ARTISTS TALKING

# 17 [16 May 2007]

big news - building will not be demolished till the end of 2008... i wonder if my installation helped make this defferal...

in the mean time:

Open End (open studios at Morning Lane) May 18th-20th, 2007Private View: Friday May 18th, 6 - 9pmOpening Hours Sat-Sun 12 - 6pm In the Summer of 2007, 205a Morning Lane will be demolished to make way for a new City Academy school. The building has been leased by London Borough of Hackney to SPACE for use as artists' studios since 1999.
"Open End" takes this final act in the building's history as the starting point for an Open Studio event with a difference. This time the end of the exhibition will mark the end of each artists working relationship with their studio.
The work exhibited by each artist represents a personal response to this unique situation, and the echo of the different practises and people contained within reverberates throughout the show. Some studios are striped bare, with just the work on display. in some the walls are freshly repainted and reconfigured into the "white cube" exhibiting space familiar to the gallery. In others the walls retain the index of the workspace it once was, pockmarked with swatches of misplaced paint, scuff marks and other detritus.
As always there will be a great mix of differing practises and ideas at play but "Open End" promises to be an exuberant final flowering of creativity from the Morning Lane studios, the public are invited to bear witness to this open closing.
Enquiries:mail@drawingroom,org.ukfrixos.papantoniou@btinternet.com

# 16 [1 May 2007]

still in recovery, taking off the installation. feeling good and very tired at the same time. it will take a while to fully understand what have i done :)

# 15 [26 April 2007]

it is on and running! big shout to rob worley and dan barker of free form, they are my heroes! it looks great, as i hoped, it doesn't look threatening, it looks gentle :) see the pictures... i'll post video either on my web site or on youtube soon...

sleeping in the building was not bad either ;) frixos is looking after everything right now and i'll be back in the building in couple of hours to start preparation for the private view - thank god we set up everything yesterday :)

this is 50% of the original speed of the video material. tonight it slows down to 30%. friday 20%. saturday 10% (this looks very powerful - hope it will have the same effect when is projected). sunday, all eyes close - it is also video, but only 5% frame rate.

# 14 [25 April 2007]

all ready to move in and switch projections on :) tonite i'll see the installation completed for the first time! last week, while we were installing projector mounts - we had two projectors on at a time...finally, today is the "all 10 projectors" projection before the private view tomorrow. i hope it will be beautiful :) and i hope no one will complain, so the installation will see the end as i originally planned.

i'll also film every evening - documetation...
had a walk through the building to check all the doors, wrote up a notice to th neighbours to inform them about the installation. i have to stay in the building for the duration of the installation... safety and security measures...

# 13 [22 April 2007]

STOP PRESS:
205A MORNING LANE: 25TH - 29TH APRIL 2007

PRIVATE VIEW: 26TH APRIL 2007 7-9PM

Morning Lane Studios
205A Morning Lane
London
E9 6LG

# 12 [18 April 2007]

another qiuck one :) burned 54 dvds so far - another 16 to go today. annie's coming to help me finish screens and rob worley and dan barker of free form are coming in the evening to start fixing the projector mounts.
still not sure waht to do with the projectors - rob abd dan will bring their projectors and i'll pick up the rest of projectors till the end of the week... i'll try and find a secure place to leave them till monyday when all is going up.

# 11 [16 April 2007]

just a quick one befote i shoot off to space studios to burn dvds for the installation.

i'm being more and more nervous about everything and my back is not helping either.

started fixing screens, stephen emmott, an old friend jumped in the last moment after another friend cancelled helping me with the screens. stephen was perfect person for the job - tall enough to staple curtains to ceiling with such ease... it was great. we fixed four screens in two hours - much faster than i first anticipated.

now, 70 dvd to burn - very slow process.


bought all the hooks and chains for the mounts, emailed all the invites... still need to pick up chains from cutting.

i can feel the preassure... breathe, just breathe.

# 10 [11 April 2007]

on insurance

it is because i am going to borrow 10 projectors and dvd player and put them in artists' studios for a week and have a private view on 26th april, i decided i will insure the event - and guess what, i will have to pay for public liability and event property cover and still have to sleep in the building! because the insurance company is not covering in case of theft in unattended space... of course i dont have money to pay 24 hour security and all the equipment i got for free from various friends - i cannot live with the idea that something can get stolen while not insured - and still i have to stay in the building over night for a week, just because there is no other way for the time being...

on the bright side, eveything else is coming up really nicely: rob worley of free form is making sure i'll get the boards for the projector/dvd mounts. today i finished filming artists' eyes. windows are clean :) still have to buy hooks and chains for mounts. from sunday, i'm fixing screens. from wednesday, projector mounts... just sent short version of press release to several mailing lists and everybody seems to be very excited about the project :)

# 9 [6 April 2007]

on washing windows

i developed a special technique for this task: soak and scrub :) and it is as hard as i thought it will be... i was washing windows today in alistair kendry's studio. because the windows are very big, some of the artists painted them over so the amout of light it not overwhelming... hard manual labour is sometimes quite interesting... it gave me space to think why do i wash windows on a building that is scehduled to be demolished in less than couple of months...

it is not my intention to make a sterile screen... but the paint that covered some of the windows was really in the way of creating two lines of projections. i'll leave the rest of the windows as they are... it is nice to see trace of artists existance in the building.

there's one more studio which windows are painted over... that's tomorrow and maybe one more afternoon...

in the meantime, i'm waiting for an insurance company to give me a quote. i'd like to insure all the projectors and dvd players... fingers crosse di'll be able to afford it.

# 8 [3 April 2007]

email teaser is out: this week one opened eye, next week one closed eye, the week after that full invite and then a day before the private view a reminder... oh, have just heard some publications are going to write about the project - both online and in print. heavy fires of marketing, it's got to be done :)

fliming, more filming next week... have to be careful with light! the material i have filmed so far has different light from eye to eye... i'm not sure if this will prove to be problematic since the building has a streetlight right in front of the facade... which means a lot of uncontroalble light and low contrast as a result... hm. i think i dreamed last night about low lumens projectors... so much about hopes and fears for this project :)

now, quickly move to postcard design for open studio weekend 18th, 19th, 20th may - frixos and i gave it a name: OPEN END - in interactive narratives, there is an option of open end - an end that is not determined, that is not the end at all :) i like this word play, hopefully it will be welcomed by everybody involved in the open studios.