A sound piece, a moving image piece. I'd still rather complete or resolve in a day rather than leave something open ended. So how I will decide upon today is getting into that space in the mind - the space of freedom where anything is possible. The rest of the day is transforming ideas into actuality.
To document my day - the first hour is mindful noticing, allowing what is around me to suggest itself, to allow ideas to ebb and flow, and see what occurs and settles.
9.35am
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Well, sometimes it really doesn't take long at all. Almost as soon as I had written above, I received in the post a brochure from the V&A, with a figure on the front that immediately suggested to me cutting out. With more figures inside, I have been cutting out, planning and thinking:
I am thinking of making them into a moving image piece. At this stage I imagine them stuck onto a slow turnstile or rotating mobile, and videoing the shadows as they cross and merge, like lives in orbit of each other - both chaotic and ordered - a bit like people.
I think it is called "Found People". I would normally create my own imagery for work, ie, once having this idea, I would then draw or photograph suitable images to use, but there is something about the randomness of this which appeals to me, and some are images I would never choose by eye, especially that 80s-looking model.
I am struck yet again at how patterns and tendencies emerge in practice - I can see connections already to work I have made in the past, and to current concerns. The main conundrum for me in this project is the fascination with how cutting out a shape turns it into an object, where before it was an image. a transformation of form. As I have been cutting out I have been thinking over an old treasure I have from my childhood:
This was given to me when I was 7 by an old aunt who was a nun - Sister Francis. I remember visiting - it was a proper old nunnery with old style habits. Sister Francis was known for her great skill, and I loved this thing, given to me for my first communion. I kept it on the wall beside my bed for years - not for religious reasons - that's another story for another day! but because I loved it as an object, and I could never work it out. Of course, now I see how it is constructed, and could reproduce something like it, but when I was younger, I could see perfectly well what it was, but it still remained a mystery to me, a conundrum or paradox which I loved to think about, and still do.
This thinking is always in my mind in art, and I have explored it before in work, but not directly through this seminal artifact.
11.25am
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Of all the ways I could go with this, I decided not to gather more cut outs and see what I could do with what I have. I brightened the images a little and gave myself a few more variations which suggested themselves, as a way of maximising options:
Time goes so swiftly!
Images taken with shadows emphasised:
There were others. Also used my mobile to take a little video - all very handheld with a torch in the other hand.
Of all the ways I could go with this, I decided not to gather more cut outs and see what I could do with what I have. I brightened the images a little and gave myself a few more variations which suggested themselves, as a way of maximising options:
and so on.
As I was making the image variations, I noticed that the parts which really interested me were the shadow suggestions:
These are the details which suggest life and movement, which suggest that the images are breaking out of their two dimensions. Whatever these images or shapes are, it is the shadow which animates. I immediately think of another occasional project I am working on, which I have never pushed to a fruition as yet. I have some card cut out shapes - objects like scissors, an elephant, glasses, etc - all objects immediately recognisable at a glance, which I have cut from black card. I photograph scenes such as from windows, holding up these shapes near and out of focus, so that they blur as a shadow coming from nowhere. Difficult to describe, and I don't think I could find examples to show quickly, but for myself I see the connections, and how I could move on that other conundrumical work - not sure if that's a real word.
12.45pm
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Images taken with shadows emphasised:
There were others. Also used my mobile to take a little video - all very handheld with a torch in the other hand.
Found People
This reminds me of the ghost images I took at the V&A. will definitely revisit this, with other images, objects and old photos.
4pm
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What a day. Everyone had done something interesting and moved on in different ways. There's nothing like a deadline and a finite time to make things happen - I resolve to find days like this more often!
Link to previous V&A ghost objects images on blog - I'm sure there are more:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/group-crit-april-v-ghost-objects.html
In the end I have opened up a few ideas for myself for future work, and approach to imagery. I see many links in previous work, some of which I was aware of while making, others not, and some seem obvious only after finishing.
I layer moving image all the time, and similarly to today, Seep:
http://www.eleanormacfarlane.com/apps/videos/videos/show/9859745-seep
Today was different in use of photographs, video and a layer of negative. there is more I will do in picking out the shadows of flat images - that interests me alot. The Vermeer image I ended up using gave the video qualities other images would change, and everything linked up with the V&A, from the brochure in the post, to a network of links with previous work.
Jo mentioned she found the piece unnerving, that it made her tense up and cold, and was sinister and unsettling, as a strength of work. Of course I am aware of the look and effect, but I tried to explain that that aesthetic or effect is secondary, and almost a byproduct of the intended process. I mean the unnerving element is what happens, and how it is experienced, but it is not reached deliberately to unnerve. It's fascinating that so often, when everything else is pared away, that feeling is what is left. Also, poetic was mentioned.
