TRANSCTIPT

L: Originally to be honest it began as a means of getting out a lot of stress and pent up stuff through lyrics and music.  I was more writing the songs for therapy than I actually was for getting them recorded.  It was literally more of a writing the songs for myself and I was never really intending to record or get out and tour them even thought I cam front hat background of touring and doing stuff.

F: Like a cathartic thing?

L: I’d kinda hit a point of rock bottom, where I’d kind of given up on the idea that my music could be important in some way, so I was more just writing for myself.  IT was only really a case of a good friend of mine Matt O’Grady, who recorded and ended up producing my record, he heard some of the original demos and encouraged me to record them properly and get them out properly and from that I focused on touring and I’ve been busier in the last 4 years than I ever was in bands.

TRANSCTIPT

L: Originally to be honest it began as a means of getting out a lot of stress and pent up stuff through lyrics and music.  I was more writing the songs for therapy than I actually was for getting them recorded.  It was literally more of a writing the songs for myself and I was never really intending to record or get out and tour them even thought I cam front hat background of touring and doing stuff.

F: Like a cathartic thing?

L: I’d kinda hit a point of rock bottom, where I’d kind of given up on the idea that my music could be important in some way, so I was more just writing for myself.  IT was only really a case of a good friend of mine Matt O’Grady, who recorded and ended up producing my record, he heard some of the original demos and encouraged me to record them properly and get them out properly and from that I focused on touring and I’ve been busier in the last 4 years than I ever was in bands.

TRANSCRIPT

D: I used to go to shows and get all me angst an

F: You were telling me it was really aggressive like, you know people would like…you were telling me about suicides, not suicides in general, it was like a manoeuvre? 

D: You’re talking about crowd killing are you?

F: Yeah something like that you told me but I forgot. At hardcore shows…

D: So there’s, I dont know how much it happens anymore, cause I just dont go to those shows but it used to be that like you’d have eople like almost doing marshall arts in the pit and I think it still does happen actually because my friends actually still post videos taking the piss out of it.  All my metal head friends like what are these guys doing?!,lll

F: Isn’t it weird have you noticed a correlation between metal head fans and soft nice cuddly people, lik emetal fans I know are the most chill laid back like

D: Cause again they’re sort of getting all their aggression out through their music.  The music that they listen to or maybe the bands taht they play in. They get it all out there so when they’re just being people they’re just..

F: From the outsiders perspective they're all like oh they probably eat kittens and stuff.

D: Yeah I totally agree.

My attitude was, if you’re in the pit you might get hurt, but if someone falls over you pick them up!

24:50

F: Just let them listen to it and they’ll make their own mind up.

J: I totally agree.

…

J: I love music, I loved music I love playing gigs, it’s literally one of those things that’s incomparable to anything else apart from once when I did a talk about my archaeology project and I got to speak about that and that same feeling, that kind of performing feeling where this is something I’ve worked on, created and putting it up to show and if it goes down well it’s a amazing and if it goes down crap it’s terrible but at the same time you still did it.

F: Most punk rock bands are kind of like not big projects.  I think there’s a perception that if you sort of do bigger things.  What am I trying to say, punk rocks bands are generally lo fi not glitzy not glamour, just like living in vans slumming it but like, but there are a handful when you get to a certain level where you start doing bigger things and you touring further and further.  But there’s a jump, definitely a jump in’t there between like playing 5 UK dates and 

L: We’re not there yet so.

F: It take a commitment a life commitment where you’ve got to arrange work schedules, your relationships, living arrangements everything you can’t just go off on a tour like. I think Dan was saying you’re aiming to tour like 20/16 weeks a year or something silly.

L: 16 might be it, but Dan has grand plans and if we go right back tot the start of that erm, this band was just meant to be a practice room and it’s a great way to have a bit of stage fright therapy erm you know love a bit of that. You know, just get some things out and enjoy making noise again.  And Dan was like no no don’t worry it won’t get serious, but then 16 weeks is pretty serious. So we’ll see.

