An Interactive Start

This summer has whizzed by, I haven’t had much chance to work fully on any major projects, just a few things here and there – mainly experimenting with shadows and doings a few stop motion animations. I’ve also made some new jewellery, of which I hope to post some pictures up soon.

Most of my time has been taken up with working; I was lucky enough to be asked to write the Property pages for the London Metro newspaper for a large chunk of the summer months. It was great to get my teeth into the full-page articles; I enjoyed interviewing a range of people including architects, directors of football teams, trendy movers and shakers of Kensal Rise and (of course) estate agents. I’m happy to be writing again and hope to do some more newspaper and magazine work throughout the rest of the year.

Now to the start of university; a couple of weeks ago I started the Interactive Arts course at Manchester Metropolitan University. It’s still early days yet, but so far I’m happy with the enthusiastic tutors, my fellow students seem gregarious characters and I can’t wait to get on with some art work!

Last week we went to the Imperial War Museum North, the most memorable part was going up in a rickety lift to the ‘air’ section of the impressive building by architect Daniel Libeskind. At the top of the lift we were greeted with a long passageway flanked by metal sheets and with a floor made from some sort of grill with a view right through to the ground very far below. I didn’t think I’d be too scared, but I have to say that my knees did have an involuntary wobble at the sight and walking along was a strange experience with the wind whipping around and nothing to hold on to, even for the psychological aid! Views from the main platform were great though.

 This week we got into groups to create a themed party, my group had ‘astronauts party’ for which we covered a blacked out room with tin foil, projected a film of the moon on to one wall, played space-themed music and hung flying saucer sweets from the ceiling to play gravity-free UFO bobbing. We dressed as astronauts and baked away in the room we’d unwittingly insulated…