www.danielcarey.co.uk

I finally got round to creating danielcarey.co.uk using indexhibit,a program which uses the basic template of sidebar and main page which is well-suited to displaying artwork and especially work in progress. It took a long time just to get my head around php and find a suitable web host; I decided on hostmonster.com because of the absence of bandwidth and capacity limits

Occupational Therapy

Click on the above image to download “Occupational Therapy” by Eleanor and me.

Project completed

Eleanor and I have finished our disc-based work for the Eggs Flour Milk Cheese exhibition which opens on Thursday; I have to send a batch of discs down to Leeds tomorrow as we won’t be able to make the opening until about an hour after it starts.  Images and copies of the actual pieces to come, as soon as I learn how to properly imbed images and links in this blog.

Stimulus/classification diagram

I found this image in an old sketchbook. All sorts of ideas flowed from this, I remember that for a while it was the basis of my experimental (i.e. short and rubbish) videos.

Group show in June

Currently working on a number of small-scale pieces for inclusion in a show at 42 New Briggate in The Leeds in mid-June. The concept I’m working with is that all the pieces must be created in, or take their materials from, an office environment. Images of works in progress when I get round to finding out how to embed images in the blog properly..

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- “Office artworks” by Ellie and me. A3 poster, newsprint sheet, two sided, large image on one side (keyboard drawn on post its?), other side 9-12 b&w images of existing artworks made out of blu tac, post its, rubbers, paper clips etc

- Sol LeWitt Typeface; draw on several sheets of A4 graph paper & then cut out/glue together into a single long strip (or two shorter strips - see how it looks)

[I thought it may be better to combine these two, so one side is the photos and the other is a copy of the typeface]

- series of photocopies. Must decide how this is to be shown. A book is the obvious format but there is the resulting problem that a) people are less likely to pick it up and look at it and b) it is easier to steal and would be a one off

- I’m currently recording the hold music from my innumerable hours spent waiting on the phone at work. We’ll record very short snippets of this music into MP3 format and give them away on 3.5 inch floppy discs.

Leading on from that is –

- internet page which is a gif of static, as if it is an empty/off page

essentially on commentary on the fact that i use the internet loads but there’s nothing of real consequence on there..

Dog Site

The main problem with the Black Dogs website is that it is built on a foundation laid down when I didn’t know the first thing about web design. Simon Lewandowski had given msyelf and few other fine art people a crash course on the very basics of using dreamweaver, and I seem to remember him teaching us how to do simple gifs as well. I did a gif of some characters from streetfighter 2 dancing about and it was all a bit shit.

The first version of the site was used to advertise the Arte et Labore show; it was entirely text-based (although I seem to remember adding the image of Andy’s fussball table afterwards) and set in different sizes of arial, so about as simple as a site can possibly get. For visitors it relied on people typing in the address from the invites and posters.

By the time Technically Wrong came around I had replaced the site with a new version which incorporated a menubar and lots of images. It took me a while to realise this was awful because of the prevalance of grey (it looked like an accountancy website) and all the images were tiny (expandable) thumbnails surrounded by reams of text. When I came to design the third and current incarnation of the site I kept the largely red and black colour scheme but discarded pretty much everything else.

I think the current site is reasonably well-designed, easy to navigate (but also easy to get lost in) and I’ve had positive feedback about the amout of information accessible in it, and the increase in the number and size of images has made the site far more useful and attractive.

The problem I have updating it now is that when I came to design this version I knew nothing about templates, something unbelievably basic which would make large-scale changes an utter nightmare as I wold have to change every single page manually. No doubt at some point I will make a fourth version of the site which incorporates templates, forms etc but there seems to be little sense in doing that at the moment as I have so much other stuff to do and the site works fine as it is.

I spent a few hours last night doing basic maintenance and updates whilst watching Indiana Jones. The Axis Consequences games are the main addition. I’m struggling with the front page - the interview section always opens in expanded rather than collapsed mode, and it seems daft to hit people with a lot of text as soon as they get to the site. The Agenda page looks a bit better with the new dividing border between sections, although I’d still like to make a version that doesn’t require any scrolling.

www.black-dogs.org

Black Dogs in Whitby

Sol LeWitt typeface Part I

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BLHS5Q58

Based on designs for Wall Drawings seen at Mima.  First 4 letters here, remaining letters will use these letters in various combinations.

Spam email

These kind of emails are pretty commonplace but still worthwhile reading them for the subtle variations of the well-worn theme of begging and conning..

obviously the most common is the “Nigerian” scam. I liked this one for a number of reasons but particularly the religious element to it and the fact that it makes no pissing sense whatsoever. Plenty of people have made blogs out of “scamming the scammers”, usually where they just lead them on some correspondence for a while. I get the feeling that, like the spam email headers, there is an interesting project in here. Perhaps a video documentary of the ficticious lives described.. or something less pretentious.

From: Mrs.Stephanie Clarke

London, United Kingdom. E-mail:stclarke72@hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,

It is by the grace of God that I received Christ, having known the truth;I had no choice than to do what is lawful and just in the sight of God for eternal life and in the sight of man for witness of God & His Mercies and glory upon my life. I am Mrs. Stephanie Clarke , the wife of Mr. Robert clarke, my husband worked with the Chevron/Texaco in United Kingdom for twenty years before he died in the year 2006. We were married for ten years without a child. Since his death I decided not to re-marry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is strongly against.When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of £ 17.5 Million (Seventeen Million Five Hundred Thousand Pounds) with a Bank in United Kingdom. Presently, this money is still with the Bank and the management just wrote me as the beneficiary that our account has been DORMANT and if I, as the beneficiary of the funds, do not re-activate the account.The funds will be CONFISCATED or I rather issue a letter of authorization to somebody to receive it on my behalf (note that you need to activate this account) as I can not come over.Presently, I’m in a hospital in the UK where I have been undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer. I have since lost my ability to talk and my doctors have told me that I have only a few weeks to live. It is my last wish to see this money distributed to charity organizations anywhere in the World. Please, I beg you in the name of God to help me Stand-in as the beneficiary and collect the Funds from the Bank.

Awaiting your urgent reply via my personal email address below:

stclarke72@hotmail.com

With God all things are possible.
Your Sister in Christ,

Mrs.Stephnie Clarke

Consequences Game 2

Second Consequences game with a new design; I will redesign the previous game in this style (with different background colour) and continue the theme for the remaining games. Ornaments from BibliOdessey.