Arm measuring nipple measuring

limbs, digits
I don't know
where to look

invisible communities

A test to see if covering all the faces of on the stage set might work. Image selection still open but I'm interested in keeping it to published/distributed media (albums, magazines, posters, book covers etc) - media that makes, and echos communities.

I miss a community here. I want more visibility. Where are all the gays in my immediate community, on the art scene? We seem a little thin on the ground here. Where are we on the street? I know there is a gay scene here, but it seems so underground. I don’t think I’m looking in the right places. I can’t be.
So I've been curiously digging around online, following one link to another, finding a plethora of bands, albums, interviews, tv series, movies, blog - whatever might lean towards a familiar echo - and finding good company in them. My friend accurately described it recently as the potential of any distributed media to create an invisibly connected community.

Curse

Hum de hum. I need some sleep, but thinking about the roll, the scroll and the potentials of a sequence to surprise.

Talk in the morning. Yeah.

Roar

Really looking forward to talking soon. In the meantime, here's image highlights of today's bonus shoot... we went a little left of field of shooting the blank stages...

Bedroom as whitely-lit stage

Oh and some uploads of the torches - available on black or white!



























...umm, er, sometimes science just doesn't work! Clearly science can't explain everything!

I am, talking in images

and then she said ...

Woo Aaaa Hooo

We did some shooting today with the hired camera. I think Clare fell in love with the lens. Anyway, these are some of the images we took:

Can we join your safari Rachel?

Pretty please?

Heeeey, I can see my house from here

Along with the safari look, we also did some piles of abandoned clothes:


This our mock-up for a hyperbola of clothing, in a lightbox format (click to enlarge):

And a yummy version of the lesbian rule (which we do by the way):

For some mysterious reason, we have been given an extra day with the camera tomorrow. This is a super lucky situation, as we only have about four hours of decent natural light in Rotterdam at the mo. So, Clare is going to do some more images including:

• An image of a print-out of a copy of the "nipple painting"
• The stage sets
• torches
  

Feel free to send any requests, and let us know how you feel, don't feel, want to feel about the above images....

the interweb killed the TV star

just a sketch think it looks a little too on the album art side of things BUT wooop! here it izz xx

Semi Technical, Somewhat Spatial

It's really nice to see how our work so far sits together (might I just mention that this is our 100th post!). I have been looking over some of the blog archive (!) today and I think it is a super accumulation of really amazing thinking and talking and experimentation.

While reveling in our collective choice-ness, I also have a few things bobbing about in terms of making a meeting between our work and the lightboxes. I opened up the birds-eye view today:

Firstly, I thought the trees a NOT that big, or broccoli-like right? But also the lightboxes (and some of the trees for that matter) are clearly arranged in pairs, and it reminded me about how different the street side/footpath sides are. When I was in Wellington enjoying the sunshine (boohoo), I noticed that pedestrians really don't walk on the street side unless they are looking specifically at the lightboxes, but, according to this handy diagram, cars and buses drive past there all the bleeding time. I would propose that the footpath side pairs make intimate spaces for viewing, and the street side works more like a grouped sign space.

I started thinking about the two sides in response to your Rouugh az layout Liz. It was really cool to see a really hot, kind of streamlined, graphic approach to the light-boxes as a group, but I also really like quite a number of the single lightbox images/designs that have appeared on the blog, and think there is loads of potential in sitting lightboxes with quite different visual spaces next to each other -- even if they "roll" blog-style, or intervene with each other. So, I wonder if you guys would be interested in working with the two sides differently? Can we think about them as two different facets of the project? A kind of popaganda space on the street side and a more slow-paced, intimate collection on the footpath side? What I am imagining is to follow what I took from your lay-out Liz, and use the street side for pattern/graphics/text approach that used all eight lightboxes as a single work -- really thinking about traffic being the main type of encounter (as the cover of our book?). Perhaps we could only use sign-writer style vinyl for these sides? And the footpath sides being a combination of text/image/graphic that asked for a closer relationship -- small-print text, more complicated image combinations, etc... basically a electric combination of what we have posted as single/pairs of images.

