Happy Valentine's Day



With all of the awkwardness that comes with wearing a conjoined balaclava, staring deeply into somebody's eyes and inhaling their exhalations, it also makes for quite a cute couples' photo. Naww! Just one of the few couples I approached in the lead up to Valentine's Day to become part of the experiment. Look out for more coming soon...

Happy New Year!

I feel that big things are to come of 2014...

...but just for now, I am really looking forward to this weekend's events at KARST. 

This Friday (January 17th) is the screening of Vest & Page's The Movie Trilogy, then live performance 'A Moorphologic Journey (On The Borders of  Our Bodies) Chapter 2' on Saturday 25th January. 

'VestAndPage invite the public to witness their durational performance 'A Morphologic Journey (On The Borders Of Our Bodies) Chapter 2'. This work was first conceived as part of their UK debut show and seminal 2011 exhibition ‘Vessel’, in the derelict building in which KARST has been established. The piece was composed as a 3-hour performance, divided into four episodes which are  to be continued as the pair revisit this old haunt.   

The performance takes James Joyce’s novel Ulysses as an inspiration, and the protagonists journey and encounters with a variety of women. These staged meetings with archetypal characters represent analogies of the behavioural patterns of people on the run; men and women in search to forget, with a longing for union and permanence. VestAndPage's process-led work will allow for moments of improvisation and reflection. The piece questions intimacy and trust in moments of solitude, fragility, exclusion and rejection.'

So there we have it. Can't wait to see a bit of live performance!

The movie trilogy will be screened from 17th-19th at 12pm and 3pm over the weekend.

I have been having recent meetings with a couple of Interactive Design students at University of Plymouth to make my conjoined balaclava more...interactive!

I have wanted to make the filming process from inside the balaclava run more smoothly for both myself and the wearers. Over the past month we have been sharing ideas and it looks like we are almost at the stage to create a live feed from the reaction cams.
This is just one of the little gadgets (raspberry pi) that we will be using.
I am very excited to have a demonstration in the new year...

KARST latest exhibition Noah Angell continues Friday 6th - Sunday 8th December, 11-6pm.

See you there!

Next project at KARST : NOAH ANGELL 
Lecture / Performance / Sound Work : 
'CRYING IN THE ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELD RECORDING' 
& an exhibition of the artist's films from 2006-12

Lecture: Thursday 5th December 7-8pm (Booking Essential) 
Exhibition Preview: Thursday 5th December 8.15pm 
Exhibition continues Friday 6th - Sunday 8th December - 11-6pm

Poke Bonnet.

A friend sent me this image over the weekend.. Before doing my research, I truly believed this could have been some sort of genuine 'courting' device.

Disappointingly, it's not.

'The poke bonnet was fashionable at the beginning of the 19th century, and consisted of a small crown and wide brim to shade the face. From 1830 through to the 1840s, the shape of the brim became more tubular in shape and increased in size until the wearers face was only visible from directly in front.'

The image above is a French satire print on the poke bonnet in the 1810's; 'Les Invisibles en Tete-a-Tete'. The bonnets were called 'invisibles' in France because the face of the wearer was virtually concealed except from the front.

I believe the poke bonnet could have a revival.
Bonnets and balaclavas.

Twins are the best models for my conjoined balaclava.

Friday was the last day of the AA2A Welcome show at Artspacefour, so what a better way to meet the students, try on headgear and have tea and cake! It was great to see lots of people getting involved and wearing the balaclavas. This was also a great opportunity to test run a NEW PROTOTYPE BALACLAVA.
I have been back in the textile studio this week, designing and creating individual balaclavas which can be attached/detached from one another. I have been thinking about ways to make the experience more inviting for the public to get involved before jumping, er..., head on into it...






It still had an awkwardness to it, but people were less reluctant to take part. I believe this will be an interesting prop to work with; watch this space for more experiments.

During the Welcome show, I received images from participators who interacted with the pop-up balaclava installation. Here are some of the images from the duration of the show.