Bruno Bourel, Grant Hamilton and a whinge about PX6000Vo6

Bruno Bourel...taken from The Polaroid Book

Above is scanned from the [The Polaroid Book] and it contains at least 340 odd pages of Polaroid Fun. There are a lot to contend with here with too many artists and photographers to ponder over. Bruno Bourel interests me a great deal because I really think his compositions are extraordinary in the minimalism and how he frames and takes his shots. Because I have a Graphic Design background, I see the potential for other applications with this type of photography ethos. It's very filmic, painterly and has an advertising appeal.

Grant Hamilton appears within the book and he IS one of my icons in the photography/design sphere of creativeness. He is a lot like Bourel but is a lot more freer in his outcomes... I have stumbled upon Hamilton on the WWW.POLANOIR.COM website where photographers have a virtual gallery and sell polaroids to the public. You can buy their original snaps or copies of them. They have a place on the site where the process is explained and is photographed. On Hamilton's own site, the process is explained even further and now I am (I think) able to produce the three images that I need to do for the FFA2010 exhibition.

I have spoken to the printers and been given the quote for each print...£12- each, I am going to A2 size on Satin paper. Eventually I'll need to buy three sheets of A2 size clear perspex and that won't be fecking cheap. I am hoping on the sellable factor though...the price will be decided upon on a later date.........................

The Lucien Road marking [summer pro:ject] is going well and I have had a really good and encouraging response from an Art and Design Gallery/Company. They like my Road-Marking photographs and uploaded some polaroids upon their site (on Facebook), they are called [weareart]. They sound like a group of cool and fun guys so hopefully when time goes by, I may be able to have some exhibited.

RANT ABOUT PX6000VO6 AND THE PX600 SERIES IN GENERAL

I finally bought the new PX600Vo6 strand of [the impossible project] polaroid-esque film..I splashed out on three pack and got my silica gel pack, a postcard and the exhibition paper-thing.

I have put up the first eight shots that I have taken and I'm only happy with one of them...the Launderette Shot [8th attempt]. The temp was around the 18*C mark and in full daylight and the sky wasn't overcast. I used the One Flash and had taken the 600 series of cartridge. The camera was clean and is in full working order.

It pains me to say that at least 90 percent of the PX600FF snaps that are on the Polanoid website are now beyond use and are either full of the damp/crystalline patterns are either faded or have large areas of burnt orange splodges covering the pictures...I am just glad that I have them on here so that I can print them out on photographic paper, chop them up and have semi-polaroid photographs like I used to.

It is fine now that the Project people are giving away free the silica gel packs and telling us all to slice the back of the photographs and basically having us experiment until they get the right process working...I am just hoping now that the problems are now solved.

So, the Lucien Road-Markings project is taking up my time and the dalliance with Photo-Mechanical printers with whom I shall be working with closely next week will be the focus of my creative attentions. I have bought some really out of date Polaroids that have to be colour restored if they are gonna be useful and some new versions of the PX600 B+W films and if I am going to do some A3 size Lucien prints, these will have to be on some new colour [09] film.

scanner experiment

Whilst on my way to the Camera Club, I happened upon a torn children's book and thought that it would make a good composition. I loved the bright greeness of the vegetation and the stark typography played well with the subject matter. I scanned the two photographs and then reused the print out and created a collage.

snippet from [the polaroid book]

After buying the [The Polaroid Book] and flicking through the 350 pages, I have discovered another aspect of polaroid photography and of photography itself. It can be used to create minimalist abstractions and other constructivist compositions. I have been touching on this subject for a while now but after doing some much needed research and development, the point has been made clear.

The Lucien Fellowes project may heave been the catalyst for the [road-side markings] and the nut and bolt collection excercise but Grant Hamilton and Bruno Bourel has ben the mind glue that is cementing my ideas. My photography is diverting into another sphere and I do think that I am getting a little more confident with what I am trying to do. The six pack of ten year old Polaroids, even though quite useless without a scanner with colour restoration, are becoming quite useful. Usually the thought of 'oh God, that's costing about £4- a snap' runs around my head when taking potshots with the SX-70 but now, because of the cheapness, I can afford to experiment.

