Phootshoot 2

From London to Worcester 

When 2 become 1

Further experimentation with sound

If in doubt throw everything together and see what happens...

Critical Writing Task

Critical Writing Task

Coloured thread embroiders greyscale photos. These photographs depict family life, twelve real stories, told through black and white. The nature of them, for example, a family meal and a living room, invites the viewer into the narrative of their lives, making them apart of the story, whilst the physicality of stitching juxtaposes ideas of togetherness with invasion. Embroidery, although judged as peaceful and relaxing, is more intrusive and physically destructive than overlaying with pen or paint, as it requires penetrating the image with a needle. This intrusion of surface adds another layer to the story, twisting context and giving the viewer more information to infer into the narrative of the families lives.

It is important to mention the embroidery is a human figure, an anonymous but naked female, who is faceless in every image- thus investigating themes of identity, as families are usually seen to involve feelings of belonging, whereas the addition of the character disregards this, and appears almost alien to the situation, only identifiable by breasts, hips, and long hair. The simplicity of the woman also contrasts against the complexity of real family life, once again highlighting the incongruous nature of the figures appearance in the work.

 In addition to this, the naked body seems out of place or inappropriate once combined with a mundane situation. These contrasting themes of innocence versus nudity encourages the audience to consider the relationship between the stories told by the photographs and the nude body. Much like storytelling, the needle and thread act as a pen, writing characters into the tale.

The motion of pushing the needle through, up and down, alters the space between the audience and the work, as if the viewer is being sewn in too. This proximity changes the intimacy of the photographs, reflecting the naked body. This element of space almost makes the audience identify with the woman, feeling sympathy for her (as naked figures are often associated with vulnerability) and wanting to understand why or what she is doing in these people’s home; Is she a family member? Is she a real person or could she be symbolic? Is the same person stitched throughout each photo of the series? What is her significance? Could the work be a political or societal statement? Is the whole series one story, or twelve separate ones? These questions invite the audience to create their own story and interpretation.

The work asks the question of the connection between the original photograph and the woman. The use of black and white images is significant in relation to ideas of time, which adds context to the narrative. The outmoded, greyscale images highly contrast against the blue, green, red, and yellow threads. As well as making the figure stand out, demanding the viewers’ attention- she is in no way hidden, this implies that time has changed. She is a recent addition, once again channelling the intrusive nature of her presence. This can be seen through the bold colours used, which seem to bare no resemblance to real life, therefore indicating she is a fictional character, or a personified metaphor, adding to the fiction.

You can check out more of Zoe's work here: 

A post shared by Zoe Boswell Art💫 (@somethinglikeartmaybe) on Feb 23, 2017 at 10:40am PST

Critical Writing Task brief

Let's get critical, critical, I want to get critical

Why be critical: Without being critical of our own work and others, it will just stand still, and you won't move forwards. 

What does it mean: Looking; teaching yourself to look. 

Your subjective encounter is your initial reaction to a work. You should challenge this as it could be more to do with how you're feeling than the work- are you hungry? Also should consider whether or not pre held ideas are helpful- you're not always right, A level's not always right.

Your objective encounter is how you pull apart your subjective response.

Toolkit:

• Critical tools- Aspect lectures on space, surface, time, fiction
• Help- Footnotes task, grey description task; what is actually there?
• Subject-Object grid, crit questions
• Be specific

Text to Speech

After writing up a grey description of one of my photos, I asked my fellow arty type best friend Leah to record herself reading it, in one take. I chose to ask her as I wanted someone who hasn't seen the image, to look at how successful (or not) I was in communicating visual information through words.

With the idea of presenting the photo as a sound work, rather than image, I edited the sound clip and added a white space, with the intention of it blending into the white walls of the gallery space.

This was the result:

I then experimented with how tone of voice and emotion affects the communication. To do this I used google translate TTS, to create a flat, monotonous and continuous voice.

Open Lecture Series- Stuart Whipps

Stuart Whipps

Open Lecture Series- Dominic Allan

Dominic from Luton

Can words be art?

Grey Description -> Text works

"Images are more precise and richer than literature" p.10, Ways Of Seeing, John Berger

• Write what you see, what's there?
• Thinking about presenting the text without the photo- would it work? Should I include the image?
• The more detail the better
• Use a standard size and style font.
• Emotion?

From this I wrote a grey description, using this photo as the subject. 

"Throughout the carriage canary parrots, radiating from ten vertical poles, which allow anonymous primates to hang and balance, as the mobile flooring jolts and sways beneath them. To the left, behind one stanchion, reaching half the height of the car, an unidentified figure can be seen in a mustard coat. Thin black bugs connect longitudinal waves to an electrical device, linked via a thin black cable, tangled amongst a burnt sienna scarf. Knotted pink fingers grip the gadget close to an average frame. A corrugated plastic hexagon couples two sections together, dancing in time with the deck. At the highest point a honeycomb of metal guards a fluorescent tube, illuminating the foreground. Beyond this, cuboid light-emitting diodes brighten silhouettes. Reflecting against two visible surfaces, yellow and white combine to fuse cream, contrasting against a section of ultraviolet light within the corrugated sector. Incandescent words in the upper- centre read ‘The next Station...’, and although out of focus, this is repeated approximately six meters ahead. Above this the same text is flipped into the ceiling, mirrored, and illegible.

