Final Piece

 

These are the images of the final piece. In the end I have had to use a laminated sign due to the non-arrival of the metal one I ordered. I am pleased with the end result and the responses I have gotten from them. I do feel that they tell the story of how we are all puppets to something or someone and get you thinking about how puppets aren't just imitations of people/animals controlled by rods and strings. 

 

The only downfall to these puppets are the materials in which I constructed them from, they weren't strong enough to take the trama they have been through and did have to mend a few of them after transportation. If I were to remake them I would use heavier and thicker pieces of timber so the wood wouldn't split as easy or try out metal rods and welding for strength.

 

Taking the puppets to the streets

I took three of my puppets out onto the streets to photograph them and see what they would look like in an actual setting they would be found if real. I'm not going to use any of the images I took tonight as part of the final piece as I don't think the quality is good enough. It was difficult to take the photos as it was getting dark outside and the car lights were affecting the lighting so some photos were really dark and some bright.

I did however find the experience of taking them out while it was getting dark interesting. The responses I got from the public were rather funny as they didn't know what to make of it. There were cars stopping to see what was going on, passers by walking that kept stopping and turning back. One of my neighbours got a bit worried as she finally passed she told me she had phoned her husband to come out the front door to meet her, I believe they scared her which is iron that the imitation could be as scary as the real thing.

One Mile Away

 

 

I watched this film (documentary) earlier this evening, was a good insight into the way things are in Birmingham and the lengths that some are going to in order to change the way things are for the better for the younger generation and how they are towards each other and trying to get over the whole 'postcode wars'

Street Sign

 

I ordered this sign a week ago to go with my final piece, It was meant to be personalised with 'Puppets To A Postcode' Unfortunately it didn't arrive so I contacted the supplier and instead of them sorting it they just refunded me I was really dissapointed as it's too short notice to order another elsewhere to arrive on time.

News

             

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-22004122

Puppets - Group Tutorial

 Tutorial

 

 

 

 

These two were bought in for a tutorial/group discussion. After sharing my Idea with the group I have made the decision that I will proceed with making another three so it will become a group of puppets rather than just two, two seems like an odd number to have. I will only have them chained now and will not include anything else like maps or actual postcodes. This way the viewer can make their own conclusions off the piece rather than me dictating exactly what it is I want the viewer to know.

 

I definately now feel I will have a strong outcome by not taking the literal approach on the project and feel that my 'puppets to a postcode' will tell a story about puppets in a new way and that puppets don't have to be controlled by strings and rods.

Duane Hanson

These are really interesting and so realistic. I now have to decide whether I have my puppets in a studio settiing or outside within a street setting. I looked through Duane's sculptures and he has a mixture of both and they all look good even in the studio setting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://theworldofphotographers.com/2011/07/06/hanson-duane-sculptor/ 

Full Body Test Piece

Robyn Travis

I managed to get in contact with Robyn Travis, the author of book Prisoner to the streets. I wanted to get his views and opinions on his book as an art piece. We ended up having a phone conversation he mentioned the use of chains and being bound to the postcode,which was something similar to what I had got in mind. It was useful to get his opinion on the subject as it was a view from the outside.

Sketch

 

 

 

This is where I am now heading after talking with a few people I am now sure exactly where I am heading. This will be a full life sized person posed in the kneeling position being bound by chains. This will be constructed out of timber rods, then have a material skin so it can be filled with stuffing so it has a human build and is able to stand alone without support.  

I am still deciding whether to include maps so you get the sense of it being chained to a postcode.

 

 

 

Blood test pieces

 

These are test pieces of blood I created. My plan is to create this on a larger scale. Where it would look more like a blood flow throughout the piece. They are tricky to create as they are quite fragile and tend to tear as its only wood glue mixed with a food dye. It does however give it a blood effect with the light and dark tones of red.

 

 

Face test pieces

 

This was testing out using postcodes to cover faces. It didnt really look that affective it was hard to cover the entire face as they kept peeling off and you could still see it was a polystyrene head. My plan is now to cover the head completely so you can't see a face at all. I'm thinking that by covering the face you get the sense of non-identity as when you think about it all identity is lost when you become a puppet to a postcode, you become someone different, someone unrecognisable.

 

 

 

 

Robyn Travis - Prisoner to the streets

 

A week ago I went out and purchased the book Prisoner to the streets. I'm not sure what I was expectng to read in the book but I have to say it was such and interesting and emotional story to read. I was hoping to gain alot from the book and gain a clear insight to this lifestyle and the hold postcodes have on young peoples lifes, which I definitely did. The book covered every aspect of this mans life from his childhood and growing up in a deprived, struggling household to his dreams for the future and they way they slowly become out of reach, his love for friends and his area the trouble he always found himself in and how things he did and went through have changed his life today for the better.

TRUTH IS : You can spend a lifetime trying to show people your worth and good intentions, but still not get it across to them. And when you die and go they still might not get it !!!
SO: Those who think they can see you for who you really are. BUT only seem to highlight your flaws obviously dont want to see the real you "SO STOP TRYING TO SHOW THEM"
You can even right a book about your life and people will still take a different look on how they veiw you or the situation, but just remember one thing.
We are all sinners, none of us are perfect let him without sin cast the first stone, because at the end of the day its between you and your creator, and ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME
And never judge them for judging you, because they to are only human !