In support of Kruger she fought back by calling them out online ‘ '“A clusterfuck of uncool jerks” and started copying their own model to fight back. She sold skateboards with text saying don’t be a jerk. She’s fighting back and using different mediums and culture to deliver the messages. That’s what I’m trying to do with my approach, having an exhibition a zine a podcast and stickers it is all legal currency in the culture i’m from and building an audience within.

I think it’s reflective of society today where we live in world driving by likes on posts and followers. Social media is destroying our relationships with each other and reality. Here’s another post where i covered similar issues with body image and social media here - . ( That covers Essena Oneil’s writing)

Asked another friend of mine about potentially getting involved with the Neon Pioneers idea. Tim has confirmed that he doesn’t have enough time to commit to things so I’m back to just me. James Clakre a friend of mine I sometimes hire in for help on larger shoots is a photographer and digital artist . He’s also great at illustrator and in design, so I asked him for some ideas on the Neon pioneers logo. He did some roughs. But did mention that he might not have a lot of time to commit to the collective but would try. It’s this same problem that I’m running into all the time and from what Wendy has said in our chats most collectives fail due to lack of involvement from everyone. I may have to re think the structure of it. I can see how things work out with James but i feel that it’s ethically unfair for one person ( me ) to do the majority of work and then other gan the rewards without the same effort. Ideally I want to met some like minded people that are hungry to make waves with personal projects like me. I’ll have to see how it goes.

I went into Sho gallery to speak to the gallery owner Emily. Hannah from HATW has approached her and sent me some general info about the before hand. I basically went in and pitched the show what I wanted to do. I asked about putting work up for the week and opening it with a night of music etc.

I’m finding the whole process of working with scanning prints and handwriting on images really pleasing personally. I think as I’ve said before that it’s more of a supplementary work to the main project I need to find a better way to integrate text in.

I love the brutal honest that Wearings image shows above its humbling and find it a really sincere portrait, ethically its a tricky situation as a photographer as this gentleman is in a bit of distress and possible crisis. It would be easy to sensationalize the portrait to gain attention and with it possible work or exposure to portfolio but wearing has delicately shot it and captured it in a way that makes me empathise with the man. I think it’s important to say that I don’t pity him and feel that by holding the sign and choosing what to write and coming forth with it that it gives him a power to be in control balancing the relationship with the image maker and subject a little more than if he hadn’t.

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 I asked heads about putting a show on, they were really keen to help and suggested getting involved with the gallery upstairs to. Logistical they have had bands on before but don’t have a PA i rang around my music networks and managed to get a free hire for one from One Louder Studios if needed. I need to finialize out some of the details and ask some bands if they would play. It would be great to integrate art music and community all under one roof it’s what the project is all about.

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 This was a previous test I put up to keep the schedule good. The lighting had issues and I couldn’t get 2 lights sorted in time for the interviews so went ahead anyway. It was good we talk about the scene and art with music as well as my project.

After chatting with some friends about the nature of work and how it kind of linked in with mental health and community I found that I already know a great non profit called Heads Above the Waves I didn’t realise before but it would be a great organisation to link up with and try and help. It’s run by two people I know and they run workshops with young people teaching them coping mechanisms and using things like art and music as tools to cope. They also do a lot of anti bullying work and provide help and support to people around those suffering i feel that it ties in nicely, what was a particularly interesting overlap was that they heavily promote music both producing and being a fan of it to young people as a way to help them through difficult times. PERFECT exactly the same ethos I have for this project.

After a few rudimental attempts of working text into the images myself it was very clear that it needed a lot of work. After seeking Wendy’s advice through a tutorial she suggested collaborating with other artists. I have already tried an attempt with one graphic designer and illustrator but the communication was far to slow and to much hard work for it to be a viable option. That fizzled so I thought I would try a new person, that was Tom O’Boyle from Salty Gecko Designs. Tom is also a Falmouth graduate and that’s how I know him i’ve commissioned him for work with my consumer businesses over the years. I fully explained the nature of the collaboration and what i need help with along with my vision. I gave minimal restrictions and It was really interesting to see what came up.