The other thing is kind of more low-level technical note in response to your idea, Rachel, of making a bi-peep through from one light-box to the other side. Clare explained to me today about what the light boxes look like inside and how they work (thanks C, you rule!). But first illustration A:
So this is an empty lightbox. The lights are in the frame of the lightbox, running down the vertical sides. The way the light is distributed across the back of each image is via a nifty sheet of perspex that sits between the two images. Why is this sheet nifty I hear you ask... well, this sheet of perspex is scored in a fine grid pattern, and this grid catches the light coming from the frame of the lightbox. During the day (as in the above image) the lights are off, so you cannot see the grid, but at night the grid would be visible if you stood close to the lightbox. So, Rachel, regarding your great cut out hole idea:

Thinking about the interlocking girl circles back in the early posts - with the woman by the pool. How about circular holes - quite big on one side of the light-box - say black vinyl with hole cut out so you can see through to other side of light box where there might be text like Katy Perry... or Gay-der! ? Not sure, just pondering more ocular wannabe moments - and I guess I'm finding the bino's optimum ocular imagery and wanting to know if they would work with a building up or repetitive notation of them across some of the light boxes, i.e. me in the long grass, bino's on blue background etc...

We would have to be aware that at night this hole (depending on its size) might turn into a ball of light from the gridded perspex instead of a view to the other side. Keeping that in mind though, I think the idea is a super good one. Activating a different kind of looking. I imagine that the text we wanted to be seen through the hole would have to be printed backwards -- so it was seen the right way through the hole. As an invitation to get closer. If we do want to work with the two sides as different facets of the project, this would also be a point to break this difference.

OK, last thing. Clare and I have rented a camera for tomorrow. It is some kind of fancy pants digital image making machine, so we thought to pass on that if there is anything more general you guys would like photographed, let us know by your 9pm, and we can do our best. On our image-list at the mo is:

• re-photographing Clare's lesbian rule
  
• pile of abandoned clothes
• hyperbola of abandoned clothes
• some hand-binoculars (to add to Rachel's safari team)
• re-photographing Clare's stage
• coloured-beam torches
  

Did I mention that this is our 100th post! Here is a little something special:

Ruth Buchanan, A Different Kind of Love, 2007, video still

Rouugh az LAY- OUT

So this is a real real quick-is-best visual for how I have been thinking a final layout might appear, I realised after mocking up that it will probably look real different but I'm gunna post it anyway in the spirit of PROCESS, wattya all thinkin??

binoculars on girls on safari

rough and ready - the les of the future-past/ past-perfect?


And for consideration in our list of titles: breasts of the 70s, 80s, 90s and today

Twinset

Ok so
another
try-out
with
Rachel's Topp Twin's Letter.

Continuing to run with Marnie's choice of bear image
I came up with this one on the left first




But then thought about tone of Rachel's address (...perhaps led by her original choice of typewriter-ish typeface) the form of the writing, which struck me half way between letter, email, blog post, and poster on a backpacker notice board. ...so thought of trying an A4 printed letter style, blown up to A3 like a poster. Here is the close up of the - very MS Dos, meets simple blog, meets electronic typewriter - A3 letter:



And above is the mockup of the A3 paired with another element that came out of today's play, that Marnie picked out.
The mock-up shows front and back view of one of the lightboxes. The lightbox is empty except for the cut-out star and A3 letter (stuck on alternate sides), so the blue gradient in the mock-up = transparent.

Questions

Why work together collaboratively rather than make single works?

Are your individual roles in the project different?

What is the significance of the table top images y'all (mostly) have posted?

... just getting on with the essay...

gay shroud??

Jus a quick post, this has been my facebook profile image for a bit, thought it might suit you Rachel?

Pair of Hmmms

Whole lot of things happened (ie big mistakes) when I was making this. But, I did discover the "faux bold" button in photoshop. What could that mean?


I just looked at this and think the light green shape needs to move more towards being a scroll perhaps... but I am also wary of when bad design encroaches on good writing, so I wanted to show this to you Rachel so you can say "woah, ease-up" before it is too late... dum, dum, dum. Also, the rainbow bear made me smile here, what you you think?

A +

I thought I would put this up as a component avaliable to a good home or two. The graphic is on a separate layer, so you should just be able to open it in photoshop and drag for an instant A+ on your homework.

UPDATE: OK, so apparently jpegs cannot have layers. You learn something everyday eh?

A proposal

I've put all this in the calendar but it is a provisional plan open for any changes.
I admit its a bit of a crazy schedule, so move around if anything is unrealisitc! Dates/times NZ.

Saturday 20 November
8pm Skype date #7: Finalise set of images and sequence for meeting.
In between make any changes to images and supply final posted via blog/email to Liz or Rachel.
Clare to make a start on preparing files based on this selection.
Do we need to arrange a couple of people to be in charge of editing any text which will be included in the lightbox layouts?

