I came across this video today and thought it would be a good way of making horrible, old looking rusty liquid that could be put in jars etc to dress the installation. I suggest listening to it with the volume down, for some reason the music in the background is Riverdance!?!
Battery Rust Liquid
Wimbledon Car Boot
Went to Wimbledon Car Boot in search for materials. We found quite a lot of great stuff!
Fishing Reels
These could be used as pulley systems in the machines, with motors attached to them to enable movement. This would fit with the intended DIY aesthetic.
Books
Bag of Tools
These are going to be useful in both the building of the piece and in the appearance of a workshop in the finalised installation.
Valve Radio/Amplifier
Perhaps the most interesting find was this radio/amp. We got it on the cheap and thought it would be worth a shot, half way round the boot fair we were approached by an eccentric old chap who really seemed to know his stuff. He said it looked in great condition, despite the battered exterior and it should work well...in his words 'attach a pair of big cabinet speakers and you'l hear it in your bollocks rather than your teeth!'. Sounds great!
Microphones and Condoms
Our experiment consisted of a metal bin filled with water, a 50p HMV microphone bought at a car boot sale, a Fostex tape recorder and a condom. Messy work as you can imagine,
We started by washing out the condom, drying it and putting the microphone inside it. We then tied it at the top so that it was water-tight and dunked it in the bin of water. Banging on the side of the bin, we compared the sound it produced with the microphone both in and out of the water. When it was out it sounded weak and tinny, but once submerged in the water it had a deep, powerful sound with a strong emphasis on bass. A sound clip of this can be heard below:
Original Video - More videos at TinyPic
The three of us are extremely happy with the results and we intend to further investigate how we can manipulate the sound with effects pedals etc.
Thames wander
After looking at some great pictures of the grimmer end of the river on the Derelict London website we decided to go out to the area and look for old rusted metal and other potential materials.
Although we didn't find much, it was still interesting to go to this area that I would have otherwise never have visited. We were a little underprepared however, with no gloves and little to carry back materials in than Faysal's suitcase. A lot of time was also spent walking through housing estates as the river bank was not as large as we had hoped and the tide was in. Near the dome (or as it is now known, the 02) however, we encountered two small workshops. One of them had two old guys working on some metal, they offered us whatever we wanted out of a pile of metal piping/scaffolding which will be useful, but we could not carry much back. They had some great looking rusty barrels but there was no chance we would have been able to transport them.
Next door to the workshop was 'Dad The Mirror Man' an old eccentric south londoner who made mirrors with his daughter. He showed us his welding skills and really tried to help us out with collecting materials but didn't really had much to offer. The project seems to be drawing us towards these eccentric old guys which is helpful and potentially gives us ideas for character development.
Another really interesting find was a sculpture which was seemingly built spontaneously with no obvious artist name or commissioning company in sight. It was made up of rubbish that probably had been found swept up by the river. It was unusual and had that 'stumble upon' quality that our installation will hopefully achieve.
***IMAGE***
It was mostly a pretty horrible affair, with the cold weather, general uncleanliness of the river and heavy lifting. Next time I'm wearing a jump suit, wellies and taking big strong bags.
Lewisham
Spoke to Elizabeth Mitchell from Lewisham council, she informed me that inviting artists to make use of spaces in the borough is something they are currently looking into however it is a long process. She said that the best thing would be to do some legwork and check out the area, if anything comes up of interest she can locate the landlord or determine whether it is owned by the council itself.
We intend to go on a walk in the area soon to see if there is any potential spaces.
Wandsworth Chapels
Spoke to Justine Kenyon from Wandsworth council about 3 disused chapels she felt could be of use to us. At this stage she explained that it is still a very new concept to the council and will be the first time they have done anything of this nature and in coordination with the landlords of the chapels.
It sounds very promising and we have one chapel in mind which is based in Putney Vale, it has no electricity but is apparently very derelict, run down and has a lot of character. We could easily use a generator for electricity, but this may be expensive. Depending on whether the council will be covering rent, it may work out ok though.
We have a viewing on 9th march of the chapels and will be preparing for this over the coming weeks.