They replied with a counter that was really good and even offered to colob with showing the work at some of the picture boards they run in the bear pit in Bristol.

It seems like a good idea but I need to check that the original plan to have bands playing will work out. They offered to run a bar to make a little extra cash for them to make up for the discount  they’d give me. I don’t think they have a pa or space for bands so decided to maybe put that on the back burner for a moment. That and they date might be a little early to get enough work.

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Sep 5

 Heard back from prsc. They were happy to show the work and sent over some details for prices and it looks a little out of my budget right now but I replied and asked them if there is any room negotiate as I am a very poor student.

They’ve said the room would be available from Thursday18th till 23rd October. Which might be a little soon really but I’ll see what happens.

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Sep 4

Thinking about the exhibition I wanted to ask a bunch of bands that I know that would be into helping support the project by playing music at the launch. It would be a great way to mix both music and art together much like I do in the work itself. I put the feelers out with some bands and I’ll see what they say. If I charge a little or donations on the door then I can use the money to compensate them for travel but I’ll run it by them as a a unpaid show. Any profits made could go towards a charity.

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Sep 3 Finding a venue?

 With a load of my work this is a test period so I needed to find a place to hold my show I decided to have a look about and to see what options are available.

I found this space in Bristol and it seems fitting with what I need it to be. I’m quite fond of a space that isn’t a more conventional white wall gallery. This seems to be ideal I’ll email them and find out what they offer.

 https://prsc.org.uk/

I learned that maybe a bit of research and also planning it a bit more. The sofa format was ok but a bit annoying to lean over to talk to people. I made the best with what I had. I need to look at some constant power supply units for the cameras to save the batteries as dslr’s are not great at being on in video mode for long periods of time un interrupted.

Transcript snippet

F:I’m trying to do podcasts a little bit more regularly as part of promoting the exhibition and the book I’ve got coming up Habits and Mindsets which should be launching in about a month or two it’s a documentary project looking at the punk rock community, so it’s all kinda related and you know you’re not good at something without doing it loads so just getting ot grips with all the equipment and figuring out everything erm so yeah here we go.

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July 27th

I had the idea of starting a collective with a bunch of other artists. We could all chip in and do work together and have it so that we take turns doing admin and pr to promote us all. Kind of like a record label or promotions company would do. I’ve had a few talks from guests on previous modules and quite a few have said that it is great idea. I wanted to gather a bunch of artists together so that we could pool our efforts into putting on shows, zines and getting ourselves out there. We could share simple tasks like social media and emails making it a much viable option than doing it on our own. I’ve approached a few people that I know both photographers and other artists. Tim has shown interest and he’s also collaborating with me implementing text into the work.

I entered the BJP IPA 2019

After producing the show getting the zine and shop up and running and speaking to everyone about the work I reached out and got some peer reviews from other professionals. I was really happy that I had the people offer there thoughts. I made a page with a video of me explaining the ideas I have, examples of the work and a button to get in touch that link is here - https://www.chrischucas.com/prock

Spencer Murphy

Aled Hughes

Derek Rigers

Notes from Al Overdrive.

It’s been a few weeks after the exhibition and I’m finding it really hard to sell any of these zines. I just think the project needs to be promoted a bit more. I think I will print handfuls out and send them to record labels and shops to bundle in with certain orders. I’m thinking of it as a means of advertising to begin with. I’ll also keep plugging the zine in the podcasts that I am doing. I have just confirmed some really great female photographers that were involved with the 209 female politicians by female photographers project. I’m going to continue to reach out to other artists as well as music people to make the demographic as varied as possible. I don’t want it to become very targeted and niche I like the thought of having crossover and people being put onto different ideas and thoughts, bands and art.

