Reuben
James Preston
Birmingham Institute of Art & Design
Sept 2004-2005
| Current Diary - Semester 3 |
| August 2005 |
| Wed 31st Assessment day 2 - all is a little nervous in the college as the staff go around the college scrutinizing everyone's work. I have been clearing up my studio space and trying to get myself straight with all the bits and bobs I have aquired over the year. Also I have been taking photographs of the Dangly Things which I didn't have a full set of images of and these can now be found here. There is something of a feeling of sobriety as we all await anxiously for the call to a viva voce. I have booked a couple of training days at The pUBLIC in West Brom and they will see me set on starting out on the road of being a self employed artist/creative. |
| Tues 30th Assessment day. I arrived at college to check everything was ok, turned the pieces on and tidied up a bit from the weekend's work. The pictures of the assessment final piece are here. The self assessment was handed in and now it is just waiting, all day today and then tomorrow when the viva voce may take place and then on Thursday when the external assessors come in to consider our work. My self assessment and documentation are now online and can be found here. |
Sat 27th 2:17pm It is Finished! all bar
the self assessment to be done for 10am Tuesday morning. I am pleased with my year's work. It has been hard work, very hard work but good. |
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| 26th Friday before the end and it was a day
of trying to get things tidied up and also dealing with additions
and ideas for development. HR and JW have decided that there needs
to be some more silver lame at the top of the staircase. After some
discussion witht he H&S people and also my thinking about it I
did it. The images of the extra silver are above. The battery on the motherboard of one of the control computers is dead and needs fixing. WHen I turned the music piece on this morning it came up with some very peculiar messages and I was rather concerned. Martin is coming in tomorrow to take a look. Just my luck - last time the hard disc went on the day of the assessment, I hope it all behaves this time, it should do it's a new motherboard and HD and soundcard. |
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| 25th A heavy day although I could only stay in college till 1pm from 745am because I had to go to work. The job of tidying up is very long winded and some of the panels just won't seem to look white, and there are bits of tape that just seem to randomly lift up - very frustrating! I am concerned about the music piece because it seems to have a strange glich which happens from time to time and causes a runtime error(s). The code has a random chaotic event and this interrupts the general running which is fine but when the interrupt interrupts the interrupt the error happens. I have spoken to Martin about this at length and we are hoping to be able to sort this out. No pics today but lots tomomorrow. |
24th A day cleaning and fighting with silver lame! The morning and a good part fo the afternoon was spent trying to deal with the silver lame at the top of the stair case. It seems to have a life of its own and doesn't like doing what I wanted it to do. I have managed to stick it to the staircase using gaffer tape - which sounds a bit naff but I have done it nicely! The whole business was a bit of a nightmare and the combination of the cut of the fabric and the fact that some of it is shot in part made it very difficult to handle in part. I am glad that it is done, but I think that if I had my time again there would have been better ways of handling it. The pics below show something of the final result. I was also fortunate today to have Steve come in and offer to help. He spent the best part of the day dealing with the nails and staples in the flooring becuase I have been anxious about them piercing the bubble chairs. We also put up an extra bar across the top of the silver lame curtain area because my colleague is now blacking out her space and there would have been a gap left if I hand't put another strip of timber in. Apart from all tshese fiddly little jobs I still have a list as long as my arm of things to get done for the next couple of days. |
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23rd Today was the installation day for th music audio piece. I collected Martin at 10am and we headed into college with the computer and the additional hardware that had been built. After some sorting out the piece worked perfectly first time. Then I left it on all day to see how it coped with continuous usage. I am not too sure about this atm because there are one or two funny things happening and we need to look at the coding again I think. But basically it is working. The installation pics are below - not many today because I was so engrossed with everything and also contending with the colleague in the space next to me starting to paint the walls and get set up. |
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| 22nd A day of wires and carpets! I spent the
morning wiring in the TVs for the video piece and eventually decided
to put them around the edge of the wall to the main hole I had drilled
for the mains cable to go through to the computer and DVDs etc. In
setting it all up I discovered that the output from the DVD players
is different: the two that are the same have an output which is appropriate
for a set of headphones but the other DVD player is very loud and
I cannot trun it down using the remote so I have had to introduce
an amplifier (one of the set of computer amps from the last installation).
