edit

I've been messing about with the image I put on here earlier, I knew it wasn't right so I've tried a couple more edits, not sure what I like best yet but I like the imagery. I also took out Michael Jackson, just due to the fact the image was a lot brighter than the others and it didn't look right.

Ive put a few pop culture references in the image, which I hope people see and understand its not supposed to be serious, one in particular, because otherwise it could look like I'm actually a bit thick. 

This is my idea for one of the two pages I get in the book being made for the history is no longer project. I'm not sure what to do, I want to show more conspiracies, maybe more things which the media has taken to another level. On the other page I'm thinking of having some piece of writing on how the media effects how we think, how we see things, hear things, how we judge.

The first of these I think has too much going on, the second too little?
By the way they have to be in black and white.

Via Pia

Ive just found this old advertisment from 1979, I know it is completely innocent, but its a strange image to view now. 

Stalemate

Ive done fuck all this week. Im a bit concerned. I think I knew in my head it wasn't going to be the most successful of weeks, problem is, I struggle to get going on a monday and then the end of the week I am generally hungover and I work on a weekend. So If I don't have a good start to the week, I am fucked.

I'm having a bit of an artists block at the moment, I feel like I've achieved a fair amount of what I wished to do with my video work and don't know where to go next. There are a few questions I want to raise within the work but I don't know where to go with them. I also need to focus on the conspiracy sides of the diana and 7/7 bombing attacks, like I have for 9/11 and then make a focal point of how the media manipulate how we think and what we think and the point that if the news tells you that something has happened then you automatically assume its the truth.

Lastly, I possibly want to visit the notion of the 'what if' and what would happen if these things hadn't happened or had happened differently and also 'what if's' like my previously attempted (and risky) assasination of Barrack Obama video.

There is lots that I want to do, I just don't know how I am going to do it.

Super Broker Shuffle

Thanks to NME, this maybe has made my day, so bad its great.

On Photography

I am reading (trying to read) a book by Susan Sontag called 'On Photography' it is really quite interesting, although in my sleepy state when I try to read I do just end up closing my eyes and having to re-read the same sentence a million times. The chapter I am on at the moment is about Diane Arbus and her 'freak' photography, its quite interesting to read through the chapter as I feel, it is something which just couldn't be written nowadays (well certainly published) not because anything that's said is particually horrible, but because you can't really put dwarfs, giants, twins, people with tattoos all over them, in one bracket and if you do, you really cant call them freaks.
Anyways I didn't actually know her before, so I figured I should look at her work as I'm reading about it and its some stunning photography, very of its time (the 1960's) but nonetheless great work. I thought I'd share some on here. I really would like to get into proper portrait photography, black and white and working with a manual camera (I have enough of them) I'm thinking about taking a few days away from staring at the computer with the hope it will miraculously come up with the end result of the video I want to create and do some fresh work. Knowing me though, it won't work, I think I need to plan a place to go, type of people I would like to photograph and how I want to do it. As when I just go out and take photos of people, frankly, they look a bit shit.

http://diane-arbus-photography.com/

History is no longer real

I'm having a bit of trouble putting my work together at the moment, so whilst trying to make ways to finish my video work Im starting on other bits and pieces. We are having a catalog for the show, for which our tutors want new/different work to go into, stuff that goes with our work but tells a different part of it, which is good because it will be a much more visually exciting book than just pictures and a short description of everybody's work, I really want this bit to be good but I'm not sure where to run with it.
I have been thinking of having accompanying still images with my video work of parts of the videos so I think this could be a nice place to put them. I'm thinking of something like this:

Apart from it would also have to be black and white:

Man, I love London

I decided to have a little visit to central today, being a sunny day and not really knowing what to do with my day yet. I wanted to go to the photographers gallery but the way I know to it was closed off to pedestrians, i couldnt be bothered with struggling to find a different way in so I did a bit of shopping (only actually buying one thing) was nice to spend a bit if time looking around the shops in Oxford street. I walked down to carnaby street where ive not spent a great deal of time before to go to the Alice Anderson show at the riflemaker gallery and once again got put off by shops and starbucks (where I got a free pack of their new instant coffee...might be good, I'd like to drink more coffee at home) where I saw a crowd of people. I thought nothing of it as I had a little look and couldn't see anything of interest, upon second inspection after going to a few shops I realised it was Barbara Windsor (and pam Sinclair) filming eastenders, I don't watch eastenders but it still made my day.

