DEGREE SHOW!!!

It's all happening! Today the flyers and posters came out for this years degree show! I think they have done a great job of it this very well this year, bringing in a graduate student to design them.  For the show, the college have also set up a Degree Show online site with links to all the student's exhibiting. This has just made everything feel so real, it really is going to happen! And lots of people are going to come! Very exciting :)

SYLVIA LAW- STUDENT PROFILE.

And here is a little preview of the degree show preparations:

My books arrived today! :)

Today I received my books! They are beautiful! I made two books for assessment, one called 'Human Resonance' which explores my journeys exploring resonant spaces, and then a smaller one called 'A Book of Performances...' that has a collection of my performative explorations in Dundee. These are my two first ever publications as an artist, which is a very exciting moment in one's career...I look forward to sharing them. 

SOIL....

Today I had a really peculiar thought, and it suddenly came to me as a visual picture in my mind. I suddenly thought, why don't I colour the earth and add some pigment to it. And I immediately had the sense it has to be this parika red. I am not sure if this is just over thinking things, so I did a little experiment test on some soil I have there up now, and I think it works very well. the pigment is called 'Burnt Sienna', and is in itself an earth powder. I just thought it would be visually interesting and make the piece less literal, so instead of it looking like a site that already exists in the world, I thought I should spice it up and transform it into an art work. I like the pigment, as it is earth itself, so I wouldn't be changing the material, only its visual presence. I think the powder looks a bit like rusting from the pipes, and I like the idea, of it symbolising blood, a bit like in the performance pieces of Ana Mendieta and her earth body sculptures, it begins to bring some sort of other cultural symbolism into the piece. Like the blood of the earth; the human body. 

Ana Mendieta, Silueta Works, Mexico. 

These are some pigments I've found that I like so far, the all consists of earth reds. I am thinking of ordering some today, just incase I decide to do it. It is something I will only really be able to decide once everything is up in the space. These sort of last minute touches excite me, I think it is these sorts of little gestures that will transform the piece into a great show. I am now vey much envisioning this as its own piece, away from the other sites, this is its own space, and it is starting to build a character and physical form. 

 

UPDATE/ IDEAS....

Today, all of a sudden I have started having these last minute ideas...For a start, I am now considering doing a live performance within the degree show space itself, using a lapel mic to  to do a live performance in the space, connecting my voice directly to the speakers. This would allow my voice to be projected and travel through the pipes. I think this would be a really wonderful piece, as it would allow me to work with the materials n the space how I have done in the other sites of resonance I have visited, and to be amplified through them...
I can picture it being a really magical experience. I went to go see Andy downstairs and he suggested that I use a lapel/ radio mic, allowing me to move around the space with no sign of wires, which is importnat as I want the technology in the piece to be invisible...
I then went to talk it through with Sean, and he also thought it was easily done. I think it means that I will need to make another max patch, but it can simply be linked to the other one we are in the process of making. I have booked the equipment out and will do a sound test later on this week, once I have I have installed the pipes in the space.
Progress is getting there, I managed to get the sound piece working again, after hiccups with pro tools yet again over the weekend. Technology is always such a fickle thing! The pipes are now all in the space and are ready to go...I marked them out yesterday, and am hoping that Anton & Jason will be able to help me this afternoon. This means, that once the pipes are in place, I can begin importing the soil.

I am really excited for this week and seeing the space transform to its final formation. I have waited so long for it to happen, but this is the last big push, and where everything will take shape, and hopefully it will all come together beautifully!

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....