Visit To... The Tate Modern 2014

'Vision as reception
Vision as reflection
Vision as projection.'

Bill Viola, note 1986




I recently visited the Tate Modern, and came across 'Blindly', which I found particularly striking. Polish artist and film maker Artur Zmijewski had chosen to document scenes from a painting workshop with visually impaired participants, and in so doing directly addresses the challenges faced by people living with a disability, and captures the outcomes with stark honesty. Zmijewski rarely intervened during the process and left the participants free to express their own perceptions of the world. Watching this process made me think about the role visuality plays when producing art, and to what extent our eyes restrict our freedom in expression and imagination. In addition, this film was very politically charged, which also made me think about the way in which contemporary artists use art to deliver a powerful message relative to matters of a particular contemporary discourse.

Perfection Is My Border

These are few examples from a series I produced based around my exploration of what a border means to myself. The images in the centre are of people I feel I have borders with, which I have represented using masking tape, glue and ink. These are very experimental and abstract pieces which I feel I needed to produce as a way of breaking down my own borders of perfection. Music plays an important role in my life, and so while producing each piece I listened to a particular song. I feel this helped to unlock subconscious thought and influenced my mark making without my realising to fit with my thoughts and feelings toward the subject.  

When tackling the borders I have with myself, I chose to use the 'selfie', which radiates a false image of confidence and appeal. I wanted to contrast this image against the darker meaning behind the piece.

I would love to take this further by perhaps using an entire wall or larger canvas to produce similar work, and I would also like to try using melted wax as another means of conveying borders.

Exploring The Borders Within People

Borders
(CLICK LINK ABOVE)

After much thought, I was inspired to explore the borders within individuals. Thus, it came to me that having had the privilege to work with young people with mental illness through CAMHS (Child and Adolescent mental health service), I could provide a delicate insight into the emotional and psychological borders that are faced when overcoming a mental illness. In addition, I was most inspired and affected by the 'Catching Dreams' exhibition, which was a moving demonstration of the breaking of borders through self expression. And so, I produced a short piece of film using unedited footage featuring a friend of mine, who is also involved with CAHMS. The song Eleanor is singing she wrote herself, and relays her own emotional borders and the process of overcoming them. I chose a theatre setting in which to film the performance, for Eleanor is an actress and thus the theatre proves to be a source of strength. Contrastingly, I lit half of the theatre in darkness to serve as an embodied reminder of the internal borders we face. In terms of the furnishings, I chose to use blank wooden boxes to surround Eleanor to visually represent a border, which would contrast against her song of attempting to break free. Furthermore, I made the conscious decision to film from a single angle and leave the raw footage unedited, for I want the focus of the film to be Eleanor and the meaning of her song. In addition, I wanted to include any mistakes or imperfections during the filming process, such as a stumbling of words or the odd twang of the wrong string on the guitar, so as to further reinforce the concept of overcoming a border and celebrating the imperfect. Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of the film.

Walking Borders

What is a Border?

Having been given the words 'Border, City, Body, Time' to work from for the Fine Art project, I explored my initial reaction to what a border meant to me by walking the border of a car park. In addition to this, I walked the border of Haringey from Tottenham to Barnet and filmed this, recording how I felt as I was walking, the sounds I could hear and how my measure of walking changed as time passed. I chose only to film my feet, so as to amplify the sounds in the background and visually record how my pace of walking changed as I progressed.

Visit to ... Egon Schiele : The Radical Nude November 2014

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the 'Radical Nude' Exhibition displaying the work of Egon Schiele at Somerset House. Egon Schiele is one my favourite artists, for he produced some of the most radical depiction of the human figure created in modern times. What intrigues me most about Schiele's work is his varying style in depicting the body; he goes from a very flat and linear quality to a detailed and tonal depiction. In terms of content, I love the way in which Schiele challenged conventions with his 'unflinching and highly original approach, reinvesting the subject of the nude with new energy and purpose.'

As much as I liked the Exhibition, Schiele was very much of his time and thus I found my visit to the 'Catching Dreams' Exhibition at the South Bank Centre to be more pertinent to me.

