Rotten Core

 

....A fruit link..

...and an animal link...

Myxomatosis Rabbit

Myxomatosis is a disease that rabbits get that kind of rots them from the inside out, a bit gruesome.

Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley is a British sculptor, best known for The Angel of the North. His work mostly focuses on the human figure, often using his own body as a cast to make lead and steel figures.

(http://www.picturesofgateshead.co.uk/angel_of_the_north/index.html)

Here are some of his sculpture works and installations that I think represent the 'divorce between body and soul' that we are going to aim to create in our own space.

I think the twisted wire inside the human form could represent the inner turmoil of a person, they can look perfectly clam on the outside but swirling round within them can be a mass of confusion, hatred or aggravation.

 STANDING MATTER, GALERIE THADDAEUS ROPAC, SALZBURG, AUSTRIA, 2003

STANDING MATTER, GALERIE THADDAEUS ROPAC, SALZBURG, AUSTRIA, 2003

 FOREIGN BODIES, XAVIER HUFKENS, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, 2002

FOREIGN BODIES, XAVIER HUFKENS, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, 2002

 CLEARING, WHITE CUBE, LONDON, ENGLAND, 2004

This installation within a room is also interesting, the twisted metal that fills the room could also represent a twisted, warped mind or soul of a person that the audience has to find their way through.

CLEARING, WHITE CUBE, LONDON, ENGLAND, 2004

NEW WORKS, SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, USA, 2005

CLEARING, GALERIE NORDENHAKE, BERLIN, GERMANY, 2004

SPACETIME, GALLERIA MIMMO SCOGNAMIGLIO, NAPLES, ITALY, 2007

 

 

 

This installation called Blind Light is an enclosed space filled with dry ice and white light, so much so that once you have entered the box it is impossible to even see a hands reach in front of you. The feeling of lost confusion that I imagine one would feel is inspiring for our space. Instead of creating a confusing feel we are aiming to make our audience feel a rotten almost disguisted feel, something that is a complete contrast to the exterior of our space.

BLIND LIGHT, SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK, USA, 2007

 

A contrast between a space and its contents. I think this piece is beautiful, not massively related but i really like it.

 FLARE II, SALISBURY CATHEDRAL, SALISBURY, ENGLAND, 2011 - 2012

 

 There is a current exhibition of Gormley's at The White Cube in Bermonsey which would be really interesting to go to and could be quite relavent:

 

 

 

Challenging the physical possibilities of the gallery space, this ambitious exhibition investigates our experience of architecture through the body, and of the body through architecture.
Made in direct response to the space of the South Gallery II is the vast, new work MODEL, which is also the title of the exhibition.  Fabricated from 100 tonnes of weathering sheet steel, the work is both sculpture and building, human in form but at no point visible as a total figure.  Visitors will be able to enter the work through a 'foot' and journey through its inter-connected internal chambers, the sculpture demanding that we adjust our pace and bend our bodies to its awkward yet absolute geometry. The experience of this analogy for the 'dark interior of the body' is guided by anticipation and memory and the direct and indirect light which penetrates the structure and which leads us on, as if through a labyrinth.
The exhibition also includesa room of models - trials mostly made in the year leading up to the exhibition but including some examples from as far back as ten years ago. The room presents a dialogue between dwelling in the body and dwelling in a building and explores the potential of sculture as a form of psychological, reflexive architecture.

There are frames, solid plaster casts and architectural models that map the darkness of the body. Some of the blockworks shown in the corridor have counterparts in the model room, where their solid masses become hollow and form complex interiors. Three models for the interconnecting chambers of the large work MODEL are shown. Throughout the objects and drawings here there is a dialogue between extension and expansion, where the scale of the body is taken as a variable.

The room is a laboratory of possibility, showing the ways in which ideas cross-fertilisze and produce ever more vigorous hybrids. It gives an insight into the workings of the studio as an open-ended exploratory playground in which space and object become interchangeable. 

 

 

I'm going to try and get to it before we start back at uni.

 

 

 

  

Beauty is Only Skin Deep

 

http://timmethegreat.deviantart.com/art/Beauty-is-only-skin-deep-91343398
 

I think this images shows a similar idea to the one we are striving to put across in our own project... 

