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.
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.
To start with I placed one cup but realised more cups had more significance in regards to the spreadIt can take between two to fourteen days for the symptoms of covid to show.The height show trickle like effect,one cup may be reached first but the spread will slowly reach the others.Overflow. ContaminationThe tension,the spread,the infection.
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.
This week was exciting as I finally got to use the green screen.Brough my friend with me because she is great at filming and has filmed stuff for me for years.It turs out you need to book the equitment for the green screen prior but the woman that runs the AV store was happy enough to just lend us out the equitment there and then.We used a Cannon DSLR to take some stills and a sony camcorder on a tripod for the rest.
Our main concern was getting the table onto the right part of the floor and the mess that would be created from the mucus covering the floor but it turnsout the paint table that we used was so long that it never traveled off of it even tho we used plastic sheeting and blue paper towel.
A concern I should of had was the fact I was wearing green which some how bypassed me even tho I work as an extra on the side and know the rules about not wearing green for the green screen.I was also suprised that my friend didn’t remember this either.I spose to the i.t technician and he managed to get the green to become a grungy brown which still looked disgusting but would people get the idea of it meaning to be mucus and would it matter too much whether it was percieved as mucus?And prehaps it was just fine with it looking disgusting as I would still recieve the reaction I was looking for in the first place but maybe not the understanding.
Cannon DSLR used for shooting stills
I would say I was pretty much contend with the shots especially the part where i move my head around in the costume gave a particulary eerie feel.I also liked the ending where I threw my hands up in the air.Looking back tho I do think it would of been good to of looked at an invisable watch as if to look at the time it was taking the mucus to spread.I think the use of mucus was a good idea because altho not every person who gets covid has the mucus in there throat and chest it is a very well known symptom of it and what causes the total dog bark style cough.The way the mucus slowly seeps between the cups was a great way of showing how the infection spreads and how it particualry happened at house parties/partying as red cups in America in particular are connected with house parties which links in with the interview with taylor talking about how her housemate had been going to parties and spread the covid amongst them.
My original idea was to have taylor cone in and wear this ‘anonymous’ amazon bag (due to the shame and stigma of having had covid) on her had which allready has a sad face due to the Amazon arrow so I just folded the top of the bag to make it even more so and to have her bitch about her flatmate with it on whilst i antogonise her more so by telling her what her flatmate had been known to of said about her. Then I hoped to switch from the video of taylor to the video of the covid monster and as she talks about the tension building between her and her flatmate the cup fills to filling point anf overflows and to have a close up on that but the i.t technician had said that this could end up rather blurry.My tutor had also mentioned having a lay over of taylors voice on top of the video and the mucus from the jug to move in slow motion.
‘Anonymous’ Amazon bag
Sadly,Taylor didn’t turn up to the green screen for her shoot but after listening to taylor ranting about her flatmate again i decided to there and then iterview her and get her to let it all out.She thought it would be better if it was scripted but I thought it was much better when she just improvised and went with how she was feeling there and then.Taylor had memtioned getting hold of the voive recording machine as the recording would be much higher quality if i just decided to use her voice so i will do that later on in the week and experiement with what would work better.
Rachel Maclean Green Screen Workshop.
On Friday I went to see the Rachel Maclean installation and took part int he workshop.I have allwasy been a fan of her work so was great to see her installation a public high street and listen to the reactions that the staff had had from memebers of the public and how a higher majority of people had been curious and loved it then not. Altho my expectations were that i would be learning more about how to use the green screen it was more just a fun workshop and making objects from found items that could be used on the green screen.WHich I had a whole lot of fun with and made the ‘baggy wifes for lyf’ and a family including a baby which i acted out a scene with on the green screen (which had been kindly donated by Rachel Maclean and we were told we could use the green screen for free at the weekends where we would be guided on what to do and how to use it.I thought this would be a good idea altho i wouldn’t be able to use it untill after xmas due to work.
I loved the initative of the whole project and that it was there to educate nto only the public on contemporary art in a place where contemporay art wouldn’t ever reach but also high school children as I think that this is extrememly important considering how it is completely missed out in the curriculum and yet children are expected to come straight from highschool and to know what they are doing.It made me realise more then ever how i would love to run classes within the community and how important art education is,especially in an era where the arts has been ‘dismissed’ by goverment.
Above is my friend wearing the Morph suit for the greenscreen and the ‘Baggy family’ the found object activity was such a great idea for groups and I imagine high school children would of loved it.
This week was the week of silent group crits.Personally I would of prefered to of had crits before this point so that i could gain more opinions and reactions to my piece which would of helped shape it better.But I know that’s not everyone’s preference.