So often we come up with new ideas and choices, and yet find a similarity with previous pathways of thinking. What I was doing today felt newish, but of course I used methods and techniques I know, and found new ways to apply my solutions to choices. As Angela said, that's a nice model of practice, to go to new places and link back to work.
6.15pm
...................................................................................................................................................................
Found People, Vermeer, tidied up.
What a day. Everyone had done something interesting and moved on in different ways. There's nothing like a deadline and a finite time to make things happen - I resolve to find days like this more often!
Link to previous V&A ghost objects images on blog - I'm sure there are more:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/group-crit-april-v-ghost-objects.html
In the end I have opened up a few ideas for myself for future work, and approach to imagery. I see many links in previous work, some of which I was aware of while making, others not, and some seem obvious only after finishing.
I layer moving image all the time, and similarly to today, Seep:
http://www.eleanormacfarlane.com/apps/videos/videos/show/9859745-seep
Today was different in use of photographs, video and a layer of negative. there is more I will do in picking out the shadows of flat images - that interests me alot. The Vermeer image I ended up using gave the video qualities other images would change, and everything linked up with the V&A, from the brochure in the post, to a network of links with previous work.
Jo mentioned she found the piece unnerving, that it made her tense up and cold, and was sinister and unsettling, as a strength of work. Of course I am aware of the look and effect, but I tried to explain that that aesthetic or effect is secondary, and almost a byproduct of the intended process. I mean the unnerving element is what happens, and how it is experienced, but it is not reached deliberately to unnerve. It's fascinating that so often, when everything else is pared away, that feeling is what is left. Also, poetic was mentioned.
So often we come up with new ideas and choices, and yet find a similarity with previous pathways of thinking. What I was doing today felt newish, but of course I used methods and techniques I know, and found new ways to apply my solutions to choices. As Angela said, that's a nice model of practice, to go to new places and link back to work.
6.15pm
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Stills from Found People Vermeer
15th June 2013
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Reflection
I do like working to completion, and I feel I must. I actually like the stress of a deadline - although like is probably not the right word - more respond to and understand the importance of. I believe in the mysterious underlying equations the mind works out which all coordinate in the end. I work by that.
The Found People Vermeer little piece may not be a finished work, but it is a fully rounded idea, ready for reiteration and development. More, it is a new angle for me in moving image, a new way to realise some ideas, which also links with previous and concurrent thinking and directions - I recognise the idea as mine.
This making day was different than previous MA ones, in that itemising the progression of ideas and the pathways of development were much more specific for me. Although time is pressing and there was more I could write, record and analyse, I realise it has become much more second nature for me to be explicit in how I reach my ideas and where they come from.
That old chestnut about artists writing about their art - if it could be expressed in words it would be a piece of writing rather than art, and so on, but the reality is, that if a thought can be expressed in art, it is not just instinct and impulse. That clearly plays its part, but engaging the intellect at a conscious level means those artistic ideas are accessible to the artist, as well as the audience. Outsider art, pre-critical art, unschooled art does not have that balance of meaning and intention that fully realised and iterate art does, art that also can be considered with the intellect, with experience, knowledge, learning and culture as well as with instinct and feeling.
I am looking forward to concentrating upon developing this technique and idea. I feel it could be a significant element in my practice.
18th August 2013
...................................................................................................................................................................
Reflection
I do like working to completion, and I feel I must. I actually like the stress of a deadline - although like is probably not the right word - more respond to and understand the importance of. I believe in the mysterious underlying equations the mind works out which all coordinate in the end. I work by that.
The Found People Vermeer little piece may not be a finished work, but it is a fully rounded idea, ready for reiteration and development. More, it is a new angle for me in moving image, a new way to realise some ideas, which also links with previous and concurrent thinking and directions - I recognise the idea as mine.
This making day was different than previous MA ones, in that itemising the progression of ideas and the pathways of development were much more specific for me. Although time is pressing and there was more I could write, record and analyse, I realise it has become much more second nature for me to be explicit in how I reach my ideas and where they come from.
That old chestnut about artists writing about their art - if it could be expressed in words it would be a piece of writing rather than art, and so on, but the reality is, that if a thought can be expressed in art, it is not just instinct and impulse. That clearly plays its part, but engaging the intellect at a conscious level means those artistic ideas are accessible to the artist, as well as the audience. Outsider art, pre-critical art, unschooled art does not have that balance of meaning and intention that fully realised and iterate art does, art that also can be considered with the intellect, with experience, knowledge, learning and culture as well as with instinct and feeling.
I am looking forward to concentrating upon developing this technique and idea. I feel it could be a significant element in my practice.
18th August 2013
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