JOURNAL

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THIRD WEEKS CLASSES, INTERRUPTED BY LABOUR DAY WEEKEND, LEFT US WITH A LOT OF IDEAS AND EXPERIMENTS REGARDING ICE, FRANTICALLY TRYING TO SOLIDIFY DESIGNS AND CONCEPTS BEFORE NEXT THURSDAYS BIG DOCUMENTATION DAY. LEARNING HOW TO MAKE ICE BOWLS AND PRACTICING NET MAKING TECHNIQUES TO HOLD THEM, STUFFING STRING INTO BALLOONS AND THEN TRYING TO FILL THEM, CREATING LACE LIKE CRISS CROSSES OF THREADS THROUGH ICE CUBE TRAYS, THIS WEEK WAS ALL ABOUT ICE, AND HOW TO DRAPE IT AROUND THE GARMENT WE DECIDED ON.

ONCE ALL THE PREPARATION FOR THE FINAL ICE WORKSHOP WAS COMPLETE, IT WAS TIME TO CARRY OUT THE ORDEAL. ASSEMBLY, DOCUMENTATION AND LOCATION POSED QUITE A LOT OF CONSIDERATION AND WE DID OUR BEST TO DO IT JUSTICE. THE DRESS HAD BEEN HANDSTITCHED BY THREE OTHER STUDENTS AND MYSELF AND THEN WE DRESSED THE MANNEQUIN ON THE BALCONY OF OUR BUILDING AND BEGAN ATTACHING ICE TO THE GARMENT. HERE ARE SOME PHOTOS.

TRAN

SFOR

M ICE

WOR

KSHO

P

ICE WORKSHOP FILM STILLS

DESIGN RESPONSEAFTER EXPERIMENTING WITH ICE, AS MUCH AS

THERE ARE MANY ASPECTS THAT I REALLY ENJOYED

ABOUT IT, WHICH IS EVIDENT IN THE NUMBER OF

PRIOR EXPERIMENTS I CARRIED OUT, I’M NOT

FEELING VERY INSPIRED BY IT. THE ICE HAD A

BEAUTIFUL TRANSIENCE ABOUT IT, AND THERE

WERE DEFINITELY STYLES OF IT THAT I RESPONDED

TO MUCH MORE POSITIVELY THAN OTHERS.

THE CLEAR ICE WAS DEFINITELY A STAND OUT FOR

ME, IT WAS BEAUTIFUL AND GLASS-LIKE AND I

LOVED BEING ABLE TO SEE THE SHARDS AND AIR

POCKET EXPLOSIONS THAT HAD BEEN FROZEN

WITHIN THE SHAPE. I’M GLAD WE USED MOSTLY

SPHERICAL SHAPES, AS I THINK THESE WERE

DEFINIYELY OPTIMUM IN TERMS OF SEEING INSIDE

THE ICE SHELL AND THE NATURAL SHAPES AND

PATTERNS THAT FORM WITHIN.

HAVING SAID THIS, I LIKED THE IDEA OF COLOUR

LEAKING FROM THE TEMPORARILY SOLID ICE

STRUCTURES AND ONTO WHITE GARMENTS, AND I

THINK IT MIGHT BE NICE TO EXPLORE THIS SEPA-

RATELY TO THE GROUPS EFFORT. SOME OF MY FA-

VOURITE METHODS THAT WE DEVELOPED FOR THIS

ICE EXPERIMENT WAS DEFINITELY THE HANGING.

STUFFING BALLOONS WITH ICE PRIOR TO FILLING

SO THAT NO ONLY WILL THEY BE ABLE TO HANG

BUT THEY’LL ALSO HAVE CLUMPS OF THREAD KNOT-

TED AND BUNCHED UP, SUSPENDED IN ICE. I ALSO

REALLY LIKED THE ICE BOWLS, THEY WERE TRULY

BEAUTIFUL. I CONDUCTED LARGER VERSIONS OF

THESE EXPERIMENTS USING TWO LARGE BOWLS. FILL-

ING THE LARGEST WITH WATER AND THEN FILLING

THE SECOND WITH LENTILS AND SITTING IT INTO THE

WATER OF THE OTHER BOWL. I LEARNED THAT IT WAS

REALLY NECESSARY TO GREASE THE BOWLS, OR US-

ING WARM WATER AFTER FROZEN TO GET THEM OUT

OF THE ‘MOULDS’. I THINK ITS REALLY IMPORTANT TO

POINT OUT THAT I REALLY LOVED THE IDEA OF HANG-

ING AND THAT I THINK IT COULD EASILY BE TAKEN

FROM ONE TRANSFORMATIVE PROCESS TO ANOTHER

(IE, GROWTH, ICE, SPACIAL ETC). FOR SOME REASON

THE TRANSPARENCY OF THE ICE HAS REALLY MADE

ME WANT TO PLAY AROUND WITH CLEAR PLASTICS.

I THINK I’LL CONDUCT SOME EXPERIMENTS WITH

CLEAR PLASTIC GARMENTS AND AT THE MOMENT

MY IDEAS INCLUDE: ACID, BLEACH, RUST, GROWTH,

MOVEMENT (SOMEHOW). I’VE DISCOVERED THAT

MOVEMENT AND SPACIAL TRANSFORMATION REALLY

INSPIRE ME. I RECENTLY SAW A VIDEO OF YING GAO’S

LIGHT SENSITIVE GARMENTS THAT MOVE AND BLUR

AND CREATE THEIR OWN LIGHT AND DO ALL THESE

OTHER AMAZING THINGS.

YING

GAO

PLAY

TIME

Inspired by Jacques Tati’s film Playtime (1967), this series illustrates these garments’ ability to metamorphose when one tries to take their picture. Playtime 1 reacts to a camera flash by contracting and becoming blurred as the fabric, activated by light-sensitive sensors, begins to undulate. For ying gao, this blurriness is a space of freedom which defies the supremacy of the image, that capital element of the fashion milieu.Playtime 2 also reacts to its environment: by means of light-sensitive light pads hidden in the fabric, the dress emits a fairly strong light when struck by a camera flash. There is thus a quite playful element to this piece, which thumbs its nose at fashion shows where photography is king.

ANDREW HUANG SOLIPSIST“Solipsist” is meant to be a purely visual film built around the idea of convergence and unison between living things. The title comes from the philosophical theory of solipsism in which the self is the only thing that one can know or prove to exist. The isolation of this theory inspired me to imagine a counter-hypothesis – a world in which living be-ings are not constrained by a singular experience. Rather, the characters in this film are constantly merging into one another, forming a collective consciousness through unison of their minds and bodies.

The visual style of the film is also an integral part of the film’s concept. My goal is to create a film that is extremely colorful and playful in its materials with an emphasis on practical special effects, costumes and puppetry. Jim Hen-son’s muppets and fantasy films of the 80s are a huge inspiration for me in their use of physical props and creatures. I want to bring this practice of using tactile production design and creature-making into my own work to bring this fantasy world to life.

ANDREW HUANG SOLIPSIST

Steven Siegel is very interested in the materials he works with, and is probably most well known for works where he places enormous piles of paper, wood and other biodegradable materials into beautiful landscapes. Its really very shocking against the green scapes and being predominantly rubbish and waste materials, accentuates the shock ap-peal.

STEVEN SIEGEL