis of the Industrial Revolution, with lots of inventions being made and technologies being increased. The machinery being developed thus helped the cotton industry really flourish, increasing the wealth of the townspeople vastly. This had many knock on effects, including the highspeed urbanisation of areas around central Manchester, such as Hulme, Chorlton and Ancoats. Instead of people working in their houses, they now worked in factories, introducing the concept of work days, becoming our used to 9-5 days. Towns had knowledge of cotton, and it introduced an idea of luxury, in terms that unlike wool cotton was soft, light, comfortable and also could be printed on. This opened up vast possibilities for fashion among other things. Another thing that came up was the concept of a disposable income. People now had more money than was necessary, so came the idea of places of leisure, such as music halls, theatres and later on cinemas.

All of this shows just how integral Manchester was and is to how we have developed as a nation, and how this has affected many aspects of our lives. This is also relevant in terms of the Old School/New School project, and tells you some stuff that can bring the two together, and how we should still keep the innovative ideals that have always been in Manchester's history, whether it is in industry, textiles, music, etc, and that it may seem unlikely, but that the past is still present in what we do, it's sometimes just a question of realising it.

Dave Haslam - "Secret Public"

Vanessa Latchford.

Dave Haslam was a DJ for The Haçienda night club in Manchester late 1980s.

Although The Haçienda is currently well known, at the time it was part of the 'marginal activity' circulating Manchester city centre. The small scale (however not insignificant) weekly events at The Haçienda were in conflict with mainstream culture at the time because it was something different, independent and new. As Manchester was at industrial ruin at the time, The Haçienda was hosted in an old warehouse. The thick walls of the old building were perfect to play loud music in, but the run down look of the place added to the charm of the event. You were out of the ordinary if you attended these events. Music was played that you hadn't necessarily heard before, but you were immersed into a marginal sub culture with people who had similar interests and the same spark of independence from the 'norm'.

There was little marketing for the events hosted at The Haçienda, which kept its crowds small and prices low. Word of mouth and one off flyers were the height of advertising.

Fanzines were a main topic during Dave's talk, in particular one called "City Fun". The fanzines were sarcastic, contained jokes and artwork, and most importantly were always hand made. They explored the potential of the new and exciting punk sub culture, being imaginative and creative. "City Fun" gave the first ever written review The Smiths which were also part of the small scale margins.

Mainstream culture eventually caught up to this style, which left the punk sub culture to question, "what to do next?" After all one of the main philosophies of punk culture was "Question Everything." This is something, especially from an artist point of view, that we should all have at the front of our minds. QUESTION EVERYTHING.

Arrivals Task - Vanessa

As I did not arrive in Manchester (having lived here my entire life) but wanting to use Manchester to influence my work I thought about my WAY of arriving into the city centre; the Metrolink system.

The Metrolink is a service unique to Manchester that carries almost 20 million passengers yearly and covers 23 miles with 37 stops. It is a relatively new service; it opened in 1992 and is regularly updated. Currently their multi-million pound improvement plan aims to increase the network with four new lines and new and improved facilities.

I am interested in looking at the mapping of the tram lines, both current and planned for the future. I will use this as my starting point.

I am also interested in pattern, floral imagery and natural forms. I would like to do some research into British flora, and I am very keen to look at the Botany collection at Manchester Museum.

ARRIVALS - IWT

 

I was generally quite confused at the start of this task, as I had no idea what to start with, with regards arrivals. It was also difficult because I had in my head wanted to do a continuation of sorts from my previous project, as I personally felt like I had not explored the ideas of Light and Shadow as much as I had wanted, but this hindered my start of the project as I worried about how it may link with the current Project X idea of Old School//New School. After a while being stuck I decided that this was pretty detrimental to the project, as I wasn't actually starting any work, so I decided to stick with one of my ideas and just go with it, and see where it took me.

That idea was the idea I had of looking at both the natural forms I found around Manchester but also the rigid, structural buildings that loom over your heads. I was interested in doing this, but wanted to make it something different and something more exciting, so I would like to look at distorting and deforming the images and drawings of city scapes using my skills from the digital manipulation workshop to create pattern. To create a more fluid and fictional representation of Manchester, with some respects working towards the forms that I found in branches and trees around. I wanted to use the new technologies of digital image manipulation and the buildings which some may find stark and brutal and ugly, to become something more fluid, ethereal and beautiful. I started by taking photos of around Manchester, so I could have some images to draw and work from.

 

See the full gallery on Posterous

See the full gallery on Posterous

With regards arrivals, I am interested in my arrival in Manchester, but also of the arrival of people into the new building, and how each new entrance will be different, so I would like to explore the ideas of transitional art and changing aspects of it. I am also interested in the role that light and shadow plays within architecture, projections of images transferring temporarily onto other sufaces, and how I could translate this into textiles, hopefully fully utilising colour unlike I had done in my previous project.

