Thursday 17 July 2008

Bonesbonesbones

Bones.

Ezekiel connected them dry bones
Ezekiel connected them dry bones
Ezekiel connected them dry bones
Now hear the word of the Lord.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Gonna hear the word of the Lord.

Your toe bone connected to your foot bone
Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone
Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone
Your leg bone connected to your knee bone
Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone
Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone
Your hip bone connected to your back bone
Your back bone connected to your shoulder bone
Your shoulder bone connected to your neck bone
Your neck bone connected to your head bone
I hear the word of the Lord.

Them bones, them bones gonna walk around
Them bones, them bones gonna walk around
Them bones, them bones gonna walk around
I hear the word of the Lord.

Disconnect them bones, them dry bones
Disconnect them bones, them dry bones
Disconnect them bones, them dry bones
Now hear the word of the Lord.

Your head bone connected from your neck bone
Your neck bone connected from your shoulder bone
Your shoulder bone connected from your back bone
Your back bone connected from your hip bone
Your hip bone connected from your thigh bone
Your thigh bone connected from your knee bone
Your knee bone connected from your leg bone
Your leg bone connected from your ankle bone
Your ankle bone connected from your foot bone
Your foot bone connected from your toe bone
I hear the word of the Lord
I hear the word of the Lord.


Im such a boney person, creeps me out some times.
By the by im not religious.

Wednesday 16 July 2008

Worthless update

After a short trip to London to get my Passport i am back and ready to continue my summer adventures in Milton Keynes and beyond. All for one thing, i still don't have a passport and i wont be getting one until i have returned to London with my Passport forms AND (this time) my passport photographs. It seems like i went all the way to London to get the thing and forgot the most important part of the application, the photos. Because of this i started to think about my memory and how generally terrible it is...i really want to improve it but i don't know where to start and chances are i will forget that i even wanted to do it in the first place! Does anyone that reads this have any idea on how i can improve my memory?

Other than that i had a really fun time in London and for the first time i actually came without the lingering resentment that i usually get when i visit that city. I think maybe i have grown up enough to stay there and meeting people who do definatly helps with that...i enjoyed it enough to think about
moving to London After i Graduate and that is certainly where alot of the jobs are.



BAM VERSAILLES!!

That is all.

Sunday 6 July 2008

Im a Robot and thats not ok

I finally got round to watching a film i had been meaning to watch for a very long time now, that film would be "I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK" and i am pleasantly satisfied.

The story is about a girl who suffers from schizophrenia and starts to believe that she is a cyborg, all stemming from her grandmother who in turn suffered from the same disease which manifested itself in a different way, she thinks she is a mouse and only eats turnip. I Liked the interaction of different characters within the mental institution (is that the right way to say it?) and how their individual stories are put across in individual and humorous ways. Although the end of the film was a little too open, i felt like there should have been some kind of resolve even if it had nothing to do with her eventually getting over her illness.

Other than watching that film i have been trying to fill out a passport form for my trip for Canada, i don't know what it is about official documents but i just can't seem to get them right....i am on my 3rd form at the moment and the frustration of that just makes me make more mistakes! Hopefully this time will be the last so that i can fill the form in tomorrow and get it posted away, just in time for the holiday i hope!


Todays designer is actually an artist! Confused? Well personally i can get inspiration from any kind of creative output if its photography, Fashion, Art, film etc. And i think its important to remain open to different sources of inspiration throughout my education and afterwords in my career. So Today's 'inspiration' takes the form of Geraldine Pilgrim. She acts as the Artistic director for Corridor a performance company that she actually set up, who create site specific installations with different groups of people and other artists within buildings of interest.


The website is a little bare but gives you some skeletal information on what she stands for and a couple of her projects, along with up and coming ones. The bed in the picture above was the piece that caught my eye and encouraged me to look more into her work. This was just one part of a huge installation based in Belsay hall where, different parts of the house were transformed into a window into the buildings past. The website sort of makes out that she was the main creative output but on another website there is quite a sizable list of names including Vicktor & Rolf, Hew Locke and Francesca Steele.

