1000 people screaming at the Tate Modern, London, UK - Paola Pivi

Camden, Cambridge and Soho, oh My!

We went to Camden market this sunday (the 17th) into what i call the most intrinsic and enveloping shopping experience i’ve ever been in. We had primarily checked out spiddelfeilds shopping stalls and complexes but we were holding of our cash until i had made it into camden market. Upon getting there, i have to say that one of my priority visits would be to Cyberdawgs.

Cyberdawgs is what happens when a rave becomes a retail spot. We came across this spot with Large, shiny robots on each side of the entrance. the entire store is lit in just black lights (with several colored lights here and there). I’ve picked up a scrolling marquee LED lit programable T-shirt there, something i will definitely be wearing in my DJing performances. 

Monday was a Missed trip to London due to G-rawd getting sick. Nothing serious, but enough to make him think the day’s run  into London with all of us wouldn’t have helped out. Tuesday was a day for us to meet in the classroom, as well as display our Art in a Suitcase Projects. Alot of people made effort to bring art school projects with them, while others made art based in England and created installation works. Mine consists of a collage of records, tapes and related paraphernalia with a tape recorder of actual collated sounds in a basic way. the tape, while playing, is meant to being the listener everywhere from gleeful childhood memories to fear of mechanical failure. 

Wednesday was our trip to cambridge, in opposite route to our usual trips to London. We first embarked on the Kettle head Gallery and House of art. One part featured works from a collection of artists that would bring art into an everyday context. even every seemingly “decorative” piece on the tables we actually original works of art. Titles are eschewed here for reasons of detering from classification and even rank of artists in the house. this really distilled the art gallery experience down to a more comfortable atmosphere, though i found the lack of titles and even names of artists to be quite frustrating, just in case i were to like a particular type of work and couldn’t do my own researching on them.

The proper gallery had a very small group exhibit of work. The show was called “Material Intelligence” and featured video work, installation, mixed media, sculpture and more. a favorite of the show was work by Matt Calderwood. Both his installation “Untitled” and videos were very striking and “untitled” was bound on playing with items fitting into a space. Between two concrete walls were plastic crates, gloves, a crowbar, wineglasses, tennis balls and one yellow sweater. Calderwood’s work exhuberated, with me, an instantaneity  of constructing a piece with a set parameter and making it stand between two surfaces without support from the floor. Take that, cut-up chair mobile, painted plastic with identification issues and Bottled water “look at the colors” bag and tape artist.

After that show, we headed though the busier parts of cambridge to get to our visit to University of Cambridge. Our tour guides were Mavis, a charismatic old woman with a great personality and the other one, no sure of her name...she was more polite but wasn’t as interesting as mavis. Mavis started off a part of the group with a rant against alot of installation based, concept work she would see at the Tate modern. Most of her rants included the use of works with tampons in them and she grew frustrated in understanding and appreciating them. Little does she know that it’s also a pain in the art world, as well. God love ya, Mavis!

Cambridge is celebrating it’s 800th year in operation. it stated in  1209, just a few years short of Oxford’s start, apparently. A majority of the campus is based on a medieval styling, but that didn’t stop us from running to a Norm Foster Designed building. that’s right, the Faculty of Law building is one of the campus’ newest structures with the most prominent of UK contemporary architects. We also checked out the Kings college chapel, a very beautiful chapel with stain-glassed windows featuring many stories from the Old testament. The tudors were the ones to create the building, but it took a good 60 years before a finished building was made available for worship. featured also on that day was a singing prayer service with the all-boys choir. it was okay. I’ve described the music to gerard as great background music to the chapel’s style and design. 

After that prayer service, we then went Punting along the canals in Cambridge. The punts are specifically, yet traditionally designed for safe and easy riding on the canal. We each took a turn steering and pushing the punt with the large stick. it was easy to maneuver, but it also got hard to do and very fast. The trip alongside the Backs (or the other sides of campus buildings) was very beautiful and the sunset was a good match for the evening of punting. 

did i mention i had picked up some vinyl records in Cambridge? one street stall had a very large selection of used records. I picked up the New Order Singles “Blue Monday”, “Round and Round” and it’s parent album “Technique”! too Awesome!

