The great City of London

As I travelled through London town the other day I was reminded what a beautiful contradiction it is. A heaving mass of very old, old and new; money can be seen every were but if you know where to look poverty isn’t far away. Pride is also at an abundance as is disgrace; you can find traces of every culture on earth and bodies from ever continent both animal and insect. You can see memories of the past and dreams of the future and it is in the present that I find myself.

I have always loved travelling through London and I find something new is reveals to me little by little each time I visit her, but she still has plenty of secrets left to show me. London town has grown over the centuries to become one of the heaviest populated cities in the world and some times it feels like it and as a result its history is massive. But for me it is still a system an organism that succeeds because of all its inputs.

It is like a brain or a hive centre in witch other things out side of it are allowed to happen. Very little is acutely made in the brain but it is the birth place of ideas and dreams. It is the home to the systems controls and it is where all the nice stuff is keep. But keeping this place a live is its transport networks the roads, trains lines, river and skies. One of the things that I found most interesting and always have are the underground train lines.

The London underground is one of the oldest underground train network in the world and parts were built as early as 1863. This can be seen in the design and construction of stations all over the network, many platforms have a Victorian feel and play host to some of the finest design of the time. As the network grow the platforms have a more art deco feel and there is a very real sense of modern Briton growing out of them, this could also be felt in the design and lay out of the station entrances and ticket booths. A growing City needs a competent and good transport system. As a result in 1933 London transport was created and has grown ever since this not only included The London Underground but the bus and tram services.

The underground or its more affectionate name The Tube wanted to show its modern and innovative side and as a result the complex maps of the past changed and the Tube map was born. Based on a electrical wiring diagram Harry Beck created what we have all come to know as the London Underground map. At first it was seen as a radical idea as it doesn’t show the accurate scale and location of stations, but what it does do is show how the stations link and how to get from A-B. Most transport maps all over the world have been based on this idea.

It is this current system that I uses and I find fascinating, there has been a lot of work on the current network and this modern and growing system still wants to be seen as a sophisticated and clever beast. The newest platforms and stations have an air of simplistic whilst embracing all my wants and needs. They are clever places that allow me to access London and its many sites and attritions or mealy allow me to pass through with out a trace. But as you pass along the massive darkened tunnels you are give glimpse of the labyrinth of cables and wires that make the system work and survive. This cables remind me of the veins and nerves in the body transporting information and recourses so that the ideas can move around the brain.

A Simple End

For my final ICP piece I have used a finishing technique that has taken quite a lot of experimentation. The finish not only uses a very random and unpredictable outcome but there is a sense of commitment to the fire. Also there is a massive amount of variation on finish quality depending on time in the fire, type of news paper used and modification to the paper.



The idea is simple but when done right it is very affective and also the simpler the better. Basically the finished Iron work is tightly wrapped in newspaper and this paper is burnt off, but there are a lot of variations that can change the finish. Firstly and most importantly is the speed and rate of burn I have found that a hot fire doesn’t work and will burn the paper to fast and then burn of the blackening. So a simple wood fire or a blowtorch works best the slower and longer the burn the better. Secondly paper type and thickness is most important good quality paper will almost defiantly affect the finish and more layers prevent blackening. Also magazine paper does not work well there are too many glosses and laminates on the paper and this prevents a “good clean” paper soot sticking to the metal. It will also stop the addition of coppers and tins in the ink sticking to the work that gives you the close up beetle shell finish.



And on the subject of ink the more on the paper the more colour change if you are looking for a nice green or blue then use newspaper with lot of images and thick text on it. I tried adding ink but this made little difference. Staining the paper with other inks does little to change the colour but this might be due to the type of fire I was using as there was hardly any soot transfer in fact I’m sure this is the reason why. I’m keen to try this more and also I’m keen to try wood chip finish also. Maybe trying different types of inks and paper and making some of my own prints. Also I would like to add copper and brass dust to the paper and see what happens.

At the Turn of the Last Century

At the turn of the 20th century there was a change in culture all over Europe. The idea of having commodities and designing being as important as function was born. Machinery and technology meant that high quality products could be made at a much lower price than before. As a result more attention can be spent on function and how it looks. Not only were these products functional, modern and sexualy utilizing the very best that science and technology could offer but they would change how we viewed art. It would change the way the masses would consider what art was, how it should look and who was allowed it.

