Collection
The photographic series "Making do and getting by," by Richard Wentworth depicts images of unusually placed everyday objects with a purpose. They're explorations into the ambiguity and human elements in-between the happenings of everyday modern life- or as Gupmagazine puts it, "to explore the nuances of modern life and the human role therein." http://www.gupmagazine.com/articles/making-do-and-getting-by
I love how intimate these photographs become, as they document these in-between moments of human improvisation that would be overlooked in an everyday context. This then creates a beautiful sense of sentiment to the little things.
In my work, I would like to develop this idea of "in-between moments" and their potential for deeper schmaltz.
Collection (continued)
"Originally Waste Not was created as a collaboration between Song Dong and his mother, but for this current exhibit, following the death of Xiangyuan in 2009, the installation has had to be remade with the help of Song Dong’s wife and sister. The meaning and significance of the installation has been somewhat forced, by tragedy, into transformation; beginning as a representation of a process of Xiangyuan’s grief, it has now become a process of grief in itself."
Song Dong's "Waste Not (2012)" is a collection of everything her mother held onto from the father after he passed away. The artwork beautifully explores the idea of collection in a more literal sense. I love how this raises questions regarding my own identity, how will I be remembered? what becomes our legacy once we pass away?
The idea that our materials possessions becomes an integral part of our identity interests me; how the artist began the work by amounting everything collected over her father's lifespan as a tribute to him, but eventually morphs to conjure up it's own emotional weight becoming it's own piece of art in itself- and I love the auto of introspection it creates. In my work, I would like to develop this idea of the emotional reaction as the artwork.
This idea reminds me of the work "Breakdown (2001)" by Michael Landy, that also explores the emotional weight of physical possessions. In his work he took everything he owned, put it on a conveyer belt and destroyed it all, until he had absolutely nothing left. This work sparks an extreme emotional reaction, because we become aware of how attached we become to our own materialism- we could never possibly imagine destroying all the things have amassed and believe we need.
“It was the happiest two weeks of my life,” Landy told me recently, speaking shortly after the opening of Out of Order, his raucous mid-career retrospective at the Museum Tinguely in Basel, which features ample documentation of Break Down. “At moments, admittedly, I felt like I was witnessing my own death, because people I hadn’t seen for years would turn up, and I thought, ‘Well, they’d only turn up for my funeral.’ But often I did feel real elation. No one had ever destroyed all their worldly belongings before.”
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160713-michael-landy-the-man-who-destroyed-all-his-belongings
collection (continued)
Painting project: Altered Spaces (9.9.19)
"New Accursed Art Club is a large, unframed and detailed painting depicting a small group of male figures in an untidy landscape, set against a background featuring brutalist architectural structures. Five men with unkempt grey beards and tatty-looking clothes are shown on a small hill or escarpment in the foreground."
"
The canvas was initially covered with a white primer, possibly acrylic, and the scene was then executed in oil paint in many layers, during which time the composition changed considerably. Cooke worked by painting one layer, then partially removing it before applying another. In some areas paint was allowed to drip down the work’s surface. The surface contains a natural resin, which Cooke either mixed with his oils or applied in layers between coats of paint.
Explaining the subject and title of this work in 2009, Cooke stated: ‘I was trying to suggest a reactionary kind of conservative group of makers who are involved in mutual appreciation and supporting each other against the wider world, which is kind of how art often seems to work, as people kind of flock together in little teams and little groups to affirm their position, because it’s a vulnerable place to be’."
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/cooke-new-accursed-art-club-t12820
David Schnell: Moment (2011)
"Schnell presents his typical synergy of visual extremes – order and chaos, nature and artifice, physical matter and kinetic energy – shattering the comfort of real time in an impossible explosive instant. His rigid code of linear perspective is imposed through soaring vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines that converge to form an unsettling vanishing point just above the center of the composition's lower edge. His dominant citrus palette bursts with springtime vigor while washes and drips of charcoal, gray and purple suggest an ominous industrial presence. Schnell's Moment of spatial and temporal anarchy is further achieved by random blasts of vegetation and short vertical slashes that interrupt his elongated, free-flowing brush strokes. The overall effect is that of being sucked headlong into a world of “stupefying speed and energy.”
Altered spaces: Spirital realm research
Altered spaces: Spirital realm research
Sculpture
"You never really know how your idea will develop.
Let the material take you to a place you didn't imagine in the first place. You get the material, you respond to it and then you respond to the response.
Develop until what I produce couldn't have conceptualised at the start"
-Quotes from the lecture I found the most memorable
Sculpture
KKK robes: origin, colour and shape meaning.
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/kkk-robes
HOW TO NOT BE SEEN
notes made while watching:
- The automated voice is slightly slowed
- It's difficult to understand, what's going on??
-Can we ever be invisible? it's like 1984
-1 Pixel per foot= you would have to. be minuscule to hide from satellites
- The ill-fitting music makes a scene describing something serious and frightening become crude. Like I can't trust my emotions to react appropriately to the speech or video.
