images

Finished!

I have finished and been out of school for about 1month, its a strange feeling not having anything to do, no essays to write, no emails to check or images to upload or print. I haven't gotten any of the images from the gallery install as of yet but I've attached some pics of the final works.

more postcards and hanging

as i sip my coffee and steady myself for the day of hanging works, painting plinths and general exhaustion its exciting to realise that its all coming to a head. I dont know if i would have produced these works if i wasn't in the school environment that i was but it has given me HEAPS to go on and even though i didn't get to do as much drawing as i thought i would have - i have so much information to work from and a much better understanding of the artistic process - i hope!

All postcards out in the wide world

So all the post cards are out in the big wide world - i have about 25 or so cards that have come back, it's exciting to get mail everyday.

Postcards Back! Review

have managed to give out most of the 90 postcards and a steady trickle of them are coming back.

Had a review with lynne and marg in the project space on thursday with the other drawning honours kids and we worked together to make the room look like a group exhibition, rather than taking just a wall each as we had done when we set up in the am. Then we had another review with roger, charles and lynne again.

Both days were exausting both physically in the hanging of the drawings but also looking at how all my work is going to hold together as one body of work -

To tie it all together we decided a branding of identy would be in order, so we looked at the different ways that this could be achived. A stamp looked like it could be a good choice. A stamp that could literally brand the boxes, drawings, postcards, etc etc etc

postcards how they would appear in the catalouge

Who wants a postcard??

FINALLY the postcards are done, stamped and in the process of being sent out to people and giving them to people - have managed to get out about 30 of the 90 out - so hopefully by the wednesday i can palm them off onto honours people and their familes.

The postcards proved to be a pain. I Looked high and low for 250gm paper (thin enough for the printer and coppier) to no avail - i have no idea where i got the first few sheets - so printed them on 200gm paper - a bit too thin for my liking, but, substatinaly cheaper and i think that due to the thiness they will get a bit more character into them - they don't look so thin on the wall only to the touch. I removed the printed address in favour of people writing it in their own handwriting, the cards were also stained in tea to remove the mass produced bright white from them, much better and now there is some tonal variants in them which hopefuly will prove intresting en mass.

Now all thats left to be done is:

1. give out all cards
2. get back all cards
3. catalouge boxes
4. create catalouge both hard copy and online
5. investigation report
6. essays :(

I'm breathing a little easier now but still scared!

ALSO:

I have recived a nice total of 60 synchronised travel pics from other people! Now begins the task of formatting them into a book.

postcards ahoy

The recreation of the couple of drawings that were too overworked and contained too much information was well worth the effort, the drawings now hang together much better and i'm just happier with them in general,

Have spent today making them into postcards, slicing them into 9 and putting them into 6"X4" cards.

Instead of scanning them i got a pleasing result from taking a photo of them in the highest res on my good camera, and cropping them down -

however there is a bit of colour difference on them which i'm leaving to sort out tomorrow in the digi labs.

I'm up to 49 submissions for my synchronised traveling, a few people, have submitted more than once but it's all part of it.

no not done yet

have decided that 2 of my drawings need to be redone! oh the horror. It has delayed the timetable - - - - - - - oh well.

uurrrmm

its a closer count down than what i first thought - my computer died - so had to go to wollongong to get it fixed - now i have a new OH so quiet power supply in it and dad very very kindly lent me his laptop to use which is great so now i can do all my file uploads, renaming etc in front of the tv which makes it so much more palatable. have almost finished my 10 drawings (hopefully all done by the end of the week) so then they will be off to the printers etc, need to start on my theory too- - as a typical art student i've left everything to the last minute. auugghh

DEADLINE!

have set a dead line for myself and also for the people helping me out - 30th of this month - which is both liberating and very very scary as the educational year is almost at the end. My computer died when i was away and so working on a little laptop which isnt the best for photo editing etc etc etc. have about 30 people who have participated. t think that i have been on task with taking my photos everyday but will have to wait till i get my computer back to upload everything and to get my book published !

eeeppp off to school .

