Surfaces and Strategies Week 10 Surfaces and considerations / by Chris Chucas

Week 10

This week I have been looking at my ‘surfaces’ making decisions and thinking about how it will effect my work and the way in which the audience interact and view the work.

Exhibition

I’m holding my exhibition at Cathays Community centre. I know some of the staff there and a lot of my friends and members of Cardiff bands have been practicing at their rehearsal rooms. After an initial phone call I was told that I was allowed to use one of the rooms to exhibit for the week and I was also able to have an opening event. I booked it for the 18th to the 25th which didn’t cost me anything and the two hour slot from 7-9 cost me the same price as it would to use it as a reversal room, about £15.

The fact that bands use this room to practice and write music is relevant and fits in with the project well I think. I’ve been to lots of shows at this space and shot work here before.

Images from previous shows at Cathays Community Center;

 

Publication

I’ve been working on my dummy book and my ‘zine’ which is my preferred medium for it. I feel that a zine is a natural choice, because of it’s deep rooted place within the punk scene historically.

 

They’ve survived the culture and are still around today, albeit a little less now with online blogs and forums but there still about.

 

 

Right now I’m pretty set on having only images. Writing could be interesting and I could perhaps write something or ask other members of the community to submit to it. Right now it’s a stand alone project but it could (if it’s successful) perhaps be published regularly. I quite like the idea of being able to reach a niche audience with relevant info about the project. This could help me show work off and also help me reach new people to work with.

 

I’m adjusting the copy that I have right now as I’m not totally happy with it. Some feedback I have had from lectures is that it could have a less formal design. As I’ve mentioned before, all my design choices and decisions have been on looking professional with my experience as a commercial photographer and film maker. The suggestions I had where to make a physical copy with prints and glue and to then scan and print that to make the zine. This is not faceable for lack of a scanner and the extra time involved.

 

Moving forward I’m going to change the cover for an image but I’ll probably stick with the 2 x 2 format for the images. I could potentially write text underneath the images. Perhaps even hand written captions. If it were to be on every copy I would have to literally write on every copy or produce them in the way I mentioned earlier (which I can’t right now).