My Place

A little while ago whie working my through another extensive batch of photographs that I had taken, I had the idea of getting as many people as I could involved in a little project. This involved them letting me into their world (just a bit) and this is the e-mail I sent out:

Hi everyone,



As part of the work I am currently doing at University I am running a side project that I am calling “My Place". I am asking anyone who would like to take part to send me a photo of a place or moment that has a powerful meaning for them.


This could be just a snap shot from your holiday; or a family gathering......; or maybe a chance photo you took when out walking one day; it’s completely up to you.


Please do not include ant text with the photo explaining it. The photo will do the talking……
The photos will be added to an online photo album that I am going to set up and some or all may be exhibited at University (with complete anonymity), and I will post the details to keep you up to date.
I have set up an e-mail address just for this project as follows:
interactivepete@googlemail.com
So if you want to take part send me your photo and please let everyone you know, know about this and get them to take part.
Thanks everyone.

I have had a limited response so far, but the pictures I have been sent are great and heer is the link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/interactivepete/sets/72157623363480457/

Full Circle

I started my ‘Macro Project’ quite some time ago now and apart from gathering more and photo’s for my stockpile I was beginning to think I that I really wasn’t progressing that much. But I should know by now that this is quite often the way my work goes; quite large periods of just plodding along and then an explosion of activity.


So here is a long overdue update on what is happening:

I have not just been taking close up photo’s to produce artwork that can be displayed in a gallery space, although heaven knows I now have a substantial amount of material for that; I have been experimenting with turning some of these into 3D sculptures and then re-photographing them.

My initial attempt at this was with photographs I took of a circuit board from inside a digi’-box:

The result is actually only a relatively small sculpture, but this gave me the opportunity to get up close and take yet more photographs to explore the subject in a new and interesting way.
 

Snow Time

Sat at home wondering what the next thing I was going to take a picture of was going to be, when the ideal oppotunity presents itself....snow.



Predictable maybe, but how can you resist when the situation presents itself? It just looks so nice, especially when it has come down so heavily.



Anyway I was out, snapping away and realised what a big deal this was, after all we don't normally see snow this deep in my area (Stockport). So I thought that I may as well let the world see what was outside my door and sent a photo over to the BBC, who very kindly posted it in their web site.



Click here to go to the page.



or just take a look at the photo:

Macro World

Ever since starting the food project, I have been taking photographs of food, so that I could look at it in different ways and a big part of this was getting as close as possible – using Macro Photography.

I find it fantastic, just how different things look when you get up close. I expanded this idea to anything that I found around me in my everyday environment (I purposely haven’t ventured very far). There is so much around is in our everyday lives that we just don’t really look at. If you not only look at things but get very close it’s like being in a whole new world.

I also started to introduce new elements to my pictures, by cropping them so that you were very focused on a particular area of the subject and also using a negative filter which has produced some great results.

The First Essay

Part 1: 1000 words on a picture or picture of an object.

My selected picture is of the statue of Eric Morecambe situated in the seaside resort of Morecambe.





Image taken from : www.visitnorthwest.com/morecambe/map.htm

It has taken me some considerable time to generate just under 1000 words for this essay so far (as I am sure there is still some editing to do), carrying out research across web sites that refer to the statue and where it is sited; and also reading relevant material. For the most part I have been using the book "Practices of Looking" by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, which has provide me with some fantastic material regarding how and why we view things the way that we do.

Part 2: Seven further images that when displayed with the original, form a visual narrative, plus a further 500 words explaining the selection and any link they have.

I have selected my images as follows:

The statue of Liberty; Nelsons Column; A Greek Statue of a Discuss thrower; The Angel of the North; Another Place; Another place - Lancashire Style (Using the Eric Morecambe Statue) and The Easter Island Statues.

The 500 words have yet to be written and the dead line is the 14/12/09.

The Interactice Arts Project

This week I came up with an idea to utilize the ever growing popularity of social web sites, Facebook, Myspace and Bebo.

The introduction on the front page reads as follows:

This is only the begining?



The idea is to get artwork on-line and viewable to like minded people and to get feedback from people involved in the same world as you!


The aim is to get this group up and running on as many social sites as possible to reach the widest audience possible and make it a piece of Interactive Art in its own right.
 
The link is:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=app_2392950137&gid=221867716320#/group.php?v=info&gid=221867716320
 
We have 38 members so far (after only a couple of days), and I hope it keeps on growing and growing and we get some great art work on there.

The Food Project Continues

After tryibg to generate new ideas for my food project, I've found myslef re-visiting an idea I had while on foundation, "The Bean Sculpture"

Bean sculpture 2009

I have during my brainstorming session, wrote down investigating what food consisits of, how it is made, artificialy and in nature; its "building blocks" the molecules that make its very fabric.

My idea then turned to flipping this around and actually using food as building material.

My first approach was to take (a very kindly donated) action figure and completely cover it in types of beans.

I have taken the idea further now by looking at other food stuff commonly found in my kitchen.

at first I carried on with the idea of uniform shapes for building and spent some time working with cerials, covering things with them or building shapes. I then looked beyond this and thought about creating things that we use in daily life out of food.

"The bread mug "

Using two slices of bread that I flattened, I created the shape and painted with P.V.A, to harden and waterproof. I added stitch work to emulate the leather tankards that may have been used by our ancestors.