Dinner tray... is this the way?

I like the idea of dinner trays.

Observing the food court it is evident that food trays are a major factor in the fast food eating style. A larger plate? Yet your food is in paper packaging... odd concept.

The dinner tray is quite isolating your eating alone and this is emphasised by the perimeter of the tray.

Its all mapped out for us.

The food court at the arndale centre in the city. It a hyper space of fast food junkie!

All brands screaming at its customers to eat in a space that is positively american by any standard.

What is scary as that we go to these places unware that we are submitting to the controls.

The Floor is colour coded.
Tables and chairs are set for us.

Blueprints, maps and plans: II

Blueprints, maps and plans

Analysing a space.

Observational studies.

An issue i seem to be interested in with the 'production of a space' is the fact that these places are set out in a selected way.

This idea of control, intrigues but concerns me. Are we always controlled?

Institutional dining?

Come dine with me?

The Link Gallery

The Link Gallery

has a new co- curator.

Me.

(slightly unsure what ive let myself in for?, scared, o yes)

Fanni Niemi- Junkola

Whitworth Talk

Fanni Niemi- Junkola is an artist and lecturer from Finland.

Studied at Glasgow School Of art

Notes on lecture.

Junkola feels her work has a sculpture thinking basis of a moving image. She insisted it is not 'cinematic. I am not interested in films'.

The content of her work has a political aspect ('an artist always has to take a political stand???')

Junkola presented a video entitled 'childs' a video installation. The video is on loop displaying a fight between two woman. There appears to be no end to the fight (more to the point... is the a point to the fight) well Junkola feels the fight is a gender issue. Which she feels woman are often treated like children.

Studying in Glasgow Junkola experienced a level of culture shock- woman 'were plain, silenced' in Finland woman are louder. There is a question of stereotype which is something Junkola is readily expressing.

The video is a reflecting into the artists lifestyle she is trained in karate and this is shown in the video. Is the fighting an act? Its almost theatrical as there is no intention to hurt each other.

Junkola used other versions of the fight... with a man? Having to make a decision about a real life performance for the pictorial sense of a work. The film is slowed down slightly- softening the movements.

There is a question of domestic violence? A political issue thus raised again. Junkola remarks on video being quite pictorial for a cinematic viewing.

To Begin
Video Installation, 2000

The video installation is an example of an 'artistic attitude'working all the time. The video is basically Junkola's experience to giving birth. There is subtility to the image. The video is dealing with the selected image- by the artist. It appears almost violent and brutal like something else is happening. The artist is commenting on technology and the human being. She doesnt want to imply birth but a medical focus which is an opening to the world- not just for woman.

The video displays a level of endurance and loneliness 'how lonely can one be?'. 2 people play role in the video this only heightens the loneliness.

Both of the artists videos are quite violent, visceral?

'the works display a removel of pain' 'the emotional contents is removed'

This is the artists personal and artistic choice to hold back- she doesnt want to redo what has been done. (could it be seen as continued?)

'Raising an discussion or a topic is a artistic gesture rather than repeating'

'There is no end to violence or being physically brutal?' Junkola is not interested in shocking but underlining an issue. She wants you to take the content of her installations in a few days later.

I almost felt the artist was defensive of any idea but her own. When the audience asked selected questions that refered to a cinematic viewing or why does she display her work as only installations. She point blank refused the ideas.

What was interesting i felt it questions art made by artists because they say their an artist. Such as Junkola uses camera man to film her shots that are from the trade. The videos were undoubtly cinematic in presentation ( the high def cameras, wide screen) although this idea was rejected. I question the camera man seeking out an artists vision? Does the artist become a director?

http://www.fanniniemi-junkola.com/

Obsessed with space... just a thought

Just went i thought food wasnt about space... I make it about space!

Juggling ideas about food being a consumer product to food being the product itself. I felt it is slightly obvious and one i instantly went to explore which makes me in hindsight reject the idea.

Although thinking about food as a product some natural foods have skin this could lead to the idea of natural decay. The outer layer being like a shell ( a cast in some way). Still quite obvious...

I like the idea of mutiplication its a natural element of growth which is reflected from nature into an economic idea. Mass production at its best!

Taking it to the extreme.. food is mass produced at rapid speeds - takeaways, restaurents, fast food chains. We are in a time when food is accessible by the tips our fingers and were better to eat than inside the places that give us the 'hot deliciousness'.

Im interested in 'eating space'. Questioning how close is to close?

When is it most acceptable to eat in comfort?

Car Parks

Theres something fasicnation about car parks.

Everything i walk past them, i need to look twice. Im not entirely sure why as ive probably just walk past them before now. Recently, especially at night. I find the spaces austere. The artifical lighting is interesting- stripe lighting. Something we normally see in institution buildings. Is a car park an institution framework?

If for instance an institution idea is a repeat pattern of ideas like rows and rows of desks in an office. Then the levels of parking spaces with the same stripe lighting methodically placed at perfect symmetry, the lines that mark the space on the floor designated for each vehicle then it would suggest an contained institutionalism.

Compulsive Beauty

Compulsive Beauty, Hal Forster

Food Junkie.

I am obsessed with anything old.

Old old things, things that no one in the right mind would buy.

