Summer break Monday 28th May 2012 Third Year Exhibition

This evening I attended the UCA third year photography exhibition which was spread over both of the photography floors. A really interesting mix of work of varying standards but a very odd selection of mounting techniques. Some was even just stapled to the wall, or simply hung with bulldog clips. I felt the hanging often looked cheap and nasty when poorly hung and the work that was hung well looked considerably superior. I was also not personally interested in the moving image work, or the more abstract work. The rooms were also very hot and uncomfortable to view the work in due to the lights and the ambient temperature (it was a very hot evening indeed).
I enjoyed Martin Daveys 'Going Underground' and had a good chat to him at the exhibition.

Free day Wednesday 23rd May 2012

Over the last few days I have been assisting a fellow student with the mounting of her work for a graphic design project that was handed in today. Despite my presentations and deadlines I have been assisting by supplying; paper, film, foam-board, spray mount, and assisting in the logistical aspects of the project (trips to uni, shoot locations, and retailers to purchase materials). I also have the software she requires so I have kindly allowed her access to that. I have now mounted 15 images, text which includes an artist statement, also text relating to each set of three images (4x amounts of text to mount) and the promotional material. The work has been completed on time and and despite the lack of sleep (only fours hours sleep last night) I am pleased to see the end results of this work.

Day 92 Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Fashion Constructed Image

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Fashion Constructed Images Presentation.
Despite this being delivered to over 45 fellow students and other people including; JS, SC (Sam Chick), SP (Steve Pocock) both tech tutors, I was far less nervous about this compared to yesterdays Pitch. It probably had something to do with this being an end of project celebration and a chance to share our learning experiences, rather than a critiqued pitch.
Being a member of 'Team/Group One' we were called up first which was excellent, and knowing we had about 30 seconds per slide to cram in any talking we set off well and gave an excellent presentation! Having a strong team we all spoke on our respective slides and I felt as if we communicated well and people got to see the team working well together during the presentation. We spoke and were then followed by three further teams before a short break. A further four teams spoke followed but a break, before the final three teams presented. We'd all been handed the dreaded self evaluation which needed to be completed and handed back in by 15:30 and of course I took this away with me as we broke for lunch to complete when we returned at 14:00.
Returning after lunch we all discovered our essay results had been published which was great since I scored an overall 67%!
Colin Jackson showed a simple stop animation (complete with music) created by taking all of the shoot images off of the HD1s and we viewed those. This was followed by the stop animations of a couple of groups. After a quick closing talk by JS we then split up and I completed the team self evaluation and returned that to JS and SC.
Then it was time to update the last couple of days blogs since I have to stay at uni (whilst I attempt support my student friend).

It's odd to think that the first year is now almost complete and all of the deliverables are handed in and only two remain unmarked. Looking at my blog it states I've had ninety two days of official scheduled teaching/uni days (today is 'Day 92'). Of course when you read the text in the 'Free Day's' that I have blogged you will note that nearly all include updates on tasks and projects. So the term 'free day' is applied in the sense that it is not a formal timetabled day, rather a day in which self initiated tasks relating to uni work are progressed or completed.

Day 91 Monday 21st May 2012 The Commission Pitch delivery

Monday 21st May 2012

Today we were scheduled to deliver the powerpoint presentation that had been finalised over the weekend. Although our delivery time-slot was 11:55 we all met up at 10:00 to run through the work. A couple of team members wanted to apply some personal notes (to the notes pages on he slides), so this was done and we awaited our call into room 806. The format was a 'Dragons Den' format with those pitching standing before a panel of three, reviewing the pitch. We ran through the pitch and to be honest I've been involved in better presentations and I felt we weren't seen at our best. But we completed the pitch and answered the questions whilst showing the model and floor-plan.
The one obvious (with hindsight) omission with the pitch was a very clear visual run though of the images in the order that they would be displayed, formatted so that each photographer could discuss each body of work individually. What we had was one slide with all the images (in the order they would be displayed) what was the sole responsibility of one team member to deliver. Unfortunately this wasn't really robust and the presentation of the slide also fell somewhat short of the mark.  This left us with the model as our medium for explaining the flow of the work and thankfully the model was very detailed!
We accepted the critique of the powerpoint but felt that overall the quantity and quality of our work was noted and the questioning was far from harsh and of course very constructive.
Having never had to complete a task of this nature before it was a great learning experience and an opportunity to explore all that needs to be considered when putting on an actual exhibition.

