Ketamine

As the deadline for my 'What is line?' brief sharply approaches, one aspect of the exploration that is proving to be of some interest relates to the body of found materials collected from the journeys that I have been making on a daily basis. To be more specific, it is quite surprising to discover just how many personal details are carelessly thrown away for wonderful people like myself to find.. not to forget that this includes names, addresses, telephone numbers, mobile telephone numbers and most alarmingly; credit card details. You would have thought that the kinds of stories you hear on the news would have had some impact upon people... oh well?

As a result, a possible idea that I had in mind for a final resolution centered around the notion of contacting all of the numbers that I have acquired so far and to obtain their views on the question set by the brief; subsequently converting the results into what would most likely be a typographic piece.

I'll be honest with you now, the idea did not work in the slightest...



As you can see I opted to send a text message in order to outline who I was, what my reasons for communicating them were and to ask for their response. It would also more importantly keep the information received by each number consistent and allow me to not have to speak anyone that might end up giving me an earful of abuse. I can't really imagine the kind of replies I would have gotten should I have rang each person up directly...

Either way only one person replied for which their response was "Line of ket!" It was someone occupying a room at my halls; Liberty Park. Most probably a met student using vital oxygen that I may need at some point in the future? Never mind, it was worth a shot!

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Re: Bill Fontana

I think I may have just stumbled across some absolute pieces of gold. These videos encapsulate everything I want to explore within my own video and audio editing journey; even to the point of the location setting... train stations.

I really like the ways in which they have been edited as despite not being of a linear fashion, they appear to be very effective in portraying a pleasant representation of the environment that the sounds were recorded in.

I do find the imagery boring however, but nevermind...

Time to get experimenting!

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Sentence Drawing Responses

Completed these drawings in response to the design I found in Dataflow earlier in the week. Pretty fun, but also the most time consuming thing I have ever done in my life. I adhered to the rules set similarly to the original. Each word was allocated 8mm and the line turned right ninety degrees each time I had to map a new sentence. The bodies of text used were the conversations taken from my sketchbook as shown previously.





My only regret is that I could have gotten more done!

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VJ (continued)

In addition to the video by Coldcut posted earlier last month, I have also managed to stumble upon a few more VJ'ing beauties whilst watching the VJ book's accompanying disc that has a whole host of contributions from artists such as D-fuse, Scanner, The Light Surgeons and also Coldcut themselves - (credit again to Ollie for lending me it).

Despite that out of the 3 relevant videos on the disc not being hosted ANYWHERE on the internet, I have in fact managed to pursue my search and unearth this alternate video by HFR-LAB:



Although it doesn't make use of sounds from the environment as much as I would like to myself, I feel the creative use of video depicts the sense of a journey alone and is a technique I'd like to explore further considering my video editing skills are relatively poor at this moment in time.

Had I have been able to find 'Memories [edit]' by D-fuse, Scanner and Shelley Fox as well as 'Reel 9 [edit]' by The Light Surgeons then it would have easier to display how audio and conversation have been merged and incorporated into the mixes to create an engaging piece both by sound and image...something I aim to achieve given the audio acquired from travels to and from home

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Note: The original HFR-LAB video I intended to show can now be found here.

Sentence Drawing

Just flicking through Dataflow today and came across this gem of a design, highly relevant in relation to my conversation and discussion documentation quest.


The basic idea with this was to map out the entire contents of a book though proportionally allowing a certain measurement for every word within a sentence. The whole sentence could then be mapped with its given measurement on the paper. After each sentence was complete, the line turned right 90 degrees and the next sentence was penned etc etc. Each colour represents a category that the sentence relates to and wah lah... The result is what you see here.

Best get experimenting to be honest.

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Si Scott // Paper Scissor Stone

To put this in it's most simplest of terms; my day today was brilliant. The sun was shining, everyone was in an awesome mood and the general vibe around the studio was nothing short of optimistic. Good times.