Technology and science grow at an extremely fast rate man was learning about the world he lives in more and more. This relentless growth was only matched by the imaginations of the designers and artists that would sculpt the landscapes of the cities and factories we would occupy. This grow would come with a toll and that was war, but this wasn’t going to stop the growth but make it faster and both the first and second world wars would change our lives forever.
I really enjoy the unique aesthetics that was born during this period of time and find that it not only influences my creative taste but it truly satisfies my ideas. In the early part of the 20th century a lot happened and ideas of lifestyle began to change on both ends of the spectrum. In Russia there was revolution and the birth of communism in Europe the idea of commodity was born. Both ideas having a very similar undertones making life better for all through growth and mass prosperity.

Art became the platform for these ideas with artists like Marcel Du Champ, Dmitry Moor and Joseph Csaky describing the then current culture and making their work available to the masses. Using their work they encouraged men and women to support the current political climate. Describe the beauty of industry and show us how science will inevitably make are lives better even though we are just animals. Or simply making art available for the common folk. These artists and many more also speared the imaginations of millions and pushed the ideas of future in to our hearts and minds.

Below is a series of images that I have chosen for their aesthetic qualities mostly. They are a range of media, architecture, sculpture and feature. There is a common theme running through the selection, they mostly depict images from the early part of the 20th century but there are some modern images also. These more modern images have played a massive role in the selection of the other images like the 1998-2001 Batman images. (I spent a lot of my childhood playing with batman toys.) These batman images also explain my selection of human figurative images that I have made. I love the very athletic look that has been given to all of the figures both male and female. Yes they are very attractive but I believe it is more that they are also capable of fighting or working that makes them most appalling.

I have also selected images that have a certain line and shape quality. The shape and line selection is very stylish but have been carefully chosen. There is a sense of simplicity to the images but they hold a massive amount of details and information. The image, especially the figurative images have a very emotive feel they show stronger powerful forms and suggest young modern and cool ideas of a bright future. I really enjoy the Art Deco look and this fits perfectly with my ideas of Japanese culture and styles. Simple, cool, and modern.

The Vessel of My Ideas

For our current module ICP we have been asked to look at ourselves and ask who we are and what we want to make. I have reached the part of the module where I have to think about what I want to make. Now this has been somewhat of an odd process for me as I have a lot of ideas and the function of these ideas isn’t always clear. I am also learning that the interpretation of what I produce is very different from person to person.

On the 14th of May I handed in a body of work that consisted of sketch books, samples and written ideas. All of these pieces showed how I see the world around me and how I like to see the world as mechanical equipment. Its how I have learnt to understand the world I live in. I have also learnt that control is of the upmost importance to me and I use this idea to give my work a unique aesthetic. I produce all of my own sections and use it to create pieces that show the human form mechanically. But what is the function of my work?

As a Blacksmith it seems the purpose or function (more function in this instance) is very important. In fact it almost out ways the aesthetic qualities of the piece rendering them as an add-on. In turn this can spoil or take away from both the aesthetic and the function of the piece. I believe this is a fall bare of the past and has come from the idea that the role of a smith is to create tools that can be used. Just adding to that function is stupid and often creates very ugly work. The fact that it is well made or works is irrelevant now. I was told by a blacksmith on my first day on the course that as makers we all produce four types of work.

1. Well made, good design
2. Well made, bad design
3. Poorly made, good design
4. Poorly made, bad design

As a crafts person is there truly a point to all of this, does my work need a function and should I be making things? Does the design really hold any weight at all? And then finally what am I going to make? We often have tutorials during the course of the modules and these are designed to assess and check on our progress. They can be quite deep and emotional and often lead to the miss interpretation on both side tutor and student. I quite enjoy the contact I have with most of the tutors and assisting staff but there input can be confusing and misleading at times but this is mostly due to miss understanding on both parts. It is how you chose to translate this input that is most important.

So I have decided on both the function and the piece I’m going to make. I have quite a large body of work in my sketch book that shows human anatomy from muscle tissue to the inside of the human eye. I have then modified these images and produced sketches that show a mechanical idea of the same body part. I have produced ideas, theory’s and images that not support what I want to make but that assist in there construction. I then produced samples of components that are in my drawings, extracting ideas constructing them and then playing with the concept. Then I played around with the idea of what it was that I would make. What functional thing I would produce and how I would add my aesthetic to it.

