I missed graduation, in both senses of the word; I was missing from it and I missed out, on an event, on a celebration of achievement, and, on closure. I tried to erase the upcoming event from memory, but countless Facebook posts of my peers, their proud parents and Ralph Fiennes were not letting me get away that easily. Jealousy and regret ensue.
The truth is I couldn't afford to go, not only the costs of hiring a gown, tickets and travel, but the added expenses of further time away from work. Yes my parents offered to pay but I already owe them so much as the costs of University life stretch much further than the current student loan.
So I questioned: Who was the ceremony for?
Not for me.
And now what? Take an unpaid internship? A minimum wage job? Or carve out my own career?
Current Salary: £8.00 per hour.
Travel Costs: Nil.
Rent: £1000 per month (divided by two)
Bills: Oh who knows anymore.
Debt: Infinite.
Lesson Learnt: Yes. Perhaps.
London 2015: Where the streets are paved in gold, just not yours.
Sunday, 19 July 2015
Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Friday, 29 May 2015
Review and Analysis
Possible titles: Do Not Disturb or The Red Carpet
Experimental film and installation.
First draft complete, although needs consistency and build up, however when it works it works well.
Part 1:
Initial travelling house scene and abstract number narrative sets up nicely, interesting visuals that flow well, the difficulty being in when to have silence / no visual. The visuals will at times bring you back to the installed room and it's important references relate from film fantasy to experienced reality for the viewer although the difficulty at this stage is not being able to review the work in spacial context, although at this stage I'm confident that I will have enough time to review this aspect before the deadline. Dolls house footage could be added here although to what effect I don't know. I feel that I want to enforce the roles of personal / social as going back and forth between the personal belonging to the room and the social as viewed experience through the film.
Part 2:
The tension is building but must remain consistent with visual / audio references to part 1. I have experimented with adding other sourced narratives from interviews etc but as yet have not found anything that quite fits, however I think this will fall into place in time.
Ads:
I enjoy the vagueness of the first constructed ad. Cleansing and ritual are important and I feel the ads add a further layer to narrative. Could possibly end / begin (loop) the plane footage and audio to add a sense of arriving / leaving and a sense of the elsewhere.
Shots to film:
Dolls house
long wide slow moving pathways as per locations sited. Maze like.
Still moments, although these could be converted to moments of stillness within the installed room and may not be necessary. Also these could be interpreted as too Chantal Ackerman Hotel Monterey.
Installation notes:
Dado rail, dark bottom light top for screening. False wall, door refurb, back of door map and red carpet. Also possibly a wash basin depending on discreetness.
Experimental film and installation.
First draft complete, although needs consistency and build up, however when it works it works well.
Part 1:
Initial travelling house scene and abstract number narrative sets up nicely, interesting visuals that flow well, the difficulty being in when to have silence / no visual. The visuals will at times bring you back to the installed room and it's important references relate from film fantasy to experienced reality for the viewer although the difficulty at this stage is not being able to review the work in spacial context, although at this stage I'm confident that I will have enough time to review this aspect before the deadline. Dolls house footage could be added here although to what effect I don't know. I feel that I want to enforce the roles of personal / social as going back and forth between the personal belonging to the room and the social as viewed experience through the film.
Part 2:
The tension is building but must remain consistent with visual / audio references to part 1. I have experimented with adding other sourced narratives from interviews etc but as yet have not found anything that quite fits, however I think this will fall into place in time.
Ads:
I enjoy the vagueness of the first constructed ad. Cleansing and ritual are important and I feel the ads add a further layer to narrative. Could possibly end / begin (loop) the plane footage and audio to add a sense of arriving / leaving and a sense of the elsewhere.
Shots to film:
Dolls house
long wide slow moving pathways as per locations sited. Maze like.
Still moments, although these could be converted to moments of stillness within the installed room and may not be necessary. Also these could be interpreted as too Chantal Ackerman Hotel Monterey.
Installation notes:
Dado rail, dark bottom light top for screening. False wall, door refurb, back of door map and red carpet. Also possibly a wash basin depending on discreetness.