Lucien Fellowes Polaroids

These are the preliminary polaroids for the Lucien Fellowes ROADSISE MARKINGS project.

Summer Project

The second year's Summer Project has been set...about two weeks ago in fact but I've only just been able to reference it now. It's a little off-key but sounds fun. The umbrella title is Wearable Gallery Project:

Criteria:

We realise you might be all off around the world and therefore you summer project is designed to fit neatly into your summer schedule. We would like you to record, in whatever way you chose ,the habits, customs, everyday things you notice in your new environment (or down to the post office for the less adventurous). And compare them to your own home. We would like you to produce a series of work using the information you glean. You will need to make your work transportable and become your own
“Walking Art Gallery”. You should wear it to the first meeting on Tuesday 21st September at 1.30 in the Interactive Arts Studio.

It seems quite easy but a little too easy because they are many obvious paths that can be took. Holiday snaps, postcards, silly things being attached to teeshirts and the like or the obvious routes..Mail Art IS a route that I think I could take but, just how many are going to take that option... There's no fun in plying your energies into work and when it is shown, there are two-three people who has chosen your path as well.

I have a couple of ideas that are work in progress. They differ in style and outcomes...the presentation of the finished project will need a set of mechanical gadgets to fine tune but...

Lucien Fellowes and his Collection of Particulars

The concept that I have devised is one that involves a certain nobody who travels the country collecting road-side debris, rusty nuts and bolts and car crash remnants. He likes to take photos of road-side markings and like a butterfly collector, pins and mounts his rusty nuts and bolts.

I have evolved this character over time and devised a Facebook page dedicated to his finds. To present his collection, I will need to buy an old and tatty suitcase with period clothing and paraphenalia. Within this case will be his collection of rusty objects and certain polaroids of his locations. I have collection over twenty objects already and now need to photograph them in situ. Some photographs are going up here soon of his roadside markings.

It will be in the style of Merz, Schwitters, Cornell and hopefully have the philosophy of the trash, garbage and ruins background that I have been working towards. I have an idea for the performance side of it that involves me (as Fellowes) lurking about in other peoples (models) photographs looking a little odd.

Free For Arts Exhibition 2010

This is an interesting one, a chance to get work shown but there are hardly any takers...apathy is a little ironic here. We as a group of 1st year students have been given a chance to exhibit within the second year's exhibition. I thought there would be of some interest here but since the deadline for proposals was 10 May 2010 and another extension that ended last Friday, only 8 out of 28 has entered. I have entered my monolith light-boxes into the original deadline and now have two more...space permitting, of course. The show will bee on October 2010 in Manchester city centre. It will be a great opportunity to get work seen by the mass audience.

I need to fit the Monoliths with their lighting system real soon because I haven't even thought about this for months...just been far too busy doing other things and writing music with Andrea. The lighting will need to be wired and tested and screwed into place. I can do all this in my studio...the only problem would be the haulage task of actually bringing the damned things to MCR. I am on with the printing project with the printing firm here in Blackburn. I have scanned the polaroids that I am intending to use with the FFA2010 project if there is space and the Road-Side Markings are being a hit on www.polanoid.net so they can be enlarged if the other snaps do well.

The hard-edged collage is a stopstarter at the moment. I have start on a couple of compositions using different paperweights, textures, typography; I just want to go larger...probably six-footer utilising wood, wallpaper and cement..?

And finally, In have started experimenting with iStopmotion and created a 9second film with me and Andrea dancing like loons, this is on my Facebook page. I needed to start using this package because it wasn't cheap and I have too many ideas knocking about for my first real foray into film making. I don't know what I'm doing but I will succeed.

and Roket01 examples

These example are by Roket01 and are in Sheffield.

So from the post previously, I saw the show at Mooch and got into conversation with Roket01. I didn't get to see or speak to his partner Faunagraphic though, which was a pity. They DO have a kind of similar style but after stalking them on the web for a few hours, I can see the differences and creative nuances.