Marta Rosler - the bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems 1975

Martha Rosler’s, “The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems” (1974-5) introduces the Museum’s approach to “neighborhood” and contextualizes artists’ significant engagement with the area. The work offers a poetic, humorous, even elegaic interrogation of the concept of the Bowery as urban blight. Refusing the style of documentary or journalistic portraiture often used to personify poverty through the degraded human subject, Rosler concentrates instead on the evidence of an absence: empty liquor bottles and assorted detritus that suggest alcohol infused vagrancy and mark the passage of time. Juxtaposing these images with lists of synonyms for drunkenness or drunks and the words “dead soldiers, dead marines,” the work amplifies the void of representation while alluding to the unknowable path traversed by the so-called “Bowery bum.”

I love this idea of the evidence of an absence !!

after the cruise

back on dry land and it still feels like i'm on the boat.

Since i have been back i've been badgering people to submit and upload their synchronized travel photos - its working - - - slowly.

have given a deadline and a prize as intensive which might speed people along.

First day back and i forgot my pencil case - was a blessing in disguise as i ended up doing all the bit's n pieces that are dull like gridding up my paper, doing the photocopies etc etc etc.

Through doing some of my theory research was reading a collection of essays or chapters i guess called "the return of the real" by hal foster - there was a chapter in it discussing the artist as ethnographer which contained some interesting artists -

Silvia Kolbowski - Enlarged from the catalogue - feb 1990

http://www.silviakolbowski.com/projectDetail.cfm?id=18

The link to that boltanski info: http://www.mattress.org/index.cfm?event=ShowArtist&eid=21&id=247&c=

final scanned drawing:

oohhhhho

So still looking at how things are going to all fit together - got some shelving units from bunnings (only $22 each so not a huge waste if they are not used) and have started stacking the boxes up on them, they are all covered in brown paper - but different types of brown paper. I looked at archiving systems and they seemed too sterile for what i wanted to archive. Found this work by boltanski - Archives of the Carnegie International, 1896-1991 (1991)

MAIL ART

Have compleated three of the 10 drawings that I want to do - there are actually 5 on the go but i think the first two are beyond redemption so will redo it. I'm going to take these and scan them then print them out onto card, cut them up into post card size address them to myself and then put them in an envelope and send them to people.

They will already have the postage on them and I'll invite people to do something to them - write me a note, colour it in, stick a sticker on it, cur a hole in it and then send back to me.

too many things

Ryan (boyfriend) told me that bunnings had some metal shelves that i wanted for 23 dollars - bought one - it's a bit smaller than what i want but I think if i buy three it will make more of an impact.

Its a bit of a struggle to do the synchronised traveling everyday but I am finding new nooks and crannies around my neighbourhood and school etc. Trying had to keep it organized. the flickr site was well worth paying the extra $30 US to have heaps more space.

Things have died off a bit with others contributions to synchronized travel - a lot of people say they will do it - and I'm sure that they will someday but I think that life gets in the way! Am starting an email campaign to encourage slackers! While it is a pain to do it everyday day its so nice to explore your surrounds rather than just walking through it.

Thought as it was the first of the month yesterday that I would start a new thing of taking a photograph of my left hand as this is where i write my things to remember.

baby sitting duty

I'm having today and tomorrow off as i'm baby sitting my niece ava (just 4) and noah who's one and a half - i thought i could do some study - but the realities of full time caring for kids sank in and it's only now - (noah in bed and ava occupied by tv) that i get a chance to work. Went to the park earlier and got ava to do the syncronized traveling - it worked for the first two steps but then it went to more "where can you see a two or a seven" "I don't know what they look like!" "how about a sign or some writing" and instead of the 100 paces etc it was more "whats your favourite things?" so it wasn't as faithful as i thought but it was fun. We tried to do it again but it ended in fights over the rocking horse (find a place to sit) so it was time to go home. I'm exausted and its only 2pm. and got to do it tomorrow. Have been looking into public art - reading a great book enitiled "Dialouges in Public Art" by Tom Finkelpearl - which is what i want to write my essay on for michael downs class. As for jaques class Im thinking of doing something to do with collective memory (i think its jung?) mmmm better start reading

Day one

1. leaving by the back door -uggh- rainy

2. Gardens in the roof

3. Turning left into certain wetness


4. sitting here would equal a wet bum

5. I thought it was funny - bus sticker on a car - oh the irony

6. could i get more 2's?

