Concept: What will the future of Jersey look like as a community in the metaverse?
3 WORDS: United, Peaceful, Diverse
A SENTENCE: A place where an individual feels respected and comfortable in being who they are.
A PARAGRAPH: Regarding all communities in our mind map, our group decided to focus in on the relationship between the religious community and the LGBTQ+ community as we all know the conflicts those communities have. A metaverse can be described as a potential utopia, so we want to construct a united metaverse between all communities where we all live in harmony.
Content
In our film, we want to show the thoughts and fears of a young man that is conflicted between his religion and sexuality, using scenes of a riot like environment to portray the negative fears and connotations of a happy relationship to show the reward.
The Bayeux tapestry is an embroidered cloth which is nearly 70 metres (230 ft) long. It depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England. It is presumed to date back to the 11th century, within a few years after the Battle of Hastings. It tells the story from the point of view of the conquering Normans but is now agreed to have been made in England. The cloth consists of some seventy scenes, many with Latin embroidered on linen with coloured woollen yarns. It is likely that it was commissioned by Bishop Odo, William the Conquers half-brother, and made in England – not Bayeux – in the 1070s. In 1729 the hanging was rediscovered by scholars at a time when it was being displayed annually in Bayeux Cathedral. The tapestry is now exhibited at the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Bayeux, Normandy, France.
The Bayeux tapestry is embroidered in crewel (wool yarn) on a tabby-woven linen ground 68.38 metres long and 0.5 metres wide (224.3 ft × 1.6 ft) and using two methods of stitching: outline or stem stitch for lettering and the outlines of figures, and couching or laid work for filling in figures. Nine linen panels, between fourteen and three metres in length, were sewn together after each was embroidered and the joins were disguised with later embroidery. Later generations have patched the hanging in numerous places and some of the embroidery (especially in the final scene) has been reworked. The tapestry may well have maintained much of its original appearance – it now compares closely with a careful drawing made in 1730.
Yulia Makeyeva grew up in Russia and is now based in Jersey, Channel Islands. With a Linguistics degree, an education in Art History, silversmithing and jewellery making background, she turned her full attention to art in 2019. She experiments with different mediums, spanning photography, installations, video, collage, printmaking and traditional domestic crafts. She continually seeks and displays beauty through her work by arranging a contrasting array of materials from the household, industrial to organic matters collected outdoors into abstract forms. She participated in a Textile-based art exhibition in February 2020 in Jersey curated by the RampArts collective. For this exhibition, the curator had chosen works where the artist experimented with drapery, single threads, recycling, and objects covered with fabric.
Our storyboard shows that we want a girl walking in front of a street background wearing the clothes of the past and the future to then leave with plain clothes to question what will happen with fashion. We plan to use different backgrounds depending on the year we film in to clearly state that this is a different time point. To add to our story we put in future fashion on what we think will come back and popular again or if there will be something new altogether.
The artist in which I have decided to be my main focus is Yulia Makeyeva as I find her work very unique to other artists. Yulia Makeyeva is an emerging multidisciplinary artist and founder of Connect With Art. She grew up in Russia and is now based in Jersey. She is very passionate about engaging the community in art, which relates to our project of nfts and how everyday more people are understanding about what they are globally in the community.
Fleeting: Installation View
I feel that this photograph has several different aspects as her work is an exploration of human memory and the memory of materials. This therefor makes her photograph unique to others as the materials in which she used has sentimental value. Additionally this photo may catch peoples eyes as you can cleary see the main focus which is the embroidery in the centre. However people may find the background distracting for the embroiders although i feel the use of a projector adds to the photograph as a whole.
Inge Jacobsen is a highly accomplished Danish/Irish artist. Not only has she exhibited around the world and won countless awards, in 2012 she exhibited alongside legendary YBA Sarah Lucas at the Selling Sex show by SHOWstudio. One of her proudest accomplishments. Jacobsen takes mass produced images, like magazines and adverts and gives them a unique makeover. She stitches, embroiders, cuts and collages to transform her subjects, a process that Jacobsen refers to as ‘hijacking’. Inge Jacobsen’s work is influenced by her Grandmother and Grandmother’s sister who was very good at cross-stitching and would create very intricate pieces.
Inge Jacobsen uses found commercial imagery and thread to put her own spin on classic advertising. Embroidery is used to physically alter the pictures and appropriate their meaning; the artist has named this process ‘hijacking’. Recently Inge has enjoyed working on a commission for American Express, who wanted an original perspective on 3 of their classic cards to use in a social media advertising campaign.
Inge Jacobsen describes her work as an “intervention.” The photorealistic effect she’s able to achieve with full cross-stitched reproductions (see her version of British Vogue‘s March 2011 Rosie Huntington-Whiteley cover above, side-by-side with the original) is really bold and interesting to look at.
