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EXISTING AESTHETIC ANGMERING >

As one of the starts to my project research I decided it would make sense to go back and visit to start back at the origin of my inspiration, my grandparents house based in Angmering on the south coast.

On the left are images of various buildings and architectural observations depicting the typical architectural vernacular that can be found in Angmering and all along the south coast. This architectural vernacular can be a striking contrast to someone who’s usual architectural material seems to be almost exclusively regulated and regimented clay bricks.

All though most buildings and architectural objects that contain flint and or cobbled walls seem to be the ones which are the oldest, however it seems the aesthetic of flint and cobble seems to so desired that it is built into new projects. Chosen over the aesthetic of modern building materials people are choosing to put into place

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RESEARCH REFERENCING BRANDON FILM 1

After attempting my first knap I wanted to observe to see how master knapers knap flint to see if I pick up any techniques that would help to better understand the material and how to manipulate it so I could start applying it to various applications

Whist researching on the internet I found some great Pathe style films from the 1930’s that documented the Brandon Flint knapers. Brandon is a small town in suffolk and based in that town was a company that made the gun flints for rifles, the Brandon Gun-flint company was regarded world wide as the best producer of gun-flints due to the low misfire rate that occurred when using their products.

In these videos if shows how using a series of metal hammer they produce high quality and precise squares at an alarming rate. They have a layered leather strap round their leg in order to allow for greater control when knaping. This was something I mimicked by wearing several layers of gloves on my left hand to dull the blow given by the hammer in my right hand when striking the flint in order to minimise pain caused by repetitive striking in a localised area.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpqOZvel4tk

BRANDON FILM 2This is the second film that gave a little more background and showed in more detail how the knapers would knap the flint, although the speed of the frame rate of the film makes it hard to observe precisely it showed general core motions that was able to mimicked by me when attempting to knap my flint.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLCXkOv-bc

RESEARCH REFERENCING A JOURNEY

After observing the Brandon Gun-flint knapers I wanted to go and try knaping within a context and record the process through photography and video. I decided to do this by coinciding it with my creative enquiry practice, as we were asked to go on a trip and give a presentation about it.

I decided to go on ‘the search for flint’, a trip to Brighton cliffs that would involve going out and trying to source flint from one of its natural origins, that being the chalk cliffs.

As a way to record the journey and the process of travel I decided I would take a picture every one minute of my feet and also what was right in front of me, i.e. my eye-view. The decision to record this way was to better communicate the nature of the journey to allow the audience experience it from a first person point of view rather than being limited to an observers view.

A JOURNEYCONTINUED .

After reaching my end destination the journey then evolved into a material and tool sourcing exercise as I wanted to try and knap flint without any man made tools but rather knap it in a way to mimic how a pre-historic man might have done so in order to make some tools. I decided to do this to give the journey more narrative and meaning in contrast to just taking a hammer down to the cliffs but rather source and create everything on location, I feel this holds more value as a creative exercise.

Upon arriving I sourced a spot on the cliffs where fresh flint had fallen from the cliffs which was ideal for me to source the flint I was going to knap. I also discovered flint that was on the beach and had interacted and smoothed over through interaction with the sea. This allowed me to have two types of flint to knap, one fresh from the cliffs that had a chalk coating, the other a piece of flint that fallen from the cliffs, had interacted with the ocean and gained a unique yellow and semi corroded outer layer.

My tool was a smooth stone with a slight point sourced from the beach itself, the smoothness of the stone created by the sea allowed me to hold it comfortably in my hand. The slight point allowed me to have a focused and specific spot to strike

Above are stills from the video I recorded from my attempt of flint knaping. I set up on one of the concrete dividers on the beach with the sea as the backdrop I embarked on knaping both my cliff and beach sourced flint learning how to knap them both observing the difference between them and experimenting with alternative processes of knaping to acheive different results.The video can be found at https://youtu.be/owP8yU0hQf0.

A JOURNEYFINDINGS .

The two images on the left show my final findings from my journey. The image labelled ‘a.’ shows what I managed to knap the piece of flint sourced from the beach into. When knaping at it I discovered that in it was these really interesting formation of flint that had all of theses amazing colours to it, the profile of the flint is a rough square as it was hard to manipulate the flint as I think it had reacted with the salt-water from the sea in ouch a way that it would be inconsistently brittle in some places but much more solid in others, however the colours are something I want to carry on researching and inveigling into my project.

Image ‘b.’ shows my results when knaping the flint I sourced form the cliff as one can observe the flint was able to be knaped into pieces that demonstrates some level of intent and design. Although fragmented they do hold some nice decorative features. The ability for more control was down to the fact that the flint was form the chalk cliffs undisturbed from the excess of salt and water that the sea provides.

Although I have enjoyed flint knaping both the process and the atmosphere of it all I feel like that the craft of flint knaping is a very high level of skill and requires years and years of training in order to acheive consistent results that are designed and precise. I say this as I am intending to apply to 3D outcomes and I’m anxious if I have the time to

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MAPPING OUTBUNGAROOSH IN ANGMERING

With my new found application of flint in the form of Bungaroosh I wanted to put into re-visit again the origin of inspiration for this project my grandparents village of Angmering in order to better observe any examples of Bungaroosh that was existing in Angmering in order to better inform my research and project with a consistent point of origin and research.

