10:00 - 12:00
KEY NOTE ADDRESS - What is Art?
Barry Purves
Barry Purves went to Manchester University to study drama but he left it. Because he thought there were better artists than him. Even though he can't sing or he has problems with his voice he loves performing. Telling stories is what drives us all. But why do we need this, telling stories? Ever since of beginning, we wanted to talk about ourselves and we have to find other ways to talk about ourselves. Myths and religions are some ways to tell stories. Greeks find out why the crops failed. God was angry because they did something wrong. Parents tell stories to children about the boogeyman such as: If you don't eat your food the boogeyman will come and chop your fingers. Greeks were the first organized storytelling; told the citizens how to live. We all have stories but we are all comfortable telling our stories at a distance. Oscar Wilde said; " Give a man a mast, he'll tell you the truth." A clown just putting red nose can tell you and get get away with absolutely anything. But he needs that distance of a red nose to be himself or to be what he wants to be like Batman, he can do what he couldn't do. I wanted to talk in my voice about the things that interests me. He loved performing, he knew there were better actors than him so he decided to express himself with animation. His life was changed when he went to Scotland to do a job with a production company from Manchester and they were making a programme. Even though he never touched a puppet he said he could story tell better with the puppets. He was bit of twisted child. He loved giving love to inanomypmtpms?. He has a Teddy Bear, he had it since he was born and he goes everywhere with him, he guesses he is a therapist of him and companion. At the end of they he talks to him, tells him about his life, his day, asks him about his day, he doesn't get much answer but he still talks to him. This externalizing of his thoughts , he makes sense of his day of what's been good, what's been bad about it. He thinks that we all need that externalization. Basically it's story telling. We need to look at ourselves from different perspectives. To him that's what a puppet is and that's why he loves working with puppets. They are most intimate form of animation of all other animations. They are very unpredictable. You must have relationship with puppets and he had some bizarre relationship with them. Animation has certainly taken him to another world. The moment he treasures everything his done was going to to Tchaikovsky house in Moscow and playing Swan lake in his piano and that was the closest moment to meet with a real hero. In terms of animation, why is it satisfying him because he performs through his hands. Although he admires computers and what they can do to him hands are the best tool you will ever have. To work with a puppet, bringing a puppet to life in a hand is a great joy. He travels around the world showing all his films in film festivals, the evening goes in the few hours and that's his life. Has he done anything useful with his life? But he told stories and we must never forget the importance of telling stories. All of us have story to tell whether it's big or a small story. But it's our voice and we need to find a way to tell story. What makes us artistic is making our stories interesting. He thinks art is about taking an idea, taking an opinion , taking a story making it interesting but using all the elements of design, color, sound, movement, music is to enjoy those elements to tell that story. He doesn't think art is producing real life, it's about producing the interesting bits of the life cutting out the irrelevant, boring bits and animation is certainly very artificial form of art. It would be waste of his effort to produce absolutely realistic animation. We should deliberate ourselves. We must enjoy the artifices of animation. Every form of art at some point to other the some idea of presentation, the some idea of somebody's made a decision to Favorited picture in a certain way, somebody's made a decision but a piece music is that long, not that long . He thinks art is about presentation, structure, editing decisions. It's all about considering all the elements that go into it. What he loves about animation is you have to start from scratch, there is nothing. Animation is very expensive, one of his puppets cost him £8000. His budget for his films is tiny. He is not going to build things that don't have any point to his story, he involves things involve colors, involve sound that could contribute. When we are working on anything we should ask ourselves is it there for a reason, if it's not there for reason don't put it in. Our film our work will be more stronger like that. Every story has to have a journey to make it interesting. Everything needs structure. Sometimes small budget forces us to be more creative.
