One thing I have learned over the years about making moving image is that you have to be extremely methodical. Working with an enormous number of stills and photographs in the final piece, I have had to be very disciplined in labelling and processing everything in order.
Making Found Paintings
When I was collecting these images, most days I had a few to add to the computer folder, and then in batches I processed them. Not every picture I took was successful or suitable, and most of them needed cropping and editing. Some had to be adjusted for colour and tone, etc. They had to be saved in the same size - my preferred size for the Pinnacle Studio programme. Then they were numbered in the order they were taken.
When it came to making the video, I had trialled several different ways of doing that, in what order to link them together, what pace and timing, etc, and how much to merge. Ten seconds per image with 8.24 sec of merging comes out at the right pace for my eye and my thinking - there is always something going on for the eye. One effect I rather like in this piece (again in the People layer) is that because of the varying colours, shades and tones of each Found Painting, the merging sometimes looks irregular, and yet the underlying pace is uniform. I think that subtly both soothes and interests the eye. The pace for an hour long piece therefore made for a quite neat 360 images.
In the end I went for like with like, and so I matched and merged colours together so that sections of the film tend to be in particular colours. I further matched marks, forms and lines between images so that they often merge through each other, and the marks further develop into the next frame. It was rather a marathon job, but I got to fully know the images better, and could remember and look for the ones I wanted. Often my criteria for deciding if each merge worked was if I found it awesomely beautiful. It's hard to describe that moment of imaging and hoping something will work, and then seeing it happen.
Working with such large film files pushes my tech and my retention to the edges of their limits. Film files can develop the dread rogue frames, and I so I have been checking the piece, frame by frame for them, as I always do, and yet a moment of a blink can get by. Each time I catch one of the pesky things I remake the film files.
Each piece also seems to present new technical problems and conditions. This time, when I made the piece using standard definition, as I usually do, there were odd flickers, which really should not have been there and have not occurred in works I have made before. When I remade it using high definition, the flickers disappeared. It's not so straightforward to use high definition because it does not match other components of the project and it leaves black bars around the edges and changes the aspect ratio. That's not an easy problem to fix, as Google will testify, and I thought I may have to make a contraption to fit over the projector lamp as a cap to block out the black bars. I have a free programme I use for files, Freemake Video Converter, and eventually found a feature on there I could pay for to simply remove the black bars without distortion. That turned out to be about the best £1.84 I've ever spent. Compatibility is often an issue in moving image or other tech. There is usually some problem to solve, which in turn causes other issues. Sometimes its because of the nature of the images, and although I have not yet fully figured out the reason for the flickering, I have a solution.
Now I am checking clips of Found Painting against People as I make that. In the end, the two will merge.
Making People / Class of Yesterday
I am using 11 old school photographs which I bought in Prague in 2003. They are from old Czechoslovakia and Hungary, all pre-war, some considerably older. They were in frames on my wall, so I unframed and scanned them, trimmed and edited them to uniform size, and altered the tone, etc, where needed.
Many trial and processes. I made version of each image in black and white and negative, etc. I printed the images onto silver card and took many photographs of each, holding them in different lights, and distorting the card a bit to get more shadows and glints. All these photos were then processed, and added to each numbered image folder. Sometimes it was strangely hard to keep being methodical in this, as I just wanted to take the photographs randomly, however, I just could not allow myself to get into a muddle. I wanted to capture all different aspects of the metallic way the photographic surface gleams, and get a feel of the layers and textures.There was a lot of editing to do with these photographs, and resizing, cropping and so on.
Everything had to be converted into black and white because even though I had some lovely colour casts, I decided that any colour would compete too much with the colour in the Found Paintings. Now each image had many versions, about 50, and I could make what I had been aiming at all along - solarising the silver photograph versions. Because of the light and shadow and the reflections on the silver, solarising them created of area of positive and negative in the same image, and if I reverse the image to get the negative, I also get other areas of positive and negative emerge. It's perhaps difficult to explain what an exciting concept that is for me - I have really spent years in fascinated exploration of black and white / white and black / positive and negative. From the first piece of moving image I made in 1997, Meniscus, I have been fixated with the moment of transition between positive and negative. Working with photography is so many layers of positive and negative, and working with one while imagining with the other.
It's mostly the solarised images I am now merging together for the work, and I have about 100 - 200 for each image to use in the piece, 33 of which I will choose. 11 images @ 10 seconds x c.32 = 360 minutes. After trials, I think the dark negative version of the images do not work as well, as the transition between those and the other images greys out too much, so I am processing them again - digitally over exposing them to make them lighter, but still retain the positive and negative elements.
There is no one treatment for these images which match all the Found Paintings. I need to control the randomness.
Although I will be making Found Paintings and People together as Embedded, I am making them also as individual works which I could show separately at some point.
29th August 2014
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Tech Rant
Making often involves wrestling somewhat with my equipment, and this turned out to be a mighty fight. One factor is simply dealing with the sheer volume and keeping everything in mind, but worse is problems with tech. Last weekend I had a small problem with my computer which descended into a massive meltdown. I still don't really know what happened, but my video programme would not open, and in the end, even the laptop would not turn on. Many hours later, the computer was running, and I had to upgrade the video programme to the latest version so that I could reinstall and use it. That always brings other problems, because other file and programmes and tech may not be compatible with that, as upgraded versions tend to lose a generation or two of compatibility.
I have been using Studio Pinnacle since 2005 and know it well - I have made all my moving image using it. I didn't go down the Adobe route, and so I was a bit disappointed to find out that the latest upgrade is a bit more Adobe-like. It's not a great time to become familiar with a completely new product to make the final piece, However. I did so and completed making the old school photos layer, now called Class of Yesterday. This meant I have also been able to layer that and Found Paintings, and after a bit of adjustment and tweaking, have completed making all the visual moving image for Embedded. I am really so happy to see it - it's what I hoped and planned for. Also, although I am just about on schedule, it always a bit destabilising that all the processing involved in making moving image means that it can only be finished latterly - so there really could be no more problems. It's so different to finishing a series of paintings along the way.
I'm actually really disappointed with Studio Pinnacle. I've lost a few features which I'm now having to transfer to other programmes to complete. Often when programmes upgrade, they make sweeping decisions and changes about what is included, rather than continuing as options features of previous versions. Now I am taking the stills from Embedded, I have to use a different programme, as Pinnacle has given that process less creative control. After the MA I may have to rethink using Pinnacle, but in the meantime, with other programmes in place, I can get what I want.
Making and Seeing Embedded
While making Found Paintings and Class of Yesterday, I have been checking them together, so that when I merged the two layers, they would work together. I realised when I could at last see longer sections together, that the elusive third element of the moving image was already there, intrinsically embedded within - the apparent movement of the light, shade, gleam, shadow, bright and dark - in sunshine and in shadows, as my mum sings.
It's all about pace - sometimes that is harmonious, and the images merge quite regularly, and at other times that pace appears to be interrupted, but comes back just as the eye wonders about it. There is usually but not always something recognisable in view - a person in focus, a shadow emerging. And the times when all people fade from view is just long enough, like a cloud passing over the sun, and then they re-emerge. Sometimes the people imagery is strong, which rather allows for the indistinct times, if the viewer watches for long enough. And all along, the eye is a little unsure of what it is looking at, what it has just seen, as if seeing a residual image or memory impresses in the light. The change from positive to negative is see-able, and yet subliminal - it's all in plain sight and yet an open puzzle.
It's also all about balance - balancing the tones of each layer, so that just about every shade and combination of shade exists in the piece. It may look random, that I could just start either layer anywhere, but it has to be deliberate balancing and planned spontaneity to have enough see-able and suggested at each point. Sometimes the eye is more aware of the paintings, and sometimes of the people, sometimes the light of shadow or gleam takes over, sometimes it is the merging itself and the indistinct focus which is the main view, and all of these elements may be partial with the others.
I have ordered and made the frames regularly, so there is underlying precision in the timing - it's the variation in shading, the strength of colour and the quality of positive and negative which give the movement its irregularity - I like that, it's like a natural irregularity as clouds drift over the sun or moon, or as shadows play against a wall.
23rd September 2014
Making Embedded Stills
Crumbs! I've certainly found plenty of extra work to do. I'm still a bit disappointed with my video programme upgrade as some things I used to be able to do on the older version are now more cumbersome, especially the taking of stills, which is a major part of my work. through Pinnacle, I can only capture tiny stills, and can't set up how to label them, and so everything has to be done manually. I am using Irfanview, my preferred image programme to take the stills - this takes video stills in the highest resolution I've seen, which is something of an issue for video. However, now that I am actually working on the hundreds of stills I've taken from embedded, I discover that Irfanview captures them with an extra line down one side, a very noticeable black of white stripe, so I have to go through each one and trim three pixels from it, then resize it as I am relabelling. Just another epic day's work.