Here shown are all the examples of Bungaroosh that I could find some being a better representation of the material and others being along the more conventional flint walling that is much more common as it is a better construction material. Also Bungaroosh exists almost exclusively in Brighton as that is where it was conceived as a material and therefore its much more widely used in Brighton’s architectural vernacular.

MAPPING OUTBUNGAROOSH IN BRIGHTON

Continuing from the research carried out in Angmering I decided to physically map out all the instances of Bungaroosh and Flint composites pieces of architecture in the local surrounding area in order to better achieve a higher understanding on how Bungaroosh exists in the Brighton area and how it lives and sits within other architecture, observing the colours and forms it posses and what aesthetic vernacular I could perhaps manipulate and utilize in order to better inform my research and the overall project.

I have aligned each found instance of Bungaroosh along with its geographical location found on a map of Brighton, although I have not ventured to a large radius it gives a good range of different compositions.

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GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION ATTEMPT 1

This was an exercise to graphically represent Bungaroosh in a digital context by transforming a found JPEG format picture into a vector based line drawing. This would allow the vector to be manipu-lated into a repeated pattern that can be controlled with different parameters such as colour and size.

The following pattern could then be applied to any shape and form desired which would allow for a huge scope of digital visualisation to better under-stand the existing and potential aesthetics of Bun-garoosh as a visual material.

I have based the vector on a JPEG from my one of my first experiments into Bungaroosh to give the representation more authenticity, I felt using my own work to manipulate a vector from to commu-nicate an honest graphical impression of Bunga-roosh, would be better than a perfect line drawing that would be no better than a photograph.

Although the outcome of this experiment was suc-cessful I am unsure of what colours to use in to present an authentic graphical representation.

W I L L O W

EXISTING AESTHETIC ANGMERING ~

As one of the starts to my project research I decided it would make sense to go back and visit to start back at the origin of my inspiration, my grandparents house based in Angmering on the south coast.

On the left are images of various willow/wicker/woven vessels that I encountered all over the house when I was young. All of the examples on the left show an array of objects exclusively made of willow apart from a few exceptions.

One thing I noticed is that all but one of the objects are baskets used for generic purposes. The exception being a lamp made from willow, woven over a master frame of metal rod all bent to the same profile, an example of an existing aesthetic for willow that breaks the usual restrains of the usual willow products.

EXISTING AESTHETIC CONTINUED

I also documented all the non willow based woven products that were around the house to give me a broader scope as to what to expect from woven products. It also gave me a chance to experience how plastic can be used as a substitute to organic weaving materials.

I have also found that simplicity is key when it comes woven products, this is because the texture of weave is complex and is busy whilst still being neutral at the same time, hence the immediate simplicity at a glance, but when looked closer there is lots of detail.

RESEARCH REFERENCINGTHE GENETICS OF WILLOW FURNITURE

After going back to my grandparents house I thought it would be best if I started to do some reading into that of the history of furniture. I found this old illustrated catalogue entitled the Classic Wicker Furniture from the Heywood brothers Wakefield Company. They are an American and have a long standing history of producing all types of wicker furniture. I picked out a few of the designs I liked and found to learn something from and drew inspiration from them.

I have chosen these illustrations as they are all ex-amples of collections of wicker furniture design. I feel that they are all run-interesting designs but when curated into a collection they posses more value as they play off each other.

I also like the uniformity and consistency of the de-signs, this is something I want to replicate in some small way when I come to my final outcome.

THE GENETICS OF WILLOW FURNITURECONTINUED ~

RESEARCH REFERENCING MANIPULATION 1

I have chosen these illustrations as they are all examples of collections of wicker designs that are unusual or out of the ordinary. They all posses forms and structures that are all not usually seen in modern furniture design.

I have decided to digital manipulate them to take the out of their exciting context and start to break them down in terms of function, colour and form.

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This was the first attempt to graphically represent willow in a digital context by transforming a found JPEG format picture into a vector based line draw-ing. This would allow the vector to be manipulated into a repeated pattern that can be controlled with different parameters such as colour and size.

The following pattern could then be applied to any shape and form desired which would allow for a huge scope of digital visualisation to better under-stand the existing and potential aesthetics of wil-low as a visual material.

Although the outcome of this experiment was successful it did not achieve the desired level of graphical representation that allowed for further potential experimentation and applications. This was due to the final outcomes as shown in stage ‘e.’ shows the resulting pattern to have a lack of contrasting and concise outlines outputting a busy and confusing repeating pattern.

Also I wanted to base the vector of a JPEG from my own work to give the representation more authen-ticity, as a result another attempt was embarked upon.

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION ATTEMPT 1

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ATTEMPT 2

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The second attempt at graphically representing willow as a digitally manipulated pattern proved to be much more successful achieving the aforemen-tioned level of further potential experimentation and application.

As shown in ‘Fig.1’ I did attempt at using my own work as a starting point for my vector line drawing my work does not yet posses a high enough level of competency to allow for an accurate and authen-tic graphical representation of the material.

As a consequence the decision was made to use a found JPEG from the internet that displayed a higher level of competence that I was able to use in order to achieve the desired level of authenticity that would accurately depict the material to its full graphical potential.

The outcome as shown in stage ‘e.’ shows a re-peated pattern that has good contrast and clarity to it, repeats well and authentically represents wil-low in a digital and graphical context.