About a cup of blood

That's what I've given to this project!! I have literally given my lifeblood to this project; I also liberally doused studio 4, the first year floor and Hazel Egan! Behold - my battle wounds:

So nearly a week on from the fateful day I'm out of the sling and with only a plaster and an eerie numbness to show for it.  Anyhow, why was I slicing and dicing?

A life sized lino cut! See my intention was to run up about 10 of these and build up an army but it was not meant to be, between the hospital and the sling I was out of action. Thankfully Des McMahon, my savior, printed one up for me on the last Friday of the semester. THANK YOU DES!!! But the fates attempted to thwart me once again, the store room was all out of paper, no news print, no cardboard, nada. But the technicians are crafty people and Gillian brought me upstairs to the fashion store and sent me back with translucent cotton. The result:

IT LIVES! It's not quite as detailed as I would have liked but better something then nothing yes? The cool thing is that the cotton is that you can see through it, the print is like a shadow. So the viewer can have the shadow of the hoody wearer superimposed on them, they can see what it looks like and see from inside the mask as so to speak, so hurray for accidents!

I'm so freaked out about the upcoming assessment, sleep loss freaked out. I've been playing around with different set ups for my work, it currently looks like the lay out on the left, I took down the "WORK IT HARDER" on Mike Cannings advice, he was right, it was too dominant for such a minor factor in the project, it might give the viewer the wrong idea. I miss the colour but they'll see it in the video, or will they?? I'm not even sure I want to show it!! In situations like this without any definitive right or wrong answer it all comes down to what you do and what you don't do. Keep you posted on what I get down to over the holidays.

Just a man who makes quilts.

I sat down in the media room around 2 o'clock, its now twenty to six, also my contact lenses are making my eyes water so if anyone is looking at me right now they probably think I'm writing my farewell-cruel-world final blog post! Anyhow I was here so long because i was working on some photographs of my studio 4 comrades Jack and Jake, possibly the only two tracksuit wearers in all of first year! Well at least today they were, so they kindly agreed to model my paper helmets. This was really important because i needed the visual link between the the symbolic protection of a helmet and a tracksuit. So I've been filtering and reducing the images down to those elements I need:

The above arrangement took FOREVER on the accursed layout page!! So I'm going for a high contrast black and white, my aim is to do a woodcut and create an ARMY!! But I'm on the clock so I need to get the lead out here!

Never mind eloquent, I want to be magniloquent.

On Friday I had an idea, on Sunday I bought the materials and yesterday I went and did it! What did I do? Well a major idea I want to get across with my project is just how powerful music is in terms of the way it makes you feel, good or bad (personally mainly good although Kleerup ft. Lykke Lis Until We Bleed is a capitol example of how a song can drag you into the depths of the deepest mope). Also I'm trying to give an illustration of what music looks like (just an illustration, not thee illustration because music looks different to everyone, some people might not even "see" it!).

So last week I finally got around to downloading the awe-inspiring live version of daft punks Harder Better Faster Stronger from their 2007 Alive tour, I do not have the words to describe the feeling when the base starts pounding and the synths lift.... Its pure energy. I love to dance, I am well aware that I dance like a street mime trying to explain he is having an epileptic fit but I can't live without passion! And so I had the idea of combining the narcotic potency of that song with my choreographic seizures to try and make a visual record of what H.B.F.S feels like
Yesterday evening I waited till about 6 till everybody was out of the studio and set up my camera and a blank partition wall of paper, donned my sonic crash helmet and attempted to illustrate H.B.F.S using black postpaid and 3 cans of neon spray paint. The Black was to lay out the frame work - The shape of the vocals, the bass and the treble (not that it resembled anything of a frame), and the colour was to show variations in the framework and also I think the neon is perfectly appropriate for electronica and the sheer kinetic joy of the whole exercise!

Anyhow, take one involved me and a velvet turban wrapped around my head under the helmet to try and keep it place, then the paper fell down and I had to scavenge the studio for spares!

Take two (the final take, because I only had that much spray paint!)  culminated in my nearly destroying the painting when I tore it off the wall!

They call them fingers... But I've never seen them fing...

 By the time I was finished 3 cans worth of fumes  were circulation around the unventilated studio, I won't get too into what I got up to but later when I checked my camera I found a series of pictures of my painty hand which apparently I found fascinating at the time!



<>

Ta-da



Yes, yes of course, all the chips, ALL THE CHIPS YOU CAN FIND!

Cast your gaze upon his might and weep! This is Brian modeling my latest armour prototype, made of cardboard and twine. The design is based on the plated armour worn by the legions of ancient Rome. During one of my tutorials Grainne pointed out that the chest plate I had built would restrict the mobility of the wearer so I looked into something more flexible.

After jamming Brian into the cardboard tube i added the shoulder straps and there you have it! The next step is to merge the armour with the urban. The panels around the stomach remind me of the pouch pocket on the front of most hoodies, I'd like to try layering them up to achieve a similar effect, also the twine can be replaced with shoe laces, reminiscent of the drawstrings threaded through hoods.

I just had to act as a one man debate team...

It's just gone 9 o'clock in the morning, the first year floor is dead, and I am here, under the unnerving glow of fluorescent lights to update my blog. WHY? Because last night I had an extremely disturbing nightmare that I believe came about as a result of stress induced anxiety! And the only way to stop worrying about something is to go and get it done with so I am bracing myself for a week of frantic productivity (or at the very least regular productivity)

Job done.

