Dawn of a New Day

Time to change it up a bit, and even more importantly, update.

Stay tuned for more creative rambling.

Dida

Press Print

So, here they are. My image-babies. Finalized (for printing) and sequenced. I’ve been working on the final sequencing and one thing in particular has been dominating. The size of the 7 apples and 2 legs image is similar to the other one with legs and flowers, but smaller. When making the final four, I will have in mind to make an image of the same (or similar) size to balance things out.

I don’t mind that they’ve all got slightly different heights. Of course I don’t mind I made them that way. I treat each image for it’s own purpose, if it’s needs to have a smaller crop to be just right, than it is smaller. The slight oddity this creates reflects the bizarre of the series. These images are not meant to have to fit in to any set boundaries. They are open-ended chapters to and from the imagination. 

For now, they are sequenced to fit together as 6. I imagine that this will change when the final four are in place.

1-0, 1-2

I've thought about the final number of images a lot. At first I thought I wanted there to be 12 images. 12 being another interesting number (number of basic hues in he color wheel etc) I like, but decided on 10 after a night of some weird thoughts about 1's and 0's and how they are the difference between something and nothing, and the building blocks for so many things. Needless to explain all those things, there will be 10 images in the series when it's done. 

final artist statement

 

         Down a Rabbit Hole

The visible world is no longer a reality and the unseen world no longer a dream.

                                                                                      -W.B Yeats

'Down a Rabbit Hole' constructs spaces of transition between what is
real and what is imaginary. This photographic world inhabits no
specific time or place. These photographs are eerie introspective
dreamscapes, inspired by fairytales and cinema, presented as staged
tableaux.

This body of work explores the imaginary and artifice in photography
as a borderland between inner and outer realities, and the 'theatre of
the mind' as a place of personal escape. It is as much about the
contemporary construction of images as it is about the need for
escapism and belief in the fantastical and beautifully weird.

As parts of a personal refuge these photographs contain elements of
both the familiar and the unknown through fragments of fairytales and
dreams reflecting an internal world. They have no real beginning and
no definite end. They sit in the transitional space between here and
there as a place for imagination, possibilities, and freedom from
restrictions of reality.

Dida Sundet, October 2008

Some words on inspiration

Ever since I was a kid I have believed in magic. All the stories I heard, the books I read and the films I saw spoke of more than just the physical, logical and actual. And though I never did learn to fly or developed any Jedi powers I still believe in magic, and it lives in fantasy and storytelling.

This series is inspired by storytellers, artists whose work momentarily help me forget that for the most part reality is devoid of magic. Photographs that both engage in questions of the realism of the record and the fiction of the set, and films that dwell in the realm of the internal, the fantastical and the uncanny. 

This work comes from a lifelong fascination with the imaginary, and later also the use of art and media in relation to it. In some ways most of the research for this project was going on long before it begun in the form it is now. One of my aims has always been to create visual escapes for myself in some way. Fragments of an internal world made tangible through the photograph. The invisible made visible. Through more recent research I have been able to find artists that deal with similar subject matter to mine.  And some have been of bigger influence than others.

Simen Johan is a Norwegian photographer who creates imaginary spaces through seamlessly compositing several digital images into single photographs. His body of work Evidence of things unseen (2000-2003) focuses on childhood fantasies and role-play while questioning the objectivity and (expected) accuracy of the photograph. One image in particular lingers on in my imagination. A boy on a red tricycle pulling a tied up, crazy looking circus monkey around in an industrial area at night. Is the monkey screaming? Is he angry or happy? Does he belong to a fortune-teller? (His little hat looks like that of an old school gypsy.) Why is he tied up? Where are they going? Why is such a small boy out late at night?

His work has inspired further thought on the construction of images and what technology has done to our relation to the photograph. His open-ended stories have been the source of some enjoyable escapism. They invite me to create my own narrative from the framework set up through the photograph. They engage on several levels, emotionally and intellectually. Similar to mine, key elements in his work are layering dualities, the imaginary and bizarre, and the exploration of the crossroad between the internal and the external.

