Ella Perkins

Spirowonder! pictures at the Hide&Seek Weekender

2009-08-03T10:57:00.000+01:00

Hide & Seek Weekender 31st July - 2nd August 2009 at the Southbank Centre

2009-07-20T11:25:00.011+01:00

"Head down to the Southbank Centre for the Hide&Seek Weekender, two and a half days of free social and pervasive games. Betray, argue and deduce with an evening of social games on Friday night. Film, follow, decipher, hide and hunt all day Saturday. And turn up on Sunday for a day of family-friendly games. We'll be filling the South Bank with argumentative bank robbers, Twittering spies, teleporting enemies, adventurous soft toys, player-generated music, and much more, so do come and play! Visit http://www.hideandseekfest.co.uk/2009programme to read about all the different games."

Spirowonder! Sunday 2nd August 11 - 5

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Use the concrete pavements as your canvas around the Southbank Centre to create hypnotic patterns, your tools an ever-so-large spirograph, chalk and your imagination. Draw your own individual pattern or add to a pattern already drawn; see this explode and grow through the day. You can borrow a spirograph individually, but it's more fun and easier if you draw collaboratively.

Life Cycle Garden - wins a Gold medal at RHS Hampton Court Flower Show

2009-07-08T14:30:00.000+01:00

photographs by Melanie Hawes

Tate Take Over: Art of The Everyday

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Life Cycle Garden - in process

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After playing around with a few different designs we have chosen to go with the idea that gradually the arches will decay in form. Where the two sides cross over, the left hand side of the arch (on the outside of the path) will gradually fall towards the ground. We will place one side of the arch in front of the sleeper and the other side behind. We have bent steel rod as as fully sized template for each individual arch and also to act possibly as a center to the arch if we find that the cooper needs extra stability.

Upcoming: Tate Take Over: Art of the Everyday

2009-06-20T12:21:00.006+01:00

Release your inner artist at Tate Modern's summer fair. 3D Design students from Camberwell College of Arts have worked with Raw Canvas to put on an interactive fair inspired by Arte Povera, when 1970s artists used humble materials to make art. Each installation will respond to an aspect of the Arte Povera ethos and visitors are encouraged to help create unique artworks and take away their own souvenir of the experience.

Supported by the Peter Cruddas Foundation

Friday 26 June 2009 19.00–21.00 and Saturday 27 June 2009 14.00–17.00

Tate Modern Turbine Hall Bridge

Free, no bookings taken

Urban Hanging

2009-06-19T11:17:00.002+01:00

I've been thinking of various little activities of playing and doing in London - as ways of interacting with someone and exploring unused or new uses for spaces.

Myself and Owen Hodgkinson are exploring London through 'Urban Hanging' which is simply the act of hanging upside down somewhere and watching people pass by. The outcome is mostly hysterics as people look very odd upside down, so far we have explored a few different spots of the Southbank. More exploring to do and an urban hanging map to come soon!

Grow It Together: Apothecary Arboretum

2009-05-26T12:31:00.012+01:00

An initial prototype for a verticle garden which is a self sustaining eco-system which uses recycled

materials. It is practical for urban farming in condence urban spaces, but also acts as a living sculpture.

The verticle garden is built from reclaimed bamboo poles, recycled water bottles and concrete. The bamboo form was inspired by DNA double helix form, the bamboo harvests and disperses water among the planted bottles. The water bottles sit on the end of the poles, currently the bottles are cut open with plants growing out, in the next evolution we will explore using the bottles as small incuba

tors.

This is prototype was built for the Long Weekend at Tate Modern, as part of the House of Fairy Tales residency over the bank holiday weekend Friday 22nd - Monday 25th May 2009. It acted as a scene for the apothecary, placed together the structures form a mini risen garden forest.

One was also show at the Brompton Borders Secret Garden Festival, in the Car Park, 2 North Terrace. An old garage transformed into a secret garden, a family event celebrating 'creativity and play in he fine art of horticulure'.

This was designed and constructed in collaboration with Dimitri Launder, Tom Davies, Emma Payne, Ian Daniel, Owen Hodgekinson and myself. (Grow It Together)

Quicksilver Performance

2009-05-26T12:09:00.001+01:00

I participated in six workshop sessions forming the third body of research with Lea Andersons dance and performance company The Cholmondeleys at Tate Modern, which explored public behaviourspace, artwork and function in the gallery through performance and mass movement.

In the taster session on the Turbine Hall Bridge we were introduced to walking collectively and measuring space through counting our steps, we were told to try and keep our posture quite upright and glaze ahead, walking purposefully through the space, the energy was intense, knowing the number of steps meant that we could tightly turn direction together. I loved the sense of connecting with the space through my body and the movements felt unforced so not to much like a performance.

The performance research had no fixed outcome, it was ongoing though out the gallery so there is no seated or fixed audience. The visitors were unaware as it was unannounced, visitors might catch a fleeting gimps of us and think that was odd, did I see that? Other times depending on our actions or the space our movements were more visible and visitors would look on in suspicion, follow us through the gallery, some even joining in especially when we moved fast counting our steps through the space.

