20th March 2013: Town Hall spooky tour with Johnathon Schofield.

I found this tour on the Event brite and went along with another film student in another group, but she is in my flat. We thought this would be an interesting tour, since i thought it may relate to my groups theme of superstitions and ghost stories. We were greeted by the man himself: Johnathon Schofield at 2pm Town hall manchester.

From this initial greeting he began to tell us the history behind the town hall, and he said that he would begin the tour with the ‘ TOUR OF UNITERESTING OBJECTS’. He started by telling us that the Town Hall was built by a man called Alfred Waterhouse. He stated that manchester was actually roman, and hence there are statues on the Town Hall itself of roman soldiers. I thought this was quite interesting since in our posters we included roman numerals and wanted to keep this a current theme. This would actually reflect the initial brief of 175: the 175th anniversary of the manchester school of art, and if manchester is roman, walllah.

Moving into the actual town hall itself, he took us to part of the building where the public is not allowed to go. He was showing us part of the outer building which was all black. The bricks were covered all over in this black dust which he told us it was due to the 200 year of industrial revolution. All the buildings were like this, and this is the only buildings that still look like this.

Theres the man himself: johnathon ( in the photo above). Anyway, moving on we came back into the town hall where there was a statue of John Dalton. He explained how he was so well known and what his purpose was. But on thing that struck me was that in the Museum Science of Industry they have a jar with his eyeballs. Since him being colourblind, they thought they would be able to find more information about it through keeping his eyeballs. I thought this was pretty interesting since within our group for UNIT X 175 we talked about using jars with unusual objects in relation to spells and ingredients. Maybe this would be a link to go to the archives and find Daltons eye balls. Bit weird but could be quite cool.

Within the tour Jonathan took us around the streets of manchester to give us some information which we wouldn’t find out ourselves. It was unrelative to my course however i found some facts pretty interesting.

The first being that on the clock tower of the Town hall, the minute hand is actually 9ft tall which puts the whole thing into perspective into how big the clock is. Also that on each 3 faces of the clock they have a quote from the bible in gold lettering.

TEACH US

TO NAME

OUR DAYS

All in all meaning that we should not waste our days. We then went to some alleyways to where they were medieval, and how they had stories behind them. One being “Pool Fold’ where they used to dunk women as punishments to them being prostitutes. Some people actually thought this was related to witch craft, but it was the total opposite.

From the alley way we were lead to st annes street if I remember correctly. This was named after a lady called ann whom had built the church we were stood across from in the 17 hundreds. Looking in particular at the Tomb tables. There were lead to believe  that if you were to run anticlockwise around the tombs 3 times and put your ear to the tomb you would hear the dead speak. Going anticlock wise is called widowshins, and the term anticlockwise is un natural and relates to the devil.. One of the tombs was the body of a man called Thomas Deacon whom was a traitor and he was punished and killed in the most horrible way. He was half hung, naked. Then was pulled down and his stomach been cut open.  His intestines pulled out, and all this time he would be still alive choking, and from this his body cut up into bits. How horrid is that.

On a happier note he explained all the intricate details on the buldings, and in particular went to show us the building where now is Jamie Olivers resuturant. The building itself was mathematically put together since it is made from 3 floors and each floor is a third smaller than the one above and the whole building is on a slant backwards to make it looks overall larger. We went inside and was took to the toilets. They reminded me instantly to harry potter: sad as it may seem, but it really did. There were 4 doors on each side of the wall with a big golden knob in the centre of the door, with ascending numbers above each door 1-8. But straight in front of you was a big metal safe door. Inside this safe was hundred of different compartments, however it was a room to hold events for the restaurant. It was so amazing! It was in describable and you would only imagine it if you would see it for yourself.

Finally moving on to the last part of the tour was the ghost underground tour. He took us to  Barton Arcade Chambers.  Down their was all dark and brickwork abandoned buildings underground.  He started to tell us two different ghostly stories about the historical insight for the underground chambers.  Actually videoed each story since I would have not remeberd it. It is only for audio purposes since it was pitch black, apart from his red torch.

