13th Feb
Alice Black Gallery
To begin my research process I am going to as many galleries I can to in a sense clear my mind of my previous projects and openly look at ideas/mediums with fresh eyes and brain. Kind of like when you smell a cleanser in between testing perfumes in a store in order to not loose your sense of smell and get confused.
This was a very small exhibition all displayed within the same room. i don't often go to see group exhibitions, usually the exhibtions I am used to seeing are the same artist within the space, so what was really interesting to me about this was the curation aspect, of how all the works where very different mediums (painting, video art, sculpture) however they all complimented the space and each other very interestingly almost making a collective piece. I think this is a very successful way to confront a theme. I wonder if it is more successful to think of the theme as a curator and then choose already existing art works, or if you choose a theme and ask the artists to create art for it?
I really loved the simplicity of this piece. it reminded me of Louise Borgeou's work of altering homely very familiar objects in quite a sinister way.
I found this piece very moving in its simplicity, it feels very maternal, reminding me of a baby being held by its mother, but continuing on this affection into an adult state where a mother can't hold a baby in her arms but her love can almost feel like a hold.
This 'fragmented' head from its body could be an interesting start to look at how I stated in my project proposal 'fragmentation of the self' due to its constant copy and pasting online.
20th feb
I have been reading this text to get a further understanding of the theme of self-presentation. This is a thesis which interestingly stated how people are primarily split into low and high self monitoring people. the text included a series of questions you could answer to sarity of questions to see roughly where on the spectrum you stand and I came out as high monitoring meaning I am very aware of how I am being percived by others and the image I am conveying as I would be able to change my views and personality depending on the room of people I was in for example.
I thought this was interesting as I think that due to the popularity rise of social media we are all becoming much more highly self monitoring as we are aware when we post how other peoples opinion and view of us will change depending on the image. however I think its interesting how we often idealise more this idea of being low self monitoring as it seems to come hand in Hand with being less concerned with how people see us and therefore more confident. I think we tend to idealise people in the room at a party who are silent as they seem cooler due to the fact they don't have anything to prove as they have an internal understanding of themselves.
its weird to think how we prefer to seem nonchalant and low self monitoring however we are all high self monitoring by putting in lots of effort to be understood by others to have put in no effort. we are all trying really hard to make it seem as if we aren't trying at all.
20th feb
I have been reading a book called 'severed'. it talks about the history and symbolic meaning of severed heads throughout history.
this has been really interesting research for my project proposal as I have been interested recently in a fragmented body acting as a metaphor for how we continuously fragment ourselves online.
it made me think that college could be an effective initial experikmention to develop more ideas of physical work as it is within itself a very fragmenting method. it is violent in its disjointed and fractured approach where artist acts as iconoclast.
it talks about the intimacy of having a head, and how mc=uch symbolism there is behind a face. this made me think of the instagram algorithm. in resent research it has been shown that pictures of heads and bodies do much better on instagram and therefore are more 'liked' and put to the top of peoples feeds as it is thought it is what people want to see most. I can see how this is true as a face is a very confronting image, it is direct and gripping and incredibly relatable which I think provokes people to interact with it immediately. therefore maybe the head is something I should look at during my experimentation in order to Draw in an audience? furthermore a severed head fits in very effectively with my concept of fragmentation sand removal of self from body online.
23rd Feb
I remember from History of Art a level looking at cubist collage work and Dada collage. I remember in cubism the fragmentation of planes being very prominent as it was a reflection of how perception of time was being fragmented in the 1900s due to new intensions of travel and cameras which where really effecting how people viewed experience of time and life.
I am proposing that by uploading selfies etc we are fragmenting outselves, not time, as we are now given new mediums of social media which are changing how we are viewing ourselves and our personality. we have become incredibly intro perspective but also heightened in how we are being perceived by others.
24th Feb
This has been a really useful book in my research. It is comprised of essays, interviews stories and writings all centred about the theme of 'archive' which is a large aspect of my project proposal, this idea of archiving ourselves online and the effect this has on our own self perception.
there are many extracts within this book and it is something I will be recently revisiting throughout my project for visual ideas and esperimentation.
