LEVEL 5 - THE RETURN OF PADFOOT

That's right... I'm back, baby. 

My second year of university is in pretty much full swing, and it's been pretty kick-ass so far. 

There's some new faces in the studio this year, as well as the old ones. Michael Wright is still as amazing and bat-shit insane as ever, and I've nicely slipped back into my regular work ethic of sort of just mucking about. As you do.

I've managed to chunk out a surprising amount of work - I was actually kind of worried at first. Me? Doing work? Don't be ridiculous. But no, the ideas are coming thick and fast, so that's one problem solved.

The subject of duality was something I was looking at over the summer, polar opposites that can't exist without each other. For example, light and dark, a lock and key, happiness and sadness; you get the idea.

Hoping to make a short film out of this, but so far it's on the back burner.

Also, to get the creative juices flowing again, I decided to throw together every single photo I took last year into a kind of stop-motion animation. In a way, its like a journey - you get to see snatches of places I've been, work that I've done, and people that I've seen. In another, its a completely bonkers audio/visual assault on the senses.

So here it is. Unfortunately YouTube compressed the living shit out of it, so its very low quality. Also it would have taken a whole day to render it properly if I'd done it in HD, and I'm just a tad too impatient.

I should probably give it a better name too.

Photos (c) me 2012. You thieving bastards.

Music - Juular by Devin Townsend Project

I wrote a short story as well, provisionally entitled Papercuts, about a middle-aged analogue photographer who just can't seem to make it in the digital future of the art world. This was based on some of my own vague anxieties about the future, and whether my particular practice would still be relevant in 20 years time.

Here's a short excerpt...

Since proper photo chemicals had gotten so expensive, Alan had started to make his own with his limited knowledge of chemistry. Alan entered a Zen-like state of calm, weighing out the ingredients he needed for his chemical wizardry... Mixing the chemicals made him feel peculiar – after a minute he recognised it as the thrill of creation, an unusual singing which resonated through his body and made his nerves tingle. This was something he hadn't felt for a while. Once the chemicals were prepared, he checked all his equipment in the corner of the flat dedicated to printing, and closed the blackout blinds in his windows. The apartment was plunged into complete darkness, and a muffled silence descended, interrupted by the flick of a light switch. Red safety lights pinged and sputtered into life, and Alan exhaled. He was ready.

Has that tickled your fancy? It better have.
I'd publish the whole thing but its like, three pages long. Will probably chuck it on a seperate blog post when i've finished all the final tweakings.

Until then - ciao for now.

- Padfoot