Tom Chambers is another influence as a fellow explorer of the natural and the fabricated. Many of Chambers' images combine three main elements, children, nature and animals. Each image is a photomontage to express, according to Chambers, a fleeting mood with strong emotional currents.  Again it is the bizarre, dreamlike and imaginary that attracts me to this work. The unreal has become part of reality. His photographs made me start thinking of how taxidermy could solve the issues with using animals, and what this adds to the mix. Apart from a lazy, sleeping dog once, my work has naturally been unsuccessful with live animals. They generally don’t appreciate being put in the spot light.

As well as photographic and theoretical research, a lot of my inspiration comes from films, and especially those of David Lynch. His use of chiaroscuro lighting to contrast the light and the dark to express dualities, his saturated colour palette and his dark, intense, psychological dramas. Lynch creates mysterious universes that remain in part unexplained, which makes every viewing different. 

These artists, amongst others, have influenced me to think of ways to construct narrative photographs that visualize a borderland of inner and outer realities. Hybrids of the natural and the fabricated. 

Overall it is their storytelling that inspire me the most. Spellbinding tales where the familiar meets the mysterious and magical. Invented melodramas exploring the unknown. 

 

WebSites

http://www.simenjohan.com/

http://www.tomchambersphoto.com/

http://www.davidlynch.com/

Curtain close

To my own surprise and joy, I finished all my prints earlier last week. And to me, they look amazing. I love the paper they're printed on (Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Peal) even if it is a somewhat difficult paper to handle. The blacks are lush and the colours... the colours are beautiful.  All in all it's been a somewhat costly affair on a tight budget, but I would never have let anyone else print them. Creating the print is just as important to me as creating the image. After all, they are not complete before they are printed and become objects.

I would still like to do 4 more images to get to a total of 10 after I finish this week. I still shoot, even if it's sometimes just to keep refining the technique or.. well, because it's what I love to do. There just haven't been  time to get to 10 before this bulk is finished. 

I shot this image in Taradale a couple of weekends back. I was just playing around to satisfy a creative itch I was having a late night after a birthday party. I love this shot, but it has potential of becoming an even better one. The feet are mine, and are just there to add another element to the composition. I'll be going back in a couple of weeks to do a re-shoot and do a different set up where I don't have to use myself. It's all one exposure with very little post. 

It belongs in a different story than this one. I would like to use a young girl and a somewhat different perspective. I think. We'll see when the time comes. 

Still to finalize before thursday are the sequencing of the images as they sit together now, some sort of background to hang them on, some writing and a whole lot of thinking. I expect the nerves to keep building as it all comes to a close. 3 amazing years, a degree in Fine Art Photography and a few bodies of work. Nice. 

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

The final stages of this project have set in. Last review clarified a few things and somewhat changed others.

Down The becomes Down a

I'm changing the title to 'Down a Rabbit Hole'. Referring to it as the Rabbit Hole makes it seem like there's only one rabbit hole when there in fact is probably more than I can ever imagine. I could use the in the sense that it is my rabbit hole, but I think there might be more than one there as well. The owls are not what they seem...

Kill your darlings

After I test printed most of the images and started putting them all together as objects, a few things changed. Though I like them all in their own way, not all of them belong in this series and end up weakening the work as a whole. So there are now 6 instead of 9 images (for now. My aim is to make 4 more). The images cut are two from first semester, the brick and skull characters, and the new portrait of a woman with skull. The main reason for cutting them is that they lack the general look of the others. Signs of nature (as nature is reality), the colour palette and space the other images occupy. The painting in these images have bigger strokes and covers a significantly larger area in each one. The 6 I am using are made up of very specifically lit areas that form the fictional space and main composition of the image. They contain elements of both worlds, the natural and real and the artificial and imaginary. 

Bi-lingually speaking...

Re-writing my artist statement, once again... And adding another separate paragraph on the influences that helped me create the work. The statement itself is coming together nicely. As you would expect after having written it so many times, I guess. There are still some parts I haven't quite figured out how to resolve to my own satisfaction, but I expect it will be done by the end of this week in good time for final review next week.

Bye, bye borders...

My wits finally caught up with me and I have dropped the 5cm black borders around the images. Others have told me before, I know, but I come to things in my own time for my own reasons. It just seemed somewhat redundant when they will be hung against a dark wall anyway, or preferably a bit out from the wall to be exact. I'm looking into having them mounted on foam core with some sort of backing that will set them about 5-10 cm out from the wall. 

The Story of the Fairy Tale

I came across this old story at the SurLaLune Fairytales site some time ago while researching elements of classical storytelling. It's written in 1905 by Carl Ewald, a danish writer I had never heard of before. It's a charming little thing I thought I might share. 

ONCE upon a time, ever so many years ago, Truth suddenly vanished from out of the world.

When people perceived this, they were greatly alarmed and at once sent five wise men in search of Truth. They set out, one in this direction and one in that, all plentifully equipped with traveling expenses and good intentions. They sought for ten long years. Then they returned, each separately. While still at a distance, they waved their hats and shouted that they had found Truth.

The first stepped forward and declared that Truth was Science. He was not able to finish his report, however; for before he had done, another thrust him aside and shouted that that was a lie, that Truth was Theology and that he had found it. Now while these two were at loggerheads--for the Science man replied to the attack vigorously--there came a third and said, in beautiful words, that Love was Truth, without a doubt. Then came the fourth and stated, quite curtly, that he had Truth in his pocket, that it was Gold, and that all the rest was childish nonsense. At last came the fifth. He could not stand on his legs, gave a gurgling laugh, and said that Truth was Wine. He had found Truth in Wine, after looking everywhere.

Then the five wise men began to fight, and they pummeled one another so lustily that it was horrible to see. Science had its head broken, and Love was so greatly ill-treated that it had to change its clothes before it could show itself again in respectable society. Gold was so thoroughly stripped of every covering that people felt awkward about knowing it; and the bottle broke and Wine flowed away into the mud. But Theology came off worst of all: everybody had a blow at it and it received such a blasting that it became the laughingstock of all beholders.

And people took sides, some with this one and some with that, and they shouted so loud that they could neither see nor hear for the din. But far away, at the extreme end of the earth, sat a few and mourned because they thought that Truth had gone to pieces and would never be made whole again.

Now as they sat there, a little girl came running up and said that she had found Truth. If they would just come with her--it was not very far--Truth was sitting in the midst of the world, in a green meadow.

Then there came a pause in the fighting, for the little girl looked so very sweet. First one went with her; then another; and ever more... At last, they were all in the meadow and there discovered a figure the like of which they had never seen before. There was no distinguishing whether it was a man or a woman, an adult or a child. Its forehead was pure as that of one who knows no sin; its eyes deep and serious as those of one who has read into the heart of the whole world. Its mouth opened with the brightest smile and then quivered with a sadness greater than any could describe. Its hand was soft as a mother's and strong as the hand of a king; its foot trod the earth firmly, yet crushed not a flower. And then the figure had large, soft wings, like the birds that fly at night.

Now at they stood there and stared, the figure drew itself erect and cried, in a voice that sounded like bells ringing:

"I am Truth!"

"It's a Fairy Tale!" said Science.

"It's a Fairy Tale!" cried Theology and Love and Gold and Wine.

Then the five wise men and their followers went away, and they continued to fight until the world was shaken to its center.

But a few old and weary men and a few young men with ardent and eager souls and many women and thousands of children with great wide eyes: these remained in the meadow where the Fairy Tale was.

Carl Ewald,  "The Story of the Fairy Tale" (1905)

Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. The story is included in Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture, edited by Jack Zipes.

Available: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/introduction/ftstory.html