There were about 20 performers overall, we split into three groups with one Cholmondeleys member as our group guide. Initially each group simultaneously created a rough sequence of behaviour in reaction to; the space, visitor’s behaviour and artwork throughout the collection displays of Level 3 Materials Gesture. Although all as individuals moving as a group we become one with out own logic, with no one in control we learnt quickly to sense each others presence and move together as a shoal of fish at times then dispersing and disappearing becoming a gallery visitor, then re-gathering and carrying on as a group. Similar to how to visitors together walk around for parts, look sparately at an artwork then come back to together to move on to another room.

Pablo Picasso Pose

Within our sequence; we observed and mimicked visitors looking poses subtly, at times playing a relay game between the group copying, someone copying a visitor. We reacted to the artwork physically either imagining there was a wire of current from the painting through to us or reacting to the painting through movement. In front of Pablo Picasso's The Studio 1955. I elongated by body trying to make myself as tall, stiff and calm as the person I saw in the bottom right (which is actually a sculpted head on a stall), holding this until someone

copied me in the relay. By shuffling back and forth in front of a painting we found our own individual comfortable position to view it from, through this I discovered artwork a had previously overlooked.

In front of Toby Ziegler’s “The Hedonistic Imperative” we imagined we were tracing the circles with a pencil on the end of our nose, this bit was so funny as our heads moved confidently in an odd jerk.

We explored extending moments of stillness; collectively pausing and looking upwards, in front of art works and architectural elements of the gallery.

Joseph Beuys "Lightning with Stag in its Glare"

Walking then stopping abruptly and looking at artwork for an extended time period from a distance, these moments were beautifully awkward and surreal, like a cattle grazing through the gallery. A group spread apart but together in a moment of stillness. By pausing long enough you passed an awkward stage into a calm appreciative still state, which we would snap out off and move on to repeat after a few steps.

We then translated the combination of sequences for each room to Level 3: Poetry and Dream, this was really interesting as we didn’t talk about what we would do but as a group moved through the gallery through our sequence choosing how to m

ove spontaneously. Some of the best moments were accidental and coincidental, as group we paused collectively spread out in room 6 with Joseph Beuys “Lightning with Stag in its Glare” for a really extended moment of time and Ragnal from The Chomleys herd the gallery assistant say “beautiful” in reaction. On the same night we were running through our sequence as the galley was closing, we had collected to lean backwards and peer over our shoulders through the doors into the next room, coincidently as the gallery assistant was closing the door. Oo beautiful.

first whirlpool practice

We experimented with all of us flocking to a space, as each group finished their sequences through Level 3 we planed to meet on the concourse to form a whirlpool of people and exit slowly down the stairs. Unaware of how long each group would take the whirlpool grew slowly, as it sped up we accidently wrapped a group of school girls which was funny, as they were squawking “What’s going on?!”

In the Turbine Hall we explored inappropriate and contrasting behaviour of visitors. Observing that visitors casually walk, talk, glance around and up, sit, take photos and generally walk diagonally across the ramp. We behaved as if we were in the gallery, peering and examining invisible artworks at eye height on the walls, walking vertically and horizontally in contrast to diagonally and adjusting our walking speed to casual cruising slow gallery pace and a fast pace. While walking in the group we used code words to change our direction and movements such as; shop, stately home, disperse, linear and backwards. If someone said “linear” we would quickly disperse like a bomb in straight lines then form back together as a group.

One night we swopped group leaders and they gave us a tour of the other groups movements instructing as “You begin by looking at this painting. You stop and walk 10 paces to the wall. You are sucked into the paint and start twitching from your shoulders down to your knees”. This was exciting as we were being told how to move though the gallery and physically interact with the artwork. Instead of a content and context guide - a physical guide not being told to do something but being told you are doing something, so you do it.

Spirowonder! drawing by a friend Victoria Torrence

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http://victoriatorrance.blogspot.com/

Dulwich Fesitval - Open House weekend

2009-05-17T22:20:00.013+01:00

Make It Local - an exhbition by second year 3D design students as part of Dulwhich Festival Artist Open House weekends

I exhibited my Street Drawings short film and I put the spirograph outside on the patio for people to pick up.
I spirographed a little on the patio by myself, collaboratly with some children (picture below) and others carried on with the spirograph/drew some spirograph inspired patterns to.

Street Drawings - Short film

2009-05-04T23:36:00.002+01:00

Short film of a few of my street drawings with the bike tools. First site with chalk tied to rake, second and third with the rolling paint tin with holes drilled in to allow coloured sand to trail out.

Street Drawings - Andsdale Road

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Wroxton Road Street Drawings

2009-04-29T09:30:00.002+01:00

London Wildlife Trust's - Life Cycle Garden

2009-04-20T14:10:00.004+01:00

This year the London Wildlife are showing there Life Cycle Garden at RHS Hampton Court Flower Show. It is a sustainable garden that explores the natural cycles that are essential to successful wildlife and climate friendly gardening. It is a place where everyday objects come to life and all the stages in plant life cycles are celebrate, including death and decay.

The design illustrates chronological cycles of life, and emphasis the fundamental importance of sustainability. It finds new uses for material that have been discarded, reclaiming and recycling them into wildlife and climate friendly habitats.

The garden supports the London Wildlife Trust's Garden for a Living London Campaign, which highlights the importance of the capital's gardens for wildlife and people. In urban areas especially, gardens will help reduce the impacts of climate change.

The Life Cycle garden design by Elaine Hughes

Together with Owen Hodgkinson we will be designing and making a trellis for the garden, to act as sculpture feature physically representing the cycle and decay of the life cycle, a light feature and a plant support.

