#djcadstudent

Third year module week 9.Final Installation.

| harussell1
I tried to make it look like it was holding the cups up which I felt was sucessful in doing so and altho asthetically it looks good it doesn’t fit with the context of the project.

Looking at different ways to display the Covid monster made me wonder if prehaps it should have different ‘forms’ in which it appears almost like Jame’s Macavoys character in split with his 9 different personalities or IT the Clown?.What if the cute covid enticed people in but the intimidating one appeared once they had caught it.Or when people tried to leave the house when their flatmate has it?Prehaps cute covid appears when the virus is still ‘hosting’ int hem and spreading to other people?

I liked the way it moved but it was hardly threatening!

I decided to experiment with what would work best.I felt that no1 was too ghost like and no2 was too ‘cute’ and ghost like,when covid was meant to be ominous,lurking in corners,threatening.I spoke it over with other people in my studio when one of then had mentioned that I should try it out on a mannequin (which I had previously looked at to buy but were too expensive) Then another person said there was one wedged underneath the stairs…

He was a bit like Frankenstein with his arms and legs stuck on with tape but he was ready for his glow up…
Intimadation.Fear.
Ominous.

Instantly there was a difference.The braod shoulders of the male manequin gave it quite and intimadating stance.The folded arms under the gown gave the classic ‘bully like’ image and intimadation.

The difference it makes without the necklace is crazy,there is no shape to the head and it looks like some creature that you would almost instantly feel sorry for.
Unsure as to whether I should keep the ‘murder board’ up or not or is it too much alongside the rest? I was considering having the Covid monster video play alongside aswell but I’m not overly pleased with how it has worked out and it may need some work done to it first.
So I belived this was going to be my final ‘installation’ at that point in time untill my last min revelation.It works well as almost a ‘movie set’ with the covid monster lurking in the corner the same way that a ‘murderer/enity’ would be imagined.
The Babadook in the movie and in the book they read allways seemed to lurk in the corner of the room.
Final installation!!hurrah!!

So,I had a last minute realisation that the covid monster being there and the poster made everything too ‘literal’Every idea held is within these cups and they have an overwhelming importance and also stand alone really well as a sculptural piece aswell as a prop.The cups conceptualise all my ideas and by making that final edit I am now happy with just this finished piece.I was going to get rid of the Covid style murder board on the other wall but I think that it stands as a strong piece of development aswell as the red tacks making that visual ‘connection’ to the red cups.

Third Year week 8.Installation Preperation/videos.

| 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.
Slime was created using pva and paint,I added more and more pva in the top cup untill it overspilled.There was something really therapeutic in the calmness of this chaos.
The watered down solution had much less effect.
Height used for intimadation,red for warning and the bundled together cups the people living/partying in close proximity with someone who may be infected.The overpouring slime is the tension building up to boiling point as with Taylor’s case.

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.
Lurking about the studio…
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.