ARTISTS TALKING

# 50 [30 January 2007]

Studio on the worldwide web
Local paper, Allanwater News, carries a story this week about my online work with videos.I liked the headline:
 Reaching out to a whole new audience
It includes the following quote from me:" I work with new media, digital photography, digital video and computers because they are the tools of our age and offer the most appropriate medium to say something new about the world we live in."

# 49 [30 January 2007]

And still the photographs come rolling in!
yet more phone calls, email and a letter from people who were in Craig-y-nos hospital offering photographs and amazing stories.I am trying to keep track of this online at my other weblog: www.craig-y-nos.blogspot.com but I have so much material that only a fraction gets put online.

# 48 [29 January 2007]

Home again!

Week researching book in South Wales, a real emotional roller-coaster. People kept saying:"I have never talked about this before..." It was a cathartic experience with some breaking down and crying.

Came back to Scotland to find  53 phone calls, emails and letters waiting: all from people wanting to share their memories and photographs. My partner has been acting as my secretary and he says that after each traumatic phone call he needed" to sit down with a stiff drink".

 It was with relief that I switched on the computer and moved into the virtual world.  Several more have joined my video site on You Tube.

Oh yes, I got a letter from Brigadier Derek Kirk saying that my video of the Argyll's march through Stirling has gone into the Regimental museum in Stirling Castle.

Just when I thought I was getting comfy in new media, having cast aside traditional media, I discover this is being replaced by social media. 

MediaGuardian are running a one day conference on March 22 which is described as a "multi-stream summit....challenges facing traditional media in the digital age...consider the impact of changing from new media to social media, the effect of IPTV and internet radio and the challenge of democratising content in the user-in-control era."

What's IPTV?

# 47 [18 January 2007]

Research appeal

The local papers have picked up my request to interview people connected with Craig-y-nos. While it has resulted in a few people e-mailing/phoning me these have all- with one exception- been ex-members of staff.

The Wellcome Trust are being very helpful with background material.

# 46 [17 January 2007]

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

Have had a request from someone who wants to buy a copy of my video of the Argyll & Sutherland Highland Regiment marching through Stirling. Have also had a  request for  a copy of Adelina Patti singing "Home Sweet Home" in my "Singing Ghost" movie.

These raise all kinds of issues: how much do I charge? do I offer a "Directors cut" version- lots of unedited footage, and what about copyright issues in the "Singing Ghost"?

Had a publisher on the phone this morning  before 9 o'clock wanting to commission a book. We discussed it for a while and it was agreed I would get back to him after I return from Wales.

Two local papers in Wales are carrying  today my appeal for my project "The Lost Children of Craig-y-nos" and e-mails have started to roll in to-night.

# 45 [16 January 2007]

The Hidden Landscape
Have just uploaded my first video of 2007 and discovered that there is a whole sub-culture of videos on YouTube devoted to mushrooms! View it on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYQ2ac5KXD4

or my videoblog:http://www.annshaw.co.uk

# 44 [15 January 2007]

Moral dilemma in video-making

Using your family and friends as raw material in making videos is tricky. You walk a thin line between exploiting them or turning them into an "art video".

Bill Viola -http://www.billviola.com - never had any qualms in this area: he regarded his family as grist for his artistic mill and filmed his wife giving birth and his mother dying.

 Well, the reason I bring this up is that my project is far less emotionally fraught but it crosses over cultural boundaries between East and West.  Over Christmas I had two students staying (Shanghai and Hong Kong) and between us we made a short film - well 18 minutes. They have agreed I can put it up on YouTube. (After I cut it back to three mins max.) In fact they are quite looking forwrd to seeing it on YouTube...but I feel a bit squeamish turning what was an informal family occasion into a film for the world-wide web.

# 43 [15 January 2007]

IPhone

Aren't we all longing to get our mitts on one?...y'know what I mean...and we have to wait until the end of the year! I'm talking about the most hyped gadget around: IPhone.

Come to think of it I am going to New York in March...maybe I can buy one then.

# 42 [13 January 2007]

You Tube

Phone call 9a.m. yesterday. "Can we send a photographer around?" It's the local newspaper. They want to do a piece on my videos on You Tube -http://www.a-nunedited.co.uk/projects/youtube.com 

Frantic panic to tidy the place up. The young photographer uses Audacity so we get to talking about podcasting. Some weeks ago I contacted them for help with tracing all the folk I filmed in The Changing Room gallery. The video piece is now several years old but the participants never got to see the finished result- until now thanks to You Tube. It would be good if I could put names to all the hands. ( My tutors at Glasgow School of Art used to nag me  for not "finishing off" work properly and I guess this is another example, well I am trying.....)

# 41 [11 January 2007]

Podcasting

OK this is reckoned to ultra cool , the most zeitgsty stuff around, and I was very nervous about moving into it.

 I have still got too many memories of struggling with html and web design to view another "learning experience" as yet another battle with new technology .

But last night at the Electron  club in Glasgow's CCA it was a possible experience and I am sold on podcasting. This is story-telling brought into the 21st century and yes I am going to take my laptop with me to Wales and start collecting some oral history there.

The whole evening kicked off to a good start, something I took as a very good omen,when I walked in and found people seated around a huge round table with Apple laptops ( mostly) .

  I was in Apple country: intuitive, safe, arty,graphic , music.

At the end of the evening we had all made our first podcast and uploaded it to the net. No small achievement!...thanks to John Harris, Michelle Kasprzak and Simon Yuill.