Autopsy Of Cinema

The sense of grandeur is lost from moviegoers' minds,
the feeling of anticipation as the music starts,
the lights dim and curtains reveal the tort screen,
the sense of being the only person or one of the first few to view the film.
That unique sense of belonging that only cinemas achieve,
the comfy seating,
the plush carpet under foot
and the mountain of popcorn that tumbles from the tub as eager hands dive in.
The occasional solitary chuckle that escapes from the stranger sat next to you,
as straws slurp at the carbonated liquid inside the cups.
Gasps and ohhs echo around the room,
muffled by the luxurious soft furnishings that cling to walls,
dressed in yesteryear's grandeur that's cracked and flaked.
Recent modifications slowly eat away the elegant charm of memories past.
The cracked chipboard conceals the decor of our fore fathers,
lost in between wood chip paper that smothers everything in sight.
The screen goes blank and the lights come on,
sounds of footsteps and wrappers dance around the room,
ice cream tubs distributed it's on with the show.
The murmurs die down as attention is grasped once again.
Exit signs flicker in the restored darkness as people wonder back to their seats,
all is quiet as modern day warfare explodes upon the screen.
Reels are spinning through the 1950s machines back onto the take up reel,
to await there next showing.
The whirring and clicking reflects the distant heartbeat of the ticking grandfather clock,
another thirty minutes to go and then all will be calm,
the theatre empties with the stragglers watching the credits roll,
as exit doors swing shut the artificial lighting blinks into life,
as rows and rows of seats stare back,
waiting expectantly for there next guests to arrive.
The curtains swish closed again,
protecting the screen so its ready to shine again one day.

Gemma Mountain, 2009

Thesis Vs Practice

The two are meant to go hand in hand but over the past few months this line as become a solid brick wall, when writing and researching it has become hard to remain creative. My creative side as slipped, almost becoming none existent. This has worried me. The research is meant to help to formulate the practice and visa versa, yet it is only when the research is completed that the two can merge into one. However to undertake one without the other would result in an unbalanced set of ideas and thinking. It becomes a double edged knife, a tight rope balancing act to ensure that both sets of objectives work towards the end product.

I am coming to the end of my 1st draft now and I'm able to see that although it has been a struggle, the end results have success-ed in allowing the research to inform the practice and visa versa.

So now I am able to embrace my creative side once again.

Exhibition Layouts

A3 or A2 Canvas Prints, framed.




Metal laser cut outs/embossing panels, A0 or larger.

Into The Art World

"Many artists have and continue to experiment with the arrangement of the gallery space, often in relation to time, there is a thin boundary between real time and projection time". (Mountain, G 2010)

This is one of the themes within my thesis, the relationship between the projection setting and the viewed projection.