and we are UP.

Tuesday we finally got into our window and began to set up the installation. We realised we wouldn't be able to string fishing line across to hand the pictures from as it would droop under the weight. Thankfully, Paul at Fred Aldous cut us some 2x1 pieces of wood which we could suspend from which wedge between the walls, resting on the picture rails.

Whilst mocking up we found it really hard to suspend each picture individually so we decided we would string the fishing line between the wall and the floor, tightly, and then attach the photos to those. This has worked pretty well even though it was a little tricky to get them to look straight and level. Working in this way has given us a lot more control about which pictures go where and the overall look of the window as we have been able to hold up and judge exactly where something should go and verify it before it was fixed.

There was some debate about whether we should draw frames on the inside or outside of the glass. Personally I wanted them to be drawn on the inside as there was then no chance of them being smudged or ruined or washed off. There was some discussion that they should be done from the outside for ease but for the sake of a little extra time marking up from the outside, I felt it would look miles better and you’ll get some depth from the glass.

After a session of doing frames, we returned the following day to discover the fishing line had stretched a little and they were mostly skewed and off balance with the photos. This meant we had to redo the majority which was a great shame.

The pictures themselves look great all hung up and the frames, all being different are really quirky. I think hanging them at different levels has made all the difference, really lending itself to the perspective outlining which we have done through the frames. The only negative is the back of the pictures as the tape used to hang them makes the back of the mount-board look a little messy which I would prefer to have covered or at least looking a little more uniform. A few ideas to cover it was to use a sheet or a apiece of paper with F A C E S printed onto it; we were a little concerned about costs here though having already spent so much. The only other suggestion was to hang our T-Shirts from the event up all togetheras they are already double sided.

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Preps

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Given that the window is only so big, we thought it best to choose the best of our photos and crop them down so it is truly a F A C E S installation which better fits our initial concept. This gives us a lot of different shapes to work with so we should end up with a much more interesting piece in the window than we would if we just hung all A4 pictures. So, we have guillotined the pictures and have mounted each one onto white mountboard so that it is framed by white. This does reference old fashioned and polaroid pictures but we are trying to just keep it simple and not too involved.

Mocking

Today we decided to start with an attempt of a mock up for what we wanted to put in the windows. After looking at an artist Barry McGee we thought his work would be great inspiration for us. He is an artist who uses a lot of frames to present his work. He puts it all together in a random composition yet it is also a planned one. I really like the way he displays his work and we were all keen to use this within our own installation. Below is an image of a piece of his work.

Artwork_images_424078385_367616_barry-mcgee

We started the day by sorting through some of the images we have from the event. We decided a lot of the images could be cropped to different sizes because then this way the areas of the image that aren’t important can be scrapped. This also gives us a variety of sizes to work with. We then drew out a rough plan of what we wanted to achieve in the windows, but decided to focus on window first. We want to add depth to our images by hanging them at different levels but in a composition that is similar to those of Barry McGee. We also decided we wanted to draw onto the actual window, creating frame outlines, so from the outside it looks as though the hanging images have frames. Therefore in our mock up we decided to use paper and acetate to display an idea of what kind of thing we wanted to produce.

The mock up was really fiddly and hard to do. The cotton was so fine and the space we were using wasn’t brilliant. But we got our idea across. We also had a tutorial and deciced to meet tomorrow with Paul from Fred Aldous and see if we can figure out exactly what our plan is to install next week.

a place to be a place to see

Without further ado, I can now officially anounce that F A C E Smcr will be proud to present the faces OF manchester as recorded on the 8th of May at Kraak gallery, in the Lever St windows of FRED ALDOUS.

We are fortunate to have a window in this space because they have recently acquired this photobooth which they have asked us to promote as part of our installation.

For the side window, we plan to mount our photographs from our event onto mount board and suspend them at different heights and setbacks from the window in order to create a 3 dimensional installation. We were thinking of using fishing line to suspend them as this is probably the strongest medium.

