Scene 5

Edited the first 3 photos:

• 

• 

• 

Scene 3

Scene 4

Tried different positions and angles…

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Then decided on this one. First time there’s sunlight while shooting these photos!

Scene 5

Tried different settings, positions and angles…

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Mouth open breathing just didn’t look good. I’ll try these two positions tomorrow:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Scene 2

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Scene 3

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The tree is too big… So I bought a smaller one…

Spent 6 hours putting over 200 feathers on the tree…

Spent a long time trying to connect RICOH THETA SC to my iPhone but it just didn’t work till just now somehow…

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Spent 2 hours on the first scene… It’s really hard to do self-portraits because I can’t see how it looks like till it’s taken… Really hard to get a good position and I have to put water on my back every time to stick feathers… And it’s cloudy today… It’s crazy it gets dark from 4pm here now. I’m not sure if it’s too close and my body takes up too much space. But I want to try other scenes first tomorrow if I get all the props early.

I always have a hard time renting my work to wider contextual issues because my work always starts from my personal emotions or states I struggle with. I’m still in the process of building myself, so I don’t really have the interest or strength to pay attention to the world. However, as an individual in the society, I believe the struggles I’ve been through or I’m being through are shared with some other individuals. Thinking about my urge of expression of private feelings, I may be able to relate it to the main attention to the economic development of the society instead of individual emotions and psychologies.

Talking about my methods/models/approaches, I always project specific meanings to every single element, usually through change of objects or interaction among objects. In a group of 6, we created the map:

It’s interesting to hear how much classmates can relate their work to social/political/cultural contexts. I think it’s very meaningful to be able to situate our work in the world. But I also think, even starting from individual’s experiences, it spreads in the society because the society consists of individuals.

• What changes do you want to make in your work? I want to try to have feelings lead more in my choices of scenes settings in my photography work and I want to experiment with including myself in the photos because I want to express my own emotions.
• How do these relate to wider contextual issues? I’m not sure this desire of changes relates to a wider contextual issue, but it’s mainly from seeing classmates’ work and sharing about our different approaches to our work. I’m also starting to try to feel more about other artists’ work instead of paying more attention to the ideas behind. I’ve always appreciated artists who expose themselves in their work, which is really brave. And I’m always curious how self-portraits work.

Points about the Essay I should pay attention to:

• Use and draw on evidence to justify your arguments and ideas. Support from other people, not personal stories.
• Synthesise your thoughts and the (sometimes contradictory) thoughts of other authors/researchers/theorists/artists. We can take elements from different sides.
• Analyse the material’s core arguments and conclusions. Explain why with different resources.
• Evaluate its significance and its successes / failures. How it’s applied in different contexts and reasons. What I have learnt. Where I can apply and reasons. Suggestion. Conclusion from description and analysis.
• Identify key methodologies, processes and techniques. Those that I use similarly.
• Incorporate your informed, evaluative perspective on their practice. Reflection on the influences on me and critique on my work.
• 1500-2200.
• Essay Plan: template.
• Narrow and deep, one area. What now? Why now?

We also read an example:

I chose Nan Goldin for my interest in her old work. I shall compare her past and now and find the relations. Why now is not so attractive? Find new elements to appreciate current work based on the past. The point is now. Learn from now.

I was worried Nan Goldin didn’t have really recent work till I found an exhibition of her work just started yesterday in London with her latest work. I have to visit the exhibition before I write the Essay plan.

Shooting Idea:

I had this strong feeling during the break weak, which I have come across now and then:

I feel empty and unsettled. I have the desire of seeking external distractions to fill my empty inside, to stop flowing, to evidence my existence. But they didn’t fit, which made my inside emptier.

As the feeling intensifies, so does your desire to seek relief.

What is Emptiness?

Emotionally, emptiness is a feeling of inner desolation: a complete absence of joy, hope, or satisfaction. When a person experiences emptiness, they are plunged into an inner abyss which often results in addictive and escapist behavior.

Feelings connected with emptiness often include despair, depression, and loneliness.

Nobody ever tells you that emptiness weighs the most.

We try to fix our inner wounds by using external distractions.

https://wakeup-world.com/2019/05/29/feeling-empty-5-ways-to-heal-your-inner-void/

I want to capture useless attempt to seek external distractions/attention to fill my empty inside. The emptiness and weightlessness made me think of Bernard Faucon’s photographs:

• 

• 

• 

• 

The trace of sunlight creates a dreamy atmosphere, which makes the small simple room emptier and lighter. They remind me of the old moments of waking up from afternoon naps with no one else around in the room, which made me feel void somehow. Because I’m staying in a room that’s simple, small and white as well, I have a strong connection to these photos about the feelings of emptiness and void. I started to have the idea of shooting in my room.

