This weeks project states that we are required to revisit the work we had made in the last two weeks and taking account of what we now understand to be the required approach to the project that we should reconstruct/re-organise/re-configure the works we made.

I decided to look at how I may be able to push forward on my idea of measuring the body in relation to my smell.   I was thinking along the lines of  science albeit bad science.   I decided to conduct two experiments, one to distill a concentrate of my smell and the other to measure the gas that would be produced by the fermentation of the bandages containing my smell.

I got some big glass jars from my father and got the necessary tubing, yeast, sugar and other elements for the experiments and was ready to proceed.

In the fermentation jar I put the bandages containing my smell, sugar, yeast and warm water.   To this I attached a tube with a tap and a balloon.    The tap was to control the amount of gas going in to the balloon.   Within minutes the fermentation process had started and the mixture was bubbling and producing gas very quickly.   I decided to leave it overnight and measure the amount of gas it produced in that time.

Next I moved on to the distillation jar.   In this I had the bandages containing smell and water.   A tube came from the jar and passed through a condensation chamber and from there in to a beaker where the distilled solution would be collected.   As it was to be a steam distillation heat was needed to bring the water to boiling point for the process to begin.   In my quest to understand this I asked Jack Carter to explain it to me.

To present the project I would need some tripods and a stand made of steel.   Pat our technician was very helpful on this front.   I made a cover for my table out of mdf and painted it and the surrounding area white.

I wanted to present this piece in a way that might read science, but not so tightly that other possibilities don't exist. It needs to be open enough so that viewers can read it in there own way, make their own connections.  

So with elements of steel, glass, tubing and a clean, white, cold, clinical space I present my finished piece as follows.   

other photos

Measuring the body.


My next experiment for this project was based around the idea of measuring the body in relation to smell. The idea has stemmed from the fact that we all have an individual scent, the fact that our smell can lead animals like dogs to find us, the new baby smell or the fact that 17th century Japanese people encountering Europeans for the first time found their body odour very strong, liking it to rancid butter.

I'm not sure how smell is measured in the conventional sense, but this is how I did it.   I covered my body binding it with scrim bandages and then with cling film.   I then slept in it overnight. The following morning I put the bandages in sterile jars.   The idea is that the bandages will hold some of my smell and stay trapped in the sealed jars.  Daft or what, but I did really do this experiment and here's the proof.

This is how I displayed the finished experiment, it would be great to have real specimen jars to give this sculptural experiment a more science feel.

So far excluding myself, there has only been one person brave enough to risk the smell.

This weeks project was ''create a sculptural document/chronicle/account/record of new kinds of measurements of your body.''

As in previous projects I found it useful to use a mind map to kick start the process of trying to find new ways to measure the body.

I started by measuring the distance I walked around college last Monday for one hour.  As we were not to use conventional means to measure I decided to use thread so I laid it everywhere I walked in that hour.   When it came to collecting it people had dispersed it further got caught up in it and as a result it was an entwined mass  but it made me think about the space that my feet had occupied during that time.    I had taken 1100 steps and I wondered how they would look if they were displayed in a mass like the thread.   As a result I decided to use paper to create a visual form to show this.   I made cut outs of my footprint and cut into each one further following the curve of the foot reminding me of topographic maps.

                            

I threaded each foot print onto string and made a graph out of them to measure the amount of space my footprints covered in 1100 steps.   

   

At this stage I started to think about my stride and how because of my height I take more steps than a taller person to cover the same distance.   Brian in painting helped in the next experiment to try and measure my steps in relation to his.

I also measured my height in relation to my own feet and instead of being the imperial  4'11'' I am now 6 and 3/4 feet (helen's), sounds so much taller.

Self doll project.

This week our project was a self doll project that was to include aspects of our personality or a specific past experience.   It was to measure exactly half our height.

Initally at the start of this project I was looking at life work balance but abandoned this idea to look at just balance.   After spending the day trying to get bamboo and weights to balance I decided against this too.   However the weight idea sparked another and I decided to look at food,  diet restictions, the relationship food has with my body and how different kinds of food throw the body off balance.   For me the idea of physical balance was in my feet so I decided to make feet/legs with different foods.  I threaded the food on to bamboo canes and stood them on flip flops.   I used wool to wrap and bind like a skin.

At this stage I was lost because I didn't know where to take this next.    Mike suggested that I put the feet on the photocopier.   This I did and after I decided to tear the photocopies up and make a collage using the different pieces.    I sewed the paper on to fabric using one piece of wool criss crossing as I went.  I added strands of thread and when I stepped back from it chewed food and saliva came to mind.

Next because I regarded chewing as a sculptural acitivity I chewed and mixed some food and applied it by throwing it at the collage.  Instead of eating my lunch the chewed and mushed food ended up dripping down and collecting in the pockets of the collage.   Some of it adhered to the string.   Again once I had this done I was lost.
This is what it looked like.

                                                                           

                                                    

On the Thursday of that week we had a visit from Sculptor Maude Cotter and after her morning lecture she visited us in our studio.   She spoke to all of us about our work and gave some advice as to where to take it next.   She liked what I had done with the feet, the wrapping of the wool as skin, the use of food.  She suggested as I had identified an area with possibilities I should push it forward make more, expand, use more wool.   She suggested that I look at the work in relation to the space it occupied, but basically to keep going not to be anxious about it let loose and to enjoy it.    She thought my collage was less interesting.
After her chat and with our review looming I really did need to do more.   Thursday night went making another form.   This time I used bread, I thought how the body needed food to survive and to function.   Something as basic as bread could provide for this need, but for people with restricted diets and food intolerances it could thow the body completely off balance.
                                                           

 

For Friday mornings review I decided to link the pieces together with wool but it didn't work.   On their own each piece worked better.
I found this project hard and difficult to engage with.  The first day went researching and then procrastinating over ideas.   Mike said 'make it first judge it later' but even doing so didn't seem to help.  However I learned some valuable lessons from this week.   I need to consider all aspects of the materials I use, colour, texture, think about what the use of the material says or conveys not just to me but to other viewers too.  Another important lesson I feel I've learned this week is not to use materials just because I have them and because they're convenient.
By the way my favourite part of this weeks work is the collage and I have to say it was the most fun and enjoyable part of the week.