Thursday 4th April: Blue Shed
Me and Tess spent this day doing the first test set up for our actual installation in its new location of W8. We also tested stringing up the paint can as a last resort for if the hammer doesn't work. We actually quite liked the industrial-ness of the paint can, and the idea of it symbolising media coverup, or wilful ignorance, but (as Chris said) worried it wouldn't be as obviously destructive.
Tuesday 9th April: Screens, Sugar and Glass
After Julian's essay tutorial, me and Hannah decided to work on our installation projects. We collected a large amount of screens from Chris and wheeled them out to the Blue Shed (with much difficulty). Hannah then went to get some wire she'd ordered while me and Julian swapped out the blue ladder for the yellow one, as the blue one was needed back at London Gallery West for the 2nd Year CMP exhibition. After that, we went to Sainsbury's to buy an extra kilogram of sugar, to add to whatever sugar Hannah had left and melted down with a bit of water, then poured out onto baking trays, to make sugar glass that we could break around the floor for the installation. Her kitchen was extremely steamy afterwards, which unfortunately didn't photograph particularly well. The sugarglass has mixed results; of the eight we made, only one was perfectly clear, two were black (burnt) and the rest were varying shades of amber (although one was a very clear, transparent amber). Unfortunately, by the morning, at least two of them had melted, and one had actually pooled on Hannah's desk when I came to collect them.
Wednesday 10th April: Sledgehammers and Cement
On the Tuesday evening, I'd spoken to Chris about our air-suspended destructive objects. I quite liked the idea of the paint can, but Chris raised concerns about whether that had the destructive 'incentive' of the sledgehammer; he proposed a large concrete breeze block, but, of course, suspending this in the air would be an issue. On Wednesday morning, I went to Harrow-on-the-Hill B&Q and decided it would be a good idea to walk back carrying a 10kg bag of cement mix. It was not. When I arrived back, panting like a dog and visibly sweaty, I borrowed a bucket from London Gallery West and lined it with a bin bag (so as not to destroy their bucket -- thank you, John), before filling it about a fifth full of lukewarm water and hand-scooping in some cement mix. I took a cardboard box that the 3d workshop had given me, having a serious lack of more substantial block-shaped items, a began trying to coat it in cement. I had hoped that it would set into a solid-ish, breezeblock-looking cuboid that I could attach a hook to and suspend from the ceiling. Alas, I had no such luck: the cardboard box had a tendency to absorb water -- as cardboard does -- and so five out of the six faces had a certain concavity about them. Still, this wouldn't have been the end of the world and would have looked realistic; after all, it is actual concrete; however it also became crumbly and flakier than a Gregg's sausage roll, and by the end of the day it had next to no substantial corners left. This also raised the concert that midway through our installation, it might drop chunks of barely-dried concrete onto our audience. I decided to leave the block to (hopefully) dry overnight, but cut my losses and go back to HotH to pick up the B&Q sledgehammer -- before the end of this project, the guy who works there greeted me by name whenever I walked in. When Tess arrived, we finished setting up the actual installation, putting up the podiums, CRT screens, and trying to workout where we would project from -- we ultimately decided on having the projector attached to the yellow ladder, 'fragile'-taped in place.
Everything for the installation was done through MAX: The button was wired in to the Makey-Makey, and that was plugged in to my MacBook running MAX, so that when the button was pressed, the audio would shut off and the video would switch to the one of the hammer swinging into the screens, which cuts to a shot of shattering glass, and then television static. The parts of the projection that cover the CRT screens would then switch back to the camera live-feeds, from the cameras that were also wired in to MAX. I also wired in to additional wires so that I could hide my laptop under the button's plinth, so that I could 'remotely' start the installation; when the two wires were touched together, everything would start.
By Wednesday evening, everything was pretty much ready for Thursday morning; what could possibly go wrong?
