The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

A film by Julian Schanabel based on the book/memoir written by Jean-Dominique Bauby who was the editor of  French Elle. The film is based on the book Jean-Dominique Bauby wrote after suffering a massive stroke leaving him completely paralyzed, leaving him only his one remaining eye to communicate.  Using a blinking system to translate the alphabet he was able to fulfil his dream of writing a book about his life. 

The diving bell represents himself, trapped in his body and the butterfly represents the part of him untouched by the stroke, his memory, his dreams and his imagination.

The film starts in a blur, purposely leaving the viewer confused and making it hard to focus on what is on screen. The rest of the film is filled with light and hope almost as though he might recover but still there is an overwellming sense of sadness, that this intelligent creative man is stuck in a motionless body. 

Liverpool

Took a trip to liverpool on tuesday, visited the Tate as I haven't been for a while. Forgot to take my notebook with me so I'm going to go back in a few weeks armed and ready for when the Ideas Taking Space exhibition starts on December the 16th.
My favourite pieces that i saw were Sarah Lucas Beyond the Pleasure Principle, I always like Lucas instillations.
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=68735
I also loved the piece on the ground floor by David Atlmejd, I found it so inspirational and exciting I could of spent hours looking at it and still discover something new.
http://biennial.com/content/LiverpoolBiennial2008MADEUP/DavidAltmejd/Overview.aspx

In the Tate shop i found a book on Louise Bourgeois which I really wished I bought
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=68735

I also found a really good Tracy Emin book which Ive never been able to find before, usually all the books I find are about her public image not about her work, this was the exception.
http://www.tracey-emin.co.uk/

This week

I haven't found this week to be a very productive week, I have been searching the internet most of this week trying to find a blue print or even a set of instructions on how to make a zoeatrope or a praximoscope. This has been pretty hopeless and I have struggled to produce one without this information.
I also found that the Cross course crit on monday made me start to rethink my idea and not trust my instincts as I found not many useful comments were made about my work, it seemed alot more negative than positive. I don't work well with only negative feedback.
I have been trying to get my essays sorted all week but haven't had much luck with that either as most of the books are wanted were all out so I have had to use similar books making the process of finding the useful parts near impossible because I dont have any page numbers to go by.
I did however check out the exhibition at the holden gallery showing lots of peoples sketchbooks, i found this really inspiring and it made me rethink how i present my work.
Oh and I also went to the afternoon talk about the journals which confused me even more than before.
So not a great week really, Im hoping next week will be more productive.

My First Animation

This is an animation I have made by hand stitching on top of my own photos to create a simple animation to be used as a flip book.