Looking around backstreets I found the Alice Anderson show completly by accident, it was a house covered in hair! The exhibition was intresting, the rapunzel hair sprouting around the house was excellent and I loved the layout of the show but the other pieces didn't inspire much interest in me sadly. I then also went to another random gallery, but it was really quite dire.

Covent garden next, I found a much larger section of shops with a few indie's and more obscure shops, I think everyone but me knows about it, there was a lot of people, but it was a nice detour from the covent garden I was aware of, thats the good thing with London, you can always find new things.

Lastly I went on the hunt for the graffiti area set up by banksy in waterloo 'The Tunnel', its really cool to go and look at, its nice that people have got this space where they can graffiti and they don't have to worry about anything else. Its not the greatest work of all time, but its cool to see all this work which will hopefully stay there for a long time just due to the fact its perfectly legal for it all to be there.

Today is a good day

Today is good. Ive had two positive tutorials in two days and I've been told I've got a lot more time than I thought I originally had to create work. So that's really good. Still not got a lot that I can put on the blog so I thought I would share some music im loving atm.


Darwin Deez - Radar Detector from Lucky Number Music on Vimeo.

Darwin Deez - Radar Detector

Ive had Darwin Deez in my itunes for a little bit, but only really found them in the last couple of days. Really cool tunes, vocals on a song called 'Constellations' really reminds me of the strokes/little joy. The song I've put up has a pretty funky video for it but a worryingly similar vocal line to constellations.



The Middle East - Blood

A really new find, but I bloody love this band, they really could be one of my top bands of the year if it all carries on like this, I really need to find more out about them actually...





Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip - Get Better (Villa Vocal Mix)

A remix of their new song, in my opinion a better mix of their song, You get a lot more of Scroobius's vocals on this song which are brilliant, witty and wise lyrics and the melody on the second verse is quite simply the best melody I've heard all year.



Little Comets - Adultery

I saw them live at the tale end of last year and can't wait for bigger things to happen to them, I'm hoping an album will be released sooner, rather than later 'cause there is a big hype about this band at the moment.



Local Natives - Airplanes

I bought their album on a whim last week, listened and was not that inspired, but its grew on me spectacualy, it came out in the UK last year but only came out in the US last week, so I'm gunna say it's one of my top album's of the year so far.



Jonsi - Go Do

The Sigur Ros frontmans solo effort is every bit as good as you could hope, I have massive expectations for this album but from this song and the few others Ive heard I don't think they are unfounded. Unfortunatly the official video for this cant be embeded but check it out : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYb2Q3DvLNE



Tall Ships - Beanie & Dodger

I saw this band supporting Tubelord a while back but they've not got a lot of recorded music, found an mp3 of this song a couple of days ago and I love it. The video is of the live performance, which is what you need to see, so much energy and amazing instrumentation (made me buy a loop pedal i loved them that much) I've just found out their supporting Hot Club De Paris at new slang in kingston in a couple of weeks so Im looking forward to seeing them again.



Gorillaz - Superfast Jellyfish

One of the many amazing songs on Gorillaz's new album, you can read my review from a couple of posts ago below. Its amazing, if nothing to do with the animated band known as gorillaz anymore, check out pitchfork's review for more information on how this came to be. http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14008-plastic-beach/ (Sadly much better than my review) I'm particually sad as they are playing a small gig in birmingham the week before I am going back there, on the plus side its a fan club only thing, so I probably could't go anyway.

