Monday 13 June 2011

International Communication, virtual abilities and virtual boundaries

Jenny is currently in China developing her work with a residency at 501 Artspace in Chongqing. We are continuing to communicate on-line via email but not via this blog as she can not access Blogger over in China. During Jenny's residency she will be exploring the censorship of on-line communication in the country, people's view points of this and creating very physical works in response to the initial on-line investigation.

Jenny is able to blog about her residency experience via her a-n blog as well as on the Chinese Arts Centre's blog page so you can follow her activities by clicking on the links.

Monday 30 May 2011

Drawing completed, installed, please come to the PV....

Last weekend, Elizabeth and I met for the second time, both armed with papers, personal info and materials, to create our drawing, 'Please allow 30 days for search results'.  The drawing was installed by the BLANKMEDIA Collective team yesterday, and Liz will be going along this week to add some finishing touches to our work as part of the 'user generated content' exhibition.

The PV is this coming Thursday 2nd June 2011, 6-9pm at the MadLab, Manchester, and Liz will be present, but sadly I will be in China so will not be able to attend.  We would really love if you could make it along to the Private View, or along to see the show. 

Information on the exhibition below:


Location: MadLab, 36-40 Edge Street, Manchester, M4 1HN
When: Public Preview: Thursday 2 June 2011
Exhibition continues: 3 - 16 June 2011


Artists: Osvaldo Cibils, Jamie Crewe, Douglas Gast, Melissa Henderson, Pippa Lennox, Paul Plowman, Mark Powell, Jennifer Ross, Sarah Terry, Elizabeth Wewiora & Jennifer Steele and Teawitter.


Blank Media Collective curators are excited to present the exhibition User Generated Content. Working collaboratively with MadLab, the exhibition focuses on social media and its relevancy in this day and age.

From artists to arduino engineers, Blank Media Collective have searched ‘virtually’ every corner of the world to present to you the weird, wonderful and quirky things people are creating in the physical realm.

The diverse content of this exhibition includes Facebook stalking, ‘like’ popularity contests, Twitter drum, status-stealing poetry, political statements, never-ending YouTube feed, cakes, Flickr craft, moving image works, and a visual portrayal of an online relationship.

It is about Facebook, it is about Twitter, it is about virtual environments. The world in which we live has developed to the stage where we are now navigating our lives within a hybrid form of immaterial and real landscapes. User Generated Content is a term to describe the various interactive online activities.

Event Contact Information

Location: MadLab, 36-40 Edge Street, Manchester, M4 1HN
Contact: exhibitions@blankmediacollective.org
Blog: http://usergeneratedcontent.posterous.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDdjZzH-HDY

Friday 20 May 2011

Q. Two female artists dictating the works nature?

Hi Jenny - I was thinking about the original idea we had of trying to learn more about each other on-line. Through the blog we have developed a professional and social relationship, a concept which in my mind seems quite 'quaint' or 'cute' even. Do you think this has anything to do with our gender? Would you see the project as feminine in anyway or romantic in its essence? The idea of 'getting to know each other better on-line', it reminds me of nostalgic actions like pen pal writing.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts?

Hi Liz: I suppose the project has been quite a stereotypically 'female' with with regards to sentiment, attention to detail, and yes, very similar to the notion of getting know someone through mediated process of writing letters.  Our practice seems like an updated version.

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Images when I type in Elizabeth Wewiora

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These are two images that came up when I searched for 'Elizabeth Wewiora', that I particularly liked.  Many of both your and my artworks also came up.

Task 12 : for Jenny

Hi Jenny,

Can you print out a few images of 'Elizabeth Wewiora' you can find that you are particularly drawn to and bring them with you.

These are two of 'Jenny Steele'





Pictures of Jenny Steele according to google

Sketches for collaborative drawing

I was thinking about the fact that we are now using paper and wanted to consider graph paper as a potential material. It seems so relevant for the project as well as aesthetically suitable for the type of drawing we are attempting to develop. Also with the paper I would quite like to combine drawing with text, found images and some potential cuttings into the paper, almost like interventions into the diagram. This is just a rough sketch so you see the kind of idea I have in mind:


New Space for work

Hi Jenny: I have met with the exhibitions coordinator, Taneesha, and talked through the potential spaces. Although the back corner was a great sized space, and I was really drawn to the corner's internal architecture, it is usually used by HACman as a workshop area and it would need a lot of clearing out and moving around again mid-week for a workshop session. Practically it just does not work to have our installation there.
We have been offered an alternative space, which is smaller but much more manageable with our restricted days to work together!  It is another corner space, with a pillar style edge which potentially gives us a third wall to work on if we want to run the diagram across all three sections. Here are some pictures of the space, still waiting for the dimensions height wise but the other three walls are as follows: 145 cm across, 82 cm across and 51cm across.

Because the nature of the space and install dates are restricted we can now work together on paper instead of working directly on the walls. Although this is not our original plan it is all part of the process and perhaps reflects the restrictions of our on-line relationship compared to our physical distance from each other to work together!

Here are some images of the space:
let me know if you have any thoughts, responses to it,





New exhibition space for the collaboration at Mad Lab