Day 10: Futures Lecture

Alex Schady

Alex Schady started the lecture with this painting, a stereotypical portrait of a painter, with long wavy hair, gazing into space looking at one with himself. Then commented, hardly any artists are actually like this! Don't get caught up in the stereotyped world of art, and 'be suspicious of the romantic idea of an artist'!

Alex Schady mainly worked trying to interface between different areas, e.g landscape and sculpture. I found this very refreshing as I have not yet decided in which area to specialise and to see how Schady has studied within Fine Art but been able to explore a huge range under that pathway. Schady uses lots of film and video, with one an extract from the film A Brief Encounter where he 'inserts' himself into the film by holding a photo of his head over the protagonist. Another piece of key advise was that artwork can come from anywhere and is more natural when he doesn't know what he is creating and therefore turns out surprising and interesting. Another comment was when it gets to the point in which you exhibit work, each exhibition is a way to give the artwork a new life, for example he projected a video onto one side of a wall and in the corner opposite lay a huge mirror which reflected the video.
Collaborations: Schady believes every collaboration is a chance to work, one collaboration his partner attacked the gallery walls with an axe and he sat in the corner with plasticine covering the wall wherever he could reach (as if to make it better). Another collaboration was when his partner made a huge white tunnel through the gallery and he 'ruined' it with colour and creating 3D objects by dipping polystyrene balls into gloss.

Alex Schady also commented that he likes to turn lectures into his work aswell by dressing up and experimenting in other ways, sadly we wern't turned into his artwork!
I found this lecture very appealing as he focuses mainly on installations which I would like to create more of.
His artists run space: Five Years- http://www.fiveyears.org.uk/  

Oliver West 

After the amazing lecture from Alex Schady everyone was inspired and wanted to get started doing moree research and working but straight after we had another lecture but from Oliver West who is a visual thinking specialist.
The first thing he made us to was fold up an A4 sheet of paper into 16 squares and gave us the advice we should carry one like this wherever we go. I think this is a great idea as I am always having so many ideas but they go in and out of my head so quickly the majority I forget!
Key Points:

• be spontaneous
• push ideas further
• complete all work
• DOODLE!

There were afew things which Oliver said which I could really relate to.  One being in that if someone asked him to draw a donkey it would look awful, and is therefore awful at pictionary but if he was in a field and he saw a donkey and sketched it, it would look good. There have been so many times in which people don't believe I study Art as i haven't been able to draw well from memory. I think this relates back to the work from the other day and how it is so important to constantly refer back to the object rather than use your imagination or memory.
Another comment Oliver suggested was that he has perceptive ability to notice and observe, which when I considered the meaning I realised I also did. In the lecture not only could I hear him but i had also notice the sound of then fan in the background. Another example is sitting in a pub and also tuning into other conversations around aswell as your own. On one hand it can be very handy and inspiring as I notice things that others dont but on the other hand it also means my senses are very sensistive and therefore get distracted easily. This leads to how I am a 'multi
-layered thinker' instead of 'linear' thinker as I have many things going through my head at one point. Its ironic how I have spent all my education years being told to sit still and be quiet, but I find it hard to sit and only do one thing. Now, on the other hand, it is the opposite and encourage us to doodle!
Overall this lecture taught me more about myself and the technique which would be most effective to help me study and also interact with others.
To the right is an etching by Oliver West.

http://www.oliverwest.net/
oliverwestfootnotes@gmail.com