Finally did laser cutting induction and it was amazing. The movement of the laser just creeped me out… Was amazed by how it should work so efficiently and accurately… Like a crazy robot. Hope it would be involved with a project one day.
We finally put our pages together and we’ll print it tomorrow. Hope it would go well.
Had a great tutorial with Nathan which is really helpful with my reflection for the manifesto. I’m amazed by how well language can be used to express the deepest thought in one’s conscious and how writing can help push one to dig and capture all the little thoughts that are often ignored or taken for granted while important or essential to link ideas or concepts and practice throughout a project. I realized how this reflection writing could help me be more clear of my practice in return. Nathan made some edits and suggestions to my draft:
Surrounded with all kinds of advertisements in every aspect of daily life, unconfident consumers are unconsciously manipulated to form values conveyed by hidden ideas of advertisements. When the values become major within society, social pressures increase for consumers whose original beliefs and desires conflict with the demands of the society, which follows struggle in the conscious self.[1]The aim/goal of my photography work is to show this conscious struggle to people suffering from not being able to achieve authenticity, the way of existing where you are in full control, regardless of external pressure.[2]WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
I created two sets of slides, each consisting of four photos in sequence of a clear female or male figure to blur gradually with “cross-dissolve” while the contrast between the color of the background and figures’ clothes gets stronger. Both the background and figures were projected with unreadable dense texts. It is a process of being exposed to increasing manipulating information and becoming more confused to determine opinions of existence.
The idea of projecting texts came from Fiona Banner’s installation work, 1066, wall projection as part of ‘Words to be Spoken Aloud’, Turner Contemporary, 2013.Banner interpreted a visual scene in the Bayeux Tapestry with winding and increasingly dense texts to show the brutality of the Battle of Hastings.[3][4]Another inspiration was from Shirin Nashat’s Unveiling, a series of photographs of Islamic females’ face or body written with poems expressing female independence to question the culture of “the veil” and female identity in Islam.[5]The texts I used were the scene I wrote for the manifesto where “I” struggled with making a choice between pasta and salad for dinner. It shows theforces and influence advertisements bring to consumers.
To further suggest the power of shaping cultural norms of advertisements, I set the color of background same as the figures’ clothes initially, creating an effect of the figures getting absorbed into the background, which was inspired by Anthea Hamilton’s installation work, Brick Suit.[6]
Using blur to capture disorientation was originally inspired by Amrou Al-Kadhi and Holly Falconer’s portrait, GlamrouI saw at the exhibition ‘Kiss My Genders’, Hayward Gallery, 2019. A triple exposure is used to describe the experience that can fracture your sense of self as well as hold it together.[7] HOW DOES IT DO THIS? HOW DOES IT ACHIEVE THIS? HOW DID IT MAKE YOU FEEL? HOW AND WHY DID YOU ATTEMPT TO USE A SIMILAR TECHNIQUE IN YOUR WORK? I decided on only displaying blur through long exposure instead of a clearly layered image because it expressed “struggle”, “unclear”, “mess” and “hesitation” better. HOW DOES IT DISPLAY THESE? COULD YOU DEVELOP THIS FURTHER? HOW MIGHT YOU ATTEMPT TO DO THAT?
I have also experimented and thought about other medias to address this phenomenon. I did an installation set with wafted teared colorful paper strips as background projected with a female saying the texts I wrote for the manifesto under constantly color-changing lighting. The creation of distorted background was inspired by Pascal Gaudefroy’s installation work, Litote & Hyperbole. The color scheme was influenced by Fiona Banner’s installation work, CMYK vs RGB. To further create the sense of uncertainty, I added Echo Delay Audio Effect. However, photography work is better displayed in a zine than installation. I also had a plan for overlaid text printing on reflective material such as mirror card. When viewers read the texts, they could see their distorted face, which encourages self-reflection. HOW DOES THIS EXPRESS YOUR ORIGINAL IDEA? WHAT DOES THIS TEACH THE READER?
In conclusion, in response to our group manifesto about manipulating advertisements, I focused on its effect on individuals and visualized it through texts projection and gradually blurred portrait photographs. EVALUATION – WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT/PROCESS? DID YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL? WHY/WHY NOT? WHAT WOULD YOU DIFFERENTLY WITH MORE TIME? WHAT WOULD YOU DIFFERENTLY/MORE OF IF YOU WERE TO WORK ON THIS MORE?
