last visit to the family home

My brother and I  have been back to our family home for what is likely to be the last time. We worked really hard in the heat to salvage what we could of mum and dad's belongings before the BHF came and took various furniture and electricals. The buyers have said they will dispose of the rest which is a huge relief. Mum was very overwhelmed and unhappy when I took back various boxes of photos, momentos and other paraphernalia for her to sort through. She said she had wanted us to throw all this stuff away. There is not way I could bring myself to ruthlessly dispose of her memories - the lock of baby hair and so on. Now she has calmed down I think we will probably sort it together. I wonder how that will be?? I wonder if I will learn anything more about our family, her depressions and anxiety and so on.  I wonder if I could make an audio tape of these sessions...

I didn't manage to take any more images - too much work to do! I did find the 'high gable' sign that used to hang over the front door.

update on exposures archive

Good news! It seems that the Womens' Art Library at Goldsmiths are very interested in our archive material. We hope to meet in September when everyone returns from vacation. I think we should be able to get a really good collection of photographs, press cuttings and video together for them.  

cs3, final cut and research

I've spent my last two official research days following a tutorial for PhotoShop CS3. There are some new additions and changes that look quite interesting so I look forward to getting the update in the near future to try out some of these features. Last week I spent some time in Final Cut Pro trying out some ideas with the HD video I shot at my parents house. I put together some good visual sequences over a conversation between myself and the estate agent. Ultimately I think I will include many of the digitial stills that I shot as these allow for a more contemplative consideration of the piece. Trying to figure out how to change the aspect ratio of these to match the 16:9 of the video. I will be visiting my parents house for the last time next Saturday and intend to take my stills camera again. The British Heart Foundation are clearing a couple of lorry loads from the house but I am not sure that I will have the emotional or physical creative space to get to grips with any more video over there.

more pictures from paris

daniel's appartmentout the window and over the rooftopsthe thinker lost in thoughtan eiffle of the seine

delicious pastriesxxxxxxx

I love my phone

When I'm at home I have a picture of Big Ben on my phone, when I can't get a signal there is green fields, when I was in Crete there was a picture of the Acropolis - and look what I got in Paris!!

paris

Spent last weekend in Paris with old pal Pauline and staying with mutual friend Daniel. What a wonderful time we had. Daniel's amazing appartment is very central, near Bastille, so we did loads of walking, visiting the Rodin Museum, Pompidou Centre, and taking in the sights. We were also lucky to see the Melies - the Magician Of Cinema exhibition at The Cinematheque Francaise - a great opportunity to catch up on the work of a pioneer in special FX that I previously knew little about. Popped along to visit the graves of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde in the amazing Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise. Add to that some wonderful food and wine together with tasty cake and foot baths provided by our host - a real treat! Pauline and I are already planning to get away to the Venice Biennale next year...

research profile and demo of work

The following links to my UCCA research page

http://www.ucreative.ac.uk/index.cfm?articleid=9596

The link below is to a pilot project for academics and artists to upload their work to web. My 3 screen HD video piece, living room, takes ages to download and only works on pcs. reconnection loads quickly, but is likely to only work on pcs too. Will be trying to resolve this for Mac users in the near future.

http://kultur-demo.eprints.org/view/creators/Gunn,_Rosie.html