Monday, 25 May 2015
Room 237 - Symbolism, Interpretation and Intention in Kubrick's Shining
Theories that the true sense of horror generated by The Shining in fact stems from the intended subliminal imagery meticulously placed by Kubrick throughout the film referencing the genocide of the American Indians and the Holocaust. If it is true that direct reconstructions of historical monstrosity become in someway a parody and lean towards fabled production, devoid of any authentic terror connection, then The Shining is a true masterpiece in that it is able to replicate the individual experience of the horror of war.
Points to review:
Mythology: The Labyrinth and The Minotaur
Nomos and Polis: The nomad and the state, Moon landings and secrecy.
The Grid, The Hotel and Psychoanalysis: Zizek.
Intention and Interpretation: The gaze of the object.
Monday, 11 May 2015
Horror, Architecture and the Sublime
Source: Horror in Architecture
Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing
An exploration of horror in the visual. Often the horror aspect is achieved through the supplementary audio of soundtrack, or audio alone as in the old time radio suspense hour editions. Is it imperfection or the perfection of image that is seen as horrific? The sublime and abject lie in the fantastical horror, it is able to present the world as it might be by bringing to light evidence of things previously unseen. The double, the perfect twin or clone identifies with the horrific, the mirror being the frequented fictional catalyst in many a horror fable. The room left untouched and exactly as it was after it's inhabitants have departed becomes a double in that the possessions belong to another time, the domesticity a parody of itself, the objects becoming ghosts themselves, incontinent and hollow.
Repetition follows the double closely, in the sense that there can only be one authentic original. A street of perfectly duplicated houses comes to mind, Stepford Wives style. As we move through such a place, time becomes redundant, the street becomes a labyrinth with no landmarks, no beginning, no end. Groundhog Day. Place cannot exist convincingly without it's reference in time, without time, it becomes a void, somewhere lost in the laminal, like a dreamscape or nightmare, an abyss.
Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing
An exploration of horror in the visual. Often the horror aspect is achieved through the supplementary audio of soundtrack, or audio alone as in the old time radio suspense hour editions. Is it imperfection or the perfection of image that is seen as horrific? The sublime and abject lie in the fantastical horror, it is able to present the world as it might be by bringing to light evidence of things previously unseen. The double, the perfect twin or clone identifies with the horrific, the mirror being the frequented fictional catalyst in many a horror fable. The room left untouched and exactly as it was after it's inhabitants have departed becomes a double in that the possessions belong to another time, the domesticity a parody of itself, the objects becoming ghosts themselves, incontinent and hollow.
Repetition follows the double closely, in the sense that there can only be one authentic original. A street of perfectly duplicated houses comes to mind, Stepford Wives style. As we move through such a place, time becomes redundant, the street becomes a labyrinth with no landmarks, no beginning, no end. Groundhog Day. Place cannot exist convincingly without it's reference in time, without time, it becomes a void, somewhere lost in the laminal, like a dreamscape or nightmare, an abyss.
Thursday, 7 May 2015
Video Art and the Home Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36WUgFMDY-M
Gillian Wearing
2 into 1
1997
Home video, Wearing creates a audio / visual swap of a mother talking about her two sons and vice versa, a piece which has been linked to the process of the ethnographer within the artist. The result is something very disturbing, the mixed narratives being presented by mismatched blank faces, violent undertones coming from the words being spoken. The role of the mother within the family alludes to an inferior, almost victimised task, the opinion of which seems inherited from their father. The audio of actual interview over script proves compelling and conclusive.
Gillian Wearing
2 into 1
1997
Home video, Wearing creates a audio / visual swap of a mother talking about her two sons and vice versa, a piece which has been linked to the process of the ethnographer within the artist. The result is something very disturbing, the mixed narratives being presented by mismatched blank faces, violent undertones coming from the words being spoken. The role of the mother within the family alludes to an inferior, almost victimised task, the opinion of which seems inherited from their father. The audio of actual interview over script proves compelling and conclusive.
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