The Occupation Tapestry was the biggest community art project ever undertaken in Jersey, and made by Islanders for Islanders. It was conceived in order to tell the story of what life was like during the five years of German occupation.
In 1995, the award-winning Occupation Tapestry was woven by Islanders to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the liberation from five years of occupation by the German armed forces during the Second World War. It is 13 panels, created from the memories and stories of Islanders who experienced it first-hand. The tapestry is held in the Maritime Museum.
Jersey spirit runs through the Occupation Tapestry. Each of the original 12 panels were created in a different Jersey parish and the 13th panel toured all 12 parishes, each of which depicted a scene of local life during the German Occupation.
The Occupation Tapestry was unveiled by Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, on 9th May 1995, fifty years after the first English “Tommy” soldiers came ashore to liberate Jersey after the surrender of the German garrison on the same day.
In the museum, each of the tapestry panels has an interactive screen in front of it. By touching the screen, information, including photographs and film, tell you about the tapestry, and also what life was like back then.
Materials used to make this tapestry were 1,418 of 25 gram hanks of Appletons Crewel wool, comprising 275 shades of 52 different colours; 24 metres by 100cm wide, 16 threads to the inch, Single Brown Canvas. Each panel measures 72 inches by 34 inches, there are 626,688 stitches per panel. In all, the twelve panels contain 7,520,256 stitches
I created my first GIF following these instructions: 1. Create layer for each image 2. Window > timeline 3. Select > Create Frame Animation 4. Drop Menu > Make frames from Layers 5. Timeline > select Forever 6. File > Export > Save for Web Legacy > reduce image size to 720x 720 pixels
Embroidery
We used embroidery with Yulia Makeyeva and we recorded an image using our iPhone of every step when we creating our embroidery by cutting our figures, shapes, words and re-stitching. Our embroidery had to be related to our groups project which is feminism. I chose carefully my fabric, I chose a fabric with flower pattern to demonstrate that women were compared to flowers because of how “delicate” they were. I also went for a satin white fabric to represent how women had to keep their virginity to be considered as pure, or fit for marriage. And pink for a “for the colour of femininity”. the pieces of frabrics are attached with a red thread that means the blood that women lose once a month. in the middle there is the word Femmes which means women in French.
First intent:
Seconde intent:
After we finished taking several images we re-assembled our images as a GIF on a timeline using Adobe Photoshop. This first intent wasn’t successful since the video wasn’t long enough and didn’t much detail into it. So for the seconded GIF I decide to have a minimum of 10 photos so it could be longer, I ended up putting 14 photos in my GIF and I prefer it than the first one.
The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall that depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England concerning William, Duke of Normandy, and Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings. The story begins with a prelude to Harold’s visit to Bosham on his way to Normandy (1064?) and ends with the flight of Harold’s English forces from Hastings (October 1066); originally, the story may have been taken further, but the end of the strip has perished. Along the top and the bottom run decorative borders with figures of animals, scenes from the fables of Aesop and Phaedrus, scenes from husbandry and the chase, and occasionally scenes related to the main pictorial narrative. It has been restored more than once, and in some details the restorations are of doubtful authority. When first referred to (1476), the tapestry was used once a year to decorate the nave of the cathedral in Bayeux, France. There it was “discovered” by the French antiquarian and scholar Bernard de Montfaucon, who published the earliest complete reproduction of it in 1730. Having twice narrowly escaped destruction during the French Revolution, it was exhibited in Paris at Napoleon’s wish in 1803–04 and thereafter was in civil custody at Bayeux, except in 1871 (during the Franco-German War) and from September 1939 to March 1945 (during World War II).
The tapestry is of greater interest as a work of art. It is also important evidence for the history of the Norman Conquest, especially for Harold’s relation to William before 1066; its story of events seems straightforward and convincing, despite some obscurities. The decorative borders have value for the study of medieval fables. The tapestry’s contribution to knowledge of everyday life about 1100 is of little importance, except for military equipment and tactics.
Davy Evans is an award winning multi-disciplinary artist and designer based in Brighton. With a background in graphic design, Evans fuses practical effects and digital techniques to create ethereal abstract imagery. He often manipulates light and liquid to replicate colour, form, and distortions inspired by natural phenomena. His work is combined into beautiful still, eyewatering creations:
And also animated distortive art visuals:
His works combine real life natural elements such as flowers with hyper realistic and futuristic astrophysical elements into one hypnotic visual. His work makes me use big words like I just did; to describe what is to be seen in Davy’s work is quite a challenge as it is so out of this world. Davys work sets a bar for what is possible for the future of digital art and the world of NFT’s.
His work inspires th efuture of art, not only for how evolutianary and digitaly advanced it is but also for how he creates it, remembering the basics of the creative process.
