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Photo studies experimetnation in different medias
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Oil sketches of final images
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Photo studies experimetnation in different medias
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Artist Research- Ronald Searle
Ronald Searle by Russell Davies
‘Stammering’, ‘hesitating’ line
“Look closely at the lines, Maintaining a quality of nervousness, ricketiness, doubt”.
1939-45 Searle was drafted, he begins drawing from life much more frequently.
1942 Searle became a prisoner of war
Searle sketches scenes as they were from labour camps - “vital piece of reportage, (which would otherwise) be scarcely believed.
“If before (his capture) some of his drawings were made as studies- a matter of broad human interest and technical exploration- they were seldom so disinterested after.
Drawings from life were made to document conditions of prison camps and labour camps. Searle drew because it “gave his a reason to survive”
Former teacher commended Searle’s use of perspective to highlight poor conditions (Hut accommodations, March 1942)
The Semarang incident, 1942, Drawn by Searle on the roof of a barrack block is praised for capturing more ‘life’ of the scene , when compared to a photograph of the same event. Likely due to the wide panoramic view and characteristic scratchy lifework.
“The survivor office and secret wireless room” captures the “disconsolate” air of associates after their magazine was banned.
By train to siam, may 1943, “something of the steeliness of the goods wagons of which they were transported in seems to have transferred itself into Searle’s renderings of his comrades”
In the months following the banning of the survivor magazine, Searle was sent to another labour cam with much harsher conditions. This change can be seen in drawings documenting the conditions he endured, particularly of drawings of guards at the camps became harsher and angrier, documenting methods prisoners were beaten (bamboo sticks)- however Ikada, July 1944 sketch depicts a friendly guard in “unmistakable friendly fashion”
Prisoner dying of cholera 1943- “I desperately wanted to put down on paper the unbelieving horror this man felt’
Australia prisoner, Singapore 1942, shows formal experimentation with techniques of cubism (ie left facing profile within the portrait) lines mix naturalism with stylization
(About exhibition of war drawings) (gave an impression)- not of diversity but of unity; of horror, and boredom and beauty flowering in strange places, held in the compelling unity of one mans vision.
(On perspective) “the presence of horizon (is notable). Searle’s play with the intimidating expanse of sky liberated by this low cut of point showed quite unrelated exuberance”.
Ronald Searle
Is laughing permitted?- caricature is a serious art form, Henning Bock
The conversation is about everyday events, and about the human- actors taking part in them. The purpose of the conversation must be to illumine the forces and impulses behind these events.
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Pecha Kucha presentation
LINK TO PRESENTATION- https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eT8jV2OMhtqidOSBVWPLr9Q0I-TLuNTVFu8uVcaJSoA/edit?usp=sharing
PRESENTATION NOTES-
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Thoughts behind first stages of photographic experimentation
Inspired by the aesthetics and ideology surrounding snapshot style photography, I want to incorporate the ideals of snapshot photography, ‘not (to) reform life but to know it’, and apply that to more traditional mediums like drawing, painting and printmaking.
By taking a photograph you are making a conscious effort to remember a moment. Snapshot photography rose to popularity in the late 1970s to mid 80s. Practitioners of this style used film or polaroid cameras to capture these moments, as digital cameras didn’t become widely available until the mid 90s. To me, film photography is a much more naturalistic method of photography than modern digital photography. Film photos could not be edited or retaken, for fear of wasting resources, then, you had to get your film developed. It took a certain amount of time and effort and care to ‘capture a moment’.
In comparison to modern photography I feel can be edited after the fact, you can retake photos as many times as you like. Taking a photo nowadays requires very little care and effort, and most people have so many pictures on their phones that they hardly every look through them.
‘Snapshots are taken out of love to remember people, places and shared times. They are about creating a history by recording a history’.
I want to bring the effort and care back into capturing a moment by creating a new genre inspired by the practice of genre painting and kitchen sink painting. These styles of paintings came about to ‘capture the excitement/ fleeting nature of modern life’, and to ‘celebrate the everyday life of ordinary people’. I want to combine all of these ideas and create a new genre- snapshot painting (I will be exploring other mediums than painting- this is just a name). By putting hours into capturing a treasured memory you are creating a physical object to be recorded in history.