Although dealing with so many images is a vast job, it's a very rewarding stage of making moving image and stills - it's only now that I can really see and capture what I hoped and planned for. It's like when the art starts giving back, giving me a multiplicity of shades and images. Actually its a real thrill to see all the positive and negative images of Embedded. Although the piece is obviously played in positive, all the stills can also be turned into negatives as images in their own right, and because they already have positive and negative imagery together in each of the school photographs, they still do that when the entire piece is negative. This has been something of a major ambition for me in moving image, to make a piece that still looks right whether it is played in positive or negative, and you can't necessarily tell which is the right or original one. To me that is a layer of meaning that casts a shadow of light over the whole piece.
2nd October 2014
Making Ellen singing / In sunshine and in shadow
I went some way to explaining my music choices of the layers I am using, Mahler Symphony No 1, First Movement, and Saturn from The Planets by Holst:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/where-music-comes-from.html
Normally I would have identified key moments and extracted certain musical phrases to use, but when I listened to these two pieces simultaneously I found, by some miracle, that they blend together beautifully. These are pieces I know really well, and they created a new synthesis. I was especially struck in the weaving together of harmony and dissonance, major and minor, positive and negative, light and shade - in fact, much like the visual elements of Embedded. Actually I found it very moving, as the music works themselves are restrained and impactful. So as these two pieces of strands of an underlying rope, I have them as rising and falling, overlapping waves, almost heard, sometimes apparent. This forms a supportive background to Ellen singing, a colour palette and change of tension which never gets resolved. Crucially, it manages to be both positive and negative at the same time - major and minor.
I treated the recording of Ellen singing, adding some space, making an echoed layer, getting to the whisper and the sweet broken tones, and also discarding the actual "Danny Boy" phrase which I didn't like as much and also had a problematic click I couldn't get rid of. This also rises and falls in small multiples of waves, like a recurring thought, a memory or trying to remember. It mirrors the visual Embedded sense of somehow being unattainable, never quite settling, only appearing in dappled light or shade. At this stage I realised she sings "in sunshine or in shadow", and I titled it "...and in shadow". Happy with the and.
Ellen singing:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/towards-final-project-sound.html
I layered these, adjusting levels, reducing, adding space, allowing irregularities and waves of reverberation. I also added layers of a vintage recording of slowed Londonderry Air - many waves of strings. That also supports and almost rises into recognition at some points.
I have kept reducing and taking away the sound - even having two slow things playing together sounds immediately faster and busier. Now I have two slightly different version to check when I start rehearsing the projection and installation - one has a little sensaround and one not.
9th October 2014
Tuesday, 19 August 2014
Thursday, 14 August 2014
Beyond the MA
I can't help it.
While I want to keep the focus on everything to do for the ending of the MA, I have found thoughts straying beyond that time. It feels great - like freedom! I have really kept a lot of thoughts quite repressed for almost four years, as I wanted to fully allow the MA to lead me. Of course there have been plenty of other creative projects and life events during the MA, but there were some I had to put to bed for a while which are now reminding me about themselves. And there will be new thoughts and ideas.
14th August 2014
Apart from creative projects, art I'd like to make, and perhaps novels I'd like to write, I am thinking of jobs to apply for after the MA. There will be plenty to follow through next year. I have hardly submitted any proposals for anything this year, or exhibited, although there was the altered book at The Weiner Library:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/which-alters-when-it-alteration-finds.html
This is probably some preliminary thinking to Task 7 where we will be exploring our plans, but thinking beyond the MA goes much wider than practice and into all areas of life. I am certainly considering pursuing some research, perhaps PhD, perhaps something else.
29th August 2014
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Guerrilla Research
One of the many fruitful thoughts and ideas which I got from doing the Open Research course http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/open-research.html was the idea of Guerrilla Research. It appeals to me very much as an individual freelance type of person who likes to create projects. You just invent a research project and go ahead - why assume that all research must be linked to a larger institution or part of a collaboration? Of course, to be verified, there are other procedures and protocols, also discussed in the course, but structuring that is really part of the research parameters.
If I don't have an exhibition to make work for, I still make work, and likewise, now that I have dipped my toe into research, I will continue that. It actually may suit me better, at least for a while, rather than undergoing a PhD - that is still a decision to make for later if I reapply.
PhD is not the only research avenue, and there are other sources of funding also. I'm getting an idea of the language and the lay of the land of research. It's integrated now into practice, and funded or not, I will come up with some research projects to pursue. I'm used enough to art being unfunded, and can survive that. I wonder why I start from that base line of assuming I will not get any funding for art or research, but at least it is realistic and resourceful.
Again I realise I need a little time to think after the MA to identify areas although I have a good idea of interests I would like to contribute research to. At the moment it is very difficult to find time to think about anything other than completing the MA.
15th October 2014
While I want to keep the focus on everything to do for the ending of the MA, I have found thoughts straying beyond that time. It feels great - like freedom! I have really kept a lot of thoughts quite repressed for almost four years, as I wanted to fully allow the MA to lead me. Of course there have been plenty of other creative projects and life events during the MA, but there were some I had to put to bed for a while which are now reminding me about themselves. And there will be new thoughts and ideas.
14th August 2014
Apart from creative projects, art I'd like to make, and perhaps novels I'd like to write, I am thinking of jobs to apply for after the MA. There will be plenty to follow through next year. I have hardly submitted any proposals for anything this year, or exhibited, although there was the altered book at The Weiner Library:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/which-alters-when-it-alteration-finds.html
This is probably some preliminary thinking to Task 7 where we will be exploring our plans, but thinking beyond the MA goes much wider than practice and into all areas of life. I am certainly considering pursuing some research, perhaps PhD, perhaps something else.
29th August 2014
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Guerrilla Research
One of the many fruitful thoughts and ideas which I got from doing the Open Research course http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/open-research.html was the idea of Guerrilla Research. It appeals to me very much as an individual freelance type of person who likes to create projects. You just invent a research project and go ahead - why assume that all research must be linked to a larger institution or part of a collaboration? Of course, to be verified, there are other procedures and protocols, also discussed in the course, but structuring that is really part of the research parameters.
If I don't have an exhibition to make work for, I still make work, and likewise, now that I have dipped my toe into research, I will continue that. It actually may suit me better, at least for a while, rather than undergoing a PhD - that is still a decision to make for later if I reapply.
PhD is not the only research avenue, and there are other sources of funding also. I'm getting an idea of the language and the lay of the land of research. It's integrated now into practice, and funded or not, I will come up with some research projects to pursue. I'm used enough to art being unfunded, and can survive that. I wonder why I start from that base line of assuming I will not get any funding for art or research, but at least it is realistic and resourceful.
Again I realise I need a little time to think after the MA to identify areas although I have a good idea of interests I would like to contribute research to. At the moment it is very difficult to find time to think about anything other than completing the MA.
15th October 2014
Framing
I have various different sized frames, and am just in the process of deciding whether to fit the work to the frame, or having a harmony of sizes within the frames. Now it's just finding practical and ethical solutions to framing - ethical in that solutions must agree with the concepts and ideas in my mind, and match my internal checklist of framing standards drawn through experience.
There are many ways I could subvert the framing and size conventions, but none have as yet struck me as integral to this work. I want the viewer to be drawn in to the layers of imagery and not to be distracted by the form or formation they appear in - that is all within the work.
13th October 2014
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I have made framing part of the work, using a variety of frames, including remade windows, which are definitely not an invisible setting, but are developed as part or an extension of the stills they show.
Here are some frames I made earlier:
There are many ways I could subvert the framing and size conventions, but none have as yet struck me as integral to this work. I want the viewer to be drawn in to the layers of imagery and not to be distracted by the form or formation they appear in - that is all within the work.
13th October 2014
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I have made framing part of the work, using a variety of frames, including remade windows, which are definitely not an invisible setting, but are developed as part or an extension of the stills they show.
Here are some frames I made earlier:
Eleanor MacFarlane. Myriad. 2013
Framing is a setting, and can be a paradigm or frame of thought, even in art. By placing works in glass frames and displaying them on walls, we convey to them a value and worth. Framing also has psychological meanings, when we see though and understand concepts through a frame of reference, and reframe our views and attitude when we take on information. I think these ideas fully apply to art and the actual process of putting work in a frame.