I tried to find things that would not only look good but have function, but this is counter intuitive for me as I use my aesthetic to describe how stuff works so making something that works cannot work. So I have chosen to create “Her”, she will be sculpture and her function.

New Cogs for an Old Machine

A much Wiser and old gentleman said this to me quite recently and it got the old cogs turning. “Well you have to remember you’re just a new set of cogs for an old machine!” I would love to think he was wrong but I’m starting to think he might be on to something. As part of the course we are expected to have an understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it, but this isn’t easy. What I have learnt is that I’m not the sum of my own ideas and that there is a side that I have never seen.

There are parts of me that are well understood and studied through self motivated learning but as I grow older I find parts of my life that have sub-consciously developed and played a very important role in my life. My ideas of the world I live in and the role I play in the community and environment. Where do I stand, what is my task and most importantly who am I? Do I serve a function as a cog in a much greater machine, am I mealy the years of a developed operation. If I am made to feel as if I have been given a choice will that satisfy my hunger to exist? Maybe not but something I have developed is an innate sense of duty and I have a load to carry and I should carry it. I don’t carry it for the ultimate goal of the machine but for the other load barriers, my fellow cogs.


It is the one thing that I wasn’t expecting to find here in Hereford. I am learning about me and my role now more than ever. And yes the result of my actions have lead me here, but it is the close intermit study of myself that has truly lead to my most recent realisation. We are all part of the machine and we all have a role but it is how we chose to succeed that gives us weight and meaning. It’s the choices that we make that determine who we are and what we will become. It is the battles we choose to fight or the people we surround ourselves with these may ultimately be the only choices that one has but if they are made knowingly then you are at risk of becoming a cog in a machine.

Mecha - (Insert Subject Here)

As part of one of are modules ICP we have to identify who we are and what we are all about. This in turn will hopeful give use as makers a clear and well round idea of what we want to create. This module has been delivered to us in several parts and has two lots of assessments this make up a final grade added to our EXM marks. For the first task we had to collected 50words and Pictures that have some sort of emotive or aesthetic value for us then we where asked to use the images and words to produce sketches of things we like and wanted to explore. From the sketches we have to produce small models and sample that reflected are ideas.



From these sketches and ideas we where asked to produce a statement of intent, it should describe what we have learnt and what we believe to be are practice, What I want to do and how I intent on doing it. Its quite odd, I honestly believe that I had a good idea of what I was doing and what I wanted to do; to some extent I do but its not quite how I perceived it. In faced there are some parts of it that I still have no idea about and this is exceptionally irritating. But I have come to some clarity about my work and what it is I’m doing and the answers to these question where already very prescient in my mind and I didn’t even know.




From a very early age I have been exposed to three very pivotal ideas and this ideas I think work together amazingly well. I uses this ideas to understand the world around me, these ideas have guided my hand and they make me how I am. There have been time when my ideas have clashed but, I believe this is because they have become out of balance, distorted beyond recognition. One of this ideas is something that I owe my Grandfather a great deal for. My grandfather was or I guess is still an engineer and a man of science. Almost all of my early conversation that I can remember with him have be driven by questions about the world I live in. The answers where often detailed and easy for me to understand in turn this has allowed me to explore the information and build a detailed image of the world around me. But I don’t see trees instead I see chemical conversion factories, the heart isn’t a muscle but a hydraulic pump and the wings on a bird are no different to the wing on a racing car just up side down.

I have always done this for as long as I can remember, I describe the whole world around me like on big machine. I do it with every thing even things that don’t exist or so large that the comprehension of them is over whelming (hence why I change it). I even describe my self as a cog in a machine with a job and a very specific work load. I see society as a machine, planet earth is a machine and I myself am a machine. Know the next bit I’m going to describe is a little fuzzy to me so if it’s a lot fuzzy to you then its my bad. This is the part that one of my other ideas gets evolved, I am a mechanic and an engineer I look after my engines, pumps and machines; I clean them when they are dirty, I change there oil and filters, I modify and repair them, replacing the old for new and in time the old has been completely changed and now is new. But I also built them, I took time to design them and study every aspect of them. We are a father and mother, we have children; we clean them when they are dirty, we care for them when they are sick, and through education, nutrition and exercise we help the grow and change into the next generation.

