Koyaanisqatsi

Recently Koyaanisqatsi was screened at college, an art house film documentary made in 1983 by Godfrey Reggio. Koyaanisqatsi translates as "crazy life" "life in turmoil" and "life out of balance", the film looks at the serenity of nature in comparison to man made places, such as factories and cities. Using different speeds of filming, and time lapses, it enabled us to see so much more movement than the human eye would normally capture, which revealed many repeat patterns in clouds, water, rocks and sand. 

The scenes of nature were accompanied by calm, light music, whereas the scenes involving humans or man made structures were accompanied by frantic, heavy music, reflecting the speed and level of movements shown. In the film, human life was represented as being destructive, with no happiness, only showing the world working as a machine with no character. Hopi prophesies were shown at the end of the film, which reflected on the scenes shown throughout, it made me consider the destruction and the mess we have created, in a world that can be so beautiful.

Nottingham Trent University

To visit Nottingham Trent University, we travelled up on Friday the 8th of November on a mammoth 5 hour journey ready for the open day on Saturday. We met up with my aunt, who was visiting her daughter who studies at the university, on friday evening where my cousin showed us around Nottingham city center. We had dinner at Jamie's Italian, followed by a cocktail at Coco Tang, a lovely cocktail bar in the town across the road from Jamie's. At the end of the night I went back to stay at my cousins accomodation in the Gill Street Halls in her flat for the night, this gave me the opportunity to look at this accomodation, and get a taste of what it's like to stay in University halls. The following day we were up early for breakfast and the 10am registration for the open day, we attended talks and looked around various buildings, my notes are below.

University and city:

• Lovely city
• Good high street
• University cituated in city center
• Beautiful old buildings mixed with new buildings 
• Gill street accommodation is perfect but £126-148 per week
• Other accommodation not so good
• 3 hours from home
• New large library
• Good student union

Graphic Design:

• 57% foundation students 35% A Level students
• Live briefs
• High profile collaborations
• High employment rate
• Competitions
• 3 days a week studio contact time 
• 5000 word dissertation and creative portfolio 
• 145 students I'm course, broken down for workshops
• Transferable skills
• Really nice studio
• Macs in studio

Portfolio:

Show creative thinking: ideas, experimentation, problem solving process- visually

Digital portfolio

Fashion Design:

• Focused on teaching traditional garment construction
• Visiting specialist lecturers
• International study exchange, 6 months in second year, have to have 7k in bank at time
• Top 3 applicants for fashion design- 12-1400 applicants for a 75 intake
• Yr1- 2 major projects, weekly tutorials, weekly drawing and CAD
• Project 1- uses white, produce a garment, life, paper, 3D manufacturing
• Project 2- sustainable live project, photoshop, illustrator
• Yr 2- 2x 2week electives e.g forecasting, journalism, visual presentations
• Team project industry menswear tailoring e.g ted baker, topman
• 2nd project individual work, portfolio to garment
• Competitions- old navy, A&F- 3 paid internships $800 per week
• 3rd year- dissertation draft by Xmas
• Collection 4-6 gramsnts or product (min 3 garments) magazine, brands, graphic
• Tokyo, Paris and London fashion week
• 93% in employment
• 280 Ucas points or foundation
• Well equipped with specific machines
• Time for part time work
• No macs in fashion area
• Specialist workshop rooms, some shown on the sign below

As I felt quite unwell on this particular weekend I found it difficult to concentrate during the talks and didn't engage with them as much as I would have liked to. However I found the fashion talk and course more inspirational than the graphics and really interesting in terms of course content. and the opportunity to do product for the 3rd year final is really appealing. I'm considering applying for the Fashion course for 2014.

National Open Art Exhibition

On Friday 15th I visited the National Open Art Exhibition in chichester with my mum and grandma, at the Minerva theatre where we met up with my aunt, who was volunteering as a receptionist. As she'd seen the exhibition many times whilst working she kindly showed us around, talking through each piece of art work with with us and sharing extra background information. There were some very interesting pieces, with a variety of disciplines such as painting, textiles and photography. Some works were very inspiring, I particularly liked some of the print work, one where the artist had printed owls and images onto feathers creating a very interesting effect, another was a very intricate etching which had enormous detail. Some of the photography used really good editing skills, experimenting with the techniques they used, to create similar effects, would be a good exercise to practise photo editing.

A selection artists that interested me ,and their work, are shown below with links to their websites.

Kara Chin

http://www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com/gallery2.php?as=1&Order-6187
http://karachin.wix.com/myart




Michael Vogt

http://www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com/gallery2.php?as=1&H43-Hubert-Robert-5974
http://www.michaelvogt.co.uk




Joe Liam Reddy

http://www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com/gallery2.php?as=1&Hand-I-8479
https://mobile.twitter.com/joeliamreddy




Rogan Brown

http://www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com/gallery2.php?as=1&Kernel-7079
http://roganbrown.com/home.html




Rebecca Jewell

http://www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com/gallery2.php?as=1&Cape-of-Pacific-Voyages-6674
http://www.rebeccajewell.com


http://www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com

Arts University Bournemouth

We visited Arts University Bournemouth on Saturday 16th to look at the fashion and graphics courses, we attended the subject talks and looked around the campus. It would have been nice to visit the accommodation but on this particular day we decided not too as I was feeling quite unwell. Notes I made throughout the day have been written below.

