Berlin Trip

Standard time: Stop motion film using time

At the Guggenheim, Agathe Snow: All access world

Guggenheim.

Corey Archangel, split screen projection

Hamburger bahnhof

Hamburger Bahnhof

Hamburger Bahnhof

Hamburger Bahnhof

Bruce Nauman

Going to Berlin was great for art galleries and museums as well as the culture. Some pieces of work caught my eye using TV's and some digital timers.

Lorenzo Fusi

Lorenzo has given me some websites to look at, this being particulary useful: The Disappeared Lorenzo was great to speak to about the presentation of my work ready for assessment and the degree show. I have simplified my idea down for the TV's after speaking to Lorenzo because if I used both the Tv's and the map both would detract from each other. Ideally I would like a dark room to display my TV's so they stand out visually.

TV Idea

Side shot of TV's on plinth

Birds eye view

Birds eye view

Holes drilled for the wires

Plaques with country names made with the laser cutter

Inside of the plinth

Laser cutter in action for my plaques

I have my idea for my final piece using TV's and corresponding numbers of missing people. Originally I was going to use 9 TV's to represent 9 countries, but I have now cut this down to 6 due to getting the equipment on time and it still looks visually pleasing. This week I have been busy making the plinth for the TV's to rest on, making reinforcements inside and drilling the holes for the wires to go in. It has also been a mission to collect all the TV's ready, getting them from friends, family and tips/dumps. Also I booked in with Lol to make my plaques with the laser cutter, I used perspex for the country names.

Nam June Paik

Amazing piece that also uses a world map!!!

In a previous entry I explained I went to the Nam June Paik exhibition at the Tate. This trip has become very inspirational and a good reference point to my work now. Using TV's in my work, I instantly thought of him. I remember looking behind some of his works and seeing all wires and technical stuff which looked rather complicated. No doubt I will have to overcome some hurdles using technology in my work. This also made me think of how to hide my wires/dvd player etc as I wouldn't want these visible and visually impacting it. I have come up with a cutting plan for Sean so we can start building a suitable plinth on Friday.

New Idea

Because I have been struggling to find the digital timers (I have emailed different electronics companies, asked the electronics department for LJMU, been to Maplins) I have changed my idea. I want to use TV/Monitors and record a timer counting up to the appropriate numbers. These numbers will be displayed on the screens. On Friday I am making a plinth with Sean to put the TV's on and tomorrow I'm going for a TV hunt to the tip. I have two TV's already but need 9 in total. I have also joined freecycle.com.

Originally I was going to have string attached to the TV's that lead to the map behind (attached to the appropriate countries). However, after speaking to Lorenzo Fusi today I have decided not to use the map (or have it just for experimentation). We decided that visually it would look too busy and they would both detract from each other. Instead I am going to use just the monitors/TV's and either have it more scientific or add a hint to the numbers involved (like showing an outline of the country behind or a plaque on the TV).

Artist Research: Map work and the missing

Kathy Prendergast, Lost Map

Kathy created on first impression a map of the USA. However, on closer inspection this computer-generated map reveals that all the names of places have been removed from the map except for those that begin and end with the word lost. Her aim is to create an emotional map of the world.

Guillermo Kuitca, People on Fire.

Another artist who uses the notion of loss in map work is Guillermo Kuitca.Using a map he puts the names of countrymen and women who “disappeared” during the reign of terror in Argentina, color-coded by gender: male-orange, female-pink with some spots left blank symbolising the unknown. Just as I will have blank spots on my map for the unknown numbers, so this piece is a good reference to my work. Both these artists are good to look at when creating my missing map.

At the moment I have been looking at artists who use large scale maps in their work to grasp an idea of presentation. I recall going to see the High Tide exhibition held here that used a large scale map attached to wood.

UK maps of the missing

I was able to find out roughly how many people are missing per day in regions of the UK, so I made mock-ups of these as well.

