About Me

My photo
Liverpool/Sheffield, United Kingdom

Wednesday 14 December 2011




Capturing a moment of extreme discomfort whilst enduring extreme weather conditions.

Experimenting with the most successful way of capturing endurance, and discomfort. 
Film 1- Film unedited apart from being centralised and at normal speed.
Film 2- Film slowed down to 50%+ and centralised

Film 1 most successful. Viewer able to empithise more with discomfort due to sound of the wind and image being realistic.
Film 2 less successful due to image being distorted, slowed down image causes a fluid dream like state, which appears pleasant as opposed to uncomfortable.             

Sunday 4 December 2011

Event plan



Preparation-
3 fully charged cameras
3 Tripods
Extension cables for power
6 tapes
Brief help Team
Masking tape to secure wires
Film James and Beth failing or completing the route 

Itinerary-
5.00 Arrive to set up the cameras
5.40 People arrive
6.00 Briefing
6.00-6.45 First set of climbs
6.45-7.30 Second set of climbs

Experiments-

First set of 3

Helper
Predictions
1a
-ve verbal persuasion
Sash
Less success due to –ve attitude
2a
Show participant film of success of the route.
James
More attempts and success due to encouragement of someone else’s success.
3a
Female
Beth
More girls succeed than with male route.

Second set of 3


1b
+ve verbal persuasion.

Sash
More attempts and success due to +ve attitude.
2b
Show participant film of failure of the route.
Beth

Less attempt and succeed.
3b
Male
James
Less girls attempt and succeed. 

Colours indicate that climbs should be similar in grade to remove grade as a variable. All climbs should be low in grade.

Briefing-
  •  Ask everyone to write down name and email address 
  • Purpose of event-Art practice currently based on climbing, Use the session to get some footage, both art and climbing very related, Want to look at creativity within climbing (are artistic people naturally good at climbing due to creative nature.)
  •  Feel free to warm up and have a practice, the green routes and orange routes are the easiest.
  • I Will be filming 6 routes in 2 separate goes and will be filming for roughly 45 mins for each. When you have finished the 3 climbs mark them on the sheet. When everyone has climbed the fist set I’ll move the cameras to the next set and the process can be repeated.  
  • Make sure you have a go at climbing all 6 routes with cameras pointing at them. Sasha, James and Beth who are all members of the LJMU climbing club will be at each climb to man the cameras for me and to offer some encouragement. 
  • Does that make sense? Does anyone have any questions? Be creative have fun and come to me if you need me.  



Friday 2 December 2011


Movement, creativity
and mind over matter

Calling all Artists and climbers

Next Thursday the 8th of December between 6pm and 8pm I have made arrangements with the Climbing Hanger to to allow me to carry out some filming for my project work. I would like to invite you all to get involved. I am keen to start bridging the gap between climbing and creativity as both go hand in hand. I thought a good place to start would be by introducing my climbing world to my art world.

The climbing hanger specialises in bouldering. In short, bouldering is doing short climbs (called problems) over huge crash pads, which means there are no ropes. They are called problems because they require solving, the general aim in bouldering is not to the top of everything first time, but to find something on the edge of your ability and solve the problem both through perfecting the movement, but also figuring out which moves to use. If you need any advice members of the LJMU climbing club will be on hand.

There are a multitude of easy problems for everyone to have a go at and to get an Idea of what bouldering is about. I will be filming 6 of these routes and will be using the footage to look at how creativity is used to solve these problems. (Those of us who are artists should naturally have a head start due to our creative nature.)

The session will start at 6pm where I will gather everyone round for a short briefing. It would be great if you could arrive 20 minutes early to give you some time to get changed and hire climbing shoes if u want to. The Hanger charge £6.50 for students which I’ve unfortunately not been able to get them to waver however will allow you to climb until close (10pm) if you want too. 

The centre is easy to find it is 5 minutes walk from Sand hills train station, which is two stops from central station on the northern line. All the info you will need is on the hanger website: http://www.theclimbinghangar.com/the-centre/how-to-find-us/

Bring student ID in order to get a student price and wear comfortable clothing and shoes (that you would normally exercise in.)

If you are able to come I would really appreciate it, as it will be brilliant to get lots of footage for my project.

If you have any query’s feel free to contact me at rachelarm@gmail.com

Thanks Rachel Armstrong

Pushing my Limits

On Wednesday I attended my very first professional training session with my sponsored team. We were introduced to our trainers Ged and Mark who explained how the training sessions were going to work and what was expected of us as a team. We were given a list of the BASE expectations which are as follows.

  • To keep a diary to record every aspect of our training and climbing
  • To adjust our mentality toward climbing
  • To increase what we perceived as our maximum effort
  • And to change what we perceive as failure 
Ged also explained that there will be a level of ability we have to have reached with in two months from now in order to be able to maintain the sponsorship. 
  • To be able to complete a specific traverse with skill focus.
  • To be able to climb at a V4 grade continuously
  • To be able to do 6 pull ups (girls) 15 (boys)
  • to be able to complete 3 reps of a press up routine
  • To be able to climb every single green route in the climbing hanger in 15 mins
The session we the went on to partake in was 2 hours of pure endurance training. Needless to say I have never in my life been pushed so far towards my physical limit. I reached points in the 2 hours where I was physically no longer able to carry on and I did carry on. It was absolutely fascinating to experience reaching a physical limit and then to realise that I was actually capable of pushing myself that little bit further. The whole experience was mind blowing, exhilarating and amazing. Although I finished the session exhausted beyond words, hurting everywhere and missing a good proportion of skin from the palms of my hands I still managed to finish! 

I am 100% determined to reached the required level of fitness that is required of me with in the next two months. It will require me to attend the training sessions every friday, to train one more day a week on my own accord, to climb another one day a week to run once a week and to attend a gym class once a week. I also aim to compete where ever I can in order to maintain a competitive mentality. 

If this whole process isn't screaming to be used to create art I don't know what is.