Visit to ... The Catching Dreams Exhibition November 2014

Last week, I visited the 'Catching Dreams' Exhibition at the South bank Centre, which holds the United Kingdom's annual national showcase of art by prisoners. The artworks featured in the show were created by prisoners, offenders on community sentences, secure psychiatric patients and immigration detainees. I found the entire exhibition to be very powerful and moving, for the very purpose of the Exhibition was to empower those whose voice was taken. Interestingly, the artwork that I found to be the most striking was those produced by secure psychiatric patients. The imagery conveyed in such pieces as 'Birds' were beautiful in execution. yet highly disturbing when viewed in the context of the artist's situation. Remembering that a key influence of the 1920's Surrealists was the work of the mentally ill, I was most inspired by the insight I felt I was given an insight into the thoughts and emotions of the artists. In relation to my project, 'Border, Time, City, Body', I feel as though the exhibition encapsulated the concept of breaking through a border, which interest me. The very act of channeling difficult emotions into highly expressive artworks is, in my opinion, breaking a personal border.

This piece in particular reminded me of the 'Tilling Fields' by Joan Miro. The juxtaposition of seemingly random images combined with loose lines and a startling palette highlighted the sense of chaos within this piece.

This was one of my absolute favourites. Produced by a patient in a secure psychiatric unit, the piece is made up of layers of illegible writing and lines. To me, This piece is very unsettling, as I can feel the intense chaos and desperation about the piece. As well as this, I managed to pull out the sentence 'New Home Soon' from the piece, which I found to be most moving. Having  a family background of mental illness, I am familiar with the system of sectioning and of the moving of patients to different units, and thus this piece resonated with me on a more personal level. In terms of the execution of the piece, I really like the layers of writing, for it not only leaves the artwork largely ambiguous but also awards it an abstract quality.

The Flight Project - Short Film

In this short video of our installation filmed on sight, the 50's dress appears to be flying, and even disappears out of shot for a few seconds. It can be argued that not only does this give the illusion that the dress itself is in flight, but also reinforces the underlying symbol of the dress as an instrument of entrapment for the housewife, and thus the attempt to escape the confines of this image sees the dress fall gently back into position. Although unedited, I think the film captures a powerful visual of the dress in flight.

The Flight Project - Photographic Study

The day long 'Flight Project' required the Art & Design Foundation students in small groups to make something that flies. In response, myself and my group decided to make an installation, using clothing thrifted from various charity shops in the local area and suspending them with thin fishing wire between trees in a park. By doing this, our intention was to create the illusion that the clothes were flying as the wind blew. Yet behind this installation we were simultaneously exploring other ideas; using a white bodice as a symbol of feminine freedom made problematic when caught between two trees - phallic imagery. In addition, we decided to use a 50's style dress to represent the escape of the trapped housewife. In spite of this, our aim was to make the installations appear as ambivalent as possible, so as to give the observer much room to interpret the art work.

Voice for Life

My finished response to the project of 'Machines for Living' took the form of a short film exploring how the voice is in effect, a machine for life. It can be argued that machines themselves cannot affect change, but humans can, and thus I fused the idea of the machine and the voice into a single concept. The film explores how we are defined by the way we communicate, and is compiled of various clips of footage both shot by myself and extracted from other sources. The juxtaposition of the clips of footage played a fundamental role in this film, for I aimed to contrast and underline the different ways the voice is used as a machine for life so that I could achieve a powerful dramatic impact. In addition, I wanted to juxtapose the voice of the iconic with the voice of an individual for whom vocal communication does not come easy, and thus each would reinforce each other in illustrating the importance of the voice.Using different forms of editing software such as iMovie and Magic X Pro, I managed to edit down the footage and help the film to flow. I did find the editing of the film challenging, for this form of media is very new to me as well as working with the unfamiliar editing software. Aside from organising the structure of the visual footage, I additionally wanted to express the importance of the sound of a voice, and thus I opened and closed the film with raw audio footage, leaving the visuals black. I did this to both draw the attention of the audience to the voice only, thus highlighting the importance of a voice, and to also reinforce the visual footage. Overall, I am please with the outcome of the project, and feel as though as I have greatly improved my technical skill of editing and working with digital media.