London Wildlife Trust: www.wild.london.org.uk

Living London Campaigne: www.wild.london.org.uk/gardening

Centre for Wildlife Gardening: 28 Marsden Road, Peckham, London, SE15 4EE

some of the Harmonograph videos on youtube

2009-02-26T20:23:00.001Z

possted by: eventhorizon53, 11 January 2008
"built this harmonograph, in part for the Art Faculty show at the college where I teach photography. I wanted it to be made primarily of wood, so I hollowed out redwood blocks that I filled with lead for the weights."

post comments by eventhorizon53:
- The 2 main Pendulums have varying weights and Radi ans swing perpendicular to one another, which creates varying frequencies which are transfered to the pen by arms. The pen rest on paper that is on a table on a third pendulum which rest on a gimble allowning it to rotate adding a third frequency to the resulting Lissajous diagram. The paper is held in place by a small amount of rubber cement on the corners of the table.
- Sure, the bearings are sealed roller bearings that I bought on Ebay. 5/8 of an inch diameter and 3/16 hole. The gimble I made by cutting donut out of the table and used a drill press to get the two holes perfectly in line

posted by johnmoriarty, 21 September 2007
"This is a Harmonograph that was made for the teamYES* exhibition; Experiments in the Field of Fun, in Monster Truck Gallery, Dublin."

posted by: K1Models, 12 November 2007
Automatic drawing machine using pendulums. Prototype version for proof of concept

posted by: mandobaron, 02 June 2006

Theo Jansen

2009-02-25T21:33:00.001Z

Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist who since 1990 has been building walking kinetic sculptures that he calls a new form of life. His "Strandbeests" walk the coastline of Holland, feeding on wind and fleeing from water.

The initial generations were bulky and rudimentary they have evolved to adapt and react to their environment on the beaches. “Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.” Theo’s more sophisticated creations are able to detect once they have entered the water and walk away from it, and one species will even anchor itself to the earth if it senses a storm approaching.

They are intricately constructed of wood, plastic tubes – electrical conduit a purpose design electrical piping systems used for protecting and routing electrical wiring. “I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat.” The creatues have stomachs consisting of recycled plastic bottles that store air, captured by gossamer (light, delicate) wings that flap and pump air a high pressure to us in the absence of wind, these to power the many spindly legs.

www.ted.com
Theo Jansen: the art of creating creatures
March 2007

AMAZING!

Harmonograph - wikipedia

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A harmonograph is a mechanical apparatus that employs pendulums to create a geometric image. The drawings created typically are Lissajous curves, or related drawings of greater complexity. The devices, which began to appear in the mid-19th century and peaked in popularity in the 1890s, cannot be conclusively attributed to a single person, although Hugh Blackburn, a professor of mathematics at the University of Glasgow, is commonly believed to be the official inventor.[1]

A simple, so-called 'lateral' harmonograph uses two pendulums to control the movement of a pen relative to a drawing surface. One pendulum moves the pen back and forth along one axis and the other pendulum moves the drawing surface back and forth along a perpendicular axis. By varying the frequency of the pendulums relative to one another (and phase) different patterns are created. Even a simple harmonograph as described can create ellipses, spirals, figure eights and other Lissajous figures.

More complex harmonographs incorporate three or more pendulums or linked pendulums together (for example hanging one pendulum off another), or involve rotary motion in which one or more pendulums is mounted on gimbals to allow movement in any direction.

Red Rolling Skit in the Snow

2009-02-03T05:31:00.002Z

I put some red acrylic into tin with three holes drilled
I trailed it around for a while in the snow, filmed by Chloe

(I wiped the paint off the roof afterwards - no damage done)

After making a trail, I started to repeatedly go over one area - the same motion as if I was sweeping but having the reverse affect splattering red paint all across the ground.

I then wanted to clear some of that paint which was outside our door to disguise my trail, I placed it in the road in a line down the middle - contrast of the white and red snow against the mulsh, would be interesting to do this down a large section of road

Then I used up the last of the snow in the pot I had used for mixing the paint and used this as a mould.

I started to clean out the tin outside in our garden with water and carried on spreading the red- as, I was doing it I thought it would of been more visually striking, if i filled in the lower part all in red

second version of attachment

2009-02-02T19:20:00.000Z

The previous attachment worked alright, but although I strengthened the metal by putting bends in it is still to flimsy and the fixed two points of connecting to my bike mean that it doesn't turn the corner to well. So I looked around my Dads yard for a bit and found a straight sqaure box piece of steel, which again I have ajusted so that both attachments can fit on. (and more when I've made them)

After coming up with various ways of creating a pivit, we found this to attach to the back of my rack. I then cut the metal down using the hand held grinder with a thin Kerf cutting blade and sanded down the edges, drilled the hole and bent it in the vice to the right angle.

Dad suggested that we bend the rod in the Hydrolic Press which we did a bit tested it and bent it a bit more

Frame for Tin Attachement - attachment that I can put around the tins, made from alluminium, so was easy to bend and cut. Pot rivited joint. Again attached with bolt, spring washer and butterfly screw.

