College
A week and a bit ago, I had the pleasure of shooting some film stills for The Screaming Scull, a grad project for Film & TV at IADT. Shot as a live TV broadcast (one continuous take) the drama is based on a supposedly true ghost story from England at the beginning of the twentieth century. Fearing he is being haunted, a retired sailor calls on the help of his daughter, a detective's secretary, to solve the mystery.
... and here it is! Now that that's over, time to remember how to make photographs.
(Thesis title: The Poetics and the Politics of Imagery: National Geographic's representation of place through Instagram)
Another blog of interesting things I have seen recently.
I find myself having evenings where half the art world seems to be connecting with me. It could possibly be related to the fact that I have started creating work again (the end of the thesis tunnel is visible), and just feel overly motivated. Whatever the case, I'm cool with it.
"In Search of Habitat looks at the expansion of Indian cities. Like in other Asian countries, this expansion is quite rapid and disruptive, but what is more interesting is how ambiguous and contradictory it often proves to be. Unfinished building sites, a permanent insufficiency of infrastructures and the so-called ‘slum rehabilitation schemes’ – which are sometimes more harmful than useful – are just a few examples of the contradictions in the India’s development. So the series is about the country’s promise of modernity or, more precisely, the discrepancy between the promise and the reality.
The In Search of Habitat book offers two parallel narratives of this development: 45 photographs and an essay on urban planning and geography. Together they expand and inform one another, the essay explaining mechanisms the images cannot show, and vice versa. My ambition has been to capture a glimpse of what these emerging cities look like and how the so-called New India is actually materializing. But, of course, my work only shows an absolutely tiny bit of that reality."
"How did you get started doing what you do?
Painting for me has never been something I started at some point; it has always been a part of me. I have been painting ever since I was able to hold something in my hand. During my student years, I did all the wondering and experimentation that every student does, and should do. I went through a period where I swore I would never paint figurative again, since it was only a display of talent and the true form of “reality” (if it even exists) must be something abstract to the human brain. Later I had to swallow my words when I felt that in order to study human nature I had to use the body as a reference to address the subject. So I went back to figurative, but the result of it was the very thing I had sworn to avoid- a display of talent and nothing else. Being terribly frustrated with the result, I ran a spatula through the painting to start it over, and the result was a phantasmagorical image of a human being that was there, and at the same time wasn’t. I fell in love with the idea of creating a character to later destroy it leaving behind an evidence. I became addicted to the necessity of partially erasing my characters. I feel it is the most respectful, sensible, and accurate representation of human nature.
How would you describe your creative style?
I define my work as the compilation of controlled accidents and I would say it is highly influenced by impressionism, and abstract expressionism. Although my painting is about humans, I have discovered recently that the main characters of my work are not humans, per se, but the “accident” and “time” as concepts. Regarding my style, I would not really know how to describe it. I think the definition of a style is a bit creative incarceration.
What’s your inspiration?
Inspiration, I believe, is a concept a bit overrated in the artistic community. I will not deny it for everybody, but it does not exist for me. I like better the word “motivation.” There are images, splatters on the ground, ideas, the work of other painters, music, my studio, and many other things that will get me going. Motivation can come from any source, I have even gotten the need to paint from watching a pile of garbage, but again for me it is “motivation.” Inspiration is for amateurs, professionals show up to work, as Chuck Close kindly put it."
Recently I came across the jealous curator, a blog were an artist would post work that she found and had that moment of "Damn. I wish I'd thought of that."
I had one of those moments in college today when shown Mountain Blossom by Yue Liu, a Chinese photographer. I'm still having that moment. In fact, I'm even reluctant to post his work in case I take inspiration from him for a piece. And you'll all know. Oh well.
Here's the accompanying text I found when searching for the images:
" Take an object from everyday life – the quilt – and add one of the symbols of Chinese pictorial tradition – the mountain – mix together and you will get improbable photographs, such as the ones created by Liu Yue (born in 1981 in Shanghai). These young Chinese photographer’s artworks have attracted quite early the attention of several international institutions, notably the Photoquai festival in Paris in 2011. In Mountain Blossom (2007), Liu Yue does not content himself with a mere distorted vision of a utilitarian object. In fact, his multicoloured and floral patterned quilts symbolize not only his childhood but also the Mao period when they first appeared, as well as the 70s when quilts became more colourful. These photographs are full of humour and sensibility while evoking collective memory and cultural memory."
I don't really have much else to say, I really love the work, and it's definitely going to influence what I'm going to do next - especially as I already had Aoife White's piece, In Search of a Previous Line, in my head - in particular her installation at Inspirational Arts when shortlisted for their Photography Awards last year. In her installation sections of a mountain were built through here images and was beautiful. I still like the online images, but sadly it doesn't translate the same way.
Back to my thesis corner. I feel like a hermit.
A small sample of a book I made during the winter semester of my 2nd yr in college.
Cleaning:
A simple manoeuvre, but quite effective. Meticulously washing dishes takes time.
Inviting your mother over for Lunch:
Even when she lives 3 hrs away. She should be here in 34 minutes.
Take photos of a project you haven't finished:
More commonly referred to as "Work in Progress"'s, these can be a handy escape to feeling like you're being creative and doing something vaguely useful, while being completely pointless. An extra hour can be added if taken to the editing and blogging stage.
If you follow these three handy steps you successfully avoid all thesis reading on a Monday.
Currently making a small light box installation of my "Aesthetics" Project
More photos from Tallinn! None of these photos really go together, but it's a Tuesday! So they're going out like this. Mixture of shots from the Palace and my walk to it.
It's been twenty-four days since I arrived in Tallinn (and 10minutes actually if we want to be exact), and I am unsure where to begin.
In this time I have joined Instagram (just for fun), I've lost my bank card (not so fun). I am in the process of joining Swedbank, and I managed to only fall on my ass once. I have learnt two words of Estonian (hello and thank you), but have had a full conversation with an old lady who thought I was someone else.
I have not gotten lost.
I think people need to appreciate how big an achievement that is. On a slightly related topic, I have become an expert at Google Maps. I've fallen in love with both Old Town's towering churches, and the industrial forced beauty the rest of the city projects. I've seen ice sculptures and large format linocuts. I have not attended a "photography" class yet. I am eating a lot of chocolate, but I'm blaming the long nights for that. There is strong coffee! I get to shoot as much film as I want as it cost €4.80 to have a roll processed, scanned and emailed to me. I have visited the old Palace and seen the most amazing ball room. And I have learnt it is really hard to photograph falling snow.
Now that I've tried to type some words, here are the photos.
Last week I submitted the Alternative Processes project I've been working on. I realised that Friday that I hadn't scanned 90% of the prints I had done. So here are a couple of the the Cyanotypes I made - my scanner is horrendous. It left streaks all over the pages. Anyway, here we go!
The images above are the three final images I submitted. Originally, they were all shot on Illford 400 XP(5?) in black and white (they're actually part of my Luas series). For these images, I wanted to recreate the idea of wiping away a patch of the window to be able to look out onto the outside world.
The above a a couple of my work prints and how I progressed to my "wiped glass" effect.
