Tag Archives: CAP1

Developmental Drawing WEEK 2

Daily drawing booklet – staring this week i wanted to keep a book where i could collage and draw ontop of any scraps i had lying around and just have something i could do kind of care free when i was feeling stuck or was struggling with a drawing.

I also started with my 10 3D drawings thinking about textures and folding as well as moving drawings.

From these 10 drawings and my daily drawing booklet I went back into 2D and started think about compositions and layering collage into some of my drawings. I also started to consider using colour however this was’t my main focus this week

after reflecting on the drawing i have produced this week i an happy shape wise and composition wise however i think i need to go back and think about depth and texture as i feel these elements are lacking.

Major Project Evaluation

My original starting point for this project was to explore the idea of keeping secrets an how we value them within ourselves as well as how we communicate them to others. This led me to start the majority of my research by asking people to confess a secret to me in the form of an anonymous note. Through speaking to people about how they feel about having a secret i learned how greatly that type of private information is valued to each person. This i where i started to think about the environment where secrets are held and thought about. I used photography as well as drawing and collage to start producing work to try and communicate this idea that secrets exist within quiet places when people are given quiet and space to think. These 2D works i felt were successful in showing the contrast between the secrets and the environment however to push my idea further i would have to start thinking about making work that considered my audience more than just the people i could speak to. Changing my approach by opening it up to an unexpected audience using the posters of other peoples secrets and confessions started to bring in the question of trust and feeling of exposure to the people they belonged to. Through these pieces i started to consider what kid of conclusion i wanted to reach. I wanted the audience to be put in a position to think and consider there own secrets. Asking questions to people had become my main source of material and text to use so displaying that in a way that leaves it open ended and without an answer from an audience or specific person i felt would be best. I felt i responded well to my initial theme and intentions while still exploring all of the other elements keeping a secret has; Trust, exposure, loyalty, taboo, communication, confession and isolation. I feel like i used my time on this project well and explored multiple mediums and considered all possible outcomes. I really enjoyed researching artists specifically those whole question how there work interacts with audience, specifically a Jenny Holzer and Sophie Call. I felt I also managed my time well and responded well to feedback from crits.

Secrets: Installation and Projection

I made a small model out of cardboard with the intention of using it to project my secrets and confessions onto with a projector. I also want to experiment with Photoshop covering the walls with words and questions that trigger people to think about secrets that they are keeping to themselves. I also have an idea for a space where there is a low lit room where people are invited to go in and write a confession on the wall using a pen that can only be seen using a black light. Only after adding a confession do they receive a black light to read there own secrets as well as everyone else. I think is idea for a space is interesting as it puts a lot of importance on the exchange of information and questions how we value are secrets. We often use secrets and private information like currency and people put great value and importance n keeping them hidden in the dark.

I Also like the idea of having a large space where questions are posed to the viewer and they are surrounded by things to make them consider and think about this type of secretive and private information. Letting lots of people into this space would also maybe make the viewer more comfortable with the knowledge that everyone else is probably thinking the same thing.

FINAL OUTCOME

In response to the questions and spaces i was thinking about i did these quick 10 min paintings. I used quick movements before laying over a question or confession. The background of colour is confusing and distracting and the small painted letters can easily be lost in the rest of the painting. Just as secrets can become lost and easily to miss and cover over so dose the text in some of these paintings despite there importance to the work. Although these paintings were quick and small i feel they show a lot of the different elements and theme that i have been exploring and experimenting with.

Secrets: Work & Environment

Following the crit I wanted to focus on Bringing my work and confessions physically into these environments making them real rather than having them only exist on pieces of paper. All reactions and feed back so far has been from people I know either in studio or people i have spoken to about secrets. I want to start exposing these secrets and confessions to the environments were they are most often thought about. How i wanted to go about this and what kind of things i wanted to say i wasn’t sure of yet so looked at artists Jenny Holzer, Sophie Calle, Barbera Kruger and Gillian Weaing.

