McLean Museum & Art Gallery - Artist in Residence Journal
Archive 7
- 3 April 2008
- The trial canvas print for the exhibition at the end of the residency arrived today. As mentioned
the work I had selected to be printed on the canvas was “Millyra and the Cockerell’s Tale”. I
am delighted with it - the printing and colour management is very impressive as is the quality
of the actual canvas and frame. I was also impressed with the attention to detail and the service
provided by Fresh Pixel Design - the company that supplied the canvas. So much so that I have
decided to exhibit and sell a selection of my work as canvas prints via their website at www.freshpixeldesign.com. I am now
selecting some pieces that will be suitable for this venture!
- 4 April 2008
- Today I attended a demonstration of the Touch Screen Kiosks that the Museum has purchased from
Priora – a company specialising in providing hardware and software for touch screen solutions.
The demonstration was inspiring and I am sure that the kiosks will be very popular with both young
and old. The kiosks provide a range of programmes that highlight the Museum collections by
displaying large images and descriptions of some of the works and, of course, the viewer can
then go and see many of the pieces for real in the Museum.
- The kiosk software seems very flexible and as I have been researching audio visual as a mechanism for presenting multi layered images I am hoping to be able to load an AV onto the kiosk at some point.
- One of the kiosks is specially designed for younger children and I can see that they will be
very popular with the large numbers that visit the museum. They will be competition for the
collection of bears and tigers that seem to grab the attention of the kids!
- 14 April 2008
- I have taken a break from the photographic work to concentrate on creating an audio-visual. I have decided that it will be based around some of the Egyptian hieroglyphic characters illustrated on the Museums internationally recognised Bubastis Stone.
- The ancient Egyptians did not have a word for “art” and the concept of decoration with no practical or magical function would have been foreign to them. To the ancient Egyptians hieroglyphs were magical tools. Hieroglyphic writing was used in administration as well as for sacred inscriptions and in spells but Egyptians were convinced that magical power was always inherent in the signs and that they could be brought back to life by reading them aloud. This magic could be used to pacify ghosts and communicate with the deceased to provide protection from all ills. The replying messages were received through dreams.
- These concepts seem to me to be a perfect theme to base the audio-visual around and ties in nicely with my interest in creating fantasy works. I hope to install the final av onto the Priora Kiosks that were recently introduced into the Museum thereby making it accessible to the Museum visitors and perhaps encouraging them to spend some time examining the Bubastis Stone itself.
- 18 April 2008
- After the initial brainstorming the first step is to create the image that forms the background scene in which the story is set. In this av this image is a fantasy montage composed of various elements blended together. Although it is similar to a photo-creative montage it is generally simpler to create as it is only forming a backdrop for the characters in the story to interact with. Sometimes several different background montages are required if the story is complex and includes different scenes. However for the residency I intend to keep the av's fairly short so in this case only a single scene is required. This is an innovative and I hope exciting way of exhibiting multi-layered images.
- 21 April 2008
- The first rough version of the av is now complete and I have created an initial draft of the work from beginning to end. It is however very labour intensive as there are many different stages to the process. It starts with the photographic capture of the original images and continues with their digital processing on the computer and this is all before the images can be incorporated into the av itself. Finally appropriate music has to be selected and combined with the different effects and animations in the layered slides with precise timings to craft the final work. The finished work is a long way off yet!