21st February
Gluten exhibition
this was an exhibition I went to last being in a church in Clapham. I was interested in going as the title was gluttony, and something I've been researching and thinking about in my project is the hedonistic, consumerist side to being online. I have also been looking at our inability to eat touch and smell our online presence which I thought would tie in interestingly to this idea of gluttony.
although I liked the sculptural pieces in the exhibtion my favourite part was the performance art. initially when I saw it I thought that they were taking the piss and that it wasn't my kind of art, however the longer I sit with it the more I begin to really like it and I think it tackles its concept really effectively and interestingly. it consisted of three men play Christmas carol carol charts who in a very concisely naive style have sexual relations with a pie and attempt to force the audience to buy their merchandise.
I thought it was a really funny and direct way on commentating on the low effort but high income values of youtube videos. how lots of content creators online will put very little effort into making their videos but always push people buying their merchandise and giving money to their patron accounts.
I also thought it was interesting commentary on the lengths of which people go to in order to get attention online by doing outlandish and garish acts for clicks likes and follows.
march 12th
I stated in my project proposal that I wanted to also have a personal as well as academic understanding of the themes I am exploring, therefore as another form of primary research I wanted to look more introperpecively at my own instagram page. this is the form of social media that I use the most and I was interested to look at how I use it.
when looking at my earliest posts as pictured below I noticed how it used to be primarily my photography, however as the years have progressed I've embarrassingly started posting more pictures of myself. its hard to know if this is because of increased confidence or heightened insecurity which I need to meet with validation from others. I like to think that authentic emotion is silent so maybe I am getting more insecure and aware of I am being perceived by others.
However on the other hand much like workflow it is nice to be able to scroll through very quickly and track my progress in where I am in life, how my style has changed and how the work I'm making is evolving.
as it is possible to archive and delete pictures I have not in a sense had difficulty organically moving on from past versions of myself however something I have noticed being difficult is moving on from past relationships. since me and my boyfriend broke up for uni I have been heightened in my awareness of how he is perceiving what I post and how I portray myself which differently has had an effect on what I upload. I'm sure this is the same case for many people. this in a sense made me think of my project proposals aspect of looking at fragmentation of self, how I am showing only my best moments or posting an image from an evening where I look happy however the night itself was kind of sad.
14th march
while making my immersive world in my experimental film I wanted to remove the viewer from reality to visualise the hypnotic allure of the internet putting the protagonist in a trance like state. A a large part of making this a reality was due to the lighting I used. I watched this film recommended to me called Enter The Void which is very visually rich in terms of neon lighting in order to convey a strong mood. many of the scenes in this film where helpful when making my set up, especially showing me how small light used to light the whole room can create a very sensual and soft setting, rather than using lots of bright lights which is why I have chosen to use no main light only candles and some dim coloured lighting.
I also wanted to use the lighting to help create a light errieness and unease which would be kept constant throughout the whole film. this made me think of Pipilotti Rists use of highly saturated colour in her nature imagery which to me always put me on edge as I almost felt overly stimulated which felt unnatural as if I was coming up very intensely on drugs which makes me feel anxious when watching some of her footage rather than relaxed.
charlie chocolate factory tunnel scene - I also thought of this as it was a use of lighting in a film I watched a lot in childhood which always made me feel very uneasy through use of projection water and lighting
3rd April
here I am looking into the falseness of online presentation and how easy it is not only to fragment yourself but invent a whole new fragmentaiton of yourself entirely.
I have been thinking recently about this idea of fragmentation of self in terms of maybe a new positive light? I think we die many times over in our lifetime, we are never the same, infact I am not the same person I was when I started this sentence. the only thing that connects our many versions of us is our name and appearance. in all the one thing that stay constant is our character and values, which in essence imortalises us as will be present when we die,.
