Post 10: A Day at the ICA

On Wednesday, me and my assistant Glenna went on a trip to the ICA to visit Side On, an exhibition about the works of Prem Sahib, who is a sculptor and installation artist. It was his first solo exhibition in London.

Sahib's work looks and feels very rooted in contemporary culture i.e. the 21st Century e.g. consumerism, laptops, smoking, clubbing. Emotionally, Sahib's work explores themes of intimacy, sexuality, desire and relationships.

Sahib is very keen on "feel" and viewers are tempted to touch the popcorn, eggs and the resin beads dripping down the picture frames. Also, there is a human presence in his Breathing Neon Lights pulsating on and off, like heartbeats as well as the Puffer Jackets which come across as both embracing and threatening and thats kind of how I felt when I laid eyes on the display.

Another aspect about Sahib's work is how ordinary his work, it's not dramatic, it's not groundbreaking, it's not remarkable, it's stuff people can identify with such as, night clubs, toilets and changing rooms, as we visit them in our daily lives. 

Post 9: Holiday in Paris

For last weekend, me and my family went on a mini holiday to Paris, France. We also payed a visit to two Art Galleries: the Musee Picasso which had just been refurbished and there was new exhibition dedicated to Picasso. As well the Jeu De Paume.

At the Musee Picasso works such as Massacre en Coree which was first painted in 1951. Perhaps it was the original inspiration for the Cybermen in Doctor Who as well as the Storm Troopers in Star Wars.

At the Jeu De Paume, we visited a gallery featuring the photography work of Philippe Halsman, an American photographer who made a name for himself for his unorthodox photography of celebrities such as Muhammad Ali, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Clint Eastwood, Louis Armstrong, Bobby Fischer, Angelica Huston and Marilyn Monroe.

Post 8: Blade Runner

As part of our Sound Journey project, we were instructed to replace the existing sound on a scene from the film Blade Runner and replace it with our own sound effects  

Post 7: Guildhall Art Gallery

On Friday 9th October, I went to visit the No Colour Black exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery, which covered the History of Black British Art in Action from 1960 - 1990.

It was basically this one gallery about Black People migrating from Jamaica in the 1960's to England and how they were percived by the British and themselves. The results were unfortunately racist and sad.

The Gallery featured works by Sonia Boyce, Tam Joseph, Errol Lloyd and Paul Dash.

The Guildhall Art Gallery is located near the Bank of England. The location choice is ironic since the Guildhall Art Gallery is located in posh part of England and Black People were considered below White English people in those times - it's almost as though they are making fun the racism.       

Post 6: Sound Design

On Tuesday 22nd 2015, we began work on Sound Design.

Seb, our lecture, explained the topic to us by playing clips from the movies, Blade Runner and The Conversation to show us how sound works in films, which was very interesting.

To help us with learning about sound, Seb gave us some Sound Recordists and told us to go round the  building in groups and record various sounds. Me and my assistant Glenna recorded loads of interesting sounds such as Crisp Packets being scrunched up, jingling my keyring, water being poured from a drinks machine, tapping four times akin to The Master's signature tapping from Doctor Who, heavy and sinister footsteps akin to the T-1000. It was so fun and interesting.

One sound I didn't think was so good was when we went next door to a restaurant to record some water dripping from a stand and the it didn't come through quite as clearly as we hoped. When we played the tape back we heard all these scrunching and scraping noises which Glenna explained to me was because the sounds we recorded were too faint.     

Post 5: Simon's Sound Journey

Thursday, 24th September, 2015.

Lately I been continuing my progress in the world of Sound Design.

For todays lecture, I was tasked with recreating and expanding upon my Sound Journey using Adobe Audition. Learning how to use the system was really interesting and just like GarageBand, I got the hang of it really quickly.

I relished in the freedom to cut the sounds to my own accord.

The sounds I used in Audition were sounds I had recorded on Tuesday at Ravensbourne were, tapping four times akin to The Master's signature tapping from Doctor Who, heavy, sinister footsteps akin to the T-1000, water dripping, the jingling of the keys on my keyring when I shook it and flipping the pages of a book.          

Post 4: Garage Band

Whilst trying to put together a Sound Journey from Seb, I decide to use the Project GarageBand to put my sounds together. I initially wasn't sure if I was supposed to use the sounds I recorded at Ravensbourne or randomly selected sounds I recorded at home.

Eventually I decide to give it a stab by using the sounds I recorded at Ravensbourne, however I didn't know how to use GarageBand. So I looked up a little tutorial on YouTube which was so helpful in explaining how the application worked. I found that once I started to use it, I easily got the hang of it. And I edited my sounds with no help whatsoever.

Next time I work on a project akin to this, I will download Adobe Audition which is the program I'm using at Ravensbourne.