Due to the fact I am attempting to support another student and because I had agreed to meet up with the Fashion Constructed Image group I stayed on at uni after the Commission pitch. The team wanted to insert their personal notes within the (notes pages of the) presentation that we were due to deliver tomorrow, and they set about this task progressively working through all the team members. I didn't add very much but I tend to use notes as a prompt rather than something I bury my head in and read word for word. Fundamentally the presentation was already very strong and well laid out and notes were their for to support the speakers.

Sunday 20th May 2012 The Commission Pitch

Today I've improved the presentation with some subtle changes and a slight re-order of the slides. This means the running order is now;



1, Title


2, Intro MW (?)


3, Theme JB


4, Exhibition Text JB (as main Theme writer) RS (typography) SS (as poster designer)


5, Location MW


6, Model AW


7, Floor Plan AW


8, Exhibition Choices SS BH


9, Images DZ (+ all)


10, Advertising/Audience SS


11, Budget AW


12, Self evaluation/any questions

Presentation Group E Commission updated

In order to use the back lit lighting technique i require for my images my printing preference would be;

                                             http://www.digitalab.co.uk/display.html#duratrans

DISPLAY TRANSPARENCIES (DURATRANS / FUJITRANS) Superb quality large format display transparencies, often called "duratrans", have a translucent-base suitable for back-lighting in light boxes. Available from both film and digital images. Printed on our Lightjet 5000 which produces display transparencies of superb clarity, colour saturation, good blacks and high definition.

DISPLAY TRANS	16x12	20x16	20x24	30x20	36x24	40x30	48x36	60x40	72x48	96x48
1 off	48.00	51.00	77.00	85.00	91.00	117.00	143.00	170.00	222.00	314.00
3 off	35.00	37.00	53.00	67.00	78.00	105.00	130.00	150.00	195.00	258.00
5 off	25.00	31.00	42.00	64.00	65.00	91.00	105.00	130.00	169.00	242.00
Quantity prices are for prints from the same image. Prices include VAT Our back-lit display transparencies are printed on Fujitrans material, Fuji's equivalent to duratrans, ideal for use in shop display light boxes.

Also I have created a H&S Risk Assesment for the projectTeam E Commission Risk Assessment

Fort Amhurst

My Artist statement to accompany my work;

The Silent Witnesses of War

An Exhibition by Martin Wilby

A series of images showing abandoned WWII bunkers in the countryside. These structures slowly merge into the environment, yet they still remain as a reminder of the waste and loss created by War. They are also a national cultural and historical part of our heritage that is decaying and overlooked.

A field trip to the Grain area lead me to recall my childhood experiences of WWII bunkers in the area, and I soon decided upon them as the subject matter for my project.

The starting point for this project was a close examination of the brief, and the key words “produced in the local Medway area” I initially started to physically search the local area and the internet simultaneously for background information, not wanting to firm up an idea until I understood the area more. This led to some research on local military waste as an area of interest, we were then paired up randomly with a fellow student and I got Edvardas Poska who was tasked by me to look at “military detritus and abandoned forts and facilities”. As my research partner Edwardius research was outstanding and pointed me in the direction of the work of Paul Virilio, English photography Jonathan Andrew and Erasmus Schroter. I was also advised to look at Jane and Louise Wilsons ‘Sealender’, and Tacita Deans ‘Sound Mirrors’.

Free Day Saturday 19th May 2012 The Commission Project

Saturday 19th May 2012 The Commission Project

Today I have spent the whole day musing over and adjusting the powerpoint presentation for the pitch, the draft has been posted for the group to review the changes and highlight any issues. It still awaits information on the details of the budget and the inclusion of the floorplan. I also suspect the slide showing the images may not yet survive the final cut and I feel some further information on references need inclusion.  Thanks to a conversation with Sacha yesterday I now understand how to insert documents into the HTML of the blog and I've uploaded the draft presentation and a couple of others documents into the blog.

