Scratching The Surface - final exhibition by Creative Arts Practice MA students

Congratulations to the Culture Lab students who have created an interesting and innovative exhibition using new media and interactive technology. The show consists of work by a variety of artists, designers and musicians who have come to the end of their one year Creative Arts Practice MA course at Newcastle University. They "explore new media to challenge the role of electronic arts, disrupting the relationships between artwork, audience and interaction."

Exhibiting artists: Barti Sena, Clive Wright, Cuong Dao, Edmund Nesveda, Meteor Liang, Qingchan Li, Tan Zou, Wenya Chen and Yousif Abdulghani unveil an exciting exhibition consisting of audio-visual interactive installations, live hacked CCTV, performances and interactive objects.

Bartira Sena

In a burgeoning momentum of excessive technological consumerism and electronic mediation, Bartira Sena's work attempts to juxtapose notions of nature, spirituality and technology. Her installations create situations in which we experience alternative cultural representations. For this show she presents ‘Ceremonial Hardware’ the result of a collaborative session where participants responded to the imaginary scenario ‘ Spiritual e-tools from the future, excavated in our present time’. The engulfing device imprints multi-touch gestural frustration while multi-mouthing attempts a surrogate to multi- touching interaction.

Clive Wright looks at disrupting the notion of mass surveillance presenting us with an installation that provokes and questions our current beliefs.
‘Surveillance Discourse’ presents us with an eclectic mix of live hacked CCTV footage from around the world, from dystopian looking landscapes to places of worship, we glimpse a first hand view of who and what is being looked at through these faceless pieces of technology.

Clive Wright

By underlining the characteristic of Studio Ghibli fans, Cuong Dao’s work describes the essential role played by a fan-made fiction. Ghibliary, an approach to fan art, will be presented as a closer analysis, which will investigate how a fan uses natural constitutions and spiritual themes from original movies as metaphors to expose cultural values to people and society.

Edmund Nesveda's interactive video installation explores the relationship between the public and the private in the context of surveillance in contemporary society. It plays on the ambiguous role of technology in the process, and underlines the tensions emerging from the blurring of lines between public and private lives. In the UK alone there are more than 6 million CCTV cameras, forming a huge surveillance network, many are unsecured, leaving a window open into people's lives. Someone might be watching, indeed someone might be watching right now.

Qingchan Li explores the possibilities of a totally open and free environment in interactive narratives by producing multiply alternative life of Adolf Hitler in a game style. This project mainly consists of historical images, text, along with impressive sound effect, providing various options and branches in every stage in Adolf Hitler’s life for audience to choose, leading to more than five different endings.

Tan Zou

“To-be” Garden is Tan’s interactive installation design, which consists of “Music Garden” and “Weather Garden”. “Music Garden” is a multisensory interactive installation controlled by infrared sensors.“Weather Garden” is a creative design based on weather change. Tan's work aims at providing a multisensory and emotional digital world for participants.

Bencharmony – Yousif Abdulghani
The bench is an everyday functional and familiar object. It satisfies variable needs and provides a platform for human communication. Although it can accommodate multiple occupants with a close proximity, it has been observed that they rarely connect to each other in the public spaces. This piece was created to investigate the ability of collaborative music making to demolish barriers, and stimulate connectivity between strangers in the public spaces. With its minimalist and accessible interface design, it allows occupants to explore and create musical patterns and textures collaboratively, which results in various levels of human connections with unpredictable outputs and interactions.

http://dm.ncl.ac.uk/usifaghani/

http://www.thecrackmagazine.com/view-event/25724/2015-09-22/19

http://narcmagazine.com/news-scratching-the-surface-culture-lab-newcastle/



The exhibition is open 22nd - 25th September 9am - 5pm

Culture Lab Space 4/5
King's Road,
Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU

Unsensed opening at The Hatton Gallery

The Hatton Gallery is taken over by seven contemporary artists who reveal the unseen and unnoticed facets of our everyday environment.

Matthew Flintham

Matthew Flintham presents a new installation revealing the hidden, virtual geometries of military airspaces that are all around us.

Rachel Garfield screens the second film in her trilogy The Struggle, commissioned by Beaconsfield, acknowledging unspoken ideologies saturating society.

Aaron Guy draws attention to how the layers of our environment are being shaped by invisible forces, changing the way we interact with the urban landscape.

A series of prints by Autumn Richardson and Richard Skelton trace the origins of familiar words to unearth their forgotten roots in the British landscape.

Matthew Tickle’s What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for samples background radiation from the big bang which washes over and through our bodies.

Yelena Popova

Commissioned to accompany Unsensed, Yelena Popova uses the Hatton Gallery as a stage to present an installation of new ‘invisible’ paintings evoking the transience of visual images in the digital age

https://hattongallery.org.uk/whats-on/unsensed

Newcastle University MFA 2015 Summer Exhibition - Review in the Chronicle

Art made from seaweed and a dancing wardrobe feature in the postgraduate exhibition at Newcastle University

Digory Kirke by Paul Martin Hughes

A cyclist who studies manhole covers and a snorkler who swims with sharks helped to make a lively night livelier as Newcastle University’s Master of Fine Art exhibition opened to the public.