Vertical and horizontal lines cross, creating an ongoing grid, broken by bodies. Further ahead the coach seems to get busier, with thirteen visible, yet unknown individuals. Warmth from the chaos of the intertwined is juxtaposed by cold blue light, leaked by the emptiness of the forepart. However, this matches one, two, three blue notices, which nobody seems to be paying attention to. The signs are white, with cobalt blue rectangles and small black writing, that cannot be read unless up close. They are all obstructed by the shapes and forms of the carriage, blocking information, and hiding tidings. It is quiet, which is unusual, given the situation of thirteen strangers in a pod. Not one appears interested or to be engaged with anyone else. They are separate forms, brought together only by yellow poles. Three of them; one sat, head down, one holding a horizontal bar and staring ahead, and one engaged with a mobile, wear hats. They all wear black coats. In the centre, there is a child. They wear a venetian red coat with a faux fur stripe around the hood. They stand with their small arm laced around a post, which due to the lighting appears to extend past and into the ceiling. This same shade of red is repeated as the details of a polka dot bag, which is navy, and the mobile phone of a seated woman. Her eyes are focused on the screen, that is held up above a blurred newspaper, resting upon on her knee. The newspaper is the evening standard, blue capital text against dirty white paper. It features a face that’s reminiscent of an orange Sainsbury’s carrier bag."

• Text or sound? - Sound could be more engaging, people may be more willing to listen than read
• Could use a white/blank screen- what are they seeing? Removes context. Only words.
• Speakers or headphones?
• What tone of voice? Monotonous: even less context/emotional impact, less connected, more like a script? Enthusiastic? 

If speech- do I want the speaker to have seen the photo before recording, or should it be blind? Could try doing both myself, although other people would change the relationship, adding another layer to the work. 

Edits continued

Tips:

• Take ALL the photos and don't delete them until you've looked at them on a computer screen, even then I'd keep them in, just in case...
• Back your photos up
• Actually get round to developing your film

Editing

Street Photography

After referring to my contact sheets, I edited a few images in Photoshop elements. I experimented with overlaying images to make a photo-collage using different layers and opacity's. Here are the final edits:

Aspect Lecture #4

Fiction

Here are my highly anticipated lecture notes on 'Fiction' by James Fisher.

note: Thinking about changing the space between the viewer and figures in the work just really reminded me of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, you can watch the opening monologue here and I'd highly recommend it even if you've already seen it before:

Other than that...the most important things I took from the lecture were;

• Thinking about your relationship with the material and thinking about the making process; is it autobiographical?
• Thinking about news way to tell stories, through photography and film.
• How do you know when a story is over? How do you know when something's finished?

Ryan Gander as a curator

Night in the Museum - Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

"The role of curator is one of gathering and collecting, grouping and assembling- instincts innate in all of us. Choosing what clothes you put on in the morning, what objects you arrange on the mantelpiece or even what to eat when friends come to dinner are all curatorial acts...Just because we are not knowingly being creative and curatorial, doesn't mean we are not being curatorial and creative."- Ryan Gander

This exhibition questioned the role of the curator as a mediator between art and the public, looking beyond traditional relationships; changing the relationship between the contemporary and traditional art, and the viewer, in some kind of weird art threesome. 

• Could think about other ways to present work together, rather than just putting a painting in a frame on a wall.
• Consider space in a different way, galleries have lots of empty space, how can you use it better?
• Are there any themes that run through the work which can be used to link it together? (i.e. blue)
• Think about how the viewer will see it

Contact Sheets

Whilst in London I wanted to try doing some more street photography, as the environment and general atmosphere is much different to in Worcester.

To select which images I wanted to take further I annotated them in my sketchbook, picking out patterns and colours that stood out to me. I then found common themes; looking at line/structures/grids, crowds(where there is more information to take in) and single colours, particularly yellow and red.

From here I thought about presenting the work as a series, with some photos in black and white and others worked on top of in the same yellow or red colours. 

I also wanted to try them in black and white, as no colour removes context; so there is more for the viewer to question, possibly making it more engaging?

• Could try writing grey descriptions of photos and present this alongside the edit?
• Need to develop film

Anselm Kiefer at the White Cube

Recently/a while ago whilst the exhibition was still on/nearly two months ago, after being recommended  by a lecturer, I ventured to London to see Anselm Kiefer's 'Walhalla' at the White Cube. The exhibition consisted of installation, painting and sculpture. 

As you enter the exhibition, you walk into a dark space, a corridor of beds/sculpture work, lit from above. As well as looking at the art, I wanted to see how curation can be used to effect the viewer, as well as perception of the work; do things change via how they're presented?

I was also interested in the impact of using texture and building into into work. Kiefer used Led, but I could look at using different materials with my work, perhaps materials that wouldn't usually be considered artistic tools.

There was also a small room, again dark, which appeared to be a material cupboard, materials he's collected over time, with negatives enlarged onto led draping which I found particularly interesting. I think it reinforces the idea that you should surround yourself with your work, and not just do it and put it away- when is a piece of art complete? The black and white photography also made me want to go and do some more street photography, so I did this, on my DSLR and 35mm, in London on the same day.