DJCAD Professional Practice 2024

11th Apr 202421st Apr 2024 | harussell1

My practice is performance which also includes costume and prop/sculpture making. My future focus is to apply for a masters in research and to teach, so this year I have focused on presenting opportunities amongst workshops which will further my skills as a performance based/mixed media artist.

Supporting artist work

In the background on episode 1 of Good Omens 2.

I have worked as a supporting artist for the last seven years for films and productions, the most recent being:

01/03/22 Batgirl: Supporting artist playing a citizen in New York in a Xmas market. Although the film was actually filmed on the streets of Glasgow.(Film was cancelled) But provided great experience on one of the largest sets I’ve worked on yet.
14/12/22-15/12/22 Good Omens 2: Supporting artist playing a street citizen on a set at the Pyramids film studio in Bathgate.

Group Performance.

28/4/23 ‘Schiltron’ @ Generator Projects.

I was involved in a group performance for a project ran by Pascal Miehe a student who was studying a masters in drawing. The performance examined what it is to be a community, and what can happen when you work together. The group consisted of twelve people. We each had to sew ourselves together to form a circle made from black t-shirts, then leave the circle one by one. I don’t often enjoy working as a group but felt that this was very successful.

MY performance.

‘Your Magesty’ 18/3/24 @ DJCAD (room 600)

A performance in front of a live audience in DJCAD directed by me,costumes and props made by me featuring myself as ‘Your magesty’ and Georgia Dunn as my side kick/royal advisor. Film was shot By Molly Smart and Lewis Cavinue. Alot of time was spent marking out where the audience would go and how we should capture the audiences reaction which was using the discreet Osmo camera.Overall,I felt that this was a sucessful performance,feedback was that it was ‘hilarious’ yet ‘terrifying’ which was esactly as I had intended the audience to feel.

Georgia Dunn:‘The wheel of despair’

17/4/24 Technical support for Georgia Dunn’s live performance of ‘The wheel of despair‘ @DJCAD I assisted with que cards, lighting and playing video’s which co-incided with the show.

Art Night Guide.

24/06/23 Art night guide @The Little Theatre Dundee for Tai Shani’s film: ‘My bodily remains, your bodily remains and all the bodily remains that ever were and ever will be‘

Duties Included:

Listening to instructions from the stage manager via head set in regards to the lighting being brought back on and dimmed for the perormance.
Crowd control,telling the audience when the next filming would be and showing them to refreshments if needed.
Head count of the audience.
Communicating with the head of art night in regards to any issues or help needed.

Exhibitions.

Old contemporaries (22/09/24-23/09/23) Exhibited a series of performative long exposures photo’s taken from a project I was working on last year.

Generator Projects (17/02/24-1/03/24) Exhibited a series of photo’s taken from live performance work taken at Balmerino beach.

Publications

Exoskeletons (published 15/3/23)Very first publication in the student led book ‘Exoskeletons’,this was the first book published and I made it to the first page!

Further Publication

I have also been asked by Dr Helen Gorill who is an artist,curator,art historian and published author aswell as lecturer at DJCAD if I would like to either submit an extract from my disertation or write an insert for her up and coming book about witchcraft. (Title still undecided)

Workshops

Alastair Maclennan performance workshop. (02/02/23) @DJCAD

I Learnt a lot of techniques during this workshop but most importantly that performance is more then just technique and comes from the inner self and how through breath,intent and ‘being’ your practice can evolve to so much more then you can possibly imagine.

Richard Layzell performance workshop. 25/3/2024 @DJCAD

Richard taught in a completely different way then Alastair,much more realistic based and felt less meditative and more like being in an acting workshop.I was feeling really nervous about my upcoming performance and Richard spent some time looking at my costume and speaking to me about my fears and how I wished my character to be portrayed.By the end of the workshop we were all asked to perform to the public and I felt that this really helped my confidence improve,something which Richard reckonised aswell.He also gave advice on my costume and my upcoming performance.

Luke Fowler Sound workshop. (01/03/24) @DJCAD

I wouldn’t normally choose to attend something like this but decided to push myself out of my comfort zone as this could potentially give me a new skill set of which i could use alongside with my performance.I found this workshop very interesting,particulary when we got to use contact mic’s and getting to pick up on every day sounds that we wouldn’t normally pay attention to and creating our own sounds using every day items,it really did prove that anything is possible in reagards to sound.I hope in the future use contact mic’s in my work.