MucusMain suspect.The covid sticks were reguarded as ‘too literal’ My faithful Camera lady Emily Chan,Inspiration taken from a scrub down/murder board.A Covid board!
I personally felt that everyone took the performance far too seriously and looking for deeper meaning when it is meant to evoke a feeling of unease and humour through the absurdity.The audieces reaction was far too quiet even when I played Taylor’s piece which made me question alot of things.How does this piece fit into the world of art?How do I evoke more of a reaction?People I had shown who aren’t in the art world seemed to understand it better then the people who were.I think that’s because they took it at face value.I want my art to be availible to the general public so does it really matter that a select group of people didn’t react the way I hoped and instead rather awquardly.
I loved the motion of the movement of the jelly.It was mentioned tome during the crit that it should prehaps of been casually thrown at the audience?Or that i should of tried to of served it along with the mucus.
Reactions weren’t as I expected.
You think I’m funny?!?
I wasn’t going for as much of a comedic value with this video so i’ll let people off on the laughing front.
Reactions from the crit were as follows;
‘Dark,gross and disgusting.funny,scared would be made to drink the mucus.Are the party cups to do with parties and socialising?Beer pong.Tutor interupted to ask how the videos were read? Did Taylor applying the green to her face symbolise it could be passed on?Covid had been made more light hearted through this.Without the covid test could it still be read as covid?Isn’t the mucus dependent on the individual?Sterile and unclean,clult/infection spread,mindmap,green liquid as a starting point for disease,are the tests too much info?Less info ont he performance and just show the jelly?Show items one by one.Cup with overpour of mucus.Green works well itself.Just keep pouring untill no water left.Bobby Baker table of occasions.Calm but chaos,no reaction to the chaos from the covid monster itself.Have people standing in a line constantly smudging each other with the green paint or use red thread and get people to walk to one another with it.
I felt that a bedsheet was the most fitting for the covid monster because if it was gonna spring up from anywhere it would be your bed!Especially as you spend the most time in it whilst ill.
Dylon dilueted in water and salt.The colour turned out much better then expected and esactly what I wanted considering the dye sachet was only meant for a small amount of material equal to that of a shirt.
I used a mixture of pva and olive green paint in order to gloop it onto the bedsheet and make it seem as realistic as possible giving the effect of snot/mucus.
Using the plasma cutter in Welding I cut out the shape of the ripe sternum using the card maquette that I had made previously (something i do which helps me work out the size and how things will work/not work.I had drawn out the outfit but it wasn’t untill I tried ti on in realisty that I realised it could easily be mistaken for a hijab which ofcourse I didn’t want.It made sense that the ribsternum needed to be detached from the headband as it was the headband and the colour grey that as making the outfit look most like a hijab and that the rib sternum should be made into a necklace to sit where the ribs are.
The theory behind the plague Doctor outfit was that it would ‘isolate’ the doctor meaning that they wouldn’t get contaminated.Much like the modern day PPE.I wanted one of the eyes to give resemble one of the plague dr goggles/gasmask.
I wanted the covid moster to resemble almost that of a scooby doo villian in terms of it’s mischieviousness but with a more sinister intent.
Same of the scariest masks are some from the victorian era,outfits would most commonly be made using ‘crepe’ paper (something which was new to that era and everyone was very excited about) masks were however made using paper mache,fabric and paint all of this left terrifying results!I wanted the covid monster to be infuenced by the simplicity of outfits like these almost with a mixture of a ‘bedsheet ghost’
simple yet sinister
Amazingly sad movie but I love the fact that altho the outfit was just a bit sheet the meaning was so much more then that.
I decided to attach the positive covid test first using super glue and then by stitching them on and adding the positive symbol in the middle of the ‘eye’ and then adding the pva and ink gloob to the other eye area.The necklace then gave great shape to the head and the shape of the rest of the gown had a rather formed yet high fashion shape to it the fitted ends of the sheet giving great shape to the arms.It resembled a body bag tho but also the hood used before someone is hanged.I hoped that the body bag shape wouldn’t cause offense to anyone who’s family member had died due to covid as that isn’t what i have intended.
The hooded head reminded me of a hang mans sack.
‘Pirates’ was a show I watches as a child and the top right character who allways remained in a sack reminded me of the covid monster.As I child I forever wondered who was in the sack which I want the audience to do with covid also.
A mixture of pva,ink and olive green paint left int he plastic pot from pouring onto the sheet turned out to make a perfect eye!
A poster I made and put up in the corridoor in order to see what people would respond.The respose wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be.I think I will mayb put more up around the uni and see what happens.
On the left a collage piece aiming to resemble the gloom of the covid monsters.I find this to be quite an effective way of resembling it.