7. 100 paces and i wish i brought a brolly

8. these are red leaves - too wet to take a better photo

9. Grooowwrrr


10. a lot shiner in person

post review

I am so tired - was ill all last week and didn't take good care of myself on the weekend AND its rainy so i'm trying not to feel lazy.

Review was ok - I felt better with my ideas and presentatio going into it than I did with the mini one with Lynne and Marge. Was intresting to get some feedback from Charles and Michael who were unfamilar with my work. It ultimatly lead to the point of "Now What" - you have all this stuff which is intresting in itself but how is it going to all work together? I've been researching people and looking at Susan Hiller's work - I like the way that she involves people in her work - but as I was thinking about things I realised that I can't really rely on people to do the projects that I have layed out for them - so whats another way?

I'm going to set myself challanges that become my rituals - something that I do everyday and collect the evidence from. I was thinking that every morning I would do the 10 sychronized travel steps, but rather than just taking a photo I give myself a preset challage - draw a picture for every stage. Take a self portrait at every stage and so on, collect an item from each stage ect.

Utimatly I want to end up with boxes and boxes of archived material that is stored within the computer and in storage / archive boxes and books.

- - - -

the start of the flash catalouge

pics of drawings

been drawing the objects that i dug up;

Oh too much reading!

For the last two days its been a bit of struggle trying to reconcile what I'm doing with what I'm thinking - and the ethereal ideas that I had earlier don't seem substantial enough at this point.

I'm please with how things have progressed this far - but I just need to clarify what i'm doing.

I looked into other artists that use a collaborative expericance

Learning to Love You More - a site that poses a series of assignments for followers to participate in and they publish the results online and more recently in a book

The Tract House a artwork inviting people to submit their own manifesto that was printed up into tract (advertising cards it looks like) that were distributed

and PostSecret where people are invited to post in anonymously a hand made post card with shares a secret ranging from the bizarre to the painful.

review

Things have been happening slowly and slowly over the last two weeks in the studio - ive got about 18 people to do the travel photos. Ive been drawing from them using a gridded map format of the basis from them playing on that idea of travel and how we map - record or log our experiences

I planned to make 10 drawings/maps one reflective of each step of teh sychronized travelling steps.

After the drawing was finished I wanted to fold the paper into a - folded map - I tried it with the thicker paper - stonehenge that i used alot last year - but it tended to rip rather than fold - i then used canson paper - a cream colour that was flexible enough to fold but warped when i used any water or paint on it which i was useing to lighten the photocopy transfers - I got a big posca poster pen that put a fine layer of paint over them instead to eliviate the warping - when i finished one drawing I folded it - and it looked a bit underwhemling - so have so have continued on with the maps but not folding them as of yet

A brand new day

After going a little stir crazy yesterday I'm keen to get back in the studio and start drawing - it feels like it has been ages since i put pencil to paper and drew - my life seems to be consumed with reading and cataloging o going to start on the maps today.

Map Making

I found a blog that was devoted to all things maps and have found the below artist through this blog - The Map Room and also found through that site this site - Hand Drawn Map Association which is a site they are collecting a collection of maps : As a new feature here at the HDMA, we're inviting various individuals to curate a collection of 10 things. These things will include hand drawn maps, links to map related resources, and general investigations of the importance of place in our lives.

Emma McNally

SYNCHRONIZED TRAVEL update

I'm ill today with the flu so i thought it might be a good chance to catch up with blogs and adress a few things that have been floating around- the Drum Media Ad didn't give me the huge swell of numbers that i naively thought it would - but in spite of that I've had 9 people upload their photos and a few people like Ryan and Rob who have done them and need to upload them so its on is way.