I reached out to Spencer Murphy and asked him if he would mind looking at the work and sharing a few thoughts on it. I was kindly surprised when I read the email back from him today.

After chatting with some peers in professional groups I was encouraged to submit to the New York Times portfolio review.

I want to try and get the work seen by as many people as possible and the portfolio review would be a great way to get feedback and develop as an artist.

I reached out to some peers on the professional groups I am part of to get some feedback on the latest work. Here is Derek Ridgers feedback. Before that, i wanted to include a little context into Derek’s practice.

Another artist I’ve been really fascinated with over the last year has been Juno Calypso. I first heard her on the Ben Smith podcast (link below). After hearing her talk about her project ‘ The Honey Moon’ I went and looked at the work and I was drawn in straight away. I feel like she has kind of carried on and built on where Cindy Sherman had started. Born out of a childhood hobby and dressing up and taking images with family cameras and also a gameboy camera.

Luvero’s ‘Not Going Shopping Project’. he works with the LGBTQ community. His process involved collaborating with the community in Brighton and keeping a public blog with conversations and images made with those involved. Luvero also works with text and I love the human element that the hand writing brings to it. That seems to be his main goal to humanise the participants in very democratic way.

L03 - L05

I feel that it has a lot in common with Jeff Wall with his constructed fiction work. I’m really interested in how Wall and Fincher make work using cameras. To the lamen as soon as you constructively choose to depict a scene or arrange something it becomes ‘fake’ but in Jeff Walls ‘we are all actors’ argument he has a differing opinion and I have adopted this approach within my own work. Especially within the ‘cinematic’ side of the images.

Photographers United submitted an open call and I submitted 6 images. One of them has been selected for the exhibition. Which is opening on Jan 10th at the Print space in London. I ‘m really excited, I have noticed that it was the live action stuff that Spencer Murphy would describe as my ‘looser’ style of images. Which is making me really consider my edit for FMP.

I’ve always taken massive inspiration from cinema. One major film that I feel really shaped me as an artist was ‘Fight Club’. Directed by David Fincher it was really dark and visually striking. I’s only reflecting back on my practice now that I can apriciate how big an influence it plays. I have also worked with motion and video shooting music videos whilst undertaking the Ma. I guess that although not shot directly for the Ma it shares them same sty;e as my images for the Ma and is an easier introduction to explain how I’ve drawn from cinema in my work ( comparing motion to motion and then to stills).

Hi Chris, it was a real pleasure looking at the photographs, seeing them 
in exhibition format with the addition of the text moves them up another 
level. I think you got it just right, the editing now makes for a 
cohesive set, with the sequencing adding depth and another level of 
meaning. I also think that the text is just right in format and size; it 
took me a while to realise they must be lyrics from punk songs, they 
never overwhelm the images and although subtle in some ways, they are 
unavoidable there. The choice of words and the way you have cut them up and placed them entirely fits with your Punk ethic. The images deserve to be seen by a wider audience; get them out into the world anyway that you can. Thanks for the invite
Aled.

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As I’ve been planning on releasing a zine to compliment the prints and the podcast I thought it would be a great opportunity to collaborate with other artists in the punk scene. The previous artists I’ve reached out to have become really tied up in projects but I mentioned the idea to a friend of mine from the The Run Up. I shot a video for them and also did a podcast with Larry the front man. Dan is the bassist and is a really talented illustrator. He made a design for me and I’m going to get a run of them made to add into to the zines for sale. I also mailed a bunch of them out to different bands that tour across Europe and the US, it’s a deep part of the punk rock culture and a great way of low fi advertising.

Organising exhibition with Sho and collaboration with HATW. Getting Brightr involved from the tour before and his work with mental health. I talked to everyone about the opening night and we talked in depth about issues the project looks at and what HATW does. Social media is a great way to reach an audience for this kind of project it took a little bit of learning new skills and disciplines but it was well worth it for the potential reach I feel.

