Initial Ideas -
My first thoughts of what I am going to base my project on is an investigation into Synesthaesia and the influence of sound in our lives. For many people sound (or other stimulations) triggers an involuntary experience in a second sensory such as seeing colours or shapes at the sound of music. This often impacts how we remember certain things and therefor how we see them now. I can link this to photography threshold concept #5 Photographs are abstractions shaped by technology; memories can be manipulated into photography as a reflection of the photographers experiences. Another threshold concept that I can relate this to is #10 - the idea that memory distorts how we view photographs and similarly, photographs can remind us of things lost. For my last project - Rave Culture - I explored the interrelationship between Drum and Bass music and the underground rave scene, producing both a movie and a photobook to convey the energy and movement of these popular gatherings. They exploit motion to give the illusion of being immersed in the scene which is a concept that both excites and interests me so I would like to conduct my next project as a continuation, or response, to Rave Culture.
WRITTEN PLANS
Music Composition
JAZZY STREET - DEBRA HURD
To begin my investigations I decided to look at a painting that connotes blues and jazz inspired music due to its name, setting and colour palette. The piece boasts a variety of colours and the brushwork grants it with a hazy and familiar atmosphere. Inspired by this piece I want to find or create a piece of music that I can then use for a short movie. This links to Photography Threshold concept #5 that suggests photographs are abstractions shaped by technology; I am abstracting my feelings towards this painting and creating a piece of music that I will then shape further into photography. I can also consider concept #10 throughout my process as I am relying on memory and 'things lost' to propel my work forward. The screenshots below demonstrate how sound can be transferred into visual data and give me a clear image of how I want the accompanying video to be; The relaxed jazzy melody indicates a calm atmosphere whilst the percussion suggests an accompanying speed.
PHOTOS OF MY FINAL COMPOSITION
COLOUR PALETTE INSPIRED BY COMPOSITION
Short Film -
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Using imovie I made my first short film to accompany the music composition that I made. This included videos that I had taken of me by my sister a few years ago that employ the help of a projector for the bright patterns across my face. The patterns used were taken from a video on youtube with similar themes to my own work. To fit the style of the music I used, I projected relaxing cartoons but made sure to edit them afterwards at a fast pace so they worked nicely with the beat. The video I projected is from a music video and is linked below. I would like to continue working with projections as it reiterates the idea of our memories and senses being connected. The reason I used videos from when I was younger was to introduce the idea of memory and the sense of nostalgia that. I obtain from Debra Hurd's Jazzy Street.
STILLS FROM MOVIE -
Paintings that evoke the same feeling as Jazzy Street -
EDWARD HOPPER :
Using a projector -
JORGE PINTO : JESSICA -
NICK FANCHER -
Movie Inspired Photoshoot -
Painting my Composition -
[Unfinished]
Visual response to my music -
Wen Hang Lin - Silence in Synesthesia
MY RESPONSE TO SILENCE IN SYNESTHESIA -
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Sound inspired photoshoot -
Blind Photography -
PETE ECKERT -
I emailed this photographer to further investigate his work and his unorthodox approach to photography; something typically associated with sight. I was intrigued not only by his older work but how he is coping with recent lockdown measures and how this affects his creativity. This gave me inspiration to continue to create interesting pieces despite being stuck at home. As a result of the lockdown, Eckert isn't able to develop his coloured film so has instead reverted to 4*5 black and white sheet film that he develops and prints in his bathroom. He has been exploring his local church, capturing it with long exposure shots before double exposing himself into them once he's back in his studio. Due to social distancing he has no models so he dresses himself up in an old Aikido uniform. Much like my own work, Eckert's photos play with energy, with smoke to enhance the surreal effect. Eckert told me that as opposed to going out and looking for images, he builds upon an idea and pre-visualizes a photograph as if it has already been taken.