Thursday was a day off for the most of us, while a select few went to see the UK-popular Chelsea Flower Show. I wasn’t that interested in Garden Design, as i’m mostly satisfied with the trees we have around old harlow.

Friday, we went to stop at tottenham hale to stop by Kings Cross station in London. This is a station made most popular by the recent Harry Potter film releases. I have seen none of the films, so the sight probably wasn’t as “Spell-bounding” (forgive me on that pun) as for fans of the series. The station was mainly a precursor to a more modernist style of building that we would see in spots like the Barbican Center. We then went to see St. Pancreas station (i’m calling it St. Pancreas because that’s what i think it is - don’t get grossed out, ok?).  St. Pancras was built around with the rise of modernity, so we saw a station using less victorian adornment and more geometrical and linear design aspects. St Pancras was also a Eurostar train station, being part of a line railway going across europe. it also housed the world’s longest champagne bar, for those trips to paris where decadence and romance could happen.

can you guess who has been re-designing parts of the station? if you said norm foster, you’re correct!! 50 Points!

We then headed to the Foundling Museum, where it had been a hospital and orphanage  in the brunswick square part of london. Many children and women were welcomed to make the place their home during the later 18th century and the industrial revolution. The place even went to help 1/5 of displaced children during this time. Also, the Foundling museum started Art gallery collections in Britain.

After that, we visited the British Library. Completed under the 30 years of regard in 1997, it houses well over 300000 KM of bookshelves, with every british publication being housed within. We would go on our own ways after seeing the library, with 12 of us going out to dinner to St. Martin’s Spice, an indian restaurant nearby trafalgar square. it as Sarah Willett’s Birthday that day, so we decided to take her to her first indian cuisine experience. Hope you had a Happy Birthday, Sarah Rose!!

Saturday, we went into london to go see the Tate Britain again for the presentation painting exercise numero-deux. I was chosen to work with Jenny D this time around and we did a pretty good job summating John Singer’s Sargent’s Painting “Carnation Lily, Lily Rose”. Before stepping in, we also got to take a look at the Chelsea school of fine arts. Gerard also told us of Central St. Martins and the Royal College as possibilities for our future studies after the BFA. I would certainly look into some of these schools, but that will have to wait for another time, im too busy getting through these courses i’m taking now!

After that, we went to check out Oxford Street, London’s largest shopping area. Saturday shoppers were plenty on the streets and made for exploration of the place really difficult (we’re talking shoulder to shoulder, “i can’t see the concrete of the street” walking). though i managed to pick up two tees at this place called “Bershka” for reasonably cheap. We then strolled towards the Soho District, an area that was riddled with prostitution, black and gay neighborhoods and even recently an Asian community. alot of oppression left on these minorities throughout london found comfort and solace in the neighbourhoods and public areas like soho square. the area had some really great record stores there, so i was all over them!

Sunday was a day off, a day in the park, to be exact. I’ll be heading into london tomorrow and will try to cut off this habit of leaving the log entries for the ends of the weeks ( i think it will save me that chunk of time having to type out 1500+ words in one night - whew!). 

okay i’m gonna go publish this and use pictures, too. cheers! 

Mental Meanderings

i just thought i’d let you guys know about this show happening in Corner Brook on June 2nd. It’s my second solo show, a show displaying my work in print. the title of the show is “In print” (clever, huh?). This show runs until july 31st and should be quite the substantive amount of artwork, so you can maybe find something in amongst the work that you could take a liking to. 

