Lets play at being lecturers

today was my first day teaching the undergrads. Its unpaid work experience of course - I'm still a long way from being good and experienced enough to get a job as a lecturer - but hopefully doing this will help me develop skills that will help me get paid to do it when I'm finally ready. I'm helping out with the second year drawing elective module: basically its a series of workshops introducing them to an 'expanded field of drawing' as it was refered to today. Then they'll have time to develop their own 'drawings' - used in the expanded sense, whatever they may be - for assesement. I'll also be giving a talk/lecture/presentation on my own work and how that relates to the stuff they're doing, and really this is exactly what my work is about. The idea that drawing - or any form of practice - can be a moment, or a document of an event was what really came across, for me at least (It'll be interesting to see how many of the students picked up on it).

It's been really usefull actually because its given me a new perspective on my practice; I've been thinking about giving the presentation and how I can relate that to this expanded field of drawing and this has made me realise that drawing in the expanded sense is what I do, its all drawing: my video's, photographs, writings (and etc) are all documents of various events, moments, processes, (and etc). This very blog, the words you are reading now are a drawing. I was reading an article today about the problem of presenting 'process based' art. This really struck a chord as I've been saying for a long time that my practice is process based. As I understood it, the problem seemed to be about finality: when is something finished? What is the end product? The problem being that with a lot of these process based practices, the project is never finished, and there isn't any 'final piece' - a horrible term that I've fought against for years because of this very issue - these things are part of an ongoing process. Yet when this work is exhibited, it is read as being an end product, and doesn't really provide enough of a 'way in' to allow us, as viewers, to read the work as part of an self-perpetuating process, which of course it is. With this kind of work there are never any conclusions, only more questions, never any end products, only documentation.

Back to School

First day back at uni today. We had a group seminar with our second year group and the six full time students from the first year group. It was mainly a session of introductions and updates, but it was really good to see everyone again and talk about art. I find the support a group of fellow students provides extremely helpful.

We've also had a change of studio, our old MA room has been given over to the undergraduates and instead we've got a space on the ground floor that was filled with third year undergrads last year. Its a really good move as the room is bigger, the light is better and we've even got a desk area for seminars. I will miss having a pc in the room though, as a lot of my time spent in the studio was using the computer. It's still going to be rather cramped in there, as there's ten part time first years as well as the six full time students, and along with the ten or so in our group that makes 26, so board space is going to be at a premium. We have, however, decided to keep one wall free for displaying work, so those who don't/can't use the MA studio as much as others have somewhere to put their stuff up. I suspect I might be one of those people as I dont know how much I'll be able to use the MA room. Having a space at eagleworks will probably mean I'll spend the majority of my studio time there and use the MA room for displaying work.

I've also arranged with Maggie (one of the lecturers on the undergraduate course) to do some teaching, unpaid of course, but its valuable work experience and looks pretty good on the cv. So then this coming friday I'll be helping run a drawing workshop with the second years (I think),then maybe doing some work with the undergrads doing the dissertation module. should be fun.

one thing to tick off my list

I've just booked train tickets to London for the super 8 workshop at Nowhere Lab. It still amazes me how it can cost so much to travel relatively short distances in this country. I have Latvian roots and I've been there a few times. Over there you could probably travel half way across Russia for the same price as a return ticket to London. Still it feels like I'm finally getting things done.

updates, studios and more things to do

I spent some time in my eagleworks studio yesterday, I moved some books and cameras over there. I remember watching the long way down/round - Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman's motorbiking trips that were on BBC 2 a while back - in particular I remember the office they had, filled with various documents, maps etc. Thats the kind of space I want my studio space to look like, a kind of office like base, (or rather my half of the studio space as I share it with Beckie Mayers).

I think I may have to make eagleworks my main studio, because with a new group of first year MA students moving in, space in there is going to be limited. I would still like to maintain a presense in there though, still keep things on the walls, so an idea was to turn my 8 foot of wall space into a free exhibition space that everyone can use. It would have to be curated, but I think it could be really useful for a lot of people, particularly people who mainly work elsewhere. Another option would to be to share a space with my sometime collaborator Matt Black, although I'm not sure how he'd feel about that; it was suggested a while back and he didn't want to do it.

I need to give Emma Purshouse a call sometime today. Emma's a writer and she worked with a fellow MA student back in our first semester, and I, allong with our tutors, really liked the film he made (Emma provided the voiceover, reading a poem she wrote for the film). Since then the idea of using fictional narratives has been lodged at the back of my mind and over the summer Emma and I started exchanging emails and, I think, both would like to work together.