Campus and accomodation:

• Nice campus
• Mostly shared housing for accommodation
• New accommodation being built
• By the beach
• Close to BU
• Easy bus travel
• All creative courses on campus
• Large refrectory with good food
• Large open well stocked library

Graphics:

• High level ofnwork
• Mostly digital based
• 1 day a week digital training
• Lots ofmawards won (D&AD)
• Screen print and manual work not encouraged, but can be done
• Focused more on the prospect and idea than making
• 1:4 ratio of people accepted to applied
• 100% employment over the last 2 years

Fashion:

• Different routes- web design, fashion film
• 2 week work placement - year 1 summer term
• Specialism chosen year 2 spring term
• 5000 word research project
• Showmat graduate fashion week
• 80 first years, of 300/400 applicant, split into 4 groups
• Childrenswear
• Collaborations
• Lookbooks
• Internship also in 2nd year, 3 months e.g live project
• Live projects/internships with companies such as Next, Jimmy Choo, McQueen
• Employed graduates have jobs at: Abercrombie and Fitch, Harrods, Erdem, Hollister
• 3-4 days a week in college
• Possibility to do erasmus
• Everyone who qualifies gets interviewed
• Quick response after interview

What they look for in interview:

• Range of work
• Individual work- different to standard foundation work
• Something made
• Sketchbook
• Want to know about you
• 280 ucas points or foundation  

Fireworks

I missed the first display at Thomas A Becket so I went with my mum to Worthing Seafront for the pier display and market on Wednesday the 5th. We wandered down through the town that had become alive with music and bustling people. lit up with strings of lights and fair ground rides. The market was mostly food stalls with exotic and traditional cuisine from around the world, having already eaten, mulled wine in mind we went off in search of a warming beverage to take down to the beach. Majority of the stalls didn't have a license for alcohol, just about to give up we noticed a stall run by a restaurant selling soup, mulled wine and mulled cider, perfect for this wintry evening!
Hot drinks in hand we headed down to the beach to find a good spot to view the fireworks and plant the tripod in preparation for some night photography. We ended up in a sheltered spot almost under the lido, to avoid the glare of the lights from the fair and ready for the long exposure for the firework photography. All set up we eagerly awaited the start of the display among hundreds of others who'd travelled especially for the occasion.
The display was magnificent, with fireworks bigger and better than previous years looking magical in the unusual surrounding, explosions from the end of the pier reminiscent of the ending to a Disney film, we watched in awe. As the last firework faded into the night sky, the crowds began to drift back towards the glowing lights of the town, this was our opportunity to recreate scenes from artcamp in lodgehill practicing night time photography techniques. 

I mainly experimented with long exposures and using a flash gun in the dark, the outcomes were interesting with some successful images created. The fireworks was a great photographic opportunity and I really enjoyed the traditional autumnal bonfire night, photos to follow. 

Winchester School of Art

Winchester school of art is part of Southampton University which is included in the Russell's group of Universities, a selection of the most prestigious universities over the country, due to it's high level of research and teaching. Winchester is a lovely city and not too far from home or Southampton (where I have close friends and family), the Campus itself is quite new and very light with most studios including north facing light. The courses I went to look at were Fashion and Textile Design and Graphic Arts, both of which have similar course formats, I have summarised my notes from the talks and open days below:

University and city:

• Beautiful city
• Close to Southampton (15 minute train journey)
• Halls 15 minute walk to campus
• Really nice campus and building (lots of windows and naturals light)
• Large studio space
• Cars allowed in halls but not without valid reason e.g medical
• Flats in halls had no sofa area, just kitchen/dining area
• All rooms in halls ensuite
• Lots of pubs
• Good night life in Southampton with bus home 2am

Both courses:

• Impressive back log of job placements after graduation
• ABB/foundation pass
• £9000 per year
• Opportunity to do what you want to do
• Time for part time job in first and second year if required
• No set holiday projects but encouraged to keep working
• Course leaders have large background in industry
• All teachers are practitioners
• Looking for creative journeys in sketchbooks at interview
• Opportunities for exchange trips
• Lots of media suites with Lynda.com for online support
• First semester is a range of workshops for every pathway
• Pathways chosen in second semester
• Focused on employability
• Range of printers- mimaki, 3D, wallpaper
• Screen print room
• Library has one of the largest artist book collection
• Enter a range of competitions

Fashion and Textile Design:

• Research centres at the Tate and the V&A
• Reflective journals in year 2 and 3, 3000 and 4000 words
• Workshops open 8am-8pm Monday-Saturday
• Flexibility on which workshops to attend
• Range of knitting and weave machines

Pathways:

• - fashion design
• - knitwear for fashion 
• - printed textiles
• - woven textiles

Graphic Arts:

• Very self directed and flexible
• Links to studios in Berlin
• Students often take on extra projects
• Learn transferable skills
• Interview all applicants 1:1
• 90/95 intake of 300/400 applicants

Pathways:

• Graphic design
• Illustration
• Photography
• Motion Graphics

Both courses looked really interesting, I liked the amount of freedom there is, especially on the graphics course where you can do anything you like, merging the pathways if that's where you're journey takes you.The college is also really well equipped with a large range of new and old machines, and large working spaces to suit all different needs.