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Blog Post 20: 31st May 2019

Last check in here! Today is the day...final upload, final hand in. That’s that! I have finished my write up and my blog is ready to submit after choosing a nicer theme and making a prettier background. I am very ready to be done with this piece and am grateful to have made it to this point. This will obviously end up being the first post on my blog, so I’m sure it will be read! Just as a heads up I ended up doing a blog post a bit more frequently than every two weeks. According to the criteria that seems to be fine, so I hope you enjoy scrolling through the pictures and text. I realise I ended up writing quite a lot, but I just needed to get the information down somewhere! 

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Exhibition & Interactions with the piece.

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Promotional video for the exhibition!

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Blog Post 19: 13th May 2019

The Exhibition is over! It was a very busy long weekend, starting on Thursday and only finishing today on Monday. I am very low on energy now as I put so much passion and soul into my piece. We had a very busy couple of days, especially the opening night. So many people showed up which was great! I was able to talk to so many people about my piece and I was very flattered by the interest. At certain points there were queues for the piece and I ended up being the last person in the space because people kept wanting to check it out. I also got some nice compliments about the music, which was nice and encouraging. My viva voce was fine, it was difficult because there were people still putting their pieces up and making a lot of noise when I was presenting. I am quite sensitive to sound so I found this really challenging but I really didn't want to mess up because of how proud I am of this piece and how much work and soul I have put into it. Its a very weird feeling now because I feel like I have given birth to a baby and now all the adrenaline is all gone and I need to hibernate. Over the weekend we had some curators in to critique the work. It was fine but quite rushed so I don’t feel like I got much interesting feedback, although it was nice to have the chance anyway. On Saturday we had the panel which was interesting, although a little disappointing in some ways to be frank. I think a lot of people felt the same way, but I guess that was interesting in and of itself. I forgot to mention that my Mum travelled from Switzerland to see the exhibition on Friday, so I gave her and my aunt a grand tour of the exhibition.

Set down went well and was a lot faster than I expected. It feels weird to be “done” now. Also I gave the opening speech at the exhibition, so that was a bit scary but I think it went ok. I wrote it and Mishal and I performed it, so that we could introduce all the guests to the exhibition and give them a bit of background to the themes we all explored. It was a busy night so it was hard to get everyones attention, but it’s always like that. I need to collect all of my photos and start on my documentation as I feel like it might take me some time to figure out how to explain my process. I have tried to keep it documented in this blog but its impossible to get everything written down when you have a million ideas, thoughts, etc. and only a couple of them are worth mentioning. I think that somehow this all came together really well and I think the reason for that was that I did actually plan really carefully the whole way through. The piece didn’t break at all over the weekend, the only problem I had was with the Linux computer. Annoyingly, on Saturday it just refused to boot up. I then had to get it running on my Mac for those last two days which was a bit of a shame. However, it’s not the worst that could happen. I wasn’t really surprised it did happen, because it was slow to boot up to begin with. The plants also did really well and were very happy in the space. I think it’s because it ended up being quite humid and warm in there due to the enclosed nature of the space and the heat from the UV lights. I had to change out the batteries for the plant poetry over the days as they started to die, but that wasn’t an issue because I just velcro-ed them onto the back of the acrylic stands. Velcro really has been the MVP of the construction process...! Time to recharge and then get on with the documentation. I would also really like to make a feedback form for the exhibition organisation & set up so that we can collect all of the students insight from this year so that is can be improved for next year. I just can’t help it, it seems like a necessary thing to do. Also, I got the job I interviewed for so I am really happy about that. As per usual I will follow up with some pics now. 

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Ready for exhibition opening! 

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Blog Post 18: 8th May 2019

I did it!! The piece has come together and I am beyond excited. I am super happy with it and luckily it is all working and looking very tidy. I managed to get it to run on a Linux computer as well, which is great because then I don’t have to leave my laptop in the space. I had an good time with the communications team, although I was pretty delirious and very hungry...so I don’t know if I did a great job but I tried my best. I am very tired now as it’s a bit later than I expected to be finished, but I am done. I also was able to quickly laser cut a sign for the piece which I then attached to this light stand I randomly found on the street yesterday...talk about luck! I bought some door string thingies to make a door for the tent, but I think that they looked ugly so I am just going to string up the door that is already on the tent in a way where you can peak in but not properly “watch”. I have to prepare for my Viva voce tomorrow now and get my outfit ready for the opening night. Luckily I have some business cards printed already from when I had the exhibition opening in Vienna so I need to remember to bring those tomorrow, as I keep forgetting.

Our piece description are up now on the walls. This is what I ended up saying on mine: If We Can Dance explores dance as a method of self empowerment. The piece poses two main questions, how can we use our bodies to feel pleasure? What are our bodies — where do they start and end? Inspired by LGBTQIA+ dance protests against the increasing presence of extremism, the piece explores ideas of self love, empathy, and intimacy as a method of resistance and protest against the devaluing of human and non-human lives by encouraging the participator to reject the label of human altogether.

I think it sounds good and it doesn’t over-explain. We were given a super short word count so I wasn’t able to explain the different components of the piece, but I hope that the audience will be curious anyway. I need a good nights rest. Pictures to follow.

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Acrylic Plant poetry progress.

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It’s working!

