Hugh Marwood: Education

Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts

Monday, 27 November 2023

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School ) 17'

'Untitled (From The New School) 17', Acrylics & Adhesive Stars on Panel,
300 mm x 300 mm x 106 mm, 2023

Here’s another recently completed ‘From The New School’ painting. The overall rationale behind this series was explained long ago and can be read elsewhere. Suffice it to say, each one is intended to reflect some specific aspect of, or set of assumptions about, institutionalised education in visual/stylistic terms. In some cases, the focus has been relatively specific. In others, the themes are possibly a little more more generalised (or just based on my own intuitive responses to another day spent earning a crust on the school premises). Clearly, each one also acts as an opportunity to consciously try my hand at a different aesthetic trope or method of application (even if most revert to some form of hard-edged formalism by default).

In this case, the intention was to cheerfully embrace a form of kitsch, 1960s-style Pop naivety, possibly reminiscent of ‘Yellow Submarine’ or George Harrison’s clumsily-painted ‘Rocky’ guitar. Competing colours were juxtaposed on a whim, and masking of straight edges deliberately avoided. Brushwork showed little regard for surface refinement, and the general attitude was one of ‘if in doubt – stick something else in’ (including fluorescents, pearlescents and sparkly stars).

Harder rock sounds and Glam stomping had long since replaced lysergic nursery rhymes in the charts by the time I began my own secondary school career in the mid '70s . However, It's fair to say that some wistful memory of the psychedelic late 60’s (including a degree of vestigial utopianism) still lingered on in diluted form. That all seems a very long time ago, but even now, I sometimes detect a whiff of incense and peppermints in some of the New-Agey ‘wellness’ agendas that have appeared in education of late, as a constrained attempt at strategic stress-relief. I’m also regularly surprised just how persistently a quaint, untutored primary-school sensibility lingers amongst many of our teenage charges - even as our harassed teachers struggle to instil the principles of colour-theory, composition and ‘The Formal Elements of Art’ in the limited time available to them.

Groovy (man)!

Monday, 9 October 2023

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 16'

All Images: 'Untitled (From The New School) 16', Card, Texture Paste, Sand, Concrete Effect Paint,
Acrylics, Ink Spray Enamel & Digital Print on Panel, 300 mm x 300 mm x 106 mm, 2023

It's quite a while since I made one of these 'From The New School' paintings, but I still regard the series, and indeed - the overall project to which they relate, as being active. It's certainly one of my more extended endeavours at this stage. However, I remain dependant on employment in the education sector for my daily bread, and so still find myself ruminating on different aspects of that world on a regular basis. The overall rational behind the series can be found elsewhere, so I'll simply direct anyone requiring the back-story here.

Fairly obviously, this particular iteration of an oft-repeated (and originally appropriated) motif relates to the crisis over defective/hazardous concrete construction techniques in British schools, which gained news traction over this summer. Appropriately enough, the media used in this one are the most substantial and textural of the whole series. Collage and mixed-media techniques do feature in many of it's predecessors - to be sure, but this one is essentially a painted relief as much as it is anything else.

Having reached No.16 in the run, I'm starting to wonder about the possibility of drawing a line under things at 20. It ought to be possible to come up with four more versions without becoming totally repetitious - I'd have thought. At that point, maybe I could even make some attempt to go properly public with them. It could be genuinely instructive to see the entire series together in one place, after all this time - I suspect.

An achievable aspiration for 2024, perhaps?

Saturday, 22 April 2023

'From The New School': Technology In The Classroom [trans_late/trans_scribe]

All Images: April 2023

[Reconfigured/Translated Audio Transcription]

1. Connectivity:

Quickly and easily save your tablets between your device files
Freely navigate your album with that remote control
You can intuitively move around the classroom
Platforms work seamlessly with education
Access your table content and active content while browsing any clipboard
Directly profile content via audio cable

2. Simplicity:

Activate clipboard
Create access for account
Customise your favourite menus from anywhere with your tools and settings
Screen your device browsers and save fast

3. Security:

Google tablet password, QR code, computer resource application, and card injection
Keep your private information personal by ensuring security (unless you're easily logged away)
Updates are uploaded to your remote management with a clipboard
Quickly! turn off your clipboard for a while when you need to be off the ground

4. Adaptability:

Lecture classroom teams
Share lecture recording and audio recording of secure data with remote students
White content from any platform for hybrid, blended learning and screen-sharing situations
100-watt board only works seamlessly with education platforms

5. Longevity:

USB-C audio sending recommended
Supply and delivery of power
Flexible connectivity options with seven video input and output formats
Increased visibility from anywhere in the school
Increased technical accuracy and palm ring variations
20-point rejection with this palm touch

Tuesday, 26 October 2021

'This S(c)eptic Isle': Notional Pride 5

All Images: West Leicester, October 2021

The finance ministry (especially its passports) is obsessed with negative pay, said a government neighbor. [Photo/Editorial:] The new guide aims to reduce the number of behaviours of low-income students as part o 'da message. The student loan market is paying $140 billion and public funds are effective in reducing the number of low-paid students in England - so the loan is unacceptable. The source said that the Ministry of Education (after the 18 period) promised (after the financial crisis) to consider ways to restrict people.