On the right is a page from the book ‘A brief history of the dance of death’ by Ian Breakwell.I think I would like to overlap the faces of thoose who have had covid with the covid monster.After speaking to a tutor who knew the artist himself he said that most of his work was actually done on the photocopier which is something I used to be really keen on years and years ago.
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.
‘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’
It seems like Taylor and her housemates issue was a common one at the time.
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.
This week my project took a full 180 degrees turn.What was meant to be a weekend visit to my partner who lives in Okrney turned out to be a full week due to us both getting Covid.In my fevered delirious state i started to wonder if the cloaked figure I had imagined was actually a premonition of my own covid due to the fact it had a rib sternum as a face covering.I had felt so lost with what esactly the world was going to be that connected to the cloaked monster but now I knew.That world was this world and Covid visits us when we least expect it.The most hideous monster of them all
Covid Feels like.
Covid feels like: Burning hot pokers pushed into your eye sockets.
Covid feels like: Having your head crushed slowly by a car door.
Covid feels like: A lump in your throat that will swallow YOU whole.
Covid feels like: ‘Welcome to the worry factor’
Covid feels like: ‘I’m gonna fail,I’m gonna fail’
Covid feels like: ‘I can’t afford it’
Covid feels like:’Rich,Rich,RICHARD’
Covid feels like: *SNORES*
Covid feels like: *Cough…spew…cough*
Covid feels like: ‘it’s chocolate,it’s something you like’
Covid feels like ‘Not on your nelly,not one little bite’
Covid feels like: Missed opportunities.
Covid feels like: -£900.18
Covid feels like: There had to be a positive.
I wrote this in the midst of covid and altho I felt down and burnt out by it to start with one night whilst wide awake with the shivers I felt inspired to write this.
I also kept a diary entry.
When life gives you covid make a cup of mucus.
Day 1 8pm: It all started when I went for dinner with Richard and the girls. He wanted to sign up to
Rev comps and I was trying to ignore the fact that I felt ill until he went to sign up and it delayed us
leaving so I blurted out ‘I feel ill! Please don’t!’ Can we go now?
We watched 1408 as it seeped in I sure as hell wished we hadn’t as most Stephen King movies are
like a fever dream anyways and I swear this just made it worse. I didn’t know what day of the week it
was by the time it had finished and my temperature soared through the roof. Rich tested me.I was
negative which was the positive in my mind.
DAY 2 5am: Searing pain in my eye sockets, my head feels like it’s been slammed in a car door several
times. The pain keeps me awake the chills make me not want to leave my bed to search for
ibuprofen. Decided to wait until almost day light (which takes a while in Orkney in the winter) to
wake Richard because I couldn’t handle the pain much more. Out of the goodness of his heart he
wet me a small towel and applied it to my head and eyes. It was a small gesture but one I was so
grateful for. I finally slept until 9am.
He took the day off to look after me.
He’s too sweet.
I lay on the couch lethargic and coughing up flem balls like flemy cat.
Somehow, we came to the unanimous decision that going to the spa would be a great idea.
(It was not)
Turns out the sauna and steam room did not clear the flem in my throat it just made it SO much
worse. It felt like the thickest flem ever that I couldn’t clear or get up. The coughing was leading to
me gagging, which was so embarrassing (especially in public)
Rich told me to spit.
I’d rather swallow.
I was meant to be going home tonight but I had to reschedule due to feeling so ill. It cost me £30 to
reschedule.
Day 3: I slept so well!!!!I woke up so refreshed!!I never sleep like this, I barely even noticed Rich
leaving for work! The hill is alive with the sound of…shivers? The cough of doom? FFS. At least I
managed to get the clothes washed and some of the dishes done though. I decided to run another covid
test because something isn’t right here…
POSITIVE.
Messaged Rich because he was in a meeting. He comes home then…
POSITIVE.
Couples who get covid together stay together right?
His &hers
How sweet.
I had to reschedule the ferry (again)they let me do it for free this time though because to travel with
them with covid is against their policy. Thank God as I had no money left.
Feeling so para about Uni, had to cancel my welding session, tutorial and everything. I didn’t want to
fail.I can’t fail. I really don’t want to fall behind but what can I do?
I messaged Pernille, she said t would be ok to talk to her about it. That and the 10,000 other things
keeping me behind just now. My Dads ill ,my cats ill ,I’m ill. I have no money. Urgh.
I can’t differ again. Not this time.
We played stardew valley. It was addictive yet therapetutic I can see how people got hooked during
lockdown and how it helped mental health. Planting, listening to rainfall and relaxing music.