To top it off though, I decided to take a trip down to Si Scott's new shop in the evening - Paper Scissor Stone. It's a pretty damn sweet outlet and the clothes stocked there are rather nice; even if they don't really lend themselves to a student's typical budget. But alas, the main purpose of the outing wasn't to buy clothes... it was to attend the opening/launch party that included free drinks, Si's artwork auctioning and a one off viewing of some original ink sketches prior to their development into final resolutions. I have to say it was nice to see the honesty of the work before their alterations; especially as most of it was presented on ripped out, dog-eared layout paper or scraps of cartridge paper taken from sketchbooks. It made life feel a little more achievable and gave me a new sense of motivation and inspiration.

Anyway, I tell a lie. The real icing on the cake was this...



A personal piece of illustration completed in a live drawing demonstration by the man himself. Now there's something that you don't see everyday. Stoked. In fact, that's probably the biggest understatement of the year; and what's more it's going to be completed in a couple of weeks when he comes into college for a seminar.

Out.

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Re: Dan Eatock

Since stumbling across this guy a few weeks back, I have found his work to be quite inspirational and exciting due to it's quirky and often quite amusing nature. It's probably fair to say that I should have posted a little bit about him a lot earlier than I have; but after all, I am a student and the guidebook says I can always use that excuse within any given situation.

One of the most relevant pieces of work in terms of 'What is a line?' in my opinion is Black > Blank, where as outlined on his website:

'A laser printer containing a new toner cartridge constantly printed a black A4 document, sent from the computer, until the toner ran empty and a pure white sheet emerged un-printed. As the pages exited the printer they were stacked face up. The completed stack contains the entire contents of the toner cartridge, the bottom page is black, the top page is white, between is the transition, demise, depletion, expiration of black to blank, full to empty.


Weird, but it works I guess?

Another piece that links into my personal focus quite well is the radio advert completed for popular T.V show Big Brother...

Listen here.

I've drafted up an idea to mimic this as an experiment using the phrase 'What is a line?' The result should be a series of twenty four ways to say the same thing. I'll keep you posted when I get it complete.

Lastly, I also quite enjoyed the idea behind his piece '£1 Recording'

£1 Recording

1. Using a ten pence piece dial your answer machine from a public telephone
2. Let the answer machine record the sounds from the public telephone for the duration of the ten pence piece
3. Repeat (step one and two) ten times from ten different locations

The total duration of the piece will depend on the locations and time of each call

Total time = £1

All really inventive ways to document sounds through a connected series of events in my opinion. Could really work in relation to journeys on public transport and the conversation observations that have been developing throughout my sketchbook work...

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Sketchbook Update

I thought it'd be relevant to post a few of my favourite images in relation to the sketchbook work that I have been keeping over the duration of this brief. A large amount of my initial responses were mostly collage based as you might have guessed and the main aim was to just develop a broad sense of initial ideas and to see where it might take me.


As an ever developing and progressing body of work however, many of my most recent contributions have begun to construct a way in which I am able to document discussion and conversation between multiple groups of people in any given area. Obviously given the fact that I am not the quickest writer in the world and definitely not educated in shorthand, the sentences that I have managed to record have often produce a very disjointed and sometimes quite funny body of text.





As a result of this, I'd be very interested in perhaps continuing with this direction of recording method and to see what sorts of dialogue can be noted down in longer or even shorter durations of time. They could make for some very engaging final resolutions that's for sure...

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Wakefield Westgate

Another audio/video mix here, this time completed using sounds captured from my train journeys home, that being Leeds to Norwich. I chose to focus the response more towards the style of 'Timber' by Coldcut and the Sacla pesto television advert. Obviously this is not a patch on the standards that they have produced, but in the most achievable sense I have tried to convey a stronger feeling of rhythm and tempo. All linear editing and primarily speech orientated. You'll see why I have titled it 'Wakefield Westgate' when you watch.



.ta x