Aquarium

I went and took some test shots in the aquarium. I've been looking at reflections in the water and if you look to the surface it reflects the sea life. This is all the test shots i've compiled into a 10 minute long video of some angle and shots i have been thinking about.

One idea of what I would like to produce is a feeling of being submersed, under water or underground. Where it feels dense, heavy like feeling underwater where you can’t make much sense of things. I have been taking clips of the underground in London and sound clips, as I think it would be good to contribute it to my film. You can’t get signal underground or sea level, it’s kind of a out of touch feeling as you can’t communicate with anyone.

The noise of the tube as it screeches and thunders along is quite disorientating and could be a good asset to use in my work.

Also muffled and distant conversations overlapping the film to give a sort of distances between reality and other people and what they are talking and how it doesn’t make sense to you.

Tomorrow I plan to go to the Aquarium and film the large tanks underwater and show another world feeling, I want to look at patterns caused by water and waves and currents.

I have filmed the sun rise on the beach and it was visually amazing as the sea was a cool pink in reflection and the shore was frothy from the waves. 

Damien Hirst Retrospective. Tate Modern

I went to the Retrospective of Damien Hirst exhibition today at the Tate Modern after watching documentaries and reading about his work, I thought it be great to go see what it was all about.

There are a few pieces that I thought I totally understand what he was achieving to do here and good on him. A Thousand Years Later I think was my favourite installation, as it shows the process of life, how it’s born, lives and then dies. A dead cows head on the floor giving the thousand upon thousands of flys food, showing in a sense a circle of life how the dead body is food for another. The florescent electric fly killer being the fate of cause of death, as they fly towards it in an instant they die.

What you see is what has been happening for thousands and thousands of years, birth, reproduction and death, over and over again.

The floor was scattered with dead black dots frizzled up, it was like a holocaust for the insect world. Even being just flies, on an impact of that large of a scale it does make you think how visible death is, and how something could be moving then become an inanimate mass on the floor.

For most of his earliest work you can see how he develops quickly from painting to rather using found objects. Some people where saying behind me as I queue up to walk between the sliced cows in formaldehyde how he has his work mass produced and other people actually create them and it were something like in ikea. I thought about what they were saying but agreed to an certain extent, with most of his work you could just turn your nose up and say ‘well that’s just a fish in a case, I could of done that’. But I think it should be emphasized the point, well you didn’t’ come up with the concept, if it was so easy why haven’t you make shit loads of money off it?

With all the objects especially the pharmaceuticals cabinets it has been produced in a very visually pleasing manner, as all the coloured pills are strategically placed in order, just like how his spot paintings work. 

With the dead animals in formaldehyde I appreciate it for what it is, to me I believe it’s a representation of how live and death are so apparent. To see the body of a dead animal right in front of you but it’s missing that energy, that life. I think you can understand of what is being shown how life is fleeting, death can happen any point, it’s like a switch, your body can just become inanimate.

It’s also like how a corpse just becomes an object, which in Hirst’s work it has.

The butterfly work is impressive how they look like stained glasses windows and detail. You can see in his work the need of repetition and order, there is a process. I think without the body of work with butterflies that represent hope and lI went to the Retrospective of Damien Hirst exhibition today at the Tate Modern after watching documentaries and reading about his work, I thought it be great to go see what it was all about. 

There are a few pieces that I thought I totally understand what he was achieving to do here and good on him. A Thousand Years Later I think was my favourite installation, as it shows the process of life, how it’s born, lives and then dies. A dead cows head on the floor giving the thousand upon thousands of flys food, showing in a sense a circle of life how the dead body is food for another. The florescent electric fly killer being the fate of cause of death, as they fly towards it in an instant they die.

What you see is what has been happening for thousands and thousands of years, birth, reproduction and death, over and over again.

The floor was scattered with dead black dots frizzled up, it was like a holocaust for the insect world. Even being just flies, on an impact of that large of a scale it does make you think how visible death is, and how something could be moving then become an inanimate mass on the floor.

For most of his earliest work you can see how he develops quickly from painting to rather using found objects. Some people where saying behind me as I queue up to walk between the sliced cows in formaldehyde how he has his work mass produced and other people actually create them and it were something like in ikea. I thought about what they were saying but agreed to an certain extent, with most of his work you could just turn your nose up and say ‘well that’s just a fish in a case, I could of done that’. But I think it should be emphasized the point, well you didn’t’ come up with the concept, if it was so easy why haven’t you make shit loads of money off it?

With all the objects especially the pharmaceuticals cabinets it has been produced in a very visually pleasing manner, as all the coloured pills are strategically placed in order, just like how his spot paintings work. 

With the dead animals in formaldehyde I appreciate it for what it is, to me I believe it’s a representation of how live and death are so apparent. To see the body of a dead animal right in front of you but it’s missing that energy, that life. I think you can understand of what is being shown how life is fleeting, death can happen any point, it’s like a switch, your body can just become inanimate.

It’s also like how a corpse just becomes an object, which in Hirst’s work it has.

The butterfly work is impressive how they look like stained glasses windows and detail. You can see in his work the need of repetition and order, there is a process. I think without the body of work with butterflies that represent hope and love in life, his exhibition would be very out of balance. The room with alive butterflies was a nice touch too, as it felt like an comparision against the formaldehyde animals. As you could see them in the room hatching, flying and dying in a more peaceful way oppose to being electrocuted. But nobody would like to see butterflies being frazzled would they?

For the Love of God was very interesting. Cost 4.something million pounds now valued at 5.something million pounds, to most they might think this is profanity against the human body. But I think Hirst’s ideas of what to use for mediums to create work is intelligent, thinking of objects and ways of portraying work. After selling most of his work in Sotherbys for millions and millions of pounds, becoming in a matter of a day one of the most sought after artists for work. Why not create art from the money you have been givien of a ludricous scale and turn it into art.

It makes you think who are these people who have millions of pounds to fritter away on art, how can something be of that worth? In my opinion whoever spends so many thousands and millions on a piece of art is being mugged off by the artist. I can imagine there is a underlying thought of someone buying your work and the artist thinking, ‘Yeah you could say its worth that much if you want!’. As creating the piece was part of the process of the artist becoming, it’s what they would of made anyway, some of the pieces wouldn’t cost much at all to make.

But I understand where valuing comes when the artist has late deceased or rarity, if I was a successful artist in my twenties selling work for millions I would think people had too much money for the love of god (pun intended) why don’t you spend that money on something that is worth while and a good cause. But I wouldn’t complain too loudly, I would take the mugs money and put it to better use than they would.