We watched Goodfellas.
Day 4:I couldn’t sleep, Rich’s bed is as solid as a mortuary slab and my hips and back cant take it. I
shivered so much, hugged him for warmth but even he wasn’t his usual warm self. I didn’t wanna get
up because I was too cold to turn the heating on. I finally got up and turned it on. Tossed and turned
consistently. My back and hips hurt, it was too hot it was too cold, coughing,I thought covid was
meant to make you lethargic? I thought up a spoken word poem about covid and all of a sudden it hit
me,
THIS IS A POSITIVE.
The hooded creature with the rib sternum IS COVID. The elephant in the room!!The ultimate
creepester in the room! The one guy you didn’t invite to the party but he turns up anyways
UNINVITED. No matter how big or how small he is he’s there.
I moved to the livingroom to sleep but the ideas paced and paced my head.
Day 5:I can’t smell or taste. Somehow I never noticed this until now. It makes life so abysmal.I keep refusing food and Rich is getting worried. Trying to makesure I atleast take supplements. We went for a walk across the beach. I only managed half way before feeling absolutely freezing,I feel that this was mostly down to me not eating. Everything tastes like textures. My head feels heavy. All I want to do is sleep constantly. I moved the ferry again to Friday this time. Luckily having covid means you can’t travel with them so they will transfer the trip for free.
Day 6: We chanced a walk to Tesco. The exercise did me good and if it was Richard’s way we would be climbing mountains by now but am I fuck. He tested negative. Can’t help but feel bitter about it! Starting to wonder if I will ever test negative at this rate. Or even get my taste and smell back. Not looking forward to getting the ferry home tomorrow especially feeling like this.
Day 7:Even packing for the ferry was a killer let alone getting on it. It was pouring down too which wasn’t great, the ferry wasn’t too rough atleast.
Day 8:I had to wait atleast 2 hours on the train. Forcing myself to eat food I couldn’t taste and then struggling with my luggage to the taxi rank. Taxi driver felt so sorry for me after I told him my multiple sob stories that he gave me a can of energy juice.haha.
Day 9:still positive and I need to pick the cat up.My brothers autistic OCD traits were going into overdrive. Sanitising my hands at his door, wearing a mask. wouldn’t let me use the toilet or touch anything that wasn’t Tia’s. I’m definitely greatful that this happened now and not during lockdown as I spose I would of faced this off everyone. Went to the shops, bought food but barely ate it.
Day 10.Still positive although my mentality is not.Apparently I am well over the infectious stage so is ok to return to the public even though I feel guilty about doing so.Rich is sending me vitamins.I managed to eat breakfast and lunch although it felt like yuck. Mushroom stroganoff tasted like the texture of slugs. Emily made me eat a banana for her project because the joke is that I ‘wouldn’t be able to taste it anyway’ I still hated the texture. I couldn’t even swallow so I spat. Spoke to Pernille, feel better about things now. I will just take everything one step at a time and stop comparing my workload to last years. Done printmaking prep which was an effort and a half. Pushed myself to stay all day and do as much as possible
Did you know your an amazon warrior?
I decided to smear body paint where i felt it the most which was my eyes,head and throat,I also felt like I was drowning in my own mucus which wasn’t particulary a pleasent feeling.Mucus which never comes up.
During a talk from a lecturer (Delia) in my expansive module she mentioned how Amazon Warriors use a type of red seed which is also used to colour cheese in the West and cheesey crisps etc to smear there bodies with in order to protect them from measels!I was in shock as I knew nothing about this but instinctively I was drawn to do this!
I think when I return to uni (hopefully next week) I will ask fellow students who have had covid to go over their stories of it and to choose a colour that they feel best resembles their experience with covid aswell as interview them about their experience.
The covid monster.
I decided to play about with the idea of covid as a monster,the cheap halloween costume kind made from an old snotty bedsheet.But first I decided to create it in shadow form watching over me whilst I slept.
One..two..Covids coming for you.. I like the fact that this shadow figure was reminiscent of ghostly figures from the victorian era.
An abandoned church in a chzech village was filled with lots of statues made by a local artist ‘Jakub Hadrava’ His work was to try and save the abandoned church and was meant to resemble the ‘Sudetan German’s’ (ethnic minorityGerman’s) who were expelled from the country atfter WW2 to Austria and Germany.
On the right the figue of ‘Nadja’ from ‘Art and the Occult’ prehaps ‘The Covid Monster’ is like a spirit figure only ever seen by thoose who are hallucinating due to fever.
Through out dark times in history,people have created art.What I like the most about American Gothic is the fact it was painted during the ‘great depression’ and yet the couple seemed to be in some kind of depression themselves,the painting is such a satire.I want my work to be this,dark humour,based around a dark era in the world’s history.
