Paris, Reading and Swimming

A few days ago I got back from my holiday to France. It was a very enjoyable time, that was mostly spent reading books and laying in the sun.

I read a number of books, but spent most of my time reading Infinite Jest. It was a very complicated read, but once I'd read around 300 pages I began to understand what was going on. The ideas surrounding addiction were really interesting, as well as the underlying insinuation that AA is a monotonous cult. The dystopian world that David Foster Wallace created was also intriguing, painting a picture of a culture obsessed with advertising, so much so that in the book each year is subsidized by a corporate sponsor for tax revenue. For example "Year of the Whopper" and "Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar". I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

I also read The Martian, which involved a man being stuck on Mars and having to fend for himself. It was fun and light. Towards the end of the holiday I read a book by Dave Eggers' called Your Fathers, Where Are They? And The Prophets, Do They Live Forever? This was a short but disturbing read about a young man who, as the book progresses, keeps kidnapping different people, who are all connected to his mysterious past. Last year I read another of Eggers' books called The Circle, which introduced you to a world in the not too distant future that's dominated by social media. This was an incredibly thought provoking read that makes you want to turn off all of your electronic devices and go and live up a mountain.

During my holiday I also went to Paris for a few days, and went to a few galleries there. I first went to the Palais de Tokyo, which is a consistently interesting experience as the artists are always allowed to do whatever they want to the space. An example of this would be Celeste Boursier-Mougenot's installation Acquaalta. In this exhibition he literally flooded a whole room with water and invites you to board a boat to explore the landscape, whilst experiencing vivid music and moving images on the walls around you. This was a truly surreal moment.

Patrick Neu was another artist who was exhibiting who works with obscure materials in non-traditional ways. A lot of the work was incredibly detailed and impressive, like a shirt made from bees wings and lampblack on glass. Although I did enjoy the actual work, I really liked how it was all displayed. The plinths were made up of stacks of white panels. This was a good example of how ones work is improved upon when it's displayed well.

The next artist was Korakrit Arunanondchai, who had made a crazy installation that involved football mannequins and paint splattered walls. He'd also made a film utilising a drone that explained what was going on in the main room, which featured a music video with the only lyrics being "Bangkok City" repeated over and over again. It was very enjoyable.

My favourite artist at the Palais de Tokyo was probably Tianzhuo Chen. He put together a completely crazy show which involved twin tattooed midget rappers, intricate glass bongs displayed in size order and huge religious symbols painted on the walls. Alongside all of this was a film of a performance that had occurred at the beginning of the exhibition, which was mind blowing in itself. Chen was effectively creating a new religion based on drugs, LGBT hip hop, the London rave scene and a number of other ingredients.

The last major exhibition that I saw there was put on by Jesper Just, which featured a range of films that featured two characters; a young girl and a disabled child. The work's central idea for me was all about being trapped, and this was reinforced by the fact that all the different videos were in different parts of a huge space, and you were only able to travel to see them by walking across long gantries suspended by complex scaffolding structures. I really liked these set of films and how they were all interconnected.

There were a couple of other artists who had work displayed including Shelly Nadashi and Basma Alsharif, but the work wasn't that interesting compared to the other pieces that were being displayed. This was a shame.

The other gallery that I went to was the Pompidou Centre, it's a great building with an amazing permanent exhibition. I first went to see the Mona Hatoum exhibition which was full of some really interesting work combining unique aesthetics with intriguing concepts. One of my favourite pieces was "Present Tense" which was made up of over 2000 blocks of traditional olive oil soap, with a great meaning that worked well with the overall look of the work. Another sculpture that I loved was called "Socle du Monde". This was basically a huge block covered in iron filings that looked like a massive cube of hair when you observed it from across the room. It was an awesome exhibition that made me think about my own work, reflecting on how I strive to combine aesthetics with meaning.

Another temporary exhibition at the Pompidou was devoted to Gottfried Honegger. The paintings on display were all relatively abstract and shape based, which I'm always a fan of.

Valérie Belin was another artist who had a solo exhibition there. It featured a range of photographs of mannequins made to look like humans, bringing to mind ideas surrounding the uncanny valley and questioning what makes a human a human.

After this I had a quick look around the permanent exhibitions, but I'd already seen them recently in February when I went there to look at Jeff Koons show, so I didn't fully immerse myself in the work this time around.

Now that I'm back I only have less than a month before I go to the Venice Biennale, before immediately going to uni after that. So I only have about 20 or so days to completely finish my project, which I'll hopefully be able to do if I use the time wisely and crack on, which I hope to do in the next few days.

Daily/Many Snapchat(s):

bob.bk

Painting Wax and Humans

On Monday I went to Butley to work again, the majority of the day was spent painting wax into around six or seven moulds. This is a simple job but it is quite important as if it's been done badly all the detail of the mould will be lost.

After I was finished with the wax painting I was allowed to get on with my own work. So I opened up the mould that I had poured on Friday, which unfortunately hadn't dipped at all. After many experiments I think I've deduced that the plaster mould is too thick, keeping all the heat in, and that's why the wax has stopped dipping into itself. So I now think that I need to make a mould out of metal, or just go back to the wooden moulds or make another plaster mould that's a lot thinner than my current one. So that I can get the wax to dip once again.