Truisms

The artist uses her surroundings and physically projects her work on to them. Rather than having her work in an already artistic space (studio or gallery) where people who are coming to see the work already have a preconceived expectation that what they are looking is is considered art. By placing it outside in very public spaces it opens it up to be interpreted to anyone in anyway. Her ‘Truisms’, 1977-79 are a collective of nearly 300 phrases and slogans of modern cliches and commonly held truths. The work was at first infiltrated into public ares via stickers, T-shirts and posters. Later, Holzer started using electronic displays. In 1982 she blazed these messages across a giant advertising hoarding in Times Square, New York. The Truisms are deliberately challenging, presenting a spectrum of often-contradictory opinions. The artist hoped they would sharpen people’s awareness of the ‘usual baloney they are fed’ in daily life. I liked how the artist gradually increased the spread and scale of her work and reflected how huge companies and manufactures manage to invade or space everyday through advertising and media. Her work also invading everyones space but instead of trying to sell them nothing asked them to question what they were being told.

Posters Development

I started to think about putting these secrets and confessions physically out on the street and in ares i visited on a daily basis that I could find myself being quiet or with my own thoughts. I experimented with just photocopying the original confession slips as well as writing them out just using acrylic paint and cutting out letters from magazines.


Photocopying– captured the authenticity of the original confession each persons handwriting added another felling of identity to each bit of paper as if that person themselves had decided to share and spread that secret
Hand painted– This added a more human quality to the photo coppys as i physically had to paint the message in my handwriting on the paper. It felt more like i was the one exposing this information and trust of that person despite the fact it still remained anonymous.
Cut outs – Using the cut out letters from magazines to spell out the confessions made it feel completely anonymous as it took away any form of identity and the act of writing it out had to be a lot more time consuming and thought out.

While I liked all of the methods for their own individual consensual quality so i decided to use a mix of them simply because i wanted a range of styles and didn’t mind the inconsistency as each persons way of keeping a secret or telling someone my differ from person to person.

The locations for the pictures where all places i visited over the course of 3 days where if i found myself alone or it was particularly quiet in a public area I would lave one of the confessions at random. I then took a shot video and left. In total I took around 20 photos and these ones were my effective as i feel they look the most alone and quiet in a sense because of the lack of other people but still let you know enough yo image them in an area where a lot of people might pay attention to them on passing.

Below is the video to accompany the images I took.

I took short videos of all the posters I put up and combine them. I like how the video turned out as it feels very lonely despite all of it taking place in very public spaces. I also like the fact that they seem very discarded in the places they have been put up as if only thought about for a second or two. The noise of some of the videos was important as i wanted the feeling of things still going on around the confessions just as people go on carrying these secrets.

Secrets: Week 2/3

taking and editing these images i found that layering over a coloured filter made them more interesting and look better when layering with text and other images. The colour overlay also makes these places seem more still and diluted almost more quiet and dream like, it pushes the images into the background.

Research

I also started researching into why people feel the need to keep secrets and how it effected them. 97% of people are keeping a significant secret at any one time. This makes this idea of having one more relocatable and feel less important knowing everyone else has the same “keeping” responsibility. Despite this topic occupying all of us, there is little research on what effect it has on us in our every day life. The ability to keep a secret is a big milestone as a child. It confirms this idea of having trusted information between another person. A lot of my project is going to revolve around this feeling of trust and inclusiveness

The majority of research suggests that keeping a secret weather that be just with yourself or a select few people can leave you feeling anxious and weighted with your own information and responsibility; sharing it with other people may only make it worse through fear of them telling more people. The idea that you are the one holding this information and choosing to share it or not seems to have negative impact on your mental and in your relationships with others. However the problem inst the actual keeping of the secret its the idea of having to live along side them in our thoughts. This is why i wanted the secrets i gathered to be in and amount my collages and images of places where your mind dose wander.

However in my own researcher as i found speaking and communicating with other people about my secrets and theirs a very positive thing. There is this idea and feeling of inclusiveness; being in on something and feeling valued enough that person would communicate something so valued and concealed with you despite the fact that that is you taking on more secrets that you need to keep. In relationships with other people i think that secrets are a real sign of trust and confessing things about yourself makes you feel better as you often get a similar secret or confession in return.

I wanted to explore the 2 types of secrets I was receiving and could differentiate:

  • Shameful or embarrassing subjects- sex-money-cheating
  • What people are really thinking – social commentary and thought and the social pressure to be polite

Layering/Print/Paint/Collage

I experimented with layering college, painting, printing and text. As well as including the original confessions i included phrases like
“Don’t tell anyone but”
“Who am i going to tell like”
Phrases that came up a lot when discussing a secret or confessing things to someone. who am i going to tell becomes a question of someones character as appose to an actual question. Asking the person who is telling you if you trust them enough not to tell others. Because as an adult the reality is that you have the ability to tell anyone physically or even over social media. It reminds me of making a ‘pinky promise’ when you were younger.

