Photo Manipulation

Here are a few examples of photographs which I have taken from the Blackpool trip and heavily manipulated on Photoshop. I didn't want to distort them too much so that you weren't able to make out the detail within the photos, but so that I could enhance the vibrancy and tones of colours for when I am going to project later on. 

Elizabeth Winstanley Exhibition

Elizabeth Jane Winstanley is a designer with an interest in illusions. Experimenting with alternative media, pushing the boundaries of embroidery she creates an illusions of line and colour by utilising pattern and light emitting wire. Exploring the space between two dimensional and three dimensional pattern through screen printing onto acrylics. Movement and tactile elements are paramount to create illusions which are consistent throughout this body of work. The work can be manufactured to accommodate a range of scale and palettes and be applied to a wide area of design outcomes. After having previously looking at Elizabeth Winstanley in my last project, I was really excited when I found out we would be going to visit her work in an exhibition. I like how experimental she is within her work really pushing the boundaries with the materials she uses and the processes which she then puts them together with. I would definitely consider using lazer cutting and el wire within my final piece.

I really liked this piece of Liz's work. what you cant see from this picture is that it is made up of many layers of coloured acrylic which has been lazer cut and then el wire fed through. Because the exhibition space was quite bright, you couldn't really see the el wire to its full extent which was a bit of a shame. But I really like the way she has combined the different layers on top of each other to create an optical illusion like effect and think the colours work well together. 

                   

Chatham Library Archive and Lecture on Belle Vue

We were given the opportunity to go and view a Belle Vue fairground archive at Chetham’s Library in Manchester. Here we were able to get close up with a lot of interesting photographs taken at Belle Vue and it was here where you was actually able to see the sheer size of the complex which was once situated here in Manchesters city. From posters, maps, leaflets and a huge scrapbook which was made by the owners of Belle Vue this give me more inspiration about the people and performers at belle vue and there clothing/costume attire.

Early on within our research week, we had a lecture with Claire Turner about Belle Vue. She was part of the Manchester Histories Festival, who are putting on some workshops, talks and mini archives from Belle Vue at the end of the month..which I will make sure to definitely attend!

Living not to far away from Manchester, I was amazed that until we had started this project, I had never heard of Belle Vue before. So finding out as much information as I could from a first hand recollection was really intriguing.  Belle Vue pretty much had everything, from Fairground Rides, Circus, Zoo, Side Shows, Dancing, Boxing, Wheel of Death, Speedway Racing and also live Concerts where many famous people would play, from Tina Turner, The Rolling Stones to The Who! Millions of people from all over the country would visit Belle Vue each year, it was such a popular and exciting place and everyone wanted to be a a part of it. Clare also touched up on Pat Pearson who was a trapeaze artist and Globe of Death rider who was doing a tlak as part of the Manchester Histories Festival, I thought this would be great to link in with my project as I wanted to look at the detail within the costumes of those worn by dancers/ performers etc. So she would be a perfect example! 

A bizarre fact that I found out from the lecture was that amongst many of the exotic animals acquired at Belle Vue they also had an elephant, Maharajah. She was to travel down to Manchester by train from Edinburgh, but as the “myth” goes, with its trainer who was also to travel down with Maharajah started to poke the elephant with pins so that she would destroy the train compartment and consequently then have to travel by foot in result. This was successful, but was largely seen as a publicity stunt to  promote that of Belle Vue.

Blackpool Archive Visit

Blackpool pleasure beach was founded in 1896 by William Bean.  As part of a collaboration between Textiles and Fashion Students we had the opportunity to take a trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach for an exclusive tour around the site and also within the Archives and Costume Departments, without forgetting we were aloud to use the ice rink too which was of course lots of fun! In the archives we were able to view some of the more older, vintage looking rides which was a massive comparison to the more modern facilities out in the park itself. This was due to there being a re-branding in 2004 when the Pleasure Beach was taken over by Amanda Thompson and felt like the park needed a re vamp. At least 20 million had been spent regenerating in the past 7 years and there was also the introduction of Nickelodeon Land. Even tough I did manage to get some great pictures and a lot of bright and vibrant colours which I always enjoy using within my colour pallet. I felt like this was quite irrelevant to what I would like to use within my work, however when we visited the costume department this was a different story.

Being given access to the costume wardrobe archive was definitely a great pleasure. It was literally a huge room with thousands of thousands of outfits, dresses, hats stacked upon another.. The bright vibrant colours and various materials were very overwhelming at first! I knew that I would definitely like to look at the detail of the costumes in more depth within my work. So I started to take many pictures close up showing the detail within the garments. Including feathers, sequins and pretty much everything else you could think off! It was a real incite being able to see all the design plans of how the garments are made, and even one of the workers at work herself!

Low Tech Hacking

"To capture and decipher the energy, adornment and motion of the fairground through construction of sculptural forms and surfaces. Students will intervene with a combination of low tech materials and processes in response to research into historical fairground film footage. Students will use the laser cutter and be introduced to digital and creative technologies to integrate light and movement within their outcomes. Students will push the boundaries alongside workshop parameters to innovatively manipulate the objective qualities of such materials."

After reading the Low Tech Hacking brief I knew straight away that this was going to be the chosen option for me. Having already done Mixed Media I knew what various techniques this would entail, such as the Lazer Cutter. However, I was really intrigued by some of the processes we will be covering such as Arduino, Lilypad, and the use of Conductive threads and LEDs. I had already briefly covered Adobe Illustrator within my Mixed Media option but I'm really looking forward to getting to grips with Arduino and Pure Data software.