thesoulstudies

[thesoulstudies]

Some final photographs for the hand in, installed in Bushy Park. 

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Installed in the 5th floor for the final time

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Unsuccessful pots from a few weeks ago allowed me to understand that I should focus on more gritty works rather than floaty ideas of the soul.

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Successful test for salt ring thinking of leaving this in studio as my mound is hard to move.

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Peer Review

When installing my piece at Bushy I was with two friends who were able to give feedback on how I installed the installation and how this would be received from the public. I was advised by both of them to test with candles and without, as the candles were a liability and kept blowing out. I have however got some great photographs of both scenes - with and without candles and will make a final decision soon.

I was also advised to edit some of the photos and brighten them as it was a grey rainy day. I have edited some of them lighter and brought more of the colour out, drying some of the coldness and sharpening some of the salt in the soil.

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Installing at Bushy

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Installation Focusses

- Real Candles 

- Scale 

- Relationship with the viewers 

These were the three main focusses for how I installed the piece at Bushy Park and what I mainly focussed on producing when I was photographing the piece. 

I bought seven candles from Tiger that felt as witchy as I could find and installed these around the mound. Annoyingly the day we shot was very windy and this meant I only got a few shots of the candles lit, but I do think out of all the shots from the day these were some of the most successful. 

I wanted the piece to be photographed through several distances that tested the space between me and the camera making the mound feel like a small sacred circle in a larger natural space. I cleaned the space and encouraged viewers to walk past an engage in the piece, which a lot were adamant to do but I had friends that were unaware of the piece and got photographs of them engaging with the piece, spinning and reading the lines.

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I found myself thinking about how my piece involves installing indents and marks into the soil, and I spend a lot of time making patterns and lines to communicate the structure of the piece as circular as well as the poetry lines themselves. Again looking back on last week tutorial notes with Shenice we spoke about Zen gardens and how the sand, soil and stones within them are organised to flow in looping circular movements, they feel sacred and calming to walk through and this might be an interesting link to the feeling I hope to create when installing my piece at Bushy. 

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Andy Goldsworthy 

He works with nature and time for his sculptures and I think the idea of scale and effort is shown in a great deal of his work as he spends time working with how each natural material balances with another, he doesn't seek man made machinery or materials but works with his hands. He was an artist recommended by Shenice during a past tutorial and I have spent time thinking about how his work could link to my final installation and I think it would be important to capture an influence like wind or rain onto the installation or perhaps film some of the time spend installing the piece and how it feels ritualistic and almost peaceful taking time to create Halfway House. 

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Richard Young - Save the Wood Circle 

When thinking of circular structures and how my piece is going to be reinstalled in bushy park I began to think back to a conversation I had with Shenice and how she encouraged me to work with circles in nature and artists that work with bringing natural fibres inside for an installation or bring the installation outside onto natural fibres. I think Richard Young and the piece above is a such a beautiful example of working with small structures like twigs or branches to build a wider picture. It becomes almost an illusion and I think viewing the piece encourages the viewer to walk around the circle and this almost feels ritualistic. 

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Halfway House reinstalled the next day after crit with more focus on how the viewer engaged with the piece and capturing the spinning ritualistic feeling that happened when viewers read the poetry lines. I think capturing this helps understand the feeling of the piece better, and feels more like a successful installation. I wanted the scale to be portrayed here as well so stood on a ladder to get an arial view. I also took away the overhead light which wasn't received well in the crit the day before and focussed on the candle light I could make with what was allowed in the studio as I still think strongly this adds to the ritualistic nature and a relationship with witchcraft and paganism that I wanted to achieve.

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Crit Feedback

The piece was praised for working aesthetically as I got good feedback on the conflict between the salt and soil and how they worked together. The piece felt like a ritual as viewers approached the piece. People spun around the piece viewing and ended up reading the words aloud which ended up feeling witchy and culty which was the feeling I was hoping to achieve. I wanted the piece to feel like a ritual and happy this worked out.

New changes to make:

- real candles

- set up outside with strangers and in natural setting

- question the role of the viewer

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Final Crit

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Last night finalising

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Mound making today, tried my best to get a triangular shape but compost was so heavy ended up falling to an almost sombrero shape...

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Finalised latex envelope and printed letter to my soul, which I will install on the very top of the soil mound.

[thesoulstudies]