Worldwide Environmental Exchange II

RECEIVED VIDEOS
Norcross, GA, United States
Baradero, Argentina
Łeba, Poland
Bangkok, Thailand

FILMED VIDEOS
London, England
Jersey, Channel Islands
New South Wales, Australia
São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo, Brazil
New York City, New York

POSSIBLE VIDEOS
Denmark
Edinburgh, Scotland
India
Canada
Philippines

Worldwide Environmental Exchange I

On Thursday 11th November 2010 I decided to contact people from all over the world and ask them to record a one minute video of their environment.

My plan was to then exchange these videos through the wonder of the internet so that each participating cinematographer would receive a video of a contrasting environment.

More than being about people seeing the videos, it was about each environment 'viewing' another - a concept of transportation, transposition, connection, social networking and technology.

I hope to achieve: clarity of contrast by direct aesthetic and aural juxtaposition

Chinese Buddhist Temple UPDATE PART 2

A warm summer had left my Chinese Buddhist Temple piece sagging, as it was very delicately made of paper.

So I decided to interfere so as to not let it crumble away unnoticed and insignificantly.

Utilising the properties of the paper, rather than defying them as before, I littered the delicate structure with violent and spontaneous illustrations. Words such as West, East, Slaves, Destroy and Tower Block defaced the icon of traditional Eastern culture, as the Union Flag was splashed on its surface and decorative gold was scrawled randomly across its pristine details.

Then the burning began.

I managed to capture a poignant shot of the word 'Buddhism' slowly burning away, as I played a discordant manipulation of Chinese music.

This Is Not Fashion II

Inspiration has come; and so have my materials.

These include:

One umbrella
10m of wire mesh
100 mirrored tiles
15 mirrored stickers
2 cans of metallic spray paint (gold and silver)
Cardboard
5 litres of white paint
and
a large roll of thick paper

There is little that excites me more at this time than a big roll of (free!) paper.

This Is Not Fashion

What makes the the designs of Jum Nakao and Hussein Chalayan art

And the designs of 'Haus of Gaga', Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen fashion?

Are the latter merely pop-culture fashion extremists, or postmodern cultural icons of fine art?

When do the likes of Lady Gaga, Marilyn Manson and Leigh Bowery stop being pop stars and start being performance artists?

This is what I plan to explore in my next project: This Is Not Fashion, as well as exploring innovative and exciting materials in fashion and sculpture; not to mention a heavy emphasis on video, poetry and music. Not much then.

I want something new...

I want to try my hand at performance art, or rather, recorded performance art. It is interesting to consider whether this is possible, as performance art since the 1960's has strongly relied on the audience to create the art - most notably in the work of Yoko Ono. However I am interested in blending installation, video, performance, dance and text into one big THING - heavily inspired by DV8 Physical Theatre - a performance group who do sort of mix all these together.

For now, anyway, I'm trawling through Youtube Videos of performance art (most of which are in European languages), slowly munching away at a book named simply: 'Performance Art' and scrawling down any ideas that the likes of Patti Smith, Jum Nakao and Lady Gaga bring to me.

More black tea please.