Author: Sarah Weights

Here is a selection of behind the scenes bits from unit two, covering experiments/accidents, workshops, observations and inspirations

Four colour CMYK print experiments. I was trying out ways to use this image of a dockers hook within my project, using methods I had in my 100 iterations. I scaled the right image incorrectly which I think looks quite fun.

3D scan as part of my 100 iterations – I 3D scanned the image i used throughout my iterations. I had enjoyed this step as I hadn’t tried 3D scanning before.

I signed up for Jose Garcia Oliva’s workshop this term, which was “Words as spaces we live in”. We had to bring a word we love and a word we dislike. I chose “astringent” which is a word I don’t like. The above is my research page 🙂

I discovered Freee Collective’s work from Jose’s workshop. They are a participatory art collective that work on socially engaged and protest related projects with different communities. I think their work is visually striking as well as having an ethos I am interested in.

London Docklands Museum dock workers video

I went to the London Docklands Museum to do more research for my project about dockers. I really liked seeing the hooks up close and this video montage of dockers working

I went to Bristol recently and visited the Martin Parr Foundation. I saw photos from his most famous body of work, The Last Resort. The photos were taken in New Brighton, not far from Liverpool where I am from. I wrote my dissertation about these photos during my undergraduate degree, so it was great to see them in person.

I discovered this book, ‘England or…’ by Robin Maddock, about England after the Brexit vote. It’s mixed media – mainly photography with writing and collage. The experimental style has a real energy and feeling to it, which I find very inspiring.

I also explored the docks around Bristol and enjoyed these old structures and that were used to move boats and goods in and out of the water.

Additional reading – I have been reading some Marxist literature and enjoying Neighbours by F.A.T Studio!

This post contains the link to my video, the text transcript and the text-based publication form of my video essay. Please see below:

Click here to watch the video

I would have liked to print this and scan it in, but I ran out of time.

This post is to summarise some of the things I’ve been doing, seeing, reading and watching since the start of the course that have inspired me or contributed to what I’m thinking about in my work. I may add to or edit this over time:

I went to the counter-protest to the Unite the Kingdom demonstration in September, before the course started. Despite being massively outnumbered, I saw an amazing selection of trade union banners in the counter-protest crowd.

After the “Methods of investigating” brief, I continued reading Georges Perec’s “Species of Spaces” and particularly enjoyed the chapter “Attempt at an Inventory of the Liquid and Solid Foodstuffs Ingurgitated by Me in the Course of the Year Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-Four”, towards the end of the book, which describes every dish he ate in quantity over a year.

I attended Frieze and Frieze masters for the first time, because my friend had a free ticket going. I saw some interesting and some really bad art. There was a lot of AI generated imagery, including a wall of AI people kissing which I couldn’t tell if it was meant to be ironic or not. I saw a great painting of some hags dancing in a cave, lots of amazing medieval swords and suits of armour. I got to see some works by Alighiero Boetti, Man Ray, Laslo Moholy-Nagy, Paula Rego, Josef Albers and many others which I really enjoyed. It’s a good place to people watch and enjoy the general spectacle, but it is depressing to think that so much of this work will probably be sold to private collectors and be inaccessible for the public for the foreseeable.

Kerry James Marshall at the Royal Academy. I loved this exhibit, it was amazing to see his work in person. I particularly liked the use of text and painted lettering, symbolism, collage and prevalent use of glitter. I also thought the way he paints a space is so unique and really tells a story, as shown in De Style (1993), above.

One of my favourite works was “Knowledge and Wonder” which was painted for the Chicago Public Library. Apparently this painting was pulled from an auction in 2018 where it was due to sell for $15 million.

Since Rifke Sadlier’s talk, I have been dabbling on P5.js doing some extremely basic coding tutorials.

I recently watched the anime film “Millenium Actress” by Satoshi Kon. It’s a great example of non-linear storytelling via animation, and media referencing itself. The story travels through different eras of history, noting different moments in Japanese cinema. I also watched (and loved) “It Follows” by David Robert Mitchell and “The Hunting Wives” tv series. I was completely taken in by this 30 minute YouTube documentary about a mystery man leaving bottles or urine on an electrical box in California.

I also watched the documentary “Enigma” by Zachary Druker. It focuses on the lives of two women, April Ashley and Amanda Lear, one who identifies as trans and one who has lived in dispute with claims she is trans. It’s a really interesting exploration of what it means to have agency and to control our own narrative. But also, whether we owe it to those undergoing the same struggles as us to represent our communities, or whether we should live life in a way that is authentic to us as an individual.

I began this brief by looking through the different collection options. I felt quite overwhelmed by the amount of choice in the library and Harvard collections. When I looked through the categories on 3Dsky.org, I liked the simple shapes, fun colours and form of the items. I don’t have experience or much understanding of 3D software, but I felt it was a good opportunity to learn a new skill.

Looking through 3Dsky, I felt particularly drawn to the shapes and colours of the “playgrounds” category in the architecture section. I think playgrounds are one of the few accessible public spaces purely dedicated to play and design just to facilitate fun and exploration. In 2021 I saw Noguchi’s playground designs at the Barbican. He described the importance of “social function” in his work and that playgrounds were a type of functional sculpture and saw this as an important aspect of his work.

Looking through the collection and following the brief I began analysing the sets differences, similarities, forms, “grammar” etc. I put images of each on an illustrator document and grouped them by these items. The consistent themes of each seemed to be primary colours, straight and curved poles, animal and plant shapes and house shaped forms.

I decided the next step was to explore “(re)drawing” these forms in a 3D software. I used a software called “Womp” which is free and easier to use for beginners to 3D design. I debated trying to learn Blender, but I didn’t know if I’d be able to learn enough in the timescale to create enough work.

I had a lot of technical issues with uploading files into the 3D software which meant I was limited to two models to work with. I tried to get around this by working on computers in the library, but I still had the same issue. I created a playground site out of the two 3D models, deconstructing them and using the shapes to create slides and climbing obstacles.

During the tutorial, my feedback was that categorising needs to come through more with this piece. It was also discussed that animating the elements would do more to bring meaning to it. I think I will spend some time learning blender to try to do this as I will be able to draw and animate within the software. I think I will split the project into categories by motion/function and colour and have them as separate playground sites.