April 23rd
this book was the main inspiration for looking at how to explain the concept of death towards children. there is a chapter in it that completely revolutionaries the way I look at death and how I form my relationship with it in my conscious while I am going about everyday life.
it talks importantly about how we need to be shocked terrified and constantly reminded of death and just how soon it can come and unexpectedly as this allows us to put our everyday worried and anxieties into perspective. yes it is scary to change your inversely degree or tell someone you have a crush on them but is that really scarier than thinking about having wasted your life?
carrying with you the thought of death can acutually lead you towards a more fulfilling life.
this book below, man and his symbols is one I have been reading recently and it has been helpful when considering the visual language to use in my film. something helpful it talks about is how our subconscious is free and poetic in how to describes to us things in our dreams, a doctor will tell us our diagnosis of a fever, a dream will present it as a fire burning down a house. this to me made me hopeful that everyone is actually intrinsically very artistic to be able to unconsciously be presented with such vivd visual metaphors.
14th February
Zach blass
I have been looking into the Artist Zach Blass as he was recommended to me by my tutor due to his writing on technology and its affects on society. I read this text by him titles 'Escaping the Face: Biometric Facial Recognition and the Facial Weaponization Suite' which I found very interesting in how it spoke about the politics behind the face and how powerful it is as an image specifically in terms of servaliance and governing.
Quotes from the text I found gripping
- Why does facelessness fuel the state of New York to surreptitiously construct incentives for protestors to willingly agree to biometric scans?
- ever obsessive and paranoid impulses to know, capture, calculate, categorize, and standardize human faces.
- invasive surveillance
- Romanticized notions of the face as primarily qualitative are eclipsed in favor of the face as a mode of governance, a quantitative code, template, and standardized form of measure and management.
- a global political struggle has ensued over visibility, recognition, and representation
- defacing the face, becoming faceless through masking actions that mutate the face into something else entirely.
- Concealment of Identity Act, took effect in October 2012, and makes punishable those who “wear a mask or other disguise to conceal one’s identity while taking part in a riot or an unlawful assembly” with up to ten years in prison.[2]
- As the face becomes a site of ever increasing control and governance,
This research is useful to me in terms of my project proposal as it interestingly looks at the face in terms of technology. I stated in my proposal that I am interested in how we have a very visualyy rich online life but not one we can smell touch or taste. Zach Blass is interesting as he looks as STOPPING the visually rich aspect of the face by creating technology which does not allow it to be read by serveliance cameras.
19th Feb
Art's Catalyst 'The Habitat Of Time' Curated by Julie Louise Bacon
This was a group exhibition exploring the 'ways in which time as a medium shapes our perception of life' . Many of the works where focused on 'geological, technological, biological and cultural materials' looking at 'seeds, insects primordial matter, analogue and digital media, graphtite ochre and earth pigments, satieties strata and atmospheres.' The exhibition was curated with an intent to see what would happen if we 'think of time as a habitat?' causing us to consider the 'dynamics of time that are encocded and embedded within systems, cultures and bodies'
This made me think of the recent text I read as part of the 'LUX PARKS' project called 'The painter of modern urban life' by Charles Baudilare. As there are many phrases and words used to describe the change in the way people perched life and time during the peak of modernity which make me think of time moving faster. for example 'ebb' and 'flow' of crowds. furthermore the invention of overground trains as a form of transport in a sense must have sped up time as people could arrive to places much quicker than usual. Furthermore the invention of the camera gave a new sense of promptness to capturing the likeness of things as opposed to painstaking detailed etching and drawings. The futurist movement which was born out of modernism and modernity places a very heavy emphasis on speed time and power which is seen portrayed really powerfully in their manifesto which describes a speeding car crashing into a ditch. They even go as far to sexualise the form of a car, emphasising this adoration and complete obedience to the future of speed and progression.
