Antony Gormley

I saw Antony Gormley's piece 'Filter' at Manchester Art Gallery, it hung from the ceiling as if it was floating.  The piece was the casting of the human body made from washers, the juxtaposition of the metal and the fragile sculpture worked well.  I may experiment with this medium as a way of casting the roof on my third site. 

Trip to Liverpool

I visited the Bluecoat in Liverpool this weekend when I went to see my friend.  There is a new exhibition on at the moment 'Next Up' showing Liverpool's new working artists.  I loved a piece by Gina Czarnecki, there is a delicate mash of human dancers creating a sensitive texture on the page.  The composition was curious and unexpected and made me want to see deeper into the mash of limbs.  I was influenced by James Loftus, who deploys his functional sculptures to survey the city's dark matter.  The core of his project is the pinhole camera, which he used to capture 6 images of the city at one time, this is a technique I may use to preserve the area around my site.  His photographs were misty and delicate, and gave beautiful scenes. 

Review of Slumdog Millionaire

A visual wonder from start to finish, this family film of shocking brutality, a romance haunted by sexual abuse and a fantasy of wealth fueled by crashing poverty is worth a watch.  It has been reviewed by many as a modern fairy tale and with its gaudy rush of colour and kinetic editing, it pulled on all my heart-strings.  The way Danny Boyle giddily bounces between past and present captivated deep emotions.

Half Year Review

I found this an extremely useful way of collating my ideas and my work, and even without doing the presentation it was a useful exercise.  I felt that I had a bit distant from my work and needed to become encapsulated by it again.  I feel this has happened again since the review and I am confident this attitude will continue. 

Although, I found the presentation rather daunting I felt more confidant as I went on, and think this is a great stepping stone towards me becoming more confident talking in groups and also about explaining my work.  I now have to continue with my preservation of my sites in Manchester, and I will become more forward thinking about the sites I did not earlier think I would be able to preserve - there is a way to do everything if you try!!

Preserving Manchester...

I have cast some pavements and my technique worked so all is good,  although I did have some perfecting along the way and a few queries from some security men about what I was doing.  I realised that I need to put some sort of lubricant on the surface first, vaseline worked great and I also had to apply modrock to the top of the alginate so that I could press down on it to mould to the pavement.  

Now that I have this technique of preserving under my belt it is on to other things I can preserve at the site.  For example, the wind, cloud formations and the people at the site at that particular time.  I am also going to broaden my range of Manchester and will use the full map, instead of a small section which I used for tests.