CONTEXT
The Institute blog. A collection of information, essays and polemics relating to industry, culture and technology.
Business cannot exist in a vacuum. We examine the nature of ideas, communications and change within our contemporary cultural and technological landscape. We highlight potentially harmful actions and advocate for the freedom, meaning and agency required for human industry to thrive in a complicated and uncertain world.
Archive Fever
Five venues across the town kick off a new series of cultural events aimed at the local community.
Loughborough Lates is a new event hosted by five art and culture venues spread across the town centre and campus. Loughborough comes to life with visual art exhibitions, creative workshops and interactive events - all free to attend and participate in.
ARCHIVE FEVER
Archive Fever by Josie and Joshua Jones was shown at the Institute Research Lab at Loughborough Lates and will now be premiering on YouTube on Thursday 15th of December. In response to our 2022 Archive Fever exhibitions, this multi-screen installation shows interviews with six artists and contributors about the Leicestershire Museums Collection. Their conversations cover an array of topics, from nostalgia, conspiracy theories, preservation, and the personal responses they had to the objects within the archives. About Archive Fever The films shown in this installation are commissioned by Modern Painters, New Decorators as part of their exhibition programme, also titled Archive Fever.
The project centred around four solo exhibitions by visual artists; Joanne Masding, Jagjit Kaur, Daniel Cowlam and Katie Schwab. These projects began with a series of research trips to the Leicestershire Museums Collection, facilitated by Alison Clague, Senior Curator of the collection. The collection features a range of items relating to the county's history, including; rare butterflies, old farm tools, Victorian costumes, 1970s' Action Man', Neolithic stone axes and 19th-century engravings.
The artists used this research to produce new work inspired by the collection, and a selection of items from the collection were displayed alongside the newly created artwork. About Homespun Joshua and Josie Jones live and work together in Loughborough. They are also known as Homespun. Since graduating from the University, they've been developing as storytellers – mainly through photography and filmmaking, but more recently, this has opened out into all sorts of other creative practices. They spend much time with artists, charities and small businesses, working together on projects. They are part of the Modern Painters, New Decorators team and have documented their art programme for several years.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Participating venues: Charnwood Arts, the Institute Research Lab, LU Arts, Modern Painters, New Decorators and Sock Gallery.
THE FUTURE
A big thank you to @mpndprojects @sockgallery @lborouniarts @charnwood_arts and all those that turned up and took part. It always tricky to get this kind of thing organised and to get people together but it really is worth it. We met some great people and look forward to more Lates in the future!
#LoughboroughLates Contact mpndprojects@gmail.com for inquiries
Instagram @charnwood_arts @institute_lab @LUArts @mpndprojects @sockgallery
An Evening of Art, Design and Technology
Institute was one of the participating venues in the Loughborough Lates launch. The night included visual arts exhibitions, creative workshops and interactive events.
Institute was one of the participating venues in the Loughborough Lates launch. Loughborough Lates is a new event hosted by five art and culture venues spread across the town centre and campus. The night included visual arts exhibitions, creative workshops and interactive events.
Loughborough Lates is a new event hosted by five art and culture venues spread across our town centre and campus. From 5:30pm on Friday, 16 September, Loughborough will come to life with visual art exhibitions, creative workshops and interactive events - all free to attend and participate in. Maps are available at participating venues on the day. Charnwood Arts, Institute, LU Arts, Modern Painters, New Decorators and Sock Gallery, are the venues involved.
THE VENUES AND THEIR EVENTS
Charnwood Arts: 27 Rectory Place, LE11 1UW
Breathe, Create: Exhibition and Activity
The Charnwood Arts ‘Breathe, Create’ sessions are about engaging in mindful creativity. See our ‘Breathe, Create’ exhibition and try one of the activities with artist Khyati Koria Green, 6-7pm. We will also be showcasing the story of Songster, Loughborough's own War Horse, with author Alison Mott and artist Liz Waddell. Visitors can access us via our wheel-chair accessible front door.
Institute: Upper Rooms, 11 Baxter Gate, LE11 1TG
Ambient Visions: Martyn Blundell
A video installation that subverts the conditions in which we usually experience patterns, made up of shifting colour fields and ‘weaves'.
Crystal System: Leonie DuBarry-Gurr, Andy Harper and Todd Finnamore
An immersive and accessible sculptural installation with an interactive, contemplative soundscape.