Sunday 21 November
10pm All image/text material to be supplied
Upload hi-res images via free FTP server online.
(To avoid upload/download issues...you may need to zip the files. Also keep all file names short, removing any spaces and bizarre characters.)
Send via email(s) to Clare:
- final edited texts supplied in a word doc
- any smaller images, or AI/Indesign (vector) graphics you wish to use (under 8MB)
- FTP links for the hi-res images
- please note any typeface names down too

Tuesday 23 November
11am Meeting with Eve & Abby (MJD,LA,RO?)
10am Provisional Proof (#1): Clare to email PDF proof: Full set of 16 light-box images.
Please email any changes (for any layouts you supplied images/text/instructions for) by 10pm that evening. Sorry about the tight turn-around but this call for corrections is just to check that things weren't lost between your draft versions and the full-size layouts!

Wednesday 24 November
10am Proof (#2): Clare to email corrected PDFs: Full set of 16 light-box images plus sequence mockup.

Wednesday 24 November or Thursday 25 November????
...what's better? ... to have time with the proofs before or after our skype ???
8pm Proposed Skype Date #8: Re: how the images are working as a whole, any changes/editing of layouts.

Friday 26 November
10am Final Proof (#3): Final set of layouts & mockup of sequence - to be proofed for mistakes. Suggest we break up this task up and have 2 main people proofing, including one text expert to take special responsibility for proofing text!
Absolutely final changes to be submitted via email by 10pm.

Saturday 27 November
10am Absolutely Final Proof (#4): if required!
10pm Images to DPOD: Clare to upload images to FTP site.

Sunday 28 November
Day Off!!!
International Girlfriend Dance Like a Screensaver Day!
Seriously, try it.




Monday 30 November
Deadline for Images and Label Info to DPOD.
Clare to confirm image delivery OK with DPOD via email.

Mon 30 November - Monday 13 December
Proofing of images at DPOD
Liz and Rachel to liase with DPOD.

Monday 13 -Thursday 16 December
Installation: by Abbey Signs. Mary-Jane, Liz and Rachel keep an eye on installation process?

Thursday 16 December
6pm Official Opening: OMG! its here Party!


File supply notes.

• If scanning images: please provide original scan (preferably un-colour-corrected). If you have the option at scanning, choose RGB, and 16bit over 8bit. You'll need to aim for 72ppi at the size you want it to appear. Happy for you to save these original files as jpegs on compression 8 if you want to reduce the file size down, but don't re-save jpegs after that.
  
• If taking original digital photographs: please shoot/provide in RAW format. (ie highest amount of information with no compression).
• Any images made up of more than one image, being used for the final image layouts - I am happy to make it up from scratch using the sample draft layouts. Just provide all the components in the most original version you have of those files.
• As you probably know, if you want to use images from the internet to - they'll get pretty pixelly and lack information when scaled to the size of the light-boxes, what ever I do. But, let me know how you want them to look once they're blown up. eg. crispy pixels, soft but grubby pixels, or looking as nice as possible such as a blurring or putting grain/noise back into the image.
• If you need to check a image res and it's emailable, send it ahead of schedule.
  

Woah, OK. Umm?!!! All those in favour call $$$$ now!

K8 Hardy & Men

Back to some recent contemporary outputs...
COLLAGE COLLAGE COLLAGE

we subject I object I subject we object

hito?

one way we could introduce the blog address

contemporary

mock up

Rolling in the Bush

Here is a go at the crowd activator/inexaustable audience motivator:


And a le pair:

PS. This blog is totally blowing my mind with its outpouring of goodies. Right now though, I am going to try and drag Clare to bed.... talk soon folks.

PPS. I am really into the idea that was mentioned last skype, if I remember correctly, of giving each light-box side its own title. The blog labels are really working for me. For example, the following list would make an amazing title:

lesbian rule + falling for a pair of (in the bath)

Hey, I'm posting some tests - and don't have print-outs of all the images so sorry for maybe some odd pairings. Jeez though this @#$% is looking hot!

falling for a pair of + guchi test

Gay-der!

Just thinking through what might work together and I like the anecdotal bar scripts with something more one-liner-ish but sophisticatedly so - in vein of the effing dykes post on gay-dar and as it could also be written - gay-der! - questioning objectifying entertaining derailing complaining hailing...?

Oh, and Google-ads just ad-ed me when I posted this - Gay Flirtations - for men! How did that happen!?

Oh, and I hate statistics but here you go anyway:

http://fitperez.com/2010-11-12-in-small-study-of-children-of-lesbian-couples-none-reported-any-physical-or-sexual-abuse/?from=PH

bar scripts plus image test

or a pair

I love the bar script - awesome text and some of it even rings a few bells...

Just testing to see if it works with image, or not.