"Like a bat, I can use my voice to echolocate my model. In (my pitch-black studio), I layer light, measuring what I've done until I'm satisfied with the image in my mind's eye. People ask me how I know how to stop. But since I'm building the image, I have a very clear image of what's happened. At that point, why would I need sighted people at all?... I've been actively rewiring my visual cortex through sound, touch and memory inputs [and] I'm slowly building a language of sound to associate with the objects... to understand the 'sound signature.' Take a stop sign, for instance. A stop sign shimmering in the wind vibrates and (projects) this image that oscillates. At first you can't hear the pole holding up the sign ... but it has a sound shadow that's many feet long."
PLAYING WITH LIGHT INSPIRED BY PETE ECKERT -
EVGEN BAVCAR -
EDITING PHOTOS INSPIRED BY BAVCAR -
Painting Outcome -
PAINTING A PIANO -
To revisit the process of creating a piece of art inspired by music, I did paintings on my piano. These have been influenced by the style of music that I tend to play as well as mirroring my moods and attitudes towards the instrument.
MUSIC THAT INSPIRED THE PAINTING -
Sensory Photography -
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Composing Silence: John Cage and Black Mountain College
Subjective Photography -
OTTO STEINERT - CALL
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PETER KEETMAN - FOTOFORM
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MAN RAY - LE VIOLON D'INGRES
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TACTILE PHOTOGRAPHS -
Briefly exploring Lightbulb Memories -
PHOTOS THAT POSSES A DREAM LIKE QUALITY -
PHOTOS THAT PORTRAY TIME PASSING -
Reflecting on my work -
The Studium and the Punctum
After taking a look at Roland Barthes' The Rhetoric of the Image, I read through an extract from the 1980 Camera Lucida. Within the book, Barthes discusses his personal response to photographs which he had initially categorised into two ideas - Denotation and Connotation. Through looking at a photograph by the Dutch reporter Koen Wessing of a rebellion in Nicaragua '[He] understood at once that its existence derived from the co-presence of two discontinuous elements,' the first being Studium. This refers to your general familiarity and disinterested application of knowledge to a photograph 'without special acuity.' For example you may recognise a particular setting or be aware of the social context of a place and can apply that to the way you view the image. The second idea, the Punctum is according to Barthes', the sensitive points of a photograph that prick you and evoke a response; this is specific to each person and may vary completely from person to person. In other words 'the notion of punctuation' is what allows a photograph to speak to you.
In the words of Barthes, some photos may be 'inert under [your] gaze,' in the sense that they do not evoke an emotional or physical response. This means that for you there is no Punctum or 'prickpoints' of emotion even through there is Studium. The photograph on the right - Koen Wessing's Nicaragua, 1979 - provides me with no Punctum as there are no areas of the image that jump out at me however I can infer through my own knowledge that at this period, the country was within the hight of the Nicaraguan Revolution which would explain the rubble on the streets and the soldiers with guns. Likewise with the second photo - William Klein's Mayday, 1959 - provides me with no Punctum therefor I don't engage with it. On the other hand, Koen Wessing's Nicaragua 1979 [second from right], that depicts the corpse of a young person on the street and people in mourning behind, is charged with Punctum. These specific points are the exposed foot of the dead body and the faces of the people crying in the background. I react similarly to William Klein's Little Italy, 1955 that shows three young childen on the streets of New York playing with what is presumably a toy gun. The smiling of the children stupefies the image and juxtaposes the threat of danger being the gun against the young boys head. Emotional elements of the photo include the dirty run clothes of the children that suggest they are from a working class and the facial expressions of the children that combat our initial fear for them. For me the most emotive point of the image is not in fact the gun but the hand that holds it; we do not see the face of the person holding the gun which means we do not know whether or not they pose a threat to the children. Furthermore, regardless of the fact that the gun is likely fake, it unnerves me that an adult can hold it up to the boys head in that way, without feeling a certain way about it.
Since the Photograph is pure contingency and can be nothing else [...] it immediately yields up those 'details' which constitute the very raw material of ethnological knowledge."