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Notes made after watching video:
-What is your attention supposed to be drawn to? what does it mean to be made 'invisible'?
- It's in the style of a instructional video/ tutorial- something factual and truthful, so what is the video trying to communicate by bing snarky, sarcastic and random?
-it really takes you on a journey
-dystopian/ eerie
-spoke about the negatives purely
PLACE PROJECT
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Taxi Driver
There's something hypnotic about this scene. maybe it's the way that the dark streets are lit up by the city lights that become somewhat reminiscent of childhood evening drives, or how the scene is set up with intimate shots of the Taxi with the disembodied narrator speaking over it. It's like being in a dream state, and there's a sort of magnetism about it. The way scene opens with mesmerising shots of the taxi, then Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro's character) speaks about the New York over it makes me believe all that he's saying (even if what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing about it don't necessarily correspond). Because I've already emotionally opened myself, I've become ripe for emotional manipulation. Then throughout the movie I'm developing as he does, and I no longer become a separate entity but am somehow as involved as he is.
I've always loved this specific scene, I always feel like I'm right there and then. Every contributing factor (i.e. colour grading, camerawork, editing, voice over, etc) is so well executed, that for the duration of the clip you are completely engrossed.
https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/interview-with-martin-scorsese
In this interview with the director Martin Scorsese, they exchange ideas that:
"[Travis] drives a cab in New York and eventually we realise he's seething inside, he's got all this violence bottled up", and later comments on how he uses 42nd is used as a metaphor for hell:
"But that's the thing about hell - it goes on and on. And he couldn't get out of it." and eventually
"his problems aren't your problems, but his symptoms are your symptoms."
In my film, I would love to create something reminiscent of this scene, as it is one of the major contributors to who I have become as a person. As the film will be an exploration into myself, I would like to take the viewer on a journey much alike the one witnessed in Taxi Driver- where you have no choice but to become emotionally invested and tied up with the development of the plot and character, and during the duration of the film the viewer and character become indistinguishable.
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I also find that when reading the film screenplay, they do an amazing job at painting a scene with words whilst leaving enough to the imagination. It allows me to conjure an image based on each description and the dialogue.
Bande à part | Jean-Luc Godard
I ADORED this film. I don't even feel like I'm watching a video, it's like I'm experiencing something. There's a gentle affection and tender intimacy here, his slow movements are hypnotic.
Collection (continued)
"The Innocents (2002) documents the stories of individuals who served time in prison for violent crimes they did not commit. At issue is the question of photography’s function as a credible eyewitness and arbiter of justice.
The primary cause of wrongful conviction is mistaken identification. A victim or eyewitness identifies a suspected perpetrator through law enforcement’s use of photographs and lineups. This procedure relies on the assumption of precise visual memory. But, through exposure to composite sketches, mugshots, Polaroids, and lineups, eyewitness memory can change. In the history of these cases, photography offered the criminal justice system a tool that transformed innocent citizens into criminals. Photographs assisted officers in obtaining eyewitness identifications and aided prosecutors in securing convictions."
Excerpt from: http://tarynsimon.com/works/innocents/#1
I like how this photographic series opens discussions about a multitude of topics, like how reliable our our memories honest and truly?
If we are contorted and shaped based on our own record of experiences and what we learn from them, but our memories are always changing and being re-shaped then what does that mean about ourselves? How can we trust ourselves? our memories?
In my work, I would like to experiment with how I can control the perception of our minds; are photographs the only reliable way to document and solidify a moment in time? to what extend can we trust our memories to recount our experiences? does it matter?
Altered spaces (continued)
"Cui Jie’s painting evolves from her previous expressionist take on absurdities in contemporary China to the mediation between China’s Urbanism and personal aesthetics. Inspired by Orson Welles’ multi-perspective, she applies various layers of images—some realistic, some imaginary—on canvas. Cui Jie graduated from China Academy of Art. She has been included in Phaidon Press’s publication Vitamin P3 as one of the leading painters nowadays."
Marlo Pascual, untiled series.
I love these large-scale pieces by Marlo Pascual, the physical collage aspect creates a more personal viewing experience. The flame is always alight, the candle is always melting, and the art is always changing. This puts me in a state of unease, because I'm eyeing the vacant stare of the portraits that never look back at me but also keeping check of how far their candle has burnt out- like I'm awaiting something sinister that affects only those in the portraits but they are blissfully unaware. It's a beautifully painted scene of dramatic irony.
Altered spaces: Spirital realm research
HOW TO NOT BE SEEN (ORIGINAL)
HOW TO NOT BE SEEN
4D | Identity
Life in AdWords (March 2012)
-Filmed herself responding to the targeted ads google sent her
-This piece scares me more than anything else, because it reminds me that there are different versions of me to everyone and everything.