Tin Attachement

Rake Attachement

Attachment, Tin Roller and Rake

2009-02-02T17:36:00.000Z

I cut an old bicycle tyre down

measured the width of the tyre and dived the rest of the width on the tin to drill 3 lines of holes on, I used this strap to get a rough straight line, I then pot riveted the tyre to the can

found the center of the bottem and the lid of the tin with this set square (very useful)

cut some threaded rod to length and placed two bolts locked these off and a washer at both the bottom and the top of the tin inside

I then drilled a hole to fit a bung in the lid and hammered the lid on, fixing a washer and bolt tight to the tin

Test outside putting dry sand into the tin worked well, sand came out as a pretty much constant line. Attachment followed the movement of the bike pretty well, bit cumbersome round the corners

placed four bolts on the threaded rod either side of the tin so that the attachment doesn't get caught

- Attachment, attaches to the side of my bike rack as it can quickly be attached andd detached with the butterfly screws

- can also be folded down by unscrewing the black tube which keeps the two rods either side parallel
- bends in metal to try and keep it more rigid

I made the attachement so I could utilise it for other extensions.
I found an old cast aluminium rake, I bent the metal at the end of the attachment and drilled holes through this and the rake to attach it with four bolts and butterfly screws

first test of Spirograph

2009-01-30T20:28:00.002Z

after chatting and playing with it I think this is what I need to change:

- the angle of the cogs - more rounded and equal top and bottom
- place the outer circles further inwards as the holes towards the center work much better due to the pressure being applied...

design a few different ones and cut them at a smaller scale in card, (this one was in 5mm plywood) to test which works best and to try layering some together as I think this will help to

what other medium to draw with? - smaller chalk sticks/ graphite

smaller holes that slot in to the existing ones? so same spirograph can be used for multiple materials to draw with

Redrawring the Spirograph in Illustrator

2009-01-29T22:13:00.003Z

After getting to uni at for 8:30!!!!! as Neil had kindly said he would squeeze me on to the lazer cutter.I found that my VectorWorks file just wouldn’t work! –wouldn’t convert, save or open as an Illustrator file.
Mike suggested a DXF file this seemed to work but still wouldn't open on another the computer

So I embarked on redrawing it in Illustrator which I don’t really know how to use –asked one of the technicians – is there a way of putting the shape on a line and bending it around a circle? no but suggested this way

Effect > Distort and Transform > Transform
Which allows you to select a shape, chose the number of copies, which point to rotate from and chose the degree of rotation. Also Scale - which will rotate the shape into a spiral and Move - spacing etc. But after fiddling about with this for a while I couldn't get it to work.

so the technician Kay showed me this helpful website: www.illustrator-brushes.com - which has a handful of tutorials for Illustrator brushes (also sister website for Photoshop brushes)

Select rotation tool (if you hold shift you get set angles) (slect object press enter brings up rotate panel so you can enter in angle).

What I did:
- drew a circle found center (using co-ordinatates of page) and marked with horizontal and verticle line
- placed the tooth so that end points touched the edge of the circle(which I had also made largr then my orginal VectorWorks Scale up)
- by moving the rotation point away from the center of the tooth to center of the circle
- press Alt key, trial and test to find right angle to join the end points of the tooth, select copy
- shortcut key to duplicate copyied object Apple and D

This first attempt of the middle circle didn't join up, I think that this may of bean becuase of how iI orginally placed the tooth on the circle and then copied it

Outer circle:
Inner Cirlce:
Middle Circle:
Smaller Circle:

Placing holes for circle

circle the average diameter of my chunky chalk/crayon 3 cm
draw sprial and placed circles on spiral, then deleted center lines and spiral

finished Illustrator drawring

size: 70 cm by 70cm

Outer circle: d rotation: 5
Inner circle: d rotation: 6.8
Middle circle:
Smaller middle circle:

Site Specific Spirograph?

2009-01-29T02:25:00.003Z

I was thinking about this one little area near Lidils, which I always find interesting as there are so many built in circles - the double mine roundabout and with in the little park:

Natural Health Service...

2009-01-28T17:43:00.002Z

....reading an article in from the National Trust Magazine....

'recent poll commissioned by Natural England found that 94% of the population thought it a good idea to refer people for outdoor exercise rather then medication'...'at least 5 times a week being active has the same effect has the same antidepressent effect as taking tablets.'

...'we have drifted away from how we were designed to live. we need to be restored to our factory settings'........we are designed to be on the move much of the time and this helfs keep our blood pressure down, generate good cholestral, allows more oxygen to the heart and muscles and keep our joints healthy and free of pain. Just a 30 minute bost of exercise will boost our immune sytem for te whole day helping keep away infections'

....'we were never designed for treadmills, and algthough the gym can really help some people, for many it simply isn't suitable. We were firmly once connected with the natural enviroment...harvard zoologist E.O Wilson termed this link biophilia - an innate affinity with nature'

...'health walks and the Green Gym so that local people were introduced to exercise in their local envirometn....across the UK..with 4,00 walks a week.......reasons people gave for walking were keeping fit being in the countryside, watching the seasons change and socialising'

...'the natural enviroment has a powerful efect on us to become less stresssed'

...'research in Tokyo and Holland shows that people are more likely to walk or cycle to work if the streets are lined with trees and they live longer and feel better'

Chalk - Crayon?

2009-01-23T22:12:00.001Z

The colours and so scrumptious and fresh! mmm edible! but i was expecting chalk not crayon!

LESSON LEARNT
- always ask for a sample before forking out the cash!

22nd Thursday - Crazy Day!