I was looking at creating maps from them - drawing in my own style - with the photocopy transfers etc but with the idea of maps and travel, so this morning I'm looking at artists that deal with maps - found this artist on a blog all about maps ;

Val Britton
“Based on road maps of the U.S., routes my father often traveled, and an invented conglomeration, mutation, and fragmentation of those passageways, my works on paper help me piece together the past and make up the parts I cannot know.” From the interview: “I was looking at an old atlas my family had given me, and I discovered that these maps resonated with me and the stories of my father’s travels. Elements of these maps had the potential to be the jumping off points for my images.” At right: constellation #1 (2009), 16"×16½", ink, collage, graphite, and gouache on paper.

Alice!

Alice sent me this quote:

Drawing:
Arturo Herrera

"Untitled"
1997-1998
Mixed media collage on paper, 12 x 9 inches
Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

"I’m more interested in [the personal] aspect of the visual language, how an image can speak to you in a very touching way that is both charged with knowledge and with memory. It can trigger so many associations because it’s not clear about what it’s trying to say- but you actually attach yourself to the work, and it becomes experience."
- Arturo Herrera
Related Slideshows:
Arturo Herrera - 1990s
Memory

Drum Media Ad

Today I made 2 more blogs - one collectiveritual.blogspot.com to show case the collection of things i find and the other synchronizedtraveling.blogspot.com which is what i'm using to direct people to the steps that I want them to take for the project - I'm going to post the following ad:

Bored? Synchronized Traveling allows you to see your city in a new light, rediscover your neighborhood and travel with friends when you’re far apart and without a passport.

Go to synchronizedtraveling.blogspot.com

in the hope of getting a few people that I don't know doing it aswell.

I worked on the photobook today and its looking ok - I'm keen to get it done and publised asap to see if it's somethig that i want to persue -

Doing the photo book thing today - it's quite easy to use - need to have a think about the text that i want accompanying it - mmmm procrastinating

uggh

dig site!

Have finally finished photshopping the pics of the found objects - I'm now looking at how they are going to go together in the publication - I think I might need to go to the library to check out some of the layouts that they have - I've not sure how much text i need to have in the book - if it should be more or a visual guide - or should it be an explanation of whats gone on - I want to combine the site photos as well as my diagrams as well as the photos of the objects etc etc etc - i was looking at drawings of objects - for tomorrow - deciding the layout - doing a shawow drawing pic (ah la tool rack shadow thing).......

It's the last week of school holidays - I have been working heaps - unfortunately at my other jobs and not my art - I have slowly worked through all the objects that i dug up at dads - I've cleaned them all up, bagged them and tagged them there is about 45 in total, i took photos of the objects after they were cleaned but the lighting wasn't the best on a lot of them so I have to do them again today- my computer has been running painfully slow, so that's putting a damper on things - but I think after disk clean ups etc its working better.

As I've been working on cleaning and labeling the objects I've been increasingly concerned about how i want to ultimately present the works in the end - I was looking on the Internet and found that you could get photo books published that you do your own layout etc and they print and bind it for you - I was thinking that this would be a great way to show all the different groups of objects - and their relationship to each other - TARGET PHOTOBOOKS I had a look at a few sites that offer this service but the target one was pretty good price wise - and i can go and pick it up at Broadway which saves $$$ for PnH. I was also thinking to make a CD rom to go with it with basically the same info in the book - probably done in flash - As for the physical lay out - I've been looking at storage devices and I keep on coming back to the idea of a entomologist kit with the dividers - I would love the idea of big plan drawers made of rich mahogany - i think i have to work with my budget and my time limitations. I keep on thinking of that guy at the MCA who got homeless peoples signs and displayed them on a big table and under a big glass box - bringing it back to the museum theme of collections. and such and such

Holidays

Its been a busy week - I went to dads house - my childhood home and did a small archeological dig in the back yard - cataloging what and where i found objects. It was based on an idea i saw when i was at the TATE modern where the artist Mark Dion organised a dig on the banks of the Thames catalouging what he found:

The exhibition organized these objects according to location in a large mahogany cabinet, alongside photographs of the beachcombers and tidal flow charts, classifying them loosely according to type (such as bones, glassware, pottery, metal objects), in seemingly unhistorical and largely unexplained arrangements: antique items were shown alongside contemporary items, ephemera and detritus were next to objects of value. At all stages, the artist and his assistants took on the role of actors in a form of public theatre, inviting all onlookers to question their own ideas about archaeology, scientific classification, relationships, and knowledge of the past.

http://edu.warhol.org/app_dion.html

I took some photos at dads as i was excavating - but today I want to clean, re-photograph and catalouge the objects and work in the studio tomorrow looking at the best way to display them - at the moment I'm thinking in small cardboard boxes that are devided up - one for each strata location?

I guess what had sparked this investigation into the past as a path to memory was sparked when i read a book on Christian Boltanski by Lynn Grumpet - I wrote the following passage in my diary when I read it but forgot about it till Alice (whom I share a studio with) borrowed the book and marked the same passage for me.

- its in relation to a box of old family photographs (not his family though) that he found and was looking at ways of investigating the family delvign into their lives but as he went on he "Realised that these images were only a witness to a collective ritual - they didn't teach us anything about the family....but sent us back into our own past"

Synchronized Traveling! Flickr and Facebook

I set up a Flickr acc http://www.flickr.com/photos/tammiecastles/ which shows photos of my work but also some projects that I'm working on;

Synchronized Traveling

In my honours year I’m exploring the idea of the evidence of a collective experience. Through this I’m trying to organize a series of interactive ‘invitations’ for you all to participate in. The first one is based on an idea I found in the book “The Lonely Planets Guide to Experimental Travel” which is also based on an idea of LATOUREX Laboratory of experimental tourism. It’s a way to travel the same path as someone without doing it together and to experience your surrounds in an unusual way.

APPARATUS: Notebook and camera.

METHOD: Participants travel around their chosen locations using a 10 stage set of common directions. Participants will take photographs and write notes to record their experiences at each stage. Where the directions don’t match your environment, improvise.

THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

At each stage write a note and take a photo of what you see.

1. The first stage is your starting point
2. Walk in any direction for 50 paces and look up
3. Continue walking in the same direction till you can go left.
4. Go left and keep walking till you see somewhere to sit
5. Walk in any direction till you see something that looks like a 2 or 7
6. Carry on walking in the same direction till you see something that looks out of place
7. Walk 100 paces in any direction
8. Keep walking till you see something red
9. Turn 180 degrees and walk till you see an interesting architectural feature
10. Walk home but keep your eyes out for something shiny


you can check out the face book group to see some of the other photos have put up and you can do you yourself! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=166341500264 I think that this will take you too the site! or just search the groups for Synchronized travelling

the start of things

So i have never blogged before - but i thought that it would be a good way for me to keep my thoughts in order for my drawing honours project at the National Art School in sydney.

Through my last year in my BA i was looking at how memories can be triggered from a small scrap of paper - a movie ticket, a receipt and then I looked at how images can inspire different memories from each person - so someone looking at a horse might think of their first pony ride, another may think of a horse statue they have at home another the book Black Beauty. This year I started off this way but then I found that I was interested in the collective experience of objects. As I looked into the brain, into memory etc I was amazed with all the different levels of memory that there was, memory that stores things for a 10 of a second, memory that we use and access continually – ie the memory of how to speak. It was a subject that was way to deep for me to investigate on any substantial level in my honors year. However while investigating I become drawn to these categories – and how we categorize memory. In the stairwell exhibit I had a piece “ I keep my receipts for tax purposes” I asked the viewer to select a date of significance to them and stamp it on two pieces of paper one when into the show and the other into the pocket or wallet of the viewer – it represented the idea of the evidence of a common experience, so I’m taking the show down today and will use the tickets that people left and organize them into some sort of system – not sure exactly what sort of system – but a system none the less