Journey to Bermondsey..Continues

Last week, I and the creative media group took another visit around Bermondsey.Before we set off, we had to create different backgrounds using different medias.
We then took some papers to do some rubbings around the area.
Today, in our creative media lesson, we had to stick our drawings and rubbings on A1 sugar paper and made an abstract that looks like the Boyle family.
When we finished, we drew our map on top of the abstract to symbolised our journey of our walk.

Boyle family

- Best known work is the "Surface of the Earth" begun in 1964
- Worked with Artists, Perfomers, Musicians, Film makers and dances

- Their aim was to continue to make art that does not include potential subject: earth, fire air animals, vegetables, Minerals, insects, reptiles, human beings.
- Media they have worked in : perfomances and events, films and projections, sound recordings photography, electron - Microphotography, drawing, assermblage, painting, sculpture and installation

History of Bermondsey

Some reference found in : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermondsey
Bermondsey is an area in London on the southern bank of river thames and is part of the London Borough of Southwark to the east, Rotherhithe and to the south walworth.
Bermondsey is known as Beornmund's island (Beornmund re
presents an old english pers
onal name. The last 2 element of "ey" represents old english "eg" for island)
"A piece of firm land in a fen" or "A place by a tream or river".
The word "Bermondsey" earliest written name appeared in Domesday Book of 1086. It was written as "Bermundsey" and "Bermundeseye". The area was held and controlled by King William. Though small parts of the area was also controlled by his half brother Robert Court of Mortain and his younger brother odo of Boyeux.
The church mentioned in Domesday book, the founder of the Bermondsey abbey. The area was founded as a cluniac priory in 1082. and was dedicated to St Saviour.
Monks from the abbey began the development of the area, manufacturing the land and embanking the riverside. They turned the adjacent tidal in to a mouth of river neckinger into a Dock named St Saviour's Dock.Bermondsey then was little more than a hight street leading from the Southern bank of the Thames at Tooley Street, up the abbey close.
In the 14th century, King Edward III built a manor house lose to the Thames un Bermondsey in 1353.
As it developed over the countries, Bermondsey had some changes, after the great fire of London. It was settled along the lines of Grange Road as Bermondsey street became more urbanised and of Jamaica /Lower Road.
Not many buildings survived the great fire except for the church of St Mary Magdalen on Bermondsey Street. The church got redeveloped.
In the 18th century, the area became a spa leisure resort. A new church was built for the growing populatio of the area and named St John Horsley down. The population of Bermondsey parish increased enormously in the 19th century. In 1831 it was 29,741, in 1901 81,323. This must have been due in part to the erection of many-storied tenement houses. The most important modern thoroughfare is Tower Bridge Road, which leads towards Tower Bridge from the junction of Bermondsey Street and Grange Road.
The modern town contains in the streets near the Thames a riverside population of the usual description. Its leather trade is still important and is centred in the Leather Market, Bermondsey Street and Tanner Street. For the rest it is a district of poor dwellings and retail shops.

Reference found in :http://www.infed.org/socialaction/charles_booth_jacobs_island.htm

The area around St Saviour's Dock, known as Jacob's island was one of the worst places to be in London.
Jacob's Island was a setting for scenes in Oliver Twist. Dickens described it as 'the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London'. The worst housing on Jacob's Island was cleared in the nineteenth century to make way for warehouses.
A key element of the research was a series of maps coloured street by street to indicate the levels of poverty and wealth. The map for this area in 1898-9 shows a concentration of 'very poor' households in chronic want (often employed as casual labourers) and 'poor' households (existing on between 18s and 21s 'for a moderate family').
In 20th century new railways was built connecting Bermondsey with Greenwich. The line ran for 4 miles (6KM), From then on, Bermondsey formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey. To the east of Tower Bridge, Bermondsey were lined with warehouses and wharves of which is best known in Butler's Wharf.

Skills Rotation

Skills Rotation
This is my chosen image I decided to choose to recapture in Jacob’s Ireland to develop, and improve by exploring camera and compositional techniques.
I chose this image because I would be able to take a lot of shots of the foreground, mid-ground and a background. It has a large dept of field where I can either make the background or foreground in focus. Or just focus on a specific subject. What I like about this image is that the image is divided in to 2 sections. Just by looking at one shot, us as audiences can clearly see the colour and tone used in image. The colour and tone represents 2 different worlds. The Tower Bridge is there for people like us to look at and capture stuff about London whilst below it, it’s all dirty and full of sewages. People would comment and say that is not London at all. I decided to retake the image because it looks to simple, when you look at the image it’s like just looking at a landscape. I want to improve this by comparing my final outcome with other photographers that I chose to research on.