I want to thank angela for being wonderful in having me there and a major thanks to Laura Tiller, the hardest working curator i’ve met so far. Laura, if you don’t get that bottle of wine to yourself, then i’ll make sure you get one when i get back. you’re the most deserving of it!

not all that often do i make posts on this blog with much personal baggage. I know because of my academics, this isn’t much the space to accommodate that. i’m not sure just how to go about incorporating any social squabbles or foibles i would have in the run of the day and, with all honesty, when you arrive at the computer to type in these entries, you really can’t make much out much of the emotional reckoning you did that day. 

Warning: this message is prone to meandering. for those of you looking for something concrete  in subject or theme, i can’t help you in this post. but stick around, regardless. this might just foster and grow into something solid soon. don’t lose hope!

Alot of frustration can come with just living in residence.  Again, i know, i signed up for this. my name is on the dotted line and no one elses, but still. having to put yourself in a very outer-dependent, communal living condition is, well, less than stellar for me. 

the kitchen’s get crowded very easily. 12 people, all wanting food within a 160 square foot room with regular appliances can get very crazy. a third of this space is also taken up by a large table. Dishes are shared, which is awesome, until you realize that people lose sense of the ‘sharing” part. we all have our times of hoarding mugs from being too lazy to go clean them. and no, piling the dishes into your room is not the best idea for Gerard’s “Crusty pile” project. 

The cafeteria is a strange dichotomy of the University Student species. Seated in the first row are usually the Biology students, next seated to faithful professors, then the next 3 rows of tables are a mainstream of Visual Arts students (the home team) and then miscellaneous students of varying majors. Gerard, Kris and connor also fit into this mix as well. 

England is also quite miniature to what you’d see on map. Alot of things are downsized here, with even mid-sized sedans being quite large for the roads and parking spots here. excellent is how most streets are adorned by model cars like the MINI coopers and Fiats to something quite common in North America like Ford. 

I’m only now noticing how many old people go to tesco. I’m also noticing how much i go to tesco. i guess the amazing part of finding out everything is cheap in there fades away, only for you to realize it’s a few isles too many for a seniors club.

I have to stop going to tesco soooo often.

I also hate barclays with a passion. I know, it wasn’t old barclays that stole my card, but still. security could be improved on these machines so that they’re not so susceptible  to these fixes that steal people’s cards. i also didn’t enjoy how i needed to show a passport to get funds from a VISA card. Apparently i need no such thing when making a purchase with the card, but if i need solid cash from it, i need something next to my fingerprint to prove it’s my card. 

I have my camera back. well, i got a new charger for it since my charger was left in canada. it feels good to be able to document in the way that i want. i’ll also be trying out new videos as well. 

also, Hello Martine’s Mom! I’m very glad to hear you’re reading this blog and hope you’re enjoying it. i’ll be sure to pack a bit more Martine into my posts for you. : ) 

okay, now on to some work. here's a video to a new song called "The Final Level". Cheers!

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and....Friday!

Monday (may 11th) starts and Gerard takes the sunny day advantage by taking us to Gibberd Gardens in Old Harlow. Gibberd is sort-of a publicly accessible park of sculptures and landmarks. 

Gibberd was the main guy behind alot of New Harlow’s construction. You see, after the war, an influx of housing was needed for people outside of London. New harlow was, and is, a larger “Concrete” modern epicenter to Old Harlow’s rural charm. This guy adored concrete, and it shows in the way the garden was constructed. 

after a meet with a nice lady in the Tea room, the day was set. we simply met gerard at 4PM that afternoon to discuss the next day’s trip.

Speaking of which, we went to the Sir John Soane Museum on Lincoln Field's inn. Inside were many true particulars of a wide arrangement of art from different eras. From egyptian art to late-victorian pieces. Hallmarks of the visit for me were the sarcophagi and the little chinese demon dog named “george” by one of the attendants.

Off we then went to the Huntarian Museum, alongside the Royal College of Surgeons. Here the many artifacts are actually body parts, kept inside of jars with formaldehyde. The bodies ranged from small rodents and insects to larger mammals like rhinoceros and even human beings. we had much to sketch from, even with the smell of the Formaldehyde getting to my head after a while.