Newsprint, cardboard and a noxious ammount of hot glue.

I finally have built two prototype folding hoods, one from just white card and the other from cardboard and news print, pictures to come. I also passed out upon completion of the second hood due to fume inhalation from the hot glue gun, a crumpled up scrape of humanity covered in paper and hot glue - art, this is what you have done to me!



Toying about with the mechanics of the paper frame.





Jess - modeling.



Another exciting development was the realisation of my sonic crash helmet (Which involved another tangle with the glue gun). I brought it into town with me last Saturday and took scored of photos of my friends and the general public wearing it, which I promptly deleted because I am a fool. Thankfully a handful survived and I can always repeat the process next weekend.





I got a great reaction from the people who tried it on, we discovered that even though the speakers aren't in-ear you still can't hear a word anyone says to you while you wear it. This is actually a good thing as my original idea was to submerge the wearer in music so job done on that front!





DREAMS.



Karl Largerfield vs. a terradactyl

Retrospective post, as in I meant to put this up last week but had a brain fail combined with a tantrum resulting in FAILTRUM. So here we have it:

 

 

   

I sort of felt I was losing momentum with the project so I decided to throw myself at some construction pronto. The result is a veritable armoury of paper helmets! I revisited my skill I acquired in fourth class through the practical application of papier mache:



I also had a dabble in making some chain mail but if I though last weeks brainfail was bad...If it looks confused an jumbly that's because it IS. I'm sorry art, I've failed you in this one obscure respect, and I have the both paper and scalpel cuts to prove it so don't say I didn't try faceless readers! It was nice to be putting things together and next on the agenda is the folding hood, you'll soon see how that goes!

My origami army (origarmy) -  we fear nought but moisture.

I'm senitmental - Oh no I mean I'm sent to be mental

 


IT LIVES!

 IT'S HAPPENING!! I finally have something armour like to show for my toiling!.. Well maybe armour like is a bit generous at this point but the important thing is that my original concept for the hoodie re worked as a piece of medieval combative armour is at last being realised. It's tricky though as I am no seamstress and I'm finding the sewing pretty tricky and the white fabric is getting a little grubby from handling, however, I've just got to be brave and keep plugging away at it to compensate for my abomination of a progress review last Monday (which I was convinced was on Thursday).

Other problems Ive encountered include trying to find saws, wire cutters, bolt cutters, glue guns, affordable hoodies, being repeatedly lacerated and punctured by wire because the gloves weren't flexible enough to work in, getting my hair caught in the saw teeth and a general lack of technical know how! But I can see its coming together, when I'm finished I want to have something that will will make the connection between the clothes people wear and the way they use them to protect themselves from looking vulnerable in the dangerous urban environment

Life is short and black and white, just like little penguins.

Oh god oh god oh god, progress review next week, I'm starting to think my ability to discuss and describe my project gets worse every week! But, I have finally made the first steps toward assembling my armour. Yes, everything is beginning to tumble into place. I made a paper template for my hoodie chest plate:



It wouldn't protect you from an amount of liquid anyway...



It came together surprisingly hassle free, I know the shoulder plates look a little silly but I had to attach them on to get the right measurements, sadly I am currently disassembling the whole thing to use as the base for the wire frame. Also, Kevin O'Shae very kindly donated an old motorbike helmet to me so my "music submersion helmet" idea may too come to pass. Plus he lent me his current helmet to make studies from, but I left my locker key at home so was forced to render it in biro, which is an unforgiving medium!

Whats more bad ass then a motorcycle helmet? TWO MOTORCYCLE HELMETS.

Dear Africa, sorry to hear you are poor...

Oh fail of failures, I neglected to put anything up last week, although I was pretty all over the place in terms of work anyway so it was just another symptom of the general condition of distraction I was in! BUT - Now I'm back (somewhat) LASER FOCUSED! The preparation is done, today I am going out to source hoodies to begin to build my MIGHTY ARMOUR!

I said in my last post I would put up pictures of the finished head phones and the week long delay aside here they are, as modeled by my constant companion Meghan (A fellow Clancy):



Sommmebody went crazy with the diffuse glow filter...

So they turned out very cool and 100% functional! So what have I learned?

• Anything wearable needs to be lightweight and comfortable - Failed wings mark 1. were way too heavy to work.
• If you want precision, use precision tools - I could only get the smooth finish I was looking for on the feather shapes when I used the scalpel.
• Fimo paper clay is a wonder material - Its brilliant white and drys to almost half its weight, plus the dried clay even has a small amount of give in it for further manipulation.

So in anticipation of beginning on construction I did one final study of a suit of armour (Which I then mutated with photoshop, I'm a ps fiend):

Pen and ink filter - cause its nazty.



The original with increased exposure and contrast



It was only during the undertaking of this drawing I realised I  have forgotten how to shade! It's coming back to me in bits and pieces!  

My animation idea is kinda sidelined for the moment, I'm just worried the assessment will roll around next week and I'll have nothing to show for it, some of the other guys in studio 4 are taking on some really big ambitious projects so I have to try and melt this chill of inadequacy with a blazing inferno of decent work!