Kurt Schwitters

Today while we had a meeting with Kate to inform us on our deadlines, we were talking about our ideas and what we were planning to propose.  I heard the word 'layers' from Josie so I decided to look at her blog posts and see that she's looking at 'transition' which in a way is quiet similar to my own ideas of a 'noticeboard' as they change over time.  I seen a post about an artist called Kurt Schwitters and decided to look into him myself as I quiet like how he uses collages to create layers which is something I have always found intriguing, such as paint chipping of walls or posters on walls and torn of, as I see layers as holding history and that something has been before but we are not sure what the story is so we make our own.

Miss Blanche, 1923

Mai 191, c.1919

F A C E S mcr

On Tuesday I went to an event at the Kraak Gallery, which other people from Unit X had created for their projects.  It was a collaboration of music and art.  I thought it related in some ways to my own project as it was all about how people get involved and make things happen.  There was artists there drawing people, disposable cameras to take photos of faces, a photocopier where people photocopied their own faces and put the pictures on the walls and people drew on them.  I thought the whole event was so interesting as it combined different elements in a relaxed atmosphere.  

For our closing party of Unit X, again it will be F A C E S mcr that will be organizing it, so it will definitely be a good opportunity to get involved if you missed out the first time.

Evaluating Practice

My initial expectations of Unit X was that it did seem exciting because it was new, but it seemed clear that there was going to be no certain outcomes as it was so wide open as to what it could be.  I was put into the 'Living It' group and there we got the 'Old School/New School' brief.  Initially I thought I had a clear idea of what I was doing after I went to the Dave Haslam talk I was very interested in the idea of Fanzines. Although after a few weeks I began to struggle with the idea of relating it back to 'Old School/New School', I carried on with my research into fanzines but I felt that it had no purpose and it wasn't going anywhere.  It wasn't until I had my tutorial with Mary Stark when I expressed my concerns with the project and told her my initial ideas that I was steered in the right direction.  After this I felt more confident in what I was doing and wanting to achieve as my final outcome.  As of yet I haven't been in the workshops for this current project, but I am planning to go into print which I will update on my blog.  I feel that print will work perfectly with what I want to achieve, as I will be able to produce a lot in a quick and effective time space.  In regards to my sketchbook I feel that my ideas have been generated in more of a written sense rather than loads of drawings, which is something that I'm not quiet used to and find it a bit difficult to accept but I feel it works well with my idea of communication.  I'm quiet happy with the way things are going in this project as I know feel I have a direction and I know what I want to achieve, if I had to make any changes to this current project it would be that at the beginning I don't have to take things so literal as I found it quiet difficult to generate my ideas relating to the project title, 'Old School/New School' I think that I've came to the conclusion to just carry on with the initial idea and that everything will fall into place as I have now discovered. With the samples that I'm looking to develop is definitely on the ideas of 'fanzines' as I just really loved the idea of people self publishing their own work, it was from the Dave Haslam talk that I found them fascinating.  With this project I feel a lot more comfortable with the fact that drawings don't have to be necessarily drawings in the typical sense, and although we had been taught that throughout the year I never really took it on board because I had a solid idea of what drawings where supposed to be.  And although I've done some drawings it's more the concept of word which I developed throughout this project, so I can say  that that is one thing that I have learned to develop a lot more.  As this was the first project that we were in groups, I found it in someways enjoyable but at other times a lot more complicated because I don't feel that my work relates that much to the others.  I did draw inspiration from the others though, if someone found an artist that related to me it was very helpful and that we could give feedback to each other and try and motivate each other which is good and it will be useful in the future as I'm sure we will all need to work in groups at some point in our lives.