Pascal Miehe’s Experimental drawing workshop @The cooper gallery

I choose to do this workshop as it was a response to Heather Phillipson’s ‘Dream land’ and exhibition that I particulary enjoyed at the cooper gallery.I can’t say I took away anything new from this workshop but I loved how everybody drew and painted the sounds they could hear very differently and I felt that it was a great way to respond to an exhibiton.I also liked the fact it was open to children aswell as it was nice to see how they responded to the excercise compared to adults.

Khadea’s ‘Living cassette:Sonic Workshop.

I really enjoyed getting to listen to archival cassette footage and discussing and raising questions over what we could hear,also opening a random book and discussing the page we landed on.This is something I had never done before and made me realise how important alot of the discussions were that we were having and how often do people sit down face to face and have these discussions anymore instead of most discussions happening online?

PRESENTATIONS.

Presenting General foundation lectures with Dr Helen Gorrill and Carrie Holden (fellow classmate)(25/01/24-25/3/23)

Lectures given to 209 students,Every two weeks for three months.

My research and development One week involved presenting my research and development of my work,talking over what i would like to of known in the early stages of art school and answering any student questions.
The Venus lecture.I gave a presentation on the many figerines of Venus dating back to the neo-lithic period and what is and isn’t know about them.How the venus figure had been sensored from facebook and how the modern day female form had been too.And how pole dance businesses had been effected by this.Students seemed to be really engaged with this topic.
Reading of ‘Women in the picture ‘ by Catherine McCormack Read different chapters discussing different topics and engaged with student conversation regarding the topic and answered questions.

Rising Stars Conference Carnelly Lecture theatre 29/3/24 2-5pm

Pecha Kucha style talk (6 minutes in total 20 seconds perslide)
Presented infront of 50 people combination of third and fourth years and some PHD students.
Discussed what my research was about
Discussed how the findings in my research lay the groundwork for my practical work
Talked about the importance of research

My dissertation will now be published in ‘Rising stars 2024’ amongst the other students that took part in the lecture and thee books will be available to buy in galleries up and down the country.

Competition/exhibition applications.

I have applied for the landscape award (which i didn’t get into)

I have applied to the RSA open call which I didn’t get into.

Batsford award and New contempories.(still awaiting)

‘Branching out’ Exhibition @ Dundee Botanics (still awaiting)

Third Year week 8.Installation Preperation/videos.

30th Nov 20222nd Dec 2022 | harussell1

This week I played around with a couple of ideas for my installation.And greated a champayne tower using red cups.I was hoping to buy more of the small cups that i had used previously but this turned out to work in my favour as the size of the cups made a fantastic sculpture when glued together.I decided to stick them together in two lots of 3 due to three being seen as an ‘unlucky’ number.I also pondered as to whether the cups should be glued together in a chaotic way but then I realised that the mucus is the chaos and that the uniformed stacking of the cups should be the ‘calm’ in a way.

To start with i was going to use a bigger plynth but then I realised that the small plynth worked perfectly in creating the perfect ‘fragility’ of how this tower could be knocked over at any moment and cause even bigger chaos.How these cups resembled the lives of people living togehter the slime the covid and tension bubberling over.

Plynth showed the fragility of the situation.

Some reactions to the cups have been that of wonder ‘wow,how are they balancing?’ As alot of people didn’t realise they were superglued together,I just hope they hold up with the weight of the slime in them particulary the top one!But even then it may look better if it falls through.I’m really pleased and pleasantly suprised with how this has worked out.

From the book ‘Marina Abramovic the artist is present’The balancing of the cups on the plynth was made to look like an illusion,due to the fargility of the plynth itself and the way the cups look like there carefully balamced on top.Covid embodied is surposed to be an embodied illusion who interacts with what would normally be seen as an every day household item but which is given much more importance due to the context around the cups and the performance itself.

From Marina Abramovic’s book ‘the student body.’ I love this prop which gives the notion of ‘illusion’ like a magic trick our brain’s are ‘tricked’ into believing otherwise.