This also reminds me of this Picasso painting:

 
Weeping Woman ( www.tate.org.uk )  


Also of Nell Allen 'All 4 Him'

https://www.facebook.com/NellAllenArtist 

Finalising our Proposal

Today we finalised our proposal and set out straight what it is that we are actually going to.

This is what we came up with:

We propose to create a space that represents the idea of how someone appearance is not necessarily their identity. The divorce between body and soul, and to what extent these two inter-link.

This space will have a contrasting inside and outside, which will be divided by flats. Both spaces will be set up to represent the outer body image and the inside identity of a person.

This is a bit of a change from our original starting point, but I suppose ideas develop and change with discussion.We moved away from the idea of creating a disorientating space because whatever tenious link we got to that idea by, we had forgotten.

This new idea has a much clearer link to the theme 'Body and Identity'. We are going to try and represent how a person can look beautiful, happy or pure from the outside, yet on the inside be rotten to the core.

 

(http://fairfieldmirror.com/2012/09/19/fairfield-u-an-apple-with-a-rotten-core/ )

We intend to use flats to create a space within a space, the outside will be the epitome of beauty, and the inside will represent the rotten core of our 'person'. Here's a sneaky sketch of the initial thoughts of how it'll be, baring in mind this is before any research.

 

Good days work of thinking and making things clearer, now just need to begin on a bit of research...

Disorientating places?

dis·o·ri·en·ta·tion (ds-ôr-n-tshn)
n.
1. Loss of one's sense of direction, position, or relationship with one's surroundings.
2. A temporary or permanent state of confusion regarding place, time, or personal identity.

 Took a trip to CyberDog in Camden today. CyberDog, like Hollister has a similar kind of 'club' atmosphere to it, but in a more rave way.

Here are some sneaky pics of inside:

 (pics taken 4/12/12)

Electronic music pumping, UV lighting making the florescent clothing glow and all the shop assistants dressed as if they were about to head out of a bit of happy hardcore raving.  

I don't know whether I would class CyberDog as disorientating, more as intense, I felt like I should be donning some neon and going out, not just casually browsing.  




This got me thinking about other places I've found disorientating. I have one strong memory of as a child getting lost in a mirror maze on a school trip. It was Wookey Hole Mirror Maze.

 http://www.tripadvisor.in/ShowUserReviews-g635922-d213489-r124745619-Wookey_Hole_Magical_Mirror_Maze-Wookey_Hole_Wells_Somerset_England.html 
(5/12/12)


I remember being so completely lost, confused, alone and scared. Running into myself over and over and finding no one I knew, or any means of escape. Just faced with my own reflection. 
Completely disorientating.

Eugenics and Hollister

I don't know whether this is a bit of a tenuous link or not, but im going to put it out there.

Eugenics is the belief of improving the human race through 'selective breeding' ie. encouraging the reproduction between humans with desirable traits (positive eugenics), and discouraging reproduction of partners with genetic defects (negative eugenics).

Sort of creating the 'perfect race', like the Nazi regime with their aryan 'master' race.

 Can you see the similarities?! Hollister models and Nazi propaganda poster!

Linking only in the way Hollister project a perfected image onto the customer, all the models dressed and looking the same, that preppy sporty style. If you buy their clothes you will also somehow turn into this highly attractive perfectly preppy, sporty type.

I  took the trip to Hollister today. I walk in and its pretty busy, music is playing loudly and there is that distinctive perfumed 'Hollister smell'. Big leafy plants scattered around, on the floor and the also on the big wooden tables on which clothes are neatly folded. An attractive male assistant seems to be on clothe folding duty at one of these tables. 

The low lighting makes navigating through the people, tables and plants tricky. I also feel quite on edge, I don't know whether its the fact I'm trying to take sneaky pictures or trying not to look like an idiot infront of all these hot guys. Whatever it is I feel out of place, I make a quick exit. I'm glad that's over.


We want to create a similar feel, make the audience feel on edge, maybe not through models, more the loud noise, low lighting thing!