2009-01-23T11:11:00.000Z

Visited Conchange studio with Raw Canvas looking at the new Microsoft Expression Software and Microsoft Surface - a 30 inch table top works much like an iPod touch in that you can grab, slide, flick, pull the surface as a group or separately.

Chalk arrived - but delivered to my home address! had to go and collect - nice 3 hour journey back n forth!

I AM FOR AN ART....
Exhibition and live art event: Thursday 22 January 2009, From 8.30pm until midnight
Bun House Pub, 96 Peckham High Street, London SE15 5ED

Taking its name from Claes Oldenburg 1961’s text piece, this one-night only exhibition brings together the work of a group of 2nd year BA students from Camberwell College. The exhibition is the result of an intense period working with artists Mark McGowan and Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, as part of an Elective Level 2 Course on Performed and Live Art Practice. The evening will include film, interactive installations and performances.

Here's some pictures from my little skit:

Quite impromptu as I hadn't planned on what I was going to draw, joing in with Irene Pineda who was leaving a trail, drawing lines for her to follow, around peoples feet - giving them flippers.... I tryed to get hold of a little photo printer so I could draw throughout the night and print pictures on post them above the fireplace in the pub, but couldn't get holf of one

WHY IS THE BIKE PATH BEING ERASED?

2009-01-15T23:29:00.001Z

early rise drive

2009-01-14T22:57:00.001Z

Got up early to help Chloe to experiment placing abanded chairs in the park before our lecture, was a laugh cyclign with them!

mmm man with trailer drove through - can I use a trailer frame somehow?

meanwhile I grabbed out my chalk for a split second on the paving and around the dog poo

quick search on the internet (www.pavingexpert.com) - that these tactile paving slabs are called
blister paving (in a sqaure pattern)- indicating pedestrian crossings with dropped kerbs

offset blister - used at train stations, parallel to the platform edge
lozenge - platform edge warning on street setting like tram lines
hazard - warning i.e bottom of steps, should be parallel to edge of hazard
cycleway - indicate cycle lane laid parrallel with direction of travel, same slabs used on pedestrian side of path but running across the other way
directional - to indicate safest direction of travel

An Excursion with Ella

2009-01-13T22:31:00.002Z

- I brought this tape dispenser, as I wanted to quickly make temporary paths across the roads and paths.
- Taking notice of short cuts people take, a more convenient path although there is a crossing a few meters up. Chloe had mention in Israel its illegal to cross the road unless the green man lights up.
- Adding colour to the continuous grey stretches

Excursion with Ella and Owen

I invited Owen to wonder with me "an excursion with Ella", with the intention to tape some paths together and explore. We ended up walking round to Area 10, to the Hannah Barry Gallery, by the Bussey Building.
We tried to get up onto the roof, which supposidly has superb views over all of London as it's the tallest building in Peckham.
But as we were climbing up and up and up through the dark stairs on every floor there was a different Christian Church - picture 'alter of mercy evangelical center'. There are so many hidden christian centers in Peckham!

I wanted to try and tape a path across Peckham Road to college as many people don't use the crossing. With Owens help he held one end of the tape and I ran across the road, problem was that it didn't stick and the cars stopped. Darn! The tape would look so nice! So instead we played football with the tape that wouldn't stick.

Ideas:
inviting people out to play throughtout the project

proposed routes for work

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1 Spontaneous public interactions - paths of cars/walking/running/bus/bikes…
2 Construction of play tools, drawring instruments - paths of cars/walking/running/bus/bikes…
3 List of objectives

1 Spontaneous public interactions performance - paths of cars/walking/running/bus/bikes…
Working unannounced in public, I will break routines, accepted and expected behaviour by ‘joyful and exuberant behaviour’ in the form of an action, intervention, installation, and drawing. I will aim to do a performance everyday on various scales so myself, the process and outcomes becomes integrated as a daily occurrence. Training myself to look with potential that any environment can be a playground, contrasting the frantic pace of modern urban life. Questioning and reflecting upon how my actions effect the location, surrounding people and how it could be seen as antisocial behaviour

2) Construction of play tools and drawring instruments - paths of cars/walking/running/bus/bikes…
Explore temporally or permanently placing colour in the streets. Using the vast stretches of roads as a canvas. By constructing ‘play tools and drawring instruments’ so that myself or others, singly or collaboratively can add colour. Dr Majora Carta: ‘you shouldn’t have to move out of your neighbourhood to make it a better one’. Taking inspiration from Robin Rhode I will explore using materials such as chalk, graphite, crayons and water paint and scrubbing clean. So that my trace is visible for a period but not damaging to the environment and so that I lower the risk of it being apposed by public and authorities.

3) List of objectives
• To encourage and inviting participation on various levels from passer bys/ community – satisfaction of achievement and involvement
• Brightening the everyday dullness
• Site-specific
• Humour and play
• Illusion and reality
• Artist/activator
• Raw energy/surprise/randomness of an incident on the streets element of spontaneous performance/ instant
• Physical education and learning
• ‘ The cats away and the mice will play’ play in empty Camberwell and Peckham at night
• Lottie Child: ‘Research is wandering, talking, looking, thinking, and Intervention might include talking to strangers, drumming on street furniture, climbing trees, …..sitting around, listening to the sounds of the night, shouting’

random thoughts that I text myself, in bed at night

2009-01-12T14:51:00.001Z

exploring a perfromative element

2009-01-12T05:01:00.000Z

After writing my self evaluation for my elective in Live and Performed Practice I want to try and include a performative element in my work.
I feel that I have lost a sence of spontanity within my university work. I want to explore interacting with my immediate enviroment , getting me out of the studio or my bedroom when producing work.