Thinking back,I think i would of been better off doing something like this but using room 610 (a room free to use for anyone)Untrimmed and unedited.It would of been could to of used the tower for the green screen (well deffinately a blue screen if i was to go back and do it again)

I thought that what would bring the installation together would be a Western Style ‘Wanted’ poster,If Covid was a person what would people do?I plan on printing off more of these and sticking them around the uni and various other places.I think it would make quite a good graffiti stencil too.

Original ‘wild wild west’ style wanted poster.

Third year week 7.Mucus Galore.

23rd Nov 20223rd Dec 2022 | harussell1

To start with I placed one cup but realised more cups had more significance in regards to the spread

I don’t know if i would ever be able to gather enough mucus to fill a cup (nor am i sure i would want to)Altho my friend apparently managed to do it which is where i got the inspiration for filling the cups with mucus to start with.It does suprise me however that i have been met with shock from several teachers that I am one of the only students they have seen choosing Covid itself as a topic.(Prehaps they aren’t as morbid/gross as me)

This mucus wasn’t dark enough.And looked ‘more like pee’ according to Taylor.Allways glad for my fellow classmates feedback!I felt that this was sucessful tho and could potentially be used during the assesment period if I do more experiementation with it first.

Slow motion mucus pour in order to build the tension…

Taylors ‘rant’ about her flatmate and her covid.The tension is building…

I felt like the experiment this week went well but I want to try it on a wider plynth with the other cups surrounding it and see which works best.I’m also liking the strong link between Taylor’s covid household tension and the mucus pouring..

Not overly pleased with the effects of the video.I think the slow motion works well but you can’t notice it too well.I think the background needs to change to white aswell as it’s too busy so it overshadows everything else and I think the video needs to go back to the original plan of switching from the covid monster to Taylor.

Although I prefer this version,there are a few technicalities that I need to remember like Filming both films horizontal,and using the same high quality camera for both because now Taylor is fuzzy.But in a way it almost looks like she has been made ‘anonymous’ which was the idea for Taylor coming to the green screen to get interviewed.I think I will show this video for my presentation because the idea is good even tho it is rough around the edges,The party backgound behing the Covid monster really needs changed because it causes too much ‘visual noise’ but I couldn’t get hold of the I.T technician to help me change it and struggled to do it myself.

Literally the worse creation I have ever made in my life ever.Please remind me never to paint again.

I really should of gone for more of a ‘David Rees Davies’ approach.

Third year week 3:Have you ever felt personally victimised by covid?

14th Nov 20222nd Dec 2022 | harussell1

As a Mean girls fanatic I decided to ask each person if they had felt personally victimised by Covid,but what I did not expect was to unravel the household dramas that covid had caused in certain student households.I found it interesting that almost all of the participants choose a different colour to reflect on their experience with Covid.I decided to ask a variety of ages from the age of 9-50s.I was interested to see how a child would persieve it in comparison to an adultand also how each participant applied the paint when asked to apply it to the areas they felt it the most.Was the application of the paint connected to their own personal memory of covid?Taylor applied her paint like make-up whilst re-counting her personal experience of covid mixed whilst Marlee who i expected to apply the paint in a messy fashion due to being a child aplied it daintily and carefully to her throat and choose black which I found to be unexpected too.

(Bekiemphis 2022 The Guardian)The lockdown not only effected housemates but couples too.And that the long simmering resentments was one thing in common.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

‘Have you ever felt personally Victimised?’ my inspiration behind asking the question is from this scene in ‘Mean Girls’

‘What’s your damage,Heather?’ ‘The Heather’s’ another high school drama which ties in well with the drama unfolding between Taylor and her flatmates.

Inspired by these stage scenes from ‘This is the story of a woman who’ from the book ‘Marina Abramovic the artist body’ ‘ I got Taylor and Kristina to try and recreate a fight scene of there own,showing the tension that has built up amongst the housemates since the ‘outbreak’

Taylor

I loved taylor’s dramatised version of events and have decided I would like to interview her in the green room in the future if possible.I love that it became almost like ‘Covid the soap opera’I also found that filming taylor outside was quieter then filming in the studio and her smoking whilst applying the paint gave a glimpse at her character and made the film seem more ‘personal’

Marlee

Emily

Altho this was the only video filmed using a tripod and I feel like the shot length is right I didn’t expect the noise of the studio to reverb so much which frustrated me as the video had great content and Emily thought hard about her answers.