All the headsets are now working and I have decided to go for the
wired versions rather than all the wireless ones I had got hold of,
the reason for this was really a practical one because the wireless
ones only operate on two channels so I wouldn't be able to transmit
three channels of sound only two, and I would like all the headsets
to look the same. This afternoon Steve came to stretch the carpet and that took a great deal of time because of the difficulty of the different types of finish to the carpet pieces. The final means of ficing it chosen was stapling it to the floor and then using a black permanent pen drawing on each staple to black it out - rather a faffy job in the least. Tomorrow I am collecting Martin and we are going to install the audio piece. I am feeling dead excited as well as very nervous about the whole lot working and looking good. There is so much that I don't have control of and so much still to clear up before Friday. Below are some pics from today.... |
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| 19th Still thinking about the carpet ruglike
pieces - I have decided that they are a show of their own and cannot
be included in this show. The space is necessary for the drama of
the catwalk carpet. DJ & C came in today inorder to work on the silver lame curtaining. They have made up the large curtain and now havce come up with a way of fixing the curtain to the spiral staircase. It was been a fiddly day with all the sewing and the fixing. The result look good and all that remains now on silver lame is the fixing at the top which will be done using gaffer tape and silver clips I am confident it will look good albeit a tremendous fiddle. |
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| 18th Today was carpet day. Steve delivered the bound carpet back from the factory where it had received its black binding. I had been to visit the piece at the warehouse but to see it all together was something quite different. I wasn't at all sure what it might feel like in the space, but I was quite delighted. The morning spent washing the floor and the afternoon putting the carpet into place. The images below show the work done and the progress made. As some of the lower pics show I have been experimenting with the carpet pieces that I had made. They are a mimic of the paintings I had done during 2002 based on the colour-music work I had been studying. There are sic carpet pieces and I have been trying to work out how they work in the space and the last images show how I have been experimenting using the spare plinths that are around college. I really cannot decide how to use therugs at the moment and I need a day or two to think about it. I am keen to not clutter the space with stuff.... |
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| 17th A tedious day cleaning the floor - thank goodness for poundland and its scrubbing pads.... |
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| 16th Another successful day. Today has been
another white paint day - this time more layers on the plinths/boxes
for the TVs and also the boxes I intend to use around the space to
help break it up. I have also started to embark upon the cleaning
of the floor which was a mess due to the space being a BA studio in
real life for most of the year. The floors are caked in oil and acryllic
paints. The slow and laborious task of scrubbibg has begun. My intention
is to do a little everyday and save my knees a bit! The silver lamee has been cut and pinned in place on the stair case. I wanted to get it up and hanging so the the weight would help pull it into place. DJ&C are coming in on Friday to sew the hems for me. The pics below show something of what it will look like. The latter part of the afternoon was spent at the engineers looking and listening to how the audio piece is progressing. There are a few technical difficulties that need sorting out because the midi files are not playing at the correct speed all of the time. Martin seems to think he knows how this can be remeded and we are meeting later in the week to see how it is going. I have now defined the logic of the audio piece and this can be found in the full documentation on the MA Show details page. Tonight's work is to start detailsing the documentation and select a final suite of midi files to be used in teh audio piece. I am having thoughts about exactly what to put in the play list and keep chaning my mind, however I have decided to use twelve tracks in the piece - this will also make a decent sized CD as the documentation: but we shall see!! |
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| 15th A productive day in college. Having started at 815am I wanted to get another layer of paint on the walls, especially over the glittery bits which a previous student had left behind on the walls. I worked on laying the underlay for the carpet piece and then worked in the workshops making the plinths for the TVs to sit upon for the video work. I was fortunate to be able to find sufficient chipboard so that I could construct them for free which in my current financial state was very welcome! In getting ready to lay the pressure pads I had to go and buy another reel of twin wire because the runs are very long down the studio floor about 15m each and there are eight pads so 8 x15m................ The main difficulty of the day was the wiring on the spiral staircase which had fallen off due to the heat of the windows when the sun shines. Unfortunately the room does get very hot when its sunny and cold when its not. This causes the gaffer tape to come unstuck and the wires fall off, so a solution had to be found. I spent a while at Maplins looking for different sticking means and I have found some pads with a pair of holes I could feed a zipper tape through so I used those. It meant redoing all the work on the wiring from last week, but I got there eventually. The images below show the new wiring attachments., the pressure pads and the plinths being prepared. |
