Nailing down visions

My artistic statement to the project: "Nailing down visions"

Marlene Dahl – What I saw in the dark.

After watching the BBC documentary “The day pictures were born” an interest for the optical aspects was initiated. Researching on the subject Closed eye hallucinations and visualizations (CEV) developed into conducting a study of my own visual experience of what occurred to my vision in total darkness. What shapes and patterns would become prominent without actually seeing them? The study entailed exposing the eye to different light sources and also manipulating the light by placing objects in front of it. And it was then attempted to capture these images and experiences by using different mediums such as crayon, paint and marker. It was discovered that the effect of burn-in images, the images left on the eyes retina after looking into a bright light, was the most interesting.  The finished piece is a result of this study; with colour and shape it is attempted to replicate one of these images that were discovered. It is an effort in trying to define something seen in the dark and then to bring it back into the light again, where it was once born.

artist research and tulca visit.

before visiting Tulca we were all assigned an artist to research. my artist was Emma Finn.
She lives and works in Edinburgh, but is originally from Galway. She recently graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a (BA hons) in Intermedia. Before that she did Psychological studies and Classical civilisation at NUIG and also a portfolio course at GTI.

her body of work mainly consist of video pieces, were the character seems to be almost in between animation and documentary. and the "people" in her films act and look funny, but usually seems to be talking about and solving something more serious. the idea of social experiments comes to mind after watching her pieces and its done with a good bit of quirkiness and comedy.

here is the link to the work that was in the tulca festival:
http://emmafinn.co.uk/works/moreorless


after the tulca visit, i sat down and went through my notes. I stuck in the information sheets i'd gathered and also started making a mindmap of my overall experience.

i also Nuala Ni Fhlathuins  work very interesting. they way she used and combined materials to create really delicate pieces. there was something about the fragile sense of the sculptures that i found intriguing. and also the idea of paying attention to detail, observing no matter how small the thing is.

at times i found it challenging to tie it all together under the theme "Golden Mountain" and after a while I decided not to worry so much about it, and to just enjoy it for what it was. A good few pieces of work was hard to access and understand for me and at the end i couldn't take in more information. All in all it was an interesting experience, but i think for next time i will pace the gallery visits out over the space of a few days so i have enough energy to engage properly with the works.

developing concept and Tulca introduction.

this week in L2L we were put in groups of four to discuss our concepts for the project around the "How art made the world project". before the class I had a few ideas that I was considering but after talking about and trying to explain it to other people made me realize which one I wanted to focus on. but, I have to do a little bit more research to try and narrow down my concept.

we also had a talk from a representive from the TULCA festival which runs from the 8 - 24 of November. she was explaining how the festival is set up, how the curator is and what is the theme for this years festival. we are going to visit TULCA on monday the 11th of November and its something I really look forward to. we were also introduced to a brief were we are asked to create a response from our experience after the tour. it can either be from 1 piece of work, the whole festival experience, or to summit a video to the TULCA competition.

Here's a link to the festival page:
Tulca festival