I then proceeded to smash the wax sculpture into pieces, generating more of the broken up art works. Some of these are starting to become really interesting, and I feel that the detail of the wax would look quite enticing in bronze. Hopefully in the future I can create one or two bronze pieces out of the broken sculptures, when I have refined them further.

I also ended up pouring another wax piece, this time using a different type of wax, to see whether it would make a difference or not. It did not. If anything it dipped even less, which is quite saddening. So I attempted to make my own dip, which didn't work out that well.

In the last few days I've been watching a few T.V programs. One was called Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, which is a show centred around a group of teenagers (most of them being played by famous actors and actresses who are over the age of 40, which is hilarious in itself) on their first day at summer camp. It was a really enjoyable series which made me immediately go and watch the original film that the series is a prequel of. I also watched Humans, a drama that asks the question, what makes a human a human? For me, it was interesting up to a point but it began to get dull towards the end, similar to how Utopia (a show that bares some resemblance to Humans) stopped being interesting after the first season.

Tomorrow I go on holiday for about ten days so there won't be another post until then. During this time I'm going to be thinking a lot about the concept behind the work that I'm creating, as well as reading an assortment of books including Infinite Jest and Dune. I'll also be going to a few galleries in London and Paris, which I'm really looking forward to, as I haven't been to an exhibition for a while.

Daily Snapchat:

bob.bk

Wax Pouring and Rez

For the past week I've done a very small amount of work, which is frustrating as the amount of time I have to work on this project is slowly diminishing, so I need to be using my time more wisely now.

On Monday I went to Butley to open up the wax mould that I poured on Friday. It was slightly disappointing as the wax hardly dipped into itself. On a positive note the mould did suck into itself on some of the sides, which will work to reinforce the meaning of the primary dip.

During the week I began to think about what I actually want to have as an outcome for this project.

 I thought about how I could make a book of drawings and photographs of my work, looking at the progression of the project. This would be helpful as it would enable me to compile some of the main pieces in one space. I also considered how many different outcomes I was going to have, looking at all the different parts of the project.

The first and main "final" piece would be the wax pieces, ranging in size and colour. The angle of the pour would also be a differentiating factor within this work. I'm unsure of how many of these I want to create, maybe around five, with two or three of them being poured at an angle.

The next part of the project would be the triangular wax pieces. I do want to experiment with making these on a larger scale, but it will require a lot of time to do so. Hopefully I will be able to set aside a few days to do this, but if not it will just be a part of the project that's going to be left behind.

The broken pieces are also considered to be a part of the work, I'll probably end up making three or four of them, changing the scale and colour for every piece. This will involve pouring multiple wax moulds with the sole purpose of breaking them into pieces.

The last part of the piece will be the bronze sculptures. In the next week or two I'm going to make a few more of these, hopefully four in total, so by the end of this project I will have at least three that are deemed to be "good" in my eyes. So by the end of the summer I would like to have around 15 completed sculptures, which I feel is a good number.

On Thursday I went to Butley to work. In the morning I helped to clean the foundry, shovelling grog, sweeping the floors and throwing all the old mould skins in the skip.

In the afternoon I was able to do my own work, so I decided to make another wax piece using my plaster mould, tipping it to the side to create a slanted sculpture.

The next day was taken up by investing, which was exciting as I've never properly invested a whole sculpture before. It was a long process that took up the majority of the day. I would like to do more investing in the future, so that I can eventually do it by myself. I was also able to put two of my wax sculptures on top of the moulds, so in a few weeks I'll have two more bronze sculptures to metal finish.

I also opened up the mould that I had poured the previous day, which had once again not dipped. This is very frustrating, as I'm unable to tell why it's neglecting to dip into itself. I did use the mould again though, pouring outside this time, to see whether that would make a difference or not. Hopefully it will have dipped and I'll be greeted by a successful sculpture tomorrow morning.

As well as this I have played a few games that were all quite interesting and unique in their own way. One was called Entwined, which involves you controlling two creatures that are each assigned to each one of the thumbsticks on a controller. Although it was an enjoyable experience, other games similar to this like Rez and Child Of Eden offer a much more thought out concept and have a richer art style.

Another game I played was called Q.U.B.E. In it you manipulate a number of puzzles using a pair of special gloves that you obtain. Unfortunately towards the end I began to get bored, as the story element of the game is very limited. It was very reminiscent of a game called Portal, that sets you complicated physics based puzzles whilst you're fed an incredibly intriguing story.

As well as this I did play the newest episode of Life Is Strange, which was an incredibly distressing and amazing experience at the same time. It's the second game that I've played that has made me cry, the first being Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons.

I've also been listening to a great new podcast centred around Adventure Time called Conversation Parade. As a huge fan of the show it's enjoyable to listen to two people discussing the varied intricacies of the Adventure Time world.

On Thursday I go on holiday for about two weeks, so before that happens I want to plan out all the work I want to create before I go to university. This will hopefully push me to work on my project as soon as I get back. Tomorrow I'm going to Butley again, so I'll be able to make a few more wax pieces before I go.

Daily Snapchat: