Another Semester, Another Review- 150 word statement

First review is tomorrow, and I should most likely be in bed sleeping than staring at the same screen I've been staring at for the past 14 hours. 

Anyway... For this one we have to present a 150 word statement that support the conceptual basis of the work and a visual interrogation of  two images (given verbally). 

Here is my crack at a 150 word statement to my somewhat creative chaos. (Not counting title, a work in progress or signature. I claim those for free.)

'DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE'

With ‘Down The Rabbit Hole’ I explore the imaginary and artifice in photography. I am interested in how we use fantasy to comprehend experience and emotions: the lost dreams we cling to, our hopes, fears and desires.

While the imaginary and subconscious offers us an escape from ‘the Real’, it also presents another understanding of it. Fantasy knows no boundaries, it offers a space to render experience in another manner than within the restrictions of realism, and can fulfil any secret desire, or horrific nightmare. These photographs are eerie introspective dreamscapes, drawing inspiration from fairytales and cinema, presented as staged tableaux.

I am also interested in using digital photography as a portal to my imagination, to a place where everything is as real as I want it to be. As a result my images become constructed tales that can only continue to exist through photographs.

A work in progress

Dida, August 2008

A visual Interrogation Part 1 - the Bunnies...

So... I'm quite new to expressing my images in such detail so bare with me in the exploration.  

This is a staged, exterior night shot of two half naked bunny-men lying in the grass. It is shot at night due to lighting techniques and the association I have with night as a time for fairy tales, escapism, dreams and fantasy. It is a time when we reflect upon the day and my senses are change. My perception of the world is quite different at night and I am more open to the endless possibilities that exist, and therefore open my mind to fantasy easier than within the boundaries and restrictions of daylight and ‘the real world’. 

 My images are shot outside to give them more visual (and imaginary) space. Reality, here in the form of grass and parkland, create a backdrop of realism to what is a fabricated scene of fantasy. This enhances the artificial/ fictional aspect of the main subject, the bunnies. I think of this image as the first scene of a play or a film. The spotlight illuminates the scene and our characters emerge from the darkness.

The image is surrounded and held by a thick, black frame. This represents the darkness of the mind in a way. You close your eyes and out of that initial darkness images appear. It represents a possible beginning, middle or end. When the whole series is put together the black framing will also help maintain a visual flow between the different images. The images themselves are so dark that I feel they need ‘protection’ against the hard brutality of a white wall. Black evokes a sense of potential and possibility; it is the color of mystery and the unknown/ unseen.

The light is painted on with warm toned torches. This way of lighting is similar in look to that of theatre, cinema, and somewhat painting. It challenges the time within the photograph (as it is obviously not a moment but rather a patch of time) and enhances the ‘unreal’ as the light comes from multiple angels in spots across the image. It looks very different to that of a ‘normal’ night scene. The duality light - dark represents where the conscious meets the unconscious, where fantasy meets reality. Out of darkness and the unknown, comes creation and life. Fantasy is after all also a form of recreation.

The bunny characters are two half-naked men wearing bunny ears and skeleton masks sitting in the grass. Their skin is almost glowing and the spotlight appears to lift them from the grass. Their pose is one of curiosity and perhaps surprise, as if caught off guard. These characters represent lust and desire as well as referencing a mix of the classical rabbit in ‘Alice’ and the evil bunny, Frank, in ‘Donnie Darko’. They extend an invitation to follow. Will you follow the rabbit into the dark?

Their skeleton masks points to a more sinister layer within the image, our vulnerability to the unknown and the fragility of emotions. The masks keep the bunnies (men) suspended between fact and fiction, in the borderland of imagination and reality. Their number, 2, further reflects a duality, plus-minus; feminine-masculine; it symbolically represents imagination, dreams, exchanges, communication and balance.

Behind the bunnies are a bunch of illuminated sticks. These represent the rabbit hole. It also helps aid the composition and the sticks add ‘drama’ to the image. In front of the sticks are the shadows of my legs. I left this in the image because I like how it refers back to the creation of the image and again the patch of time it takes to capture and create it. This is an illusion, and the legs are a reminder of that. What you see has been carefully created; it is an artifice, someone’s vision aka my vision. The legs become ‘the third’ of the image. The number 3 deals with magic and expression. It also represents time in past, present and future.