Robert Luzar - No Horizon (performance)

part of Camberwell Arts Festival on Windsor Road, SE5 June 22 07

hands covered in graphite pigment searching for a transparent tape on a construction boards around unused houses

Robin Rhode

Hard Rain (2005)

I was really excited to visit the exhibition at the Hayward of Robin Rhode a performance artist who grew up in Johannesburg, as I have liked his work for a few years. He creates energetic narrative performances that evolve around his drawings in chalk and graphite, using the street, and in his later work gallery walls as his canvas. The documentation is often in photographic storyboard sequences or animations, Rhode transform his flat drawings of everyday objects into three-dimensional ones through his playful physical interaction. The simplicity of the medium, body chalk and surface is refreshingly unfussy, and the work has a sense of humour and play while often referencing political issues.

Colour Chart (2006)
A stop motion animation, shot from above with the figures lying on their side. It portrays a battle between a figure dressed in white and coloured opponents confronting one enemy after another, the performance is symbolic of racial conflicts that Rhode has grown up around.

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I find living up in Peckham uncoloured in terms of the enviroment, I miss the green fields that I see from my window at home, I think I'm going to look at bringing colour to the streets, without getting arrested! I had been thinking about this before somehow making cycling paths and routes that people take more interesting.
Although I want to add colour, the documentation of Rhodes work from above clears out all the clutter, the street becomes a is a large plain canvas which emphasises the drawings, Rhode mainly use just chalk and graphite - less colour is more.

ideas
draging chalk behind bike; rake type drawing implement to place on back of bike? somehow rotates in certian way to create a pattern
water colour paint blobes that spread
huge wooden spirograph
look at Heath Robinson, crazy inventions

Felix Machines at Gasworks Vauxhall - evening event of contemporary music machines

2009-01-11T22:01:00.000Z

On Friday I went along to Gasworks at the moment they have an exhibition of south London based artist and musician Felix Thorn. He creates these crazy magical musical machines from a broken up pianos, glockenspiel, drum kits, animated by solenoids springs and motors when connected to his computer. Each element of the machine has its own LED which light up when in use in the various compositions.

The machine in performance is mesmerizing so many parts emitting sound and light. Created as a way of visualizing the rhythmic structures in the music. ‘People are use to human performances, the machines remind the listen that the satisfaction received from music can happen without the intervention of a human performer’

The machines are continuously evolving ‘the early badly measured parts can be seen next to the newer, better-constructed components. The whole process is on show, which I suppose, indicates what I have learned since the beginning of the project.’  

Gasworks: www.gasworks.org.uk
Some text taken from interview with Felix Thorn off the Gasworks website

What I am doing? - Need to do?

2009-01-07T12:29:00.000Z

Peckham Space

2009-01-03T15:09:00.001Z

Peckham Space:
Launched in 2008 the programme includes four commissions per year supporting collaborative projects practises between the arts and the local community. It will feature workshops, public events, and public talks as part of each commissions. Peckham Space will be built on Peckham Square London SE15. Partnership between Camberwell College of Arts, Univeristy of the Arts London and Peckham Programme Southwark Council.

Projects include:
-Peckham TV - developed in response ta a period of research carried out by the mother ship collective into the future of Peckham local communities groups stated 'it's not Peckham that is the problem it is the media's representation of it
- 'Street Training- Lottie Child - with Glouster Primary School & public talk about play and participation in the public realm
- CCTV Station - the office of experiments and media shed - a media shed will be sited on Peckham Square for local surveillance, to create short films that will be screened in a mobile structure titled airdrop

Thoughts and notes listening to the Particpation and Contemporary Art podcast Lottie Child and Clare Cumberlidge

invitation to find your own relationship with london, sitting in odd places, interactions with security guards
callum dubland training videos
body language
humour, prankster as a subversive activity
judgements of limits of appropriateness
catalytic fun
shadow lines as a type rope
pigeon bowling
devious
holding your breath
safety within london - if you want to be safe stay inside?
positively change your environment and yourself
change - committed/invested time scale
encouraging self confidence
some boundaries you need some boundaries you don't need
formalised techniques of the everyday actions we ignore
what do we ignore?
didactic; designed or intended to teach, intend to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment
quote from Dr. Majora Carter you shouldn’t have to move out of your neighbourhood to live in a better one
integration of participation
community spirit
www.spacehijackers.co.uk
people owning the transformation that happen in their environment
oasis USA, open access participatory mapping system of their immediate environment using that data to campaign for change
passing on celebration of what was and could be either led by me or others
Thinking about some of the participatory events, workshops I have been involved with, for me a nurtured time with a small number of people is more important than achieving large number statistics
book: design and landscape for people, can architects, designers,landscapes and artist make a real difference to people quality of life?

