Nostalgic Reflections....

Walking around the art school yesterday, I realised the transition that it is about to happen, and it suddenly hit me, this is going to be my last week as an art student. These reflections were even more emphasized when I saw all the new applicants picking up their portfolios. It just gives you the sense of the complete cycle, people coming and going, people ending their journey as others begin theirs....
                                                                   ~

The whole of the Crawford building has now been stripped out and all the studios are empty. Everyone is getting ready to move to their final space. I have been in mine for a while now, so for me the transition has been more progressive and perhaps that is why I have been so relaxed, but I suddenly realised that it is actually going to happen, I am going to graduate. It never occurred to me how quick time was going to pass, and now I am about to face the very last jump in this process. It's a strange time, because it is like waiting for something that you knew was always going to happen, but now that you can see it in the distance, it makes me feel slightly anxious...I'm about to end a journey....

This has been for sure my best year. Moving out of the Time Based Art studio and getting to share a space with other practioners has been the place where I've learnt the most in my whole time here. I have loved the merging of art + media and being able to move around more freely....This year has opened everything up and I have been able to grow inside it. I have to say that I have found my whole art school experience very challenging. It's been a difficult journey, in which I have had to learn to be my own mentor and to truly face myself...

But it has been a journey that has transformed me, and helped me to find where I want to go in life and who I want to be....both personally and as an artist. The wonderful thing about Duncan of Jordanstone is the diverse group of students, they are a really good bunch of people and I really look forward to seeing and hearing of where they go...
I have to say 2009 feels like a long time ago, but there is still so many things I would like to do here. Its a good feeling though. As anxious as I am, I am also extremely excited. I was speaking to Bec about it and she said it was more like the beginning of a journey, and I think she is right. This is just the beginning of all of our careers as artists, our first exhibition...I feel really lucky to have my own space. I really hope that it all turns out ut wonderfully. This will be my first ever exhibition, my first public projection....Now, all I can think of is the show, it is an amazing opportunity and I hope that something good comes of it, even if it just sharing my work with other people. That is what I look forward to the most....and then a good holiday.

My business cards arrived!!!

My business cards arrived today!!! All 1,000 of them :) I am very happy with how they turned out,  perhaps a little too dark on the back, but nice and simple with a matt finish!....It just makes everything more real, all this is really going to happen! I can't wait for the degree show!

Sound Recordings in Degree Show Space....

After having slight concerns about my final sound piece, this weekend I decided to do a series of sound experiments & internal performances inside my degree show space. This was a way for me to link my past processes and journeys with site into the final space where all my research and work will manifest within. By using my experiences from my past explorations of site into to the final space, it has created a fluidity between the degree show space and all the other sites of resonance I have visited.
Inside the space, I projected myself into it, letting my voice travel and mould as part of the architecture. Over my time in the space, I have been interacting and singing into it as a way to prepare it, almost as a ritual. For me, it is important to incorporate this process into the degree show space itself, as it makes no sense to go around all these sites, investigation and exploring them and then to leave the final show space untouched. I think that by projecting your energy into it, you transform the space and create an atmosphere, which has been a crucial to the development of my final degree show. I want the show to feel like it has history and that as a site in itself it resonates.
For these investigations, I blindfolded myself and interacted with every aspect inside the room. I sang in all parts of the room, slowly moving my body around the curves of the structure. As well as the sonic presence, I also interacted with the physical presence of the space, I felt the material, the wood, the soil, the smell of the space...I crawled underneath the structure and experimented with the sound presence in the invisible space. I took-in and interacted with every aspect I could.
It was wonderful experience, as I find that in these situations one becomes much more aware of all the little sounds in and around the space that builds its atmosphere, and a lot of the atmosphere in my degree show space are the noises of outside, the birds singing and the wind, conversations, people walking around the colelege, eveen the noisy lift. It is all part of the space's character...
This was also an exciting time, because I finally have all 6 pipes inside the space. Graeme finally finished them! They are still waiting to be placed inside the structure, but having them in the space meant that I could also interact with them and play with the objects that are going to project the final sound piece for the degree show.

Although I am happy with these experiments, I still feel it is importnat that I continue to work with my past recordings and to bring the presence of outside space and external sites into the degree show space. I really want to bring my journeys into the space, so over the next few days I pan to play with all my sound recordings. I am hoping that they will come together naturally, and harmonize together to create a universal sense of external site, of sacred places, or places that resonate our very existence....

My sound piece...