I discussed framing during a recent MA task:
I have really enjoyed the framing work and process with the Embedded stills, even though working on the windows was a bit appalling. Will document and post images.
11th November 2014
Tuesday, 29 July 2014
Issues of Scale
Now I have come to the stage of deciding the sizes of the printed still and the projection. The original school photos are all rather small, and the Found Paintings, being digital images, were always the size of my computer screen. I've been thinking about issues of scale and size for some time in planning, and have come up with no reason to alter the nature of the images.
There is a literal element to size. I have been planning the projection as smaller than the regular screen, and I don't want the framed stills to dominate. It's still more of an individual experience to be in front of each image.
At another time, another place, another gallery and installation, I would possibly consider scaling the projection or the stills up, and in fact, I would love to see that. But part of the point of my MA installation is to show the multiplicity of installation configurations - it could be different stills, different framing solutions, different arrangements. There are practical considerations about the size of my gallery in Bank Street.
13th October 2014
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Ideas about scale are interesting concepts to consider and reimagine work. I have all along felt that the scale of Embedded should reflect the small to intimate scale of the original photographic material. On a practical level, all the elements had to fit into the gallery at Bank Street, and also be makable by me and transportable. Any idea of altering the scale seemed unnecessary and not adding any value. Yet again, at another time and in another place, I would imagine such projects and installations as Embedded could include some choice alterations in scale - imagining the stills large would be marvellous - perhaps Embedded is an ongoing project after all that I could constantly make slightly differently - in fact, I think the multiplicity of the installation highly suggests that.
11th November 2014
There is a literal element to size. I have been planning the projection as smaller than the regular screen, and I don't want the framed stills to dominate. It's still more of an individual experience to be in front of each image.
At another time, another place, another gallery and installation, I would possibly consider scaling the projection or the stills up, and in fact, I would love to see that. But part of the point of my MA installation is to show the multiplicity of installation configurations - it could be different stills, different framing solutions, different arrangements. There are practical considerations about the size of my gallery in Bank Street.
13th October 2014
...................................................................................................................................................................
Ideas about scale are interesting concepts to consider and reimagine work. I have all along felt that the scale of Embedded should reflect the small to intimate scale of the original photographic material. On a practical level, all the elements had to fit into the gallery at Bank Street, and also be makable by me and transportable. Any idea of altering the scale seemed unnecessary and not adding any value. Yet again, at another time and in another place, I would imagine such projects and installations as Embedded could include some choice alterations in scale - imagining the stills large would be marvellous - perhaps Embedded is an ongoing project after all that I could constantly make slightly differently - in fact, I think the multiplicity of the installation highly suggests that.
11th November 2014
Monday, 21 July 2014
Tutorial Report 35 Emily Richardson
Date: 21st
July 2014 Tutor: Emily Richardson
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reflection on
outcomes since last tutorial
I had sent Emily links to update work since previous
tutorial in January. The final project is considerably more defined, so the
tutorial was largely a discussion of progress towards completion.
____________________________________________________________________________
Current projected aims
and outcomes
Talk about the aspect of the past and nostalgia, and how I
have written in the blog about clarifying that the piece is not just about the
past – however, it’s best not to resist the past, and embrace it, not excuse
it. The past always is a critique of the present, and how we interpret it. In
my work there is a mixture of analogue and digital processes, bringing the past
to the present. I work with stills and video at different stages, in and out of
the computer, printing, and so on. In a time of digital compositing, I do real
rather than digital special effect, even though my darkroom is basically
digital. Talked about how I have always wanted to avoid making work that can be
easily aged – almost a futile pursuit (digital video, etc), and how I am more
open to the idea now, especially in considering the sound.
Discussed the idea of having another layer, where I film a
figure form the photo fluttering in the wind – added to the rest it is that
original third idea of some other movement happening, a little towards the implied
narrative. I’ve been wondering if this might fit or be too much, only trials
will tell, but on talking about it, I have become more convinced about making
it work. Another moving element like this could bring the work to life – if Emily
says it will bring it to the next level, I’m going to go with that. Although
the pace of the work so far becomes less regular because of the differences in
visual tone in the images, and so they have different blending effects, they
are almost rigidly uniform in making and processing. I like what happens when I
put the images together, making the patterns of change more irregular, and
adding the layer of wind movement allows me to add elements of seeming
randomness which still retaining the integral codification. This movement is like
breaking the surface of the work, giving the viewer something else to work out.
Having some focus in the one differently moving figure adds
focus for the viewer, as if they are that voice which is singing, or has
something to do with it. It potentially sets up a relationship between the
singing voice, the image and the viewer. Talked through the sound and that
relationship with times co-existing, my mother, myself, my son.
________________________________________________________________________________
Discussion and
recommendations
Scale. I am thinking that I will not largely alter the scale,
and that the projection and printed still will be towards the originals –
fairly intimate.
We discussed technical difficulties – as I stretch the limitations
of my computing equipment with large files, etc, and about giving time to plan,
trial and rehearse all technical aspects of the installation, including sound
and speakers. I have my own projector and so can set it up, but ensure to
account for height and people’s heads, etc. It would be a good idea to set up
in the same sized space as the gallery, to deal with any physical limitation.
Since I last talked to Emily I had the PhD interview. Talked
about reapplying and having a break from the MA – I probably have at least a
year’s worth of things to follow through after, especially in getting work seen.
Using the momentum.
Reflection
I have had to make some early decisions about the final
piece because of the size, but like in a big abstract painting, changes and
touches are still very possible – I’m still making.
22nd July 2014
Angela Rogers & Caroline Wright Presentations
Angela Rogers
I was struck by the clarity of Angela's presentation. I am very aware Angela has a PhD on her Drawing Dialogues project, and that everything she mentions is backed up with research and all the fancy language you might like. Yet presentation is clear for artists and civilians alike, really engaging and understandable.
I think, without checking, that artist academics do not tend to have a separate artist and research statements, perhaps because their art activity tends to merge into their research.
27th August 2014
I was struck by the clarity of Angela's presentation. I am very aware Angela has a PhD on her Drawing Dialogues project, and that everything she mentions is backed up with research and all the fancy language you might like. Yet presentation is clear for artists and civilians alike, really engaging and understandable.
I think, without checking, that artist academics do not tend to have a separate artist and research statements, perhaps because their art activity tends to merge into their research.
27th August 2014
Independent Art School Tutoring
http://theindependentartschool.com/
I have been tutoring for the Independent Art School. I recently completed a ten session block with my first student - 10 hours over some weeks - there's no curriculum, just private art tutoring depending on what the student wants and where they are at. I'd applied probably a couple of years ago and got an unexpected call and telephone interview.
My student recently had a baby and is taking a bit of time off work. She had done art at school, but not for a while, and was given ten hour-long lessons as a present. So in some ways a typical adult learner, unsure what she wants but keen to have a go. What do I know about drawing and painting, and teaching. Well, as it turns out, I do know quite a bit and we had a very successful programme of mark-making, colour matching and mixing, tearing and placing of elements and various other art principles which culminated in a planning and completing a painting she is rather proud of, plus enough work for a portfolio, and an understanding of how to approach and develop artwork, keeping everything on the paper alive.
I have been tutoring for the Independent Art School. I recently completed a ten session block with my first student - 10 hours over some weeks - there's no curriculum, just private art tutoring depending on what the student wants and where they are at. I'd applied probably a couple of years ago and got an unexpected call and telephone interview.
My student recently had a baby and is taking a bit of time off work. She had done art at school, but not for a while, and was given ten hour-long lessons as a present. So in some ways a typical adult learner, unsure what she wants but keen to have a go. What do I know about drawing and painting, and teaching. Well, as it turns out, I do know quite a bit and we had a very successful programme of mark-making, colour matching and mixing, tearing and placing of elements and various other art principles which culminated in a planning and completing a painting she is rather proud of, plus enough work for a portfolio, and an understanding of how to approach and develop artwork, keeping everything on the paper alive.
It helps that she was a great student and really got what I said and could respond, making her own choices. I really liked the tutoring - well no I loved it, and look forward to more. It's true what they say that you really learn when you are teaching - it's having to clarify and communicate. I also much prefer this kind of teaching which responds to the student, and hope this experience, plus all the qualifications and MA, will help me get some associate lecture positions at art schools - I have long aimed for such work ever since I first came across people working as that when I went to university myself, and getting such work was a main aim of getting the MA. I particularly respond to those times I have been able to do cross media tutoring in fine art, and would like to do so at various levels - the Independent Art School type and within universities.
