Leaning on Nothing

Sometimes it’s interesting to take photos of the physical world that we cannot see.

My scarf is my collaborator: together we try to defy gravity.

The red earth, scorched yet still wet, is a piece of land in Changsha Normal University, cleared for a playing field. I spent one month there in April teaching Japanese woodblock  printmaking and giving talks in various venues.

I like the small shadows from the overhead sun after days of torrential rain and misty gloom. Photos freeze time.

Meanwhile in the UK, just the act of leaning in the forest is like that thought experiment: If a tree falls in the forest and no-one hears it, did it make a sound?

If I lean on the air, and no one sees it, did it happen?

Ahhhh, but of course! I am seen! Here is the proof online!

 

Poetry and Print Show in Hawaii

These photos were made for a show called Poetry Scores Hawaii-Look Like What It Means that opens on February 15th in Hilo.The show is based around a collection of 25 poems by beat generation poet, Albert Saijo(1926-2011) who was a California-born Japanese-American writer. His style was distinctive, writing in capital letters, combining a fluid stream of haiku-like phrases with a playful honesty. I was invited by juror Phil Sanders to pick a poem to respond to.

The poem I chose was called PAB

PAB I INHABIT AN ANGEL BODY – THIS PRESENT I INHABITS A PRIOR I – HERE IS THE EARTH BODY AND HERE THE PRIMORDIAL ANGEL BODY (PAB) EXPRESSING ITSELF EARTHSTYLE THROUGH EARTH BODY – PAB IS EVER UPRIGHT EQUABLE SANE STILL EMPTY – THE ONLY NAVIGATOR – INVISIBLE – IDLE – IMMOBILE EVEN IN MOTION – THE CEPHALIZED COCOON THAT FITS WITHIN OUR SKIN EXACTLY – THIS UNMOVING CENTER BINDU DOT WALKING OVER 800 YEAR OLD LAVA – ROAD IS RAW LAVA WITH CLIMAX VEGETATION GRADED OFF – WALKING BODY BECOMES HOUSE OF ANGEL BODY – FOREST TAKES HUSHED HABIT IN LIGHT RAINThe show runs from 15 Feb to 15 Apr and there will be an opening reception on 10-11 Mar at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, 200 West Kawili Street, Hilo, HI  96720-4091. For more information please see http://poetryscores.blogspot.com/

I wish I could see the show: any sponsors out there please get in touch!

 

Summer Scarf

New scarf, new mysterious setting…

Thinking of making another stop frame animation from the series…

 

Catch me

My first edited video that isn’t a stop frame animation! It’s about the current themes of weightlessness and flight; dreams and reality; levity and gravity; fabric and flesh. The slow motion part of cloth and body rising and falling is fascinating for me. I can’t believe how surreal reality appears to be. That’s one of the big paradoxes of photography; how can we believe what it shows when the human eye perceives something completely different? Something to ponder for the weekend…

 

Catch

What is the catch? Is it catching? I’d like to practise on Trisha Brown’s Walking on the Wall…!

 

Five and Twenty Blackbirds

One green scarf, one bouncy bed, one point and shoot camera on self timer, one tripod, one leaping person, twenty five times over. Well, actually I think I’ve taken a few hundred of these now, as the light and shade changes so quickly in my south facing room. I’ve been trying to make an animation of the sequence, though the still frames are possibly more potent than the moving image.

Link to a test piece below:

Anyhow, both make me laugh…which is why I make art, maybe?!?

 

New Scarf for Spring

I feel like a complete traitor, but my red scarf that I photographed thousands of times, and which is the scarf in my animation, Suspiration left my possession last week Friday… I must have dropped it somewhere in Battersea. So, after a week of fruitless searching and mournful loss, I thought, ‘Well, not to worry: I can buy the exact same scarf on Whitechapel Market for £3’. So I went shopping, stood in front of the beautiful scarves, saw the same scarf as before and it didn’t feel right. It felt like I would be buying a fake of the scarf which has been to Venice, Padova and Japan with me.

So I turned away and looked for something new. This scarf was next to the one-poun-one-poun-anybox-anybowl-anybag-one-poun stall. It also cost a pound. It is a lovely fluorescent yellow on a aqua background, and makes me laugh with its curious blend of design, day glow weirdness and functionality. Reminds me of a jellyfish out of water…

 

Of course, like before, I want to make both of us fly! Testing the ‘spring is sprung’ theory…

 

 

 

Suspiration

Stop frame animation using a sequence of photos has been my recent obsession. Coming to the realisation that I’m getting a bit creaky to be the one trying to fly, I have enlisted the scarf which came with me to Venice, and attempted to create a fantasy of an otherworldly presence.

This is a link to a higher resolution video- but I think it looks grainy unless you play it small.  http://youtu.be/YJlc-4mmJkI

There are no tricks, it’s  just me with a scarf and a camera on a tripod in Battersea Park. While I was making the sequence I got some curious customers including a man who wanted his portrait taken and commentary off a guy on a bike with a mask on who cycled past me and rang the bell. Several people offered to help!

Despite my comments on creaky joints, I ended up working off the morning chill with a jumping sequence anyway. I couldn’t resist it!

 

9th Berlin International Director’s Lounge

My stop-frame animation, Costanza , with music by Baron Mordant, has been selected for the 9th Berlin International Director’s Lounge, and will be screened on Monday 11th Feb at 8.30 pm. I wish I could go, as the programme looks full of exciting short films. Click on the following link to view the animation on youtube.

 

Photos and videos of Beyond the Moon

One day, when they’ve made a teletransporter that doesn’t scramble you into a million pieces when you get reassembled, I’ll be able to invite everyone to visit my show, even if they live a million miles away… In the meantime, here’s some photos and a video. The weird cracking noise on the video is my knee- too much jumping around on concrete I think! I absolutely love the sound of the piano which transformed the space into a performance venue and changed the viewing of the work into a piece of drama.

 

Click on this picture below to view a video we made of the show, with the piano playing on its own.

And here’s a picture of me looking pleased!