the NATIONAL!!!!

I had an extremely overdue gig to attend with Mimi last night. We purchased our tickets ages ago and with the dissertation madness, my memory became an abyss and managed to swallow the gig date. The National was incredible. We assumed our 'spot' (stage right), although there was a giant barrier keeping us several feet from the stage. I was delighted that Matt Berninger (whom from video footage I gathered he enjoyed) immersed himself in the crowd mid-song. He definitely fell victim to many grabby bum-bandits, as he announced "if anyone finds a pale butt cheek somewhere can they please take it to the lost and found."

Matt connected with the entire expanse of the front audience. Unfortunately, instead of reaching up to give him a high-five while he towered above me, I fumbled with my camera, desperately trying to get a shot of his proximity. I got the back of his head as he walked away. Fail.

It was spectacular! Lots of bopping and singing ensued.
Here are some crap-quality moments captured.



The unplugged version of Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks was a fun interactive experience.



It was during the video below (Terrible Love) where I stopped recording to try and photograph our Berninger encounter.



Mimi and I came up with a parody line for "Conversation 16" which we could put on our parody album along with My Morning Jacket's "Sec Walkin'/Noodletown."
We changed the chorus from "I was afraid, I'd eat your brains.... cause IIIIII'm evil" to "I was afraid, I'd eat your grains.... cause IIIIII'm a veeeegan."

We are discussing starting a collaborative music blog and maybe even a club to accompany it. Seeing as how we are complete music-geeks!

Inside the album

The final images used in the photo album. Starting with an overall look at the tree in a small urban 'natural' space.

The base/roots which consists of my initial notes and sketches

Climbing up the base of the tree, my notes/ideas/sketches progress into formative writing

Leading to the lower branch, where the leaves are the first draft of the essay

A closer look at the edits on the first draft

Top half of the tree, where the essay takes shape

Inner leaves are the remnants of the edited version of the reading copy, which makes up the outer leavesDetail of the reading copy as submitted

Box of Goods

The major context project is complete! Time to rejoice! Pour me a strong wobbly-pop. Anyhow, here is what I'm submitting.

Exterior of box

Modes of Design - explanation of project

Album of essay tree photographs

The essay

Inside the photo album

It is certainly a huge relief to polish this off, although it feels as if this project is never going to truly be over. In the meantime, Billie Holiday is soothing my soul.

Tree = Finito

Last night the tree making ended. Thank goodness. It took ages to thread those leaves and string them up individually. What would I do without my housemates, bless their sweet souls. Aaron and Mimi aided me in taking apart the cheap broken ikea furniture that our landlord supplied us (please don't tell!) with minimal tools. Then we assembled a stand using the wood pieces, some repurposed nails and Antonia's glue gun. It didn't work. I had to lean it against something to take these photos.



This morning Aaron helped me cart the tree out on location for a photoshoot. We certainly got some strange looks, and garnered a one-man audience. He threw whatever he was eating on the ground with a knowing smile and watched as the pigeons invaded our photoshoot. Thanks feller!




Negatives have been developed, now I have to wait until Monday to scan + print. I can't figure out if I need to show the entire process in the photos I'm handing in? Or just the outcome in detail? Anyone?

Essay Tree - Part deux

The tree construction is going a lot more fluidly now. Even though it looks slightly demented, I am growing quite partial to it - my housemates too. I think we're even going to use it as our Christmas tree after this project is over. It's reminiscent of that story about a sad fir tree no one wanted to buy because it was so ugly and bare. Of course the story ends with a child (ja?) who comes and gives the tree a happy life. I do buy all the bad/damaged objects out of sympathy. Character is good!

Mache finito!

The beginning of the note adherence. During the process I realized that I certainly have enough notes to cover the entire tree!

Pretty much finished the note adherence! Today I build a stand and finish the essay 'bark.'

To read a bit about the various means which paper production effects our environment (the issue is not simply deforestation!), check out this information from the Clean Water Action Council in Wisconsin.

Mache madness

Mache progress is getting there, it's a bit of a pain having to let it dry over night, then adding more and more layers then waiting for it to dry again. I added a bit of hardening spray + PVA to the mache paste so I hope that solidifies the base enough. I plan to finish it tmw, then complete the essay adherence on Friday, photograph and develop negatives Saturday, finalize essay and print Sunday, then Monday scan the negs + print!






If only I was as talented as Mrs Gibbard. One can dream..

Imagine a world made of sugar..

One of my previous experiments was covering wood with sugar as a part of another deforestation project idea. Organic sugar mills are responsible for clearing forests in Paraguay. This experiment was abandoned as it was pretty crumbly.

Tree time

One of my ideas for the dissertation visual is to demonstrate where our printed essays are coming from - lovely trees. Deforestation is the leading cause of greenhouse gases and there are plenty of sustainable alternatives to wood pulp paper. I am building a tree out of wire mesh and paper mache. The plan is to make my essay into the leaves. Now I'm not really sure how to achieve this without it looking terrible, but the uber helpful guy at B&Q gave me a demo how he would go about it.

My mesh tree, that cannot stand on it's own.

Roots.

Mache with flour and water paste.

In other news, my edible ink has arrived all the way from sunny California.

Curiosity can bite you in the ass. I opened the bottle to see what it was like. I tried a little and managed to get it all over me.
These Canadian francophones are providing me with some inspiration:

BTW

Can someone help me get rid of this awful blue hyperlink border around my header????

THE 100th MONKEY

I'm sort of at a terrible panicking point with my dissertation, realizing my visual piece may not be feasible after numerous failed experiments.

I decided to distract myself with a relevant documentary called Collapse.
It is a frank and rather cynical interview with ex-cop/investigative journalist who is a very interesting and intense character. He discusses our deeply rooted dependence on oil (and the dwindling supply), money being the root of all evil, also being the key factor in human extinction, religion, methods of sustainability and so on and so on. The third segment is the best, particularly this bit:
"I.. I need to cut, I need to cut, I need to cut.. I’m just having a real powerful wave of emotion right now, because I .. a whole newrealization is opening to me about what I’m actually saying and this is some serious fucking shit so I gotta get my head around it for a second...... fuck. Ehem. K I’m ready."

I think it absolutely deserves your attention.

Photo composite overlay

I got my negatives developed, scanned them and completed the photo composite overlays today. These are the images I used collectively in the first trial which used various elements of nature.

And this was the result of the overlain images.

The second composite was a collection of one aspect- branches of trees.

And here is the end result.