Machines for Living :The Voice

Taking inspiration from my previous idea, I have chosen to look at how the voice is a key machine for living. Based around the early 20th century artistic view that the machine can be interpreted as an intricate natural system or organism such as the human body, I wish to explore how the voice is used, and how we are defined by the way we communicate. What fascinates me is the idea that  the voice can be interpreted simultaneously as both a product of a mechanism within the human body, and additionally as a concept of expression. I have been inspired to pursue this idea through the observation of a machine used to deliver vocal communication, namely through the technology to aid the disabled. While the machine used by those unable to speak embodies the idea of a machine for living, I am also inspired to document the variety of ways in which the voice is used to create impact.

Machines for Living

The Machine For Living project is proving to be most interesting and is encouraging me to explore many different ideas and potential artistic techniques. I was drawn to the conception of the machine as an important concept and metaphor, and so this lead me to begin the project by exploring the role of machinery in war. In doing this, I placed particular focus on how the literature of Kurt Vonnegut, Howard Nemerov and Ernst Hemingway can not only serve to explore the perception that soldiers are mechanisms of war, but can also provide an insight as to why the manner of these particular veterans has been branded as 'cold, rigid and mechanical' like a machine by many. I was inspired by the photographic works of Stephen Sagmeister and his fusion of text and the human form to therefore produce a series of small graphic drawings of Vonnegut, Hemingway and Nemerov each decorated with quotations from their literature taking form around their structure. In terms of the quotations, I chose those upon which reflected the war time experiences of the writers themselves, so as to explore the way in which experiences can shape who we become (in this case, how such war time experience have the power to influence an individual's behaviour to become much like a machine).

Overall, I am fairly pleased with how the outcome of the drawings. I wanted to capture the raw expressions of the subjects and thus I did not add any tonal value to the drawings, and instead stuck to a black graphic line. However, I struggled with the accuracy of the line and keeping the figures in proportion, which has given my drawings a slightly rougher quality which I would like to improve upon. Overall, I think that I want to move on from this idea and explore other ways of interpreting a machine for living.

Reflections in the Mirror

These are a few examples taken from my photographic series on 'Mirrors'. In terms of their position in the power point I produced, these photographs arrive in a quick succession and mark the peak of the subject's mental anguish. I experimented with  a slow shutter speed to achieve the distortion of the subject's reflection in the mirror, which I hoped would solidify the unsettling impact of the photographic series. In these particular examples I was inspired by the portraits of Francis Beacon, whereby the face would be contorted and twisted - thus arguably masking the identity of the subject. Although I am pleased with the outcome of these particular photographs, I would have liked to have experimented more with the effect of lighting, and exploring interesting ways in which I could use deep shadows or blinding light to further exaggerate the distortion of the subject's reflection.

The Mirror Project

Upon first gaze, it can be argued that the mirror is a product of vanity; it fuels our fascination withour superficial appearance. However, the mirror is also a means to compare who we feel we are 'inside' and the person the rest of the world sees, and thus I was inspired to examine this notion in more depth using the symbol of a mirror to communicate reflection on identity. Having not only taken inspiration from the photographic works of Duane Michals but the Surrealists' use of the distortion to generate 'a sense of nightmare or hallucination', I produced a series of photographic images reflecting the unsettling battle of the male subject with identity and mental anguish using photography and the physical manipulation of numerous mirrors. The subject is seen in differing sets of attire throughout the photographic study, the intention being to underline the subject's almost 'shifting' perception of his own identity, namely racial, as well as to encapsulate the idea of an individual harbouring many different personas.Taking this a step further, I used digital media to create a form of 'digital theatre' whereby I aimed to chart the internal battle of the subject through editing software on Powerpoint. Throughout the moving succesion of images, I hoped to merge theatre and media to leave the observer feeling as though they had been given a deeper insight into the subject's internal battle; using the arrangement of the images as a reflection of the subject's thoughts. One of the key ideas behind this project was the examination of the battle between an individual and identity, and  by the end of the series I wanted to demonstrate how this affects all. Thus by the end of the photographic series an image of the photographer (myself) is revealed, whereby I am taking a photograph of the subject, yet a reflection of myself is taking another photograph of me. Though arguably a subtle gesture, I hoped the the impact of the photograph would reinforce the series as a whole.