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Blog Post 17: 6th May 2019

I finished my code! Yay! I was able to finish off my code today so the dancing part of the piece is working well. I have put together all the aesthetic things and the tent is all set up. I am just finishing up some parts and making sure it all looks good. I need to re-do the hexagon prisms because some of them are not sitting straight so when the input data changes and it rotates, they are sloping down and not looking very good. I also ordered some bits and pieces to complete the piece such as a headphone stand, headphone extension chord and UV lights for the tent. I am worried that the plants will not be able to survive for four days in the tent, so I need to have some kind of stronger UV source within there. Luckily the lights are really pretty so they actually add a lot of ambience to the space. Anyway, to be honest I am very busy right now and need to get on with working. I will just upload a bunch of pictures to show my progress. 

The space has been painted btw., the posters are up and so are the screen adverts. I have the communications team coming in on the 8th to interview me about my piece for Instagram so that will be good hopefully. Everything is coming together, I will check in the day before the exhibition starts. 

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Progress pics & planning.

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Blog Post 16: 29th April 2019

It has been a stressful week to be honest. I had some problems with deliveries...my greenhouse was supposed to arrive on Friday but they had “warehouse” delays. So now I am very worried it won’t arrive...it is supposed to arrive today, which is not great because later on this morning I will be in the church painting. 

Today is day one of set up so we need to paint the space and make it look good before we start setting up. My plants arrived so I was able to plant them up and they look great! I was a bit surprised about how small they were when they came, however I think that it is for the better as it will be easier to show the poem. The most important thing is that they are very healthy and are continuing to grow! It took some time to get them sorted as in total there are 8 planters. I had to drill holes into the bottom of each one of them and do some research on how to best look after the plants. Turns out mint likes it moist, whereas all the other plants prefer to be more on the dry side. I have some plant food that I am giving them every week too, to ensure that they don’t die before the exhibition. I  noticed I was having a bit of a pest problem so I have to keep them inside for now, otherwise it is a total beetle fest.

I have finished the music at this point and I am super chuffed with it. It’s not perfectly mixed but it is the best I can do. I have spent a lot of time on it now and have tried to edit it further but I can’t make it better without ruining it. Considering this is my first piece of music I am very proud of it and think I have been able to communicate the important things I wanted to through the lyrics. I have spent HOURS sorting through the pictures and creating curves for each flower. It looks like it would be a fast process...but it really is not. It took me about 2 full days to do all of the background removal and to make the collages. I also figured out how I will cover the dance pads! I came across a website that allows you to custom print material for a really good price, they even give students 40% off. I measured up my squares and estimated how much I would need. I tried to be really precise with putting the dance arrows properly aligned to make sure that these pads will look tidy and nice. I was able to find a material option that is oil treated, so that will allow me to clean the matts if they get dirty. If I just used normal material they would get all stained from hundreds of people stepping on them, and thats just not a good look. I will be hot gluing them onto the pads tomorrow so I can get that done and dusted. I did a trial version already to figure out how I will need to do the measurements and I think that it actually looks really good, so I am really happy about that. Right now I am finalising an SVG file of my poems to be able to laser cut them. The lab is finally open again, annoyingly it keeps closing every day at 5pm and isn’t open on the weekend because the card reader is broken. This means that while setting up for the exhibition I also need to make sure I get all my things laser cut before the end of the week. I figured out a new way to display the words which is now on a hexagonal prism which will rotate via a servo. I have some videos of it working and I think it looks great. I now know how I will attach them to the acrylic poems, so I will show you some progress pictures of that soon. 

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Planting progress!

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UI Design.

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Rotating Prism prototype.

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Yay, I finished the music today and uploaded it to youtube. Got some great feedback on it and I’m really happy with it.

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Taking apart the telephone for spare parts + progress shots of dance matts, space planning, etc.

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Blog Post 15: 19th April 2019

Roadburn has come and gone and annoyingly the Hatch lab is closed until the 23rd of May. I was able to finalise the poem I am using for the piece and do a laser cut version of it. Although, I already know that I will have to re-do it. I was in contact with some set dressing companies and they were able to give me some quotes on how much it would cost to rent out some herbs and flower trolleys to put them on. Turns out its very expensive...1.5 - 3.6 thousand pounds. I do not have that kind of money haha! So I had to regroup and find another way. I did some googling and was able to find a hexagonal greenhouse for a decent price. I measured up the space in the church and this seems like it will do the job. There is a enough space inside to dance, there are also shelves to put the herbs on. I think it will look nice in the space and also give me the privacy I want. 

In terms of the plants I have ordered lavender, lemon balm, thyme and mint from RHS plants online. They are being delivered soon so I will plant those up asap. That will allow me to figure out how I need to re-cut the acrylic and figure out how it will all come together. I am very worried about the plant poetry aspect of the piece as I am not sure yet how I will be able to change the words. I do not want to use a display screen because this seems like a lot of programming for something that will be read as simple. I did some prototyping of using a semi circle kind of thing, but it is very chunky and I can’t visualise how this will work with the acrylic. I have had quite a lot of fun familiarising myself with the laser cutter and its taken me quite some time to edit text to be able to laser cut because you have to make sure there are no loose parts that will accidentally be cut off. Anyway right now I'm in crazy productive mode so I won’t be able to update as often because I really need to focus. I will upload some progress pictures as I hope they will speak louder than my words. Currently there are about 8 days or so till set up, I know that I will have to work into those set up weeks but that seems to be normal as everyone else I am talking to is on the same page. 

I have also been talking to the communications team about getting our poster up around campus on the screens and that seems like it will happen. I have also sent out about 600 email invitations, so that also took a bit of time because unsurprisingly outlook can’t do 600 recipients at once haha. I also have been asked to be in a promotional video about my work, but they think I am still doing the woke-o-meter. I need to get back to them and say yes but let them know the piece has changed. I think it will be a good motivator to get the work done fast and it will be great for my documentation too.