Major Project: Secrets

starting point:

The initial theme for my projects secrets and my plan is to investigate and explore why and when we keep them. I would also like to research into the communication (or lack) of secrets and the idea of trust and confession.

I moved on to consider all the different elements I could respond to

  • Being told to be quiet- where/why
  • knowing something is hidden beneath/from you – layering images
  • Chinese whispers- changing of information throughout poor communication
  • The power of feeling inclusive
  • Negative feelings associated with having a secret and not feeling authentic

Initial Responce

As my initial response to my project idea I asked people write down a secret or confession anonymously. I then re rote them in my handwriting just so they were consistent looking and it was easier to read. Me re writing them also took away and chance of recognising someones hand writing. The confessions themselves all focused around traditionally taboo subjects and were things people would maybe be embarrassed to admit to allowed. However, tho writing these things down isn’t the same as expressing them vocally I think that putting it down on paper and into text makes it feel more real and permanent. There were also some that were things people often think or wish they could express in response to what’s is happening around them or who they are around but cant because of social pressure to be quiet and polite. For example “CBA” “I think everyone is an arsehole”

This then got me thinking about place and where and why we there holds this social pressure to be quiet and respectable. Places like churches/bus/ stops/ trains/ waiting rooms/ in bed/ when someones on the phone. So i went and took images and sound clips of all these places i associate with quiet and being reserved. I also thought it was interesting that these are all places we tend to fine our-self’s alone and with our own thoughts – things that may be considered secretive are thought about in very public spaces.

Before taking my own images i just did some small experiments with layering the confessions with found images of these locations that are associated with being quiet.

I experimented with layering one on top of the other however thought that the image of the place layered over the confession worked better both visually and conceptually – the inner secret being hidden and compressed to the persons head because of the social environment and location.

I liked the layered contrast of the images and text as well as the shapes of the images hiding and obscuring the messages underneath. moving forward I wanted to experiment with layering and collegeing the two elements again with my own images.

Secrets: Artist Research

Jenny Holzer

The artist was born in America 1950 as is based in new york. The main focus of her work being delivering messages using text in public space. Here conteporarys include artists like Cindy Sherman, Barber Kruger and louise lawler. She is associated with the feminsit artist that emerged in the 1980s. The public apperance and grand scale of her work is crutual to her practice as well as using projections prints and neon text. Although her diverse practice incorporates a wide array of media including street posters, painted signs, stone benches, paintings, photographs, sound, video, projections. Her work pollutes and takes over structures using this mass media asthetic of being oversaturated and VERY public. her work is directed at the casual viewer rather than gallery visitors. Her bringing her work ou into public spaces i find the most interesting. exposing her audience rather than inviting them. I want to incorporate this elemnt of playing with the idea of audience; who and where am i trying to engage. Using text as a way to ingage the viewer is also something i want to experiment with.

Christopher Wool

American conceptual artist who is based in New York. He I best known for his paintings of large black letters on white canvases. These works began in the late 1980s inspired after seeing black graffiti on a new white truck. The words tend to be broken up by grid system or have the vowels removed so much so that they often need to be read aloud to make sense. Although he is best known as a painter he has a large body of black and white photography of the streets of Chinatown. I like the straight forward and confronting attitude the artist’s work has. This quite literally black and white message leaves not much to be debated in terms of meaning and message. Forcing his audience to read and understand. 

Jean Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in 1960 in America. He started his practice as an informal graffiti artist in the late 1970s where the artist was influenced by early hip-hop music culture. He then started his Neo-expressive paintings in 1980 where they began to get attention and exhibited at galleys and museums internationally. His art focused on themes of wealth, poverty and immigration. He worked with a range of media poetry, painting, drawing and married text and images amount abstract figures. He also repeatedly mixed historical information with modern social commentary. He used his art to attack power structures and make his audience question systems of racism. This engagement and again confrontation with audience is something I want to focus on.

Ed Ruscha

Born in 1937 in America the artist is associate with the pop art movement. He worked with very mixed media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film. His early career and education was rooted in commercial art and advertising. His very first word painting was displayed in 1961 and since then the artist has included text within his work. These phrases are often comical and simplistic. These phrases often “just occurring” to the artist almost as just a passing thought or phrase that can be interpreted in a multitude of meanings. Experimenting with humorous sounds and rhyming word plays, Ruscha made a portfolio of seven mixed-media lithographs with the rhyming words, News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews, Dues, News in 1970. Again, using text in a short and pushy manner I find really effective and think I am going to experiment with and use within this project. 

