Reuben
James Preston
Birmingham Institute of Art & Design
Sept 2004-2005
| Current Diary - Semester 2 |
| May 2005 |
| 9th The Gary Seven Show opening went well and
there were a lot of people that came along. My postcards seemed to
sell well too. The images of the show are here. Well what a day! I arrived at college at about 8am to turn my installation on and to put out my supporting documentation. I turned on the computer and after a few mins waiting realised that something was wrong - it had crashed and then after a little longer it became ckear that the computer had a major problem. I called MArtin adn we looked at the hard disk and discovered that Windows had corrupted the hard disk! Panic!! Well to cut a long story short I sent a note to Henry saying that I had problems and that I needed till Tuesday to try and fix the problem. Marting worked on the computer whilst I bought black plastic sheeting and timber for the G7 show. At 1pm I fetched Martin from college to help with the black sheeting and we worked on the installation at the Custard Factory all afternoon until it was finished and then we went ot his to get some graphics drivers to make the computer work - it didn't! I tried to plan a rescue strategy and we managed to get the machine to reinstale Win98 and then install the graphoics drivers at 515pm the installation was working again Alleluia! WHat relief. I sent Henry a note to say all was fixed and we went to the pub to celebrate until the G7 show opened at the Custard Factory. The photos from the opening show of Gary Seven can bee seen here. Below are images of the building of the installation at the custard factory. |
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The pictures show the construction of a darkened space to view the piece. It works quite well in dull light but when the sun is out the piece is still quite faint which is a shame. |
| 8th Another day in the Custard Factory trying to get the Gary Seven piece installed. The shelf I built last night was a success and the keystone can now be suitable adjusted. We managed to get the sensors up and all the wriing completed. The piece now works well except for the lighting levels. The light is far too bright so we had to try and install some darkening and black out sheeting. Sadly the material was too heavy and didn't work very well at all. After a rethink we are going to go back in tomorrow and build a frame which we can put some black polythene on to create a darkened area to display the piece in. This is really a bit of a hassle because I am very tired at the end of this semester. Here are a few pics of what we managed to acheive today. |
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Struggling with the material to try and create a little shade. Well more work for tomorrow on that one I think |
7th A day at the Custard Factory setting
up in the gallery. The space was empty when I arrived at 10am with
Martin. We managed to get some ladders and began work trying to
set the projector into place. We put a shelf on top of one of the
beams. However, when we got everything up and working the keystone
wouldn't adjust more than 31 degrees so we had to have a rethink.
I spent the evening making a shelf to hang from the beam so that
the project is at a lower level to allow for the keystone adjustment
necessary for a straight picture on the wall. The cabling was all
put into place and tomorrow will hopefully see it all working. I
am a little worried about the level of light in the gallery though
because the image is very dim. I will have to think abou the blacking
out of the windows in the roof but how realistic this really is
we shall have to see. |
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Sadly the shelf is too
high to a lower one needs to be made this evening. |
| 6th Friday is upon me and the installation is complete. It is called Changing our minds and I need to go into college and turn it on at 9am Mon-Wed next week and then go over and turn it off at 5pm each day. Henry has said he will try and sort out examiners looking at the space on a particular day to make it easier - we shall see. The level of change that can take place as the CDs overlap and the video overlaps will be interesting to see during that amount of time. I have videoed about an hours worth of the installation and I shall encode that to be viewable here over the coming weekend, itis a bit of a long winded process to time is needed. A final set of photos of the space will be included shortly. |
5th At 730am the carpet was in place in
teh space. It looks fab and I am pleased with the pale colour I
have been given because I had been a littlke worried what would
arived from teh description I had been given. There is one stain
on the carpet but I shall soon have that out with a little soap
and water. The pads appear to be working properly but a thorough
testing will happen tomorrow when I get the video projection sorted
out properly too. |
| 4th Today the installation was finally working. The complete set of images of the space and its development can be seen here. The next stage is to get the carpet put down and that will then be everything done except for the making of a mask for the data projector. After a long day up the ladders and making mains extension cables the installation was virtually working excpet for two of the sequences which were refusing to work. Martin was called in and the coding was examined and after much tearing out of hair the piece now works. The carpet is due to be laid tomorrow morning at 730am and then I will get a better idea as to how the pads will work in relation to the weight of the carpet. The difficulty is mainly to do with the pointyness of the feet/legs on the carpet which doesn't seem to trigger the data to the computer as well as a foot on the carpet. I have now fixed where the coloured lights are going to be placed and I am happy that this will giove and appropriate effect to the space. The images chow the effect of the lighting quite well and the spray of coloured shadows is rather interesting - I am now wondering if I have chance to try secondary coloured bulbs as well as primaries. |
| 3rd Due to the Bank Holiday I only have four days to build the installation. This has meant that there isn't really time for things to go wrong. Of course the first thing to go wrong on Tuesday morning was that I forgot the digital camera to record the initial progress!! The pictures below will be inserted when I get them back from Jessops. The assessment meeting was this afternoon and we have to get everything finished and in place for Friday afternoon - not much space for experimentation sadly. I have yet to decide finally where the lighting is to actually go in the space. I have tried three places so far and I am not happy with it yet. |
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Starting
from the empty space these images show the developments made during
the day and the hanging of the walls and the lightsinunits as well
as the positioning of the audio equipment as well. |
| 2nd May A day spent going through the processes
of the installation piece and writing some notes to go with it. I
hope that nothing major has to change in teh week ahead. I am a little
concerned about the amount of time I have to get the piece together
especially with the setting up of the Gary Seven show in the weekend