The found object has been a heavy player in my work so what better way to fund this little venture with a junk shop?

Little streets away from my apartment is a cramp pack Mancuian Steptoe & Son.

A little less a father and son deal but hey we cant have it all. What the man with glasses and the ability to climb up fridges like a monkey has is hot property.

A gold mine, i think not but instead a haven of things lost in transition.

Location: somewhere in Manchester

Eating Habits

Keeping a food diary is becoming a record of an eating habit. Almost consciously thinking about what im eating.

Eating habits...

We have eating habits (like patterns) and then eating habits about how we eat and present ourselves when eating with others.

The seems to be a social ettiquette of eating for some. However, a cafe i used to go to sat a man everyday in a suit. Places his briefcase on the desk and takes out a piece a fruit. (the fruit would vary by day). The man meticulously peels the fruit and begins to eat. He would chew the piece of fruit for several seconds and then spit it on into his briefcase. He would then chew again and do the same action. The action was repeated until the fruit had finished.

He would then wipe his mouth, put his paper towel in his pocket and close in briefcase and leave.

Everyday he would leave at the same time and so on...

'S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche'

food food food

What to do about food?

If they have no bread, let them eat cake.....

The Last things, David Moore

The Last things, David Moore

A photographer who was given 'unprecented' access to document a 'secret space' which is used by the government for 'major national emergencies'. The photographs are large scale minimalist images. Depicting spaces that are empty, almost desolate and barren of people. The images made me feel uncomfortable by the austere presence. The 'sterile' conditions of the photographs is something that is haunting but also heavily impressed in my mind.

The banality of the photographs is something to be admired. The rooms are quite basic like an image of bed is nothing more than a bed? So why is it so intriguing? It looks almost like a budget hotel room, yet it has been slept in. There is tiny suggestions that the rooms are seldom used.

The photographs explore spaces not necessarily seen by the public. Probably a space not seen by many but only given a brief viewing through blockbuster films about the world about to end. Moore published some of the photographs to the newspaper wanting to get a larger audience.

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/leisure/taleisure_artnews/4540870.Eerie_glance_into_a_secret_world/

Derelict

Urban explorers is a group of anonymous people that go into derelict buildings across the country and document them. The reams and reams of photographs simply explores that are left void in society but exist as shell.


Im interested in the things that have been left behind.

Like the moments when you see an empty building but someone has left their net curtains in the windows or a falling down building were someone once made a decided to paint a wall a curtain colour.

I find many of the images taken by the urban explorers as something of a connection to my photography journey with derelict buildings.

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/

Zaha Hadid Installation

I was quite intrigued by the work when reading it in the newspaper simply because of the ultra minimalism of the piece plus the fact that music that filled the room was Bach.


29/8/09


On entering the room I was immediately struck by the sheer scale of the white canvas almost like a shell sweeping to the heights of the ceiling. To the floor, the rows and rows of empty black chairs in their stylish modernity sit empty waiting for particpants to enter and to marvel in the sounds of Bach.


The experience was transforming almost holistic something that i have felt in churches before (not even being religious). I seem more interested in installations and artworks that move me and in a true sense installations are sensory experiences.


http://www.mif.co.uk/events/js-bach-zaha-hadid/

Group build...Mark Dion

The theme of an 'artist' had been set, selected into groups and before you know it your Mark Dion.

The group build... a creative rubbish alteration... in all its glory.

My group decided the best way to gather resources to represent Mark Dion was to go outdoors and scavenge.

Dions work appeared almost museum like, almost like the gathering of artefacts. The way a archeologist would collect information.

Taking this into account. Skip jumping, a walk on the canal and taking the job of the back street cleaners.

We simply made a mock-like museum. Using found 'rubbish' as artefacts, labelling sorting them into a haven of bizarre 'mocked precious like state' . A background sound of enya playing in all its tranquility.... and o the vodka worm jelly.

Lifes fun and erm games...

Game brief: summer project

The game was intended to examine the ideas of nostaglia and how smell links with memory.

Nosy Knows...

Nosy Knows

All participants are involved by smelling the contains of the bottles.

The aims of the game are to identify the contains of the bottles by smelling them.

Through discussion about what they feel or think the smells could be related to the players must then work as a team to create a drawing using all the smells with the idea of nostaglia to create a narrative.

The drawing element is really to question memory. Whether there is a link between smell and memory and is there really a common theme for a type of smell for most people i.e. lavendar, old ladies??

Untitled, Unfinished.. Portait of a cancer victim

When my mothers friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. It didnt hit her until they told her the severity of how far it had spread. They said they would have to remove both breasts and that was just the start of the treatment. A first stage of chemotheorpy left her bald.

I asked if it would be possible to take some photographs of her at this stage, she willingly accepted. My own concerns and fears of cancer are seemingly with fear like anybody.

Taking the photographs led to a discovery of a woman whose 'identity' became an asexual image.

Enlarging the image on to a large scale painting.

It still sits unfinished.

Confined Spaces

A series of photographs which navigate around Bradford.

The photographs document the underlying issue of derelict spaces in city-scapes. Buildings left behind in cities that are moving forward. The focus of the photographs is to look at confined spaces that almost are past reflections on a rapidly changing city.