Overview ConclusionAn overview of whatthe placement entails.Pg. 1

What happened in these weeks.Pg. 2, 3, 4

My thoughts on thework so far.Pg.

Overview

This is a fortnightly newsletter, whereI will bring you through my expierences here in Holland.I, along with for others from my class at home decided to jump at this opertunity to study abroad. So we are studying the minor Art & Sound in NHL Hogeschool in Leeuwarden.

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Siobhan O Sullivan 22-03-2012

MM3 PlacementWeek 6, 7, 8 & 9

Week 6

We handed up all our work so far for mid-term assessments. We carried on working on completing our concept for Thursday. We had di�culty with our second concept so we scheduled an appointment with one of our clients Wednesday before our �nal pitches Thursday. Thursday was spent in Blokhuispoort (reformed prison) where we have been having all our meetings with the clients previously. We had our �nal pitched today in front of our clients and the other 5 groups also taking part in the Future Lab Leeuwarden project.

---Our First concept---We will collect old and unwanted bikes, bells, re�ectors anything we can get our hands from across the city, then break them down into di�erent parts and transform the framework into a �ower shaped object. With the bells, we will place them on the sculpture and compose a song ourselves and program the bikes to play the music using Blue Energy.

Before arriving in Holland there are two things we thought of when thinking of the country. Flowers and Bicycles. Leeuwarden has the largest �ower market in all of Holland!However, the one thing which stands out to me above all else

is…. “Bicycles!” They are absolutely everywhere. They are the number one means of transport in Holland. Every day, when walking through the city you will hear a variation of bike bells. Before you even see anything, you realise the distinct sound of a bike. Outside almost every building you will see a parked bike. There are a lot of old unused bicycles laying around the city also which is not an attractive site. It is for this reason that we have chosen this as a concept topic.

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Siobhan O Sullivan 22-03-2012

MM3 Placement

Siobhan O Sullivan 22-03-2012

MM3 Placement ---Our Second Concept ----

For our second concept we wanted to capture the sounds and scenic views Leeuwarden has to o�er. We want to try to create an atmosphere for people that they are in a di�erent place from the outside world yet they will still hear distinctive sounds from the surrounding environment they will currently be in.

Outside View

Inside View

Description of RoomThe cube will be 2 by 2 meter in size. There will be one full length entrance. The roof and the wall directly opposite the entrance will all be glass. The other remaining walls including the �oor will all be wood.We plan on having blue �orescent light running along the edges of the ceiling so at night time it will re�ect against the glass and water. On the glass, there will be fresh water running down it, which will be constantly pumped around. The view from the cube through the glass, will be looking directly towards the Bonifatius church in Leeuwarden. The idea is that people can take in the view before them while listening to the distinctive noises that may be heard from the outside world.The sound and how it will workThe sounds that will be played in the room will be church bells. Blue energy will rotate a motor pulley. There will be two shafts that will be running at the same time and will have two objects attached to the end which will hit o� di�erent bells to make the sound of a church bell ringing.Reasoning for GlassWe picked glass so people can see and hear the noises created simply by the water that they see in front of them. The clients loved our �rst concept as we were the only group to choose not to take the money they were o�ering us, but to build something from nothing. They thought it was much more of a statement doing it this way, and they were impressed, which we were delighted about.

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Siobhan O Sullivan 22-03-2012

MM3 PlacementAfterwards we had to send on our �nished presentations to the clients so they could review them again and decide who gets the high budget project and the remaining groups would get equal amounts, roughly around 500 euro. The following day I arranged a meeting with Wetsus Technology Centre for the following Thursday, with our clients to discuss our art installations and get their views on how we are going to construct the Blue Energy mechanism into the sculptures.

Week 7

Monday started o� with our mid-term assessment. We had to meet with our mentor and teacher and talk to them everything we have done and learned right up to this point. Of course we did not have much done except our research to show them.On Tuesday we had a meeting with the entire minor of Art & Sound about an event we are organising ourselvesfor the 31st of May. It will be a concert taking place in NHL. The meeting involved delegating work out to people. Myself and Gavin volunteered to do the lighting for the show along with Tjan, another student in our class. We don’t have any experience with doing stage lighting but we are willing to learn something new. It should be fun.On Friday we had a meeting with Wetsus Technology Centre about our concepts. One of our clients came along to the meeting also to help us sponsorship for our art installation. We got the news that we wouldn’t have enough strength of wattage to power all 3 of our �ower installations and that we would have to consult an electric engineer in NHL about how many watts it would take to power our whole installation. The maximum Blue Energy machine they can give us has a power of 4 watts.

Week 8

We had a whole week o� to enjoy Queens Day and Liberation Day �

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Contact Details55 Emmanuel Murandstraat,Leeuwarden.Holland.8932 GZsiobhansully1@yahoo.comPhone: 0861964027

We are currently under a lot of pressure to come up with alternative ideas. Were pretty disappointed that the Blue Energy mechanism didn’t work out as everyone we had talked about it to, really liked the idea. So it would have been a success. It’s going to be a busy few weeks ahead of us

Week 9

Monday, we met with some electric engineers in NHL. They informed us that 4 watts will only power the bells on the bikes to play, but it will require a lot more energy to rotate the 5 wheels on each �ower installation. They were unable to give an exact �gure of watts as they would have to take into consideration the weight of the wheels along with how fast we would want the wheels rotating around. It wasn’t good news to hear as now we will have to consider adding extra energy source to our art installations.

We also found out from our teachers a couple of places in Leeuwarden to go ask for bike parts. So that’s what me and Rachel done the following day, we went on the hunt for unwanted bikes! We �rst went to Afac �rst, where the council bring left bikes from around the city streets to be �xed up and sold o� for a cheap price. Our luck was against us again as they had just cleared out all their rubbish bike parts. But they were very helpful and sent us to another workshop called FourStar. We were more successful here and they had parts to give to us. We got wheels, some re�ectors, bells, pedals and saddles. We still have to get the frame part of the bike which will be di�cult.

On Thursday we met with Bouke Green, our client, to update him with the news we recieved early in the week. He told us we should come up with a new idea because if we did do the one �ower installation itwouldn’t be e�ective enough for people viewing it. We agreed with him, but the only problem is we only have 4 weeks left to complete this installation, so time was really against us now.

Conclusion

Siobhan O Sullivan 22-03-2012

MM3 Placement