Jim Goldberg : Raised By Wolves -
Responding to Raised by Wolves -
At this point in my investigation I decided that I was overwhelmed with the amount of photos I was producing as I could not feel a clear connection between them - there was no coherency (now moved to Research page). Because of this feeling I chose to take a step back and work with what I already had. Inspired by my rave photobook I decided that I wanted to continue looking at photos that transmit energy and present a nostalgic shot of a moment that I both would like to relive, and feel as if I am actually reliving when I look at them. Having looked at John Berger and the relationship between a photograph and text, I begun asking people I knew for photos that provided them with a physical or emotional reaction. I was surprised to see a wide variety of images, some that do not fall under the same bracket that I see my work in, but are personal and meaningful to the person that sent them to me. I also made it clear that the photograph did not have to be each persons work and could be that of a famous photographer, or in fact a famous photo alongside their own work; it didn't matter as long as the response was meaningful. Many people sent me a series of photographs, some of which I am in - which I liked because it told me that the person associated a memory of us with the image - and some people sent me just one image that they felt was powerful in some way. There are some photos that do not appeal to me aesthetically so a question I need to ask myself before continuing is how much creative control I would like to give to everyone who is helping me, and whether or not I select which photos I want to use based on my own reaction to them.
These photos are from when I payed my favourite gigs. The energy that comes with playing in front of an audience is something you never forget, and I can remember the feeling overtime I look at the photos."
This photo is from a fun day I had on Primrose Hill in summer. I just remember it being a nice day with nice people."
[When the fun stops. Stop.] Nah just get on a plane and get tattoos. The world's ending anyway so why not?"
No sleep; a rainy day in Bilbao."
Pink and Blue."
On this day I looked down in despair at all the names of the lives taken by the September 11 attacks; seeing the city before my eyes I realise how small I really am."
Photographs from my stepmum -
The sound of grasses moving, the glacier cracking, then nothing. Fridge Cold. Crisp, blue, bright. Grey rock, powdery white. Total stillness. An ascent to another world.'
Photographs from my sister -
Photographs from my mum -
It was scary because it was actually in the jungle and you wanted to be there but first of all you didn't know where it was going to be. So you went to a little light cafe and there are hundreds of people on scooters and cos it was in Goa it was in the middle of nowhere... there were no lights so the only lights are bike lights and the light of people's cigarettes. The locals who had organised it came out of nowhere and it was really scary; you just follow them and you're always hearing stories of tourists getting mugged and raped by locals which isn't true but it's what you hear. You're just crapping it because you don't know if they're actually taking you to a rave of they're just taking you to get mugged. When you get there there's music but a lot of people are playing bongo drums. There's rave music but also the sound of all the drums around and everyone's smoking weed so it's really smoky and hazy and hot and I will never ever forget the sound of the drums."
My memory of the juice... it was the first time I ever had fresh juice and I was so thirsty because we had been dancing and drinking and smoking all night and my head was pounding and you know when you can still hear the music in your ears and the juice just felt so clean... it was like after a night of badness I was putting goodness into my body."
Photographs from my dad -
Me and my mates coming of age in Patsy's nightclub, Happy Days!"
Zoe meeting the block printers in India. Wonderful people. Wonderful Place."
Y2K (New Years Eve 1999) In Joe Daflo's in Ryde partying like it's 1999."
That time I decided it would be cool to wear a suit and white tie to a house party!"
Photograph from my grandma -
Photographs from my grandad -
Experiments with image and text -
Sunil Gupta:
From Here to Eternity
Photobook Outcome -
SEQUENCING -
Tom Phillips - A Humument
Writing Stories
THEY were gone, of course, when I came to.
And so
I called an ambulance,
- a minute or two, I guess.
He was in no hurry.
The ambulance arrived -
and took him away
- and still kept right on talking.
Maybe I had it coming.