Onto the glass of the window itself, we will then mark out, from a street level perspective, frames for each of the pictures; as they will all be different sizes and distances from the window we are hoping to have a diverse range of these, and some of them will most likely overlap. After marking out we will be drawing them from the inside of the window using removable glass paint or those pens which write on glass (chalk pens? I’m not sure!).

We are thinking we might, from our own designs, get some vinyl frames cut so as we are using both a loose, artistic style and more refined graphic approach. We also hope to have our logo printed in vinyl and a short blurb to sit in one corner of the window.

 

We have a lot of negatives from disposable cameras we used at the event. We intend to create a long slim box which these will sit in that can be looked into. The idea is that this will sit inside the store and be something people can interact and engage with from both sides. This may possibly be better displayed nearer the photobooth, as the negatives will be in a similar style to the print outs.

 


For promoting the photo-booth, we were thinking of putting some of our pictures together in the same style as the booth print outs, perhaps with blank spaces in a vinyl lay with a ‘get your face involved’ or something along those lines in it.  We have been talking about creating something physically around the photo-booth which spills over into the window; perhaps something interactive where people can put up their own photos? From our event we have a fair amount of photos which people have interacted with and drawn onto in response, so we thought this would be somewhere good for them to engage visitors encouraging them to play and get involved through taking their own.

With any luck, we might be able to get some of our vinyl cuts and materials from Fred Aldous themselves, not holding out for it but it is certainly a possibility! I have sent these details along to Paul at Fred Aldous for him to look over and have promised him an update on friday.

We have come on a lot since our event and I am really pleased with how the group has been working together on this exhibition stage. From here, we need to continue as we have been doing in order to produce as strong an installation as possible within the remaining time frame. We have arranged to do a mock up of our work tomorrow in 20/22 with some acetate and fishing line, so fingers crossed we can iron any issues out before we start making on location next tuesday.

picture perfect....?!

We got together today and organised all of our printed images and photocopies into piles. There are some which have been drawn on which we may need to discard...not sure I want to be responsible for putting drawings of male genitalia up over the Northern Quarter!!!!

At any rate, we went back to looking at how we could display all these photos that we've taken and Fabrizzio suggeated this artist : Barry McGEE

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What I like about McGee's work is its not ordered in any particular fashion but the pictures are tesselated together to form one large shape whether it sits on a flat wall or juts out around a corner following the shape of whatever they are hung on. I like the idea of creating something which is quite eclectic and colourful with a mix of different mediums. 

We have more or less come to the conclusion we would like to work in this style, mixing the photocopies and aritst drawings in with the photographs. We intend to crop down some of the photos in order to achieve different size 'pictures' as opposed to a load of regular images; we feel this will add interest to the piece.

As for putting the images together, we don't think we can afford to make a lot of wooden frames as we have spent a fair amount on our event already. A few ideas we had were lazercutting paper into frames or even into strips to create irregular frames; Fabrizio also suggested that we might use coloured tape and it would be worth talking to the owner of Fred Aldous as he might have some scrap materials or even some coloured tape he could donate in our direction. We think it's worth getting in touch with him either way as we are quite keen on using the building itself for an installation space. 

We have also thought of perhaps drawing our own illustrated frames and photoshopping them onto the photos. If we each drew up about 5 frames then that would give us a minimum of 25 different frames to work with which we could produce in different sizes and colourways. Somthing to consider definitely; even if we interspersed these with perhaps a few wooden frames and some made of  'material scraps' and a few just outlined in tape. This sort of piece would be quite eclectic and give a real sense of our personalities as artists which, against the hundreds of faces we will be displaying, should work quite well. 

If we can get a window space, we were thinking maybe we could use a projector to project some of our images and then create an installation around the projected area? I like this idea but I still feel a solid physical piece is going to be the backbone of our installations.