Barry Purves Showreel
https://vimeo.com/74562940
13:30 - 14:30
The business of brands
Sid Madge
He has been very fortunate in his design career. He started over 26- 27 years ago in Birmingham. He did a graphic design course with visual communication. Since college, he spent 24 - 25 years living and working around in London. He also worked in New York, Amsterdam, he traveled many places around the world to do what he does which is everything from the photography shoots to kind of film shoots to looking at brands globally. He relocated about 4 - 5 years ago to Bala in North Wales. Because he wanted to be near his daughter Lilly which lives in Harden and goes to school in Chester. He also wanted to own a dog and he did that as well. He thought how difficult is going to be to start a creative business in the middle of nowhere as he lives in the middle of nowhere, He doesn't have any neighbors, no running water, no street lights. So he started a company called ' Madhen'. One of the greate things for him was when he was in school everybody told him that he couldn't do things. He discovered few years ago he was dyslexic. Everybody told him that he wouldn't be able to take A Levels and GSCE's. So he decided to prove them wrong. So he did his A levels. They told them not to go college but he went to college and finished it and he got a good degree. He works for Princess Trust and Big Ideas Wales for a long time. He worked with big brands such as Bombei Dreams. The reason he called his company 'Madhen" was there was 2 people started company as himself Sid Madge and Lady called Zoey Handerson. He took two surnames and put them together. He does work for Big Ideas Wales which is a good initiative for people at themselves who are entrepreneurs. The great thing about Big Ideas Wales is they give you acronent is to follow which is called ACRO. When you expand that, it's basically four words Attitude, Creativity, Relationship and Organization. He loves brands. What is a brand? How do we recognize them? They all come in shapes, sizes and forms. When he was in university he did a research on psychology in colors; red for aggressive, very enthusiastic ,very warm and friendly in some ways. And if we look at the some brands associate with themselves with color over the years such like Coca Cola which obviously turns father Christmas to from green to red back in the 20's or 30's. If you take Virgin Richard Bronson enthusiasm around his brand. If you take a red tablet, it is the most efficient to ease the pain.If you take the color blue which is used for 70 to 80 % of financial institutions , it stands for security,very safe solid color. And if you take a blue tablet, it actually signifies to do with helping anxiety, very calming and influence. So color does play big role how we decide on brands. Black color is used for upper market. Because it's a very selective color. Or is it by form or shape? Harley Davidson logo accounts about 5% of global revenue which is a huge figure in terms of a world figure. Or is it by size? If you take newspaper like 'The Times', many years ago, it used to be huge and it went to tabloids and now it went to the i pad. Or is it by sound? Sound plays a huge important part with the role of brands such as like INTEL. Or is it purely visual? Or is it how they feel? Or how they converse with us ? Or the environment. It's about the theater of the brands, about the entertainment. M&M's London. 85% is emotion on brands and 15% is logic. Interbrand in London chooses the best global brands every year. They categorize they rate brands globally and they come up top 100.
15:00 - 16:00
Participatory Arts and Arts Education
Alexis Johnson
She studied her BA in Swansea in South Wales. When she graduated she got artists in residence position in a college and that moved her towards doing learning, moved her towards education side of things. Because she had group of student who didn't want to learn. And that got her really interested making people learn through art. She ended up running A Level national diploma in art department within Oaklands College in Hertfordshire. From there they changed A Level programme and her fascination was how you can use learning? She went to become head of education at the Institute of Temporary Arts which is in London. She worked there for quite few years developing learning department because it was new. After she moved in to setting up her company which is AK arts. She worked with organizations like British Council Film London, had lots of sponsorships from companies like Orange to make projects happen. From there she just moved back to the north and she has just started at Walk the Plank. It's outdoor art. What they do is all sorts of outside activities like Manchester day parade, opening of Welsh Millennium Center, big precisions.
You can have a career creating arts education activity. What you do is you come up with a concept and idea, you think about who your audience is going to be, who your community or group of people are going to participate. You commission artists to work with them, you produce a piece of work whether it's a production, whether it's a painting, whatever it is. If you can engage more people in the arts you get a larger turn over people to come and see your product. It creates the demand which allows you to make strong case. Especially, around public funding. From one site you can be an artist facilitator, you can be an artist in residence, you can be an artist making work. But if you working in arts education the distinction differences, you are not just making your own work, you are working with others to produce that work. To invent and create a big project it involves huge amount of creativity. You have to have people skills to be able to get everybody on board to make it happen which includes fundraising.
What happens with people who don't traditionally engage with art?
If you get them involved taking part in the art then it changes their perception of art and from there they are quite happy to be art audiences. You want to retain your audiences.