The absorbing work by students on the two-year postgraduate course is on show until early next month at the Hatton Gallery.

Alex Charrington’s exhibition of mixed media works on paper is the first you will see in the main gallery. All geometric shapes and muted colours, it glories in the name Sigils of the Staveley Warriors.

A Newcastle University fine art graduate who returned to do the MFA course, Alex is well established in the city with a base at Cobalt Studios in the Ouseburn Valley.

A ‘sigil’, he explained, is a magic symbol. This had come to mind when he whizzed over the drain covers made by a firm called Stanton & Staveley.

“They’ve got the word ‘warrior’ written on them but they also look like tribal patterns, possibly Aztec. I’ve been cycling over them for years. The geometry of them also reminds me of the modernist abstract artists such as Bridget Riley and Victor Pasmore – so you’ve got this artistic significance and this ethnographic significance.

“I thought they looked exotic, as if they’re from a lost world. For me they’re like little time warp things.”

They might also help Alex to his MFA degree.

Downstairs you will find Nigel Morgan’s installation involving a wooden construction and piles of rubble. It is called Hiraeth which is a Welsh word meaning a wistful longing for an imagined or unattainable landscape.

Into the Emptiness by Soonwon Hwang

Upstairs is Soonwon Hwang’s Into the Emptiness. “What do you think of as emptiness?” challenged the affable South Korean artist. Not quite like this, I replied... not as beautiful.

This, he explained, was the outer expression of what was inside his head. He added that it was ironic and that it had taken him two months to produce and hang the roughly 20,000 skeletal leaves that make up the fagile installation.

From leaves to feathers describes the journey from Soonwon Hwang’s installation to Sarah Dunn’s.

Between Fear and Mother Love is a room full of bird-related objects including a Reader’s Digest bird book which I used to love when I was a child.

People were carefully picking their way around books and other artfully arranged objects.Along one wall a sequence of enlarged images shows the development of a chick inside an egg.

Digory Kirke, a kinetic sculpture by Paul Martin Hughes, is a jolly but noisy affair, a mechanically-driven dancing wardrobe inspired by an investigation of the childhood imagination.

Narnia fans will know that Digory Kirke owns the house (and the wardrobe) in CS Lewis’s novel The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe which provides entry into the magical kingdon for Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.

Yein Son’s work takes up a couple of linked studios. Chasing the Light is a large work taking up one entire wall and comprising a white board studded with nails linked by silver string.

Nocture 3.12 conists of hanging fabrics inked over in shades of grey.

“My work is the trace left by my responses, experimental yet respectful, to this space in this time in this place,” she explains.

“Chasing the Light is like a race for drawing the shapes and lines of the light coming through the windows into the space every moment in a day. I chase and tracing the silver lining of the sunlight.”

Of Nocturne 3.12 she says: “Every night after work, the nocturnal air inspires. In this city of wind and clouds, the sky is creating different textures and changing quickly each time.

“With this, I am expanding the energy of the nature of painting through my improvising gestures by using ink marks and experiments within painting.”

Climb another flight of stairs and you will find A Yellow Tongue by Sofija Sutton, from New Hampshire, who explained that she was going to move to New York with her sister but then chose to come to Newcastle “for an adventure”.

In her studio you will find writing on the floor, writing hanging from the ceiling, various colours and dividing lines and a set of headphones through which you will hear a good deal of shouting and yelling.

“It’s my father and sister,” explained the artist with a smile. “I had tried to do screaming sounds but they laughed at them because they were too high-pitched. I challenged them to do better and so they did.”

Sofija said the text-based installation is a 3D short story collection with the painted lines delineating the boundaries between them. It is also an exploration of mental health using therapy-based language and the fruits of her own self-analysis.

As much writer as artist, Sofija said she had been snorkling with basking sharks off Oban in Scotland in preparation for her next collaborative project. “They have small brains but huge mouths and it’s quite something when they swim right at you, turning away only at the last second.”

If you sense a vaguely fishy smell in Helen Shaddock’s studio, it’s nothing to do with sharks. One of her exhibited works is a wall hanging comprising squares of printed seaweed. It’s far from unpleasant. There are also screenprints on tissue paper and a piece called Strut Your Stuff made from lotus leaves, pegs and an aluminium rod.

As I was about to leave I was introduced to Chinese artist Liying Zhao who came to Newcastle from one of China’s most modern and dynamic cities, Shenzhen.

Walking in the Paradox by Liying Zhao

She said: “I got an offer from London too but I chose Newcastle because the group is very small here so you get more turtorials one-to-one. It was a good decision.”

A thoughtful student, she said she was struggling to find what medium interested her most. She had played around with different materials but settled on video installation.

“I also like to perform and to have a personal narrative in my work,” she said.

In the end she had allowed her allotted gallery space to dictate the terms of her exhibition, Walking in the Paradox, and had four days to install everything.