Further Emails: Tower Hamlets
Hi Andy,
Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. It's tricky to guarantee use of any empty spaces in the borough as the management of such spaces isn't really within our remit.Additionally, Tower Hamlets was not one of the boroughs that received funding from central government to support empty shops schemes which makes moving forward with the whole 'empty spaces' agenda a little more difficult. However, you could try contacting Toks Osibogun, the head of Corporate Property Services. If you identify an empty building that you are interested in, Corporate Property Services may be able to help order to ascertain whether it is owned by the council with a view to obtaining permission either from the private owner, or from the facilities management team (possibly). There may however, be health and safety implications which make this impossible without taking up a proper lease (should this be a viable option).
There is one potential space, the old Peugot showroom on Mile End Road, which may be available, depending on when you wanted it, for how long, and what your budget is. Other suggestions include contacting the Live Art Development Agency for their advice, contacting Toynbee Hall, contacting the Head of Performing Arts at Queen Mary University (via the switchboard), and looking at the venues section on our own website (see below).
We are logging details of all proposals/empty space enquiries as this is an agenda we are interesting in pursuing and supporting. If you do manage to secure a venue, please keep us informed as we would be delighted to help profile any arts-based activities and exhibitions in the listing pages of our website, www.towerhamletsarts.org.uk.
Regards
***Note***
The Peugot showroom will probably be a little too modern but we intend to check it out
WON!
Won this interesting viewer/tele-cine screen.
The way it works is you project into the side of it and it displays the image on screen, a wonderful bridge between the VHS and super8mm we are using. Depending on the quality it could also double as a crude way to create homemade optical prints, meaning we can edit footage and loop an optical print of the results rather than looping a multi-spliced length of film. Chances are though, it will probably not be good enough.
I have found instructions to build an optical printer if it becomes apparent that we will need to do this however, http://www.city-net.com/~fodder/s8mm/optprint.html
This screen will feature in the installation itself as a way of containing super8mm by avoiding large projections and the need for screens to project onto. We realise the space will probably be limited so it is important to keep the piece concise and contained in this way.
Another item won is a super 8mm editor, a Prinz Oxford 800. This could be easily motorised to either rotate a loop, or as we are planning, move a reel of film forwards and backwards in a loop. Again, the screen will work to our advantage within the installation space.
Riflemaker
Riflemaker are currently in the process of installing an exhibition and had a few pieces by their artists in residence on display on the ground floor.
Of particular interest was the motorised flip book by Juan Fontanive. The piece displayed a bird in flight over a series of individually hand painted small-scale images. These were attached to a rotating motor that worked as a flick book, creating the illusion of movement.
Wellcome Collection
Visiting the Wellcome collection was a great insight into the collections of a great eccentric, Henry Wellcome.
The exhibition we mainly had in mind to view was 'Identity' which is an exploration of 9 unrelated individuals (two of which are twins) throughout 8 separate rooms. We thought that exploring unusual lives would help us in our character development. The exhibition was interesting and I felt that I learnt a lot from it, including the notion that 1 in 8 people start as twins in the womb and this explains the sense of loss that many feel in life. It is small factoids such as this which can be potentially developed into interesting aspects of the project.
The exhibition as a whole, however, did not prove to be as useful as we had hoped. However interesting, it focused less on personalities and other character defining features and was more interesting in the historical and the factual. Fair enough for a museum I suppose, but not exactly what we were after!
The permanent collection, 'Medicine Man' was extremely interesting. It was a complete jumble of curiosities, you could really feel the erratic nature of an eccentric collector through the exhibit. We all thoroughly enjoyed the weird objects on display that varied from a fully preserved mummified body to a box of glass eyes, from a Hieronymus Bosch painting to a lock of King George III's hair!
The expanse of unusual and obscure relics, beliefs and other strange objects displayed had a distinctive aesthetic, they fitted together in the exhibition in a similar way we intend to implement in our installation. The research carried out by our character will be from a variety of unusual and curious sources, enhancing his eccentricity and adding to the fantastical nature of the machines and blueprints.
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