Review

In a small way I feel it had the affect I was looking for but it was mentioned that the use of the blood was not needed, as it looked very theatrical. I fully understood were they where coming from, it looked to dramatic and the fact that in real war it is very much not a movie or drama. It's as real as it gets.so I should of left it out but unfortunately it was to late, it was even mentioned in passing that maybe if I'd just had the helmet and the photo of my son or the photo of my family and the letter would have been suffieciant enough to get a reaction, it would have been just enough to let the onlooker create the story from what they saw in front of them, but unfortunately I gave them the story. 

My instalment

My instalment will consist of My fathers british forces standard issue helmet a Kevlar mk 3

I wanted to grab the onlookers attention by giving them something to deeply and really think about, the modern day soldier heading of and having to leave family behind. It's been a huge part of my growing up as a child and family history in the military dating back to the Zulu wars. 

So i thought about what troops carried on there person to remind them of home and family, for example a photo of a loved one and kids? Or a letter.

So I took photos of my son Coyan and printed this and one other of my family, my wife and my son and myself all together, then I asked my wife to rewrite a letter to me as though I was serving over seas in a confict this letter was rewritten from a letter my mother sent my father whilst he was over seas.

Once a placed the items on a white plinth I wanted to place the photo of me and my family just outside of the helmet I wanted to paint my hand red and then place a hand print on the photo and slide it away, to give the impression of the soldier being wounded and trying to grab the photo almost in a last attempt at holding on to his family before he passes. 

Family

Simon Cudmore 2014

Instalment 

Family

Simon Cudmore 2014

Instalment 

Installment ideas

This image of a tank built out of felt paper

An american helmet used as a plant pot 

And my favourite is this one, built entirely out of balloons. Something so hard and destructive yet built out of a material that is so so delicate and very easily destroyed.

An installation of war helmets decorated not in the usual army green.

Idea Change

Due to the time i had left and items and equipment i needed and a plan on how to construct my arm prosthetic or some way of restricting my hand movement to nothing, was getting tight, plus i had thought about it carefully and, to be truly honest i would never have experienced the lose of a limb because in reality i would still have my hand/arm attached to my body and i would still be able to feel the sensation of tingling or numbness. were as a person with a lost limb would have not have these sensations.

So i had to move fast on to another idea. It didn't take long before another idea was upon me.
I still wanted to stay with the injured soldier theme and maybe try to portray it in some small installment.

Prosthetics

Timeline of artificial legs that go back to the famous so called pirate peg leg. And then right thru to the 90s.

But as technology had advanced so to have the artificial limbs, and are today called prosthetics. Some can be moved manually by using you're other human hand to open and close the prosthetic one so that you can pick up objects such as a mug of tea or a knife and fork. And also depending on you're current finances can unfortunately determine how advanced your prosthetic limb can be. 

From something as basic as these two images

Then to the more advanced mechanical computerised ones

Idea progression

I had Ideas still set on the three drawings which pictured thre different ink pen images of british service men with prosthetic limbs.

But on descussion with my tutor, the  idea was not stopped, but instead  looked at from a different angle. My tutor explained to me that by doing these art peices I wouldn't be stepping out of my comfort zone, after painting and drawing in the level 4 he suggested I move a step closer to honour and show respect for the troops that have lost limbs and we came up with an idea. 

Instead of drawing a soldier with no limb, how about I try to experience loosing a limb for a morning or try for the day (laugh with uncertainty). 

So rather than creating a visual art piece it would be a performance. To experience trying to do everyday normal tasks that would otherwise be no trouble at all for someone who had all there limbs.

For this I would somehow make a fixing that would restrict my hand/arm movement to zero. I wasn't however going to replicate a real prostheses as time and of course money wasn't on my side. So now I was on the hunt for anything that would make a good fixture to my own arm and restrict my use of it.

Prosthetic limbs

I came across an image and began to draw it in ink pen.

The picture was of a british parachute regiment soldier who had lost both legs and an arm in afganistan.

www.dailymail.co.uk

As I was finishing I had an idea to carry on with the injured soldier drawings in pen and get them printed on a medium sized canvas maybe around three pictures and to leave them faceless.

This reason to have them faceless was so maybe the onlooker could replace/vision themselves in the blank space of the face. 

Opinion and background history

I wanted to try and express or place people in a position of thinking about there situation if they were in the soldiers boots, so to speak.

We always see in the media about the soldiers returning home safe to there families, but very rarely to we see the troops coming home with one leg or one arm? And so I wanted to remind people that it's not all playing soldiers and happy families, but those who have to readjust there whole way of living not just for them but for there wife's/girlfriend or in some cases a female soldier so it would be there husband or boyfriend who would have to adjust to. 

I myself have lost three school friends who have served in Iraq and afganistan.

And so I express my feelings for them and my respect through my art, my father also served in the british Royal Air Force for 16 years. 

Back and forth with ideas

I wanted to stay with the military theme but knew that painting and drawing soldiers in the field was just the norm for me.

I wanted to take it a step further and do a sculpture. I was unsure of how I would express the meaning of war/conflict or soldier in a sculpture form.

