A busy day, started by finalising the sketch for the third of my 'English' paintings; Summer holiday. This series might be the best thing I've made this year, and of course, not for a specific purpose, commission, event etc. Of course, I will use and exhibit them somewhere.
I then piled into making some projection videos for Wonderland. I have 27 videos to make, I'm aiming for 1 or 2 minutes per video. I haven't time to muse so I've used some edits from existing videos, like Time Falling or unused footage from Jabberwocky. I've used some old stock footage for the tracks set in the past, and made some animations in Argus.
This is one of the more interesting animations, for Asylum Flowers. It uses a spiral of daffodils vs. skulls. These animations are easy in Argus but still take more time than edits of filmed footage. I will try to make more.
I'm also watching David Bowie's Glass Spider tour on television. It's so theatrical that it's more like a musical than a rock concert. The best performances, for me, are the plainly sung ones, partly because there is so little narrative to everything. The actors jump and dance around almost for no reason other than dance itself, ever grinning in a somewhat odd way. Musically, this period is seen as a low for Bowie, but this was his most theatrical show. I like the idea of these dead ends, these ends of an experiment because there is always a further step that wasn't taken. Bands like Genesis and Renaissance, for me, could have pushed towards new territory rather than retreating back to convention. Bowie rarely unified or thematically linked work, few concept albums and a very random path.
I'm reminded what a vast amount of work goes into being an artist, a non-stop incredible amount of work, and almost always for nothing or uncertain rewards. Over time, these rewards almost always do materialise, but it often takes years and the rewards are very staccato. These projection videos, what reward will these bring?
Years ago, I made some huge projection videos for the summer solstice event at the Iklectic Art Lab in London with Sabine Kussmaul. Those videos, a full one hour loop, played all day and really lit up the event. It inspired me in video work and even now my memory of them is strong. My old art friend Stephen Barry was included, I quickly filmed him for one of the segments. He died a few years later, so is immortalised in those segments. I had only about 48 hours to make the whole hour-long video.
Again I have hardly any time to make these projections, but I must try my best in this fleeting bite.