Images from professional photographers: http://www.photonet.org.uk/index.php?pid=20
Jessica Backhaus Taken in 2001-2004
I chose this image because I was planning to use a narrow dept of field to take my final outcome. I had an idea of focusing on a specific subject that the audiences would like to focus on when they come to London like the Tower Bridge. I also wanted to have a foreground, mid-ground and a background for my image so my main subject it’s not just the Tower Bridge but the atmosphere around it. By comparing my idea to the photographer the photographer makes the background over expose and in focus, at the same time she blurs it to make it as though the image is disappearing into the disdistance. Shirley Baker
This image captured me because of the way that it’s taking. The fog from the image make it look as though the photographer over exposed the image. By looking at the contrast of the tones used in this picture, the photographer darkens the images of the boys. But she doesn’t want the boys to be the main subject she cleverly took the picture by also making the background as his main subject as well. This image then helped me to explore more on how to take my final outcome. Because of this image I had an idea of using contrast to take my picture; I wanted to create a darker tone on the main subject because I cleverly wanted to over expose the background to make that as the main subject as well.
Angus Boulton
The reason why I chose this image from this famous photographer is because of the colours that have been used to create the mood of the picture. It has a variety of Primary and a Secondary colour that’s making the image look interesting and not dull. What I also notice about this interesting image is that the photographer manages to capture the moment of the reflection coming from the window and you can see the light coming across the room when it reflects. That then gave me an idea of using reflection to capture my final outcome. Because I chose an image based on a landscape in the river bank, I plan to focus on the boats by the river and use a wide angle to zoom in to the windows and capture the reflection of it to the river. Then I would be able to darken out the whole landscape of the atmosphere and use a variety of primary and secondary colours and only capture the windows reflecting to the river.

Final Outocmes
This is one of my final outcomes I took to improve and develop, from my previous image in Jacobs Island. This was taken successfully because I was able create and capture a narrow dept of field of a plant and made the background in focus. What’s so interesting about this image is that if you step back, you can see the Tower Bridge clearly but if you look closely then the whole image is blurred. When I took this image I had difficulties trying to be accurate with the shutter speed and aperture and also getting the angle right.







This is another one of my final outcomes I took for improvement; I wasn’t able to use some of the methods I was going to use to compare with other photographers. But I managed to capture a small dept of field of the river and the plant and also create contrast of the tone and colour. I made the main subject to be unfocused and the background to be focused. I also was able to capture the movement of the tide approaching. What was unsuccessful about taking this picture was that I got confused with the dept of fields and controlling the aperture and the shutter speed.

This was one of my accidental photo I captured for improvements, not only it was accidental but it turned out very successful you can notice some lights coming out from the background but the whole image is blurred in general. The contrast and colour makes the image look hollow and dark. And the background of the Tower Bridge looks as though it has been motioned blurred. I haven’t spotted any problems about this photo because I was able to have a play around with the shutter speed and aperture.

Report - Whats the purpose of making a map for Bermondsey?