After taking onboard what Aled said in the last meeting I came back to chat with him about hanging work. I have been living with these prints on my office and lounge wall for quite some time. I’ve even gone into the gallery with my test prints to visualise where they would go and how the audience would experience the show. Building on the using of dyptechs ideas ( in a sense that place them side by side as standalone images not as printed dips) I ran through my selection and talked about my thoughts on it

Looking at developing the work, the placement is to long maybe and need to Aled’s advice on the choice of words. His input was to use the words sparingly and in a way that they would not be obviously recognised as lyrics. His thoughts behind that was to enable as much freedom to the viewer to decode the images. That has always been a really important part of the creative process for me to enable such a great degree of freedom in viewing my work.

I checked in with Stella and we discussed my intentions and as well some key issues that I had some reservations on.

With a only a short time left before the exhibition I have a pool of images to select from. I printed them as test prints and had a stack of 5 x 4’s. I then taped them to the office wall and would see them every-time I would enter or leave. I think it’s important to ‘live’ with the images. I was feeling a little weird about the space and how many images to show and how so I went in to speak to Aled Hughes a previous tutor and ex co worker of mine. Aled has know me for over 10 years and has taught me at college level as well as working as a lecturer when I was a supporting staff member to the Ba Hons Photography teaching Staff at Cardiff Met. Whilst there I was just starting the project so Aled knows me and the work really well. He’s also a successful artists with many solo exhibitions and books. I feel he is a perfect person to talk some ideas thorough with.

I experimented with positioning not just one image but a few and placing text in more of a deign that would be seen in print media like booklets. I thought it had potential but not really for the zine or exhibition. I brought it up with the cohort peers and everyone there and Wendy agreed it wasn’t as strong as the single image work.

Confirmed booking with show

Artists: Chris Chucas

• Exhibition dates: 16th -23rd Nov 2018

• Set up from: 15th Nov from 12pm

• Hanging /Display of the exhibition is your responsibility, please come prepared & bring all

equipment/tools necessary

• Opening: Friday 16th Nov 6-8pm (fee applies)

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After experimenting with the dyno label maker I decided to try out a Neon Pioneers logo for it I was pretty happy with the results. …..

I experimented with a few more images and placements. I realising now more and more that this might take a little longer than I had originally thought. I want to use the exhibition launch and all the attention for it as a way to get the brand out there. It might be a slow process but I could use the website and social media channels as a online blog/ magazine format until I find other artists with enough time. I think its a good idea to get a logo for an identity for the brand and get it out there at least.

I had a really interesting tutorial with Wendy she told me about her thoughts on my progress and interestingly she suggested that what my work struck her to be about a generation of people rather than a sub culture in particular. I think I agree with her but it took a little while to come around to the idea. I realise that I am fascinated with other artsit’s that look at groups of people. Looking back of the course at the artists I’ve looked at they’ve included Nan Goldin, Larry Clarke, Jeff Wall, and more recently Spencer Murphy, and Anthony Luvero. There’s definitely a particular melicoholy that comes through when I mention most of those names. i am particularly drawn to a darker and sombre visual approach to image making. I’ll cover more about those in more depth in their own post. Right now We’ve made an action plan to carry on shooting they way I am and to hone in the working with text, that’s the most important part.

Oct 1

Told prsc that I’m not into it. Lack of pa and the timeline etc.  They were helpful and explained they do have a pa and that it is great for acoustic acts all the way up to bands. I’ll defo keep them in mind in the future

PODCAST EXCERPT

Edel 10:08 on punk existing in society today as a cultural/political movement

B: I don’t know if people think that punk still exists?

E: I think they do. My kids in school definitely do because so much of them are way more politically aware than we would have been when we were younger. And as a result of that, yeah punk is that thye, I think they probably have that word a little bit more as a political movement than say we would have identified.  I think you’re right in what you’re saying in regard to perhaps the music but certainly actually as a cultural music, I think it’s more alive than it would have been when we were in school.