I have also made varying scales of maps and feel the large maps are more eye catching and effective.

European maps of the missing

Most of the statistics I was able to find came from Europe, so I decided to make mock-ups of European maps too.

World maps of the missing

Map Idea

While this has been happening I have looked back on my own information collected on missing people, especially the statistics. My work is heavily researched based and I would like to present this in some way. I think a good place to start would be on my website I created a few weeks ago, which is still in the making. michellequinnartist.weebly.com.The internet is easily accessible for everyone and it seems only logical to use this. I have listed some statistics on my blog, but it seems more appropriate to use a website.

I also want to create a physical representation of the figures involved with missing people. Most people have no idea about the numbers of people that go missing everyday, and after a lot of researching I found out some of these on a global scale. I have put these numbers on maps as a mock-up of what I want my piece to look like. I have tried using different map types but feel the blank maps work best. The numbers are the amount of people that go missing in that country per day. Some, or most, countries do not have this information available and there can be many reasons for this...undeveloped countries do not keep records or some governments misrepresent /keep this information secretive. At the moment I am finding it difficult to find the timers that will be used to count up the number of people going missing over a 24 hour period. My plan is to ask at Maplins or other electronic stores for advice.

More photo's from event

Missing Mystery Event

As you know I had taken part in Patricia's performance workshops which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was the first time I had done performance art and because the performance was unexpected to the audience it was great to see the reactions and how they interacted with what was happening. I have always been interested in interactive art and have done some in the past. I felt the time was right to re-visit that now and get people involved in my work. Using the art and design building itself in the performance piece seemed a great way of utilising the space and taking advantage of what we already have. Therefore I decided to hold an event that utilised the whole of the building for a missing mystery event.

As my work deals primarily with MWWS I chosen Vivienne to be 'my victim' for the event as she fits the criteria. I made up missing posters, each with a different clue that would eventually lead to her whereabouts. I put these around the building, utilising all the floors, along with picture clues of the victim walking in different directions. I invited guests to come along for a little soiree beforehand.

I found this to be a good experience as myself and the people involved enjoyed the evening and I feel art is made to be enjoyed. As my work has been quite intense and deals with important issues, I found this to be a more light hearted approach yet carrying serious undertones. Again with this event I had to do some negotiating, everything from the wine to where I could put up the posters, but you learn from these experiences and they set you up for what to expect after university. I feel that if this could be done on a bigger scale it would be a great way to raise awareness of missing people and could even be used to raise money for charities for missing people. For example missingpeople.org, who look for missing people as well as holding a lot of information on the statistics involved.

Missing Persons Statistics

My work is heavily researched based and after talking to the external examiner I want to present this in some way. People do not realise the full extent of what goes on in the world of missing people, the examiner was shocked by some of the facts I had told her e.g about MWWS or that 550-600 people go missing per day in the UK. I was thinking of adding this information somehow on to my website which is at michellequinnartist.weebly.com. Here are some figures that relate to my map idea (some are estimations from information gathered):

UK: 550 people per day

USA: 2300

Australia: 70

Russia: 2000

France: 116

Canada: 1165

India: 1080

Germany: 961

Brazil: 1057

Spain: 288

Italy: 161

Some countries themselves may not/ do not know how many of their people are missing, or even worse, mis-represent how many have gone missing. (police/government secrets eg).

Nam June Paik @ The Tate

As I have become more involved with video work I went down to see the Nam June Paik exhibition at the Tate. Jackie Passmore was kind enough to get us a slot in there with the audio tour. I really enjoyed the exhibition. There were a few surprises in there!! Some of the works seemed very satirical and some seemed to almost mock the future generation with our TV culture. Like he could predict the future! I have always been a little skeptical of video art and think that some can be a little pretentious at times, but it was great to see some original and intriguing pieces of video art. His sense of humor shined through in his work and I really enjoyed that. It was also good to see the birth of video art and how Paik's practice had developed.