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The last fiveimages
above show the setup of the computer systems which are being hidden
behind the screens. They operate/control the video and audio pieces
in the main viewing area of the studio. |
| 14th Well a Sunday of hard work and creativity! I spebt today working on the carpet pieces based on the idea of my previous paintings of 2003 which can be viewed on the application pages I made for the MA - click here to see! The carpet pieces form the basis of the extension of my initial painting practise which has been extended to the manipulation of colour using carpet as the 'paint'. The pieces are now ready to be bound to make rug-like pieces for the installation. The images below show the pieces as they are ready for the binder. |
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The carpet works as
they are ready to go to the carpet binder later this week. |
12th A long day sorting out carpet pieces. Steve came over to the studio for the day and stuck my pieces together. It was a rather smelly operation and the pieces because they were of all different forms and backings. The tape is covered with glue which is melted with a hot iron and the the pieces are bound together. The process took all day with so many pieces of carpet being involved. During the discussions and also seeing the work in place I was quite pleased with the final outcome and the pictures below show the progress made. At the end of the afternoon I took whole piece to the binders in Tipton where the carpet is being bound around the edge in black to form a safe edge. I have also decided to work on producing some square pieces for the balloon chairs to sit on and also bring the two side pieces into the whole - this will need some experiementation and I am looking forward to thte next two weeks as I get the whole space together. At the weekend I have to take the silver lame ove the DJ & C who are making up the silver curtains for me. |
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The carpet peiec before
it went off to the binders to receive a black binding around the
egde. |
11th Below are some pics of the video piece
working - the lines on the screens are due to the way cameras work. They are saying that we cannot clean out floors because they are listed!! how stupid - mine floor is a mess having been a BA studio so I intend to scrub it with detergent and a strong abrasive pad. Below are some images of the work in progress...... |
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| 10th Well I received a phone call from the
Mailbox at 815 last night saying they wanted to put off the launch
of the art for a week - rather inconvenient but saved getting up early
today. The video piece is now working correctly and all the combinations are now complete.The wiring is now complete for the circuits and I can safely install the piece in my space. Today the technicians are pulling the walls down so I am keeping out of the way because they cannot work with me in the space and there isnothing much I can acheive by being in college today so I am having a concerted effort on my documentation. The self assessment is all important for the final marking apparantely. Henry has called a meeting for next Wednesday afternoon so I shall have to turjn up to that, they are having a review of the course and the modules are being ammended and rewritten in part. The new course looks good and a shame that I will have missed out on teh New Media module. I think I shall sign up as an associate student and gain access to the lectures which will be useful fot eh BA units as well as the MA units I didn't get chance to follow. |
9th Brought the rebuilt box into the studio, set it up and now channels 5 & 9 dont work. After a bit of diagnostics I discovered a couple of dry soldered joints so its got to go home tonight for another rebuild! How annoying this circuit is proving to be. I went down to the market to collect the silver lame which the man had quoted me £90 for and his father was there trying to get me to pay £128. After a bit of a banter the son turned up and I got it for £90. Now to get the curtaining made up and the drapes for the stair case. |
 the carpet and the roll of silver lame for the stair case and curtains |
 The Mailbox piece just before it is sent off to be hung in the shopping Centre |
 Another view |
8th A very productive day. I arrived at
college in good time at about 0815 and started work on the video
piece again. The rebuild of the video switching box was sucessful
and after a bit of messing around I managed to get the piece working
for all but one combination of the screen which seemed to refuse
to work. I am going to have to take it home again and do some testson
it with my gear at home. The coding for the piece was a sucess though
and when I excluded the combination that wouldn't work the piece
appeared to be functioning exactly as I had planned. The Visual
Basic coding was quite straight forwaqrd with the book which Martin
suggested, although there does seem to be one strange case of random
number choices which I cannot fathom why it is producing them -
however I shall talk to martin about that when he returns from his
holidays.
