Holograms

Hey! I haven't been blogging much recently as I'm more into tumblr right now (www.grinandbearitzine.tumblr.com) as I think the stream-of-consciousness-ness of it suits me better. Does that make sense? Anyway here is some of what I have been doing lately - based around the theme of the hologrpahic universe. 
Also, I've been listening to a lot of Grimes recently. I think this song is the perfect accompaniment to the above work. 

The Holographic Universe (part one)

The Holographic Universe (part 1) by Annabel Duggleby from Annabel Duggleby on Vimeo.

You guys, I made a film! It’s just a short experiment to work through some ideas. It was inspired by a book called ‘The Holographic Universe’ by Michael Talbot, in which it says that near-death experiences (and death itself) “are really nothing more than the shifting of a person’s consciousness from one level of the hologram of reality to another.” Isn't that beautiful?

Also, it sounds much better with headphones!

In other news, I bought some nice brie today. Yum.
x

Art shows us what it is to be human

Happy New Year!

(If the video doesn't appear - watch it HERE )

The electric feeling

This week at college we've been doing illustration, which was probably my favourite (and last) topic! We were given a brief with five questions/prompts on it, one of which we had to choose and illustrate. I (and most people) chose Explain out of body experiences. I found a really interesting website by the Out Of Body Experience Research Foundation , which contained loads of testimonials from people who claim to have had out of body experiences. Some were cheesy, some were baffling, but regardless of whether they were "genuine" or whatever, I found them poetic and many provided some interesting imagery.  Here are a few examples of my intial ideas, which culminated in a series of four posters and a little zine.

This is actually a quote from an interview with Roger McGough, about a kind of false/altered memory he has.

Nice scanning skillz

This is just a little taster, as scanning and editing is laborious!
I hope your week has been as fun as mine :) xx

I'll tax your feet

Here's a few pictures of my day. I've spent most of it listening to the Beatles and playing with a new app (well, new to me) that takes kaleidoscopic, prism-like photos, whilst making this lovely twinkley sound. It's really trippy and addictive. And then I made a little study/ studio area in my room with this beautiful wooden school desk that my Dad made about 30 years ago. I've also been churning out the continuous line drawings, drawing my face by feeling it, with my eyes closed. It all sounds a bit silly but I really like the results, especially my very first portrait (second pic) which has a kind of sad presence.

And now I think I'll go watch some Derren Brown.

 

When I'm in the middle of a dream, stay in bed, float upstream.... 

 

 

Journey

Here's a small selection of artwork I've been doing for college, which started today!
I've begun looking at migration, immigration and starling murmurations and have done some drawings/experiments but want to move on to maybe using sound or installation. Anyway I won't say much about it till it's finished, I'm not particularly bothered if anyone's interested or not, it's just helpful to write about it.

Migrations

Getting quite excited about my college project now!

Had I the heavens embroidered cloth

This is probably the most amazing art work I have ever encountered. I wish I'd heard of it sooner so I could have actually gone and experienced it.

Peace Camp 2012, part of the London Festival, comprises a gathering of tents situated at various coastal areas in England. At dusk "they start to glow, pulsating with a pinkish light. If you walk among them, you begin to hear – above the batter of waves on rock – a fragmentary soundscape of poems about love, snatches of Sappho, Sophocles and Shakespeare." (from the Guardian website)

Doesn't it look breathtaking? Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jul/20/artists-british-coastline-poetry-island

Grit and Glamour

I watched a documentary about the Glasgow art scene the other day, called Glasgow: The Grit and The Glamour which was really inspiring. So inspiring in fact, that I've booked a holiday to Scotland! It was really interesting to hear about art in Glasgow and how the city has become a breeding ground for ideas and creativity. There seems to be a real sense of possibility, as Jeremy Deller says: "This is a city where you can get things done as an artist." I think it's sad sometimes that we think of London as the centre of the art world, as the only place you can make it. Whilst London is a good place to be an artist, and I love being there, it can be expensive (though not always) and sometimes I worry about the anonymity and alienation of big city life. Of being engulfed.

Although when I was at Goldsmiths (briefly) I lived a 2 minute walk from the college. It was last September when there seemed to be a heatwave and I'd be out all day, or in college and I'd stroll back to halls on balmy evenings and bump into newfound friends and it felt like a village, this bubble of familiarity in the vastness of London.

Glasgow: The Grit and The Glamour featured many brilliant artists, such as Deller, Christine Borland (I LOVE HER) and Simon Starling, along with about a bajillion Turner Prize winners and nominees. One thing that really captured my imagination was when they were talking about Glasgow School of Art, particularly the sculpture and environmental art degree course in the 1980s. There was footage of this small clan of students experimenting and pushing the boundaries, and generally just hanging around and doing what they pleased. I really loved that, because hopefully I will be going to art school in another year and the practicalites often play on my mind, usually concerning money and getting a job and a flat and thinking about how I can learn some practical skills that would support my art. All of that is just bullshit.  Sometimes I look back on the nineties or the sixties/seventies and it seemed like it was so much easier to just loaf around and think about art and not have to worry about the real world. Sometimes it feels like todays students/young people are weighed down by thoughts of careers/jobs/money. Though maybe it was always like that and the distance of time gives things a rosy glow.

What a bummer. On a lighter note, Glasgow: The Grit and The Glamour introduced me to Karla Black, who I'd never heard of before. Here sculptures are just beautiful. I love how she makes pieces that seem to hang in space, suspended and weightless, yet sculptural. In the documentary she spoke about how when she went to Glasgow School of Art, one of the first things they told her was that a sculpture is something that stands up on its own, and how she has been challenging and subverting that notion ever since.

I was also drawn to that minimalist sense of reveling in materials. She often uses make-up, cosmetics and pastel bath bombs, not for their connotations, but in the tradition of cavemen who put pigment in their mouths and spat their art onto rock. A quality I admire in Black is her strength, and her outspoken defense of her art. She talks about how her work is described as ephemeral, impermenent, delicate and feminine. As if instability and ephemerality are somehow female qualities. But that's a whole new post...

I think I'll go to bed now, and so, lovely reader, here are some images and interesting videos to peruse at your leisure xxx

Karla Black

Jeremy Deller on his inflatable work Sacrilege

Simon Starling and Alan Yentob

Me. Thinking about the lovely Jeremy Deller...

Link to Glasgow: Grit and Glamour on the BBC iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01l1brw/