“I try to play with new materials and photography techniques whenever I can, allowing for happy accidents to form organically,” he says. “I like the challenge of making something out of nothing; for example, I’ll often try to use everyday household items to create effects.”
I want to include the digital design and colourful abstract elements of Davy’s work into my NFT project.
The above image is from Evans latest series during the UK’s lockdown from the Covid Pandemic. He created this work using the simplicity of flowers, water and glass. The simplicity of the arrangement adds to the absurdity of the artwork. Turning simple elements into such a complex looking, hypnotic piece.
The composition of the piece is chaotic with many elements for the eye to take in. The water droplets forming perfect cell like structure in the foreground combined with the colour they adapt taken from the flower in the background, make for a staggering piece. The image looks like a digital artwork with how supernatural it looks. Colour leaks into every corner of the composition, leaving no pixel monochrome. For how abstract the image is, Davy still manages to include tonal elements, some of the pink/salmon areas of the flower are bright and highlighted, while in the centre of the composition and the frames of the waterdrops, we see shading. I also like the blend of cool and warm temperatures in the same composition.
William is an artist from my hometown Johannesburg, South Africa. Unlike the majority of successful white South Africans, he still lives there, and operates out of the heart of ‘Jozi’. He makes drawings which he often turns into animated films. Sometimes there are also performers in front of the animated film and his work integrates into a theatrical piece. He describes this as a ‘drawing in four dimensions’. His process all starts from charcoal drawings. He uses charcoal for a varied number of reasons but mainly its flexibility, room for change and experimentation in the animation process. “You can change charcoal as quickly as you can change your mind”.
Charcoal is easy to erase and it has an abundant granularity to it. Its tonal range is good for photographing. It is also not as meticulous as other art mediums and has a speed and flow that the artist can adopt. William creates his animations frame by frame. This means his process involves making slight adjustments, step by step, and making photographs in between each adjustment. This proves to be a timely method and therefore the speed the charcoal adapts it important.
Williams normal animation setup in his studios include a physical walk from the camera to the canvas where his drawings are made. His frame by frame process involves his walking between the camera and the canvas hundreds of times. He describes this process as a physical but also mental process when new ideas are suggested.
William believes that art needs an initial impulse which has to be enough to get the first drawing done and then in the physical activity of making the drawings, new ideas emerge and new possibilities engaged with until the piece takes shape.
Williams position as an artist is one of self awareness, this is prevalent in every piece from start to finish. Williams art holds political and polemic weight. He describes himself as a child of privilege – he grew up a white middle-class South African who had the first 40 years of his life under the white privileging apartheid regime and the other 20 living in the South African democracy. He is highly aware of his privilege and also the lack of privilege the majority of South Africans experience. His work highlights both his insider and outsider aspects. This is why he choses to stay in South Africa and not flee the madness of it, is envelopes him in his work focusing on the community.
These two artists have two different takes on digital art. Davy’s work encapsulates a movement of new ideas and forward thinking. This is represented in his very colourful and digitally advanced work. His work is much more futuristic and out of this world. His work is very much a part of the metaphysical and futuristic aesthetic that is emerging in modern times. Williams work, however, uses a much more tactile form of art, and one that is very much a classic method of expression dating back to when cavemen would draw on walls. He uses this dated method and gives it new life by going through a digitisation process and animating it. Unlike Davy, his art reflects on events that have already, or are currently raking place, instead of focusing on movement into the future. His work is a lot less colourful; for the most part William only works black on white.
Recently we had a workshop setup for us having to do with embroidering due to potentially using this craft for our films in our groups. What is Embroidery? We learnt that embroidery is the art of being able to decorate any fabric or other material using a needle to apply thread or a yarn. Moreover, with embroideries you can include other materials into your work such as beads, pearls or even leafs depending on what the focus of your piece is. Embroidery in terms of photography could be a great addition to add to your work due to it adding texture and more depth into your work making it look more appealing.
Victoria Villasana
The lesson was started of by us students being given a piece of paper, teaching us four different techniques being: running stitch, back stitch, couching stitch and finally the satin stitch. During this lesson we got given a small piece of material and we drew a simple shape to go over with these four different techniques for practice. In my opinion my favourite technique was the satin technique. This was because I thought it looked more appealing to be able to fill a shape out all the way, it also gave the shape that i filled in a texture which also caught my attention.
Once we got the techniques down, as a class we where told to go around the studio and cut out different materials around the room which was the People Make Jersey tapestries from the Jersey Museum. After getting our cut outs we had to bring them back to our tables and make something out fo the cut outs we attained with the embroidery skills we got taught. Also, we got told to take pictures every 5 minutes in order to make a short film of the progress made in creating our embroidery pieces.
