1960s - Pop Art

I have studied pop art in the past and admittedly have forgotten most of what I knew and am left with an image of a giant can of soup in the back of my mind, which I would imagine doesn't quite sum up what the art movement was all about. I understand that its name is derived from popular culture and the worlds interest in that as it evolved and the artwork was created using bold colours and on a large scale. I don't know if the works were always created on a large scale, but I suppose that will be something I will have to look into and find out if the size of the work is relevant to the meaning of the piece or not. I think I have lots of refreshing of the mind to do on this subject. I do find this particular art movement interesting myself and more so now I am doing it the second time around.

Parade - Thoughts as of 26.3.15

It seems that I have attached myself to the idea of recreating Parade from a futuristic perspective. I am still exploring exactly what that means and where I could go with this idea. I feel I need to look into stage design and backdrops to see how they are constructed and the relationship between the design and the performance and how one affects the other.

To achieve a futuristic feel to my designs I am looking at work created by artists such as visual futurist Syd Mead, recognised for his ability to create stylised work that looks as though it has been pulled back through time for us to see what our future will be like. Syd is known for his designs in films such as Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron. Another artist that I have studied in the past is surrealist Hans Rudolf Giger, who worked on and designed the original Alien. His work tends to be very dark and moody and heavily focused on the female form.

Alternative Miss World - Thoughts on where everything went wrong

In my usual way of starting projects I have finished up changing my idea that many times that I have come out with very little that I am happy with. Lately I have had an unhealthy obsession with robots /cyborgs and other things made from oversized pieces of metal. This has lead me to come up with various ways to produce something that looks mechanical and impressive. My very first thought was to construct a costume, because building a costume that looks like a giant robot is achievable with the commitments I have in my life at the moment. Yeah sure. So I wasted some time on that thought and looked into how this could be done. After looking into how stilts are made and used, mechanical puppetry, looking at similar things made by world class special effects companies and wasting a few weeks dreaming about achieving all that in such a short time I eventually realised that it wasn’t going to be possible and I would like to have something to show at the end of all this.

Example

 Next came the animation, because that doesn’t take long to do at all. I looked into Terry Gilliam animation using cut-outs and how he uses animation to tell a joke and my head flooded with little ideas of how I could link something like that into the AMW. It seemed appropriate for the project and if I had had the idea from the start then I may have been able to do something with it. So out the window that went.

Another Example

 My next idea was to just build the costume as a sculpture instead. I could still build it, it just wouldn’t be wearable. So I looked into sculptures similar to what I wanted to make. I recalled seeing scale models of characters made entirely from nuts and bolts, cogs and chains and odd bits of scrap metal and I thought that would be a good look to go with, but finding that much metal can’t be easy and not only that, I can’t weld anyway.

 To make up for that I decided that I would build it out of rubbish. It’s a readily available and never ending source of building materials and if done properly it has the possibility of being painted to look like metal. Winner. 

Well it would have been if we weren’t already at the end of the project. So what I have finished up with is a handful designs for a robot.

 I thought adding the girl alongside the robot was a nice contrast. The idea was that the robot was supposed to come across as being dangerous. I would still like to build it. I think it would be a cool piece of furniture to have in my hallway.