Discovering sound, RjDj is brilliant

I was very lucky to be introduced to RjDj an amazing app by a great person I worked with until a couple of months ago. I really couldn't enjoy or experience it as I didn't own an iPhone. Since being the proud owner of an iPhone I have been more focused on all the visual discoveries but now into the world of sound I dive.

As with most of my personal research I started out this sound adventure with the tube - the experience in 35mins on the way to work this morning was so fabulous it has reignited my energy and creativity. As I posted yesterday I am feeling really tired and flat and this has given me a great boost. So exciting to think of all the things I could explore with sound on the London underground. I am very unsophisticated in my use but it has opened up a whole new world of sound and listening.

Go RjDj so awesome and so much fun and creating in ordinary moments - highly recommended. If you have an iPhone have some fun @ rjdj.me

I am so tired

I am so tired, tired of working tired of thinking and right now tired of life. I have lost my fight and I am feeling very very lost.

I was looking at my photos and spotted an image of a moment in time when I decided I have to change, I took photos to remind me of making the decision to get out from beneath the committment that was suffocating me. I have done that but I feel even more lost, I thought this would bring some relief. Which perpetuates me feeling more lost. Which leads to more tiredness, so that is where I am.

the halftone tube experiment

Trying a direction with my photos on the tube, my snapshots have been edited into a cinema shape and style and now I am playing with halftone. Right now the halftone images are more appealing to me, I have tried to put them into a sequence I don't think it works, see link below.

Not sure if I should take these ideas and experiments any further.

Tube View from Amanda Carmichael on Vimeo.

hand drawn map association

I am loving and inspired by the Hand Drawn Map Association ! It is all about collaboration, contribution and hand made, add that with my love of maps and this equals website lust.

The interweb has so many jewels.

x

trained - my first animation

This little project has been a long time in the making. I don't even think my little project shows the hours and hours of work, but it is has been finished and I am putting it out and into the world.

Trained is my first attempt at animation, the idea grew from the sketches I had been making when commuting on the tube. Made in AfterEffects I spent many hours trying to work the whole thing out and making a mess of things. I have learnt many lessons some that seem small but give you hours of headaches - like how important it is that sketches/drawings are all done with exactly the same pen.

My obsession beyond reason with the tube continues even as a struggle to understand anything about why and what I am doing.

I just love making.

Trained from Amanda Carmichael on Vimeo.

more tube o'clock

More images collected for my personal project, using a very cheap pinhole application on the iphone. The application lets you take double exposures, I am loving the ghostly images and not spending a fortune on film to get the same outcome.

a mythical creature - a happy commuter

I continue to work on my personal art project, my interest/obsession with the London tube and those people who use it. On Tuesday at lunch time I took a twenty minute walk and captured people moving through the station on my iPhone. The purpose was to gather more research material, my personal objective was to bring some creativity into my day. I have shared two of my fav pictures above.

At this point in time the output for this project is a concertina book with images abstracted from my source material. Currently my source materials is from my tube sketchbook developed last year, my photos and the drawings I do while on the tube. I started doing the drawings when I was doing a 3hr daily commute in 2009, I continue to do the drawing today although much more rarely as I don't have a big commute and I am usually riding my bicycle.

There are thousands of ideas about how I want to continue to develop this work. Right now I am just taking baby steps.

I have a big question which is sideways and linked to my topic. Is there a person who exists that is in fact 'a happy commuter'?

online flipbook

A great fun discovery, create an online flipbook! Check out the website and application created by Benneton Play labs. FLIPBOOK Easy and fun to use, a gallery that makes you smile.

the discovery of the masstransiscope

Part of playing and researching my personal project has become about fragments of images or sights I see on the underground. Sketches, photos, prints, images that capture fragments or sideways glances(research album on flickr) . This has lead to current experimentation work I am doing into a concertina book, which this very lunchtime jumped in my brain to a flip book, this lead to internet research that lead me to the wonderful discovery of the the masstransiscope, the creation by Brand in 1980 on the subway in New York. It is all feeling weirdly full circle.

Thanks to the masstransiscope blog - 'Bill Brand’s Masstransiscope was installed in the abandoned Myrtle Avenue subway station in Brooklyn, New York in September 1980. It has been seen by millions of commuters for over twenty-five years. The 228 hand-painted panels are viewed through a series of vertical slits set into a specially constructed housing. The piece works on the principle of the Zoetrope, a 19th century optical toy.'



Not sure what I am going to do with this yet, not sure where to go. But very excited and I know somewhere it will have an impact.

goodbye Summer

Well I think it was the last adventure in the sunshine for this year. I have enjoyed such a lovely weekend in Sand Banks just near Bournemouth and I feel in love with England all over again. The weekend was full of sunshine, walking, fresh air, laughter, sleep, blackberries, food and wine. It was like a goodbye summer party and where the weather joined in. I went a little mad with the iphone taking photos and the feel like they captured the moments.

The rest of my Goodbye Summer album on flickr

when I grow up

I always joke about what I want to be when I grow up and then I found someone who supports people to discover just that. Michelle Ward looks like she does a cracking job, her site looks fantastic and it looks like she has a lot to offer. Very inspiring!

making my way back

I am making my way back from the black and blue. Home in London town I am starting to feel the sense of normality, though often rather strangely everything still feels new. Yet in the past weeks when I visited my original home town everything felt new there too. Like I am a traveller or tourist in my own life.

The familiar is the ongoing urge and fascination about the tube. This week when on the tube again after months of riding a bicycle, my new possesion iphone has had a serious workout.