Brains of the Operation.

I myself created an installation piece to be exhibited in the Out of Sight exhibition entitled, simply, 'The Brain'. I had wanted to make it for quite some time, and the car park gave me a good opportunity to make it tangible and place it within a public platform. Its placement in the carpark seemed perfect to me, as my interpretation of the underground space was of it as the recesses of the mind of the upper levels, if we were to compare them to consciousness. It was dusty, dated and hidden away, and matched perfectly with my intentions for the work.

When studying psychology at college, an analogy of the brain as a computer was used all the time, to explain basic principles of how it was structured & how complex it was; hardware, software, electrical signals and the like...
But, after learning more; about memory and the unconscious, and drawing on my own relationship with my brain, a different profile of the nerve centre emerged - one of a more personal and manual place. It seemed way more analogue in form than this digitised comparison. The brain forgets things; not everything we 'save' onto it is still there when we go to retrieve it. It can trick us, and implant something that we only think was there; neuron paths can get overlapped.

I imagined instead the brain as a person in an office, with each thought and each process as a hard copy rather than a computer 'file'; a piece of paper, meaning 'human error' in the process of filing could account for our brain's mix ups. The brain is the communicator of the body, and I imagined it as a dated hub, with in-trays and out-trays of signals to deal with from the different organs, as if they were people too.

I created this analogy as a physical environment in order to let people enter it, with things to pick up and investigate. With me sitting at a typewriter acting as the recorder of 'brain activity' for a couple of hours each day, the work also had a strong element of immediacy. I surrounded the desk with everything that my brain knew. I made a list of everyone I could ever remember meeting, made a world map from memory, and packed my troubles in an old kit bag. The continuous reel of paper generated throughout the exhibition recording my thoughts and what I could see resulted in a stream of paper documentation about the exhibition, its visitors and to some extent reflections on my own life during that period.

The piece worked best when I was absent however, leaving behind the evidence of someone being there (complete with cups from the coffees I'd chugged to keep me going) and documentation of the past for visitors to read. People seemed to enjoy rooting around in someone else's head, like voyeurs of its owner rather than it as an art piece. The non-gallery setting also encouraged this interaction I think; there was no barrior of prestige or 'do not touch' feeling created as so often in a white cube environment.

A couple of visitors even became part of the record of the work by typing on the typewriter themselves with what they witnessed and what they thought of it, which makes for interesting reading.


Now all I have to do it work out how to get the filing cabinets out of the car park.

Exhibition Hair.

Here is a little moving image docu nugget one Michael Compton made about the Out of Sight exhibition while we were 'in labour', as it were. He did a very good job capturing our ruddy cheeks and weary eyes, but also the anticipation that A baby is coming.
I think the gentlemen come across a bit cheeky-chappy, while I channel an element of Hermione Granger. Without the good hair.

Out of Sight, Out of Our Minds.

Finally I have time to post about me and my housemates' latest and grandest endeavour:

This summer we presented OUT OF SIGHT to an unsuspecting Bournemouthian public; an exhibition in an underground carpark that until now has been unused for three years.

Me and my housemates George Bills, Laurie Ramsell, Nathan Hackett heralded as organisers of the whole kit and kaoodle, enlisting the help of Ashley Peevor & Michael Compton along the way to make a combined force of knowledgable, capable and resiliant fine art and illustration students. 33 proposals were then chosen from entrants spanning our entire university, The Arts University College at Bournemouth, and the resultant exhibition proudly featured costume design, digital media, film, foundation and MA students, alongside both of our courses.

It was a long process, from liaising with various levels of Wilkinsons clearance (owners of the carpark), calling for entries, selecting the artists, cleaning the carpark, adding power outlets, installing the work, making our own work(!) and of course aspects of promotion and publicity as the opening date approached. Exhaustion was a key feeling inside all of us in the house at the end of each day, but such a sense of achievement gripped in turning a disgusting and neglected environment into a house for sophisticated art pieces. Plus, someone told us that when you're tired, you know you're putting your all in.

I myself designed our promotional 'identity', which became applied to flyers, posters, e-invites, and signage. It was based on an eye test, playing with ideas of optical inadequacies taken from the exhibition title 'Out of Sight'.

One key aspect of our exhibition was that we were 'out of the way', slightly off the beaten track; you had to take a sort of leap of faith down some unfamiliar stairs in an unnervingly familiar place, and find something that was hidden to a lot of people who who look past it, making the entrant an explorer of the unknown who had seen something others had not. Our ethos contained lacings of an appreciation for the overlooked: including outsiders within a society, as well as hidden areas within a community, and we wanted to show art's resiliance to unorthodox circumstances - including declines of the economy and lower states of lifestyle. All the artworks were generated as a direct response to the carpark; whether the result mimicked some of its qualities, or juxtapoed against them; made use of its large scale or exaggerated it, none of the objects would exist without the environment.

S from 'Urban Brick' typeface by Bana Toutounjee. Photograph by Denise Poote.

'Residents' by Elizabeth Vazquez. Photograph by Michael Compton.