I did take a couple of photographs too with my flash on, but they were for my purposes to actually see what was in front of me. Looking back on the photographs there were lots of spiritual orbs on the photos. Which I found very peculiar.  Anyway here are the two videos. Sorry for me and my friend blabbibg about how scared we were, or like if we swear. I was literally bricking myself down there. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8PyBfDJjss&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQKKjlP_eY&feature=youtu.be

Also here is my sketchbook notes on the tour itself. 

20th March 2013: New Purchases £££

Hey, i know it isn’t to do with my work, but i thought i would put a spanner in the works and spice my blog up a bit instead of carrying on with my work. I thought i would let you know on my new purchases this week.

I have been recently looking for some Nike air max 1s, however they are all so brightly coloured and i didn’t want them to stand out so much. I fancied some that would kind of blend in with anything i wear, more on the neutral colour pallet. Well anyway, i found some online however knowing my luck they were from america and i did not want to chance it with their VAT custom charges on top when they hit our border. So i found some very similar to the ones i wanted.  The are a pastel green with grey and white and yellow. I found these quite neutral but still not so neutral they have a life and a bit of fun!  Nice purchase off a lady on ebay!

Also this week following on with the vintage style i bought some tapered jeans. Last weekend i was actually having a conversation with my mum on how i fancied some and she was telling me stories about back in the day and how she used to have some with a big stripe down the side. Anyway, i had a look online and i couldn’t find any that i liked, and so i went into Blue Rinse Vintage Store which is in Northern Quarter. There were some light blue Levis tapered jeans, on the paper label they said they were a size 10, however when putting them on i knew this was wrong. They were so big around my waist however with a belt they look good, they look better bigger as they give it the style i wanted. Cheeky little bargain of £25. + charity shop belt £2.99. You can’t go wrong with that.

Finally i bought some green pants. I am still not sure on what to think of these yet, but i haven’t worn them yet. Again from another vintage store. But they are bright green. They are kind of track suit like, but high waisted. I thought they were slightly shell suit but i am not sure on this one. They are really light and very comfy and pretty cheap also for £14. 

The photos don't do the pants any justice, the colour is so much more green and they are so much nicer in real life. Just to let you all know.

20th March 2013: Hetain Patel

Throughout this lecture he kept saying, that when people asked about his work, or for the reason for his ideas for his work, he was always “too embarrassed to say it is Art”. I do not understand this personally, because if it is art, i know some people do not understand the background before the piece of art, however since it being art this knowledge is always challenged and people accept it. Everything is seemed to be being accepted to be art in this present day. Even the strangest of things that you would just walk straight past is classed as art.

I do personally not think we should be embarrassed as artist, we should embrace our creativity. His embarrassment did not show through the lecture though. However he began with a short introduction about himself.

He described himself as a visual artist, whom started his studies at Salford for his Foundation degree. Then from this moved to do his BA: Fine Art, at Nottingham Trent University. He stated that his degree was very broad and you tried out different things rather specialising in something straight away. From finishing his degree he has become a freelance artist for the past 10 years. With this he has exhibited at Galleries showing his photography work and his film. Since the past few years he has been introduced with performance which he has shown at some Live Theatres.

His first works were ‘Sacred Bodies’, he embedded his native culture of the Indian Culture from his parents and brought this through pattern and colours in which he drew on his own body, and photographed these. They were in pairs or in sets of threes, and always on a blank background which made the pattern shine through. I found these very mesmerising. The patterns were so detailed and very strong and powerful. I really liked these. They were life size photos which were exhibited over numerous galleries.

                                                        

With these photos being exhibited for several years he said that he thought that he had become a bit static with progressing anywhere. He then developed these photographs, by actually filming the process of himself drawing and painting on his own body, and these videos became exhibited in galleries and in some parts he actually performed live performances at galleries. He showed us a video of one of these live performances which involved another person: Henna Artist. At first she was a bit hesitant in what she was going to do, as she did not really understand. However when beginning everything seemed to fit together and when she saw the finished product she was amazed. She actually improvised doing the henna on patells back, and with it being filmed live, this was projected on a screen in front of him which he then immediately transferred onto his front. It was magical to see, and how fast the overall pattern emerged.

