I entered the BJP IPA 2019
Read MoreAfter 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.
Read MoreL03 - 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.
Read MoreTRANSCTIPT
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.
Read MoreHi 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.
Read MoreThe opening night to the show was in my view a success. I had spend a huge amount of time planning it and I had put a huge focus on all the supporting aspects of it.
I had hung the work as pre planned and work shopped though with local welsh artist Aled Hughes.
I negotiated a free hire of the gallery for a week as it was in collaboration with HATW.
I did have to pay a £50 fee for the hire for the event.
I opened at 6 with a musical act on at 7 playing followed by talks from myself, Hannah Morgan the founder of HATW and Edel Marie a friend and vice principle of a high school in Bristol.
I had donation based entry and work for sale including zines.
I made enough through entry and zine sales to cover the venue hire and make an additional £20.
Read MoreRichard (Team Beard records): It’s a community that comes together, you know within either a music scene or certain area that starts something off, usually getting the kids involved, cause once the kids are involved things kinda bubble under and build form there before anything become popular. It may take a yea, two years for something to start, then all of a sudden it’s the next big thing, but you know there’s been a lot of ground work put in.
I feel like i’m fairly lucky with the origins of this project born out of a relationship with punk rock. ZInes have been a staple part of the scene and I’ve explored them through the previous modules
It’s a great low fi way of reaching an audience and it is normally fairly low cost meaning its accessible to the community. Heavily used in the earlier days of punk in the 70’s and 80’s they were normally photocopied. Nowadays there is a rich culture of art in the punk rock scene and I talked about it briefly with Exhume an artist that also tuns a record label an episode of my Never Going Home Podcast.
Read MoreI started finalising my zine designs. I think I’m lucky because my links with punk scene make it fairly easy to introduce given that zines were a big part of the earlier movement. I worked out costs and my deadline to get the shipped and and monotone is the only available option. I feel that it’s interesting given that I shot heavily in Black and white at the beginning of the course and begrudgingly y took the advice to work in colour more which I now work predominately in. It’s an interesting concept born out of a forced design out of my control maybe. I thought maybe I could print the zine in monotone and offer a download link to have it in colour ? It might be . a bit messy but there may be room to use it as a creative idea. Right now it’s not an option to print colour so it’s whats happening. It’s almost feels like a tip of the hat to the earlier work, I think I’ll release the earlier developmental work which is mostly monotone through the zine as its both culturally expected and a great way to ease in to the more contemporary photography that it has evolved into. Perhaps I can bring an audience on a journey and print in full colour when it becomes viable.
Read MoreLO4 LO6
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.
Read MoreTRANSCTIPT
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.
Read MoreOrganising 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.
Read MoreAfter 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
Read MoreLooking 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.
Read MoreWith 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.
Read MoreI 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.
Read MoreTRANSCRIPT
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!
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