Hello, this is the unluckiest of the updates rocking with the big 13. For me this is actually one of the most exciting and luckiest currently. Let's get stuck in as I'm personally a little buzzing to start letting you all know what's been going on.
Personal
Firstly, plant wise, I got round to sowing the coffee seeds a good friend sent me for my birthday, and I have a ton of bell peppers and mint plants on the seedling phase. My sweet potato plant is slowly taking over a portion of my windowsill with its vines, which is quite neat.
Running has been going well in terms of hitting the halfway mark in the couch to 5k app, which surprisingly has helped me with getting rid of excess stress and improving my mental health at the moment. I am using the app 'Couch to 5K' which the BBC have created, and are on week 6 currently.
Speaking of, with all the new changes and the world picking up at a rapid pace, I find it interesting to see how much I have to do and how little time I have to do as such, juggling it between working 5 days a week, driving lessons, free time to take to myself to truly decompress becomes less and less. This is something I have a fear as I feel the levels of stress added are not equal to the time I have to decompress such as spending time with my mates, or just having some time for some peace.
It's been nice to have some time with my friends, usually with a few drinks and a little fire, It's strange how much I enjoy it, and how to think its almost a tradition of the human species to share talk and communicate in comfort across a fire as many many generations before us have done before us. It would be interesting to look into this more just out of curiosity, and looking into traditions in general we have kept from the beginning of our species. This will be something I will be looking into a little more to explore potential avenues this can provide
Collaboration work with Kneed
As I am writing this, the first meeting with Kneed is taking place next week. Kneed is a group focusing on going against the neo-liberal nature of the way art is forced in Universities.
They have asked me to take part in a meeting, with interest in one of my works called 'Spero' (It can be found in my Past Projects section.) Which consisted of using Lego to manifest their perspective of hope, with focuses on intimacy and atmosphere within a creative space. This is to see alongside 29 other creatives to share ideas, give feedback, criticism and work on them together.
Overall, I am incredible excited, nervous and looking forward to see where this opportunity will lead us.
Car Scene with Little Collaboration.
For this I have teamed up with the Natalie Yates as a way to both help us build our skills and portfolio of acting, this is done through the help of creating a scene which performer Natalie Yates created (and revised by the wonderful scriptwriter Alex Haymes) to create a scene. We have taken into consideration peoples limitation of their current living arrangements, (mainly mine in terms of children and not being able to perform without disturbances of external noises). This is something I have been very excited to work on. We recently started working on characterization and working on a storyboard to make sure the filming is done in a way in which it flows correctly. With the mentoring of Nat through this (as she has experience in screen acting in which I do not) I am looking forward to seeing the outcome. For me, I see this as a great first test and first steps into screen acting, as my course did not accompany such acting skills and training.
In time, I hope to be able to share with you the work we have made and for you to critique whilst also look at places in which I can improve.
Rain
As part of working on Little Collaboration's theme of the month 'rain', just my luck that it not has rained once, and the weather has been quite lush. However it is a slow process in working on the little project, so far I have a rhythm track and a few draft words for the spoken word to use. I hope in time (by deadline) I will have a short 60 second piece of spoken word with a original score behind it, with all home-made sound samples.
I used a portable recording device to record the sound of the rain whilst sat in my car, then used a pre-made synth sample and overlaid a guitar rhythm over it. The intention was to create a calm piece of music to back the spoken word. I also used the guitar and synth bells sample to simulate the motion of the raincloud passing overhead, slowly creeping in, then creeping out starting and leaving the piece with only the sound file of the rain left. This was a interesting experience in terms of recording, and actively looking out for rain. It is also my first attempt at spoken word/ poetry-esque creating, which I find quite challenging at times in terms of painting the scene are finding the right flow/pace of the lines. Hopefully I will be uploading the finished rendition with spoken word in next weeks update.
In terms of other music creation. I have to admit it has been put in the back burner, with one song halted in the middle of the process. It is a shame as I quite enjoy messing around on my guitar but currently there is always something before I have the chance and then its too late to be able to make any noises.
AOTW- Kintsugi Head 2 - Billie bond
This sculpture follows the Japanese process of Kintsugi, in which they fix broken pottery by using lacquer and gold dust to bond the broken pieces together. This process is also a lesson, teaches us although the item was broken, it can be fixed and become more beautiful in the process. From looking into processes personally, I can see a therapeutic and emotional experience during the repairing of something broken. This can provide a self-reflective emotion to the work in the idea of becoming more beautiful and interesting through hardship. This sculpture by Billie Bond, is a womans head made using kintsugi techniques and colours.
From the artists biography in on the webpage https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Sculpture-Kintsugi-Head-2/153518/3296211/view:
"Inspired by portrait art of the past, from broken ancient artifacts to Old Masters and the philosophical ideas of Kintsugi, my work often involves destruction and repair, realism and abstraction, paralleling the process of making with altered states and adapted minds."
Through this I feel the work traverses above just being a physical object, playing with ideas of self reflection and changes of perspective, self-criticism and emotional connection to the work.
Second Appearance of this group in my updates SOTW, with the iconic vocals, slick combination of a smooth rhythm guitar, soft electric organs and a impressive drum pattern, combines into a real real real buttery smooth song. Can defiantly feel myself listening to this song until I'm sick.
Cast Away 9.5/10
Cast Away, a man who works in the postal service left alone on a deserted island after his postal plane crashed. A great plot looking at the hardships and driving forces which people keep hope and finding a reason to continue day after day.
Some of the key moments I felt were impactful was the rediscovery of the base primal elements such as creating fire, hunting for food and finding shelter.
I found the performance by Tom Hanks an incredible feat, and the plotline flow is well enough for leaving you wondering what the next minute will show. True masterpiece.
It's such a beautiful day 9/10
One of Dom Hetrzfeldts creations, following the story of a man who is mentally ill with a memory based illness/disorder, embracing the surreal and mundane, beautiful and gritty nature following Bills decent into further and further psychosis and changes throughout the film.
What I found particularly intriguing about this film is the presentation, using soft spots of action amongst large portions of black separating the action into almost separate thought bubbles and trains of through, whilst also mixing stop motion in reality with the classic 2d animation. Through the 3 acts we can see the progression in the seemingly normal and regular life of Bill and how it is twisted and contorted and highlighting that even the simplest of tasks can be difficult for others. I felt personally it was accurate in putting the audience in the shoes of the character Bill, through narration and the presentation and directing.
All in all, I feel this is a film which some people will love, and some people will hate, but I recommend watching as it is a experience in film which I feel considering how outstanding it is, has flown under the radar of cult films.
Thank you for reading, hoping next week I'll have a lot more completed work for you to check out, meeting summaries and general natters. I'll catch you all very soon.
Peace,
- S
09/05/21