/////D\\\\\: October 2010

Compulsion from above

"Created for her MFA in design technology at San Francisco Art Institute, Jenny Odell's Satellite Collection offers a new perspective on the world using Google's omnipresent photography. Noted on things magazine, The Satellite Collection is a series of six digital prints that Odell created by collaging cut-out imagery from Google Satellite. Each one is printed at 24"x24"."

Creative review blog, accessed on October, 31st

144 Empty American Parking Lots

125 Swimming Pools

First stage of the piece I'm working on at the moment.

It's basically a linear map starting from Petticoat Lane Market- Middlesex street towards Liverpool street and ending in Aldgate. Based on the photographs I took while recording the area, I ended up tracing the bold structure of horizontal and vertical lines from the buildings and presenting them in the form of the route I took.

The planned format for this will be A2 but unfortunately due to bad timing skills I've managed to print it on tiles of A4.

The feedback I got from this week's crit was that I need to communicate the map a little better, maybe have the flow of the direction of some kind of information design incorporated to it. To say the truth I'd rather show the direction in a more abstract way so it can suit the piece rather than having arrows or some sort of strict labels.

I was also encouraged to do another one but this time of a park or a natural space where vertical lines would not exist, and do a comparison. I will definitely do that for this coming Tuesday and try to print them both in proper A2 paper.

Marcel Broodthaers

Le Corbeau et le Renard 1967

La souris ecrit rat, 1974

Broodthaers, Marcel (1982) Complete Graphic Work and Books, Antwerp, Galerie Jamar

Film Socialisme by Jean-Luc Godard

I can't wait to watch it on Friday, at the BFI Film Festival.
Here's a little taste: Film Socialisme-Trailer

*oh and don't worry if you don't really speak french, he (Godard) is awesome in communication so you will get a vague idea of what the film is going to be about

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Eiffel Tower, 2000-2001

World Trade Centre, 1997

Villa Savoye, 1998

“I decided to trace the beginnings of our age via architecture. Pushing my old large-format camera’s focal length out to twice-infinity―with no stops on the bellows rail, the view through the lens was an utter blur―I discovered that superlative architecture survives, however dissolved, the onslaught of blurred photography. Thus I began erosion-testing architecture for durability, completely melting away many of the buildings in the process.”

-Hiroshi Sugimoto-

Colors of Shadow, 2006

In Praise of Shadows, 2003

“I‘ve learned many things from using my hands. While I’m still not sure about the nature of light―whether it’s waves or particles―I’ve learned a thing or two about shadows. Thinking to devise a way of observing shadows, the project escalated into a major undertaking, requiring an entire hilltop penthouse in an older apartment in Tokyo. When surfaces receives light, the light effects varies according to the angle of exposure. Selecting three distinct angles―90°, 55° and 35°―I had the walls surfaced using traditional Japanese shikkui plaster finishing, which absorbs and reflects light most evenly. In the morning light, the shadows play freely over the surfaces, now appearing, now vanishing. While on rainy days, they take on a deeper, more evocative cast. I’ve only just begun my observations, but already I’ve discovered a sublime variety in shadow hues.”

-Hiroshi Sugimoto-

Texts and Images courtesy of Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto Website

Light playing with form

Echo Chamber, 1974

Innerlight, 1972

Macho The Cock, 1982

TAO, 1965

Titania, 1990

"Sorel was born in Hungary in 1935, into what would have been considered as a dangerously intellectual middle class family. The war saw them persecuted by the Nazis while, under a Stalinist regime, a grandmother living in former Yugoslavia and an aunt in capitalist West provided further ground for discrimination. (...) The rudiments of printmaking were learnt at a lycee school in Budapest, though it was under the aegis of studying stage design that Sorel first entered the Academy of Applied Arts. Strings were pulled to secure a move to the Institute of Fine Arts, but the dominant creed of the time, kitsch social realism, failed to impress and was fiercely resisted. (...)

In 1956 Revolution saw Sorel and her mother move to England, settling in London, where she enrolled as an illustration student at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. There she encountered a mixture of liberation and entrenchment (...).

"We took weeks to work on a plate, layering one technique over the other. We were encouraged to adopt an almost schizophrenic approach, alternating between the creative and the critical frame of mind (...)"

Unlike contemporaries who were drawn to the mechanics of the kinetic, Sorel has preffered not to make use of electrical devices. Rather she concentrates on employing the simplest of spot lights to highlight the projections of her chosen materials. The flamboyance that makes up Macho the Cock comes from engraved and welded lines working in tandem with the outward projections of a shadow, a heightened display of colour and the actual time spent by the viewer following and moving around these sculptural lines. In her own words: "The movement comes from solid objects which have a line or lines scored or engraved into their surface. When you start walking around, the lines strengthened by the optical properties of the material, also start moving." The inclusion of real (side) mirrors attached to flat projected shapes only adds to the possibilities for imaginative interaction with the sculpture."

Sorel, Agathe (2004) Agathe Sorel, projections in space and time, 1st edition, Bradford, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery

Food For Eyes *

Absolutely stunning.
All rights reserved Luis Dourado.
Maps by Luis Dourado

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Dirty White Trash (With Gulls) – 1998 –

Real Life is Rubbish – 2002

I like what these guys are doing, apparently they are collaborating since studying Fine art at Nottingham Trent University. They belonged to the YBA's of the 1990's and Charles Saatchi is collecting their work.

I find the idea of collecting rubbish in London and turning it into art something inevitable, I mean there are so many around us so why not. It's also adding to the meaning of the pieces although I'm not big fan of the titles they gave them. The outcome is fantastic, I absolutely feel fascinated by shadows and especially by the abstract sculptures made out of trash.

One Hundred and One (colour print)

   This is the colour print of the book made on the second week of our tutorials (October, 11 2010). This version is more improved but still having some problems with the gutter due to technical difficulties with the printer. I also need to update the references and bibliography, which are arranged as a database instead of an index.
   I'm more pleased with this version, but it's still lacking some work, which I intent to improve in the near future.
   The book size is A5 printed on same parchment paper and card, hand bound with more accuracy.