(The decisive moment - the great photographer Henri Cartier Bresson's concept regarding photography, capturing with creative intuition the definitive photographic image.)
I take photos of movies while they are playing on TV. I am experimenting with exactly the right level of defocus so that the situation, the dynamic or filmic set up can be recognised, but without the detail.
My interest and practice in this has been reignited by the video projection trials for the Exploratory Project, projecting moving image onto a TV screen while other things are playing. I am reconciled to using these appropriated images in my work - they are found relics.
There are so many variations, and alot of work to do in capturing that moment and editing. It is my instinct to avoid a particular actor or film being identified - I want instead to suggest its type.
I don't tend to make narrative works, but I like images which suggest narrative, or stimulate an imagined narrative. Instead of a linear stream of consequences, structure can be more relational.
In a recent group crit, Jo was advised to pause from making more and more images, and to spend time considering what she already had. I certainly feel the pull to collect more and more, but already have plenty to work at and refine. I will pause and work through the movie photos I have.
I am planning to use these images in moving image - I don't know exactly what as yet, but I will merge them with my own new imagery. Of course I am aware of artists using found footage to great effect. I love that, deeply, but have no desire to copy.
Douglas Gordon. 24 Hour Psycho. Still. 1993
(accessed 17th April 2012)
Christian Marclay. The Clock. Still. 2010
(accessed 17th April 2012)
Christian Marclay http://whitecube.com/exhibitions/christian_marclay_the_clock/
And my favourite:
Matthias Mueller and Christoph Girardet. Play. 2003
(accessed 17th April 2012)
Matthias Mueller http://www.expcinema.com/wikien/Matthias_M%C3%BCller
Furthermore there is something about the paintings of Gerhard Richter and his use of defocus, which highlights the true nature of vision as not the crystal clear images we suppose due to photography - more true is a series of impressions.
Gerhard Richter. Dead. 1998
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/datadir/images_new/xlarge/3666.jpg
(accessed 17th April 2012)
17th April 2012
FURTHER
As a final piece for the end of the Exploratory Project I am making a piece of Moving Image using the old movie photos. I have much material, and a bit of a collecting mania starting - going through my collection of films, seeing what happens to be on Film 4 or so on. The potential of material is endless, but it is not everything I am looking for - it is a variety of moments. So far the collections are grouping themselves into main areas -
Titles and credits
Moving vehicles
Faces
Crowd scenes, especially moving
Solitary running figure
Odd isolated images such as shoes
Scenarios between people
Ships
I am concentrating on the titles and credits for now, editing each image so that it is more or less unreadable, but "readable" in the sense that you can tell what's going on, and referencing all those old movies. I am also trialling ways of linking them together, and have found a cinematic roll feel of the piece. At this stage it's all quite manual labour - I may or may not have caught each image with the right exposure and feel, and then I perhaps crop or relentlessly edit, and then link them together in my film editing programme.
I will have alot to say about this piece and the others following after, but the EP has brought me to here, and it is making for now.
The titles and credits endlessly roll. We can't quite see who's in it, but may well have seen this one before, or one like it anyway. All those people, all those important jobs - once everybody knew them, and now even the stars names seem unlikely.
Names, faces, films we almost remember. Some readable, some faded irretrievably into obscurity.
There are stories here. Imagined stories. Stories between the lines. Dramas and life. An industry based on shadows.
I often used still images when making Moving Image, and have now figured out many ways to move and layer them, but each subject leads the technique, and these credits quite simply roll and reveal.
I am aware that this would be a very different piece if I had pieced together film footage, and especially if the credits were in focus. I spent at least a year at the beginning of my art degree in making images, drawing and photographs of script in layers of focus, attempting to convey meaning without being explicit, by blurring and
manipulating script. Images of those are in a physical rather than digital archive. I am also thinking of other parallels and references to my own works - moving image such as the endless staircase - Ever.
Titles and writing to follow later, and also a soundtrack. There is so much more to write about all this, and reference, and work to do. The old movie photos will give me many works. I feel a seamless transition into the next project, Studio Practice.
4th May 2012
FURTHER
As a final piece for the end of the Exploratory Project I am making a piece of Moving Image using the old movie photos. I have much material, and a bit of a collecting mania starting - going through my collection of films, seeing what happens to be on Film 4 or so on. The potential of material is endless, but it is not everything I am looking for - it is a variety of moments. So far the collections are grouping themselves into main areas -
Titles and credits
Moving vehicles
Faces
Crowd scenes, especially moving
Solitary running figure
Odd isolated images such as shoes
Scenarios between people
Ships
I am concentrating on the titles and credits for now, editing each image so that it is more or less unreadable, but "readable" in the sense that you can tell what's going on, and referencing all those old movies. I am also trialling ways of linking them together, and have found a cinematic roll feel of the piece. At this stage it's all quite manual labour - I may or may not have caught each image with the right exposure and feel, and then I perhaps crop or relentlessly edit, and then link them together in my film editing programme.
I will have alot to say about this piece and the others following after, but the EP has brought me to here, and it is making for now.
Titles
Names, faces, films we almost remember. Some readable, some faded irretrievably into obscurity.
There are stories here. Imagined stories. Stories between the lines. Dramas and life. An industry based on shadows.
I often used still images when making Moving Image, and have now figured out many ways to move and layer them, but each subject leads the technique, and these credits quite simply roll and reveal.
I am aware that this would be a very different piece if I had pieced together film footage, and especially if the credits were in focus. I spent at least a year at the beginning of my art degree in making images, drawing and photographs of script in layers of focus, attempting to convey meaning without being explicit, by blurring and
manipulating script. Images of those are in a physical rather than digital archive. I am also thinking of other parallels and references to my own works - moving image such as the endless staircase - Ever.
Titles and writing to follow later, and also a soundtrack. There is so much more to write about all this, and reference, and work to do. The old movie photos will give me many works. I feel a seamless transition into the next project, Studio Practice.
4th May 2012
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