There is nothing particularly remarkable about the photographs of the snapshot aesthetic. I think the reason I am draw to this style is the inherent realism of it. These people are photographed at their most vulnerable, in domestic settings, often with people that they have close relationships with. You feel a connection to the people in the photos. You feel like you can get a sense of who they are, from their appearance, where they are or the objects you can see in the photos (link to turn of the century interiors). I want to bring this back to image making.
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Artists Research- Nan Goldin
Notes from Nan Goldin 55 Phaidon
“with nan holdings photography, a certain kind of critical caution is unnecassary”
Photographs draw you into their world- both interrogating and being interrogated
“- her photography succeeds in using common archetypes, collective memories, stories which most of us can identify”
“-seen as a mirror held up to her generation, or as a disenchanted record of recent moments in our collective experience”
Romantic artist, anti ideological.
Beyond the traditional conventions of photography- raises issues such as the relationship between- individual and collective history, prose and poetry. Creating narratives that cut across official history.
“What aspects of ourselves do we recognise in her?”
Her appetite for the truth- her disregard for the fact that what is true can also be uncomfortable, tiresome, compromising.
She is gripped by the need to hold on to what would otherwise disappear or be forgotten.
“(Her photos have) to much life, too much truth in them”- reject pretence or illusion. Her photographs have a roughness typical of reportage - but more intimate, private, participatory.
“Pure determination to capture the moment, free from domination by abstract constructs of art”
More human, genuinely sad and truthful. Interest in the soul of a person
Individual shots- belonging to a more complex narrative.
“It is possible neither to make a critique nor to obtain redemption”
Claustrophobic hues
Social rituals and communal life
Pushing boundaries of social taboos
Rooms as portraits
Notes from The ballad of sexual dependancy Nan Goldin
pictures come of relationships, not observation
Instant of photographing is a moment of clarity and emotional connection.
Preserve the sense of peoples lives. Show exactly what the world looks like, without glamorisation, without glorification.
Memory vs history- history is memorised repeatable, safe. Real memory triggers colour, smell sound, physical presence, density and flavour of life.
Controlled and uncontrolled at the same time- record every detail of life- allows to remember
Examines relationships, gender roles, domestic violence, solidarity among women, fragility of masculinity.
“I don’t really remember my sister. In the process of leaving my family, in recreating myself, I lost the real memory of my sister. I remember my version of her, of the things she said, of the things she meant to me. But I don’t remember the tangible sense of who she was, her presence, what her eyes looked like, what her voice sounded like.
I don’t ever want to be susceptible to anyone else’s version of my history.
I don’t ever want to lose the real memory of anyone again”.
“I took the pictures in this book so nostalgia couldn’t ever colour my past. I realise I took the picture of myself battered so I wouldn’t go back to the man that beat me up”.
“I thought I could save off loss through photographing. I thought if I photographed anyone or anything enough I would never loose the person, I would never loose the memory. I would never loose the place. But the pictures show me how much I’ve lost”.
Photography as means to understand and survive- to preserve life.
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Narratives in motion
Intro
Coming in from the last project I knew that I would struggle to find something new to do with the text. The trouble I had with this extract when tying to create a narrative, was the fact that not much actually happens in it. Orlando gets up, looks in the mirror, then leaves. I knew I had to evolve the story somehow, as my final piece for the last project was a pretty basic retelling of the extract.
What helped me get inspired in the last project was reading the original text, so for this project, I decided to watch the 1992 film based on the book. I found it a very quiet film, there’s not much dialogue, It mostly relies on visuals to carry it. The film also follows a repetitive structure, it’s split into very specific themes. I really loved the film, I though it made Orlando a very relatable character, and I decided to have my animation borrow the rigid structure of the movie, but try and update the themes for a more modern experience.
Process
In the briefing for this project we were encouraged to collaborate across courses. I reached out to two friends of mine who are studying sound design and film to help me with this project. They helped me storyboard and write a full script, as well as made the sound bites that I wanted to put in the final piece.