Liam also suggested maybe we could get some glass drawing pens and DRAW frames onto the inside of a window which we can mount the photos up behind? I think this would be good as a partial piece of our entire NQ exhibition, but on its own would be a little weak and small scale. I would like to see it perhaps in some of the smaller shop windows if we manage to get in any, as I think this would be quick and easy to do and not be too much hassle or interference for the shop. 

We will be drawing up our own frame illustrations over the weekend either way so we shall see where we get to from here. Seed of inspiration planted.

F A C E S on Facebook.

We have created a Facebook community page to get all of the photos uploaded to so people can see, comment and tag themselves in them. We thought this would be a way to keep the interest up and post about the forthcoming installations and the possibility of us hosting the unit X closing party.

 

If we were to tackle this project again I think it would be worth setting up a proper website using something like wordpress or even just a facebook community page like this to follow our progress as its, in my opinion, a little more accessible than twitter and it would mean the whole group could get onto it rather than relying on one person to tweet. 

promotion promotion promotion

We want to get as much exposure as possible so that we get a good turn out at theevent and collect or 'record' as many F A C E S as possible.

On top of our posters and promotions on facebook and twitter we were invited to send Tommy Wolstencroft (CityCo) an email that he could forward round all the businesses in the Northern Quarter to raise awareness. So we have!

I feel that this is a great idea to try and get the whole of the northern quarter backing our event and hopefully, with the backing of something known to them like CityCo, people will take a bit more notice than they would of a bunch of art students. 

Here is a copy of the promotional email and attached poster: 

 

 

 

F A C E Smcr 

F A C E S mcr is a project starting with an event at Kraak gallery on
the 8th of May and culminating with an installation around the windows
of the northern quarter. Our aim: to get the people of Manchester to
connect and draw the creative potential out of the city.

 

Attending the event gives YOU the opportunity to be a part of a mass living installation capturing the FACES that MAKE Manchester. We will be taking photos and recording FACES in as many ways across as many mediums as we can: photography, film, projection, photocopying, graffiti, sculpture and more.

 

Our ultimate aim is to record the FACES of Manchester in preparation for turning them into a physical part of the city. The FACES we have already invited include: AO crew (street artists), Haimer Atkins (film artists), Harris Gillespie (photographer) and Kate Willson (fine art). These artists will be producing live artwork in response to your FACES, the FACES of Manchester.

 

Some other FACES who will be there are: the local band talent: Bands: Voodoo Vultures, Black Lights and Coupe de Ville; and some local DJs: DIPSTICK Residents, SION, 5eighty6 (Limbo, MCR), Doodle Residents. These FACES will all be coming down to inject some of their creativity into the F A C E S mcr Project.

 

The idea is to get these FACES up in the streets of the northern quarter as a physical record of what we achieved within the event. They will be something for our attendees to connect with outside of that time and place and something to intrigue the general public. We hope this will encourage people to explore the city and find their face, taking part in something which will be seen by huge numbers of people, connecting them in another way and injecting life into the rejected and neglected spaces in the city.

 

We would love to get the whole of the northern quarter involved so if you would like tosupport the project or take part in any way however small, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

 

Tweet us! @F A C E Smcr

 

Contact Nicci:             07791 678 926       or n.james@nhaj.co.uk

 

Disposable Cameras

A few days ago a sudden idea sprung to mind for our event in preperation for exhibiting our F A C E S. Wouldnt it be good if the 'faces' attending our event could also take photos of other peoples faces. Therefore we have purchased 20 Disposable cameras to hand out a certain intervals to different groups of people. So they too can take another involvement in the event itself.

When we had out the cameras we want to set challenges... for example...

  • take a photo of someone you don't know's face.
  • pull a silly face
  • pull a serious face
  • and pull a moustache finger face( like the one in our promotion poster)

This way we will have a number of different images which hopefully some will be of good enough quality to use later on in our exhibition piece.