Rollerskates and Government Cuts

We have our half of interim show coming up next week and to celebrate the meeting of the other seminar group yesterday, myself and Joe went to buy Roller skates- the intention was to commute to college on them everyday but actually- i'm not very good. I fell over and now hurt all over, especially my right arm. I think my confussion  was that i can skate at Roller discos and  actually at roller discos there isnt the issue of all of the bumpy pavements and pedestrians walking in the opposite direction. I think that when you rollerskate people actually try to get in your way aswell "ooo look, people on rollerskates that are obviously finding it quite difficult to stand up, let alone stop- perhaps i will ride my bike into them...?" I wont be skating in a while...
We did get to college within an hour of buying the skates which was good, even though it may have been quicker to walk. The rush was to get back for a Hitchi meeting, unfortunately it is a handover to the next year of participants. It was quite sad talking about the project for the last time, but exciting just the same to hear from the second years. Surprisingly not that many people turned up, maybe it wasn't as well advertised as last year but i can remember the whole of the blue room being full with people, questions and ideas, To only pick 10 pieces of work was difficult because there was so much interest. Jeff has said that he is going to call another meeting so hopefully there will be more interest next time.

There was also a very interesting lecture last night. It is the first in a programme of talks in the college and last nights was about the recent Government cuts, education and global warming. It was opened out to the lecture theatre but i was a little too intimidated to ask any questions- i felt a little out of my depth being surrounded by post-grads. It was a conversation between David Cross and Hayley Newman- David's part of the lecture mainly consisted of facts and figures and Hayleys more of the personal experience of the cuts. It was very interesting and will help tenfold with my dissertation as i've decided to open up my writing a little. I'm definately going to look out on the internet for the notes of the discussiona and i look forward to next week.

Hitachi Private View

The private view yesterday was a very stressfully classy and entertaining evening. The Hitachi Consulting staff were all really pleased with the catalogue, as were the students (I think) and they layed on a brilliant spread of wine and nibbles.  I can honestly say that it was a very deserving crescendo to the months and months of work that everyone has put into this project and I think that Jeff (The Organiser) was very pleased. The staff and guests were all very impressed with the work, and for the first time i actually stepped back from the curatorial nit-picking and saw the show for what it was. A very good one, with some really excellent pieces of work.
 We also stopped for a drink after the show with the majority of the PV guests and exhibitors- my last role project managing was to try and find a table big enough for us to all fit around. Not the easiest of tasks and by the time i had everyone sat down, people started to leave. A couple of us stayed until a bit later and had a good drink to the project, which i feel i will start to severely miss tomorrow when i can stop thinking about it-
Here are some pictures of the evening-

Catalogue out!

Nick finally got the catalogue out to the printers yesterday and fabulously managed to half the price of the batch with a one day turn around. I don't know how he does it- but i was very impressed. The catalogue is also being sent to him at work so i don't have to worry about collecting them. Again fingers crossed that they will all be delivered in time for the PV on Wednesday! Another thing i managed to get done today for Hitachi was the finalised guest list- that is all back and sorted. So we are on course for a fabulous night.

The Map from the central page of the catalogue
(It is better quality than this)

It was our first tour of the college today after our training last week, unfortunately it was a group of potential design students, so i don't think i answered their questions too well on the tours but the presentation in the lecture theatre went quite well beforehand. I'm off to another studio meeting now, to discuss the plans for tearing the walls down...

Being behind

This blog is about exactly what it says on the tin. I'm behind in lots of things- I had my first thesis tutorial yesterday which went quite well considering i handed in something that was very ambiguous and incomplete, he gave me some advice about thinking about why i was writing the essay and how i should think about artists intention more from a human perspective. I think the discussion just generally calmed my nerves about it. but he gave me another hand in date for a couple of weeks time to get everything up to scratch.
The Catalogue was supposed to be sent to print on Monday, but after talking to the printers Nick found out that i had been given the wrong quote for what i wanted and it was actually going to cost twice as much. Nick is working on negotiations...
Finally, I went to senior section last night for our second meeting and only one girl turned up. When questioned if i had told them when the meeting was, i replied with yes- i sent an e-mail to everyone and set up a face book page, face book messaged, and for the girl that doesn't have Internet access, i sent a text. I don't think there was much more i could do to be honest. Hopefully I'm going to try and arrange a meeting for the week after next. It will be quite difficult to arrange it around college though. It was quite frustrating tonight because i had to come all the way back to Essex from London for nothing, and of course there is the fare to pay. I just wish they had said they couldn't make it.

The start of term

The new term starts tomorrow, therefore i popped into college today to prepare. I had a quick meeting with Rob and Jeff to discuss the possibility of having a catalogue for the Hitachi PV and so far so good. Jeff's feedback seemed quite positive overall- the idea and cost. However, we do have a very short time to prepare- only 3 weeks. I still need to work on design and content, I think i may need some help, it will have to be a tight turnaround and the printer that i have a quote from suggests that we need at least two weeks printing time.
This week i am quite busy, especially as we still don't have anywhere to live and our third housemate lives in Cornwall- she's staying at my parents house tonight, but really we need somewhere very soon. Commuting to college from Cornwall is a little bit of an issue...

Open House and Hitachi

I took advantage today of the open house event and went up to the mayors office with my sister. Amazing views across London and a brilliant building to be inside, my sister wasn't so interested in the architecture as i was, but there was an activity at the top of the building where you could make a house and put it in an imaginary city of other houses that people had made. We made a haunted house and placed it on the edge of town next to the 'Sunshine Hotel'- the defining features of our building was the tissue paper smoke surrounding it and expanding out of the roof- it also had a drawbridge. The building was a lot like the Reichstag in Berlin- slightly smaller ques to get in, and views that i recognise- but very similar, I'll have to look up to see if it was the same architect that designed the building.


Conveniently it is also right next door to the Hitachi Consulting office where we put up a show earlier this year- I didn't hang any work myself but i project managed and helped curate and choose the work to be placed in the year long exhibition, paid for by Hitachi Consulting. So i took the opportunity on the balcony to take some photos of the Hitachi Building- mainly the parts where you can see the work through the windows. I am trying to get together a catalogue for the private view coming up in October, so the photos may be quite good for that. If not its a good record of location.
We also went to The London Dungeons today- I thought i would mention it because it was really good, and it had a link for me to the crooked house ideas i was having in Great Yarmouth. A lot more extensive than last time i went (about 10 years ago) and a lot more participatory, there are more actors and things like the Sweeney Todd exhibit which gives everybody exactly the same creepy experience. They also have a room which is the old '10 Bells Pub' in Shoredich, linked onto the Jack the Ripper exhibit- I personally enjoyed this because it linked history to location, and I've been to the pub too. We actually went over to Shoreditch after the dungeons so i could show my sis the pub, and a couple of locations of the killings- i went on one of those Ripper Walks a couple of years ago, and remembered a couple of locations. It puts things into perspective a bit, if not bored my sister a little. From there we also went down Brick Lane to get some bagels to eat on the way home- however we got stuck in the middle of a music festival that was going on, and realised when we got to Mile End that i had actually taken us the wrong way down the lane. We had to squeeze all the way back down to the other end. It took us about an hour in total to get the Bagels and get out of there!