Garden’s Project 8: Not really the Gardens Project most of the time.

Garden’s Project 8:

Not really the Gardens Project most of the time.

I’ve been meandering through the swamp since early June when I last posted, stopping and starting, changing tack and changing back, generally not having the slightest idea what I’m doing. At time like this the discipline overtakes and “doing” becomes the purpose in itself, mostly for the worse.

So I’ve kept drawing, I’m halfway through July in my sketchbook and for this month I’m working one day left handed and the next day drawing the same thing right handed.

Gardens Project 8

First pair of drawings, 30/06/21 and 01/07/21

This is the first pair of drawings for July 21, I’ll put them together as agallery at the end of the month. The key is to spend about the same amount of time drawing each page and see what happens. Drawing left handed is still hard, especially in terms of connecting with the paper – I don’t seem to be able to exert the same pressure on the page as I can with my right hand, something I obviously didn’t notice on the iPad through to May.

Onwards and upwards.

VR project wise I’ve been stymied by having to relearn modelling and upgrading my equipment. I’ve got so much data now that it took two days to back up between computers and externalhard drives. I also fitted a new SSD to my big computer and got a new laptop to use with a new Quest 2 that I’m just getting to grips with.

I think chapter one of the gardens project is pretty much outlined now, the direction is there, but the finish on all the environments is not what I want yet and the dome with floating news doesn’t give the impression I want. So I’m developing another way to navigate the space with objects that you move out of the way to progress. This will give me a better way to look at the passage of time as well I think. I also want the environment to be a lot more black and white and possibly drawn.

More to come.

I got a message about a post from 2016 regarding “Photosynth” a now defunct software, I updated the post in response and it’s here Garden in Balby – Photosynth with a link to an article that discusses the software and what happened to it.

 

Gardens Project Seven: Progress of Sorts

Gardens Project Seven: Progress of Sorts

I’ve been trying to work out what I’m doing and all I can come up with are questions.

Do ghosts have girdling roots tightening around them over time until they stop? What happens when they stop? What does a stopped ghost feel like?

What about transcience? I have photographs that serve as the only memory of a place and time, everything else in my head is learned. The photograph is felt.

Hauntology? (‘a situation of temporal and ontological disjunction in which presence is replaced by a deferred non-origin’ according to wikipedia) another word for nostalgia in contemporary cultural discourse.

There is a sense that searching for ‘self’ in memory untethers the present and causes drift between the then and the now.

The garden is the liminal space in which all the questions are asked and none are answered. Now all I need to do is find a word for that.

Savick: Transient Landscape

Savick: Transient Landscape ‘the big match’

This image is the drawn from the photgraph that is the inspiration for Savick, the first transition scene in the gardens project. The outline idea is that the passage between gardens opens into these half remembered spaces. I remember little of significance about them, but I have evidence that I was there. Each garden grows the space so that, should you wish, you could go backwards but find things changed.

The video shows the space refined with a transition to the next scene (I’ve substituted one of the gardens here) where you come down the slide.

Drawings:

I’ve continued drawing every day. After I completed a year I moved back to ‘analogue’ drawing – I use a sketchbook now, and coloured pencils!

Draw Every Day - June 2021

Right Handed Drawing 1st of June

The interesting things about the processes is that digital is slower to do because you can correct as you go. Having to accept the mark you make encourages you to be bold about it and not get hung up on little errors. As a consequence some of the drawings are not all that to be fair.

The other interesting thing is that drawing left handed still requires more concentration, the movements you make when drawing are not as ingrained as for the right hand (or vice versa for your wrong hand) and seem to control themselves as much as you try to corral them, it makes the process more difficult but often gives a much better quality of line. The draing above is right handed, the one below left handed.

Draw Every Day - June 21 Progress of Sorts

A bowl of fruit drawn left handed on 6th June 2021

You can look at the other images here.

Garden’s Project 6: Bits and Pieces

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

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.