 

 

 

THE SAD TRUTH a poem by Robyn Travis

THE SAD TRUTH
There's no such thing as EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES, lifes not fair that's why there IS so many you's and me's !!
Some have their MUMS but didnt have a DAD, and some had both parents but the LOVE was still DEAD.
Then some have no CARERS and grow up in CARE ! And hate the world because their parents left them there !!
My truth is the STREETS the STREETS that I knew, the place were I LOVED but HATED it too !!
I had many of bredrins from HACKNEY AND TOTTENHAM, AND I never thought, one youths death would start a war that got so rotten !!
MANY in prison, and MANY are DEAD, but I still see my dead friends, but THATS IN MY HEAD !! and It feels like nobody cares ESPECIALLY THE FEDS.
But maybe im the fool for CARING too MUCH ! I preach to these youngers who CLAIM to be tough !
There's TALENT on our STREETS, these brothers are SKILLED, BUT when you live for these STREETS that talent gets KILLED !!
I was filled with TALENT but also FILLED with RAGE - and then I got STABBED and SHOT after and locked up in a CAGE !
Iv tried to change my life around, to prove that im HUMAN, but the SYSTEM doesn't make SPACE for genuine a NEW MAN !!
MOTHERS against GUNS, A campaign thats new, but would you REALLY CARE, if the DEATHS of young children didn't happen to you !!!
THE SAD TRUTH

Rebecca Horn- 'High Moon' 1991

Rebecca Horn - 'High Moon' was suggested to me to look at. This piece is interesting. I like the way it isn't full of  things it is quite simple but says alot.

basic sketches

 

These are quick sketches of what my piece of work may possibly may look like. They have the wooden cross bar that you would find on an actual stringed puppet with parts of what you would get from a 'puppet to a postcode' ie the clothing, chains that represent being chained to that postcode, face full of postcodes, maps.  

 

 

Ater showing these to Phil ( juneaau projects) he suggested that there maybe too much in the piece and that they all say the same thing and that I should consider scaling back on some of the content.

Imprisoned in my postcode

 

                      Imprisoned in my postcode

1 of 1

 

At the age of 14, London should be his oyster. In reality, Reggie's boundaries extend no further than the half-dozen or so streets around the small Tulse Hill housing estate where he lives with his mother and two younger siblings.

To venture beyond these invisible boundaries which encompass his school, the local park and a nearby shopping centre would be to invite others to attack or rob him, purely because he had dared to stray from his home turf.

"There are places you just don't go," he explains. "Not unless you know someone there really well or you're travelling as part of a much bigger group. If you're on your own and you're a new face, people will rob you, take everything you have. The only way to stop it happening is not to go to those places."
The notion of so-called postcode wars may have slipped from the headlines recently but the territorial divisions continue to exert a powerful influence on the lives of thousands of young Londoners. The more deprived the area, the more they try to assert control over the one thing they can lay claim to: the streets

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/imprisoned-in-my-postcode-6536199.html?origin=internalSearch

Prisoner to the streets - Robyn Travis

 

 

 

 

The films below are about Robyn Travis's book - Prisoner to the streets. In the first video he speaks himself about things he went through and about the book and in the other video there are other people talking about the book. After watching these videos I decided that I would go and purchase and read the book for myself to get my own insight into this world of postcode war and street life and this mans incounter with it all. Hopefully from this book I will gain extra knowledge on the subject and it will help me work towards creating an interesting outcome for the project.

 

 

 

 

From Postcode Wars to Peacemaker

I found this article really interesting and it gave an insight into what goes on in the streets and the whole postcode war  and some of the reasons behind it. It was quite an emotional read because it was an actual account from a person who lived that kind of life and it wasn't just someone making up there own opinion of what they believed to be going on. I feel the need to read his actual book - Prisoner to the Streets, which will give even more insight.

 From Postcode Wars to Peacemaker

By Ben Bryant

Robyn Travis, former member of the Holly Street Boys postcode gang. Photo by Agenda at www.visualmarvelry.com.

The term “postcode wars” sounds like a lot of hype, but it’s a way of summing up a kind of inter-estate rivalry that started in Hackney in the early 2000s. The culture wasn’t entirely new. Inter-borough conflicts – Hackney-Tottenham, for example, or Brixton-Peckham – had existed since the early 1990s. The postcode wars saw these scaled down to a single postcode or estate. The idea was simple: if you strayed outside your area, and you were a part of that culture (or perhaps you were just unlucky), then you might be chased, mugged and/or beaten.

That "rep your ends" mindset spread across London, fomenting new conflicts, tracing invisible frontiers across London, forcing schoolkids into hugely inconvenient public transport detours and terrifying the media. It’s thought to have started with one rivalry between a pair of gangs from Hackney, E8, from two estates less than half a mile apart: the Holly Street Boys and the London Fields Boys. Many of the teenagers involved had gone to school together, played football together and grown up together. Fighting was just something they did, like it was and still is for a lot of teenage boys.

Robyn Travis, 27, lived most of his childhood in Tottenham before moving to the (now demolished) Holly Street Estate in Hackney in the mid-90s. He spent over a decade in gangs, during which time he was shot at, stabbed in the head, legs, back and stomach and spent six months in a prison in Jamaica for attempted drug trafficking.

Now, he’s committed to helping end gang violence, but his new memoir – titled Freedom From The Womb, Prisoner To The Streets – is all about his time in the postcode wars, and his presence at their genesis back in 1999, when the Holly Street Boys began their rivalry with the London Fields Boys.

Full interview at link below

Article from http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/interview-londons-original-postcode-warrior-robyn-travis-e8-hackney

London - Postcode wars

These Videos show the extent of  Postcode Wars in London.

(Bad Language present) 

 

London postcodes

Below is an image of all Londons Postcodes (zip codes)