This week I have been focusing on making the sound piece for the space. For the sonic aspect of the show I have been working with my recordings from the Hamilton Mausoleum, which have the most reverberance and also represent the site in which I had my strongest and most influential experience of resonance. I have been working with it on pro tools, cutting it up into sections and placing it into 6 different channels, playing with the notes and tones. It has been a difficult process as I have had to envision the way the sound is going to move around the space through the pipes, and how the pipes are going to relate to each other in the space, without actually being there. It has been slightly tedious making a sound piece for a space when you are not inside it, the whole process has felt very disjointed and in some ways I wish I could just compose the piece there, live inside the space...
Because of this I am not yet been convinced that working with a recording from a different site is going to work. Because my recordings are site- specific, projecting them into a new space makes them feel fake, like an echo. I am basically re-projecting an experience, rather than making one for the space. To me it feels as though I am bringing something from the past into the present, and right now the sounds feels completely disattached from the space.
Today I had a tutorial with Holger and he said that he also feels that it is not quite jelling together. He told me 'that I have all the right ingredients, I just need to mix them better together', so after a discussion with Nilla I decided to take out some recording equipment out and to do some vocal experiments within the space itself.
Tomorrow morning I am going to go into the space and record inside it, building up a relationship to the space. Within it I want to explore it, play with it and feel it with my entire body. I think it is important that I create a dialogue with this specific environment, and that I have some form of exchange. I am also thinking of experimenting with my voice by singing through the pipes. Hopefully this organic and intuitive way of working will bring a new energy into the piece and take me in the right direction. I hope these experiments prove to be successful and lead me to urika moment in which everything magically comes together... This year has been such a wonderful and influential journey for me, and I really want to give it justice, all my discoveries, internal experiences, the spaces that have transformed me through them, all this I want to project back into my piece. I also feel like i have had to much support from different people, I also want to to do it for them, to create an experience where they can have their own journey, and exist inside the space through my voice...

Artefacts...

I have kept a lot of artefacts that I found on my travels and for assessment I have been thinking of framing them and making them into small pieces. This week I took a heart shaped leaf I found outside Hamilton Mausoleum, which I like very much. I also have bits and bobs that I found up on my trip to Orkney that have been lying around in my studio for months. I displayed them in little boxes for the assessment in December, but I think it would be nice to make them into small pieces in themselves, to mark my journey and the little things that still remain from them, both physical and ephemeral. 

I perhaps, might think of selling them, although they are quite sentimental to me as they represent my journey through human resonance and have become symbols of this entire experience. I love the fact that I have been able to collect all sorts of things within these places, not only my encounters with with the space, but also just how much they have influenced and affected me as a person. If anything these spaces have made me progress as an artist and defined where I want my practice to lie. They are artefacts not only of the sites but of my own internal journey and process...

CONSTRUCTION SITE.

This week I have been busy in the studio, working with my wonderful boarders Anton and Jason constructing my degree show space. I have been preparing the space by glueing extra wood to the outer curve, making it stronger and more contained for when the earth is imported on top of it. I then had to sand it down, which took a good hour, but I am very happy with the result...

The boys were in all last week constructing the actual frame. It took them 2 days to put up, and this week they helped me put up the fabric for the windows, which took 3 attempts to do....

The structure is finally completed. Now all I am waiting for is the pipes and then I can cut the holes and then import all the soil. I decided to keep the structure natural and so I will not be painting it white. There is wonderful smell of wood, that makes the whole space feel like a tranquil forest and I wouldn't want to spoil, and so I think there will be a very natural and raw theme going on, with the earth, wood an bare metal pipes, I can see the space feeling very organice and site-specific. 

Spherical shaping of the space...

This afternoon we brought the bendy ply up into the space. This has helped me to envision the final show a lot better. At first, I thought the structure was very high, but now I feel it is a perfect height. It is just at ear level and will feel enclosed but welcoming. We will finish the structure tomorrow afternoon, including the hidden door inside the circular frame and will also mark out where the pipes will be placed. I am still waiting for the pipes to be constructed as Graeme is very busy this week, but hopefully they will be done by next week. Then I can bring them into the space, install them and then bring the soil in. 

Building my structure...

The boarders came today and began constructing. By the end of the day they had most of the foundation grid up. I also managed to hang the fabric for the windows, which has really transformed the light and atmosphere in the space. I have also done a small experiment with the soil to see how much I am going to need. Progression is moving quickly, and things are beginning to take shape. I am very excited to see the space shape into its final form and sculpt it into a show.

INSTALLATION.

This week I got a wonderful surprise! I have two men working on my space all week and are going to help me construct my show. This is great news, as initially Alan and I had thought that we would have to do it alone. The men are boarders from the DCA and have been asked to help out for the degree show instal. As there is not a lot to do this week, Alan asked them to help me with my space, so from having nothing happening I now have a full week of production!
The men came in on Monday afternoon and introduced themselves, they are very lovely and have given me a great sense of motivation. I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing the space, sanding and painting the walls. I have also had to completely clear the space so now all my supporting material is hidden in boxes at the entrance of the room. These are the very first steps to a great journey, where I get to finally see my idea form into its own architectural body....

Walks near the railway...

On my wanders down near the railway I came across a few visual links to my degree show. I found a spiral circle in the middle of the road, metal pipes and holes imbedded in the side of the road...I love how everything is now slowly leading to this one focus, and it seems like all my eye can see is everything emerging from this one focus, my show...