I felt pretty confident in making the puppet, as I have some experience with crafting and sewing, however, I was feeling less confident at stop motion animation, as I know it can take much longer to make than you think it will. During this project I suffered a few setbacks that were out of my control, which meant I had much less time to create the final price that I initially thought I would. Luckily for me, our animations could also include live action and digitally animated segments, so I edited my script to include more of these mediums which I could make quicker that stop motion.
This meant removing the stop motion I was planning on doing with the puppet. The puppet would still be featured in the film, but It would save me a lot of time.
I sewed the puppet out of felt and some leftover fabric I had lying around. I opted to not put a wire inside the upper, as previously mentioned, the puppet wouldn’t be required to hold a pose. I also made a miniature set of an art gallery out of a cardboard box and collage. I used procreate to make some animated gifs, to replace parts of the script I had scrapped for time. I did this pretty quickly as I had done it recently, for the previous project. Finally, in keeping with the style of the movie, I made some title cards to introduce a new section of the film.
Over the Christmas break, I was able to think about the outcome of the project, though I appreciated the help I was getting on the project, as the deadline approached I felt it would be easier to film the puppet sections by myself, rather than to schedule around another person, as well as equipment hire. I also began to feel less and less excited about the project, and thought I would rather save the collaborative energy for something I was more passionate about. I also thought that the quality jump between iPhone animations and professionally filmed high quality footage would be distracting, and not really fit with the aesthetic of the film. So, over the next few days, I filmed all the missing pieces of my animation on my phone, and edited the clip together roughly on iMovie (as it was the simplest to use), and used my favorite peices of music from the original movie to finish the audio. After I had finished filming everything, I edited the final version of the film.
Reflection
My general thoughts about the project was that it took much longer than I thought it would. Obviously there were some unavoidable circumstances in the beginning stages of the project, but toward the end of the project and the hand in deadline, I started to put off working on it as it felt like some insurmountable task, probably due to the difficulty I had had during the beginning of the project. However as I started to complete small chunks of the larger task, I realised it wasn’t as scary as I had first thought. It still took longer than I thought it would, but it was much more manageable process than I was initially worried about.
If I could do the project again, I would definitely keep my ideas more simple. In the planning stages of this project I found myself really struggling to come up with an idea that I was satisfied with. I think if I had thought on a smaller scale, I would have been able to come up with something I could have finished within the initial time slot, for example, while working on the filming section of my animation, I thought of a much simple concept I could have done with a dog, waiting for its owner to wake up from a deep sleep, much like in the text. I could have achieved this with one set and two puppets.
Overall, I am proud that I finally completed the project, but probably won’t work with stop motion animation again. I am excited to collaborate further with students on other courses such as film and sound design.
Link to final peice- https://youtu.be/-ow6OEKBD9g
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Performance project
Intro
The first thing we did for this project was to split up into the groups that we wanted to work on for the performance. I chose costume as I have some experience with making clothes and sewing, and I was also interested in what was possible to make on such a small budget. The costume group then spilt into smaller groups to brainstorm and make mood boards for individual characters. At first my group were focusing on the bird character, but after talking with the script team we learned that the bird character had been mostly removed from the planned show. We then change focus to the large caterpillar, which would be a costume for multiple people to wear. The initial plan was to use a series of discs to form the caterpillars body - hungry caterpillar style - but after some brainstorming we decided a Chinese lion style costume with one big piece of fabric covering all the people making up the body would be the most time efficient way to go. The head would be a paper mache sphere that we would paint.
Process
We decided that the first thing we would work on would be the head. We followed the plan we had made in out notes, which was to create a preliminary structure out of a base wire and then reinforce the open spaces with chicken wire. The first problem we encountered was that the base wire we used was quite soft, and the weight of the chicken wire was misfiring the head. We were also not given any gloves to use while cutting the chicken wire, so we ended up hurting ourselves a bit on the raw edges. By the time we had added two panels of chicken wire, the head was becoming quite distorted, so instead of using big panels, we opted to use smaller pieces and rely on the paper mache layer to fill out the structure. To solve this issue, we should have used a stronger wire for the base structure.