Theres also Foals new song Spanish Sahara but I've already posted that below...

A few other pieces

I'm still on my continuing saga of doing video work to do with conspiracy theories and what's not, so as I am continuing with that I have nothing of use to show on here. So I thought I would show some of the photo's from Richmond Park last week, I've gone back and touched up a few, but they are a bit of a botched job, I like them though, I like the slight wrong exposure look I've gave to them, whilst not my main body of work, it's something I will continue just for practice and to create a larger portfolio. 

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

I was pretty excited about this album when I heard about it and heard lead single 'Stylo' the single had a new sound and it sounded good, still keeping a very much gorillaz theme to it. But when I heard Plastic Beach for the first time last week, I was a bit disappointed, I couldn't really get into it, regardless I bought it today and now have changed my mind completley from my first listen. I think I wasn't in the right frame of mind listening to it last week, because something has changed now, I think it is pretty marvelous. It is quite a different listen to both of their previous albums, but then again it has been 5 years and Gorillaz, aren't really a band at all, rather just a list of collaborating artists, which is getting longer and longer after each album.  When looking at the guest list for this album it is nice to see a mix of big names and more established names, you definitley need to be a music lover to be aware of all the artists featured. You can tell it is an album of the people they wanted to work with rather than, the biggest artists they could get hold of, I feel the choice of artists to work with make it an original and not a tacky collaborative album, all you don't want is it to sound like timberland produced the album. One of my favourite songs and I would say a future single is 'Superfast Jellyfish' with Gruff Rhys and De La Soul, they have already worked with De La Soul on songs like 'Feel Good Inc' but they clearly like to work together and they make sweet sweet music together once again on this track, one of the stand out songs on the album, proving it doesn't have to be a headlining featuring act to stand out of the crowd. Like always, there is a preference of hip hop artists over the album, but with the electric sounds going on throughout the album this is by no means a bad thing, Gorillaz have a great Trip-Hop sound, which after 3 albums, has been refined and is a sound like no other.

The glue holding the 'band' together is Damon Albarn, who without his vocals the album would sound like a bit of a shambles, with so many featuring artists, his vocals (who really aren't the '2D' vocals he used on their debut album, they are firmly good ol' blur Damon Albarn) remind you of who you are listening to and bring it all together. The few songs which don't feature any collaborations succeed highly with his vocals, 'Rhinestone Eyes' and 'On Melancholy Hill' are fantastic songs with just his vocals, at times its almost a shame that so much of the album is taken over by other people taking the lead vocals. The second man behind Gorillaz is Jamie Hewlitt, the animator who creates the artwork, videos, etc... for the band, Personally I used to love the Gorillaz artwork and video's and although I do like the Bruce Willis featuring video for 'Stylo' I do feel that it really isn't so much of a part of the band nowadays. I kind of wish that that part of the band would come back into the foreground a bit and maybe with more video's and inevitable gigs coming up in the future that side of the band will be used more but I just don't think it clicks with the band in this album. It's an electro sounding album, very much albarn's baby and the punky Gorillaz band we were introduced to 10 years ago don't really fit anymore, heck there images for the first time aren't even on the album cover. Maybe after this album, it is time to give up on the Gorillaz name and just make an album of Albarn and friends. It's a negative, but not much of one, since 'Demon Days' Gorillaz has focused on the collabrations and the great music and that's what this is all about, the music comes first, the collaborations, although many of them, never seem to take over from the sense of an album very much with a prevelant style and a somewhat dodgy backstory that is the 'Plastic Island' which the songs and artwork focus upon.

Diana Rose

So It took me a while to think of a third design for the symbols for the questions I talked about yesterday but I think this is a pretty great one. It has definitely came out the best. It's a rose symbolizing Princess Diana, also named england's rose, so I thought it was apt. I'm really happy with it.  Ive also added to the tube logo design one.

Apples - 'Only You'

Just found this band as they are playing new slang in a few weeks, this is brilliant.