Then I put the phone down very gently
and walked away.
My watch said the time was six-thirty, I needed things like a drink, some aspirin,
- a shower
The way I was feeling then I didn't care a damn if there were 4 more homicides.
- I
just didn't want any part of them.
By the time I got back to my apartment,
had the drink, aspirin, and shower
I felt better.
My phone rang.
For a while I debated in my mind whether to answer it.
'As a matter of interest how long was I talking to myself the last time?'
'How do I know...
when did you finally run down?'
And so
I called an ambulance,
- a minute or two, I guess.
He was in no hurry.
The ambulance arrived -
and took him away
- and still kept right on talking.
Maybe I had it coming.
Then I put the phone down very gently
and walked away.
My watch said the time was six-thirty, I needed things like a drink, some aspirin,
- a shower
The way I was feeling then I didn't care a damn if there were 4 more homicides.
- I
just didn't want any part of them.
By the time I got back to my apartment,
had the drink, aspirin, and shower
I felt better.
My phone rang.
For a while I debated in my mind whether to answer it.
'As a matter of interest how long was I talking to myself the last time?'
'How do I know...
when did you finally run down?'
Frisked
Then [he] checked the pockets of the draped coat.
'I bet you don't have a license for this.'
'I never saw that in my whole life before.
I've been framed!'
I dropped the [] back in my pocket.
'Cops.'
Snarling, he spat on the floor in disgust,
'What chance does a guy got with dirty lousy cops.'
'You got no chance with this one, pal.'
'Where you from?'
There was open derision in his eyes when he looked at me.
'You're that kind of cop huh?'
Frightened me to death.
I grinned at him pleasantly, and obliged.
Know what she did?
Hired a private to keep tabs on everything.
Awkward but enthusiastic effort.
Then - the cops came for him.
Then [he] checked the pockets of the draped coat.
'I bet you don't have a license for this.'
'I never saw that in my whole life before.
I've been framed!'
I dropped the [] back in my pocket.
'Cops.'
Snarling, he spat on the floor in disgust,
'What chance does a guy got with dirty lousy cops.'
'You got no chance with this one, pal.'
'Where you from?'
There was open derision in his eyes when he looked at me.
'You're that kind of cop huh?'
Frightened me to death.
I grinned at him pleasantly, and obliged.
Know what she did?
Hired a private to keep tabs on everything.
Awkward but enthusiastic effort.
Then - the cops came for him.
The two short stories (or poems) above came from some of the books that I had been working into. Keeping in mind my sub theme of rave culture; to which I have been applying my ideas surrounding synesthesia, the affect theory and interconnections with music and sound; I begun working into the books that I had collected and found before making collages using found images and text. The first step in this process was reading through all of the pages and selecting the words that jumped out at me due to their connections or loose hints to rave culture. For some of the pages I used a scalpel to cut out the words I didn't need and with others I used a pen to block them out. The stories above are the words obtained from the collaged pages.
Music of the Subconscious : Experiments with Muscle Memory
To revisit the idea of music being intertwined with memory and photography, I recorded myself playing Yann Tiersen pieces on the piano for the first time since I'd played them over a year ago. For the pieces where multiple parts were required I played each instrument individually and compiled them. I chose to play music by Yann Tiersen as it always gives me a strong sense of nostalgia to my childhood and to a time where I knew certain family members that are no longer in my life. Having always hated reading music, I rely on muscle memory to recall pieces and I find it easier to zone out or to daydream when I'm playing. This is because as soon as I focus on my hands and on the keys I lose a sense of what I'm doing so I tend to distract myself and look away from the piano. I chose to leave in any mistakes I had made to make the point that the more I pay attention the more I mess up.