We then took a look at the British Museum. This was a very brief look, involving a look at an exhibit on egyptian artwork and sculpture, as well as some aegean vases and votive figures (had some total stokstad flashbacks then) while inside there. We also took gaze upon the Museum’s new roof, as designed by Norm Foster. Each piece of the roof’s glass dome is a different shape of the triangle, all a part of computer generated design and modeling. 

after a break in Bloomsbury Gardens with some supper/wagamamas/various other eats, we headed to the Globe theatre, a replica shakespearean theaters that plays (Surprise) Shakespearian plays! Our show was the play “Romeo and Juliet”. The cast was very good at each of there respective roles, with everyone agreeing that Juliet was a little unconvincing. Gerard and Kris also mentioned that it wasn’t their most developed show and lacked a few stage interactions and effects that most productions have. We crossed Millennium bridge, all a-glow with foster’s engineering lighting up the sides of the pathways as you walked it.

and i was still dying from the sore throat. Wasn’t a pleasant way home, but it was back to residence for tomorrow. 

alright, on to the next bundle of entries.

* This is a shot of Atlantis' art store, loacted in London's East End. It had a great variety of artistic materials that we could all benefit from. I didn't decide to pick up anything there, as most of my projects are digitally based and i was unsure just what i wanted to spend money on and put to good use. all in all, i'm very glad we went to this amazing place.

We went to london and approached a glass building (Very post-modern) called Queen Mary’s Research Building. The Building was designed by Will Aesop, with a very colorful interior, acoustic-ampifying designs in the auditoriums and (of course) a level made entirely of projected air streams (this seperates levels of open medical reseach and common usage areas and offices. The inspiration for the building’s design comes from the study of molecualr activity and the basic properties of the cells in our body. The Building manager was our tour guide, with him revealing the 44 Million dollar price tag on the building. I can only vaguely remember how much they have to spend on lighting, think it was roughly $11000 a month. And you think your light bill is too high...?

We then trotted to the east end of london, where we ventured into a narrow alleyway to see the anarchist book store. We were told that the store may not be open (Co’mon, it’s an anarchy place -  you think they would abide by their own rules? pfft..no way). With our luck, though, it was open. Also, White Chapel Gallery was very close to it and open as well. We got to go in and see form their eclectic and current collection of artworks. THese works included works by Damien Hurst, Chris Offeili, Peter Doig and (my favortie) bridget riley and her optical mindfuck painting. 

Friday consisted of a first trip walking through embankment gardens on the way to Trafalgar  Square. We saw a statue of commemoration by Arthur Sullivan and it was also the place of the world’s largest water sewage system at one time. Trafalgar Square was wuite the center for London, riddled with horse stables and artillery. Military figures are adorning corners of the square, with one plinth being a rotating exhibition space. Marc Quinn’s “alison Lapper” sculpture sought there for some time. 

We then were told we can enter the national gallery and national portrait gallery. After a brief visit, me, along with martenbenboo and Jill-Murf, decided to head out into the random endeavor of street skimming. We, by happenstance, were embracing soho.

We picked up some wine and i got a cider for myself and we started trotting the area. there were sections of streets just for books, street vendors with all sorts of clothes and accessories, lanes of chinese places, there was just alot to be seen. as well, many of the theatres were there and up in full swing. yep, it was just simply an evening of london trotting.

our next day was a day off, one in which we used to have a barbeque at the cabot house backyard. We will need to have much more of these as the summer goes along.

alright, i’m off to bed. cheerios.