Kristina

Kristina’s application of the paint was messy and creative,she also demanded to be filmed up high on a table which wasn’t the best due to the noise and her being quietly spoken

June

There is a first half to this film but I decided to just post the 2nd half due to June talking about being treated like a ‘leper’ as she got covid during the early stages of the Pandemic as oposed to the later stages when more was known about it and the stigma had worn off.June didn’t agree to the face paint.

Alana and Claire

Both felt quite shy about being interview individually but agreed to be interviewed together and refused face paint.

Naia.

BUT EVERYTHIng tastes like sponge?

During Covid and still now I have no taste nor smell.I wanted to show this by eating food then eating sponge and vice versa.Sadly I could only get white sponge which blended too much with the plate.It turns out sponge is really hard to pick up with a fork also!I’ve never realised how I have taken such simple pleasures for granted untill now.

Alex DA CORTE

Tutor had memtioned how my work was reflective of Alex Da Corte and Wahols,altho there food obviously stayed conistant throughout!There is something mesmerising however about watching people eat and how they eat as each person’s style seems one onto their own.

Group Crit for 3D Practice

6th Dec 2019 | harussell1

(Forgot to get a photo of the piece with the projection)

I think the feeback was overall positive for my crit,I had spent almost half a day prior experimenting with the positioning of the projector.Initially I wanted the projection of my video to be above my sculpture.Whenever I tried to angle the projector in order to do this the projection ended up squint.I then wondered what the projection would look like projected onto the sculpture and around it.Altho I was unsure of this to start with this seemed to be a sucess at the crit and recieved positive feedback.At my pervious feeback it was mentioned to me prehaps projecting onto the headpiece.I tried many differents ways of trying to do this from projecting from the other end of the room to trying to bring the size down on the projector itself but this did not seem poisible.I also think (from partially seeing some of the projection on the headpiece) that even if i was able to bring the video down to the size of the headpiece it would be so distorted that I don’t think it would of been visable and it was important to me that the video was fully visable.

Feedback.

It was mentioned by tutors and peers that they prehaps would not of dipicted the meaning as being about PTSD.The teacher questioned if this was actually important that the meaning was known and that prehaps it should challenge peoples thinking into making up their own minds about it also that the video had a ‘hook’ which kept the viewer interested in it and as a stand alone piece.
Aesthetic experience was a success
I should explore the video aspect further prehaps looking into more sensory aspects such as sound.Also how else can I show the mental aspects of weight in a physical sense?
I should prehaps of doccumented the making of the headpiece especially the binding of the thread.
The tutor also commented that this was a breakthrough project.

Resin Casts/Armatures/Final clay piece. Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

9th Nov 20194th Dec 2019 | harussell1

In this workshop we took elements of what worked in our sculptures and made it into casts.I had taken a series of close up photo’s of my sculptures and decided to focus on features such as vessels had made in the clay,the folds of the clay and the shape of the holes in one of my sculptures.I also decided to look at the form of one of my sculptures too which had a very femine form which i felt related to the vessel like shape and to combine these two shapes together.

I had to remind myself of how to create these shapes in order for them to have the desired effect in the resin.On the first piece i forgot to invert the folds in order to make them come out so did this on a second attempt.

I feel that the most simple cast using the vessel form and femine shape was the most effective and therefore I decided to make three armatures based on this shape using a mixture of chicken wire,hessian and thick plaster mix to give a more textured approach. I created a big piece and two smaller,one free standing and i cut the chicken wire at the bottom of the smaller piece and bent it and did the same with the larger piece altho this may not be the best approach due to the height and i proberly should of added more plaster to the bottom in hindsight.

A collection of everyones works together.I thought it was interesting to see everyones different techniques and pieces together.

Lasso stop motion videos. #daytoday Part 2

18th Sep 20194th Oct 2019 | harussell1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11tKFS4wLMsPT1VmWYC75MMP93u0tEL4K/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11m5qzpFBNhLrdPuv73fYR7VB18V5_-o3/view?usp=sharing

In these videos I play about with the use of the lasso.Given more time I would like to of played about with the composition of the cowboys and the lasso.The quality of the video isn’t the best and I would proberly consider using the tripod next time I film it.

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