Friday 4 July 2008

Blinding inspiration



Sleeping in my brothers old room (which is now mine) is a really tough thing to do when it hits 6am the sun beats through the blinds and in turn blinds me...or really just forces me to wake up. Seeing as i woke up so early i decided to make use of my time and clear out my laptop of music i never listen too, photographs i never look at and films i never watch which has taken most of this morning to do and i havn't even finished! There was allot of change everywhere i looked not just in my style but in the things i had collected and valued enough to save it onto my laptop. Yesterday i didn't get out of bed until 1pm so it kind of figures that i would wake up so early.

Im getting restless now, being back in Milton Keynes always makes me feel like this, but when i think about it i only have 2-3 weeks left here and even less if i decide to go to London to catch up with some kids from the Art school. To quell this feeling along with organising my laptop im starting a research file on designers to use in my course later on, picking from a list of designers names i have been slowly building up over the past year. I will post every day about a designer from my list, my views and why i noted there name down.


Fredrikson Stallard are a design company based in the UK (to be precise London) the pair have been in collaboration since 1995 and, as the website says, have been "recognised as leading exponents of British avant garde design". The above photograph was the first piece that i saw by them but it was only last week that i re-discovered them in an issue of Design week that i try to read every time i go to the library. I like there dreamy simplicity that features so heavily in all of there designs and how they are trying hard to abandon the industrialisation of design that most product/furniture design is about nowadays.

There aim to generate creations of "opulent sensual darkness" creates some pretty bizarre and forward thinking furniture/lighting/objects that at the same time are alluringly beautiful, For some of the pieces i am left wondering what the process is behind them and that can only be a good thing. If there popularity and exhibition history is anything to go on then i have a feeling that i am not alone in my thoughts.


I close this post by informing you that im going to dress up like this kid and run around disposing of vicious alien villains.

Wednesday 2 July 2008

July and im home for some time

Well first year has been over now for 1 month or so and between moving all of my possessions into storage (which in itself was a huge investment of time, money and energy) and then returning home to find that there was no Internet in the house and no hope of it till the end of June ive had no time to post. That's my excuse and im sticking too it.

Being back home for an extended amount of time is a really strange and to be honest un-comfortable experience, I had my freedom and here it is severely compromised. I feel constantly under my parents feet and the only thing i can do to try not to annoy them is to keep out of their way and confine myself to my room. One great thing to come out of no Internet is that i have been forced to read/draw/paint to pass the time and have been getting into a book called 'The architecture of happiness - the secret art of furnishing your life' by Alain de Botton. Its quite a tough read but very interesting none the less, it talks allot about the psychology of design which has always interested me and how we can create buildings in different ways which can affect us subconsciously. Its changed my view on the practice of architecture and my role within it and at the same time deepened my dislike for certain factions of modernism (i.e. Le Corbusier).

Apart from that book ive been reading some on Impressionism and realism in the 20th century and decided to buy another book by one of my favourite authors Haruki Murakami its called 'The wild sheep chase' ive only read the first few pages but im hooked all ready such is the power of Murakami. Im sure i will have finished reading it by next week depending on how i spread my time about. The great thing about having free time and no particular thing to do is ideas seem to flood to me...i have 3 ideas for installation pieces, 3 photography projects, 2 art pieces, various clothes and pieces of furniture. I HAVE TO DO THEM. Someone please force me to make something this summer otherwise i will be really depressed at having wasted so much valuable time.

China looks like it will have to wait till next year now because of money issues and i missed the deadline for application, but instead my parents suggested a trip to Canada to visit my relatives, and i jumped at the opportunity. Apart from not seeing my Canadian family for over 6 years i have really missed the place too, the fresh air and beautiful scenery is inspiring to say the least so im pretty pumped about the trip i even get to meet my cousins wife/husband/child (i have more than one cousin out there just to clear that up.

When i wasn't reading i was sorting out things in the loft into boxes of 'leave' and 'take to Glasgow' and i came across this old passport photograph of me (top) i think its 4 years old and well...its quite clear that i have changed quite a bit...even if the hair is a drastic instant change, by the by the other photo is probably the most recent one of me. It got me thinking about change and how much of it i have been through in the past 4 years....GCSES, AS level, Btec and the first year of my degree, what a whirlwind to say the least. This time last year i was so excited to go to Glasgow whilst at the same time working full time for Habitat MK who incidentally have refused to re-employ me on the grounds of company restructuring which sounds like a lie to me.