Video Outcome -
My intention for this video outcome was to use one of the pieces that I recorded in order to create a video outcome. As I was looking at memory, I decided to use old family videos from a holiday a few years ago; a time at which I was continually playing these pieces of music. I have used this
Video Outcome : Sur le Fil
Movie - collage outcome : Naomi
For this outcome I wanted to find a way to document what I was thinking as I played a piece on the piano, to demonstrate that for me, muscle memory plays a more significant role in accounting music than actively watching and paying attention. I learnt the piece 'Naomi' by Yann Tiersen at least ten years ago for my mum who shares its name. The composer's album for the film Amelie has always been very nostalgic for me; I would listen to it when I was younger and it reminds me of my parents at a time where they were living together as well as bringing up memories of relatives we are no longer in contact with. When I play this piece I tend to daydream and it is evident that every time I stop to focus on what I'm doing I panic and lose confidence in what I'm doing. I find it interesting that the less I focus the more I'm in control which is what inspired me to record myself and recall what I was thinking at each point in the music. I made notes on what I was thinking or what was happening; my mums words in my head saying 'slow down' every time my hands would speed up; cursing to myself when I hit a wrong note; my dad interrupting to ask me if I was hungry. I then picked an old book that I'd found on my road and worked over each page to reflect each thought I had throughout the piece. Using an editing software I synced up the pages with the music.
Alec Sloth and Dave King : The Palms
How am i ever going to take a photograph as beautiful as that?" |
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Forgotten Series -
Photography & Sound -
LAURA EL-TANTAWY : IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMIDS
PHOTOS FROM THROUGHOUT MY PROJECT THAT HAVE A SIMILAR COLOUR SCHEME AND BLURRED EFFECT -
Off Cuts -
PHOTOBOOK RESPONSE TO LAURA EL-TANTAWY :
Collecting work from practising Photographers -
CONTACTING -
VINCA PETERSON -
NICK WAPLINGTON -
JAMES ALEC HARDY
CHELSEA LOUISE BERLIN -
DEREK RIDGERS
TED POLHEMUS -
VINCA PETERSON -
NICK WAPLINGTON
The image was taken at New York’s famous Limelight Club on 6th Avenue in the winter of 1989. The building is an old Scottish church and is now a gym and shopping centre."
JAMES ALEC HARDY -
Synaesthesia is definitely a fascinating subject, and to me shows how complex the issue of connectivity between matter and sensory perception is. My studio is a collection of analogue machines, which I intentionally use against their design, and cross-connect with one another to produce stimulation of the electric current resulting in video and sound. These are observed by video monitors and speakers. In my exhibitions I make performance works using these machines- and record the video- which I then reload into the monitors in the installation- which is what the Saatchi piece was- the screens in the hammocks were replaying the remnants of the live performance."
CHELSEA LOUISE BERLIN -
Rave apparel - the clothes I wore to most of the parties I attended for 5 years straight, especially
the trappers hat and denim jacket, the badges and always my membership card in a display holder, along with a whistle and my favourite necklace (which interestingly is about BLM and the lack of equality in the world)... All circa 1986-1990"
Photos of my installation '#TurnOnTuneInGetOnOne' from the Saatchi show 'Sweet Harmony'
including a close up of a memorabilia cabinet including cassettes, membership cards and photos
of a rave and a photo of a favourite (mixed by a dj) cassette cover by my friend and graphic designer Mike Bone."
Photo's of my book Rave Art - the first edition opening pages and front cover for the newly
released third edition, 2014 1st edition and 2020 new 3rd revised edition."
Original 'Art of the Subconscious' drawings of dancers from the Opera House club, circa 1987, as
well as updated versions of the same drawings that have recently been used to prototype sculptural
pieces for a new exhibition. "
TED POLHEMUS -
I find it funny that everyone wants my Rave pics but to me there isn't anything photographic or sartorially interesting in them. I was lucky - nice sunny day and this long line up of people waiting to get in so I just walked up the line and took snaps."