Also I got an email back from my brother, Dan. He says its ok for me to walk to his house from brum new street, should be able to get some good pictures and do plenty filming. Plus he's just bought guitar hero 2 for the wii!

To Do List

As I'm feeling motivated I thought I'd post my current to do list. I write these all the time: I find that they are a good way to keep track of what you are actually acheiving with your practice on a day to day basis and to keep yourself motivated, because as you tick them off the list, you feel as if your getting somewhere - or at least getting things done.

• book train tickets for super 8 workshop. I'm attending a workshop at Nowhere Lab in London on shooting and processing super 8 film. As I've said previously I've recently been experimenting with super 8, but without any real knowledge of how, hopefully this will show me how to use the camera properly.(www.no-w-here.org.uk)
• Prepare images for portfolio review. Also in October I have a portfolio review with Rhubarb Rhubarb's Rhonda Wilson. I dont see myself as a photographer as such, not in the way some on my MA course would; I studied fine art at degree level, so I feel like I'm coming to this review from a very different position. Although photography and lens-based practices are important to my current work (central even, as almost all my work is now done through a lens of some sort), I dont see myself as being connected to or part of any photography industry, and Rhubarb Rhubarb are very much in the photography industry. Its fine art photography - no wedding photographers here - but it still feels different to what I do. Having said that my knowledge of photography as a practice is still limited, so hopefully this review will give me some pointers as to where to go with my practice.(www.rhubarb-rhubarb.org)
• Spend at least one day per week at eagleworks. After giving up painting (maybe temporarily, who knows) the time I'm spending in my studio at eagleworks has dropped dramatically. This needs to change, as eagleworks is probably the only creative group in Wolverhampton and its a real privilage to be part of it. There is also a really good gallery space that can be used by members of the group - this means regular solo exhibitions, which I've always thought of as vital. My plan is to use my space less as somewhere for making, more as somewhere for thinking, so I'm planning to turn it into a kind of office/study space, somewhere to plan walks, think through ideas, read books etc. Dropping painting has brought about some major changes not only in my work but in the way I go about making work. Hopefully I'll be able to work through this, then when I feel as if I'm using my space like I should I can arrange my first exhibition there.(http://www.smfrancis.demon.co.uk/eagle/)
• Go on more walks/journeys and film/photograph. An idea I'm trying to work through at the moment is that of psychogeography. My walk from wolves to brum was very productive, even though my plan to make a film of the experience went tits up. I'm planning more walks: one from Birmingham New Street station to my brothers house in Harbourne, one from Birmingham city center back along the canals to Wolverhampton. I'll have to borrow an SLR from uni for a couple of weeks though, as mine is playing up at the minute.

So thats pretty much what I'm planning. Uni starts up again next week so I'll discuss all this with the group and get some feedback on it. Thats all for now, I'll try and post again soon

Psychogeographical Experiments

Here's a section from an essay/article I've been working on, titled 'A Psychogeographical Experiment: Wolverhampton train station to Birmingham New Street Station'. If all goes well it will be published in Nat and Chris's book ( see http://ourfineartma.blogspot.com ) -

The first question I come to – a pretty major one that needs answering - what is my position on psychogeography? What is this psychogeographical experiment/ stupid idea aimed at? Am I aligned with Guy Debord and the Situationist International in feeling out the psychological contours of the city through the derive? Or am I closer to Will Self and his eotechnical world-view? Indeed, the Selfian approach (if I can call it that) was the inspiration for this first foray into the world of psychogeography. After watching on YouTube Will Self’s lecture at Google[i], promoting his recent book documenting his own psychogeography, I became fascinated with the division between psyche and place that ‘modernised’ methods of transport bring about. ‘Walking to New York’ is Self’s attempt to bridge this divide. In the modernised world of machine mediated travel, London and New York exist separately, with no physical relationship in space, or indeed psyche as, Self argues, perceptions of space are registered by the body on a physical, not a mental, level. Self’s chosen method for bridging this divide is walking, thus re-registering his spatial perception of London and New York, and destroying his London and New York micro-worlds as he puts it. His route took him across London to Heathrow airport, from there by plane to JFK airport, and then on foot again to his Hotel in New York. The plane journey across the Atlantic, in terms of physical exertion, isn’t recognised, and so, as far as his body is aware, he has traversed one continuous landmass, as I’m sure his legs would concur.

