Guest Lecture- Amelia Beavis- Harrison

Amelia Beavis-Harrison is a Curator and Artist currently based in Nottingham. She runs the Lincoln Art Programme, which is a live art commissioning body in Lincoln. As well as running this project she works freelance. After finishing University she moved to Nottingham.
Her curatorial practice aims to investigate curating in public environments with live art. She is interested in the relationship that art work can have within site contexts in a wider environment that may have a direct/ organic/conflicting relationship.

One of her recent pieces of Artwork is the 2010 challenge, where she was given a different task to do each month and she has to record her work in a sort of Art form. Anyone could set her the challenges and they could be to do anything, but she mostly stuck with close friends and family who gave the tasks. These tasks varied from her not having to think about art for a whole month. Others tasks were more challenging as she would have to show how she did the task, for example A task she did was to apologise to anyone she had hurt or upset in the past, so she took the idea of letting balloons go and in each balloon was a note with the apology on. She let them go from the top of Nottingham Castle.


http://www.ameliabeavisharrison.com/




 Another piece of Artwork she did was called 'The imposter' in which she had someone wonder around the streets of Lincoln with a mask of a pig hiding their identity and then people from another art group were to search the streets of Lincoln to try and find 'The imposter'. Although I think she is a good artist, and has a lot of ideas to do for her projects, I wasn't too keen on her work as I found it very odd and didn't really mean anything, although the 2010 challenge I thought was quite good as this actually had a purpose and meaning and I liked the way she presented it with the balloons that she let go reading 'sorry' .

Erik Knudsen- Guest Lecture

One Wednesday 7th December we had a Guest Lecturer named Erik Knudsen came in to do a talk and presentation on his work. He was born in Ghana to a Danish father and Ghanaian mother and later on went on to grow up and to be educated in Denmark as well as studying in Britain for a short while. Film Maker and is now the Professor of Film Practice at the University of Salford, in Manchester. In his different types of documentary video he shows a variety of scenes which mostly show peoples lives and how they cope with on a day to day basis. During the lecture, consisted of focusing on 4 different themes Courage, Simplicity, Humility and Creativity. In his work he uses these themes.


His work is mainly based around short documentary films, where he uses peoples lives to create each film. Although one of his films named 'One day Tafo' is a reflection on his life as it was set in Akim, Ghana where Knudsen had spent most of his life, Due to his nationality being both Danish and Ghanaian. I feel that his video clip that he showed was incredily moving in the way in which it showed the awful conditions that the Ghanaian slaves had to live with. To create this film he visited an old slavery ground which he then used the noise of the the slaves being tortured and beaten to create the emotional scenes. It also created a very sinister effect due to the fact how derelict the grounds were, like they had just been deserted and left, making it feel haunting for anyone who may visit the location.

Also he creates films which consist of no speech , just the background noises of everyday activities such as cars passing by, birds, and people talking. I feel that this is effective in some of his films, for example, 'Vainilla Chip' which is set in Cuba, showing a short documentary of a Cuban man selling ice cream. I did like this video when it started to make sense what it was actually about. During the film the man comes across photos of his wife who had died, this was very moving as it was clear that he was mourning the death of his wife. I think that by having no direct speech in the film expresses the lonliness that the man is obviously feeling, it also make it more powerful as you are concentrated on how he is carrying on living his life, clearly difficult for him as at one point in the film he gets emotional which I think has an even greater way of making the viewer empathise with him.






http://www.onedayfilms.com/page/erik-knudsen

Not only does he create films but he is also into Photography and has taken a number of photographs in various countries such as China, Cuba and England. Being a Film maker still enables him to have a good eye for caputring the right moment and shows emotion within his pictures, as he knows exactly the right moment to capture his shots. He photographs everyday life and quite a lot of his work has a sort of moody, sinister feel to it. Especially with the dark grey skies and the darkening contrast of colour.
I really like his photos, the cooling tones mixed in with the black and white shows more emotion within the photograph, I also like the way he uses a documentary style in his work by capturing all aspects of everyday life.

The Pros And Cons Of Digital Photography

Over the years, new technology and equipment has practically re invented the world of the Photography, a way in which it has gone from wind up film cameras, to new state of the Art SLR Digital Cameras which are popular by both professional and the Amateur market, but Digital Photography still has both its pros and cons.

Firstly, starting with the pros of Digital Photography, I feel out weighs the cons. The main thing about having a digital camera is that there is no waiting for your photos to be developed and seeing whether they have turned out well, by using Digital this allows us to browse through our images while still on the camera or even if they have been downloaded onto a computer before deciding which images to keep. Whereas if using a film camera, if none or some of the images haven't turned out well or the way you specifically wanted it will require you to buy another film, at a cost and start the process again. Also by using Digital cameras, you don't neccassarily need to print off every single photo, which would be a waste of ink as you wouldn't be printing off images you are certain on, unlike film cameras, you have no choice as this is the only way that they can be viewed.

Another way in which Digital cameras are more suitable is that, unlike the Film cameras they contain all their essentials inside the camera most of the time, such as memory cards and batteries that are designed to be small, light and easy to carry around. With Film cameras you have to always make sure you have spare film in case you run out, as there is only a fixed number of shots you can take eg. 35  so this would require buying more films, which could turn out very expensive in the long run. Also before having the photos developed all of the film has to be used, so you aren't able to get just the photos you want, instead you have to waste time using up the rest of the film. Which, if the images are not all of what you wanted is a waste of money and film.

Also, with digital cameras, you are able to take off the lenses which will make them easier to carry and plus there are many different types of lenses you can choose to put on. Whereas with a film camera they tend to be quite bulky and heavy, which if been carried around for lond periods of time could be quite uncomfortable. Digital cameras can also be much easier  to view the photos with other people as you can upload them onto a computer and browse through them or either put them onto memory sticks, discs or a memory card. You are also able to have multiple copies of the photographs and you can print as many copies as you want. Whilst having the images in a computer, this allows you to edit the pictures if needed and you can do many different thing to them such as altering the contrast or even changing them to black and white.

Even though I feel that Digital Photography has more advantages than Film cameras, there are still some disadvantages as you have to have certain equipment such as computers and leads to enable you to download the pictures, also in order to print the pictures you will need to have access to a printer. Also if you need to edit your photographs, there are many different programmes such as Photoshop and Illustrator    which you will need in order to create good quality images. Overall I think that Digital Photography is a much more easier way to produce images as there are many different things you can do to them.

http://www.digicamguides.com/introduction/pros-and-cons.html