[1]My view on this has been inspired by my reading of Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992). Alex, Wood & P, Linley & John, Maltby & Michael, Baliousis & Stephen, Joseph, ‘The Authentic Personality: A Theoretical and Empirical Conceptualization and the Development of the Authenticity Scale’, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55:3 (2008), 385-399. And Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Thought, 2008).
[2]Søren Kierkegaard, The Present Age (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962).
[3]‘Postscript: An Ambitious Take on Conceptual Art and Writing at the Power Plant’, Caitlin Sutherland (31 July 2013) https://www.dailyserving.com/2013/07/postscript-an-ambitious-take-on-conceptual-art-and-writing-at-the-power-plant/[Accessed 13 August 2019].
[4]‘Fiona Banner: The Naked Ear’, Fifth Street Gallery https://www.frithstreetgallery.com/exhibitions/fiona-banner-the-naked-ear[Accessed 13 August 2019].
[5]‘Shirin Neshat Unveiling (1993)’, Hemispheric Institute https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/hidvl-collections/item/2727-shirin-neshat-unveiling-1993[Accessed 13 August 2019].
[6]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2019).
[7]Amrou AI-Kadhi and Holly Falconer, Glamrou(London: Hayward Gallery, 2019), p.
I have to think further about these questions and develop my reflection.
We had a group discussion on the zine. Some members suggested me to add some texts on my pages to help readers to understand. I think I’ll try it to see how the layout is like. We’re going to integrate all our pages together tomorrow.
We had a one-hour group tutorial with Julian today. We each showed our individual work. Julian suggested me to add sound to the slides but I’m not sure what to add. I may think further after I finish writing the reflection I’m going to show Nathan tomorrow. We confirmed again that we’re going to show our plan on the individual’s four pages tomorrow, produce the zine on Wed. and plan for the presentation on Thurs.
Did photography and installation work on Tues. at Capture Studio with Sam as my model and Jiao Shi helping me. My intention was to get layered images with blurry movements through multiple/long exposure. It didn’t work with projection and white clothes. Here is what we tried with Sam:
So I photographed several still images and blurry movements and combined them with photoshop:
I also experimented a lot with Jiao Shi at the studio trying to find a setting to make it work:
I haven’t finished the list yet. I found the following photos relevant to my idea:
I also did an installation set:
On Thurs. we had a podcast. We basically discussed about our own work naturally. I actually had some questions but I was afraid that time would run out so I didn’t ask. Also had a tutorial with Adam, which confused me a lot. But I found I was not expected to produce three pieces of final work but just experimenting with three medias which I already did. Adam said this photo expressed my idea the best:
But it’s just simply blur. And he suggested me to try cross dissolve in premier to display the photos as a slide. I thought further these days about my idea and how it’s related to the photos. And I gradually get why Adam made these suggestions. When I talked about my idea, I mentioned that I did not plan the projected texts to be readable because there’s so much information surrounding people and it created a mess on people’s mind. And I wanted to create blurry movements because people’re struggling with following their heart or values of majority of the society which were largely formed by manipulating advertising. For the installation, I used flowing distorted background paper and changing colors to show the struggle and the psychological state where everything’s unclear. When I thought about how I explained my idea, I realized that the key words I wanted to express were “struggle”, “unclear”, “mess”, which were better conveyed by blur rather than clear multiple figures. So I produced the following slides:
I used four photos for each slide and they are both from clear to blur gradually while the contrast gets stronger. It is like a process of being exposed to more and more conflicting manipulating information and getting more confused of making decisions and choices. And cross dissolve helps viewers to understand the sequence of change. And this is how I plan for the zine as we decided on A5 size:
I decided to choose photography rather than installation because photography suits better for display on paper while installation is displayed better physically.
On Fri. we had a lecture about critical thinking which was fun. I liked the idea of questioning common sense which I also do sometimes. In the afternoon, we went to westfield as a method of researching, immersion, which didn’t work for me. All the work I have done starts from myself with years of daily experience and just making a visit somewhere for one hour does not really bring me any inspiration or thoughts. But it was also interesting to hear other members’ thoughts from the visit.
Talked with Anna about my 3 ideas.