-Who am I according to google? what are the things I desire which you can exploit and market to me?
-As well as this, it reminds me that invisibility is not an option. I will always be on a system, so will my children, and my children's children.
Eva and Franco Matters: Riccardo uncut (2018)
-Bought the entire content of people's phones and splayed them in a series
-It's a detail of these people's life stories
-I do not like this piece. It's quite harrowing.
-The idea that I could fit my whole being, my entire life into a phone scares me.
-Do we become so vacant, uninspired and basic that we can summarise ourselves to the content of a 5-inch block of glass and wires, sold to us by corporations?
-what if you lose you're phone? it has all your everything. Someone could become you through this
4D | Identity
Steve Mqueen: Deadpan (1997)
- film noir
- Slightly comedic, like that of Chaplin and Keaton.
-Unflinching in the face of disaster
-Themes of how we look and him in the world
Gianni Motti: Demi-finale des international
- A protest piece that produced a strong social and emotional impact
-He was subsequently arrested and banned from the Olympic park from 20 years
Dope L: Foraging (1995)
- he put himself into situations that tested his body
- I like this piece, it invites me into an impossible situation where I don't know how to react emotionally and morally
Laurie Anderson: Fully Automated Nikon (1973)
-Photographed all the men that cat called her on the street
-The camera became her weapon
-I love this piece, because the camera is no longer objective.
PLACE PROJECT
À bout de souffle | Jean-Luc Godard
À bout de souffle | Jean-Luc Godard
The first time I watched this film, I hated it. I believed it to be nothing but a long and pretentious production by an over-rated director, and anyone who would say otherwise to be just as full of shit.
However, a few scenes had stayed with me and I found myself reflecting on them often. The scene where Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo's character) held Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg's character) by the neck in particular. There was something there I couldn't explain, and after an hour of conversation between the characters in the film, it was the only real moment that held these careful silences. The scene was almost completely composed of full-bodied shots, where in traditional Godard style, had different takes jarringly cut into each other- then this sudden shot of Patricia's face, with Michel's hands grasping her neck. I had no choice but to look into her eyes, and watch as she succumbed to a smile. It was one of the most intimate things I have ever seen, even to this day.
This makes me just as full of shit.
https://the-artifice.com/a-bout-de-souffle-jean-luc-godard-how-did-it-reinvent-modern-cinema/
I think what Godard says here is interesting, although I don't necessarily agree with it. Every painting is alive, moving and yet completely present. It's a snap of a second, where every brushstroke is permanently in caught in one motion, tamed and controlled into repeating that one single motion over and over again until the painting burns out or is destroyed. A film is just a painting 24 times a second, so every stoke-now-pixel has works together to tell a story over time.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jun/06/film-jean-luc-godard-breathless-feature-philip-french-french-new-wave
That's why I find this interesting, describing a film as a "calculated destruction," becomes ironic. That's why I love this movie. It's full of parallels, intersecting themes, ideals and wrapped up under layers of careful videography. And amongst it, a small morsel of intimacy that I couldn't seem to shake. And it appears, it has helped me grow into who I am.
Call me by your name | Luca Guadagnino
Call me by your name is a movie everyone seems to love. Luca Guadagnino did a fantastic job in curating an experience felt by anyone who watches the film.
This scene in particular, I believe may always stay with me. Something about the slow pace, lingering gazes and gentle delivery. It is handled with such a loving refrain, I found myself completely consumed by something so warm and nurturing. It felt like I was enveloped in such a tender affection. A powerful performance by Michael Stuhlbarg (who played the father) , and at times I truly believe he's talking to me.
In an interview, Michael Stuhlberg said:
Which is definitely felt when watching. In my own production, I won't focus on visually framing an exchange and the emotional repercussions but more so focus on the development of character through those exchanges and what it reveals about oneself.
Michael Stuhlbarg put's it eloquently here.
Edit 20/10/19:
In my final production, I followed this. However, instead of filming a physical dialogue like in Call me by your name, or voicing it over like in Taxi Driver, I took elements of both. I added overlaying text of an honest conversation I had with myself during production. I believe this to be the wisest choice because when reading it, you are hearing your own voice in your head rather than listening to a projection of mine- this makes it a far more intimate experience. How do you react to it? do you believe to to be oversharing? do you welcome the intimacy? emotionally, what place does it take you?
I really loved this exhibition, it was a completely immersive experience. At times I believed myself to be entering heaven- it was remarkably surreal . Eliasson so perfectly balances sensory stimulation and enough stimuli to trigger deeper thought.
Place | continued
This song is one of my most favourites of Chet Baker. The emotional depth of it, the benevolence carried through the entire tune takes me to a place of peace. I feel as if I am completely submerged in an abundance of love. In my film, I would like to use music as a tool for travel, and as an instrument to evoke different emotions in the audience.
What better way to paint a scene, cultivate an environment, and stir emotions than sound?