Free day Friday 18th May 2012 Fashion Constructed Image

Friday 18th May 2012 Fashion Constructed Image.

Today started of the day by collecting a friend from Maidstone UCA (who would be colour printing) before getting into Uni for just gone 10:00. I met up with Amie and Lucie and was soon joined by Ian and Sacha and we made ourselves comfortable around a mac below the bar (knowing it would be out of the way and not noisy). Amie had already produced a power-point based on the points highlighted within the brief for the fashion project. We slowly worked our way through the presentation and completed a couple of other tasks along the way. Lucie collected the dress from the dry cleaners (sadly still with one mark on it), Sacha intends to make a further attempt and fixing this small issues and has contacted the suppliers with a view to returning it once this issue is resolved. During the course of the day Sacha decided to produce an additional publication to demonstrate how our image might be displayed, and we all contributed to the re-edit of the final image after several comments on the previous edit by JS. The changes were made by Ian (Lucie and Amie also assisting) whilst the rest of us worked on other tasks. I spent some time working on commission issues as well as attempting to add my input on the presentation etc. We completed the day by creating a final edit which was printed by Ian, and we've backed this up to several locations and also saved it to disc for JS.

Free Day Thursday 17th May 2012 The Commission Project Pitch

Over the next few days (excluding tomorrow when I work with the Fashion Constructed Image Team again) I will be adding to the presentation that we have already created to ensure that it meets the brief fully. We already have ten slides so each only requires a minutes discussion.

Slide number (and owner speaker-this is subject to change as the presentation still requires some tweaking and final team agreement to make it fit the brief 100%) These tweaks will be communicated via our facebook group and the final presentation will be posted this Saturday for all to see, as I am in all of Friday working on my fashion groups final tasks.

Presentation Group E Commission 1, Title

2, Intro  MW (?)

3, Theme JB

4, Location MW

5, Model AW

6, Floor Plan AW

7, Exhibition Choices SS BH

8, Exhibition Text JB (as main Theme writer) RS (typography) SS (as poster designer)

9, Images DZ  (this slide will probably change to one on 'references' and may be -reordered)

10, Advertising/Audience SS

11, Budget AW
12, Self evaluation/any questions

Commission Unit: Final Presentation, Monday 21st May 2012, Room 806


Please read these guidance notes carefully.

The structure of your Assessment on the 21st May 2012, largely builds upon your experience at the earlier stages of the First Year (for example your January Assessment). This is a point where you present for assessment, to your Unit Leader, Steffi Klenz, Paul Wombell and Bruno Ceschel as representatives of the photographic industry.


As part of this assessment, each group will be asked to ‘pitch’ their proposal to the assessment panel in a simulated manner of a ‘real’ professional situation. This part of the unit therefore presents you with a professional ‘dragons den’ experience in which you must communicate your research, concepts and rationale for your visual solutions of your publication or exhibition proposal to ‘real’ professionals.


Your presentation should be no longer than 10mins and must take the form of a powerpoint presentation. Your pitch will be followed by a 15 minute Q&A sessions and the panel will also give you some feedback directly to maximize your experience of your industry experience

EXHIBITION TASK:

Your exhibition proposal must include the floor-plan your created of your chosen exhibition venue. You must additionally build a model of your exhibition space with your images (in their proportional size) included. You must also present clear ideas of how you ideally would like the exhibition to be lit. Additionally, you must also write a press release that indicates the theme and title behind your exhibition.

A computer will be provided in the allocated Tutorial Room (Room 806) to display your presentation.

PRESENTATION STRUCTURE

Your presentation should seek to discuss the following criteria.

1. A clear introduction to your proposed publication choice, outlining the concept (idea), behind your choice.
2. Include your Research and Visual References, with a clear explanation of what you think their significance is and why. For example, why have you chosen your particular exhibition venue? Or how has your research related to your proposal? What do you think are the most important factors that you have learnt from your research? How have the particularities of your chosen publication output influenced your own choices?
3. Highlight your editorial choices and the reasons behind your selection. You should discuss matters of curation (exhibition), or page-layout, relationship to text or relationship of images to one another. Talk about the sequencing of images and the experience this creates for your audience.
4. You must identify the roles and responsibilities within your team and how you worked together as a team as well as individuals.
5. Finally include a Self Evaluation. Discuss how you would evaluate your achievements regarding this task of the brief. For instance, how do you think your editorial choices translate to your idea? What have you learned? What could you have done better or what needed more consideration?  How have you managed this task of the unit? What has been the most significant challenge regarding this task? How can you overcome them in the future?