The colors of the image are vivid. The green grass, the sexual pink ears and skin tones. Green represents both the natural, and fresh as well as envy. The pink is sexually charged (hence the naked skin), and adds a feminie aspect to the masculinity of the male bodies.

The duality light – dark points to the borderland reality – fantasy. It blurs the edges and allows us to dream. The construction of the image does not hold restrictions of reality, but allows a meeting on my own terms. I have a feeling of choice. I can choose to indulge or not. I can dream, I’m allowed to imagine unrealistic things of magic and places of no boundaries.

In post-production this image is enhanced digitally by layering different elements. Post-production allows me to complete my vision and create this ‘looking glass’ to my imagination. Digital photography and manipulation allows flexibility in the relation to photography’s representation of the real and the unreal.

7 apples and 2 legs... a visual interrogation Part 2...

So... here is the initial interrogation of this image. I'm re-shooting it saturday (hopefully) and I'm sure some things will change underway, but as I said... Initial Interrogation.

7 Apples, 2 legs

This image is an initial sketch for what I imagine will be the second image of the series (along with a third image to juxtapose the second, more on that later).  This is another staged exterior of 7 apples on the ground and a pair of legs. The legs are used instead of a body (as I was shooting myself it was the only part I could get to and still keep the stillness of the image). This image refers back to stories such as ‘Snowhite’ and ‘the Original Sin of Eve’, but also to desire, fertility and creation.

The legs represent innocence, femininity and bodily desire. They are what allows us to step in or out something. The crude sock marks reminds us of the act of undressing, of scarring and of reality. The legs are metaphorically those of Snowhite or Eve, not having eaten the apple yet, but not as picture-perfect, pointing back to the reality of beauty and reality in itself.  The implied movement hints towards a yet-to-be-seen action. Stepping forward and picking up the apple, perhaps taking a bite. 

The red of the apples represents passion and possibility. They are carriers of seeds with the potential for new growth. There are 7 apples in the image. The number 7 is a magical number, especially in fairytales. There were 7 dwarfs; there are 7 colors in the rainbow, 7 chacras, 7 seas, and 7 deadly sins... The number 7 is meant to be an activator of imagination.

The background for the image is soil and the base of a tree with a snake-like branch in the back and under one of the feet. (I will enhance this in the re-shoot.)  The earth represents the beginning and the end. It is fertile and has the potential for growth. The branch in the background is a meant to be read as the snake, a disturbance or threat if you will.

In post-production I have layered several exposures to compile the final image. I have selected areas of the other exposures where the light was to my liking and digitally sewn it together.

In re-shooting this image I would like to try adding a partially see-trough body over the apples instead of the legs. I would also like to superimpose a lock on one of the apples. The apple then presenting itself as another gateway to the imaginary. This, when juxtaposed with the image of a key, will present new readings and dualities. The body (or legs if I decide to keep them) will become not only a reference to ‘Snowhite’ and ‘Eve’, but will link it back to ‘Alice’, the rabbits, and the entering of another world. The femininity of this image will juxtapose the masculinity of the key.  

Ham Wrapped Christmas Turkey...

So... Saturday brought the first attempt to do another shoot since 'the big break'. I wish I could say it was all the love and glory it usually is.

I had decided to do things inside since it was really cold and I was wrapping a friend in ham and wanted him to be as comfortable as possible. (Comfort not really being applicable when you're covered in meat in a homemade heap of trash.) I covered the floor in my workspace to make it look like rubbish and then placed my friend in it, wrapped him in ham, spaghetti and some other (probably not so pleasant) things. The idea for the shoot was seemingly simple. Finding the right angle to do it and not reveal the room around us was not.

So far I've only glanced at the images a few times, but enough to say that it didn't work the way I intended it to. The idea is there, and I believe it is a good one, but things don't always work out first time around.

The light works very different inside opposed to outside. It bounces off the walls and shorten exposure times considerably. (Sounds good, but not when you do what I do.) Also the quality and temperature of the light look and feel very different. So, technically speaking interior shoots are probably not worth spending too much time on again unless necessary.

Another few things became clear to me after we finished. We did a very short session, the shortest ever I think, and in that time I understood just how important my own wellbeing and comfort is to the success of the shoot. All of us were tired and not giving it half the energy we usually do, but there were also clear distractions that took the focus away from what was happening. All in all I think it held a few very important lessons for me in particular in regards to how I work best and what circumstances to avoid in the future.

It's just not as simple as pointing the camera and the light at someone wearing a costume and think it will take you somewhere magical. We have to create this magic. We have to believe in it, to want it. I have to inspire my models to make them want to take me there, perhaps even without knowing what it is they're doing, and they have to inspire my vision of the place we go to. They externalise the experience and help me render that world tangible through their presence in the photograph. If we are not ok ourselves, we will not get there.

All in all I would say it was a lesson well learned. However, it does put me in a bit of tight spot for first round of assessments. It is not that the images do not work at all, because a couple of them do in some ways, but it is how far they are from where I wanted them to be that concerns me the most. It is hard to get back on the horse. I want to, and I'm still very excited about this project, but I continue to find obstacles placed around me that I have no or little control over that must be overcome.

Next time we'll nail it. I know we will. 

 

We all float around in here...

The body, lady, is like a house: it don't go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like an automobile: always on the move, always.

                                            F. O'Connor 

                                 (from The Life You Save May Be Your Own)

                                                                          

There are always many levels to creating a piece of work that interest me: technical, theoretical, conceptual, philosophical and so on. My need for creating work is fuelled by a need for exploration and understanding through art. To reflect upon the perplexities of the mind and the world, the self and the other, of escapism, of reality and fiction, of memory and the pieces that fit (or don't fit) between.

With analogue photography the negative anchors the subject of the image to an actual occurrence. What is seen is rooted to a more certain degree in reality, it was. The digital image has no such negative. It is malleable and invites to a constant readjustment and re-evaluation of reality and the photographic 'moment'.

While the experience of the imaginary offers us an escape from 'the Real', it also offers us another path to the understanding of it. Fantasy is a link and a platform to render experience in another manner than within the restrictions of 'reality', the imaginary abides by no pure boundaries of logic and reason. These are separate, but linked worlds, and I reside in one no more than the other.

 

 Computers have given photography the freedom of painting, whereby photographs can truly represent the ideas of their creators and not merely render what already exists.

                              -Simen Johan

This work explores the inwardness of a subject that lies beyond its external structure, a crossroad of inner and outer reality. It attempts to display the secret garden of things unseen, fragments of fairy tales reflecting an internal world, narrative moments with no real beginning and no definite end. "Fairy tales are for kids". Not an unknown statement, but far from what I believe. I believe it is a basic human need to escape into fantasy, if so only to better comprehend social reality. Adults make use of the fairy tale as much as children do. We watch films, read fiction, follow TV series and daydream. Perhaps our need for escapism is even greater than that of children as we are limited by having to conform to what is perceived to be 'normal' for adults.

In the whole realm of poetry no domain is so boundless as the fairy tale. It reaches from the blood-drenched graves of antiquity to the pious legends of a child's picture book; it takes in the poetry of the people and the poetry of the artist.

                                                                -H.C Andersen

I approach the making new work in a variety of ways. Some images are constructed by researching elements of interest and developing 'the idea', others appear from dreams or while reflecting upon the 'core structure' (former research etc) of an idea, and at other times, and this happens quite often, a location inspires a 'vision' and results in the creation of a site specific installation which is then photographed in one or more parts.

Digital photography allows me the freedom to control every element and my use of light painting allows me to manually apply light from any angel I see fit.  It becomes a seductive balance of light and dark. The darkness represents the mind and the undercurrent depths of imagination. Light becomes the tool of exploration, like a spot on a theatre stage, carefully revealing only what you are meant to see. Applying it by hand, as if painting a canvas, gives it a sense of mystery and enhances the aspect of that 'other place'.  Through photography I embody a fantasy world, the images becoming a gateway, keys to unlocking the unknown.

By keeping my characters mostly in masks they become part of the visual myth and their representation is suspended somewhere between fact and fiction. As the image as a whole, they contain traces and elements of 'real', but the things you see in the photograph never existed as you see them. Not in this reality anyway.

Everything we are allowed to approach by way of reality remains rooted in fantasy.

                                                                            -J. Lacan

 

Thoughts to be continued...