Inside 'Petri Dish' by Kieran Leonard, Tom Daniel-Moon & Ka Vi. Photograph by Michael Compton.

Assemblage of 'Sustainable Car' by Marta Fjellheim. Photograph by Michael Compton.

'Meltdown' by Hollie Mackenzie. Photograph by Denise Poote.

We received around 1000 visitors across the week-long opening period, largely due to the carpark entrance in prime location on the bustling Winton High Street; having been hidden right alongside the entrance to chainstore Wilkinsons for all this time. Many people who came down to the carpark's depths had used the carpark when it was open, and were happy to see it open again in better nick. It was a joy to see people from all walks of life enter the space without any preconceptions of what they might find.

A big thank you to everyone who helped us in whatever way; swapping keys, making art, bringing a broom, getting up early, being able to drive, folding exhibition guides, handing out flyers, keeping us afloat.~

You are out of sight.

Horsing Around.

(Never has a post title come so easily.)

Once again, I sent a little something over to Peculiar Bliss today, for their newest issue entitled 'Creatures'. I found great joy and satisfaction in drawing it peacefully in my journal, the night after conceiving the idea en route to a buddy's house to change a light bulb - coincidence?

It's nice to genuinely generate a giggle from time to time with something simple, even if it is to yourself. Chortle.

Land Marks.

I recently stumbled across a publication called Hesa Inprint, a bilingual magazine described as a platform for anyone with "a vision and a voice". Fancying this notion, I also found the design to be of a very high calibre; a beautiful and clean finish (no pun), and, rather enamored, submitted a drawing to their latest issue; Europe-Eurooppa. I created a tourist's map of Europe, using only infamous landmarks in order to show the placement of European countries, with some missing all together. This was to show the gaps in people's general knowledge about our world's geography, along with the all-consuming power of iconic images.

Full article and image can be see here on the HESA blog: http://www.hesainprint.com/illustration-kuvitus/2011/08/1851/land-marks

Anew Friend.

I've never been comfortable enough with a book to call it a journal. Even as it grows in notation and decreases in immaculateness, it's still a 'sketchbook' and we don't quite create a journaler's bond. We stay more like co-workers.

But now I have found one. And here are a couple of little things from it, drawn on the Shetland Isles.

Me & the journal made good company up there in the Cold North. I think we're definitely going to stick together from here.

Hooters.

Once upon a time I became noctornal and created an owl overnight. I'd wanted to make an owl out of pencil sharpenings for a while, since seeing a photograph of a particularly smart-looking one in a wildlife magazine. Its overlapping feathers struck me as very similar to the wooden waste of our graphitey friends, so I knew it would make sense to recreate it this way. And here's the result, pre-framing and free as, well a bird.

My boyfriend used a plane to grind down that twig for me, which looked very taxing as I watched on (with bleary eyes and a cup of tea), and he helped me carefully frame the whole caboodle ready for its place within our Crayon 2.0 exhibition at Cafe Boscanova in Boscombe. He can be seen there for the next few months unless someone adopts him.

The owl not the boyfriend. I won't let anyone adopt this helpful fellow.

What I like most about the resulting image is that the whole thing is made from a tree, including the paper.

...Unless you count the blue tac behind all those shavings, shhhhhh. Our secret.

Don't Bottle Her.

My buddy Libby has reached the final of the Musicroom Acoustic Showcase in Portsmouth, and she told me she was planning to sell a little EP at her performance. So I made her this sleeve to pop in the cases, to set it off a bit.

I figure her music is smooth like a good year beer, and suprisingly musky and oaky with a characteristic aged quality within its modern setting. Plus she's always come over a little swashbuckling, with her growls and hats.

I made a little bottle label for each track on the back, to showcase each song's own 'flava'.

Pick a copy up at The Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth on 28th July.

Good luck kiddo. And let enough beer flow to sail the HMS Libby + crew, abob!

Wooly Submission.

I stitched a N64 for online magazine Peculiar Bliss, under the theme of Pastimes. It took a long time, and it was one of those things where I figured a drawing 'wasn't enough'. The bright colours and seemingly carefree resultant object hides a contrast with the difficult process I embarked upon to try and make something "good enough" to be considered with some sort of regard.

They included it in Issue #6, even if it was rather a wooly submission if you ask me.
You can see the full magazine here.

Chatter Cupboard.

Having got talking to one Zenobia Southcombe on twitter (@ZSouthcombe) with regards to The Sketchbook Project we are both signed up for, she asked me if I would be interested in doing an artist's interview for her blog.
I was delighted by the prospect, and said "Why I'd be delighted". So we did it.

And here it is: my very own artist's feature.

Be sure to check out the other artist's she 'grilled' too, I found them lots of fun to mull over.

And at risk of sounding like Beyonce, I feel honoured and a little blessed that she or anyone else cared about my humble responses.
She asked some very good questions that made my brain rattle and churn at first and I think I have a perverse taste for answering introspective questions now while trying not to say the word 'I' too much.

Just don't ask me Who I Am. We'll be here until January.