MA IM: Final Expo

Last week we had our degree show and although it was good to see weeks and weeks of work culminating in an event like this, I feel a bit sad about the end of the practical part of our course. So yes, we had an exposition, not to mix up with an exhibition, which means that we were meant to show work in progress and explain our methodologies, rather than worrying about a polished presentation of our projects.

Exhibitions (or expositions) are funny. Preparing an exhibition is like renovating your home. It's all about banal practical things and about getting it done with all the necessary tools within an unthinkable amount of time. It's the time when the simplest things go wrong. It's when the simplest things make you feel proud of yourself. You will laugh, but this was the first time in my life I drilled and put up shelves on a wall. The first time I painted furniture was for my BA degree show. Anila didn't allow me to cut the wood though, saying that it's too thick and that it might be dangerous if I've never done it before. At lease I was allowed to hold it, while she was cutting :))

Our last crisis and problem solving meeting on the day before the opening.

On the opening day I expected the whole set up to go wrong, like it so often does. Funnily, the shelf which previously refused to carry the weight of the massive 1950's radio, held it for another three days of the expo. Even all the mini dvd player were working fine, except for one, which decided that is despises the disc inside of it shorty after the opening, although both of them were getting along fairly well for the last 4 hours before it.

I remember that preparing our BA degree show one of our tutors used to say: "I don't want to see anyone drilling on the day of the opening!!!" Ha, she would have died, if she had seen our technician Alan drilling DURING the opening and putting up a shelf for Bayan's projector...(due to several unlucky circumstances) Just to give you the taste of our organisational skills and the charm of DIY. 

As some of you already know, my project is about human extension through media around 1940s-50s-60s the time when radio was of a political importance, when people went to the movies 3 times a week, when first telephones and TVs came into people's homes, etc. It's also about rethinking our current relationship with computers, our hanging on the phone in public spaces discussing private matters and many, many other things. It's about questioning the impact of media on our social, cultural and political life. 

Ok, enough talking! Let me show you around!

Ta-daaaa. Four sets of interviews, three illustrations, a 1950's radio, rotary-dial telephone,

camera and a don't-know-which-year Morse signalling thing for ships. 

All tidy and waiting for the first visitors.

One of my interviewee - Graham's mother.

Anila listening to one of the interviews.

An interview with Ilja's grandparents and with Lena, in Russian only

The radio is still working!

Shu Lea - the organiser of the Moving Forest ( I wrote about it here)

Bayan and Anna

And now some other pieces. Unfortunately, I only have a few,
there were actually many more...

Aesthetically the most beautiful project, in my opinion. A huge room was full of these old dot-printers, all making incredible noise and printing different patterns of letters and signs. 

The project explored the idea of permutations. 

Getting data from a sunlight antenna which was standing outside...

 Operating two water pumps through a data base of tracked mood values...

Anna K's project documentation in the old bathroom ;)

Marco and Bayan

Marco's project was about the way ill people perceive colours. After helping me with the 

documentation of my first workshop at Time and Talents, he decided to do a workshop there as well.

Bayan was projecting words in Arabic on different sites in the city.

Tom worked with a speech recognition device, which would look for word "money" while scanning through different radio stations and print the relevant sentence... The printer stopped working one day before the opening. Typical behaviour...

  

The next day. Celebrating Tom's birthday.

And the last day. The radio goes home!