Once the wire was in place and we had enough of a structure to work on, we started covering the wire in paper mache. We had to do the paper mache in two sections so it wouldn’t slide off the sides of the head. We used a hairdryer to accelerate the process of drying. At the same time, we worked on the face of the caterpillar, which was made out of cardboard. We cut a circle big enough for the front of the face out of cardboard, and then built up 3d shape using layers of masking tape and paper mache.
When everything was dry we began painting the head and face. We used a bright greenish yellow colour, with brown spots, following the face design we had drawn in our notes. It was at this point we also gave him antenna made from polystyrene balls and pipe cleaners, attached with hot glue.
When it came to the body, we had initially planned on making him yellow, but the only piece of fabric big enough to be used for our Chinese lion- style body was purple, so we decided to incorporate purple into his design more. The spots on his head and face were changed to purple, and to tie the yellow colour into his body, we painted yellow spots onto paper and stuck them on with pva glue. The last step was to give the body some shape, so we measured 2 equally spaced cardboard arches to be held by the people in the back section of the costume, to give it more shape.
Reflection
On the day of the performance, lots of quick changes had to be made. The big caterpillar and small caterpillar were supposed to be played by the same person, but run-throughs proved that it would be too difficult to remove the big headpiece that we made, so my team had to take on the role of the big caterpillar. The costume for the small caterpillar didn’t work out, so we had to share out costume, and be ready to do a quick change when the time came. In the end, I think the performance went very well considering the timing of these last minute changes. If I could do the project again, I would have liked to work on more peoples costumes. I think the initial split into smaller teams wasn’t the best idea, as it meant less team building and communication, which meant some characters costumes were forgotten and had to be made something very last minute. I also would have liked to use a different fabric for the caterpillars body, as I thought it was a bit short, and showed our arms, which I didn’t really like. However, considering we had a very small budget and quite a limited time frame, I think the end product was really good! In particular, I loved the set design, animated projections and the butterfly’s costume. I really enjoyed working with my team and I think this project really improved my ability to think on the spot and improvise when things aren’t going to plan.
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Work Play Work pt2
Process
My first impression of my swap partners zine was that there was a lot of different characters in it. I really liked some of these characters, I thought they had a lot of expression and personality. I was drawn particularly to this particular illustration I named ‘devilbaby’. I feel I was drawn to this character design because I thought his face had so much expression even though it was so simple. Using this design I created a loose story plan for the remade zine, which would follow a day in devilbaby’s life. My zine partner also had created backgrounds with watercolour and charcoal on paper and then scanned them in, which meant all the pages had really interesting textures, which I also wanted to use in my zine recreation.
The first step of my process was to isolate all the different elements I would need. I did this with procreate on my iPad. This step took up the majority of the time allocated to the project and in hindsight it would have been much easier to ask my zine partner to send me the originals they had used to make the zine in the first place. But after I had finished, putting the elements together in a digital collage was quite easy. I also did this on my iPad. I didn’t really plan the pages ahead at all, I had some ideas of some pages I wanted to make, such as the drivers licence and the ‘I hate my boss’ page, but most of the pages I used my zine partners illustrations to inform my ideas. For example, my zine partner had made some really interesting type, so I made their hand drawn type into fonts, that I could use to write whatever I wanted.
Reflection
Overall, I’m really pleased with the end result of this project, I like it much better than my original zine. Maybe that’s because of the difference in style or the new ideas that come from working with another person. I did end up really enjoying this part of the project, I think because I felt my zine partner had given me a lot to work with. I think this project would have been more difficult for me if I had been given some of the other zines I saw at the crit.
Link to final peice
Original zine- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rMZMLIUs0YNI7QxgY9MnlAvY2rbqK2fs/view?usp=sharing
Art directed by me- https://drive.google.com/file/d/10K9JroGB3dBnKHwVTTqLc_VguDLqnxxA/view?usp=sharing
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