19th October 2014
Monday, 14 July 2014
Tutorial Report 34 Sarah Lundy
Date: 16th
June 2014 Tutor: Sarah Lundy
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reflection on
outcomes since last tutorial
Sarah and I had recently worked together in the making day,
so she had seen my latest version of final project progress, and what I had
said about that.
____________________________________________________________________________
Current projected aims
and outcomes
Talked about being currently a little tongue-tied about work
in progress, words beyond what is going on in work. Sarah noted that
contemporary art is based in theory, and so artists will always have to relate
the theory to practice.
The video plays on the subconscious – always links to
itself, always validation. Somehow want to grasp the source and origin, somehow
want to grasp where the knowledge comes from.
The faces – talked about physiognomy and reading character
and personality, what you think you can tell from facial features. Also noted
some of the odd looking teachers and things that seem to get bred out over
generations – aesthetic of the ‘20’s, 30’s. Transformational, generational.
Modes of how to incorporate opposites in the work.
Talked about the neutrality of dealing with the images for
more resonance – dealing with a broader
esoteric concept, and so a technical approach now. The narrative is inherent in
the picture.
________________________________________________________________________________
Discussion and
recommendations
Discussed the fact that the faces are all looking out at the
viewer, and so it is the viewer being watched, feeling like a goldfish moment.
Of course that is true, but I haven’t thought about that yet – relate to
previous works with eyes.
Reflection
Sarah picks up the parts I want to talk about – the
psychological reveal of the morphing facial features. We talked about how
anyone can relate to images of the past – own family or not – we all have a
certain relationship to the past, and lined-up school photos have been
practically a universal experience in our culture for a couple of centuries. I
note that this work is not all necessarily about the past – just because those
photos are old.
14th July 2014
Tutorial Report 33 Les Bicknell
Date: 16th
June 2014 Tutor: Les Bicknell
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reflection on
outcomes since last tutorial
Had sent Les a few links, up to date with project including
making day trials.
____________________________________________________________________________
Current projected aims
and outcomes
Discussed issues of projection, and its mediating qualities.
How to achieve moving image with the collateral damage of objectness. Since the
piece works like a memory, Les imagined it with the projector and cables, etc, out of sight. Suggested it
happening in space – hanging thick paper or material by fishing wire in the
middle of the gallery, and projecting each layer, so that the audience
intervenes, but layers continue – floating in space, peeling of layers.
Material with stiffened top, not sagging. Using two projectors, so combining
image into one – could play infinite variations, showing layers separately.
Looking at the bookness. The images could theoretically be
shown or rearranged in any order. Les asked about the specificness of
school/memory/change, and that the buildings are inhabited at that time. The
paint is also specific of space and suggests schools, blackboards, coat pegs,
chalk, etc – to his eye. I am not planning to further highlight or place the
images, or to specify a school reference. Les asked about references to
Botanski work. I clearly see the parallels, but the differences lie in
labelling and neutrality – Botanski clearly directs and labels faces to be seen
and interpreted in a certain way – memorial, tragedy, loss, etc, whereas now
that I have my images, I am aiming for a neutrality in how I deal with them,
not directing the interpretation. Because of the material, I am consciously
avoiding a World At War treatment.
The narrative is independent of school – I see the photos as very revealing of
character, even though it is such a small moment of time.
Talked about the pace of transitions. Les imagines something
incredibly slow where you are not sure of the changes – Fischli and Weiss. (That’s
another piece). I think of the moment as fluttering, it comes and goes.
________________________________________________________________________________
Discussion and
recommendations
Discussed what sound I propose – layered, high, alpine
classical music, to start with. Grieg. I seem to know what I am doing!
Reflection
I was trying to scribble down as much as possible because
Les uses phrases that are good to ponder and to steal for work! I could see
that he was testing some concepts against my thinking, and I really value some
of those new avenues. Some of the suggestions – ways of projecting, etc, have
led me to my own and different decisions about how to show the finished work. I
realised that my work is always exploring the relationships between still and
moving images, all through the process of making. I always complete with
producing stills as part of the work, but I have never come up with a good way
of incorporating that, but this tutorial lead me to a brainwave, and so I will
be showing types of stills alongside the projection.
Hi Eleanor
- the sound.... I think we will all be in tears - what a treasure - you are wise to of recorded it
- the face with the drying is the beginning of something - I went straight to Becket but this is not necessarily right
- with the projection - the multiple possibilities are further enhanced by the many reflections off every surface around the projection
thanks for all this
your written reflection on the tutorial was very thoughtful - all is well - I have passed it onto Caroline.
Les
Hi Eleanor
- the sound.... I think we will all be in tears - what a treasure - you are wise to of recorded it
- the face with the drying is the beginning of something - I went straight to Becket but this is not necessarily right
- with the projection - the multiple possibilities are further enhanced by the many reflections off every surface around the projection
thanks for all this
your written reflection on the tutorial was very thoughtful - all is well - I have passed it onto Caroline.
Les
Tutorial Report 32 James Kowacz
Date: 15th
June 2014 Tutor: James Kowacz
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reflection on
outcomes since last tutorial
Last worked with James during Task 4 Personal Practice and
Career Development, and last talked about work quite a while ago. Had sent him
a few links for current work, and also pertinent trials from recent making day.
____________________________________________________________________________
Current projected aims
and outcomes
Discussed the found paintings – the variety of colours,
patterns, textures, and how that made it possible to view them in different
ways. James noted the slightly blurred bits in some and suggested they work
less well (Blurring happens during merging). He asked did that matter to me – I
have seen the overall effect, and like that variety, thinking also a shade of
Gerhard Richter slightly blurred paintings. James could see other artists
suggested in paintings, and that I have framed them to be like that – they
could be independent artworks.
Talked about the white layer film sample – questions scale,
if large, could get lost in a dream-like state, like staring at clouds. Induces
a certain state of mindfulness – increasing awareness of textures, etc.
Suggested slower transitions (!)
Asked about the colour ideas, I explained matching like with
like, so roughly colour palettes together.
Looked at the photos clip – James found them creepy and
disturbing, that he could not focus on a single person – not clear enough to
convince himself he could see them. Ambiguous shapes, so don’t know what he is
looking at – an uneasy ghostly feel – old photos/grandparents – familiar to
all. Hovering within image- still/moving? Uncertain whether see image or
shadow.
________________________________________________________________________________
Discussion and
recommendations
Sound. Discussed sounds lower than the human ear can hear.
Sarah Angliss, Roddy Skeaping http://www.sarahangliss.com/extras/Infrasonic/whoweare.htm
Chapter from –Experiment: Conversations
in Art and Science – another book to get. Psychological effects of
infrasound. Soundless music. Church organs – 64’ – Liverpool? This subliminal
sound is right up my street. Sound – it can split the video up, help the
viewer’s attention, build and fall tension and emotion, divide into sections –
it gives the video narrative.
Discussed my dilemmas about installation – don’t want to
squander the opportunity by being too bare, but don’t want too elaborate a set
up to take anything away from the moving image itself. No right answer. Issues
of sound leakage in gallery choices. The work – hovering between reality and
non reality – colours could be blood, holes could be from bullets, etc, but
that narrative, interpretation is James’ imagination… Decided to try some
contemporary school photos just to test effects/ contrasts, if it works and if
the photos have to be drawn from the past.
Reflection
Great to talk over ideas with James, and that he could
interpret the effects and suggestions I am after. Some aspects of this final project are as yet
difficult to put into words – I always had the found paintings and the school
photos in mind, and knew that they would merge, and that process is still
continuing, but I am still far from saying why I chose them and why they are
together. As I make the work, I plan that it will inform me, as ideas mesh, and
more themes and connections emerge. I guess it’s to and from between me and the
work.
14th July 2014
Thursday, 26 June 2014
Installation Plans & Ideas
I am thinking of showing the final piece in several ways within the gallery. The main piece will be projected, straight onto a plain wall, or more likely I will bring a blank framed canvas to project onto (trials). At this stage I am thinking of also showing the same work on a TV, probably my blackboard panted set, at an opposite corner. The TV will start at about half way through the other, and so the viewer gets, as it were, two minds, two stages. I showed moving image like this before in theViewergallery:
http://theviewergallery.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/theviewergalleryreport-1.html
I like the multiplicity of it, and it reflects how I often make and think about moving image. I'd love to get the chance to curate more theViewergallery events and screenings to trial such ideas.
The sound will not be doubled, so the TV will play mute.