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 the three monitors I shall be using for the video piece |
 just starting to set things up do do a test run before embarking upon putting all the wiring in place |
 the partial rebuild attempt 2 of the switching circuit - basically an array of 9 DPDT relays controlled by the parallel port of the computer from a Visual Basic program driving the logic from the input from the infraRed Detectors |
 niftty polythene box for the switching circuit in the progress of being drilled and constructed |
 all the circuitry used to make the piece work and a computer just out of sight |
 and the programmes being shown on the monitors |
 that's the whole lot - the IR detectors are at the end of the white cables |
| The IR detctors are now in place on the spiral staircase and they are moderately inconspicuous but gaffer tape cannot be hidden and I am not permitted to paint over it else I'd paint the whole thing. |
 IR detector in place |
 Unsightly gaffer taping |
 another detector |
| 6th A very frustrating day really. My show
space hasn't been sorted yet and they had said that the walls would
be removed by today. I have also had difficulties because I want the
space cleared completely - i.e. no walls. It seesm that when the walls
where put into the studios no one had thought of the outer walls being
left without the inner walls therefore they are not strongly enough
supported to be free standing - rather a poor oversight! Nevertheless
I have to have a jutty out bit on each side of the space and somehow
I need to incorporate it into the final experience. The video piece is not working at all. Something very funny going on with the wiring - I am going to do a complete rebuild over the weekend. Not at all happy with the progress of this piece at the moment. |
 The final image of the piece for the Passionately Pink competition 16" x 16" Title: Lots of Bs and As |
 Final image of the second piece for the Passionately Pink Competition 16" x 16" Title: Bs and As |
The Passionately Pink
pieces are now finished and being sen off next week. They look quite
appealling so I hope someone enjoys them. They are going to be sold
for £100 each and I shall get £70 for each one and the
Breat Cancer Charity will get £30 - well its a bit of income!! |
| 5th Well a very successful day really. I went
to the carpet warehouse at 9am having collected Steve to help with
the negotiations and the cutting. I spent the morning in the roof
where they store all the offcuts which might be made into rugs - generall
any pieces bigger than about half a meter or so. It was very dusty
and grotty work wadding through the piles of bits but I did manage
to find enough pieces to get going with the carpet for the catwalk
part of the show piece. Steve cut the carpet into roughly 1m squares
so I cane sort out the order when they are in the space. I have arranged
for him to return next Friday to glue/stick all the pieces I have
chosen together and then we shall roll it all up and take it back
to the warehouse where I am having the edges bound. This will keep
the edges firm and also mark clearly where the walk way is. I am not
sure about he colour of the binding yet bit I shall decide that when
I see the full range of what is available. Went to the Mailbox today for an appointment with the person incharge of the art project. She was very enthusiastic and helpful. I have had another installation idea to make life easier for me and also get my work more exposure to the public and less to the weather. I want to hang the piece in the main entrance to the centre so it hangs directly above you head as you ascend the steps by Harvey Nicholls. The pictures below show where I mean. |
 The position of where I want to hang my piece here in the central concourse |
 but they may want the piece hung here where I had originally proposed |
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| 1st The Mailbox piece is up and now it is time to find some rods to hang the individual pieces from to make a mobile like finished piece. I have discovered that Homebase do an expensive curtain net rod for about £5 so a couple of them and some steel wire should suffice for the construction. I am still trying to get hold of the person at the Mailbox to confirm the payement though....... |
| July 2005 |
| 29th The last week has been full of making
the piece for the Mail Box which has begun in earnest now in the free
gallery space available at college. The main work on the MA show has
been writing the final proposal and then meeting with HR to sort out
the spaces which we shall be using. I have been allocated studio F08
which will be good and the walls in the studio are going to be removed
when the technicians get back from their holidays. There are some
images below of the progress of the works for the Mail Box as well. Martin and I have been struggling over the music piece which has caused a fair few headaches from a technical point of view - just simply how on earth do we manage to achaive what is required. These technical conundromes are still being rehearsed and albeingwell we shall find a way to complete what we need to do. I have to say with only a few weeks to go I am rather nervous about finding technical solutions to the problems but I am hopeful we shall get there. |
 I have been buying wireless headphones to experiment with for the space |
