heidi donohoe: A day full of inspiration and pants!

Pipolitta Rist @ Hayward

Up at 5am today to catch 7.15 train from leeds to London. A great day, I have to say, the negaitive is it went so quick! The morning was spent at the V&A where I attended 'The power of Making' interesting start...with the curators talk about how craft is settinga new landscape within creative industry...and then it died a little , the interiewee was rather annoying! I sat next to a lady form the design musuem and we talked briefly. I wonder what its like to have a job as a curator in such a wounderful place as the Design musuem, imagine all the interesting people you would meet and all the interesting work you would see and be involved in?? I remember seeing Martino Camper there a few years ago..he had produced 100 chairs in 100 days...the whole room was littered with chairs made from chairs. I mention him as he was one the designers due to speak at the event, but because of illness he could not make it...damn shame!! see extract below...

6 September 2011–2 January 2012

The Porter Gallery
Room 48
Admission free

The V&A and Crafts Council celebrate the role of making in our lives by presenting an eclectic selection of over 100 exquisitely crafted objects, ranging from a life-size crochet bear to a ceramic eye patch, a fine metal flute to dry stone walling. Power of Making is a cabinet of curiosities showing works by both amateurs and leading makers from around the world to present a snapshot of making in our time.

The exhibition showcases works made using a diverse range of skills and explores how materials can be used in imaginative and spectacular ways, whether for medical innovation, entertainment, social networking or artistic endeavour.

Making is the most powerful way that we solve problems, express ideas and shape our world. What and how we make defines who we are, and communicates who we want to be.

For many people, making is critical for survival. For others, it is a chosen vocation: a way of thinking, inventing and innovating. And for some it is simply a delight to be able to shape a material and say ‘I made that’. The power of making is that it fulfills each of these human needs and desires.

Those whose craft and ingenuity reach the very highest levels can create amazing things. But making is something everyone can do. The knowledge of how to make – both everyday objects and highly-skilled creations – is one of humanity’s most precious resources.

Guest Curator, Daniel Charny

Daniel Charmy taked passionatly about how it important Craft is in society in particular creative industry. Craft is running forward together with digital technology..this made me think that if the traditional elements of craft is so important then why in education are we losing our ceramics, darkrooms and printrooms to settle for digital..??? its a scray thought that in 10-20 yrs time all this will be lost to the future, students will have to look up how to process a film on wikipedia if they want to know the technique...and do it themselves at home, thats of course they can still buy the developer?? crazy. This notion was confirmed recently when a lecturer from the BA photography course at Hull could not believe that we still had a dark room, as far as he was concerned it was wasted space and we at Harrogate still lived in the dark ages...Of course we engage in digital technology..yes!! but what about the wounderful process of being able to actually make something, physically I mean...to feel the material your working with, to smell it, for it to evolve before your eyes I have to say is the best thing of all. So then why cant both craft and technology in education run pararel together, why I ask does the traditional have to be phased out if there is such an upsurge of craft in industry???

http://www.vam.ac.uk/channel/happenings/exhibitions_and_galleries/power_of_making/

Ok the afternoon was spent at the wounderful Hayward Gallery, on the southbank, I love this gallery and this part of town, the walk across the bridge from embankment to southbank is breathtaking. I always have to stop and take in the the city's skyline. Anyway back to the Hayward, currently showing is Pipilotti Rist. PR is a video/installation artist, sculptor who produces colourful themed projections on a large scale, underpants chandelier (see above image) to handbags and shells with little narrative projections staring out. wow i was and am so inspired. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uKR-QhjOz-o

Video...Pipilotti Rist made her first experimental videos in the late 1980s. These were single-channel videos; works that involve a single tape, one playback device and one display mode, such as a TV screen. While music plays a large part in these, Rist’s main interest is in the perceived failings and shortcomings of video. "I’m interested in feedback and generation losses, like colour noise and bleeds. In my experiments with video it becomes clear to me how these supposedly, faulty, opportune images are like the pictures in my own subconscious."

Installation Soon after making her first experimental videos, Pipilotti Rist started creating environments that influenced the way in which her works were seen. Videos are projected in unexpected ways in order to manipulate scale, context and the position of the spectator. Works are projected at angles on the wall, or onto the floor so that visitors can move in and around them, and also become part of them. Over the years, Rist has progressively redefined this relationship between audience and art work, creating all-enveloping visual environments that place particular importance on the viewer’s physical presence. Rist comments: ’When I close my eyes, my imagination roams free. In the same way I want to create spaces for video art that rethink the very nature of the medium itself. I want to discover new ways of configuring the world, both the world outside and the world within.’ These immersive installations are, in effect, an invitation into a parallel world – into Pipilotti’s world