It is vital that you refer to your briefs for the Unit so that you deliver all tasks. Please go to the Course Blog to re-familiarize yourself with the Project requirements.

As before, we expect a high level of professionalism from our students, so please give the presentation of your review due care and attention. Time keeping is important here, so be early, you have a strict time allowance of 10mins to present. No more. So practice your presentation. For your Assessment please wait outside the room to be called.

BIOGRAPHIES OF THE PANEL:

BRUNO CESCHEL is a freelance editor, writer, and photography consultant living in London. He is the Founder of Self Publish Be Happy and he has been the editor of the new art / porn magazine Stroke, which premiered in Summer 2009. He worked on the 2008 edition of the Brighton Photo Biennial and for Chris Boot Ltd, and is a visiting professor at the London College of Communication.

PAUL WOMBELL has been a leading figure in British contemporary photography for the last twenty years. In 1994 he was appointed Director of The Photographers Gallery in London, the first public space for Photography in Britain. He was instrumental in developing the new international prize for photography, the City Bank Photography Prize. Previous to this post he was for eight years the Director of Impressions Gallery in York.  He has written widely on photography and has given lectures at many international conferences.

SCHEDULE, Monday 21^st May 2012, Room 806

10.15-10.40am                        Group 1

10.40-11.05pm                        Group 2

11.05-11.30pm                        Group 3

11.30-11.55pm                        Group 4

11.55-12.20pm                        Group 5

12.20-12.45pm                        Group 6

LUNCH

1.45-2.10pm                         Group 7

2.10-2.35pm                         Group 8

2.35-3pm                              Group 9

3-3.25pm                              Group 10

3.25-3.50pm                         Group 11

Panel Discussions

Free Day Wednesday 16th May 2012 Commission Project

 Wednesday 16th May 2012 Commission Project.
We'd agreed on Monday during our last meeting to have a follow up session to attempt to progress the tasks relating to this project . Most of the team were busier towards the end of the week so today was considered the best day to allocate to this task. Unfortunately Dana advised us that she was unavailable today, and Joe was unable to attend (at short notice) but stayed in touch online. The rest of the team attended with a view to cover some of the outstanding tasks.
Ashleigh  had been working on her model which now includes the separate room, and inner construction required to view my work. We discussed how we'd consrtuct this inner exhibition space, and several members of the group decided on opting for a bespoke display using similar building techniques. The concept being to construct flats, roofed with canvas to control and manages the exhibition space. During conversation I drew up a basic sketch on how we could construct the spaces without effecting the Grade II listed structure.

Note additional room now added (by Ashleigh) to the model

Lighting was another area of discussion and we considered options and used the internet to look at exhibition spaces and lighting methods. At least two members of the group have opted for a back-lit display, for creative and practical reasons.

Joe's room

Joe's room

Joe's room

My room (note inner feature constructed to manipulate how the images are viewed)

My room (viewed through door)

My room (viewing work through 'bunker observation slit)

My room (viewing work through 'bunker observation slit)

My room (viewing work through 'bunker observation slit)

Construction method to build simple display space inside rooms (for those who choose this option). My space would be constructed thus only narrower with slits and boxes attached to the slits with my work on the facing side of the box lit with a back light.

Dana's room (with scale image)

Dana's room (with scale image)

Rebecca's room (with scale image)

Sachas room (with scale images)

Sachas room (with scale images)

Despite being one of the weakest mac users in the team I roughed out the presentation (utilising a powerpoint template) creating blank slides and some limited text. I also included some images and was when aided by Asleigh. Sacha meanwhile tirelessly worked on the advertising publications and created numerous formats that included; a Poster, Post Card/Handout, Invitation and a facebook group (for advertising purposes). We selected the colours for our text (and publicity material) which consisted of black, gray, and blue.