directly before assessment. The amount of resources necessary for
the two events at the same time is vast and I now owe lots of people
favours! |
| April 2005 |
| 28th Sod's law one of my DVD players has blown up - it is refusing to play MP3s properly, last week it was fine this week it is having a hissy fit and just making a clonking sound. I have bought another from Asda where you can get them for just £25 which is great - by the end of this assessment I shal be able to have a DVD player in every room of my house!!! |
| 27th Today was spent planning the Sept show and also painting the charis again - I am now on the fifth layer of white paint |
| 26th The Chair piece may now be viewed online here . The final look of my studio space can be seen in the photos which are here, and the building of my installations will be shown as I get down to it next week! |
| 25th The chairs and the table are now white
after a few more layers of undercoat. I am still trying to decide
if I want them grey or white. The white may be more useful for the
projection of the image onto the table surface. I have also completed a new piece based on the musical score of the Mozart Symph. The pictures are shown below. I am trying to decide what to do with the piece and where to place it. We are required to get out of our studios for the PT student to come in and put up their work but this is a bit of a pain because I have a lot of stuff there. Also I need a lot of the stuff forthe building of my installation. Some pictures of the new hanging piece are below. |
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| 26th The CHAIR exhibition was fantastic. The
opening had about 200 people and there was a lot of interest in my
video work. I had included some pictures below of the presentation
of my work. I am going to be thinking about the construction of a
new piece for the Mail Box if all goes well. AAS has arranged to install
some work in the Mail Box over the summer period and I shall be putting
forward a proposal shortly. A more comprehensive text on the piece will be found on the Semester 2 page which I am currently working on. |
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| 23rd A very successful day working with Martin on the coding for the installation piece. We set it all up in my dinning room and after a few hours managed to get it working. There are a few things which need tweeking and I shall be working on those this week ahead. The problems were to do with the switching between the video projections and the poling rates which were eating up too much computer power so a few experimental rescheduling patterns were tried. The sound also needs some further editing and the use of a CD is not working as well as I had hoped because the DVD players will not reapeat forever when you play a CD. I am going to put the sound tracks onto a DVD with no video and make it self starting and playing for ever. This will sort out the sound difficulties and ensure that the disired effect happens. |
19th It is a while since I wrote about what
has been happening in my work. The Easter period has come and gone
and I have spent much time and energy on my dissertation which has
now been completed and handed in. If you wish to look at it it may
be found here. The practise installation of Encountering was built last week and
it worked well after some readjustments to the coding of the timing
for the sensors. We had a group crit on the piece and I felt that
some very usful points were raised which I shall have to address
in my next installation which is now being re adjusted for the assessment. |
 The Infrared Detectors were hanging from the roof of the gallery space |
 The computer controlling the piece using the relay boxes I designed earlier in the semester |
 One of the detector boxes close up. I put the detectors on the boxes they were packages in and added some control circuitry necessary to power the relays which provide a signal to the computer |
 The data projectopr was placed in the floor space for the test installation - at the Custard factory it will be located on a ceiling somewhere and back projecting the image. |
 Just the general stuff of setting up |
 We had to rewrite some of the code because of some timing difficulties that we encountered during the installation of the piece |
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 The piece running - each panel is the size of an average domestic TV |
 The panels change as people pass by the detectors |
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 1% of the time the explosion screen displays in all panels because the explosion scene lasts for about 1% of the entire episode duration |
 More stills of the piece |
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 A close up of the gear I created to interface to the computer. The odd thing is that the relays make a rather nice clicking sound which has a beautifully mechanical quality to the work |
| March 2005 |
29th Its a long while since I wrote my last
diary update and I feel as if I have been slackening off. I have
been overwhelmed with essay writing I have to say and my mind has
been becoming quite numb with it all. The draft essay was handed
in and my tutorial gave rise to some very good points for further
development and improvement so I am currently working on those.
If you want to see the essay in its initial draft stage it may be
viewed here.
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 The Infrared detector units now made up |
 The clear nots in the form to hang in my installation space |
 The notes are made from PVA glue and fishing wire and have a jewel like appearance |
 The jewel like notes are crafted from blown up versions of scores - this is an example from a Mozart Symphony |
 The notes seem to merge into one piece at times which is rather like the merging of notes into chords when we listen to them. |
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 The notes seem to have a serene sense of beauty about them and I find it hard to put my finger on what it is that they offering interms of aesthetics. |
8th Well what a lot of developments. The
draft for our reasearch project has been handed in and we are all
suffering a bit of brain death after that piece of work and now
its beginning to look towards the next assessment with the pieces
we are working on securley in our minds as well as the final version
of our essay now needing to be addressed after the next tutorial. |
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| February 2005 |
| 22nd I have finished my entries for the Mercury Competition. The pieces I have created are shown below. I have based them on the Union Jack piece from last semesters work. |
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21st It
has been a very long month since the assessments. Mainly filled
with enetring competitions and trying to sort out the presentation
for the theory unit and now the essay draft which is due in in two
weeks time. On a practical point my work is on show in the New Horizons
Exhibition in RBSA in St Paul's Square in Birmingham which is good
and I have entered the New Contempories competition and the National
Welsh competition because my mother is Welsh. SO really it has been
a rather busy time. |
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