I really want to go to the nest IBUg event over in Germany but I don't know if to go there alone or try and get some random uni guys on the case. It would be good to go with people and experience the three-dayer with a gang and people where I am at the moment aren't really interested in graff and jetting off on the spur of the moment...BAH!

even the greats get rejected

This is a snippet from Saturdays The Guardian dated 10-07-10 and involves the rejection by the MoMA of an early Andy Warhol piece.

new painting in progress

This is of course the painting in progress, it needs to be a lot thicker in texture, the black being tidied up and the areas for the red to be selected.

I am naming this series, [even the spaces in between have their purpose]

another group of graff artists- faunagraphic and new work

On Thursday morning I received an email from some admin/student girl from my course...Interactive Arts stating that a new exhibition was opening at the second Mooch gallery in Manchester. This was is situated in the Northern Quarter alongside Oldham Road. This was a show by Faunagraphic and Rocket01, a collective from Sheffield who specialises in Fine Art/Graffiti located in old derelict places such as factories, offices, cinema, et-cetera.

I gather the email/msg come to us because I have devised a Facebook page under the moniker of [dereliction duty collective]. It's a page dedicated to crumbling architecture, dereliction and decay in general. I have a project in mind regarding this environment, some are in a state of symbiosis but, I am finally coming to the near end...

So, I trotted off to Manchester on Friday evening and after stalking my way through the Northern Quarter, actually found the gallery. To be honest, I wasn't really taken with the work I did see on the walls. With the description I read in the MSG, it would be rough and tactile and raw, these pieces were very nice. I tried to find the bar and found that no alcohol present, only fizzy pop. They had some printing guys making and selling [for one night only], screen-printed teeshirts. I wanted one but, they weren't able to do one that I wanted...they didn't have red ink or something.

Past the tee-shirts I went and then saw the artwork that made my trip over to MCR worthwhile, the image above. They did three off these and this one is my favourite. Like, I said above, they find derelict sites and spray site-specific artwork, photograph them and when the times come, they are erased as the buildings come down. I really like this concept and after looking and thinking about what I was seeing, I bumped into one half of the collective, Roket01, and generally, gave him an interview.

We talked about the grey area and legalish information and the process of creation of their artworks. the selection and recon mission of the location, the set-ups and final output. I told him about my plans and projects and the fact that I'm going to curate an exhibition about graffiti and dereliction and also the fact that I wanna do it in a derelict site with site-specific sculpture and performance. He was eager with what I was saying and in turn I got some really good advice and information from him.

There is a collective in Germany called WWW.IBUg-ART.DE. This group are guying near Reelane, Germany who are given a space by their local council and allowed to have a three-day art festival involving street art, graffiti and all within derelict sites. I've already been on the website and really want to go this August...I just need some bodies to come with me... They are doing exactly what I want to do n I have retained this Roket01 guy as a FCBK contact and hopefully I can do something with his collective and the IBUg people.

After a week and a bit off from doing any artwork, I have returned to the painting I started a couple of months back. It's based on the derelict theme and thoughts on site-based work and also paintings by Sean Caherty and Pollock. I am only using two-three colours, Black, White and a little Re. This is my favourite colour selection, a little green at times but only briefly. The paintings are small scale at the moment, I think they are A2. I could see these Rothko-cathederalesque in size.

Beat-Herder Polaroids

Here are various Polaroids of a local three-day electronica festival that basks in the glory of Pendle Hill. I have used both TZ Artistic and PX100FF (monochrome) cartridges for these photographs.
The festival was beatastic got to see Luke Vibert, Dub Pistols, Blasted Mechanism, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and erm...a few more but can't place the time or places or whom... I had a great time out though, sun, music ...,
I met a group of graffiti artists and especially one that I know from a record shop owner friend of mine. I bought a selection of tee-shirts at this guys shop and in turn, were designed and made by this festival guy. His tag is CERB and using typography here and there.