All of these artists are asking questions at their audience whether that is very publicly or in an art gallery setting. Question who you audience is and how you are going to reach them is something I’m going to explore more in this project using text and imagery. 

Conseptual: Evaluation

My theme for the project progressed from being about memory the focusing on the reliability and authenticity of memories. I focused on the 3 stages in which we take in and digest information. The sound work I originally produced at the beginning of the project I felt like was veering away from the theme of memory to much so to bring it back I included me telling the memory over the door and window stuff I was working on beforehand. I began by thing of memory’s and attaching imagery of the homes and houses as my research developed a lot around the idea of  creating a memory palace and for this you need somewhere which you are familiar with – home. I focused on these images of doors, windows and the basic house structure; like something you would draw as a child. I think keeping the simplicity of just having lines made my insula responses easier to understand and connected with more people in crits. I used tape and pen to create these images as it was quick and got the basics of what I wanted to show without going into too much detail. Using the tape, I could also but the door and window anywhere- in college, at home, outside. I also started experimenting with sound after looking at the work of samson young. I experimented with recognisable sounds and slamming of doors and windows. This was as quick and easy to transfer and edit just using apps and my phone it was also exciting as I had never messed around with anything like that before. I could have considered the final piece a bit more as ideally I would have liked it to be a performance piece of me telling the viewer a memory form one side of a door. I think just having the audio play from my phone was a bit clumsy looking and I could have presented it better. My time management could have been better as I could have played around with using video and experimented more with what the memory was and how it was delivered to the audience. I would have focused more on the memory I was reciting and the mood and tone which I was delivered with, also played around more with audience and not just played it to people I know but maybe strangers as well.

Conceptual: Development 2

continuing on from the idea of having a place to store memories i researched into storing sound memories (echoic memories). This is where your brain registers specific auditory information lasting between 2-4 seconds. I then listed sounds only I would recognise – My door bell, the doors slamming in my flat, the noise of someone closing a window, specific floor boards the creek ect. I listed sounds connected to my house to link it back to the idea of creating a memory place (a place I know very well). I like the idea that the sound relies on your understanding of what is is to exist and be understood and listening itself is driven by a desire to understand something/someone else. We slot or organise what we hear into a known category automatically without thinking.

I then went on to researching the work of Samson Young and Florian Hecker. Both artist use sounds and audio editing to make us question our understanding of our surroundings.

So I wanted to mimic this questioning of someone retelling a memory and questioning what parts are easy to understand and what parts and interrupted and unreliable. My plan was to play around with the sounds within my house to create this feeling of being shut out or unrecognisable. using sounds only I would recognise to create something non authentic and something other people couldn’t pick apart and couldn’t understand these nosies or where they might be from.

Link to audio: https://vimeo.com/user94451701/review/389491917/14cabc7b50

However i felt like this idea of the sounds within my house was moving away from the idea of memory so I instead recorded myself recalling a memory that happened in my house in the room i happened in then had someone open and close the door through my telling of events. The door opening and closing represents the coming and going of information and how you can let someone in on a memory and shut someone out. You also have the ability to not let anyone in at all – keep them behind the door. i wanted whoever was listening to get that feeling of being excluded from my memory or that feeling of being shut out. I also tried this using the 2 windows to the room but the audio from outside on the street i felt was too distracting. I liked the noise of the door itself as a door alone represents the coming and going of a person through to a different space – memories coming and going.

link to audio: https://vimeo.com/user94451701/review/389496827/bfee173d1b

I also took recordings of me just telling the memory with the door closed and open, with the audio recorder on both sides of the room, with the recorder cutting off at so points, all in an attempt to obscure the memory and make the audience question each part of what they are hearing. I liked this idea of them having to put the puzzle together themselves.

I then started playing with the idea of cutting up the audio and rearranging what part you would hear in each part of the room again making the audience work to collect and gather the full story rather than having me just tell them the memory straight.

Thinking about presentation i also considered having it be played in a small intimate room where there was a weighted door so the audience could decided what parts of the audio they where abele to hear and weather or not they wanted to come into my space and here me talk or simply would only open the door and listen for a moment.

FINAL OUTCOME