Tate Modern Review - Tracy Emin 'Hate and power Can be a terrible thing 2004.'

When I walked into this room I was automatically drawn towards this particular piece. Presenting a warm attraction to it, possibly this being  to do with the colour pallet consisting of warm pastel pinks, and egg shell blues, and flowers trickled across the england flag, enhancing a sense of security and home. Tracey Emins work emits gender division and political themes throughout the piece. Emin used an old pink wool blanket cut in two and intersected with a cotton extension in the same shade of pink, as the basis for a landscape of text.

 The work holds a lot of pattern and confusion of jumbled text which is very different to the appearance as I described earlier, as to how the text portrays an aggression of some sought to maybe the subconsciousness of how the artist Tracey was feeling about a particular subject - " It also seems to be about women that Tracey Emin feels are guilty of aggressive acts you'd normally associate with men." (Reynolds, Arts Correspondent

12:01AM BST 08 Sep 2004).

 When I saw and read the piece It almost reminded me of a 1950s domestic wife's kitchen cloth, suggesting their oppression during the war, giving off a Imposed Impression of themselves in the way she or feels others (women) live their lives, but deep down there Is an aggression and anxiety inside of them. The art piece is almost an OxyMoron - 'Pretty Ugly'. This is one of the reasons why I found the art work Interesting as the concept behind It had a double meaning, the piece itself was a contradiction as It was using a very feminine textile but at the same time was conveying a political view.

Exhibition Review: Tate Modern. 23/09/13

Bibliography: By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent

12:01AM BST 08 Sep 2004, The Telegraph.

Fashion & Textiles - Third Week.

This week students focussed on a new topic which was Fashion and Textiles. We first explorded the techniques behind sample making where we were told to  create five miniture sculpture samples which could represent structure, texture, design, ect. The samples could be different and unique from each other, or a development of the first sample which may been based on structure by expanding and exploring it, aswell making it more striking.A slideshow was presented to us of a fashion student who is now studing at Westiminster, for some of his samples he based it on G-Ametric shapes which where quite symetrical and were also continuous multiples. We were given glue, scissors, brown,white and a few coloured sheets of paper to come up with five different samples. My samples turned out to be quite detailed and delicate, as I have always been intrested in accurate detail, more than simplistic objects or simplistic patterns.I also added some colour and created a variety of unusual shapes.These are my four sample pictures below.Overall  i enjoyed this sample experimentation as it let me be much more expressive with my imagination and my idea devlopment putting togther pieces I had created. Physical partaking made it fun, sticking and cutting up bits, litrally going crazy by using our imagination to make a creative piece.

A task which got all of the students hands on, and working togther in groups firstly broaderned our communication skills aswell getting to know different people and studying their work they had produced. We all picked one of the four objects we had created and expanded it by ten times the shape it originally was. After picking the second shape in to the left, everyone was put into groups and brought along their xtra large object plus multiples of the object, we all had the task of creating a garment out of our objects on the maninkins, of a particular word shouted out. For example, Sexy, Romantic, Gothic, Sad, Expressive ect. Using other peoples made parts continuously rotating. I thurerly enjoyed this task because it got my working hands on, aswell as really using my imagination to create a piece fitted to the word expressed. Heres a few pictures of the garments created by me and my group partner.

Experimentaion with design

Our second day consisted of designing, this involved us picking fashion silhouette out of magazines and using their figures to create a 3dimensional design on top. This was great fun, as i went quite abstract with my designs, making it quirky for instance using gold tissue paper and cutting aload of triangles to stick up from the garment. It did however look quite flat and had no shadow to it giving it more depth which would of improved it. Here are a few of my deisgns i did.

 
Designing a piece.

Our second task was also another fun experiment which made us get creatively involved. We photocopied ten images of a particular section of the body from a model ( I picked the head) and had to design on top of it. I went for cutting and sticking, giving it a three dimensional aspect, this was succesful as it gave it more texture. We then had to choose one of the designs and illistrate it, and make it on our last day of Tashion and Textiles. I decided to do th one which was edgy and which challenged me, but could also be acheived with little resources. I used Tin foil, Brown Baking paper, Green tring, and gold tissue paper for creating my Flamboyant Hat. It was so extravagant it looked like it be in a carnival festival.

 

This is the Deisgn I used for when I made the head piece.

Lens Based Media - Week two.