The first week I tried to think of items or equipment that soldiers carry with them, but then I had an idea which was still with the soldier in conflict scene, however I wanted to express the other side, the injured soldier or mamend soldier.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234296/Hidden-toll-suffering-Number-wounded-British-servicemen-Afghanistan-doubles.html

Ideas on sculpture

To start with I had no initial ideas but as the week went on i began, ideas began coming to me. I wanted to continue on with my military art theme from my level 4 certificate paintings and drawings of military personnel.

   

But we had to go for something that would take us out of our comfort zone and push us to produce an art piece that we would not normally produce.

For me, my comfort zone is painting and drawing so I wanted to try something along the lines of a sculpture piece. 

final project Notion

notion

[noh-shuh n]  Spell  Syllables

Synonyms Examples Word Origin

noun

1.

a general understanding; vague or imperfect conception or idea of something:

a notion of how something should be done.

2.

an opinion, view, or belief:

That's his notion, not mine.

3.

conception or idea:

his notion of democracy.

4.

a fanciful or foolish idea; whim:

She had a notion to swim in the winter.

5.

an ingenious article, device, or contrivance; knickknack.

6.

notions, small articles, as buttons, thread, ribbon, and other personal items, especially such items displayed together for sale, as in a department store.

Origin

Patrol

Patrol

Simon Cudmore, 2014

Canvas, acrylics

610x910

Dogs of war

Dogs of war

Simon Cudmore, 2014

Graphite pencil, 

A3 paper

Second Project: Passage

Our group consists of Hana, Kate, and myself, And for this project all the groups were given headings which we would then have to go away and create and art piece that would reflect the heading which we had been allocated.

For our groups heading we were given the word "Passage" and our ideas just began pouring in to our minds. Our immediate thoughts were passage= pathway, tunnel, obstacles, and even to a point of travel.

Ideas:

using mirrors

tape on the floor

text messaging each other a code to which we would know were to turn and which leg to move, left or right.

another idea was along line of cardboard boxes, tape them together and allow people to crawl through it.

then using a camera to take photos of were we have been.

We began to approach the idea of the camera and thought that we could record a journey of were we have been and were we where heading.

With this one of us came up with the idea that we could take a photo of one of us in the group walking step by step through the F block studio from behind, from the left side, and from the right side, and then from front on.and then we would hang these photos up on sting or wire from the ceiling shown in photo below, as a cube. So the effect that we wanted was of the person in the photo to be in the exact location to were the photo had been taken from.So that when people looked at it

this next photo shows how it would look as side on or profile form.

But after some time and due to unforeseen circumstances, i.e flu and sickness within the group we had to change the plan to suit our time frame. So we decided to scrap the idea of cubed photos and stick with an A5 sized photo. Instead of having a member of the group in the photos we would just take photos of each step that the photographers eye view would see.

Instead we decided to take a photo of each step the photographer takes from one end of the studio to the other end, And then turn around and come back. then when we put the photos together we hoped to create the effect that when you walk in from the door end the first photo you see is the door behind you, so as to create the feeling that you are looking at were you have just come from, so we have tried to reverse the room using photos.                                                                        

During the stages of matching the correct photo with its opposite partner we discovered that we had 3-4 that hadn't printed, and so we had the idea of hand drawing in the missing images however this was not to be as someone said to us "if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing right" no if's or but's about it! So myself and Kate looked over the instalment again, figured out were the missing images were and re printed.

and on the reverse sides of the above.

We decided to use black and white toned photos to give it more depth and feeling to the journey and plus we want people to experience it in something different than the usual, instead of having the photos in colour it wouldn't have the same effect because this is how we see day to day life....in colour

Project one, occupy or change the space in F block

Project One



Group Members: Sarah, Dando, Ellyn, and Myself.

We came up with a number of ideas straight away from each member.
These ideas were:

1 Hanging shoes from the ceiling at different lengths and then paint the soles of them.

2 To run string from one point of F block and run it along the walls right around until it came back to meet the start point.

3 place buckets of water in the middle of  F block and video how it affects peoples way of passage.

4 Glue a coin to the floor and video people attempting to pick it up.

5 Giant hopscotch.

6 tack large bed sheets over everything in F block.


Meeting One

We decided on idea number 3 as we thought it would possibly have the greater effect on what we were hoping to achieve. The idea came form an actual incident which ac cured in the previous semester, when it rained hard the roof in one of the classes in F block would contently leak to the extent that  we would have to shift the tables and students art work and place one or two buckets in the spot.

So because of the buckets in the middle of the class room it completely changed the environment and the foot traffic of those in the class. We had to take a wide birth around the buckets just to get to the other side of the classroom.

The Buckets therefore changed the whole way that people moved in the class and had to be more aware of were they were placing art work.

On the Wednesday we decided to Video the area of interest which would be our installation point.
this proved interesting to say the least.....
After roughly a four hour period of videoing, we decided to edit down to a three minute time laps to show viewers the difference of foot traffic before the installation was placed down.

On the Thursday we again set up the video camera pointing towards the exact spot we videoed on the Wednesday, however this time we placed a number of buckets in an uncoordinated fashion.
My idea was to just have three buckets for the installation but in a previous meeting which i was unable to attend the girls decided that more buckets would have a greater effect.