Responding to Chelsea Berlin's Art of the Subconscious
Art and Photography -
Sarah Sze -
Response :
MUSIC -
PEOPLE -
LAW -
STYLE -
TRANSPORT -
Using a Lightbox -
Experiments with Lenses : Creating Visual Noise -
FISH EYE LENSE :
KALEIDOSCOPE LENSE :
Linking my work with old family photos -
More connections with music and photography :
ALBUM COVERS FROM MY SPOTIFY THAT CAUGHT MY INTEREST -
MAKING ALBUM COVERS WITH MY OWN IMAGES -
MAKING SPOTIFY COVERS WITH MY OWN IMAGES -
Relating to an old advert -
Style photoshoot using my collages -
For this shoot I asked my friend to wear one of the outfits she has previously worn to a rave. Using a night setting on my camera I experimented with some longer exposures shots and more abstract angles that somewhat obscure the subject. This photoshoot was based off of the collage that I made surrounding Rave Style and the base surface of a mirror is to highlight that this area is more focused on fashion and self expression. Although it is a smaller part of my subtheme of Rave Culture, it still makes up an important part of the scenery which is why I decided to incorporate it in this way.
Incorporating style and photography -
PAINTING AND TRANSFERRING IMAGES TO A LEATHER JACKET -
CREATING AN INSTALLATION -
WRITTEN PLANS AND IDEAS -
WORKING ON MANNEQUINS -
IMAGES THAT I USED -
COLLECTING OTHER PROPS -
BAGS + BAG CONTENTS -
To take a further look into style and the fashion tendencies of people at raves, I asked my friends to send through photos of their bags that they would take / have taken to a rave with them as well as everything that would be in the bag. Most people have described choosing to bring smaller close to the body bags to avoid getting robbed as well as carrying as little as possible for ease. This is something that interested me as it is something very specific to raves and it is a simple subconscious decision made by the people going. I collected these images in order to produce prints or a phonebook outcome that will be in my exhibition. The style of the photos are supposed to convey the hectic and careless nature of pulling your things together before going out.
RAVE OUTFITS -
EDITING THE PHOTOS -
MAKING IMAGES INTO A PHOTOGRAPHIC OUTCOME -
Creating a Spotify playlist for my Installation -
To create a duality between the rave scene with and without music, I decided to create a playlist that would be playing through the headphones. When you are wearing them you hear the fun, energetic and upbeat music that makes everything else we see in the installation exciting and happy. However, when you take the headphones off to hear the threatening sounds taking place that can only be heard once the music is stopped. I chose to use a playlist rather than one particular song as I don't want people's taste in music to have too much of an affect on how they view the exhibition, but in the style of drum and bass to create the sense of being out at a rave. In order to really bring this back to my initial theme of synesthesia, I used color association when listening to each song to decide whether or not I wanted it in the exhibition. For me, a deep purple and dark green were the colours that I can relate to Rave Culture so I kept this in mind when making the selection.
Creating background sound for installation -
WRITTEN PLANS -
COLLATING VIDEOS FOR PROJECTION -
Breaking one of my collages -
Although it wasn't at all my intention to smash one of the glass collages I had produced, over the course of my project I had been secretly hoping that my carelessness with my work would lead to one of them breaking. I wouldn't have set out to smash the pieces as the unnatural way in which they happened wouldn't produce a controlled chaotic nature, and I would probably go too over the top with how much I smashed. Moreover, trying to control and work with thousands of pieces of shattered glass is not only dangerous but very difficult. As assumed, trying to preserve the image proved extremely tricky. I thought about ways in which I could preserve it; resin; a glass frame; glue. I ordered a large glass frame so I could try and figure out what I was going to do next, likely glue it down or cover it in resin in the glass frame. However, the frame was too small so I had to tactically lay the glass down onto a piece of cardboard and sticky over the back with sticky back plastic.
Creating scans for the installation floor -
Setting up -
EMPTYING + CLEANING CUPBOARD -
MAKING A HEADPHONE STAND -
SETTING UP FLOOR WITH IMAGES AND OTHER PROPS -
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