LU Arts: Martin Hall, Epinal Way, LE11 3TS
The Domestic Academics: Finding the time to write and care
This project brings together twenty-three women academics with caring responsibilities, each responding to a call to create a quilt panel reflecting their experience working during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The gallery is located on Pearce Square, in Martin Hall. It is advised to park in the Cope Auditorium car park and walk across Epinal Way. It is directly opposite Cope Auditorium, which is next to Loughborough College.
Modern Painters, New Decorators: Carillon Court Shopping Centre, LE11 3XA
Hosiery Abstracts: Katie Schwab
Katie Schwab is a maker who works with installation, textiles, print and video to explore histories of craft, design and education. For this project, Katie immersed herself in local histories of machine knitting and attended a machine knitting course, learning techniques that have inspired new knitted artworks and a wall-based work. Visitors can enter our gallery via the Swan Street entrance of Carillon Court Shopping Centre.
Sock Gallery: Town Hall, Market Place, LE11 3EB
Our Charnwood and Beyond: Russel Taylor
Russell has an intense desire to capture the joy of the landscape. Working exclusively with acrylics, a completed painting is often a journey of chance! The gallery will be running a competition in the evening with a chance to win an exclusive Sock Gallery prize. Visitors enter the space through the front doors; everything is on one level.
AT INSTITUTE
We exhibited two exhibitions. In Studio 02, a screen based series of five video works by Martyn Blundell and an interactive installation by Leonie Dubarry-Gurr and Andy Harper in Studio 04.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
CRYSTAL SYSTEM
There were curious looks on the faces of members of the lab as Leonie and Andy spent the week prior to the launch working on the technicalities of the installation in Studio 04.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
An immersive and accessible sculptural installation, Crystal System offers new vantage points from which to come to terms with one's existence, in relationship to the world and others around us. Inspired by crystallised rock formations in the natural realm, Crystal System proposes an opportunity for contemplation via the meditative qualities of refracted and reflected light.In addition to the sculptural elements, the public can interact with a ruminative soundscape which supports contemplation.
Crystal SystemAcrylic, Wood, Light fixtures, Found objects.
Conceived by Leicester-based artists Leonie DuBarry-Gurr and Andy Harper in collaboration with Todd Finnamore.
www.andyharper.co.uk // @isandyharper // www.leoniedg.com // @beautiful__remainswww.monoworks.shop // @mono.works
AMBIENT VISIONS
Martyn Blundell is joining Institute as an associate. He kicks this off with a series of screen based works on display in Studio 02. If you ever wondered what would happen if you were to weave together the view a passenger might have during a series of global road trips, this might be it. They are beautiful, hypnotic and a little trippy! You can view Martyn’s video based art below.
These works belong to a series that has evolved, in part, from the idea of weaving space and time. Ambient Visions is a video installation that subverts the conditions in which we normally experience pattern. Shifting colour fields and ‘weaves' become a kind of metaphor for that feeling you get when travelling; an attempt to convey something of the porous state we fall in to when staring through the window of a moving vehicle. A dream-like travel metaphor.
THE FUTURE
A big thank you to @mpndprojects @sockgallery @lborouniarts @charnwood_arts and all those that turned up and took part. It always tricky to get this kind of thing organised and to get people together but it really is worth it. We met some great people and look forward to more Lates in the future!
#LoughboroughLates Contact mpndprojects@gmail.com for inquiries
Instagram @charnwood_arts @institute_lab @LUArts @mpndprojects @sockgallery
REAL: Taking the Initiative with Phoenix Arts
We coached 25 film makers and digital artists with business start-up training to grow their new businesses.
Graffio Arts have just finished the REAL incubation programme at Phoenix Arts in Leicester. 25 film makers and digital artists are now moving ahead with their new businesses.
Course design and leadership : Graffio Arts. REAL initiative coordinators: Nick and Julia Hamer.
REAL Incubation will run from April 2022 to May 2023. The programme includes: Free access to a large co-working space at Phoenix Arts, access to industry standard production facilities, and film / digital art kit, screening and exhibition opportunities, including REAL Film Festival in April 2023, business start-up training to establish and grow your new business, inspiration from established documentary and digital art practitioners, mentoring, coaching, support to introduce their film, art or service to the market and help from experienced professionals to work on a passion project, with a focus on documentary or digital arts.
The course will be led by Steve and Guy, Directors at Institute/ Graffio Arts, and will include contributions from other industry guests.
Steve Barradell has worked with SME’s through to international blue-chip companies for over 20 years, specialising in business development, project management, marketing and insight for creative-lead businesses. Steve spent six years as a creative business consultant and was an accredited Growth Accelerator Business Coach.
