Robot Soap

Alongside this blog I have also been writing music reviews and articles on music in the blog for Robot Soap, a club night which along with three others, I run. Since the birth of Robot Soap in 2006 the night has gone from strength to strength. We have brought a whole range of international and local acts to the night and it has led to other spin-offs and projects such as Robotic Noise - a live music based night. 

Because of Robot Soap I am now setting up a record label - Robotic Records, the first release will be a limited seven inch vinyl single by the band Portman. The label is response to the rise in digital releases and mp3 culture - I will only be putting vinyl records out, in limited runs with complete artwork to create a complete package. All the artwork will be hand screen-printed, with as much work as possible done completely by hand. 

http://robotsoap.blogspot.com

www.myspace.com/robotsoap

Robot Soap also did a special club-night to raise money for the Interactive Arts 07/08 Catalogue, here is the flyer design.

Banded

Banded, formally known as Stuck Collective is a group of Artists, Creatives and Thinkers based in Manchester that I've been working with for the last couple of months.

The idea behind Banded is to create site specific work in spaces not normally associated with art.

The project started as a response to us all working in and around Urbis on a daily basis without actually wanting to use Urbis as a vehicle to build work around. Our common aim is try new things, in new spaces and help each other to move into the art world. Working as a collective, uniting our efforts makes us banded.

At the moment we are still looking for a space which is suitable, safe and something we can afford. The first site we tried to acquire was the old victorian fire station in Manchester's city centre, just opposite Piccadilly train station. After what seemed like an age we finally got replies to phone calls and emails to the owners only to find out that the station is unsuitable for health and safety reasons.

Right now we're back at the drawing board stage but hope to have some kind of exhibition and space ready for June.

www.banded.org.uk  

Artist Statement Draft

Artist Statement:

Nathan Baker and Natacha Merritt are like opposite sides of a coin but somewhere inbetween them lies the essence of my own work. Other influences include Cindy Sherman, Bunny Yeager, Martin Parr, Barnett Newman, Rothko, Ian Tilton, Luc Delahaye and Anton Corbijn.

My work is diverse taking in content; from conceptual, somewhat abstract photography through to editorial work for magazines and websites.

 
Throughout my work I have tried to find narrative in a the simplest of forms - the passage through time and space has become somewhat of an obsession, more concerned with the journey between A and B than the start or the end.

Robotic Noise - Posters and development

This is another poster I've designed for Robotic Noise, complete with my development...

Final Poster





First Draft/Idea

Cellar Door Stitching

Please click thumbnail for the full size picture...

This is my first attempt at trying to stitch my cellar door photos together, i'm quite happy with the result but I think they detract from what I was actually trying to achieve from the photo's and they lose the message and narrative I was trying to achieve with my previous set of experiments for this project.

Animation of Cellar Door Method

This is a quick animation I've created just to show my working method for some of the Cellar Door project work. The top picture is what happened when I piled the books too high and they fell over, breaking the lamp which I was using to light the shoot.

Project: Greasy Spoon

Greasy Spoon is a project I've just started working on with Urbis - www.urbis.org.uk and Lorraine Shaw - www.shaw-photography.co.uk & www.shaw-photography.us

Lorraine Shaw is a photographer who has worked in California and Los Angeles for 22 years before moving back to Manchester. She studied photography at the renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California where she was placed on the Dean’s honors list and exhibited many times in the prestigious student gallery before graduating with a BFA honors degree in Photography and Imaging. After a successful career in the television industry - working on hit TV shows for major production companies, and as a Studio manager, she dedicated herself several years ago, to a full time career in photography. Lorraine is a commercial and fine art photographer specializing in food, still life, lifestyle and portraiture. One of the winners in Photo District News’ Annual Photography Competition, New York, in 2005, signed by Getty Images, and regular contributor to Violet Magazine and other publications in the US, Lorraine has worked with top photographers as well as on her own commercial and personal projects.

Together we have been asked by Urbis to shoot and manage a project with the working title 'Greasy Spoon's' in Manchester. Using the book 'Egg, Bacon, Chips and Beans: 50 Great Cafes and the Stuff That Makes Them Great' by Russell Davis as a starting point for reference and inspiration for the work.

The work will be displayed on the ground floor of Urbis, in the corridor gallery and it is my first proper commissioned work.

This is still a project very much at the ideas stage, with the hope of shooting to begin at the mid-march.

Ideas at the moment include:

• Working with the Manchester Evening News to create a top ten of Manchester greasy spoons and cafes
• Taking portrait shots of the owners and customers that frequent the cafes
• Creating a photographic installation of a Greasy Spoon in the Corridor Gallery itself

I'd like to keep the project quite kitch because of the way greasy spoons are such a quintessential part of British culture and have been for a long time. Be that 'proper' working class greasy spoons or the now more trendy cafe-bar greasy spoons - like those seen in Manchester's Northern Quarter and London's Carnaby Street.