As you may know, our show at the Slade Research Centre closes tomorrow so we are having a closing party from 2 to 6pm. There will be a DJ and some free booze but I dare say that we are bound to run out early so please feel free to bring along a bottle and as many friends as you like.
However, if you can’t make it to the closing party but still want to feel like you were there, why not pop on your 3D specs (come on, we’ve all got an emergency pair stashed away somewhere) and check out this 3D photo of my sculpture – taken by the fantastically talented Mr Ben Ashton (also exhibiting at the show).
The Brain Unravelled
UCL Slade Research Centre
Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AB
Tube: Russell Square
www.thebrainunravelled.com
info@thebrainunravelled.com
Closing Party: Sat 19th September 2009, 2-6 pm
Closing Party – The Brain Unravelled (in 3D)
The Brain Unravelled – Opening Party
I woke today, after the excesses of last night’s opening party, and felt like my brain had been unravelled. A mixture of red wine, white wine, Guinness and two and a half hours sleep are definitely not conducive with having to get up bright and early at 7 AM.
I’d like to say thanks to everyone who made it to the show and apologise for my drunken ramblings – damn, I’ve just remembered that there was a video camera in front of my face at one point – that’s not gonna look pretty.
Well, everything went well. The turn out was fantastic and lots of people seemed to be having fun interacting with my sculpture. In fact there were quite a few interactive pieces in the show. Ben Ashton’s gigantic viewer sculpture, that alters your depth perception and makes everything look like a little scale model, has to one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition.
I say that everything went well – however, there was a bit of a crossing of wires which meant that some people were left waiting outside while the Culture Minister gave her opening speech inside. So sorry to anybody who had to wait and I hope that the show was reward enough for your patience. I know I had a bloody good time – at least that’s what everyone is telling me ;o)
Oh - I've just remebered another thing. Tonight is the final Tuesday late view (6-10 pm) for the Candid Gallery Summer Show. As I have 11 pieces in the show I had better pop along, although I doubt that I will be celebrating quite as fully as I did last night. For details of the show please check out the details somewhere below. Cheers.
Photos by Phil Sofer
The Brain Unravelled – Set Up
Well, I’ve just finished setting up my work for tomorrow evening’s The Brain Unravelled opening party. This is the first time that I’ve actually seen what my assembled sculpture looks like – I had just been making it in sections and hoping for the best once it came to the assembly stage. The fun (and also annoying) thing about this piece is that it can be put together in an infinite number of configurations. The form that it eventually took for this show is a careful compromise between aesthetics, stability and what can be seen through the periscope viewers. However, the views through the piece should be more interesting once the space fills up with gallery goers – it’s hard not to smile when you peer into a little window and see a face peering back at you.
In the background of the photo above, you can see part of an installation by the Storm Thorgerson – the guy behind all those iconic Pink Floyd album covers.
I was hoping to see what work Anthony Gormley had submitted for the show but it had not been set up before I left so I’ll just have to wait till tomorrow evening.
If anybody would still like to come to the opening party please email your name to info@thebrainunravelled.com by 3 pm Monday 7th September to be included on the guest list.
Summer Show - Final Tuesday Late View
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to last night’s late opening at Candid Gallery’s Summer Show as I was busy setting up my work for the next exhibition that I will be involved with – namely, The Brain Unravelled (opening party, Monday 7th Sept – so get your name on the guest list) at The Slade Research Centre, Woburn Square, London.
However, I will be going along to Candid Gallery’s final Tuesday late view for the show on the 8th September. So if you would like to join me there for a drink and come and see what I’ve put in the show, the address is 3-5 Torrens Street (behind Angel Tube Station), Islington, London.
Hopefully see you there.
The Brain Unravelled – Work In Progress
Well, as you can see, I’m still working on my cardboard sculpture for The Brain Unravelled. It would have been great to have an extra week or so to work on the piece, and make it even larger, but everything should come together in time. The final structure is going to be slightly different from my original sketch. Instead of all the sections being stuck together in one rigid mass I’ve decided that I’m going to display them as a higgledy-piggledy pile. This seems to be more in-keeping with the ‘unravelled’ part of the show’s title and allows for me to keep adding to the work so that it becomes a bigger and bigger piece each time it is shown.
If anyone would like to come along to The Brain Unravelled’s opening party on Monday 7th September please email me your name so that I can put you on the guest list, or contact the curator, Rose Lopes, directly at info@thebrainunravelled.com . My email address is waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk .
As well as work from the likes of Anthony Gormley and contributions from some of the top names in neuroscience and anthropology, the show will be opened by Barbara Follett, the Minister of Culture.
So, I hope to see some of you there.
The Brain Unravelled
UCL Slade Research Centre
Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AB
Tube: Russell Square
www.thebrainunravelled.com
info@thebrainunravelled.com
8 – 19 September 2009
Private View: 7 September 2009, 6 – 9pm
The Brain Unravelled (Cardboard Brain)
I’ve been clocking up quite a few late nights recently, trying to complete a new sculpture for the forthcoming exhibition, The Brain Unravelled, at the Slade Research Centre in Woburn Square, London. The show opens in a couple of weeks on the 7th September but to be perfectly honest, progress so far has been a bit slow. My idea for the show was to make a mass of interlocking, multi angled periscopes. Above, you can see my initial sketch which I’ve been using as a loose working drawing. For this piece I’ve been working with cardboard and Perspex mirrors. I had initially toyed with the idea of making it out of wood but considering the limited time frame that I had to work with that seemed a little unrealistic. Plus, after working in cardboard on the maquette for my last sculpture, I had started to develop a bit of an appreciation for the versatilities of this under rated material – which can be surprisingly strong, when used correctly.
Anyway – getting away from my peculiar obsession with materials – I suppose I should mention something about the show and the reasoning behind my sculpture.
The Brain Unravelled is a multi-disciplinary exhibition, pulling together the fields of art, anthropology and neuroscience (I can’t wait to see what the boffins are bringing to the party – it should be amazing). As well as the artwork, which will include painting, photography, mixed media, installation, sculpture, textile, film and some experimental anthropology, there will be a series of talks and events during the show which runs from 7th – 19th September. One of the central themes of the show is the ‘concept’ of consciousness. The show also aims to highlight some of the fascinating areas of current brain research – whilst also drawing our attention to how little we still know about the workings of the mind. Amongst the many people contributing to the show you will find Anthony Gormley, Storm Thorgerson, Future Sound of London, Liliane Lijn, Beau Lotto, Chris Knight, Brian Butterworth, Chris Frith and many more. For details of the show and links to all the artists and scientists personal sites check out - http://www.thebrainunravelled.com/index.html
Although I have strong interests in certain areas of neuroscience and contemporary physics I do admit that most of it goes over my head, so I’m approaching the work for this show from a more intuitive stance. I see my piece as a being a very basic analogy of one aspect of the brain – that of an imperfect (yet marvellous) device for perceiving and interacting with the outside world. I am fascinated by the fact that the world we see around us only exists that way in our heads, because that is the way that our limited senses translate what information we can absorb.
The piece that I am building will rely on viewer interaction to a certain extent. By looking into one of the many window sections of the work the viewer will see what appears to be a distant window to the world outside of the sculpture. However, a series of mirrors will have been reflecting this view over a number of right angles so that if someone else happened to look back at the viewer from the other end of that particular section of the sculpture they may appear upside down to the original viewer and could even be standing next to them, rather than down the other end of what appears to be a long straight corridor. So the viewer sees what the cardboard brain sees - a distorted and isolated view of the world outside.
