saturneight

[saturneight]

little self-portrait, Tim Burton style 🪱🪱

[saturneight]

Self portrait through aspirations series #1

I have been reflecting on my self identity thought the links with childhood and physical space, revisiting homes I have grown up in and identify with.

Using my contextualised mind map as a leading incentive and places in which I’ve already called home, I have thought about what motivates me and my aspirations. I have considered what I am currently working towards for the future with my current actions, and the goals I am trying to reach in order to be where I want to be. An aspiration I am working towards is pursuing my dream house in the future.

I am working on a digital illustration series of homes similar to those I’d like to pursue, a life I am trying to allow myself to identify with in the further through paths and choices I have been making over the last four years and on, in order to give myself this opportunity.

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Houses from my childhood and present

Thinking about self-identity and places I associate in memory, places from my childhood and present that have made and continue to make me, me.

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Self-portrait through music I love

(Creating a collage of album covers)

Thinking initially about self identity and referring back to my contextualised mind map, music is a large part of my own. It’s a resource which inspires me within my art practice as well as outside of it. I develop a lot of my ideas through the music I listen to, through the storyline and lyrics. I always associate and interpret music as things other than what the writer is trying to communicate, in order to match my own life and my own ideas.

[saturneight]

Contextualised mind map 🦐

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Collage project

Day three - Exploring the space of nature

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Revisiting the collage style and theme from day one ‘moons & stack,’ I have explored placements of the moon in natural environments that are alien to its origin.

Whilst in turn, considered how different surroundings evoke different feelings in a way similar to the ones Rama’s colour project evoked amongst the capitals residents.

[saturneight]

Collage project (response to Edi Rama)

Day two - Factory with Colour

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Staying with the idea of opposing objects in environment, I have collaborated Edi Rama’s ‘Take Back Your City With Paint’ project and explored the use of circles using Kandinsky’s ‘Colour study, Squares with concentric circles’ (1913)

Originally I began adding naturalistic coloured circles to the base image being different tones of green and naturalistic object such as mushrooms, to represent an industrial environment with its opposite, eg nature.

This style of experimentation is very different to the work I usually make, but it was definitely interesting to explore.

[saturneight]

Edi Rama - Take Back Your City With Paint

*exploring how a change in environment / surroundings affect people*

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Tirana, Albania

Former Mayor Edi Rama’s colour project transformed the city of Tirana from a high crime rate capital, to an engaging and blooming community through painting its building in bright colours. The pre changed environment that was considered a European norm of grey industrialised architecture, was encouraging the city’s crime rates to remain high. It’s population felt unsafe in such an environmentally unfriendly city.

As a result of Rama’s colour project it’s government noticed a drastic shift from a negative residency to a positive and blooming community. The crime rates decreased and people even felt encouraged by their new, friendlier surroundings to pay taxes in order to continue and maintain the positive changes that were happening in their city.

In-depth TED talk by Rama on his work

(forth time writing this post bc tumblr kept crashing welp)

[saturneight]

Collage project

Day one - moons & stack ☽

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Through exploring the relationship between objects that are alien to their environment / surroundings whilst also extending the themes of space from Jerram and Eliasson’s installations, I have created the collage piece. The play and experimentation with scale and placement was interesting, I found that depending on the size of each moon, the difference in concept. If the moons were smaller the image has a normality and by expanding their sizes I get the same evoked ‘unusual’ and ‘uneasy’ feeling I experienced with ‘Museum of the Moon.’ My collage piece has a similarity to House of Leaves, and Navidson experiencing a house with off proportions. A house should not be geometrically larger on the inside than its exterior foundations, just like the moon should not bear equal proportions to beach stacks. It’s an unusual phenomenon in visual form.

*these are photographs I’ve taken*

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House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Jonathan Safran’s page layout in ‘Tree of Codes’ presents in a similar way to Danielewski’s narrative.

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If anyones interested in reading this it’s a really good storyline and I recommend it. It follows photojournalist Will Navidson, who moves his family into an old farm house where he begins to realise the property is slightly larger on the inside than out. The narratives told through a found footage type of documentation, written by a named but unknown figure.

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‘Tree of Codes’ - The Creators Project Meets Olafur Eliasson and Wayne McGregor (2015)

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Inspired by Jonathan Safran’s book ‘Tree of Codes’ *see image above* (deemed a ‘sculptural object’ by punisher Visual Editions) had been reproduced in the form of dance choreography.

Safran’s book is a reproduction itself. Taken from the original ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ by Bruno Schulz, the pages have been manipulated to create a different narrative by cutting out text from Schulz writing.

Eliasson comments on the relation with illusion in Safran’s book and the choreography piece, saying the dance itself is a self interpret narrative that uses mirrors in its set design to offer such visual illusions.

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*artworks I wish I’d made*

Museum of the Moon - Luke Jerram

Durham Cathedral 2021

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Luke Jerram -

In Nov 2021 I visited Durham Cathedral and saw one of Jerram’s installation works, titled ‘Museum of the Moon.’ The piece was a balloon replica of Earth’s moon measuring 7 meters in diameter. The balloon was suspended central to one of the high ceilings and levels out of reach. What engages me the most with this work was the atmosphere it created, the location had a significant impact on its contextual aspect. I liked the unusual element that was present, the idea of the physical space in which the piece was installed and the nature of the piece itself, it projects the idea of object in unrelated environments that evoke unease.

Weather Project - Olafur Eliasson

Turbine Hall, Tate Modern 2003

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Olafur Eliasson -

Jerram’s Moon insulation reminds me heavily of Eliasson’s 20l3 ‘Weather Project’ installed in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. The two works look similar and evoke similar atmospheres, although the present contrasting subjects. One is the Moon, the other is the Sun. ‘Weather Project’ is a half spherical glowing diet that reflects off the halls mirrored ceiling, creating the illusion of a full sphere. The ceiling also gives the illusion of a larger space as the walls are extended upwards in its reflection, also making the floor on which visitors walk the ceiling. The physical space plays a similar role to the space in which Jerram’s work is displayed. I like the aspect of scale and illusion within a space being collaborated to create the work itself.