So much for not having much to blog about...

That was a bit of an essay I just posted! Oh well!
Just remembered an interesting article I read the other day about performance art being sellable.
It talks about different ways in which performance art can be sold, the two main ones being, as a video or some other form of documentation, the second being the buyer actually purchasing the idea behind the piece and receiving instructions on how to re-create the performance themselves. 
I admit I did scim through the article a little bit, but it was the fact that people do actually sell performance art that interested me. 
I wonder how much my 'Nuce Brauman' script would go for on eBay?!


Read the full article here.

Long time no post..

Can't believe I've not updated this since August!

To be honest I don't really have much to blog about. I started working in a shop two months ago, so I've been working most days trying to save up for my Australia trip. The job is fine and the people I work with are nice, but I just feel like my brain is slowly dying as I'm not having to think about much while I'm there. I want to be doing something that's making me think and that is something I really love doing and am passionate about, but unfortunately I don't have any idea what that is!

With blogs, Twitter and Facebook all keeping me updated with exciting things other people are doing, lots related to art, I almost feel guilty in a way for not making more of an effort to keep my performance practice going. I don't know why but I just can't bring myself to start making new work. I don't know whether it's the fact that now I'm not in university I have to work a lot harder to get my work seen so have less motivation to do something, or that I'm actually not interested enough in making artwork to carry on with it. Who knows...

I wish I could just have a few weeks of not having to work, just to think about what I actually want to do with my life... Yes, I'm going to Australia next year, but what about when I come back? I don't want to slip back into my current daily routine which at the moment consists of going to work, then at least three of the following: obsessively researching Australia, seeing my boyfriend, watching rubbish TV, reading about what other people have been up to on social networking sites, eating and sleeping... 

I suppose I just have to take one step at a time and not worry so much about what everyone else is doing, or what other people think I should be doing. At the moment I need to work to get money, so I can go to Australia next year, the one thing I am certain I want to do. It's a means to an end, as my mum keeps telling me! Maybe my travels will give me time to reflect and help me decide what I want to do next and see what life brings...

Australia!

So, I've been doing a lot of thinking recently, and I still have no idea what I want to do, so I've decided to go to Australia for a year! I went last summer briefly and loved it there, so I'm going to get a working holiday visa and spend a year picking fruit, working in hostels and doing lots of other backpacker jobs inbetween traveling around and hopefully having lots of fun!

I'm hoping to get there by around March 2011, once I've saved up enough money. I've managed to get myself a job but a minimum wage job isn't going to earn me a lot... and now I'm a proper grown up I have to actually pay tax now! Pfft.

So yes, hopefully if all goes to plan I'll be heading to the land of Kangaroos, Vegemite and Neighbours next March!

Officially a graduate of Fine Art at NTU...

Well, it's all over... doesn't feel real somehow.

I had an absolutely amazing graduation day. Managed not to fall over walking across the stage and managed to see lots of people who I might never see again, or at least not for a while anyway.

It feels so strange that I'll never be going back to uni for a lecture or show & listen seminar, and I have absolutely no idea what the future holds - it's scary! 

But for now, here's a photo of me in my graduation gear! It's been a great 3 years :)

Athens!

This isn't really art related but seeing as it's my blog I have decided I don't have to talk about art related stuff all the time!

Just got back from a lovely holiday in Athens. Was a nice break from sorting out my room - which still isn't finished!!

The hotel we stayed in was amazing, it had an outdoor pool and lots of bars! We also got an upgrade so we got a buffet breakfast, canapes and soft drinks from 12-4pm, and canapes and an open bar (my favourite part hehe) from 6-9pm!

Athens itself is such an interesting city, although a lot of parts seem quite run down, the architecture is amazing.

So seeing as I'm not great at describing things, here is a small selection of photos!

Victor Borge

I've been going back and looking through some of my research, and found these videos of Victor Borge's, 'Inflationary Langauge' and 'Phonetic Punctuation'. I wish I'd come up with these ideas!

Might have to try them out with some of my own writing at some point, just to experiment :)

"Nerd Play" performance

Finally got round to uploading my final performance for my Fine Art degree. I've uploaded a short 2 minute clip of the good quality documentation on my website, but here is the full length performance in front of an audience on assessment day! Sorry about the awful quality.

What to do next?

I've been home for a week now and I'm already missing Nottingham and being an art student! While trying to unpack and sort out my bedroom, and getting used to living with my parents again, I've been thinking about what I actually want to do.. and the truth is I have no idea.

I've been thinking of applying for the Surface Gallery's 'Open Show' in Nottingham, but I'm not really sure how my performance work would fit into an actual exhibition. For the degree show my most successful performance was for the private view, as the audience was a good size. I did one other performance during the week it was open to the public, but even then I had a set audience: the new Fine Art first years. So I don't know whether just having a time slot every day of an exhibition would work, as it could only attract one or two people which, for a lecture style performance, would be a bit pointless. 

I feel like I could do with another couple of months in uni! As I only really started to feel like I was getting somewhere with my work, and actually starting to enjoy it, towards the end of the year. I think I could extend and build upon my work further, but without the pressure of uni deadlines, will I have the motivation?

I don't want my performance practice to end yet, but I'm unsure of how to move it forward outside the safety net of the Fine Art course.

Results!

I got my results for my degree at 1.10am today! I got a 2.1, with 65% which I'm really pleased with!

Congratulations to everyone else who has got their results :)

Nerd Play...

Here's a photo of a video of my performance...

Euro-English

A tutor sent this to me today, thought it was funny and worth putting on here! Enjoy! :)

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than the other possibility, German.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as 'Euro-English'.

In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of 'k'. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced with 'f'. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and after ziz fifz yer, vevil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer,ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forstplas.

NTU Fine Art Degree Show!

Had the private view for our degree show last night. It went really well :) There's some really good work this year I think!

I did my performance at 8pm and had about 75 people in the audience which I was really pleased with. Had some good feedback after too, was pleased that a tutor who marked my work in February thought my performance had progressed really well! 

I'm soo tired today though. Got a few days break now til my final performance on Wednesday in front of the new first years! Will be interesting to see how they react.

Anyway, here are a few picture from the show! I'll post a video of my performance soon!

Enjoy :)

New Website!

Finally got round to buying my own domain and I've started building my new website! Hardly anything on it at the moment, and it's probably just a temporary layout but I just wanted to have something on there!

www.helenturley.co.uk

Rindercella!

One of my favourite ways spoonerisms have been used!

New Year!

Haven't written anything for a while... oh well!

My work has changed quite a bit since I last wrote on here, I'm now doing performance work which is really scary! Still based on the same stuff, like word manipulation etc, but now it's performed!

For a show&listen seminar in uni I did my first performance and it actually went well! I used stuff I'd written in my travel journal and edited the text using the N+7 method. I performed this as if I was just talking about my holiday, I used visuals in a slideshow to emphasize the fact that the words I was saying did not relate to the pictures.

People said it was almost as if I'd made up my own language which was interesting! Because some words were repeated a lot, the viewer could understand what the word was referring to. For example, the word "city" becomes "civil war" when translated using the N+7 method!

Just need to work out how to move the work forward ready for the degree show, scary!