I had a hard time thinking about how to visualize the relationship between inside and outside till I read about Rauschenberg’s Bed (1955):

Even when empty it crawls with imprints and residues of identity. It puts on the same horizontal plane the tortures of sex and the ecstasy of dying. The bed is the nocturnal baseline of our vertical endeavors. It seems to exert an extra gravitational pull. Heavy with sleep, we are weighed down into some archaeology of memory and forgetfulness until we are made weightless by dreams or exploded by nightmares.

‘The Studio’. Jens Hoffmann (2012)

I started to think bed as a link between inside and outside. Because only while sleeping, we are not interacting with the outside world consciously. Our mind is completely inside of ourselves. The moment when we wake up, we start to feel the outside world. The co-existence of “weighed down”, “weightless” and “exploded” that beds make people feel relates more to the complicated feelings of void. Therefore, I decided to use bed as an element. Sleeping in bed indicates the feeling of weightless. Beds can also represent external distractions that the inside seek as they exist in both worlds and are the connection in between. Piles of beddings in the room indicates the attempt to seek external distractions to fill the empty inside, which makes the room feel depressive because of the decreased space, inspired by Faucon’s photo again:

Thinking of weightlessness and dreamy sense, I thought of white feather. When it’s loose, it’s light and it flows.

When we lack a stable ego, we float being tossed here and there with no sense of solidity or wholeness.

https://wakeup-world.com/2019/05/29/feeling-empty-5-ways-to-heal-your-inner-void/

While it also forms wings of birds that are free, unattached and independent, on one hand it indicates the possibility of putting oneself back together and getting power again. On the other hand, it indicates the mind is not stable or solid and it can be flowing all over the place.

The desire of getting hold of something or finding a root reminds me of trees and they are also home of birds. So I got the idea of feathers on a tree, which indicates the desire of grow feathers back to wings to get the strength and wholeness back and the longing for belonging and attachment, also inspired by Faucon’s photo:

• 

• 

I want to capture the action of adding sand to the root indicating its uselessness because sand doesn’t hold anything, inspired by Faucon’s photo:

I also want to try to add fog to increase its dreamy atmosphere, inspired by Faucon’s photo:

Then I came across Francesca Woodman’s photos:

• 

• 

• 

• 

Interested in the limits of representation, the artist’s body is habitually cropped, endlessly concealed, and never wholly captured.

She positions the self as too limitless to be contained, and thus reveals singular identity as an elusive and fragmentary notion.

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/woodman-francesca/

They inspired me of using myself in the photos as I’m expressing my own feelings. And blurry part of body can indicate fragmentary and unstable ego. I also want to use nudity to add the feeling of weightlessness and being unattached, and indicate the isolation from the outside world.

Here’s my shooting plan:

1. Sleep in bed with feathers on the body and in bed
2. Pour sand on the tree root, feathers on the floor
3. Lie in front of the tree, inspired by Woodman’s photo:

• 

• 

I want to indicate that the tree of feathers is the desire of growing wings.

4. Tree falls. Feathers all over the floor. Lie in bed

5. Piles of beddings, partially hiding, mouth open breathing, inspired by Woodman’s photos:

• 

• 

Found Nan Goldin’s work at Tate Modern:

I’ve always liked The Ballad of Sexual Dependency and it’s an inspiration for my two project before RCA, Emotionally Unavailable. I’m mainly interested in its exploration of human relationships, especially in terms of intimacy and loss.

In the afternoon, we accidentally went to another Gagosian Gallery:

We discussed how ACTS were made. And I guessed dye was poured into clear urethane block and gradually the urethane became solid. Jiao Shi suspected their value with such high prices placed in such a nice gallery. He said these objects were easily made and whatever object placed in this gallery would look more valuable. I didn’t really agree. Besides the ideas these object conveyed, I thought their value also included the artist’s labor, time, expense and failure. I thought art was not just about how complex it was, but more its ideas.

Then we went to Cristea Roberts Gallery to see Howard Hodgkin: Strictly Personal Part I:

I read some articles about Howard Hodgkin and I liked how he expressed his feelings and emotions through color and brushes. As the title Strictly Personal, many of his paintings and prints are meaningful and personal to him, shown by their titles as well while other people may not understand the relations. It’s also my motivation to do art, to express my personal feelings and emotions.

These are what I should pay attention to and do better at:

• A contemporary practitioner is who’s currently making.
• Research: critically explain the artwork and the ideas behind, how it’s relevant to my practice, how I would engage with it, minimum 6 posts.
• Documentation: explain technical process, why I did something, the ideas behind, what’s my theoretical research, my intended and discovered ideas and practice.