 

"Drop Sari" - Vanessa

I visited the "COTTON: Global Threads" exhibition at the Whitworth art gallery not long ago and one piece really stood out for me; "Drop Sari" by Liz Rideal.

A video for "Drop Sari" can be found here.

Beautiful flowing white cotton Saris are suspended from the cieling to the floor and blown with fans. Images of India and Sari fabric patterns are projected onto the almost transparent fabric. The fans create the illusion of a breeze catching the Saris, giving the piece an eerie and ghostly presence.

I think that the use of pattern and imagery on these Saris are breath-taking, I found myself lost in a stare at the hypnotic flowing fabric. I really like the idea that the pattern on the fabric can be a temporary thing, only staying for a second or two.

"Drop Sari" - Vanessa

I visited the "COTTON: Global Threads" exhibition at the Whitworth art gallery not long ago and one piece really stood out for me; "Drop Sari" by Liz Rideal.

A video for "Drop Sari" can be found here.

Beautiful flowing white cotton Saris are suspended from the cieling to the floor and blown with fans. Images of India and Sari fabric patterns are projected onto the almost transparent fabric. The fans create the illusion of a breeze catching the Saris, giving the piece an eerie and ghostly presence.

I think that the use of pattern and imagery on these Saris are breath-taking, I found myself lost in a stare at the hypnotic flowing fabric. I really like the idea that the pattern on the fabric can be a temporary thing, only staying for a second or two.

Infra_MANC at Cube Gallery - Vanessa

The never realised Picc-Vic tunnel plans and artefacts were an interesting feature at the cube gallery. There were some stunning technical drawings and architectural plans of the proposed underground link. The proposition in itself is relevant to our current work, we are making our own propositions and putting our own ideas forward. Although it never came to be, there was a lot of planning involved; drawing, mapping etc. It is a shame that funding for the project never emerged as it could have been a great addition to the transport links of Manchester.

As Manchester was the main topic for work in the Cube Gallery, I found it to be very relevant to "Unit X, Old School/New School, Interrogating Manchester" as I am basing some of my own work on Manchster. I found these map drawings at the Cube Gallery quite useful and relevant to my own work, I hope they are helpful to everyone else. I would like to create some of my own map drawings in similar styles as these, but to create repeat patterns instead. As a drawing I love the colour palettes used, especially the colours of the aged paper.

 

Infra_MANC at Cube Gallery - Vanessa

The never realised Picc-Vic tunnel plans and artefacts were an interesting feature at the cube gallery. There were some stunning technical drawings and architectural plans of the proposed underground link. The proposition in itself is relevant to our current work, we are making our own propositions and putting our own ideas forward. Although it never came to be, there was a lot of planning involved; drawing, mapping etc. It is a shame that funding for the project never emerged as it could have been a great addition to the transport links of Manchester.

As Manchester was the main topic for work in the Cube Gallery, I found it to be very relevant to "Unit X, Old School/New School, Interrogating Manchester" as I am basing some of my own work on Manchster. I found these map drawings at the Cube Gallery quite useful and relevant to my own work, I hope they are helpful to everyone else. I would like to create some of my own map drawings in similar styles as these, but to create repeat patterns instead. As a drawing I love the colour palettes used, especially the colours of the aged paper.

 

3rd Year Student's Presentations - Vanessa

Last week I attended two short talks from a couple of 3rd year students. They basically talked through their work, their working processes and their journey through sampling and working.

I would definitely reccommend going to at least one, there are more this week and the following week. To sign up there are notices in the studio, with short descriptions and images of their work, and dates and times to meet up. The short presentations are situated in the studio spaces above ours. Even if there isn't work relevant to your own it is still helpful to see them because you can look at their processes and decision making throughout their projects. They are only 30 minute slots, and definitely worth while. I found it useful to see how other (and more experienced) students presented their work, where they found inspiration and how they tackled the hardest part of being an art student, WHERE TO START?

Hopefully this will be as useful to you as it was to me!

Arrivals - Mellisa

Having realised that the arrivals task was going to be the starting point for this project, I decided to abandon my original idea & come up with something that was true to myself & that I could be 100% happy with.
At first I was really struggling, I felt as though fellow students in the Living It group had been on fascinating trips & exotic holidays, something that I just can't relate to! So I have been feeling slightly bewildered, not really knowing where to start.
I regularly volunteer at music festivals over the summer & in 2010 travelled to Ledbury to work at The Big Chill. Arriving via coach, through the thin, winding country roads, allowed time to just look out of the window & take in what was just simple beauty. Being from a big city, Ledbury just fascinated me. It was like stepping back in time, in a good way.

 Arriving on the high street, I was confused to see independent shops instead of high street chains, small vintage cafe's & a lack of traffic, infact I don't think there was any vehicles apart from the coach I had just stepped off. 
Amongst the totally new atmosphere, I found something that I could resonate with, the cobblestones & old style street lamps reminded me of around the docks in Liverpool. So suddenly I was thinking about home.

