Snow hotel

We eventually made it to the snow hotel, although our honeymoon suite still wasn't ready so yet again we had some more waiting around. I just wanted to get going and start, seeing some of the sculptures and reliefs already done made me eager to start. Seen as the hotel was meant to be opening in only 4 days time I was shocked at the amount of work which still had to done and the fact that some of the hotel still wasn't actually made. Anyway after a delayed morning we cracked on with the work, not realising how tiring it would actually be. After many early morning and 12 hour shifts working on the room we managed to get it finished, with everything we had hoped. I looks great, I placed three stars in the ceiling in the end which brought the outside in which was great and just what a wanted. We also hopefully get a free nights stay there so it will be great to see the hotel once it is finished.

As the temperatures dip below -20 and the chill can be felt through all your layers it is the simple pleasure of a hug that I miss. A hug from mum, a hug from Sam or simply from a friendly face. The well known action of feeling someone around me is missed.

Ice Hotel!

After a week of uncertainty over the snow hotel, we have final confirmation that we will be going on monday to complete our designs. They have suggested that we change our designs for the suite though, and want more arches and pillars in the room. This is slightly annoying as they seem to have pretty set ideas as to what they want in the room, yet didn't give us these details at first. They have even drawn designs that they wish to be in there, so this maybe isn't the best of starts. But, I am even more determined to complete this and make a best a job as possible. Just a weekend of more planning to do first!

Snow sculpting!

As part of my course at the University of Lapland i get the chance to do ice and snow sculpting, which is great! We have been thrown into it straight away, and designing a room which we will create in a hotel this Thursday! Which is a little scary as Mark and I have never done snow sculpting before and will be working in the honey moon suite! The plan is to create a mystical, romantic feel to the room, having a large tree above the bed which will disperse into a Finnish landscape, with swans flying through the scenes. It seems quite a big plan but hopefully it will all come together, I am looking forward to it.

Today was the first day at university, which I have found out is a short 45 min stroll! haha! not so nice when it is -32, I even had icicles on my eyelashes! Even though I am still slightly confused by the course registration is was great to be there. I have met a few British people, most exchange students do seem to be eastern European though.

With only the crunching of the snow as your friend and icicles for eyelashes some would say this is time to go home, but I go on.

After a strange nights sleep in a new place I was feeling a little more refreshed and faced a trip into town with Barbara, even though it is quite a walk it is pleasant enough and not too cold. A hot choc was still needed to warm us up once we got there though, we ended up in a cool little cafe. It was full of random vintage things, like hovers etc, definitely a place to go back to. And i almost forgot about the massive pizzas which, were too big to finish!

Hei

After a long day of running for areoplanes and areoplane food I am glad to have got to Rovaniemi in one piece, even though it is freezing! I am currently in my empty flat which is quite prison like, but will hopefully be more homely soon. Heres to a great few months in arctic temperatures.

Solargraphy

As I will have limited hours of sun in Finland I am interested in documenting this for a pinhole project. This is called Solargarphy, and has been used by many artists in the past. Solargraphy is a process that exposes black and white photographic paper in a pinhoel camera over an extended period of time, for example days, weeks, months. The negative can then be scanned for further processing in Photoshop, where the image is rendered in colour. I have experimented with solargraphy once before and had some interesting results, but I only left them for a day. I am interested in using the process to document the movement of the sun over the period I am in Finland.



This is a useful blog when looking at the different effects each type of paper gives. I have only used Ilford before so it would be interesting to experiment with other types.
http://www.greggkemp.com/projects/papers-for-solargraphy

Feedback from Peers

As well as feedback from the tutors I got some feedback from my peers, which is interesting and has given me some things to think about while I am in Finland. To make use of my time in Finland they have suggested that I could start a mail art project involving pinhole photography, which is the way I got into pinhole photography in the first place. It was also suggetsed that I could collaboarte with someone here while I was away, which is definately something I want to think about more. These would both aid as a networking opprtunities. It was also proposed that I could think about whether my final piece could be something else other than the photograph. This is again something I had never thought of before, I do percieve my photograph and camera to be final piece but maybe it could be something else?

Tutorial with Jon

As this was my last tutorial until I get back from Finland I found it very motivating. It highlighted all of the aspects that I need to focus on next term, which I knew I had to do, I just needed to focus my attention on it. Next term I should explore what the relationship is between the camera, the environment being photographed and the photograph. This is somehting I tried to do for my last exhibition, where I photographed the street outside the exhibiton yet the wheelie bin had little relevance to this. A way to help with this is to maybe answer these questions when looking at other pinhole artists work.
- Is the subject of the photograph important?
- How does this relate to the process of pinhole photography?
- How are the camera, photograph and environment related?

Answering these questions when lookin at other artists work may help me to see where my exploration of pinhole photography is going. Hopefully, with this the context of my work will appear. It was suggested in my tutorial that I should investigate site-specific installations, media-archeology, optical illusion and early film. With specific direction towards, Siegfried Zielinkski Audiovisions and Erkki Huhtamo's work.

Another, suggestion by Jon was to think about how much information Igive to the veiwer in the exhibition. This is something I wasn't going to do as I quite like the obscurity of the photograph and camera, yet as it had been brought to my attention maybe it is something I need to think about. Should I make it obvious that it is a pinhole camera? Jon also suggested that I should think about maybe placing the image back into the camera, which is something that I had never considered. But, this could be an intersting concept as you will see the image in the camera where it was created.