[Give a New Idea:] Provide the minimum required entry-line level that can be used to promote certain courses - thus reducing the number (especially in modern universities). A government source said they are trying to control the wave numbers. Give the financial service that - it is mainly dealing with humorous, negative trades. To the Dean of the University, arts and crafts reduced the cost of the grant by 50%. The scholarship grant was confirmed. [Thoughts:] (i.) That the new university is angry with the national universities. (ii.) It depends on your cursed field. (iii.) Any conflict of interest must go beyond you. It would be foolish to say that being a student gives them few opportunities to get a university degree from their siblings. It's great for the government to make the right decision. I think part of the problem is that it gives impetus to a particular organization that seems to have a few people who are really interested in creating cultural activities. You forgot a group of creative people in creative science.

Who the hell is just speculating to collaborate? Industries solve problems. Allow governance in science (technology). Technology and politics to be replaced by circuit upgrade in 2018. [The Research Op:] The financial services agency has shown that it gives fans a level of talent in creating skills, with more than 20 trumps in similar situations (compared to criminals who did not attend the poker conference). I advise the organization. The friend tried. To prevent him from commenting, the police warned that the ominous characters who came as anti-intellectuals were not almost completely worried. [The Money:] It is wonderful that the government can make such a strong decision.

[Photo:] If the police are worried (because they are not doing well), we need to find out information about the children. It is not crazy, but there is no doubt that they need to speak well in other countries. Social mobility experts warn that if employees do not want to set their own loan standards, students should be punished with low grades. [Belong:] More than half of young people get a high education, and even better their grade. When the world grew up, the deceased was only 10 years old.

The mid-January government reviews aid the state's top favorites, and beauty secretaries mocked the dead. End where only people are left. [Debt:] At the university conference, evidence of higher education determines whether the government is trying to continue to study undergraduates at universities before 2019. About a third of young people will not be able to go to universities until 2030. They have succeeded. Itz founder said yes! [Topic/Content Reuse.]

Sunday, 11 July 2021

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 15 '

'Untitled (From The New School) 15', Mixed Media on Panel, 300 mm x 300 mm x 106 mm, 2021

The work continues, even if progress is a little sporadic and I struggle to stay fully focused on a single body of work for any sustained duration. If the on-going 'Techno Studies' series represents a bit of a side bar, this latest 'FTNS' painting must represent a side-bar, to a side-bar - I guess.

I'm not sure why I'm so easily distracted these days, but it's not too great a problem, as long as stuff is still getting worked on (and completed). Strangely, I also seem to find some difficulty in evaluating the quality of the work, but, as long as there's still pleasure in its production - and I feel like I've done the best I can at the time, it's probably not really worth mithering too deeply over whether it's any good or not. Ultimately, just doing the work whenever time and energy allow, is all that really matters. Perhaps assessing its quality will prove a little easier once it's sat around for a while.

In fact, these 'FTNS' panels are a useful resort at such a time. Their format, thematic justification, and stolen imagery were all decided long ago. Conscious repetition is willingly embraced in this case, and the only real conundrum each time is the manner and technicalities of the execution.

Here, the chosen method is largely one of collage. Aside from the relatively minor painted passages, most of what you see here is composed of various papers found scattered around the classroom during my working day. It's all relatively straightforward, although there is a deliberate experimental element in the use of raw newspaper. One can only assume it will darken and yellow further with the passage of time - even as the reported events alluded to slide further into history. The changing philosophies and purposes intrinsic to education are an abiding theme in this series, and now the passage of time should be reflected in some way, through the actions of UV light and chemical change.

Saturday, 19 December 2020

Unboxing 3: Dangerous Goods Manifest

Leicester, December 2020

There's probably a limit to how many of these workplace-derived 'Unboxing' posts I can belabour you with - at least without a bit of creative manipulation of the source imagery. Nevertheless, I remain deeply attracted to the honest simplicity and truth-to-materials of the honest brown cardboard box, and to the emblematic symbology and potentially allusive texts which adhere to them. These particular examples were especially 'thrilling' as (unusually), they contained a potentially hazardous chemical, and demonstrate the double-boxing, stern, graphic warnings, and 'Dangerous Goods Manifest' attendant on such a deadly cargo. For the record, the product in question was a single bottle of Isopropanol - hardly plutonium, but at least: no couriers were harmed in the making of this blog post.

As soon as I have unpacked such consignments, the boxes generally get casually stacked in the corner of the classroom - awaiting recycling. Even at this scale - with only two elements of modest scale, a distinctly totemic quality begins to emerge. Indeed, I'm reminded that this is exactly how the format of 2018's 'Sentinel' sculptures originated - almost by accident.

'Sentinel' Sculptures, 'Visions of a Free-Floating Island', Surface Gallery, Nottingham,
September 2018

Perhaps there may be some tentative connection between those pieces, and the spate of mysteriously emerging monoliths, at various international locations, a couple of weeks back. The reporting of those (beginning with what may have been some kind of oblique art-prank in remotest Utah) appears to have dwindled already. That makes me think the whole thing was little more than an online meme that failed to really catch hold - particularly as the vaguely unworldly examples at a handful of locations, were joined by reports of a puerile, and far-too-representational, phallic example in Germany. I suspect we'll soon file the memory of 2020's monoliths away with crop circles, and the like (if we remember them at all). It does emphasise the enduring fascination of totemic, columnar forms, in the human imagination, nonetheless.