Category Archives: gardens project

Garden’s Project 6: Bits and Pieces

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Garden’s Project 6: Bits and Pieces

It’s a full month since I last posted, not a lot to report to be fair but here goes.

Garden's Project 6: Bits and Pieces

Garden’s Project 6: Bits and Pieces

I attended the Aesthetica ‘Future Now’ online conference, including a portfolio review with Charmian Griffin who is Head of Digital at Artangel [https://www.artangel.org.uk/]. I showed her the film of Miro World [https://www.ian-latham.com/miro.html] and got a favourable response and some useful advice about finding opportunities to show and gain support, funding or otherwise. The channels she suggested were Sheffield Doc Fest [https://sheffdocfest.com/] obiviously too late to enter for 2021 and the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival, CPH:DOX [https://cphdox.dk] which has, like DocFest, an art strand. Charmian also suggested some potential funding/support sources.

As to the festival itself the highlights for me were the ‘Digital Ecologies, 3D story telling’ talk with Jakob Kudsk Steensen. [http://www.jakobsteensen.com] A really interesting discussion about his current project, based in the Camargue near Arles, and how the pandemic shutdown has affected his working process positively and negatively. Steensen’s work is classified as ‘slow media’ which he describes as using media technologies to foster attention and aid concentration. He seeks to positively use the way the technologies dictate the way you look at the world. There are really good examples of this on his website, ‘The Deep Listener’ [http://www.jakobsteensen.com/#/the-deep-listener/] the first Serpentine Augmented Architecture commission and ‘Catharsis’ [http://www.jakobsteensen.com/#/catharsis] which is a VR world, shown as a film, both indoors and outdoors at the Serpentine. The website has a conversation section where you can see Steensen describing his process and motivations, the Louisiana Channel “Our Middle Existence” is particularly interesting.

I also watched a really interesting interview with Bieke Depoorter [https://biekedepoorter.com/latest-news/new-book-agata] about her new book ‘Agata’.

Alongside this I’ve continued drawing every day,

Draw Every Day - May 21 - iPad drawing

Draw Every Day – May 21 – iPad drawing

This was the 365th consecutive drawing using the iPad, the May 21 Gallery is here

  • Draw Every Day – May 21
    Draw Every Day – May 21
    Draw Every Day - May 21 One drawing each day for May, alternatively drawn with right and ...
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I changed tack after the year and I’ve moved into drawing in a ‘real’ sketchbook, with proper pencils!

A drawing of an iPad showing a drawing of a fallen apple blossom

iPad drawing – Moleskin sketchbook and water colour pencils

I’ve also been working on the Gardens Project, the Glover Street section, where I have a slide that can be climbed and some other playground furniture.

Garden’s Project 5: Miro Deviations

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Garden’s Project 5: Miro Deviations

I’ve been working on the Garden’s Project for a while now, and as I’ve said before I worked a new world, ‘Miro World’ alongside it.

Garden's Project 5: Miro Deviations

Miro – I Work Like a Gardener

Miro, J (2017). I Work Like a Gardener. New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press.

This book is a conversation between Joan Miro and Yvon Taillandier about his life and work. First published in a limited edition in 1964 I discovered this new edition last year and have started working with Miro’s paintings as a result.

‘Miro World’ is a 3d interpretation of a small set of paintings from 1924-25; The Hermitage from 1924, Catalan Landscape from 1924 and Dialogue of the Insects from 1924-25. The paintings are all from the time when Miro had just developed the language that symbolises his Catalan heritage and the mark making that anonomizes the imagery and brings it from a collective unconcious.

I made the worlds to test things I wanted to achieve for the Garden’s Project initially but it developed a life of it’s own. The journey starts in the landscape of the hermitage, at a campsite with the constellations of summer overhead, a woman at the campfire, a farmer in the distance with a bull in one direction and a river in the other. You explore the landscape to find doors which you pass through to the other spaces. The next is the hermitage, later in the day, and both these worlds have a sound track of ‘concierto de aranjuez’ by Rodrigo in an interpretation by Luis Manuel Molena and the Orquestra de Camara Musica Eterna, released under a creative commons license.

From here you progress to the Catalan landscape, facing the hunter with his rifle and a freshly killed rabbit, there is a sardine in the background and the soundtrack is a ‘sardana’, a Catalan folk dance – ‘Joves Ileons’. This reflects the writing in the original image that says ‘sard’, and may be a reference to the dance or to the sardine.

From the Hunter you progress to the dialogue of the insects, finding yourself in the long grass with strange creatures flying and running around you. The soundtrack is a field recording of a summer meadow, when you find the door you return to the hermitage.

VR Development Gardens Project – Four:

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Progress has been slow on the VR Development Gardens Project as I freeze in my garrett and read around the subject. I was struck by a review of Donald Judd by David Salle in the NYRB.

Judd’s chief value as a critic was to point out the obvious: that art is a thing, something that is made. It is not inevitable and doesn’t exist in all times and places equally. There is an objective difference between art and non-art, and a given society will either view art as worth the trouble or not. For Judd, art had certain factual properties, and comprehending a work required first of all observing what is or is not the case, and also a knowledge of art’s history, of how we got to this moment. Furthermore, Judd reminds us that this history is often quite apart from whatever story happens to serve the cultural moment. People obviously feel very differently today: the question is, On whose authority is this history being scored?

Salle, D., 2021. Object Lessons. [online] The New York Review of Books. Available at: <https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/12/17/donald-judd-object-lessons/> [Accessed 8 January 2021].

Judd’s chief value as a critic was to point out the obvious: that art is a thing, something that is made. It is not inevitable and doesn’t exist in all times and places equally. There is an objective difference between art and non-art, and a given society will either view art as worth the trouble or not.

Everything comes with a qualification.

I’ve continued reding the Sissinghurst book, particularly struck with Vita Sackville-West’s insistence that the garden be allowed to grow for itself essentially and the aim for minimal intervention. You have to leave to one side the intervention that was done but I like the idea that plants were allowed to spread and the design for the moment rather than for all year round colour.

leaves macquette

leaves macquette

So since the last post I’ve continued to work on the Glover Street Model, firstly testing things out in Miro world and building models for the playground behind the house. I’ve built a slide so far, I need a roundabout and a seesaw. I’ve also continued to look at the paintings and built some sculptures.

lebrun_bather_two_corrections_a

lebrun_bather_two_corrections_a

The lebrun paintings are progressing and hopefully improving.

lebrun_bather_four_corrections_a

lebrun_bather_four_corrections_a

Although these pictures are slightly out of focus.

But it is difficult to get motivated enough to really press on, I’m wearing my woolly hat and gloves in the attic even with two heaters on from 7:45.

The sculptures have provided a breakthrough for the Glover Street Playground that will translate into low poly models.

VR Development Gardens Project

leaves maquette detail

VR Development Gardens Project

leaves maquette detail

As usual I’ve continued to draw every day.

  • Draw Every Day – January
    Draw Every Day – January
    Draw Every Day - January, this month alternating left and right handed drawing, starting with a ...
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