Floating Iota.

Screen capture from HD video footage.
http://www.vimeo.com/4431734

Photo taken with camera mode on video camera

Photo taken with camera mode on video camera.

These are images taken from the first pieces of experimental film made for this project, with a Sony HVRA1E video camera and a centuary .65 HR wide angle lens.

Where to begin filming was the problem. Not location, that was at Abereifed Studios, where Jake has his practice. I find that,it is difficult to formally begin any creative project by saying now or here. When is the now and where is the here? However, you have to make a first mark some how, and after that initial first move, ideas usually begin to flow. Not dissimilar to beginning a painting or sculpting. Some pieces can emerge from a cumulitive ponderance, it has worked that way with recent crochet work. We had to have a physical beginning for the filming, a real time now moment.

As a couple of my textile pieces are in The Oriel Myrddin gallery at the moment, (if you want to see some of the exhibits, http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdlouise/sets/. ), and I`m still making a couple of experimental textile pieces, the `Iota` were the first piece to start examining as the subject.

The top image is two layers of film. The first layer is a film made with the camera panning slowly over the` Iota`. Simple but effective.The second layer, is of my hands filmed while crocheting, with a stationary camera. ( The still above looks slightly like I`m doing the washing up! )

We were able to review the footage continuosly as we filmed, on a TV screen. The fishing line that the `Iota` are crocheted from does wonderful things by absorbing and reflecting light and colour. I am really looking forward to seeing what wonders Jake will produce by editing.

Thinking About Patterns

Detail from a work in progress called Iota.

Peter Terren ,The Guardian 23-04-09.

The incredible image above is a photo of a newspaper cutting. It`s an Australian artist who built a Tesla coil and after insulating himself ,used his body in the position of Roden`s `Thinker`, as a conducter for the electric current. The beautiful blue white lines of electrical current form stunning patterns. (No pun intended). More inspiration for experiment with film and crochet!

Yellow Line Theory

Worm Hole opening?

Contours of space, or the shape of sub aquatic things ?

It`s the start of the project, so we did a little shopping. Technical stuff mainly, with large memory, but still a bit like Christmas. I found this incredIbly yellow line for half price at my favorite local fishing tacle shop. I`m trying to produce a couple of experimental pieces of textile to experimentally film. Can`t go wrong really.
I am a little dubious about the very neon yellow colour of the line. The translucent white fishing line has a clean scientific feel about it. It has a sort of elegance and purity. These adjectives are used descriptivley in art and science, as well as words like balance and grace. Although Albert Einstein did say,
`If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor`.
The yellow is the same as the every day reflective safety wear that is really common. That may not be the association I`m looking for. Maybe it`s the beginning of a new crochet safety outer space casual range. There`s an idea now.
You can see pictures of Science-Crochet from white fishing line on www.flickr.com

Just as I feel like I`m drowning in serious science research, I hear on the radio that scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Research, have been searching a distant space dust cloud formation for amino acids, the building blocks of life. They have found ethyl formate, which is the chemical that gives raspberries their flavour. Raspberry flavour space clouds yippeeeee!

Get well soon Stephen Hawking, who has been rushed to hospital with a chest infection.

Day Four

Still from the DVD loop `Event Horizon`. 2008



`Event Horizon - The Pods`, at Oriel Myrddin Gallery, 2009





`The Black Hole of Carmarthen` at Tactilebosch, 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdlouise/ See more photos.

I`ve been using DVD loops in my `Science -Crochet` practice, as addition or enhancement to the other apsects of installation pieces. Drawing in 3 dimensions with crochet, gave 2 dimensional drawings life , brought them off the page and into real time. Ofcourse, now that scientists assure us our universe exists in at least 4 dimensions, and very probably many more than that, its time to experiment.

Initially, the research project `Event Horizon` was to be specificly about the piece pictured in the photos above, thats why the name hasn`t changed, but as the brief for the funding expanded, so did the concept.

The aim of the project is to explore the relationship between the screen based image, and the textile object. By exploring the visual elements of texture within textile through annimation and digital processing techniques, the project aims to explore conceptual interpretations of linear and space time.Using editing and projection we hope to create images that interact with perpective and dimension.

Day Three

Crochet in The Studio,a still from `The Fabric of The Universe`, 2007.

Crochet in The Snow, a still from `The Fabric of The Universe`,2007.

I love spirograph! Drawing combined with science and a bit of mystery. Theres an episode of `The Simpsons`, where they find Dr.`S`, in a vast empty warehouse, sat alone at his drawing board in the dead of night. He`s searching for the secrets of the universe by drawing with spirograph! I laughed , but felt a little embarassed as well. . An amusing cliche, but a bit to close to home. Ahem!

It`s something to do with the graceful movement found , not only in the process of using the toy, but, in the hypertrochoids themselves, ( that, I understand is the proper mathematical term for the patterns). I `ve been using them as visual representations of sub atomic particles, which were described in a New Scientist article as ,`united briefly in dance, before near instantaneous annihilation`. Lovley!
The prospective energy and anticipation of movement inspired me to make, with vast ammounts of help( from friend and film maker Jacob Whittaker), a small animated film,` The Fabric of the Universe`, partly using spirographs. You can watch it on my web site http://www.birdlouise.co.uk/

View Jakes work at www.jacobwhittaker.co.uk

That wasn`t my first attempt at dealing with a moving image. Jake helped me animate another on going interactive project, `The Game`, the year before. You can see that on the web site as well. `The Game`, uses an adapted version of the childrens game `Fuzzy Felt`, to explore the multitude of possibilities involved in a systemic mark making process.

You can see other pieces of solo and collaoborative work using film on, http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9B093EB5AF23D1AA

Day One

This blog was opened on 16-04-09, coinsidently at 16.04 pm. Good omen.
1+6+0+4+0+9=20. 2+0=2 (date)
1+6+0+4=11 . 1+1= 2 (time)
Two is the number of the project.

Day Two

Crocheting With a Pen.

Divine Hypertrochoid

"You knit with great skill madame."
"I am accustomed to it
"A pretty pattern too."
"you think so?" Said madame, looking at him with a smile.
"Decidedly. May one ask what it is for?"
"Pastime," said Madame, still looking at him with a smile while her fingers moved nimbley.
"Not for use?"
"That depends, I may find use for it one day.If I do - well," said Madame drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind of coquetry," I`ll use it!"

Charles Dickens, `A Tale of Two Cities`.