For texts making, Anna pointed out that if I just asked someone to do laser cutting for me, I would not learn anything. So I think I’ll try t find a store where I can take part in the laser cutting process. Otherwise, I could only ask a classmate to do it for me as the next induction would be too late for this project. I also learnt from Claire that mono print may work on mirror cardboards.
For the photography plan, I found out that I needed a media player for usb used for the projector and Anna could help me set it up. That’s really helpful! And I would also get a tripod and cannon 750d handout from Anna. And Anna directed me to Fashion room to look for black cloth and I found one. Hope it would work.
For the installation plan, I could get a fan from Anna to blow the background paper strips! And Anna directed me to a base room to look for plastics where I found a black reflective material that I could try to mono print on, the plastic I wondered about from the photo below, other plastic I could try to project on and also a colorful plastic I could try to use as a color filter. There are so many things to experiment tomorrow! Hope everything goes smooth.
For the podcast tutorial, I really think that we can just discuss about our individual work and plan our zine naturally while some members suggest we could make it more fun. After discussion, we decided we could have a funny intro and outro with normal discussion in the middle:
I’ve only done photography before so it will be my first time to try installation and text making.
INSTALLATION
An image of the model smiling projected on crumpled and teared background paper strips (white + green + black), with a board manually / fan blowing the paper strips.
Filmed and photograph with different color filters.
I wonder if I can get a fan/plastic at the college…
I found a piece of plastic used in a photo quite interesting. I’ve seen the material but I don’t know the name.
TEXT
Print texts on mirror card / silver paper
I want the layout to be like this:
I don’t know if I can mono print it to a mirror card. I have to find out from Anna hopefully tomorrow. If yes, I probably have to laser cut the texts first. However, I didn’t take the workshop so maybe I have to find a store to do it.
It is really hard to manage the time as the resource store is only open on Tues…. Hope I can collect the equipments and finish shooting at Capture Studio next Tues. I feel quite nervous as I have never tried multiple/long exposure, projection or speedlite before… Also model-involved shooting always makes me somehow worry about the time that it takes. I will be afraid that the model would feel impatient or tired especially when he/she does it for free. Anyway, after self-studying and asking Jiao Shi a lot of questions, a classmate who is a photographer, here is the plan:
Project texts on the background + model in white: (close, upper body, whole body)
Multiple exposure (function + average) without flash + white/black background.
Multiple & long exposure (function + average) without flash + white/black background
Long exposure with flash + black background:
ISO100, F/8-F/16, 1s.
Flash 3 times:
second curtain sync + manually / 3- + 3hz
45 degree up/not towards the model
Long exposure with flash + black background:
ISO100, F/8-F/16, 1s.
Flash 3 times:
second curtain sync + manually / 3- + 3hz
45 degree up/not towards the model
NOTE:
5d3: manually flash
750d: wirelessly flash
I also booked a negotiated technical learning appointment with Anna on Monday to talk about my plan and I also need to know if the black background absorbs light. If not, I need to get a black cloth as the background to absorb some light of the projection and flash or the images may be overexposed.
The ADAS Workshop was depressing… I didn’t get every single aspect the article or the discussion was about but I got the rough idea. It’s just the more it’s talked about, the more depressed I felt. Internet, government, politics, business, power, freedom… These’re rather huge and complicated topics that I have never really paid attention to. I always think that if you cannot do anything about it, what’s the point of talking about it? And all those crucial facts that people have suffered from make me sick when I start to really think about it. It makes me feel bad I’m not doing anything about it. Anyway, I don’t think I’m ready to think, talk or do anything about the world at the moment. I think I’m still during the process of building myself.
The lecture was mainly about zine. It didn’t really feel right to me to plan about it before we created our work… But we still got a rough idea about how it should look like and we shared our ideas about our own work & research:
Almost everything was new to me today.
Illustrator:
Print Lab:
Learnt so many things about academic writing especially for the 500-word reflection!
So we could probably have four points, of which two main points should be supported by more research (books/academic journals, no wikipedia). Each point should form one paragraph.
I think I will probably be struggling with research as I have never really done much before. And it feels not easy to find very relevant or high-quality reference in a short time…
Besides a workshop, I also talked to a student who’s a professional photographer. I asked him about multiple exposure and long exposure. He has never tried it, either but he found that it could realized on cannon 5d. I hope I can learn a lot from him about photography skills.
Eva Wang