Around the wall I have decided to hang various still from the work. I always finish moving image work by taking a collection of stills, and choose one to represent the piece. However, I consider the stills to be just as much a part of the entire work, but have never really found a way or format to include them in exhibition before. Nor really had the opportunity to show work quite as I want. I feel this development will become my ideal condition for showing, also allowing for infinite variation.
The stills will all be framed differently, sizes of frames, painted black, white, silver, and one directly onto a silver or metal board if I can manage it. For me this is an ideal expression of the whole work, the dichotomy between moving and still; static and changing; digital computing and hands-on making. It freezes stages of the film and perfectly expresses the making process which itself moves in and out of cameras and the computer, stills and video, through positive, negative and both together which I have managed to achieve through lighting and solarising photographs of the printed image back into the video.
Anyone who has worked in a darkroom will know how many opposites have to be kept in mind when working with prints and negatives. I've always find the approach similar in using the computer like a darkroom, and have found many more layers of opposites, until this technique which seems to unify them. Complicated, yes, but simple also. I know what to do.
14th July 2014
...................................................................................................................................................................
Installation plan
I have several elements to my final project exhibition Embedded:
Moving image projection
Moving image on TV
Sound on two speakers
Eleven framed stills including two remade windows
Printed book of images
In my front room which is my current studio, I can approximate the size of the gallery at Bank Street. I always trial moving image in normal rather than ideal light, to account for gallery variations, and because I will have other lighting - if it works in normal it will be great in a gallery. The only thing I am still unsure of is exact dimensions, the true shape of the gallery, and how everything will look and be reassessed in situ.
It's a fairly small gallery, and I wanted to express Embedded in all those ways.
![]()
http://theviewergallery.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/theviewergalleryreport-1.html
I like the multiplicity of it, and it reflects how I often make and think about moving image. I'd love to get the chance to curate more theViewergallery events and screenings to trial such ideas.
The sound will not be doubled, so the TV will play mute.
Around the wall I have decided to hang various still from the work. I always finish moving image work by taking a collection of stills, and choose one to represent the piece. However, I consider the stills to be just as much a part of the entire work, but have never really found a way or format to include them in exhibition before. Nor really had the opportunity to show work quite as I want. I feel this development will become my ideal condition for showing, also allowing for infinite variation.
The stills will all be framed differently, sizes of frames, painted black, white, silver, and one directly onto a silver or metal board if I can manage it. For me this is an ideal expression of the whole work, the dichotomy between moving and still; static and changing; digital computing and hands-on making. It freezes stages of the film and perfectly expresses the making process which itself moves in and out of cameras and the computer, stills and video, through positive, negative and both together which I have managed to achieve through lighting and solarising photographs of the printed image back into the video.
Anyone who has worked in a darkroom will know how many opposites have to be kept in mind when working with prints and negatives. I've always find the approach similar in using the computer like a darkroom, and have found many more layers of opposites, until this technique which seems to unify them. Complicated, yes, but simple also. I know what to do.
14th July 2014
...................................................................................................................................................................
Installation plan
I have several elements to my final project exhibition Embedded:
Moving image projection
Moving image on TV
Sound on two speakers
Eleven framed stills including two remade windows
Printed book of images
In my front room which is my current studio, I can approximate the size of the gallery at Bank Street. I always trial moving image in normal rather than ideal light, to account for gallery variations, and because I will have other lighting - if it works in normal it will be great in a gallery. The only thing I am still unsure of is exact dimensions, the true shape of the gallery, and how everything will look and be reassessed in situ.
It's a fairly small gallery, and I wanted to express Embedded in all those ways.
C
B 
A
A
D
Wall A: Shelves with projector and players projecting moving image onto Wall B. Not using a screen, showing directly onto the wall (possible plastering/painting). I am considering bringing about three white plastic stools I have which I will place along this wall. When showing moving image it's good to have somewhere for people to sit.
Corner on the floor between Walls A & C: TV showing the same moving image. c. 10 minutes difference.
Wall C has a big window. Hang a still in a remade picture frame in the centre of that, over the blind there. May place a big piece of sheeting over the window, blind, and little radiator there to diffuse/block the light and obscure it a bit. I think this is the first view people have when they approach the gallery.
Wall B has the moving image projection. I have quite a lot of control over its size, and am planning not too big.
I don't know what that is on the plan at the corner between walls B and D - don't remember there being another door, and the photos don't reflect that.
Wall D: I am planning a salon hang of the framed stills. - the frames are all different sizes and types, some black, some silver, etc. I also have a picture light which I will probably put over the largest frame. Arrangement of that will be decided in the space - I have the measurements. I am expecting that the glow from the moving image will add some light to the stills, which are printed on slightly reflective paper. I also anticipate that some may be a little difficult to see, and may be partly obscured or in shadow - very apt for the entire piece, and in fact I like that - I do object to the trend toward hyper white walls and brash lighting in some galleries!
The sound will play on two fantastic little wireless speakers which I will stick into two opposite corners at the ceiling.
There seems to be a little space back in the corner between Walls D & A. I am planning to place my printed book there on a hefty music stand I have, and possibly with a picture light over it. Somewhere in that area I will also have my cards and maybe the exhibition statement, which is quite minimal and more or less repeats what I have on my postcards.
At this stage I have thought through and believe I have in place all the essentials to install and secure the exhibition. Secretly it's been a massive logistical undertaking which I hope all looks straightforward and smooth in the gallery. In 2007 I organised my solo exhibition Viewer
and in 2011 I set up theViewerGallery
I have over time set up and organised various exhibitions myself, and any artist who reads this will know what that means and how resourceful and organised I had to make myself be, especially in the circumstances of family life and nil funding. It's great - it makes you strong. In 2007 I trusted and believed that I could follow through because it was my idea and therefore it was in my capacity. I still draw on that belief when pressed. After the MA my hope is that I will not always have to make such projects completely by myself - I'd like to have something to do with the gallery system.
Looking back at my earlier plans above, I see that I have followed them through. At one time I considered not having the TV, but once I tried it out I was reconvinced. I showed a friend who can't make it to Sheffield a dress rehearsal of the piece working, and the first thing she said was that she loved the flickering on the TV. I spend considerable time in minimising the flickeryness on the old screen tech, and have it as best as I can. Actually, I agree with her - I LOVE showing moving image on TV - it seems like a transmission from another time.
Although there are many different works in a fairly small space, I feel they all support each other and is part of the entire piece. To me, each part is utterly essential and integrated. This is how I think as an artist. It is unlikely that it will ever be shown like this again, in this configuration. I made the piece from different complete works - Found Paintings, Class of Yesterday, In sunshine and in shadow, which all merge into Embedded - the framed stills and the book which all spring from and are a part of Embedded. All of these works could have an art-life of their own. I love the multiplicity of that, and that for my MA exhibition it is all in alignment.
This is it for me - this is how I make works and projects now, with satellite pieces which can be shown separately according to circumstance, and the entire installation which changes each time it is curated.
11th November 2014
Something Old, Something New
I am aware that by using old school and group photographs, and my aged mum singing, the final project seems to become about the past and some comment on memory. Of course that is true in a way, but that is not the main intention. I don't know if I could simply locate and state what the intention is concisely, but it is not all about the past, not any more than that each moment of the present sinks in to the past even before we have experienced it.
In order to loosen up the associations, I will be trialling some more contemporary school photographs alongside my old collection, just to see what happens. The old photos I have are a complete entity or idea from which this whole project grew, and so I don't want to just stick in new ones for the sake of variety. However, some things you need to see and do as an artist, as imagining will only get so far. New ideas will spring, or I may well find more up to date references irrelevant or wrong in some way. I have a feeling to try it though.
Similarly with the music.
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/towards-final-project-sound.html
I haven't worked on the music more as yet - I will when the video is all complete, but I am thinking it through. An old lady singing. Yes I will be layering it and so on, but I feel it also another slightly unintentional signal that the work is all about the past. Again, yes of course it is in a way, but all the elements of the piece, the old photos, the Found Paintings, my mum singing, these are very much about the now, in my life, and wider, about the relationship between layers of the past and the now.
Another current theme of my life is my son Magnus who is 17 and planning to be sound producer/engineer. For some years, the soundtrack to our house is often rap and grime, thumpy bass and very contemporary sounds and rhythm. Magnus has a unique way of putting disparate voices and music together, and making them work. I have taken up a throwaway suggestion by my husband Jon about getting Magnus to set my mum's singing to some sort of rap accompaniment. It's so unlikely, but it plays in my mind so I can almost hear and imagine it already.
