Wrapping It Up

This is just a post to express my thoughts and feelings towards the exhibition and next steps. As stated before due to the experimental nature of this project it is difficult to have a solid plan about how I will display my images but at this moment in time I am planning to use the chimney space at Paintworks, whereby my work will be mounted onto acetate and backlit from a lightsource (either a lightbulb or fairylights). I will also have some of my work mounted on milky acetate or paper as this will help create the illusion of a double-look, and these could possibly be placed behind the images mounted on acetate to achieve said double-look.

Over the next two weeks I will make a start on my Evaluation, whilst gathering the materials I will need to exhibit my work. These include some fishing wire and weights, a light source, and finalising how big I would like my images, for example I may wish to have one image as A3 as a centre piece, with the rest A4. Much of it will be experimental. It was most definitely beneficial to experiment with photographing the acetate as not only was I able to create new images but it proved to be successful in a way of exhibiting my work.

In terms of the editing process much of it was quite simple as I felt the images evoked enough as they were.

I haven’t done as much theory this semester as I felt I was using the theory as a means of avoiding taking photographs, and my main aim this term was to be persistent with taking photographs and I feel I have achieved this. I also felt that researching theory was hindering my own individual flair, and that I was focusing my work too much on other people’s, therefore I have used the time to concentrate on my own imagery. Much of this will be explained further in the evaluation.

Final Edited Images

Here are my final edited images for the A4 printing. Due to the experimental nature of my project I will most likely use a few more for the exhibition, but these images express coherently what I am trying to achieve. After playing around with the acetate it is clear that some images may not work as well on acetate therefore I might have a few just on paper. During the editing process I merely blackened a few small areas to create a slight vignetting with the fairy light images, and with the black and white images I layered images from previous shoots. I did this in order to create the feeling of deja vu or the notion of a ‘double look’, bringing forward visions we do not normally see in our everyday sight.

Acetate/lighting Photoshoot

I am fairly pleased with how this photoshoot came out. I was experimenting with putting my images onto acetate, using different lighting, in order to test whether my ideas for the exhibition will work. It seems that fairy lights have the best effect, giving off just the right amount of light. Taking into consideration how experimental my project is it is difficult to predict how well the display will look until it happens, but I am happy with how this shoot went. I may also consider handing some of these in as my final images, in order to give an idea of what I am trying to convey – that action of a double-look or deja vu, seeing something unfamiliar in the familiar. Edited.

Editing Processes

This is an example of the editing process. I rejected the first image as I felt it looked a little like amateur ghost photography and that is not the effect I am trying to achieve.

Acetate/lighting Photoshoot

Contact sheets.

Inspiration Exercise

I am attempting to do an exercise whereby I will take note of what inspires me from other photographer’s work, look at my work, seeing what’s missing and meet somewhere in the middle. This should hopefully give me motivation for more photoshoots and present me with a happy medium of originality and inspiration from other people’s work. A common theme should also occur.

Mona Hatoum

• Distortion
• Airy
• Floaty
• Fragile – haunting
• Delicate – dreamy – fleeting – non-permanent

Rosie Hardy

• Lighting
• Layers – layers of a dream
• Merging of life/death – arm into tree
• Hair
• Lacking of face

Jerry N Uelsmann

• Projection of life – dream onto hands
• Layering of images – different angles – reflections
• Dreamscapes – memory projected

Gregory Crewdson

• Dramatic lighting
• Pinhole lighting
• Smokey/misty
• Reflections
• Different perspectives

My Images

• Distortion
• Blurriness
• Portraits
• Lacking of reflections
• Odd angles
• Black and white – maybe introduce colour?
• Experimental lighting
• No layering

Exhibition Display Options/Inspiration

I have taken inspiration from a Praxinoscope as it resembles the circular motion of a ouji board which ties in well with Victorian hauntings. These are often featured in horror films and I could think about making a prototype of my own to see if it would work well in the exhibition.

Zoetropes are also similar:

Progressing onwards from Jorma Puranen, taking inspiration from Christian Boltanski, and taking into consideration the practicalities of my installation, it may be more practical to have my images projected onto a white sheet which is slightly backlit. This way the images are still fleeting, but I won’t need nearly as much darkness which seems to be one of the most pressing issues. However, I have just bought some acetate sheets to test out my first idea and will report on here how well it works. Another idea is I could use acetate sheets and a white sheet, whereby the acetate sheets will be placed slightly in front of the sheet, using a projecter to project my images onto both the sheets. This could produce a doubling, disorientating effect, and might eliminate the need for so much darkness.

Annette Messager

Annette Messager was born in 1943 in France. She attended the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, but was eventually asked to leave as she spent more time at museums and movie theaters than at school. In her installations, Messager makes use of photography, drawing, knitting, embroidery, sewing and objects she has collected.

Her work often involves fragments, such as My Vows, which includes an large number of small close-up pictures of parts of the body. This tendency to fragment and catalog is everywhere in her work. She catalogues ink blots, pictures of children with their eyes scratched out and her own children’s drawings. She embroiders misogynist French proverbs and creates drawings based on popular media depictions of happiness. These are sometimes included in albums or encased in glass and framed.

The individual elements of these catalogs are snapshots of the broader themes Messager deals with – issues of sexual and physical abuse, fragmentation of the body, sin, obsession with appearances, fairy tales, children, symbols, effigies, disguise, distortion, repetition. The work is often executed using traditionally feminine materials and techniques.

The example here, Untitled, from 1993 is comprised of mosquito netting, taxidermized animals, fabric and string. Here we peek into a strange fairy tale scene with a threatening atomosphere. The scene takes place under soft, concealing mosquito netting. It often appears that Messager is attempting to soften the cruelty she portrays by obscuring it or using nonthreatening materials. However, using innocuous objects or materials often intensifies the disturbing qualities as we see the familiar representing evil. The taxidermied animals in Untitled wear fabric hoods, reminiscent of executioners or the Ku Klux Klan. They surround a smaller stuffed toy animal as if revealing that it is an impostor. These dead animals, however, are as “unreal” as the stuffed toy.

Quote taken from here.

Christian Boltanski

Find information on his work and his biography here.

Although I have not seen Boltanski’s work, much of the displaying of his work runs parallel with the way I would like to display my work in the exhibition. The content of his work is different too, focusing on representing the faces of those lost in the Holocaust, however in terms of life being fleeting, non-permanent and ephemeral, there are similarities. My work has taken a slight shift, in that I am now focusing more on hauntings, spectrality, ghostliness and the loss of presence.

Shadow Art

Tim Knoble and Sue Webster are two British artists who work as a collaborative duo, and are recently famous for producing shadow art and sculptures. These incorporate a diverse range of materials such as rubbish, scrap metal and taxidermy materials. By shining light onto these assemblages they are transformed into highly accurate shadow profiles of the artists.

Information taken from here.

Shadow art/sculpture focuses on using shadows as a means of expression, similar to how I would like my work to be displayed in the exhibition.