The perks of working at a cinema.

Being an usherette on a late shirft means I can play around with my camera in the projection booth. I took some rough footage, the dust is just from the rag they use to clean the lense. I could sit and watch it for hours, very much want to get in there with a good film camera and set it up properly...

On going domestic;

This week I've mostly been knitting, firstly as meditation and then once I people kept asking me where I got my knitted snood from I realised I might be able to make it into a business of sorts. Hoping to get an order system going soon and then possible some Clutter City/Etsy action to make a bit of money back. I'm also attempting to get back into preserving, and despite having missed the Seville orange boat by about a month I'm bashing out some Marmalade today. I've named this new set of ventures 'Productive Procrastination'.

Nothing has moved forward much with the dust, apart from getting lots of envelopes sent out in the hope dust samples will be returned to me. Please do send me your lovely dust by emailing you address to efhirst@gmail.com. Not entirely sure what I'm going to do with them once I've collected them, possibly study them a bit to note any differences, maybe film different sequences with the various samples? Or simply have them as some bizarre collection, labelled and categorised. Hmmm

Why?

For every place you have ever been;
Every lover's bed slept in,
Every fibre on the clothes of a companion,
Every relation, cohort, passer by you have embraced,
Every time you brushed your skin, you manically scratched, you gently bathed.
I want what you left behind.

Electrostatic Precipitators...

...is the fancy term for a type of industrial dust collection system, I'm thinking of changing my middle name. When I arrived home from the gig at the arts centre last night (which was really good fun by the by) I suddenly realised I was drunk, at this point it seemed like a good idea to go about manically filming dust falling on my useless little Fuji digital until 2am. The results are, predictably, a bit rubbish but it does give me a sense of what I might be able to capture with a decent camera and proper set up.

I've also been taking advantage of the lovely SLR's at uni to try and get some images of dust that have a kind of ethereal quality, I guess I'm trying to see if I can distract from the fact that the dust is ultimately dead cells, hair and other human waste. We are normally disgusted by it.

Also....I NEED YOUR DUST! If you could provide me with a sample of dust/general detritus (see; hoover bag) from around your home for my collection then that would be grand, simply email me your address to efhirst@gmail.com and I'll send a stamped and addressed envelope for you to put some dusty stuff in.
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One More Thing.

Gig tomorrow evening at the Arts Centre bar in Norwich, must lock myself away for the evening and practice.
http://norwichartscentre.co.uk/?p=132
Howlback Hum feat. Sam James Hill

Tuesday 16 March : 8pm
£3.00
Cafe Bar

Howlback Hum featuring Sam James Hill

Master Solo, Milly, eLsuB, Kayleigh Read tbc

Ready, Steady.....

A few more images I've taken over the past week trying to capture dust in different surroundings. It seems that the type of light is the big issue, I tried torches, lamps, LED's and now trying to think of other possibilities that are as bright as the projector....car head lights maybe, or a flood light.

Spent this afternoon drinking tea, working on Photoshop and knocking up a little animation trying to simulate the way I keep seeing particles move towards light;

Photographing particles...

Things have been better in the past week, I've been pushing forward with ideas in the hope that something will get me excited about my work again. The most successful experiment was using the beam of light from a film projector to illuminate dust in the air, I took some quick images on my digital camera to see if I could get a sense of movement...

The next step is setting up the camera properly to try and get lots of different shots, possibly using different materials other than dust that might move in an interesting way. Some film footage would also, like this video I found....

I have a silent crit scheduled for Thursday which will allow people to look at my work without me being able to explain (or defend!) anything, looking forward to some initial feedback on the ideas.

Come on motivation, 1-2-3.....

It's been a funny old couple of weeks. Since the 'Lights Out' show at Stew I have found it extremely hard to get back into the swing of things. This is the final stretch of the degree, the last hurdle if you will, and it suddenly seems unattainable for me. I'd like hope that at my core I am a creative person with some interesting ideas floating round in my head (sometimes....) but I find myself waiting for that elusive 'inspiration', afraid to start anything because I don't feel passionate enough about it or confident enough to pull it off. Talking to people and colleagues about this has really helped, it has also made me realise that sitting and waiting to become passionate about your work is not always realistic. I found this article very interesting; http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/12/change-your-life-passions. I particulary like the author's idea that ''passion is the feeling you get from mastering a skill, not some magical quality unrelated to hard work: you create passion, rather than "finding" it'' . So from this point it is important I keep moving forward, as unsure as I am about my ideas and how to turn them into something tangible.

Currently I'm getting all worked up over dust, yes, dust. A lot of my work previously has dealt with Identity, when I started trying to think about the things we leave behind I became fascinated with the things we unconsciously leave behind; strands of hair, particles of skin, shavings, crumbs. This is all considered detritus, and yet it was once a part of us and the bodies we inhabit. I'm interested in exploring this detritus, elevating it, understanding it. Could something we discard and are even disgusted by be beautiful in someway? I've armed myself with a Macro lense and fancy camera in the hope of getting some good images of dust, particularly the way it moves in light. Here's hoping it gets some of my own particles moving...

P.S Other people think dust is fascinating too apparently; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Yp5-_KrCM