So who watch earth, who picks it up when it falls, who change its parts and who took all that time to design it? For the governments are just cogs as am I, they just perform a different task from you or I; think of the as gages or screens that show information about what’s happing. Or buttons that when press make one part of the machine work different for good or bad.



I have Learnt that I describe my world in mechanical terms, I use scientific theory and ideas to build pictures of the hide world that lies in front of me. I use my study of machines, electronics and engines to allow me to understand people, society and even Gaia. The weirdest thing is I left a job I loved and dreamed of because it was to much. So in order for me to express my self and my ideas I should use a method that fits me well and this is the mechanical representations of my idea and thoughts through forging, machining, and fabrication of metals and other mediums as I see fit.

WHO IS ARE ENGINEER?

She

As part of the BA (hons) course we are expected to partake in subjects such as cultural studies and Discourse. These subjects are put in place in order to help use as contemporary artist and crafts people understand the world that we work in. This in turn allows use to develop more conscious pieces of work that not only feed are ideas to the right ordinance but allows use to push them; creating more unique and interesting work.

There has been a recent change to the current curriculum and now as part of cultural studies we must produce a piece of art work to accompany are written work. This piece has to be directly influenced by the topic in the brief and we must also talk about it in are written work. I think it is a unique idea and in all honesty its quite appalling to me. It makes quite a refreshing change to be able to work on an idea or concept without having to necessarily paying much attention to aesthetic detail. “The aesthetics suit the idea and mealy embellish it.”

The above two paragraphs are my ideas and no one else please don’t take them as gospel

We where offered two subjects to write about the first was landscape and the natural world and the other is travel and tourism. Quite open don’t you think, its interesting how people reacted to such open questions. As part of the criteria we have to talk about common and alternative idea and how people have chose to use them in there work. Before the selection of are chosen subject we where given lectures based on both of the subjects. These lectures where structured with the idea of giving us and insight into some views on current cultural idea.

I have chosen landscape and the natural world and how we as humans view it. It is an interesting dynamic which has multiple faces, some of use viewing open fields of golden wheat as comforting and romantic where as others view it as massive scares of abnormality. Or how the confines of a house protect use from the world out side or trap use and leave use numb and desensitised. For most of use we interacted with landscapes and the natural world based on cultural ideas. But there are some more radical ideas of landscape and how we reacted with it.

One of this ideas is that the world we live in is alive it is an organism just like me and you. It is a theory developed by a man called James Lovelock and it is called the Gaia hypothesise. I love this idea, in fact some of my earliest and most vivid ideas just prove to fuel my ideas about Gaia. The idea that She (Gaia, the Greek goddess of the earth) was self regulating, aware and in balance, She keeps order and she is ruthless.



James Lovelock talks about the gentle balance that the earth exits in he describes how we are all part of systems that has limits. He also talks about some unique and interesting information that has been discovered through scientific research. Like how the very first photosynthesises (plants) almost wiped themselves out, they where so good at there job that the poisoned there own atmosphere. They just did what we are doing they made to much oxygen and we are doing the same making to much carbon.



There are also some more interesting idea brought to light by James, ideas that have some very deep and profound meaning. For an organism to be called and organism there is one simple rule it must follow to be able to reproduce. And a first glance you would think that this is impossible, but look again and you will see Her seeds every where. It is just an idea but it explains a lot we are Her seeds, we are the means of reproduction. We have and always will desire exploration, we crave the un none and we won’t let any thing get in are way. Science has or will have soon the technology and understanding to Teraform (changing a dead planet into one that humans can live on) other plants. Its isn’t really the case of if but more when; I think the more potent question is are we ready could we become the teenage mother to a bastard son.

James Lovelock talks about his theory in great detail in his book Gaia. The ideas he has developed are based in science and he has spent time studying and researching every aspect of them. His idea can seem at time radical and are hard to hear sometimes but I believe I is talking with a great deal of clarity. I have started work on some image that I want to use for my essay. The are human form but mechanical in structure the final pieces are meant to represent a mother or Gaia carrying a child or earth. Gaia herself is mechanical to represent man creating her child. I think.