Exploring the transition space of the Brutalist architecture – labyrinthine, uneasy, repetitive, open and closed.

Combined photography with magazine cut-outs from the early stages of the project – I superimposed cut-out sections of text onto the photography and deleted the spaces they covered – resulting with what looks like redactions – the redactions obscure part of the image and allude to absence of something (text, information, meaning) – what was there previously and why might it have been deleted?

I then had an inverted work where the cutouts from the magazine were replaced by the photograph, and these were set next to the magazine’s photo captions. What meaning, if any, is made from juxtaposition of these images with unrelated text referring to news events? The bits of text direct the eye away (pictured above, below, left etc.) – I didn’t organise them with this in mind and maybe could have.

Worked in my own drawings of space in and around the building – island in the road (like a public sculpture itself) – I drew the space it occupied and the space directly above it – then between the two spaces I placed image fragments from the magazine, not with much intention but to see what came of it – to combine them – don’t really know what to think of it.

Good to remember I have those bits of magazine scanned and saved digitally, as well as physical. I think I can definitely use the redaction again as a technique but it feels important that the text and image have significance – that I know what I’m trying to do.

Things to take forward: juxtaposition of text and image and investigation of space around/between objects.

I used drawing to investigate the physical spaces within and around the Holyrood Parliament building. It feels like I’m waiting until a point where I can give these some important contextual meaning, that their aesthetic qualities aren’t enough to qualify them as successful.

The issue might be that I intended to produce work that explores negative space in a meaningful, socio-political sense, and that while I enjoy making visually aesthetic artwork I don’t see there being much meaningful value in it alone.

Who realistically am I making my art for and for what purpose? – Myself and a contemporary art audience. I can’t see past the purpose being my own ego/need for praise.

The bottom line may be – these works are good, they respond adequately to the theme of negative space but they aren’t thought-provoking or subversive (and that should be fine because very little contemporary art is).

Further explorations of space through photography, and documentation of the Scottish sayings, proverbs and words of wisdom engraved along the lower north side of the building. None of these have been put to use yet but there could be potential for written work and positioning of it onto walls of the building (what kind of fine might be given for this? would it be worth the artistic quality? is there a way to do something public with as much impact without incurring a fine? Does breaking the law/receiving a fine give improved meaning to an artwork?)

Neil Nodzak’s Sequential Art workshop was important for moving my project forward and will continue to be. I like the idea of involving everyday experiences and piecing together isolated image/text to allow the viewer to form a narrative. I’m interested in composition and how narrative can be manipulated.

What this process is good for: reproducing movement and creating, communicating and manipulating narrative.

I’m happy with the flattened paracetamol packet, used to order image and text relating to events of the day (trip to dentist and pain/swelling of my mouth). Its reminiscent of both a floor plan and an altarpiece (which describes a narrative sequence) – might be some potential here.

I’m also happy with the 9-panel grid, conveying the swelling and healing of my cheek over previous days – though its only 9 lines, it’s quite difficult to maintain the correct scale for the rate of swelling. I ended up using photoshop to maintain symmetry across the frames.

Sequential processes could offer an educational narrative device. It could offer a way for myself and the viewer to learn about the Scottish Parliament building and Holyrood site.

I set up an Are.na account to help me organise and share online research.

I began responding to definitions of negative space as ‘any area that the mind perceives as a respite from the subject’, while also considering the Holyrood area as defined by two spaces: Scottish Parliament and Holyrood Palace.

Found objects: irregular-shaped wooden blocks which I took home and recombined to make architectural sculptures and recreate some of the forms of the parliament building. These were quite pleasing but don’t see much connection to the theme of negative space, unless I began to draw from them using the 2D/3D drawing process introduced in the ESW Workshop from CAP1.

Video work: Parliament reflecting pool as negative space and text as subject. I’m relatively happy with it but think it comes across a bit pretentious and uninteresting – which could be solved by changing up the subject and audio-visual material.

A devolved Scottish Parliament occupies a strange space, in that it’s simultaneously accountable and unaccountable – how much scrutiny that should be aimed at Scottish Parliament is deflected to Westminster? Could I look into examples of parliamentary scandals in Scotland?

How can I make the sound continue through cuts-to-text?