Hotshots - Vol1

every now and again, i'll see some great shots posted on other blogs or social networking sites (okay, let's just call it facebook) that i really enjoy. Stuff that just has a particular quirk to it that i know i couldn't possibly capture myself. they could be strange chance out-of-the-blue WTF photos, they could be just odd photos of yours truly. whatever they are...

these are Hotshots:

sarah rose willett in the most amazing shot @ the tunnel

martine is too content for words

 

There she be! A queen triumphantly overlooking her garden!  

and i wait around to show her something...

self explainatory

"Gerard! what's the architectural significance of this building??"

this pigeon is missing a toe - ough!

sarah caught this pic of gerard at random

Me and ellie outside St. Pauls - anticipatory? i think so!

Tate 2 Tate

in our second trip to london, gerard planned on a day of visiting the Tate Britain and the Tate modern, two very large and very popular galleries in London. Getting off at liverpool, we made way to the more classical Tate Britain. but before exploring the gallery’s pieces, we made a stop on a familiar landmark building.



This is MI6 (yep, you’re thinking James Bond? we were too). This is the infamous building of Pierce Brosnan’s crash through the window in two films (“Tomorrow never dies” and “Die Another Day”, i believe...correct me if wrong). This building was implemented and approved in the Thatcher days, symbolizing a strong need to present security and stability. It’s also resembling a boat (namely a battle vessel).



from that view we moved onto the Tate britain. Here, we were instructed to pick a painting from an assigned room of the museum and make a presentation on what we knew about the piece. we had 30 mins.

Me and K Childs were teamed up and headed for room 9. there, we initially selected “The Plains of Heaven” by john martin. Off I was to get information from the local bookstore (Clever, yeah?). When i get back, K had gotten notes from a tour guide of another group, only it was for another painting, James Ward’s “ Gordale Scar”, this massive painting that we suddenly had to switch to. I had 5 minutes to prepare myself after that, but otherwise we did fine.

After the tate britain (and Gerard’s “Evil Printmakers” remark that i totally took offense too [note: i’ve got a solo print show at the BTSC in corner brook coming up in June. Helps, yeah] but it’s long been forgiven for) we headed directly to the Tate Modern by crossing the Millennium Bridge, a bridge made in 2000 to commemorate the turn of the century. too bad it had to close for it’s swaying and re-open after fixing it in 2004.



SO yeah, Tate Modern is by gallery of choice. Not only does it feature mostly art of the 20th and latest of the 21st century, but it is also encapsulated in an old power station. this is symbolic of art being not just a social powerhouse, but an economic powerhouse too. also, this building provides a lot of space for major installations, including this one:

we were admitted to seeing two new exhibitions: Roni Horn’s “AKA Roni Horn” and Rodchenko and Popova’s Defining construction”.





I’ve know Roni as a photographer on the most part (courtesy of Tamsin Clark’s introductory photo class this past year. Thanks, Tamsin!). THis show encompassed more than photos, garnering drawing and sculpture. Some of the sculpture i found just a little lackluster on their merit, but that’s just my tastes talking.
Her photos were impeccably made. Again, i take this medium as her hallmark medium and best weapon for her words.




Rodchenko and Popova’s show i found to be very visually striking. Defining Constructivism does just as the title suggests, portraying a multitude of works from these two in the era of the russian revolution (it’s oh-so soviet). I picked up various post cards - maybe you’ll get one? just keep your eyes peeled!





After the Tate Modern, Myself, Jill-bean, Marten-ben-boo and Kylie Bustin all decided to stay in london longer. We headed towards liverpool st. station on foot, only to grow frustrated and wind up eating at a great noodle bar and restaurant. Apium was it’s name, just by one of the tube stations in London.

We then headed down to St. Pauls to board one of the subway trains to liverpool st. Both mine and jill’s rail passes were bent from the day’s travels, meaning we had to show our passes to nearby security for passing. we both had the instant reaction of decline of our cards in the gates as “oh holy fuck! - are we stuck in london??”. We’re glad the admission on the rails isnt all automatic.

we then got back into Old Harlow around 11PM. This was our first time traveling the Tube and train system without gerard’s guidance and we made it! got to say, for the kilometers we cross and the time (saturday night) we made it out of there awesomely!

okay, i’m off to make some phone calls, cheers!

first trip to london - the video

here is the video compilation of the class's first trip to london! hope you all enjoy it as i want it to encompass what we did that day.




and for gerard, there is this sketch from the 80's skit show "Spitting Image"

Welcome to Harlow!