 

There is something warm & welcoming about having something familiar in a not so familiar place.

So that is where I'm currently up to.
Just like the first day at Uni or the start of a new job, arriving at a new place can be daunting.
Familiarity makes people feel more comfortable.
So that has now become my aim; to produce designs for the new building that hopefully will create a warm, relaxed & welcoming atmosphere.

DAVID BATCHELOR - IWT

While walking past the Righton building, as I normally do, I decided to stop and just have a look around. To get a feel of what the day was about and what inspiration I could take from the buildings around me. I then saw on the corner a piece of art which I would normally walk past. I went closer and saw the piece properly and stopped to read the piece of writing about it. It was a piece by David Batchelor, who works a lot with light and colour, and how he can merge the two and create subtle pieces of colour where one may not normally notice how colours harmonise with each other.

Our project brief is to create a piece of art/textiles for the new building, and one of the possible things we can look at is the idea of projecting light and colour into it through various ways and media, and I thought that this would be a useful way of doing this, but not the way that many textiles students would possibly see predominantly, as it uses television sets, something slightly out of a textile students comfort zone!

LIVING LIGHT - IWT

While trawling the internet, I found this piece of art, a bio-architecture site specific installation called 'Living Light', a technological piece inspired by the air quality and pollution in Seoul, Korea and made by the design company The Living. It comes from the idea that some architects, artists and biologists have come together to discuss the idea behind the possiblity of biological cities, and how feasible it may be. This is also due to the increasing presence of 'bio-mimicry', architecture which is influenced by, and mimics biological structure, shape and pattern, or specifically utilises nature, such as in 'living walls' like the Caixa Forum in Madrid, which is right next to an installation piece by Patrick Blanc which is a vertical garden which still physically grows due to felt backing and irrigation set throughout the structure. 

The thing which drew me to this piece was the relevance I felt it had to not only my project in terms of light (light and shadow being things which interest me in my practice generally), but also because of the relevance to Vanessa's project, where she may start working with maps and imagery like that. With his piece I like not only the images involved, and how they have used the city in that sense, but also the idea behind it, and the fact that they are not trying to remove the technological aspect of the city, but instead are trying to merge the ideas of natural and man-made, in cities, where many of the worlds population either live or will live in the future. This is something I am also interested in, within my project. The amalgamation of the natural and handcrafted and the scientific and technologically man-made. I don't feel like it should have to be an either/or type choice, but more of a melting pot of both aspects of humanity. That by losing either one we won't be able to innovate and further ourselves as a species, but also keep our human morals and values. There is an interesting piece of writing with further information about it here and also a page here which highlights the stages which the design team took in creating and working through initial idea, and development to final stages and final piece, which I think can be useful for everyone in the group to see, and get ideas of how to plan and work through ideas they may have.

See the full gallery on Posterous

 

Arrivals Continued - Vanessa

After much deliberation on my starting point (the Metrolink Service) I have decided to think about the following for my work:

Repetition: As a service, the Metrolink repeats its journey(s) across the city daily, hourly, even minutely. Repetition is very much apparant in this aspect, along with the fact that my journey is repeated every day. I board and exit the metrolink at the same stops each time I make my journey into University. Although I am not definite on the way that the service is ran; I can imagine that the Metrolink staff/drivers repeat the same shifts over and over, travelling across the city in repeated cycles. The thought of these ever repeating and very structured cycles are the main reason I would like to create repeat patterns in my work. After looking at the mapping of the very central metrolink lines I have discovered that aesthetically I quite like the look of the lines themselves.

Nature: I have personal interest in nature. I was reminded that in nature itself is very much ran by cycles and repetition. Without the very constant cycle of the seasons it would be impossible for the uprise of life that we experience every spring. Our Earth, on it's tilted axis, repeats it's own cycle (it's orbit) around the Sun which in turn creates our seasons. I like the contrast between the natural and industrial cycles and repeats. As I am interested in creating a surface pattern I would like to include my own imagery of flowers, in particular British flora, and if possible something native to Manchester. I have booked an appointment to view the Botany collection at Manchester Museum on Wednesday 21st and I have full hopes on finding such flowers. Eventually I would like to combine my industrial patterns with my natural imagery to create something that repestents the two together in harmony.

Colour Schemes: Thinking about these subjects I would like to use both natural and industrial colour palette. Perhaps I will combine the greys and metallics and harsh colours of Manchester/Metrolink system with the muted and natural tones of flowers. I will work with both as well as creating some drawings/samples using EITHER industrial or natural colourings.

Final Outcomes: Although we are proposing projects for the new building, I work best flat. I would like to produce a surface pattern i.e. wallpaper, wallhanging, projection, flooring etc. etc. I am also interested in looking at some processes that I am unfamiliar with such as etching onto glass and lazer cutting. This project is giving me the opportunity to go beyond what I already know and I am excited to try new things. After the easter holidays I would definitely like to use the print workshop and determined to create a final repeat pattern print.