I cleaned up the little sound clip of my mum as best I could, and have given it to Magnus to do a better job. I don't mind delegating such tasks if I know about it already - I think every decision made in an artists' work should be their own. And I have commissioned him to sample it, make it into a rap, mix it, whatever it is he does. I don't know as yet if I will incorporate what he does in the final work, but I want to listen to it. I want such a thing to influence me - it has influenced me already.
This piece is about the now - several times overlap at once. My son and his complex, tech-based music, my mother, his grandmother, and her childhood memories of decades ago that emerge the more all the decades since disappear.
It reminds me of the major rehang they have done at Tate Britain:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/500-years-of-british-art.html
I've been there a few times now, and still enjoy the discoveries. Instead of arranging by movement, they have hung the work by actual decades, so old and young artists are contemporaneous, as they are in real life, but not usually in galleries or the cataloguing in art history.
Old and new, large and small cycles, fading and renewing, all these slices of time exist in one moment. Things of the now have their cycles of legacy, and everything we think of the past, we see through the lens of the current.
I always wanted to make work which was rather timeless and could not be easily dated - despite using digital video which is technology of a certain time. That aside, I wanted and still want to make work which was not pinned upon current issues. I was at University when the Twin Towers came down. I was surprised and a bit shocked when walking through the studios in the weeks after to see that rather a lot of students began painting images of that. I just couldn't understand why someone would want to make such obvious work. There were no new images or insights. It was one of the experiences which made me realise that I did not want to make work like that, and that although such incidents affect me just as much as anyone else, I wanted my work to be more abstract, analogous and perhaps internal or psychological.
It's not possible to, and it's not my intention, to erase references and clues to placing work in time. It's funny, it's what we do all the time when looking at other artists' work, relating them to the issues of their age, as if artists were nothing more than abstract newspaper contributors.
14th July 2014
...................................................................................................................................................................
Now that embedded is completed and I am rereading and finishing off blogs, it's a chance to reflect upon my original intentions, aims and aspirations for the final project, and indeed the MA. The old and the new co-exist in Embedded, with new and old technology, new and old imagery, even new and old framing and display features. I feel my work may well refer to the past in this project with the archive imagery, but what is paramount about the work and what I realise Embedded is about: We all have a relationship to the past and to time.
11th November 2014
In order to loosen up the associations, I will be trialling some more contemporary school photographs alongside my old collection, just to see what happens. The old photos I have are a complete entity or idea from which this whole project grew, and so I don't want to just stick in new ones for the sake of variety. However, some things you need to see and do as an artist, as imagining will only get so far. New ideas will spring, or I may well find more up to date references irrelevant or wrong in some way. I have a feeling to try it though.
Similarly with the music.
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/towards-final-project-sound.html
I haven't worked on the music more as yet - I will when the video is all complete, but I am thinking it through. An old lady singing. Yes I will be layering it and so on, but I feel it also another slightly unintentional signal that the work is all about the past. Again, yes of course it is in a way, but all the elements of the piece, the old photos, the Found Paintings, my mum singing, these are very much about the now, in my life, and wider, about the relationship between layers of the past and the now.
Another current theme of my life is my son Magnus who is 17 and planning to be sound producer/engineer. For some years, the soundtrack to our house is often rap and grime, thumpy bass and very contemporary sounds and rhythm. Magnus has a unique way of putting disparate voices and music together, and making them work. I have taken up a throwaway suggestion by my husband Jon about getting Magnus to set my mum's singing to some sort of rap accompaniment. It's so unlikely, but it plays in my mind so I can almost hear and imagine it already.
I cleaned up the little sound clip of my mum as best I could, and have given it to Magnus to do a better job. I don't mind delegating such tasks if I know about it already - I think every decision made in an artists' work should be their own. And I have commissioned him to sample it, make it into a rap, mix it, whatever it is he does. I don't know as yet if I will incorporate what he does in the final work, but I want to listen to it. I want such a thing to influence me - it has influenced me already.
This piece is about the now - several times overlap at once. My son and his complex, tech-based music, my mother, his grandmother, and her childhood memories of decades ago that emerge the more all the decades since disappear.
It reminds me of the major rehang they have done at Tate Britain:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/500-years-of-british-art.html
I've been there a few times now, and still enjoy the discoveries. Instead of arranging by movement, they have hung the work by actual decades, so old and young artists are contemporaneous, as they are in real life, but not usually in galleries or the cataloguing in art history.
Old and new, large and small cycles, fading and renewing, all these slices of time exist in one moment. Things of the now have their cycles of legacy, and everything we think of the past, we see through the lens of the current.
I always wanted to make work which was rather timeless and could not be easily dated - despite using digital video which is technology of a certain time. That aside, I wanted and still want to make work which was not pinned upon current issues. I was at University when the Twin Towers came down. I was surprised and a bit shocked when walking through the studios in the weeks after to see that rather a lot of students began painting images of that. I just couldn't understand why someone would want to make such obvious work. There were no new images or insights. It was one of the experiences which made me realise that I did not want to make work like that, and that although such incidents affect me just as much as anyone else, I wanted my work to be more abstract, analogous and perhaps internal or psychological.
It's not possible to, and it's not my intention, to erase references and clues to placing work in time. It's funny, it's what we do all the time when looking at other artists' work, relating them to the issues of their age, as if artists were nothing more than abstract newspaper contributors.
14th July 2014
...................................................................................................................................................................
Now that embedded is completed and I am rereading and finishing off blogs, it's a chance to reflect upon my original intentions, aims and aspirations for the final project, and indeed the MA. The old and the new co-exist in Embedded, with new and old technology, new and old imagery, even new and old framing and display features. I feel my work may well refer to the past in this project with the archive imagery, but what is paramount about the work and what I realise Embedded is about: We all have a relationship to the past and to time.
11th November 2014
Sharpness, Focus, Blur, Merge
I wanted to comment on this a little, and increasingly so as I make the final piece Embedded. James had mentioned in peer tutorial http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/tutorial-report-32-james-kowacz.html that a couple of the Found Paintings images I showed him appeared to be a little out of focus. And this is so. And yes, it is deliberate, or at least it grew from a happenstance I have integrated and accepted.
A couple of years ago I read a photography magazine article about images deliberately out of focus. Frustratingly, I can't remember where it was, and it wasn't exactly these:
http://phototechmag.com/photography-as-fine-art/
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/10/25/blurry-pictures-how-to-lose-your-focus-on-purpose-for-artistic-effects/
A photography prize had featured blurry photographs, leading to debate. Some photographers rail against a thing they have spent years of expertise eliminating and controlling being celebrated in contemporary work, but clearly, when it is done properly, deliberately out of focus or blurry photography is nothing new and can be very effective and atmospheric.
I greatly admire the German painter Gerhard Richter. He clearly uses the influence of photography and digital images in his work, and has the right level of blur, blend and focus.
A couple of years ago I read a photography magazine article about images deliberately out of focus. Frustratingly, I can't remember where it was, and it wasn't exactly these:
http://phototechmag.com/photography-as-fine-art/
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/10/25/blurry-pictures-how-to-lose-your-focus-on-purpose-for-artistic-effects/
A photography prize had featured blurry photographs, leading to debate. Some photographers rail against a thing they have spent years of expertise eliminating and controlling being celebrated in contemporary work, but clearly, when it is done properly, deliberately out of focus or blurry photography is nothing new and can be very effective and atmospheric.
I greatly admire the German painter Gerhard Richter. He clearly uses the influence of photography and digital images in his work, and has the right level of blur, blend and focus.
Mahler. Gerhard Richter
Albertina. Gerhard Richter
Images accurately or expertly blurred reflect or reveal to us the nature of our vision, and what we are seeing. The image or painting can show more to us about how we see and what we are seeing, by reflecting to us that we see the world through the visual medium of the day. Painting and still considered images become more important the more we are steeped in images. It is often said that we are highly visually literate because we are bombarded with images, and yet there is so much more to an image that the surface layer or what it represents. The more we unpeel images, the more we reveal about our perception of them.
When I was taking all the photos of the Found Paintings, because they were outside and wherever I found them, they sometimes had what I might call variations in accuracy. The ones that ended up in the final cut included some a little blurry. I was thinking about Richter issues, and also some of the visual illusion ideas in The Object Stares Back by James Elkins.
Simply put, the clarity and photorealism of some photographs and paintings are towards the hyper real, and our actual vision is not like that at all, but a series of impressions and illusions which we image is crystal clear, especially since photography guides our modern sense of vision. An extreme example would be Ansel Adams and his all-in-focus landscapes, taken with a tiny aperture so that everything seeps in. What's not to love about them. We may think that's how we really see, but we only have a rather small field of visual focus, much smaller that our entire field of vision.