I Arrived in Old Harlow, Essex around 11AM Tuesday morning. Heathrow and customs was not as daunting as i thought it would be, but it was still good to be on our best guard and watch for anything wrong. Devtron lost sight of his luggage at the pick-up, but got it recovered from Air Canada’s Baggage Services. All in all, we were good from the 4 1/2 hour flight across the atlantic.

tired, groggy and cranky, but good.

Gerard then picked us up. We got aboard the “flying nun” bus (hilarious cartoon picture here). After indoctrination at the campus, we all went to Tesco to pick up groceries needed and supplies. Tesco is a major corporation in the UK that mostly places itself in the groceries/dried goods/department store sector. It’s big like Wal-Mart is in America and Canada.

After a much needed nap, I headed to the nearest pub from the campus (literally 30 seconds away) called the Crown. This was about 9PM or so. Jill, Kyle, Martine, Amanda and bailey were there, along with Ewen, a student attending harlow from britain. It was great to chat with someone who had grown up in the country.

After this, we headed to tesco again, perhaps astonished by the ridiculously cheap beer there (try 48 cans of Stella Artois for $33.00 CAD, or the 2L bottle of strongbow i got for about $5.50 CAD). Honestly, this is the place to get great beer at the cheapest you can imagine. Hit the hay around 12:30, as gerard wanted us up and on the go by 9AM the next morning.


We started off at this place.






This is the Saxon Chapel, built roughly around 1180 AD. Yeah, that old. The brick handling suggests very unrefined work, with the Buttresses (those stacks on the corners that look like chimneys) supporting the unbalanced, unleveled walls. Inside, the place had this nice old lady to help us with questions, small displays and artifacts and a loft area for browsing around in. A back garden was also there, looking like every other beautiful residential back garden around here.






the loft area scared me abit while being up there. Creaking doesn’t leave me rest assured that it’s a stable structure.



after some field crossing, we hit the St. Marys, St. Hughes church, closer to High Street. This anglican church featured many different styles and fixtures of all kinds.




What? guys kissing in a Catholic Church? i knew it!




stain glass windows came at the time of rising Protestantism in england. The stained glass was done to attract defecting members of the congregation (sort of like a rock concert getting new lights).



We also got to see this large clock, all mechanical, in a part of the church’s bell
tower.



This was a very ancient piece, too. maybe 1991?



Jenny D tried getting a close-up of one of the room’s ladybugs. I used the Macro setting on my Camera to great success! man, that bug was dirty.

We also checked out the harlow baptist church. this is one of those churches that doesn’t have the cross anywhere, that accepts all denominations and also hosted a World Cup viewing night for the Old Harlow community. The minister there was wicked nice, letting us explore all parts of the church.




a few houses around the neighborhood featured many architectural tidbits. This house very much resembles the Glynmill Inn in Corner Brook. A plaster layering was done over a wood exterior to protect the wood and was most likely part of a style appreciated in the early 20th century, with the foundation probably being 100+ years older than that.



after that, we checked out the St. Johns Church across from the campus (like you could throw a rock at it and hit it - not mentioning that i would ever do so). This is a good spot because it’s mostly a recreational place, hosting lots of different activities and meetings for the community.




we headed back for the cafeteria food and meet gerard later about bus rides and riding the tube (the subway train). Tomorrow is our first day to go to london. There will be lots to see and , no doubt, lots to time walking around. Gerard predicts we’ll all drop dead tired by around 4PM tomorrow.

in that case, make my order at the coffee shop a double Americano, i’m gonna need the espresso to keep up!

alright, i’m off to read and write. cheerio!