In this age of darkness,do we need a modern day demon to blame our troubles and woes on?Can we blame our woes on ‘the covid monster?’ as it seems that everything esp at the time of the full lockdown was blamed on Covid.Businesses being behind with workloads,people not replying to emails when they should etc etc.
Over the summer holidays I have been inspired by working in orkney and visting not only skara brae but excavation sites,cairns,ancient graveyards and other such oddities.What interested me more then anything was the objects from these sites that could not be explained.What were they?Nobody seemed to know but rough guesses were they were used for some kind of games.
An excavation site where three layers of settlements were found,medevil,victorian and modern day!An ‘uncertain mess’ of trawlers nets mixed with other pollution.Nortland Castle on Westray Islandan old combine harvester discovered in an old abandoned barnhouseSkara Brae,one of the oldest Neolithic sites in the world.A discovery of strange findings outside some kind of strange house on Hoy island called ‘Charlumpa’an instalation I made from the bones of a bird I found in Hoy.An unkown item burnt out.Remaining parts of a sunk submerine fron the museum in Hoy.Limpet growths from the once submerged submarine window
I also visited Crete for a week before i returned to uni and visited the palace of knossos.One of the oldest discovered palaces.What particualry intersted me was not only the paintings which would of been done super quick whilst the plaster was drying but the vast amount of findings which had been stored at the Herakilion museum such as clay objects with there arms risen up in a cult like worship,giant burial vases one which showed the skelton still inside it.A board game with the rules unknown.I realised that it wasn’t what was known that interested me but what wasn’t.Which is what give me such a morbid obsession with death because there is so much that is unknown in regards to after we die but the greeks has such a fascination with it that they made up a whole universe and characters that would look after you after death such as Thanatos who would come to carry you off when your time given by the fates had expired.Objects made to look like this god were also to be found in this museum.
A burial vase.Believed to be clay utensils for liquid with a double spout.But I love how eerie they lookOne of my favorite figures due to how ominous it was without it’s head.
Returning to uni I found it really hard to get into the swing of things so decided to help inspire myself and my morbid curiosity that i would take myself to Surgeons Hall (a place i have never visted even after 10 years of living in Edinburgh) it was extemely worth a vist with miles and miles of basicaly body parts in phthalimide that had either suffered certain fates or had a tumour/disase,tumor,bones and other such items of morbid curiosities.Unlike the Greek/neolithic findings there was much known about these findings.Photo’s weren’t allowed for the obvious reason of the items being body parts but sketches were. One item I found particualry interesting as random as it may seem was the rib sternum in particular the shape it inspired me and made me think of what a wonderful headpiece the shape of the sternum would make,I thought of this,the god Thanos and prehaps an alternate surreal universe where a cult of white clothed figures lived,the leader where the rib sternum as a had piece.
Rib sternum headpiece imagined.Sketch of Rib sternum without ribs attached.
After recently having watched ‘Keep sweet:Pray and obey’ I thought of how all the morman women were required to dress the same.Same hairstyle,clothing etc within a particular sect a polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism.The women were required to do a dance infront of the men in order to ‘keep them sweet’ and what if this particular cult of white clothed figures did the same.
Female Morman’s dressed in cerimonial white after the death of their leader Warren S Jeffs.
Female mormans of this particular off branch were expected to have their hair styled in one of four particular ways aswell as a certain dress code.
A world where nothing is quite understood we can only guess,a world of darkness,mystery,weirdness and alure.I felt that last semesters work was too dark and heavy and it made me miss the light surreal tones of the semester before.So I feel like moving forward I wanted to mix the best of both worlds altho I haven’t yet worked out if i want there to be a serious message behind this cult (prehaps about removal of female identity?) or just completely nonsensical but this will be something that i imagine will come to light as I work further through the project.
My first stop tho is to make the rib sternum into a headpiece.My first consideration is whether or not I should first make a maquette from card or not and how much of the rib sternum I want to make,do i want the ribs included or just the sternum?Should i make a maquette of both and which would have most impact?
After painting out one of the creatures in black ink I felt that it would transfer really well into waterless lithography which is a technique i tried out last year due to the bold and gestural paintmarks.
The white voile sheet i hope to cover myself in is inspired by Loie Fuller.I hope to experiment with movement and light when I am within the voile.
sewed together piece of the rib sternum of prepared scrunch brown packaging paper with black ink,An imagining of the cult together dancing.
Tomorow i have a visit to the Hawkhill museum college and hope to take sketches of further odditities particualry from the pathology department to add to my research collection.
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