This weeks project has turned to Lens Based Media. We were put into groups of four and asked to draw characters which we had seen in our lives that shocked or meant something to us, maybe being a lunatic that crosses paths with us three times a week. Or the classic old couple that always shops in the, Co-op, a friend who has an obsession with repeating the word "dogs", it  was a free minded task where it didn't matter what we drew as long as it was an intresting character. We also had to draw a place that meant something so beautiful to us and was known as our 'Happy Place' as well as the 'Sad place' and 'Dream place'. After this we all interlinked our drawn characters on an A1 sheet and made up random stories from each persons character, it had to involve an introduction, a struggle, three dilemmas within this struggle and a final out come which solves the crisis. We all thought about how we could engage an audience and leave them feeling emotionally touched in some form. We did three story boards and presented them to the class, discussing and group-criting each one, after that our home study task was to produce another story board using only photography, playing with the images to create almost a lie by fooling the audience into thinking what you want them to think, with composition, the subject and how its positioned, the lighting and colour enhancing. I decided to base mine on a lonesome hedgehog who lives in a world of black and white. He is miserable and seeks an adventure to discover some colour in his life. He goes to the land of colour and his world turns from grey to paradise. Throughout it shows his struggle, his adventure and his final destination, starting with a negative and ending with a positive. I really enjoyed this task, particularly choosing the character and creating my own setting, this was a challenge for me as i had to create my story visually through pictures without any text. My story board is shown below. In my final story board i selected 6 images.

Fred's Journey.

Five Emotions or sounds where read out to us, which we then had to explore using our photography skills in capturing the particular emotions. These where - Happy, Sad, Echo, Jump and crush. I thought hard about what i could do to present these words, for echo i took a close up picture of giant water ripples. For Sad i went into the o2 arena and captured a traped dimmed light slightly streaming through a pair of closed black curtains which i thought was quite succesful as it presented a mellow, miserable feeling. However it also didnt work as it could be looked at as being present as hope. For crush i zoomed in close to crunshed up paper and plastic in a waste disposal, in order to really grab the crushing effect. Lastly for Happy and Jump I pictured up a close almost a rainbow full of colourful jucies and fizzy drinks cap lids, and for Jump I captured myself lying down with my feet on the floor but then turned the image around on photoshop. 

 Ten Items that Relate to me.

We had to think of ten items or scenes that linked to how we are as people, and what makes us who we are. I decided to use photography within my house and took pictures of objects/scenes which I relate to all the time. My main image i based this on was Mugs of Tea. I used my kitchen tabel and layed out all my empty tea mugs in rows and took a picture of them from a birds eye view angle. This was because the shape being circular also reflected life and my life as a continuous journey, the mugs also being empty symbolised me gaining energy and not always being full, how all my encounters do evolve around me having tea, or meeting people for tea in so many different areas. It was a good image to work with as it portrayed so many beatufiul colours but also a dark feel was emitted from the image maybe reflecting the all my emotions. After doing a tweny minute sketch teared pieces of paper up and put it on top of our piece to change the sketch in someway to trick the audience into thinking what it could be.

The Timeline of my Memory.

Part of our memory project was to grasp the concept of producing a timeline. This timeline defined all students past memorys of recording information from visiting exhibitions, our current state of how we feel, for example starting ravensbourne, meeting new people, and adventouring off and discovering our creative outputs over the week. 

A variety of artists were presented to us and how they have used timelines to record there progression throughout thier work. Cicerio a Roman Philosifer regarded timelines as a 'Treasure Bolt of invension", including artists like Andy GoldsWorthy who uses sculpture and Series of block images to replicate his timelines.

Or like the artist Richard Long who uses the ability to edit a journey of memories, using text. He gave me my first idea of jotting down all of my memories over the past week, and all of my summer memories combined and contrasted to how I felt then and how Im feeling now. For example I decided to record my new bus route which has completley changed my memory encounters from before to a whole new sense of direction, since I was 12 i had been getting the same bus routes to and from college where I new most stops, and every object or destination I passed I would remember as it became a very familiar encounter to me. However since starting ravensbourne at first I didnt even acknowledge the bus route as I was more focussed on how my feelings where to starting something so new and unfamiliar to me, but as the week had gone and things became less daunting, I became more relaxed and picked up on more of my surrondings for example taking the bus home. I decided to document my journey by taking a selection 

of photos on the bus.

My timeline inspiration came from my fascination with the clock work at the Victoria and Albert museum. The concept of clocks representing time and change, and how everything is always moving forward rather than backwards, just like the expansion of our memory but the past is still held on to. I did a few sketches of the clock work, which you can see below.

Afer my ideas had started to develope I thought about making a building block of a clock tower, having three parts to it. The lower block representing the past, the middle (Present), and top (Future).On the Number intervals this would be my thoughts and past present memorys according to wether it was on the past block, or future aspirations block. This seemed to be lacking in thinking out of the box basically- playing it to safe. Making it into a three dimensional clock in class as a quick experiment , representing my journey throughout change aswell as my memories as portrayed on the inside as if it were representing my brain. I had half an hour to put this together. 

After this we were put into groups for a group crit. Everyone said there pros and cons about their work, aswell as giving advice on how we could develope our timeline further. I was suggested to colour-cordinate mine reflecting my emotions and feelings. So the outside of the clock would be dark and disconected representing my memories as a whole, how they arn't quite accurate, but blurred and jumbled. Inside would represent my mind, boosting with colour reflecting all different types of emotions, having my past,present and future combined as three elements interlinking in the same way. I also decided to use coloured string hooked from each side panel to another connecting my memories in some way, like travel pathways of change.