I am interested in the idea raised of 'breaking down spereations between mental, social and physical worlds' imagine a world where there where no barriers between the senses. You could smell what you saw and drink what you intend to say.
this is interestingly relevant to my PPP as I have discussed the interesting nature of how we cannot touch or smell or eat our online 'bodies' or 'selves'
Below was the most exiting piece of work for me at the opening. It is James Geurt's 'Trajectories II-prebiotica' in which it continues a pre-biological substance
Something else I was interestedd in noting at this opening was the titles of the works. I personally think that titles are very important, sometimes they can ruin a very sophisticated piece however at other points I think they can add a whole new layer of meaning and clarity to the work. My favourite title was Eva Nolan's 'The Pinned Moth Cannot Fly' however my least favourite title of Thomson and Craighead's 'Horizon' as I think It belittled the complexity of the work. In horizon the artists place welcome sin the 24 timezones showing the 'potential of the internet to convey the experience of duration'. When the curator was talking about this piece it really struck me how she referenced to this piece as a 'dream which the internet might have' I have never though t of the internet being able to dream as it is a never ending never ceasing thing. this made me think of the 24/7 John Carrey book where he talks about the effect of the internet humans sleep, however it could be interesting to think about if the internet itself needs to sleep? not in the sense of for its own health but maybe for ours? should there be non tenet at night? no that's a horrible idea.
22nd February
As I stated in my project proposal, I want to look at primary research as well as secondary and I therefore intended to research through an interview format by talking to other people who use social media and how the themes I am exploring are effecting them. I have written out questions regarding themes I am exploring in my proposal to send to people who are willing to be interviewed
LUCA
DAN
JUDE
Sophie
this was really helpful primary research for my project. esepically in terms of getting a sense of how people feel from different genders as I had not explored the male perspective. it surprised me the amount of truthfulness and veracity I received in these awaners, especially as one of them was not a close friend of mine. I think there is something about writing online which gives people an air of comfort to be very honest.
March 3rd
DELETE VIRTUE OF FORGETTING IN DIGITAL AGE TEXT
Today I re-vistited this text which I looked at previously on the Big Data project. I thought it was very relevant to my research for my project proposal as it discusses the negative effect of our very 'visually rich online life'. It talks about the negative impact having such an extensive detailed archive of our past selves can be on our health as it does not allow us to forget. this made me think about how it is prohibiting us from the very important and healing process of organic death of our past selves which allows us to move on and grow as a person.
it made me think of cancel culture which has recently peaking in 2019/2020 where people will rusurface old tweets from celebrities saying politically incorrect things and essentially 'cancel' or 'delete' them as a person. in a sense it seems here that the public are putting themselves in the position of online law/power/omnipotense holding a whitch hunt over anyone who offends.
I thought of re-reading this text after holding some of my online interviews with friends on Instagram direct message. in the voice memos left by account name 'whitelights2001' he spoke of this inability to forget who he was in the past which never used to be an issue for previous generations. this also got me thinkning of the inability to move on in other senses, like from relationships. it is hard to 'forget' past friendships or romantic relationships when you can see an idealised version of themselves in snippets online every day. it is almost like how in the Baroque era when people would commission portraits of themselves surrounded by all their wealth and land to portray themselves to be admirable and desirable however we are now doing this online in order to push a certain personality we want to be viewed as.
march 6th
I am interested in exploring the visual effect of a large mass of flies swarming over the geletain head. when bugs are in very large quantities and all crawling over one another I think it is a very striking image as they almost appear to be moving as one, or from a distance they look like they are one rippling sheet of material. more recently this had become a very prominent image in my mind as people are comparing what is happening in the world (With the virus, the wild wires, the swarms of locusts in Africa) with the stories from the bible of God's wrath beating down on people by sending the rivers of blood, swarms of locusts ect.
I think that the bugs could create an effective provocative response from the audiance due to their gruesome effect. I was thinking of placing the geletain head inside of a Clear perspex box and then pilling it with the insects. I like how it would act as an interesting metaphor for consumption online, of how what we upload and put out into the world is being used and eaten up by wider audiences. however this might be a too obvious image for consumerism, I will have to think about this is more clarity.