Camberwell Arts:
arts organisation promoting arts in Camberwell, workshops involve in developing participatory and socially engaged practises on local estates school, collaborative networks and art oganisations. Co-ordinated by Camberwell Arts in partnership with Camberwell College of Arts and the South London Gallery

- Camberwell Arts Festival - live art, open studios, exhibitions, commissioned projects walk and talks.including:
historian Eleanor Margolies leads a walk around Camberwells hidden wildlife,Rachel Gomme's walk through Camberwell following the natural growth through, concrete, brick and Robert Luzar’s work,installed on park noticeboards throughout Camberwell , looks at how information gets disseminated and censored in public spaces.

next festival 20th – 28th June 2009, contact Kelly O’Reilly kelly.oreilly@camberwellarts.org.uk, for exhibitions, performances and events in Camberwell

http://www.camberwellarts.org.uk/

Website links:

Neal White - the office of experiments: http://www.nealwhite.org/
research into mobile structures combining art base activity and scientific principles, worked with John Lathem - event based theory in art that Latham pursued in his home Flat Time House in Peckham

Media Shed - http://www.mediashed.org/
free media making things or doing art for little or no finacial cost by usign public domain software and recyled eqipment. video sniffing using wireless CCTV signals

my artist cv / Lottie Child / Jessica Thorn

2009-01-03T10:12:00.002Z

After writing my artist statement for my CV (well this is what it is for the moment) I think that with this project I should try to direct my work:

Abandoned, forgotten objects, my changing environment from country to city and exploring historical buildings and cultural sites inspire me. From moving from a house surrounded by fields to a residential area, I’m interested in the spontaneous and prescribed notion of playing within a city and green spaces, inside and outside, with provided objects or imagination.

I know that at the moment that Jessica Thom is the residency artist at the South London Gallery as part of SLG's 'Making Play' project. "Her project for Sceaux Gardens is to research and map children’s play on the estate through a series of visual and scientific explorations of the local environment, its history and imagined future." (SLG website) Which is an interesting idea so I'll try and see if I can chat with her.

Lottie Child:
Also on the South London Gallery website I saw that an artist called Lottie Child has done a few events - Camberwell Urban Napping (3/8/08). Developing Peckham Street Training collaborativly with Peckham Space and Street Training in Camberwell

Street Training in Camberwell :
launching the Camberwell Street training Manual (21&22/6/08), as part of Camberwell Arts Festival a 24 hour urban exploration which involves research and intervention:
"Research is wandering, talking, looking, thinking, and Intervention might include talking to strangers, drumming on street furniture, climbing trees, visiting people, being asked to leave shops, lighting a fire, sitting around, tracing magic symbols on the ground, looking out for the dog with one eye, kissing, foraging for fallen fruits, listening to the sounds of the night, shouting and smelling flowers."
link to manual: http://malinky.org/files/camberwell_v4_ARTWORK.pdf∞

Climbing Club:
started in 2002 and met monthly for three years, to explore the buildings of the city of London by climbing, traversing and scrambling all over it. No equipment is used, and the pace, scale of adventure and time it lasts, is up to the participants. "Bring your kids and your grandmother, wear long skirts, have a hangover." Urban climbing looks at the city with new eyes on its potential for play. Climbing club was started as a faculty of the University of Openness- a group of artist inspired by Copenhagen's free university.

Street Training:
"is the art judging how and how not to interact with place and people on the street, by regularly, safely and joyfuly exploring ourselves and spaces we inhabit, like a martial art it also balances rigorous physical exertion with quiet still meditation by 'doing nothing' typically by lying on the ground in a public space"
"During the session you may learn such things as:
Guerrilla gardening, urban climbing, using the acoustics of city architecture, hanging from ledges, trespassing, entering secret derelict corners, chalking, psychogeographising, getting into the bushes, hiding and finding things eating bananas, doing nothing, cartwheels, jumping over, building up, pissing on, nurturing or sidestepping barriers physical, social and psychological. but mostly you will be supported in doing your own creative/antisocial behaviour."

Accidental Holiday:
http://malinky.org/wikka.php?wakka=AccidentalHoliday
Is a guide book for a walk in Greenwich Peninsula, in the area around the Dome, created at a period of planning for a “ master planned community” for the area. The guide invites you to engage with area in playful ways that call into question the appropriate uses of public spaces.
It is a result of collaborative research. Including a local councilor, children and parents from Nillennium Primary School, local residents, workers and employess of the company developing the area Merdian Delta, and local media arts company Independant Photography who commisioned the project, each with their own perspective and link to the area.
All over the Greenwich Peninsula, plants are bursting through fences and breaking through concrete. Sometimes in big cities, the people are doing little more than surviving, while in forgotten corners a diverse array of plants and animals, birds and insects are really thriving.
This leads to the question, what do people need in order to thrive in the city? Do we need to copy some of the characteristics of wild and feral plant and animal life and be:
lawless devious exuberant curious trusting
challenging risky nurturing patient primal

My hopes of getting in contact/meeting with Lottie Child may have just been abolished due to me reading that on new years day she begins a residency in Brazil! anyway just reading some of her words for her residency here is what I've picked out:
researching the uniqualy Brazillian quality of malandragem untranslatable but interpreted as street smart....I will immerse myself in different urban and rural places always asking - how do i need to behave to be safe and how do i need to behave to be joyful in this place?