He went on explaining his other video performances and one which was a video ” To dance like your dad”. This was a video of his dad explaining and exploring his car factory and how everything worked. It was an accidental video to which Hetain reflected and copied the video at the same moment of his dad however in a empty room. He spoke the same speed, same words, and also he copied his exact body language and movement.

Progressing along with his work, he moved forward with more videos and live performances. One being a live performance of a collaboration with another woman and a DJ. Hetain himself wanted to try communicate with sounds rather than words. He spoke in another language and with this translated it to his drum in front of him. The DJ would then make sounds ‘beat box’ and then translate these through his computer and mixer, then randomly a woman joined in. These carried on with the sounds individually until they merged together when all the sounds became one and all at the same time.

He carried on with this theme, and created more live performances, however in one performance included how we can mirror each others identity: accents: body languages.

Finally his last film, was a liver performance which kind of included everything together.  First being an explanation of his dad and how he tried to copy him for 3 months by shaving his head like how his dad did when he came to England and how it started to grow as a side partin and a moustache. He included humour which i found interesting within his video.

He live acted the ” Too dance like your dad” video, and played both the videos and actually copied it on stage also.  Finishing with a reanactment of the KungFu Film, live on stage with another woman however a film that he had produced within the background. The film included 6 split screens of 6 different view points of his reanactment of the film on the street. He did not use a sword but the total opposite: metre ruler. I found this very interesting seeing all the different view points.

All in all i found this lecture very interesting. I have never come across an Artist like Hetain before, and it his works really intrigued me.

http://www.hetainpatel.com/

Above is his website which contains all his photography and actually all the films and videos i have explored within this post.

Here are my notes from todays lecture: an insight into my sketchbook.

19th March 2013: Poster Presentation

Today was the day in which we had to present our ideas and research and the posters which we created to our tutors, and the rest of the groups. Before we did this we had to write on each of the scrolls which i volunteered to do, and carried the same font throughout all the posters, and then added individual roman numerals on each card. 

Then after this we had to attach our posters on the walls, but to be a bit different we actually hung ours on a line of string from one wall to another.

 From this we then had to do a 175 second long presentation discussing within our group, our ideas, and research and explanation of our poster. 

This happened for all of the groups, as they discussed all their different ideas from 175. It was really interesting in how everyone had such a vast variety of ideas coming from the initial number 175. Its interesting how we all have gone different routes. 

As it came to our group presentation we began by discussing the name of our group 

"Triskaidekaphobia" and how this related to 175. Explaining how 175 changed to 13, since i researched into mathematical equations, and since i explored maths at a level i am very fond of this area, hence this being my point of research. Simplistically adding 1 + 7 + 5 together giving us another number of 13, and thus being the unlucky superstitious number. Following from this looking at superstitions and then tarot cards playing a main role within this. 

After everybody's presentations were over, we then as a group spoke to a tutor on our ideas and how we could progress with the ideas we have already. She discussed on how there is a broad subject in which is nice, as this would appeal to a broader audience when thinking in the long run. 

She asked us what we had in mind to follow with this, and what work we would individually produce over the 2 week easter break.  I spoke about the idea of the cabinet of curiosities, and how i found an artist which reflects this: joseph cornell. The cabinet idea came around me thinking of witchcraft and spells. This initially gave me the idea of little jars with spells, and different ingredients which relate to the different superstitions. From this we decided as a group to all individually get a jar, and make spells. As childish as this sounds, it actually has a point to our theme. Each experimenting with different mediums and ingredients to see what we could create visually. Photo documenting each of what we had created and repeat this changing what we do. Also drawing the visual elements we see, creating illustrations which we could maybe use further on in the project. Alongside this we decided to carry on with research on our own ideas of superstitions and which ones we are actually interested in, and then we will bring all these together to see which is the strongest and which we would collaborate on with. We would also need to research some contextual artists which also would reflect our work. 

Im really excited to create this "little spells".