Tutorial with Gavin

My essay for my HCC id well underway now, I have always been interested in land art yet I have never really looked into it as an art form. Which, I should have really as I suppose some of my work could be linked in some ways, especially my work last year. Anyway, I have for my essay I have focussed on artists who tried to escape the gallery system in 1960's, which has led me on to research Richard Long, a well-known land artists who uses walking as his medium for his work. I had a tutorial with Fionna and she directed me to Gavin, who is doing his Phd in Walking as Art. I find walking as a art an interesting concept, as it is talking art down to its minimum and questioning what actually is art. Gavin was really helpful and gave me a great insight into walking as art, there is a divide actually two forms which I never realised; rural and urban walking. This is something I need to make clear in my essay, even if I don't use urban walking I still need to recognise that it is different from rural walking.

Farm equipment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uuA7fG58KI

Read the following then watch the video to fully appreciate & understand......

This is almost unbelievable. See how all of the balls wind up in catcher cones. This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between The Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa, yes farm equipment! It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see it was well worth the effort. It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to

the Smithsonian.

Exhibiton

My half year exhibition is up in the link gallery, after debating whether to display my photograph on the wheelie bin or not, I have decided to hang it above the wheelie bin. I wanted to have the bin as part of the exhibition as I see my cameras as much of my work as the photographs themselves. I wanted to create some coherence in my work, therefore for this project I have created a link between the photograph taken and the exhibition space. My exhibition is placed in the Link Gallery near a window. It is out of this window on the street that I used the wheelie bin to take the photograph, creating a correlation between exhibition space and photograph. Although, the photograph is the negative of the street, which makes it less obvious. I do quite like this though, as well as I don't like to make it obvious that it is a pinhole camera.

Wheelie bin 2

I have eventually been able to produce a successful image with my wheelie bin camera. After many attempts and the weather giving rather bad light conditions I managed to get an image which is clear and in focus. I have used this image in my half year exhibition. I have enjoyed working with a larger camera and it has expanded my knowledge of pinhole camera. It is just a problem when it comes to wanting to photograph places far from university, so I would some how have to find a way to travel with the wheelie bin, or other large pinhole camera. I am quite interested in making a life size camera which can be used to photograph life sized images of people.

Wheelie bin camera

As part of the food project I have decided to look into turning a wheelie bin into a pinhole camera. I want then use the camera to photograph the rubbish we would throw away in a week, the idea is to show the amount of things we actually throw away and how much goes to a landfill site. I would also like to continue this idea through and go to a landfill site and photograph there with the wheelie bin.

My first results came out well, yet were not in focus. So I made the aperture smaller, however it had gone quite dull outside and all of these factors meant I didn't get an image. But, I will be out trying again tomorrow.

Steve Pippin

I have recently been introduced to the work of Steve Pippin during ym tutorial with Jon, I can't believe I have not come across his work during my pinhole research. He seems to be a key pinhoel artist and was short listed for the Turner prize in 1999. His work has close connections to mine, in that it is not just the end photographs which is centre to his practice but, also the camera itself. Being interested in mechanics his work shows this, taking mudance objects and furniture and turnig them into pinhole cameras. This includes; fridges, washing machines and bath tubs. An example of his work is shown above, in the overall appearance the image is like my own pinhol photographs, the round image inside the square of paper. His photographs also show a beautiful aged appearance, which I love. I am very inclined to look into making work on a larger scale and seeing what objects I can use to create my images.

Taking the camera down to its bare minimum

I have been looking into taking the camera down to its bare minimum, where I have made the camera out of just the photographic paper. After a few attempts I have been able to make it light tight enough to actually use it as a camera and create an image. I am interested what image will occur as the whole of the inside will be photographic paper, it may be quite disjointed but, I am looking forward to trying to get some interesting results.

University of Lapland

It has just been confirmed that I have been accepted to study in Finland at the University of Lapland for four months as of January. I can't wait, although it will be freezing I am hoping it is going to be an exciting and fulfilling opportunity. The chance to study in a new city, especially one so different to England, will be fantastic.

Daina F+

After a discussion about my pinhole cameras with a fellow student they introduced me to the world of lomography. I had never heard of it before but, it sounded like it was just up my street; beautiful mistakes occurring with delicate results. So, off I went to do some of my own research on lomography not sure with what I would find. To my excitement a world of opportunity and exquisite photographs emerged.

Not long after I decided to buy the Daina F+ camera, the extra pinhole function appealing to me straight away. I have just finished my first film and can't wait to see the results once it has been developed. I will keep my results posted.

Land art lecture

Land Art is an area I have always been interested in yet I have never done much research. Today I had a lecture on Land Art and artists who tried to escape the gallery and art system, starting with the work of Robert Smithson who went into the landscape looking for areas of land scarred by humana and industry. The most well-known piece is 'Spiral Jetty', and spiral of rocks going into a salt lake, Smithson was keen for the environment to interact with his work, the ultimate happened when the spiral was covered by the lake for a period of time. The notion of the work decaying and not being maintained in a pristine condition appeals to me, I don't like the perfect and love being able to see a history of somehting in the texture which are created by decay, erosion etc. To me the imperfect is more beautiful. Smithsons work was created as a reaction to the white cube gallery and the work of artists such as, Caro and Serra who used industrial items like steel in their works. Smithson comments, "Why steel is valued over rust is a technological value, not an artistic one." This shows Smithsons resentment for steel being used in its prestine condition and values it's beauty once it has eroded and turned to rust.

Various other interesting aspects of Land Art were also raised in my seminar, mainly concerning the fact that many land art artists wanted there work to show the notion of escaping the gallery and being unconnected with it. Yet this seems to be an impossible thing to do, as many of the artists had to rely on galleries for their support, which ultimatly contradicts the reason the artists wanted to work out of the gallery. They didn't like the way art had become so controlled by the white cube gallery, but without this can any of their work really been seen as art? The gallery is now instrumental in the art world, and has the power to say what is art today.