The poster Sacha created

• We selected who would deliver specific parts of the pitch/presentation based on roles.
• We agreed each team member should produce notes to assist with the specific part of the pitch they would be allocated.
• We worked on a tag line for the project.
• I came up with a small logo concept for the group that again Sacha drew up on her laptop.

Free day Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commission

Today I scanned some information relating to one of the options that we are not considering, the street option in Chatham. Although we don't intend to use this exhibition space it was worthwhile investigating it further to fully understand this method of displaying work. Also of interest is the advertising material which has been professionally created to; support, contextualise, and advertise this particular exhibition.

Britain from the Air Exhibition

Britain from the Air Exhibition

Britain from the Air Exhibition

Britain from the Air Exhibition

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder)

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder) 

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder) 

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder) 

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder) 

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder) 

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder) 

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder) 

Previous UCA street exhibitions (images care on UCA yr1 shared folder) 

Tomorrow we intend on having another team meeting and reviewing progress. Roles were previously defined and now we just need to put in the leg work to produce the level of information required to provide the detailed plan and presentation. Our model maker is completing the model and we are all chipping in to cover the cost of materials for this. My section of the exhibition needs possibly some detailed drawings on how I would mount my work (which I will have to produce over the next few days). Those members of the group who missed some or all of the first days meeting will need to be brought up to speed, and we need to ensure that we are all happy with the chosen theme and direction of the project as it stands.

Free day Monday 14th May 2012 Commission Project

Monday 14th May 2012 Commission Project.

Today started with an early trip to Maidstone as I'd promised a friend and fellow UCA student (Jenna) a lift into uni so that she could print in the colour darkroom.  Arriving at uni just before the scheduled (10:00) start to the meeting I helped Ashleigh carry the excellent scale model she has produced of our venue into uni. Rebecca had already informed the group she would be unavailable for the next two days on medical grounds. Dana's team were still working on the fashion image but made herself available as much as she was able at the start of the meeting. All of the other group members were able to spent the rest of the day working through our tasks, with three of us scouting the alternate locations for extra back up research. During the day we compiled a list of alternate themes as the initial theme we'd proposed at the beginning of the project had been considered somewhat obtuse by Steffi. As the ideas flowed we also reviewed; the scale model and started to consider the exhibition space, the order in which the work would be viewed, the images to be displayed, restrictions within the venue, lighting, size of images and placement. Also to be considered are colour of display frames/flats/text, construction and restrictions of grade II location. Exact text and typography, design of supporting publications. We need to consider our audience, advertising, budget, site access (there is no disabled access for example at this location), health and safety. We might also want to consider graphics and colour to match theme of exhibition, and we have discussed providing a map of the exhibition to act as a guide through the rooms for visitors.

Team roles as they stand are:
Sacha, Curator and Designer (posters etc)
Ashleigh Architect and Model Maker
Dana, Designer.
Rebecca, Writer/Typography
Joe, Writer.
Bradley, Second Curator
Martin, Research, health and safety (locations)

Ashleigh's lovely scale model of Fort Amhurst.

Upper level 

Lower level living quarters

RH side of archway on lower level showing door and window in the 'separate room'

To the left is the entrance to the lower unlit room, to the right the archway  photographed in the previous image

External exhibition space (access to toilets via LH arch, separate room via RH arch.

Access to separate room, photographed from in front on the toilets

Again the single door entrance to the separate room

Double/split door access to the unlit room on LH side, RH door is blocked by boiler inside room

Fort Amhurst Carpark

After leaving the fort I drove to Chatham and myself Sacha and Bradley made a visit to the Nucleus Arts Cantre off of the High-street. We photographed and measured the exhibition space as you can see below.

Nucleus Art Centre (LH  door, cafe is strait ahead)

Nucleus Art Centre

LH wall

Back wall and recess

RH wall

RH and back wall

Lighting and floor space

It was only natural to photograph some of the other available 'street' exhibitions spaces whilst in Chatham so that is what we did. Work of course can be exhibited in all kinds of locations not just special exhibition boards. Shop fronts posters, advertising boards mobile displays etc.

Chatham High street exhibition

Chatham High street exhibition

Chatham High street 

Chatham High street 

UCA gallery in Pentagon which is near further  display boards.

Near UCA Gallery