Blindeye | Films - Apples 'Only You' (Flying Picket Cover) from Blindeye | Films on Vimeo.

New work

So I came up with a new piece of work over the last 24 hours, I got a few people I know to answer the following questions:

Where were you when princess Diana died?
Where were you when 9/11 happened?
Where were you when the london 7/7 bombings happened?

I got some really good responses, I short of hoped a lot of people would write quite detailed responses and they have. I didn't have a clear idea what I was going to do with them but I think I've found a pretty good (graphicy) way to show them. With these I want to put video's of news reports, to eventually read to showing how the media portray big news stories, but that's something I am researching and need to do a lot more reading/watching on, to do properly. I would like to show these as either prints or projections with the videos I plan to make, at the same time, these are in no way, shape or form finished pieces, I haven't done one for diana yet, because I attempted to use the ones for that, within a video (which didn't work very well) and I dont know where to start with doing it in this style. I would like to get more people to answer the questions, hence the multiple where were you when......'s at the end of both images.

 

 

Foals - Spanish Sahara

Dont Think A lot of the video but the song is amazing. Foals are back!

I didn't realise, but I have never really included people in my stop motion work, I felt it would be good to do one today so its simple, its just of people in the street, but im thinking of doing something different to it at a later date.

Day so far...

Had a fairly sucessful day so far, done quite a lot, went and got out the two books I want to read for research into my work, went and did a bit of shopping. Tried to (I will find out if it's successfull in a bit) do a new stop motion & I Watched Loose Change (once again part of researching.)

Yesterday I played around with some photo's, like I showed yesterday, which I will post in a little while, read some of the really interesting 'Why Photography Matter As Art As Never Before' which is a really intresting read actually and worked on my video for 'The Assasination of Barrack Obama' a piece I'm not sure about, I would like to mix in footage of his inauguration, where, lets face it a lot of people watched just to see if he would get shot at, and sound of JFK's inauguration and assasination. I want to create a 'what if'  like piece, I've decided to try and be tasteful with it and so I've created it as something you have to think about rather than a drawing of Obama being shot, because that would simply be disrespectful. I think I've got to be careful not to cross any lines, so It may be a while before I show that piece on here.


Also, watch the new Gorillaz video for 'Stylo', sadly It wont let me embed the video so here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9vAOzYz-Qs

Ok Go's New Music Video

Richmond Park

I've worked on a few of the photos from yesterdays journey to richmond park, I imagine I will post a few more in the next few days as I work on the photo's, I got quite a lot of source material to be honest so I've pipped it down to 35 to work on but there's another 200 or so which I could do something with. There all of a nature type look and a lot are in the same vein as my tree photo's from the routes project, It's something I enjoy and I can produce quite a lot of in a short amount of time, so I've figured it's worth carrying on doing whilst trying to come up with my main body of work for the history is no longer real project/end of term.

Firstly, I don't think I've ever seen a deer, So this was pretty cool:

 

After that I took some pretty cool photos, here's three of the best so far:

 

 

Richmond Park

Man I'm bad at posting on this blog recently, too much shit going on, but I couldn't really tell you what I've done....

Anyways. I finally made it too Richmond park today, I walked from home and it was much easier, although I was on my feet for around 4 hours, there and back and walking around the park, I feel pretty good for it though, I worked out I walked around 9 miles. Good times....

I was basically going to Richmond park to find this view:

 

Luckily, I found many other lovely sites on the way otherwise I would be pretty gutted. 

That view is a protected view of St Paul's Cathedral from the highest point in Richmond Park, there's a telescope, and it does look pretty sick to be fair, but still...It was slightly lame. I thought there was more to it than that. Luckily down the hill from there you can see the entire london skyline, which is pretty cool, it's amazing just how close I am to central london, it really doesn't feel like it when I'm sitting here in my room in surbiton.

I am going to work on some cool pictures I got from richmond park and post them tommorow, I'm a bit too tired right now...