Website Links:
Lottie Childs blog: http://malinky.org/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage
her website has loads on and I've printed off some of the manuals/guides to try and do one
pinched most of the above info off there

Artist info / association sponsoring her residency in brazil : www.solarassociates.net/lottie-child
and a gallery of her work off the same website: http://www.solarassociates.net/picture-galleries/

a rough 1 mile radius

2008-12-12T21:41:00.001Z

View Larger Map

Peckham Wander 1

2008-12-11T20:08:00.001Z

Went into college chatted to Rodger about going to Deptford … I hadn’t read the brief properly 1 mile radious of Make It Local-ops!

So told to wander!

Heres the route I took on google maps:

View Larger Map

Came back to uni and talked with others about what we had found, Georgette might look at train stations – movement of people, luggage, waiting for trains people could be nice project as theres 3 train stations within the circle, commuters into central...

From my wander key things that popped up

-Industrial/Buisness estates - explore what buisness there are

- park and play spaces

- abandoned buildings / renevation

Saturday 6th December 2008 - Adventure to Deptford

2008-12-06T17:00:00.001Z

I set off and cycled an unknown path to Deptford, past Brockley Nature Reserve, just off Vesta Road, which runs along one side of the railway line between Brockley and New Cross Gate, the other side had a massive allotment The reserve is normally closed but opens occasionally to the public to wander around. I also spotted the Brockley Cross Business Centre

Deptford Market runs along the length of Deptford High Street, you can pretty much buy anything fruit and vedge’, electronics, thermal underwear, fabrics. There is a great flea market in Douglas Way where I brought an rusty old paraffin lantern bargain price at 2 quid!

The Deptford Project is a new café bistro (February 2008) in a converted 57 seater train carriage designed by Studio Myerscough (with Luke Morgan) the courtyard outside at the weekend also hosts a ‘creative industries’ market. There was one of the girls from Sanctuary of Wilderness, a design studio formed by illustrators Claire Scully and Susie Wright who were at Tate Take Over – London Calling where I provided structural participatory origami. There was also a collection of wooden huts which I had seen originally in the Open City Exhibition in Somerset transformed by locally based designers. I liked them before because you walked into the interior of the house at your head height and viewed the exhibtion infomation on the walls.

I went into a vintage shop called Rag and Bone, I asked the shop assistant where they got the clothes from because they were pretty cheap compared to other vintage shops. Chris Carey’s Collection she said “ just go a have a look, its quite interesting” and gave me directions to get there. What I found under about 4 railway arches just off Deptford High Street, was massive creates of clothes and materials being sorted and repackaged, the staff were having lunch so weren’t keen to talk but the women said I could fill up a bag a buy if I wanted to.

From looking at the website they provide textile recycling banks to organizations, local authorities and charities, this is then sorted in to separate bales such as coats, blankets, mixed colour woolens…their ‘boutique is the Rag and Bone shop in Deptford. You can buy in bulk from the website, prices depend on the content of the bale.

I then cycled down to the CockPit Arts Deptford, designer makers open up their studios for the weekend sister base in, resident receive professional development, one to one business mentoring and public selling when the studios are open. Spaces are also available to hire for events or film and photo shots. As I wondered around I was a bit disappointed a lot of the ‘Open studios’ turned into selling points all the studios had been cleared and set out like stalls. Disciplines mix of ceramics, jewellery, glass, hand-woven textiles, fashion, illustration, and lots of screen printed interior decoration stuff.

Started talking about a bit of everything with Peter True for a good two hours, a guitar maker the only workshop/studio that was what it is, a workshop, wonderful tool chaos! Anyway talked about gaining skills, different practical making skills learning from generations, influence of toys and a make a mend culture to ours now. Peters mum dropped in at one point providing cake!

So while eating a piece of cake on my impromptu plate and cuppa they told me about how one year they had a very lopsided Christmas tree so his dad thinned the fuller side and replaced the branches on the other.
He showed me various guitar making bits, neck and soundboard alignment, support for the bendy ply…about the the Brockley Ukulele Group making a bricolage chocolate box ukulele, and many a list of things to look at when I find the notebook I wrote it all down in! Possibility of working with him need to give him a bell/email as I said I would but haven’t yet! And it would be fun and sure to gain some knowledge!

Bricolage: a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things – chaotic bricolage – origin md 20th centuary – from French bricoler “do odd jobs, repair’

Website links:

The Deptford Project: www.thedeptfordproject.com
The Deptford Project gaffs: www.thedeptfordprojectgaffs.co.uk
Sanctuary of Wildreness: www.sanctuaryofwilderness.co.uk

Chris Careys Collection: www.chriscareyscollections.co.uk
Links from this website: www.londonremade.com

Cockpit Arts (18 – 22 Creekside, SE8 3DZ) : www.cockpitarts.com
Hannah Waldron: www.hannahwaldron.co.uk
Peter True : web.mac.com/peter.true/Site/

flicker set slide show builder: www.db798.com/pictobrowser/index.html

Raw Canvas - Scenario 2050 hosted by the Pompidou Centre, Paris

2008-12-03T23:07:00.000Z

Two week residency with artist Richard Clegg at Rosedale College

2008-09-23T23:08:00.000+01:00

Over two weeks a group of GCSE and lower 6th form students constructed an artificial tree with three trunks, to display the expected artworks, birds, insects, ivy from readily available materials such as buckets, wood and recycled water bottles.

We started by splitting the group and materials into three, working in secrecy each group created a trunk, bartering for materials from the other teams. We then combined the three tree trunks, then in smaller groups created the branches, twigs and animals.