My class and I created a map around Bermondsey and had a class discussion on how to present the map to the college. We had to decide where the map should be presented, why is that a good place for it to be presented, and what’s the purpose of making a map?.
Our theme is based on “Capture” capture means “Sharing”. I and the group decided to create a map to share our experiences to the audience. We had to split each road/area for each person to draw and then walked around Bermondsey to take pictures – do sketches and do other type of capturing.
The purpose for making a map was to draw people in and to make the audience feel that they were there. Capture also means Personalizing, the audience likes to be drawn in to things that is personal to the artist and relates to people. We as a creative media students created a map to make it look eye – catching and inspiring. We want the audience to know how creative we are by using different methods of capturing. Rough Sketches is a good way to capture a moment or a thing because it’s something personal.
Audience prefers to have something to be inspired about instead of just examining a photograph. Another purpose for making a map is that we want to be specific, we want the area to be more familiar to us, so we walked around Bermondsey and captured things like road signs, drawing in a particular area and to be accurate.
We and as creative media students, drew our own sections of the map because we want to show our impressions to the audience. We wrote down our own thoughts about the journey and how everythings changed from the past.
http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/dickens/oliver-twist/50/ this is a reference from Charles Dickens Oliver Twist a scene set in Jacobs Island, in this chapter, dickens specifically described the Jacobs Island in 19 century time. He starts of by using descriptive words to describe the area ,then with his own impression and thoughts he uses words like broken, dirt, domestic,Rotton. By comparing this to the 21st century, my impression of the journey is now pleasant because new houses and estates have been built and whats interesting about the houses is that some of windows are structured the same because these houses want to have a history to them.
I and the group also have to discuss how to present it to the college; we made suggestions like placing it in front of the entrance of the college, to indicate to people what we are doing and wanting everyone to look at our work. I disagreed because not a lot of people would pay attention to our work because a lot of students would be rushed to go to their lessons or go out of college. However, I also have an advantage about the suggestion, even though some people will be rushing to go to their lessons. Some people would mainly go to the entrance to hang around before leaving the college.
We also suggested that the map will be located in the canteen; I agreed and disagreed on that suggestion because some people might not even want to eat in the canteen but go out and eat. Also, not a lot of people would pay attention to our work. If our work was to be stuck on the wall on the canteen, it would be kind of confusing to audience on how it’s presented. Some people might even think that the piece of work is a childish drawing done by a kid.
One of us suggested that it should be placed on top of the roof of the canteen, I disagreed because no one would look up at the roof just to look at our work especially the written task we had to do reflecting on Bermondsey no-one would be able to read our review. Another suggested that the work should placed on the library communal, I personally think that would be a good idea but a lot of people might be paying attention to do their own work instead of noticing our work. If I was to present the map in a particular location, it would be by the canteen on the floor, if we want to personalize and share to the audience we have to be specific and make it look realistic. I personally won’t stick the map on the ground like that because it would be tread on and our work would be damaged. I would laminate the map before sticking it on the floor.
Although our map don’t seem that much accurate, in future I would have our map to be presented in this way; make the roads to be more accurate, make sure the pictures we took in Bermondsey was the actual place that’s located in the map, Add colour to the pictures we took, try to make the font writing funky so it makes it looks more eye-catching. And laminate the floor for people to walk in to, to make them feel that they were there.

Evaluation on Tate Modern 16/9/08

The day we went to Tate Modern was my 2nd day of enrolling to college, we had to go to Tate because we was told to investigate some videos and do some installation work. By that i mean, watching videos and to experiment with them e.g. The expressions of ideas, narratives stories feelings what they trying to tell us.

We then was told to watch at least 3 videos in Tate Modern and answer the following questions :
-How does this make me feel and what about it makes me feel this way?
-How is the way the piece constructed and presented different from usual video and film - if at all?
-How does this change the way i experience and understand the work?
-How does this change the way an audience interacts with the work?
-How long was the work? What are the implications of this?
-Is the work silent or accompanied by voice/sound/music? What are the implications of this?
-What emotions /ideas do i imagine the artist is trying to convey through the work?

I decided to watch the Paul McCarthy - Material Gestures & Dan Graham's - Two Correlated Rotations, we then had to discuss the videos we've seen to the group and talk about our own opinion to the videos.

Dan Grahams - Two Correlated Rotation -
This piece is a one minute clip of 2 people using a camera filming and running around the street. It
is constructed and presented in a old city where 2 people are filming each other in different scenes. The work is accompanied by sound movement, but when the tape runs it makes it look old fashioned.
Some clips and scenes was fast forward therefore, it makes the audience feel confused. When i watched the clip again, i realized that both the cameras was pointing to the audience, when technically they are both filming each other and rotating around.


Paul McCarthy's - Material Gestures -
When i first saw Paul's piece of work, the first thing that struck me was "Sexual disturbance" . There was 3 clips of him in different scenes doing sexual harassment to himself. One clip showed he was wearing a monkey mask and danced around naked, rubbing himself with lip balm. And doing all sorts of "sexual movements". This piece struck me the most because he made it look like sex was an entertainment for him. But he also wore a mask, so it confuses the audience to wherever or not he enjoyed the sexual experience.
When i watched the silent video, I felt very nervous and disgusted. I think Paul was trying to tell us as the audience why he decided to make a sexual video for us to watch. And to make us feel disgusted.
I felt that he was trying to tell us how he was treated in the past and to also experience the video in more dept. By investigating more of the clip to make us feel sickening as well as discussing different view points about the video.