Film by Tacita Dean in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern.

The lights are out in the Turbine Hall at the Tate and its as if a giant piece of film is propped up and backlit. In fact it is a projected looping film shot on 35ml with panoramic cinemascope lens turned on its side and the effects were created physically, not digitally. It is a moving collage; artist cut up images from her large postcard collection or used footage of waterfalls and a snail, like stock footage. She has hand coloured black and white film, exposed it many times through the camera and masked it to create the collage. The film is treated as a very physical material and Tacita Dean says she has been lead by the ‘magic’ of the medium and likes the unpredictable results. Though loved, analogue is being forced out and it is digital switch over everywhere, and the film labs are closing one by one. So this is her response, a homage to film.

These photos were taken on a walk in Sussex called the Robertsbridge Circular. Your eye is attracted by the colour of the fruit and leaves along the hedgerows and in the orchards, especially rich in the autumn evening light.

I took a series of photos in Clapham Junction a couple of days after the extraordinary riots that took place on the high street. I was looking for shattered glass, which was easy to find, and the cobweb like shapes it makes.

At that time, there were international film crews shooting reporters against the back drop of the burnt out party shop and there were many glass fitters at work replacing shop fronts.

By coincidence,  I am researching the look of shattering glass for a motion graphics project. This lead me to this post on The Art of the Title. It is a title sequence for John Carpenter’s The Ward. The glass is CGI.

Here is an update on a previous post about my own NHS reforms.

I visited the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition ‘Dirt’, a tour of our relationship with dirt, illustrated by different places and times. One of the places was the 1938 Finsbury Health Centre, a modern and pioneering design which helped to advance healthcare in Britain. On show was a drawing by Tecton. It contrasted a run down, victorian waiting room and the words ‘Lack of confidence in everything!’ with an airy spacious clean lined entrance hall, who’s ‘glass bricks, clean surfaces and bright colours produce a cheerful effect’ and an ‘ air of efficiency gives confidence to the patients’.

I was interested in this as it seems to fit in with my ‘keep to the notice boards’ policy change.

>> RIBA image

A small change in behaviour can have big results. A study has shown that the words used by GP receptionists when booking appointments and positive messages in posters can dramatically reduce missed appointments and save a great deal of time and money. This is a very clever change – a  free ‘tweak’ to cut costs. (I wonder if this method could have been applied to other areas in the public sector to reduce the vast cuts.)

Here is a brief interview on the Today programme. with Professor Robert Caldini.

This is one of my favourite lighting conditions; bright colours  illuminated and standing out against a dark sky.

I am designing a logo today. The client wants the logo to include a boat, so this meant researching boat shapes on the web, as well as looking back at photos of the Lisbon maritime museum. The image search unexpectedly threw up some beautiful origami boats and I made two of them, following the very clear instructions on  origami-make.com. The boats are beginner’s level projects. I learnt two types of paper folds – mountain (which forms a peak)  and valley (which dips inwards).

There is barely anything to the orange paper boat, but is still manages to give a impression of floating, calm and serenity. It even has direction and a sense of movement.

I used the origami paper that was already on my desk, kindly given to me by a master kimono maker, Akiko Nakata. In the packet were some of her and her friend’s intriguing paper folding projects, which I think they made as a past-time while traveling. Some of the shapes have pencil notes jotted in Japanese.

The origami boat drawn in Illustrator.

Colours, shapes, painted names and emblems of traditional Portugese boats. They were photographed at the Maritime Museum at Belem, Lisbon.

Sea salt bought in a shop near the water front market in Lisbon. The shop had baskets of baccalau, dried and salted cod. The pieces are wide and long and cardboard stiff. I thought I spotted a bag of dry crackers for dipping in an on board fish stew.
My interest started with the book ‘The History of Cod’ that links cod fishing to world events. ‘Salt’ was the follow up book.