Wilderness. Ansel Adams
So in Found Paintings, because they merge, which sometimes produces the illusion of blur even in pin sharp images, I thought I would integrate a few slightly blurred frames, perhaps because I had learned to read them not just as blurred and defective, but as saying something else. To my eye they are blurred exactly right - not too much. What would be too much? It's a question of artistic judgement, and debate. And so they would pass almost unnoticed in the general slightly blurred effect, almost as subliminal blurring, making the eye assume they are focussed like the rest.
The Old School Photos - Class of Yesterday is a whole other kettle of mixed metaphors. I have long been fascinated by the interplay of positive to negative, and have explored that in work before. This extends the principle, perhaps to extremes, as most of the images now have aspects of both positive and negative within them, and as they merge through each other, there is a multiplicity of effects that will happen - positive to positive, negative to negative, positive to negative and negative to positive, and all with variations of tone and lighting. If it all sounds complicated, that's because it is rather. It's what I have been working towards and anticipating.
What happens in merging positive and negative and all the permutations of that in Class of Yesterday are some almost optical illusions that hardly look real, but could be replicated in a dark room - whiting out, the appearance of becoming three dimensional, abstracting even more than the slightly morphed images. I guess this is one of the reasons I make moving and not just still images - I adore this magical process, but it must be controlled or it becomes distracting and can cause unintended imagery to sprout up. The main feature is that the false blurring effect can get extreme - so two in-focus images, if they are merged in a certain way, appear to go out of focus. I don't want too much of that, but as an occasional feature it adds to the sense that the viewer is sure and then unsure of what they are seeing as the photographs fade in and out and the wall textures and colours change. Like overlapping waves where there is always something in and something out of focus - but more in focus. Perhaps I will add some stills to illustrate this later, although it's phenomenon which works in motion. It's a natural consequence of the type of work and layered images, and I just have to find my strategy. The viewer's eye will blend and assume images are in focus, or if not, will trust that focus will re-emerge.
10th September 2014
Exhibition Meetings
24th February 2014
Meeting plus my additional notes.
Amelia catalogue - & Clare, Sarah.
Publicity - Jo, Sarah, Jennifer, James, Eleanor.
Invigilation - Jo, Jennifer, Alexa, Clare, Eleanor.
Events - Alexa, Simon, James, Eleanor - connection, interface, signs.
Exhibition layout / signage - vinyl /card - coordinate with OCA.
Showing image outside - sandwich board - overall view.
Good exhibition practice.
Invite review, press.
Free listings - arts and local Sheffield.
Blog - AN / pioneering.
Brand / name for show / group - The Nine - 9 thumbnails.
Audio tour? Tours for Sheffield schools, etc, workshops?
From distance - title and image of show visible.
Outside - big banners, posters.
Catalogue - all review each other's work?
Bank St - cellar spaces damp, café area, 3 cellars, 4 rooms.
Sheffield - Travelodge.
The Nine - badges - sell? Wear so that audience can immediately identify if they want to ask something.
Invigilators - reliably turn on all video ,etc.
Folder of written clear instructions for each piece, eg what lighting on etc,
Positions of things - like continuity.
Always one main invigilator to manage each session.
Tick sheet, and add notes.
Also keep daily sheet for each person with comments, questions, contacts, etc, esp if they are not there.
Supplies of cards - keep topped up and neat.
Place to put cards - little shelves? Not the floor!
At exhibition - flier, map of exhibition.
Clear tick sheet - numbered rooms? Even though small some MA shows too easy to miss people.
Map could include small description, eg CP drawings, JK paintings, etc, to be sure - more memory clues.
Suggest - no piece marked Untitled (unless deliberately of course)
Most MA shows have price list and works for sale as separate flier (not all works for sale).
A4 sheet with thumbnails and prices - can put "price on application"
Thumbnail, title, detail, date, price, artist, email.
Catalogue - email and 1 or 2 websites - no phone numbers?
Good book size to keep on shelf with other books - title on spine.
Bank St - disabled access downstairs?
Printing - deal for all cards, fliers, etc together? Cheaper.
Plan for invigilating chairs and additional seating.
Seating available in exhibition / screening rooms? - My white stools.
In café area - reading table - relevant, secured books?
Overall - idiot proof and security proof exhibition.
Warning signs for flashing lights, etc.
Accounts / budget - estimates, actual costs.
Lists of in-kind contributions - OCA, Sheffield things, advertising in catalogue.
Sponsorship - bar at event?
How to divide the receipts / accounts ÷ 9 for tax expenses / self employed?
Events - PV, auction, raffle, performance, music, guests, celebs, twitter feed, art event.
The Nine - special performance - one off.
Talks, tours, workshops, performances, study group.
Public, OCA, children, local school, universities, etc.
OCA group visit?
Events each chunk of each day.
Photographs, documentation.
Care info - all train, bus times, first and last connections, links / deals, travelodge, b&b, etc.
List of local shops, amenities, etc.
What's on in area.
Make audio tour? Logistics.
Pop up shop? Small items for sale - £5 to £25 - managing, float, receipts, packaging, etc.
Mark out exhibition area within Bank St - red tape on floor? Possible?
Exhibition colour, colours / OCA red? Pantone number.
Or additional contrast.
Reflect on all materials.
Downstairs - also marked out red in map.
Lots of exhibition continues downstairs signs / arrows.
Few larger posters - beautiful print - can sell.
Suggest - some MA shows had an additional personal catalogue / book artists had produced or their project / practice available to sell or order, or in view for more info.
The Nine - alphabetical order.
Overall aesthetic feel / materials / theme / curation.
Catalogues writing - OCA people, Angela, Caroline, Les Bicknell.
Profile of OCA.
Invite / pay writer, reviewer, curator, etc, but print timing.
Central toolbox - hammers, screwdrivers, nails, screws, no more nails, tippex, masking tape, measuring tape, rulers, pencils, pens, erasers, papers, black paper, card. cable ties, double sided tape, spongy tape.
Site to share documentation, photos - dropbox.
Catalogue - also a piece about our new MA - little paragraph from all of us - interviews.
site updates, follow-ups.
Keep online for years
Link from OCA site.
How to estimate catalogues, cards, fliers, etc, numbers.
Estimate visitors, guests, PV - drinks, food, cost, sponsorship.
Photos of all of us, group and tutors.
Decide what OCA presence in show.
Logo versions of OCA.
OCA pens - carrier bags things like uni fairs, what do they have?
List of thanks to all visiting lecturers, Emma Bulley, past MA students....
16th April 2014
........................................
Meeting plus my additional notes.
Amelia catalogue - & Clare, Sarah.
Publicity - Jo, Sarah, Jennifer, James, Eleanor.
Invigilation - Jo, Jennifer, Alexa, Clare, Eleanor.
Events - Alexa, Simon, James, Eleanor - connection, interface, signs.
Exhibition layout / signage - vinyl /card - coordinate with OCA.
Showing image outside - sandwich board - overall view.
Good exhibition practice.
Invite review, press.
Free listings - arts and local Sheffield.
Blog - AN / pioneering.
Brand / name for show / group - The Nine - 9 thumbnails.
Audio tour? Tours for Sheffield schools, etc, workshops?
From distance - title and image of show visible.
Outside - big banners, posters.
Catalogue - all review each other's work?
Bank St - cellar spaces damp, café area, 3 cellars, 4 rooms.
Sheffield - Travelodge.
The Nine - badges - sell? Wear so that audience can immediately identify if they want to ask something.
Invigilators - reliably turn on all video ,etc.
Folder of written clear instructions for each piece, eg what lighting on etc,
Positions of things - like continuity.
Always one main invigilator to manage each session.
Tick sheet, and add notes.
Also keep daily sheet for each person with comments, questions, contacts, etc, esp if they are not there.
Supplies of cards - keep topped up and neat.
Place to put cards - little shelves? Not the floor!
At exhibition - flier, map of exhibition.
Clear tick sheet - numbered rooms? Even though small some MA shows too easy to miss people.
Map could include small description, eg CP drawings, JK paintings, etc, to be sure - more memory clues.
Suggest - no piece marked Untitled (unless deliberately of course)
Most MA shows have price list and works for sale as separate flier (not all works for sale).
A4 sheet with thumbnails and prices - can put "price on application"
Thumbnail, title, detail, date, price, artist, email.
Catalogue - email and 1 or 2 websites - no phone numbers?