However after a brief talk with my tutor there are issues I need to consider with the bugs. it might be more ethical and effective if I bring the face to the bugs rather than the other way around, as this is how it often works on social media, you provide the content to by 'eaten' up. furthermore the fragmented head being eaten by the bugs could be a really interesting way of looking at the kind of perverse enjoyment we get from seeing people consume our bodies and faces online perhaps to provoke jealously of not looking as we do?
However if I were to bring the face to the bugs it would be much more effective to do this in the summertime where the bugs will be out of hibernation and wandering around in the open, as I feel as though if I were to place the jelly head in a park currently nothing would happen. I should also research if it is ok for bugs to eat geletain?
March 8th
i just honestly, really dont think i can do this haha . i know i have put an octopus on my head for art before but i have a really big thing against flying bugs, even ladybirds/butterflies i cant deal with and the idea of opening a box in the mail full of overlapping swaming flies really makes me feel like i want to run to another county. maybe this is then a reason I really should do it? it bring in something very viscerally personal to the work, but then again its not a mould of my face ?
I have done research into how I quill acquire the bugs and I could order the lava online and have them hatch? I am still uncertain about the ethical concepts behind this. I am starting to think that it is possibly not the best idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6gtTXe6lH4
13th march
by mistake I realise I have completely aesthetically copied mark quits self, a series of full head casts in the artists own blood, and by putting my face in a perspex box it would only be further placing emphasis on this similarity.
this is such a close comparison and this is such a famous piece that it is something I can't ignore as anyone who sees the head will automatically make the comparison and wonder if it is commintary on the piece or if I was trying to make a connection between the two. therefore I am not going to look further into putting the head into a perspex box and continue along the route of looking into more depth at the metaphors behind my piece. mark quits head is an interesting statement and humanity, death masks and our reliance on technology (as the head would melt if the freezer turned off) and interestingly enough it did melt everywhere when it was accidentally shut down.
I am looking more in depth about our inability to touch eat smell consumme our online bodies, and how we are fragmenting ourselves by making copies of ourselves online.
below , looking at casting geletin
18th march
after my tutorial I wanted to look more in depth into the myth of narcissists to serif any more imagery from the fable would just out to me to help inspire my work,. this idea of what once was the symbol of narcissism being looking at ones self in a lake has now turned into a reflection in a laptop is interesting to me. tis makes me think of the show black mirror, how it is called black mirror because of how when you open you computer you can see a vacate reflection of yourself in the black of the unlit screen,
march 23rd
I am interested the way that Rebecca horn uses her sculptural works in an interactive way. I would like to do something similar, perhaps not in aid of body movement and interaction with the body, but using my sculptural work to give it a voice in order to communicate to the viewer within film, like reverse expanded cinema, inversed fine art sculpture?
I liked how Shana molten uses her sculptural work in her performances and then exhibits the sculptures by her work incoreperating them into the instalaition, I thought it was a really nice touch and made me feel part of the art and the experience she was conveying.
is there beauty in forgetting Shinji Toya
gorgeous video work series I really really enjoyed this. she talks about how we romanise older mediums like analogue photography because it is not perimently archives and It can be forgotten lost.s she talks about how you can forget in the digital media because every time you reserve an image the pixels get smaller so essentially something is being forgotten and lost, where does that go?
not I Samuel becket, this was a very useful artist I forgot to include when I made my first video experiment with the projected lips, I wish is studied this closer, I think I could have had alto of fun with experimenting and playing with the expressivmeness of the mouth and teeth and tongue and pronunciation
April 26th
because this is the most often reported thing in the news and conversation, my thoughts in terms of my project are moving more towards death and its understanding in terms of young children who are growing up in this situation
April 30th
in reference to the essay which continuously has been inputting my work, Theodore Adorno's essay on Free Time I was thinking about how now in quarantine we have the closed thing to Free Time that we have had in a while (if you are not an essential worker or if you are not working from home) . I was struggling to think of how to put value to my time, I sent a message to some friends of mine asking if anyone else felt the same way. an wander from my friend made me think of the Adorno essay and how we value ourselves and the time we spend.