Film of a musician is projected onto a wall through a gauze, a girl with needle and thread seems to be repairing a curtain hanging over a doorway and there is a tiny image of the artist herself, dancing.

Prof Richard Talbot, head of fine art, said: “The MFA exhibition at Newcastle University is always an exciting melting pot of ideas.

“The two year course gives these artists the opportunity to explore their thinking and develop and hone their practice.

“Having the setting of the Hatton Gallery in which to show their work gives them a fantastic springboard to launch their careers as professional contemporary artists.”

The exhibition is open to everyone until September 5, Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.Admission is free.




Review written by David Whetstone

Published 25th August 2015

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/whats-on/arts-culture-news/art-made-seaweed-dancing-wardrobe-9921479

Out of Kansas - a collaborative exhibition by artists Jodie Dunnill and Helen Shaddock - Preview: 6pm-8pm Tuesday 12th May 2015 - The Lit & Phil, Newcastle

PRESS RELEASE Out of Kansas Preview: 6pm-8pm Tuesday 12th May 2015 Exhibition continues: 13th – 21st May 2015 Monday – Thursday : 9:30am - 7pm Friday : 9:30am – 5pm Saturday : 9:30am – 1pm The Lit & Phil 23 Westgate Road Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1SE Out of Kansas is a collaborative exhibition by artists Jodie Dunnill and Helen Shaddock, in which they have responded to the architecture and atmosphere of the Main Library in the Lit & Phil. This is the first time that the artists have collaborated with each other, encouraging them to use unfamiliar materials and work on an ambitious scale. Out of Kansas is a sculptural installation that incorporates the upper and lower levels of the main library. Made from reflective and coloured surfaces, the work acts as a device for the audience to view the space differently, exploring it in new ways from different perspectives. Both artists recognised that the Lit & Phil is a library with a difference, and time in the library revealed particular aspects that help create this distinctive space. The artists sought to capture the essence of the library in their artistic response, as oppose to change it. Jodie Dunnill and Helen Shaddock are currently studying at Newcastle University on a Master of Fine Art course.  Dunnill completed her BA degree from Liverpool John Moores in 2014.  Recent exhibitions include 8BA2, St Helens (2014), and Snippet, Newcastle (2015).  Shaddock graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2008 with a Degree in Fine Art: Environmental Art. Since 2014 Shaddock has been based in Newcastle. Shaddock has been involved in exhibitions nationally and internationally, and her work is in a number of public and private collections. Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition of new work at 1 Royal Terrace, Glasgow (2014) and Snippet, a group exhibition at Newcastle University (2015). Forthcoming exhibitions include a group exhibition at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle as part of The Late Shows this May. Out of Kansas is supported by the Alumni Association Student Initiative Fund through Newcastle University. Note to editors: For more information contact: Helen Shaddock, 07845 579706, out.of.kansas.exhibition@gmail.com To find out more about the Alumni Association Student Initiative Fund visit http://www.ncl.ac.uk/students/nclplus/funding/fund/

Copyright © 2015 Jodie Dunnill & Helen Shaddock, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: out.of.kansas.exhibition@gmail.com unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

Waiting for Los Angeles - A video installation by Uta Kögelsberger - Ex-libris Gallery - University of Newcastle

Ex-libris Gallery

Fine Art

University of Newcastle

The Quadrangle NE1 7RU

Waiting for Los Angeles is a new video installation by Uta Kögelsberger. The project grew out of the artist’s fascination with Los Angeles as the quintessential post–modern city; a city that defines itself through its tendency to ignore any form of coherence, its idiosyncratic city-image, its horizontal structure and its cultural diversity; all of which make up its attraction as much as they make any form of representation an impossibility. In spite of this resistance to representation, people all over the world have a mental image of Los Angeles.

The work is shot on a seemingly non descript natural platform located in Griffith Park – one of the few truly democratic public spaces in the city that attracts people from all walks of life. Griffith Park was donated to Los Angeles with the proviso that it was to remain untouched, uncultivated, and open to the public. Shot over a two year period, and edited down from 360 hours of footage, Kögelsberger’s video builds on the premise that if you stand in one spot in the park long enough, you no longer need to move through Los Angeles to see it; instead Los Angeles will move past you. The platform acts as a stage for the city to perform itself. People enter and exit like performers in a play with non-scripted conversations and actions: a 21^stcentury Waiting for Godot in Los Angeles, where nothing is really said but where all the little nothings add up to paint a portrait of this city that leaves so much up to the imagination.

Uta Kögelsberger is based in London and lectures at the University of Newcastle and most of her work is developed in the United States. She has previously been awarded the Stanley Picker Fellowship, the Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship, the EAA Award for Art in Architecture and the SPD silver medal for editorial photography. Her photo essays have been published in Wired (USA, UK, Italy), Esquire (Spain), Quo Magazine (Mexico), GQ (South Africa) and selected for American Photography. Her work has been exhibited at the Architectural Association, London; CGP, London, the Barbican, London; Bluecoat, Liverpool; Spacex, Exeter; Laurence Miller Gallery, NYC and the Glassell Project Space MFAH, Houston amongst others.