Good book size to keep on shelf with other books - title on spine.
Bank St - disabled access downstairs?
Printing - deal for all cards, fliers, etc together? Cheaper.
Plan for invigilating chairs and additional seating.
Seating available in exhibition / screening rooms? - My white stools.
In café area - reading table - relevant, secured books?
Overall - idiot proof and security proof exhibition.
Warning signs for flashing lights, etc.
Accounts / budget - estimates, actual costs.
Lists of in-kind contributions - OCA, Sheffield things, advertising in catalogue.
Sponsorship - bar at event?
How to divide the receipts / accounts ÷ 9 for tax expenses / self employed?
Events - PV, auction, raffle, performance, music, guests, celebs, twitter feed, art event.
The Nine - special performance - one off.
Talks, tours, workshops, performances, study group.
Public, OCA, children, local school, universities, etc.
OCA group visit?
Events each chunk of each day.
Photographs, documentation.
Care info - all train, bus times, first and last connections, links / deals, travelodge, b&b, etc.
List of local shops, amenities, etc.
What's on in area.
Make audio tour? Logistics.
Pop up shop? Small items for sale - £5 to £25 - managing, float, receipts, packaging, etc.
Mark out exhibition area within Bank St - red tape on floor? Possible?
Exhibition colour, colours / OCA red? Pantone number.
Or additional contrast.
Reflect on all materials.
Downstairs - also marked out red in map.
Lots of exhibition continues downstairs signs / arrows.
Few larger posters - beautiful print - can sell.
Suggest - some MA shows had an additional personal catalogue / book artists had produced or their project / practice available to sell or order, or in view for more info.
The Nine - alphabetical order.
Overall aesthetic feel / materials / theme / curation.
Catalogues writing - OCA people, Angela, Caroline, Les Bicknell.
Profile of OCA.
Invite / pay writer, reviewer, curator, etc, but print timing.
Central toolbox - hammers, screwdrivers, nails, screws, no more nails, tippex, masking tape, measuring tape, rulers, pencils, pens, erasers, papers, black paper, card. cable ties, double sided tape, spongy tape.
Site to share documentation, photos - dropbox.
Catalogue - also a piece about our new MA - little paragraph from all of us - interviews.
site updates, follow-ups.
Keep online for years
Link from OCA site.
How to estimate catalogues, cards, fliers, etc, numbers.
Estimate visitors, guests, PV - drinks, food, cost, sponsorship.
Photos of all of us, group and tutors.
Decide what OCA presence in show.
Logo versions of OCA.
OCA pens - carrier bags things like uni fairs, what do they have?
List of thanks to all visiting lecturers, Emma Bulley, past MA students....
16th April 2014
........................................
MA Exhibition Meeting 31st March 2014
Agenda
1. Notes – EMF
2. Catalogue – many thanks to Amelia for her work which has produced a lot in a short space of time. Catalogues – inevitable compromises in groups, and can take up much time and energy.
Copy deadline – c. 2 months before, so work backwards form that – useful to know ASAP, so time for images, writing, etc. Catalogues should be delivered to OAC – and they take to Bank St. Make printing deadline at least 2 weeks before event - contingency time in case of emergency. Printing prices generally valid for 28 days – may vary.
3. Publicity/marketing –Jennifer. Decide when to start online presence for show. Agreed to set up Facebook page and make live later, use Twitter, etc, and build momentum nearer the time, not too soon. Agreed upon consistency across all media. Have somewhere online to refer contacts to from now. Jo – Facebook, Sarah – Twitter(?). Check previous email listing agreed roles, jobs and responsibilities – careful not to duplicate efforts and to keep things consistent – coordinate with Jennifer for social media.
*Send images to jokeeley@btinternet.com – material to start Facebook page.
Blogs – links to individual artists – occasional articles/news items to OCA student site. MA student work on OCA blog -Clare?
Blogs/Facebook/twitter/website – the more the better. Debate website/blog – push from blog to other media. Website – Jennifer offered to set up – send her images for material to start.
Archive issues still to decide, people still refer to years later – Facebook – free, forever, Blog also lasts. Website – specific pages (Can get round that functionality in blogs), categories. Will OCA host/ pay for site in perpetuity? Website – Jennifer can host for free – professional hosting account – who will pay for domain etc, us as group? – OCA? Caroline will ask, but doubts it – future implications, although other colleges tend to have galleries of previous shows. OCA will at least link to our sites. Problem with website – could get static of not updated for years – Blog or Facebook could be refreshed occasionally by our group – added to. (Blog – password). The point – embed archiving in our social media/web presence.
Blogs – Wordpress can automatically update Facebook – more work efficient – spread audience – useful for targeted audience also. Agreed – Wordpress blog that updates to Facebook.
Jennifer and Amelia coordinate with theme/design/promotion – Wordpress themes.
Hashtag discussion – Amelia - @TheNineMA decided.
Artist Newsletter degree blog, can add from other blog material. Eleanor look into this.
4. Spaces
Meeting 23rd June – discussion and allocation. Already by email, but important to discuss how individuals and group will work best in show – so a discussion. Be open to compromise – where you feel you might fit, but think of a back up and alternatives. Probably a longer meeting – important all attend!
5. VIP invitation list
Excel document – add curators, critics, etc with an identifying note so that cover invites can be made to all curators. Etc. Start compiling now.
Email/print invites – Amelia – interactive PDF sent online with links in images – not difficult. Can be emailed, or we can individually print if we like – family and friends – therefore same invite to all – Amelia already send round idea design. Cost down. Again – consistency.
6. Suggestions for writers/reviewers
Caroline will ask OCA what the fee is for writer. List of suggestions – pick from top three. Writing in catalogue? Eleanor will make doc like VIP list and add some writers with links about them, to decide at next meeting.
7. AOB
Also discussed – Dropbox issues and sending by email as alternative if necessary.
Amelia will make invite landscape – best view online.
Two extra tutorials each are available with Caroline between now and September – email to arrange. Optional.
21st July – addition to timetable – Artist Nick Bodimeade, painter, giving talk about his work and hosting discussion about selling – art fairs, commercial galleries, etc. NB Evening of same day as follow up tutorials with previous visiting tutors so keep evening free and watch tutorials don’t clash.
Any other issues – exhibition meetings can be flexible and more can be arranged if needed.
8. Next meeting date 23rd June 2014
31st March 2014
Thursday, 19 June 2014
Towards Final Project Sound
Sound comes a bit later in making moving image for me. Sound comes about...now.
I will be layering some as yet unspecified classical music - I know the feel of what I will put together.
But this is the core. This is the deeply personal sound which I will be using as the heart of the music:
This is the sound which has been the music of my life over the last couple of years - my aged mother who has really travelled back in time to her past in Ireland. Her sweet, sweet, weak voice.
I always thought I would somehow use this recording taken last year, and that I would be influenced by Gavin Bryar's Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/pecha-kucha-jesus-blood-never-failed-me.html
19th June 2014
I will be layering some as yet unspecified classical music - I know the feel of what I will put together.
But this is the core. This is the deeply personal sound which I will be using as the heart of the music:
Not films, just sound with still images.
I always thought I would somehow use this recording taken last year, and that I would be influenced by Gavin Bryar's Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/pecha-kucha-jesus-blood-never-failed-me.html
19th June 2014
Saturday, 14 June 2014
Making Day Solarisation
This was a brilliant making day on 14th June. I wanted to start working on the school photographs, and found my technique which is the key to making this piece, achieving positive and negative together, and all the layers of possibilities of that with a reflective base - can achieve so many essential variations with this.
Using Old School Photo 1
10 am
Already have this scanned. Tried printing onto some silver
card. Doesn’t scan well, but takes photos including gleaming light. I want to
give myself a palette of variations and subtleties to use from each image which
I will be layering in to the moving image. Seeing what works and what seems to
be revealed by each different treatment.
1.30
Very exciting discovery. If I solarise the images which were on silver card, there are aspects of positive and negative which appear in both the positive and negative images. Very very wonderful.
One of my personal art manifesto rules is that I don’t include a computer generated effect through a photographic programme that I could not reproduce manually in a dark room if needed. It’s part of keeping control and not letting the computer do the work.
At the end of the day, the ink on the silver card was fading, and eventually dissolved. How wonderfully ephemeral.
Photo Layer 1
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About Me
- Eleanor MacFarlane
- Thinker of thoughts, mother of adults Shadows Echoes Stories Dyslexia London Scotland Drawing Sewing Research Tutor Mentor Books Trees Clouds Quartz Magnets. I review and write about art and culture.