 the score pages for the Mail Box piece laid out on the studio floor ready for the paint to be applied |
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 One of the pieces for the Breast Cancer Charity do |
 and the other piece for the Breast Cancer Charity |
| 20th I have the space I wanted for my show
work and the space will be the whole studio which will bea great and
make for some superb images as well. The electronics are coming along
slowly and the images are below. I have the final stages of the testing
to go through with the video which I shall have to do in college when
all the DVDs are made and I can connect everything up to see if it
is working properly. Below are a selection of images of my studio and the electronics in progress so far. I have also had another delivery of wireless headphones which I shall need to test out when I get home later. |
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 The finished switching circuit for the video box - still to be tested out! |
 I am making some art to go in a calendar competition for Breast Cancer Charity so I am working on them at college in my odd bits of spare time |
 Lots of little pictures! for some reason my mobile phone decided to take little pictures! |
| 19th I have received an email to say that my video piece called Remembering is being shown at a public show in Cologne later in the year. |
19th The last couple have days have been quite busy sorting out the physical side of what I am proposing for the show. I have ordered and received all the components for the construction of the video switching box. I will start on that tonight. Martin and I have spent a day working on the making of the DVDs
to be switched between. I am using footage from Gimmie Gimmie Gimme,
Bread, Fawlty Towers and also Footballers Wives. I looking for some
episodes of Absolutely Fabulous to use as well and also episodes
of The Office. |
| 15th Motivation is very much being driven by the final show. People are starting to come in again although everyone is deeply aware that the end is neigh. My fellow colleagues are feeling quite flat as we approach this last stage of the course. I am still unsure as to what is next for me. Getting ready for the show takes a lot of energy and I am finding the process of seeking paid employment deeply tiring. One spends hours writing applications only to receive no response at all - such a waste of effort, at least they should have to write to say thank you but no thank you. Rant over I think. |
13th I has been a bit of a mad time really trying to ideas and proposals together for the final show. Health and Saftey concerns have been in the fore with my ideas to use draping fabrics and hangings as part of an installation. The electronic control of the pieces has also been something of a concern as I have been trying to establish how it is possible to carry out the levels of interaction I require with the resources and time and engineering facilities available. Many long and trisck conversations have taken place and I think that what I am doing for the final show is almost in place in my mind, although there are still many aspects of the work to consider and this is bound to include those silly little items which take up a diproportionate amount of time. I have taken some images with my mobile phone but I am still trying to learn how to up load them to here !! |
| Voila here are the images of my experiments in draping.... |
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| 9th It has been an incredinbly fruitful time over the past few weeks and days. I have just returned from Scotland for the Ubiquitous Media conference and workshops. It was great to meet people from all over the EU including Finland, France, Italy and Spain, as well as artists from the UK. Many of the sessions were led by computer scientists who are working at looking at the boundaries of media and how those boundaries can be used by the viewers of their work. Inparticular the computer scientists seemed to have been working on games that use new technologies. I shall write more tomorrow when I believe I will have a little time. |
| June 2005 |
| 30th Today I have been to the school I was
linked with for the Big Arts Week. The photos of their work can bee
seen by CLICKING
HERE. The work was displayed in the hall and parents and local
community members were invited to the viewing. As luch would have
it an OFSTED inspector was visiting yesterday too and saw the efforts
of the children as well whcih went down very well. I have currently got a lot of applications in the pipeline for the autumn, I just hope some of the come off. |
24th Well the diary has a big chunk missing
because I have had a few problems with my laptop. This has now been
resolved so normal diary continues. I was artist in residence at St Michaels School Handsworth last
week which was fun. We worked on portraits based on various artists
different styles: Van Gogh, Warhol, Gaudi and Seurat. There is a
show of the childrens work next Thursday when parents etc are coming
to view it all. I shall include a gallery of images on here when
I have some.
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Reuben
James Preston, rjp@reubenjames.co.uk Tel: 0121 686 0459 Mob: 07971 895897
Copyright © www.reubenjames.co.uk 2004
Copyright © www.reubenjames.co.uk 2004