Late capitalist society creates for us an illusion, argues Guy Debord, to whom Self, in his psychogeography, is indebted. This illusion, encompassing daily life, roughly comprises work, home/leisure and consumerism as, according to late-capitalist society, these were the only things we needed to live[ii]. Self’s notion of micro-environments, is derived from the Situationist’s concept of spectacle: Our experiences of place and spatial relations, registered on a mental level become ruptured by modernised, non-eotechnical modes of transport. Our experiences of place then become subsumed under the spectacle of late-capitalist society. Put simply, we don’t know where we are, and this is just the way late-capitalist society wants it. These concepts of spectacle relate back to Henri Lefebvre’s ‘Critique of Everyday Life’. Indeed, Lefebvre was at one time aligned with the Situationists, and his concepts of alienation and mystification formed the theoretical basis for Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’. Lefebvre insists that the transformation of life, and indeed its critique, not only must take place on an everyday level, but that the everyday as category, crucially, retains the possibility of its own transformation. For the Situationists and Will Self, psychogeography provided just such an everyday act.


[i] Authors at Google Lecture: Self, W (2007), Mountain View, CA (accessed 27/06/08). Also see: Self, W. (2007) ‘Psychogeography’ London: Bloomsbury

[ii] Debord, G. (1995) ‘Society of the Spectacle’ New York: Zone Books (Originally published in french in 1967 as ‘La Societe Du Spectacle’)

Notes on Montage

'The film Sense' - Sergei Eisenstein

Montage is a fundamental principle of film. The principle of montage consists in the juxtaposition of fragments (shots, visuals, sound, dialogue etc).

Montage is a creative technique: fragment A placed in relation to fragment B does not simply create fragment AB but fragment C, a third element. This third element, in Eisenstein's theory, is an image in the mind of the viewer;

'Piece A and Piece B, derived from elements of the theme, in juxtaposition give birth to an image in the viewer's mind in which the theme is clearly embodied'

Eisenstein theorises the fragments in montage as representations which juxtapose to create a subjective compound image of the theme in the mind of the viewer.

Eisensteins theory of montage s directed to literary narrative uses. However montage as a principle (the juxtaposition of elements and fragments) runs much deeper and reaches much further than film and literary uses. Further, I suspect, than Eisenstein suspected.

Introductions

Welcome to my blog

I've never done one of these before, so It'll be interesting to see what comes of it. I've never been very disciplined with things like this - I've never kept a diary - but a few fellow students have had success with keeping blogs, so I thought it was time to give it a go, plus I love the idea that a blog can be sort of like a sketchbook; something to record ideas, to keep a record of the processes of creativity and thought.

I'm currently half way through my MA in Fine Art that I'm studying for at the University of Wolverhampton. I graduated from the BA course there in 2006 then took a year out to think and figure out where I was going, then started the MA the following september. A year on and I think it was one of my better life decisions as my practice and ideas have developed no end since BA. My BA was largely painting: for my degree show I produced a series of paintings using text that I overlayed I was interested in things being half hidden, partially legible. I also made a video where I stripped off and covered my body in writing. My mum hated it but it did gain me a bit of noteriety in the university (when i went for the interview for the MA, Matthew, the course leader, remembered me for my video). That all seems so long ago now, because my practice has shifted so drasticly, and all for the better. This past semester over the summer (you get no holidays as an MA student) - which, admitedly, hasn't been the most productive - I've, for the first time, given up painting, maybe temporarily, maybe less so, and I think that has thrown me. I've shifted towards film and photography, I've spent a large part of my summer playing with cameras (just to define a few terms: when i use the word 'film' I refer to the format I've been using rather than anything narrative based, although there are narrative elements). I bought a super 8 cine camera a while back, so I spent my summer filming with that. I had ideas of fragmented naratives in my head, ideas developed from my painting practice that I'm trying to translate into a medium that will hopefully allow me to explore them and articulate them more fully. I tend not to start off with a clear idea of what I want to do when I work; I tend to just go out, play around and see what happens then go from there. I don't like saying 'I let my practice develop organicly' because I can't really see how you can fail to let your practice develop organicly, lets just say I try not to force things and I let my ideas take me where they will. At the minute that seems to be towards film.

I also work with photography. when I was making paintings I would always photograph my studio space, any canvas' I was working on etc, but photography became an important part of my work when I realised that the photographs I was making were just as interesting, if not more so, than the paintings I was making, which at that time were what I was focused on. My current photography centers on ideas of psychogeography; spacial practices that try and get to grips with place and space. I photograph my flat, the journeys I make every day, I look for details. I try not to overly complicate images, I try to record things as I see them.

Hopefully that serves as an overview of what I do. I plan to post lots over the next few weeks while I have the motivation. I'm hoping it'll keep me organised and motivated to produce work.