Guy Boyle has spent over 25 years in the arts and has worked across many disciplines; design, digital imaging, branding, animation and film art direction for some of the best-known global brands. Guy spent seven years as an Associate and Senior Lecturer at the University of the Arts London / Central St. Martins, covering design and media practice and has a flair for developing young creative talent through education and industry.
“Our goals for the program were to increase the creative’s understanding of the relationship between personal creative goals and viable commercial opportunities. Now, at the end of the programme, the delegates are taking their first informed first steps into industry.”
As part of the programme, delegates were supported to propose and work on a self-directed ‘passion project’, to develop their portfolio. REAL Incubation will surround you with inspiration to help shape your ideas. Examples of passion projects may include:
A short documentary film or video
An interactive documentary
A piece of digital or immersive (VR/AR/MR) art
An audio or sound art piece
A musical score/key artwork for a film
A treatment/pitch or development product associated with a new project
Some delegates had to develop a service offering or develop their creative practice in relation to commercial activities in different ways. This may require bolstering the ability to secure funding streams or to develop their marketing scope or focus. The key objective of the programme is for the delegates to develop their ability to express their ideas creatively and to find commercial vehicles for this expression.
There are a huge variety of people on the programme and it’s been a humbling experience to witness some of the history and experience of the veteran delegates and the enthusiasm and ambition of the relative newcomers to their fields in documentary film making, video, immersive art and beyond.
We’d like to extend a thank you to Phoenix Arts for helping to make this programme possible, Nick and Julia for making REAL happen and to the delegates for their open minded enthusiasm. You can find out more below.
LINKS
www.phoenix.org.uk/real-initiative
DEVELOP YOUR CREATIVE BUSINESS
One of our key ambitions at Institute is to help others develop their creative practice and to be creative about how this practice can and will, pay the bills. If you are interested in becoming involved in this initiative in the future, then contact Nick and Julia here. You can find out more about the spread of Institute’s services here.
An Exhibition about Technology and Worthless Art
More and more of our experience of the world is going to be mediated and that includes our experience of the arts.
We were asked by LCB if we had anything for an exhibition for their Lightroom Gallery. AREXTRA Street had just launched as posters aimed at the general public. Those posters were printed onto durable, self-adhesive vinyl, designed to be plastered across empty shop windows. How would we take that into a gallery situation? Would it be appropriate?
FROM THE STREET TO THE GALLERY
AREXTRA [Street version] was a vehicle that used augmented reality to increase exposure to the arts for the general public. This was a system where people walking through the streets of the city could experience the arts without having to visit a gallery. The audience had now changed and now expected to be confronted by the arts.
This was an opportunity to engage with some of the big questions that arise from augmenting art. In this situation a 2D representation of the work is recognised by the technology and used as the platform for augmentation. Traditionally a piece of work within a gallery is considered to be an object. That object is assumed to be loaded with cultural worth. A set of factors are used to agree a monetary worth.
Augmented reality doesn’t play by these rules.
A painting, traditionally using a canvas as the place where paint is applied is now read as an image. Our understanding, development and agreed rules of engagement with painting have changed over time. It could be argued that painting was used in illustrative terms, as imagery at certain points in history but through the 20th century we have developed a sophistication and engagement that recognises the application of paint to a surface as a the battleground where an artists fights through their practice.
The results of this are hung on a wall where this creative fight, the development of their practice is evidenced and forms part of a larger conversation.
AR ignores the physicality of the work and uses a snapshot as the basis for something else. The viewers experience is largely of this something else.
To draw attention to these issues we stripped the art of traditional cultural and monetary value- we called each piece a marker (the thing that AR technology recognises). We printed these onto sheets of paper of a unified size and pinned them to the wall. After the exhibition these sheets of paper had performed their job and were destroyed. Viewers could view the exhibition with our AR app and explore the augmented reality layers- the new focus for this work in this context.
We used Lewis Carroll’s excerpt from Alice in Wonderland to highlight the idea that the genie is out of the bottle. New media technology continues to change the way we interact with the world around us. More and more of our experience of the world is going to be mediated and that includes our experience of the arts.
How would we like to proceed?
THE MARKERS
Goldfinch by Lucy Stevens
Tropics by Alexandru Cinean
Untitled by Cibo
Foliage Tree by Mono
TokioFX by The Krah
Mountains by Paraskevi Papagianni
Untitled by Kris Trigg
Meteora by Cibo
Lights Out by Tyler Spangler