I decided that i want to try to recreate this place. This is probably going to be my hardest scene so far as i somehow have to involve water/ a lake, which i have never done before. Also, the scale is going to have a large difference, as my last scene i was making model trees, now i am making model mountains! Well, here goes!!!
I was trying to think of places that were more personal to me, places which i found unsettling as a child - following on from the journal article below. Our family would always go on holiday to the Lakedistrict every year, and there was a place called Wastwater. It is the deepest lake in England and extremely old. Whenever we drove past it, my parents would always make a remark about it and how it has a high suicide rate. This was the place to go. Mum even went on to inform me that she saw someone in a baggy coat looking into the water, as though she was about to walk in and commit suicide. She then went on to tell me that she did nothing about it, to which i was horrified. Whenever we drove past this lake, every single person i saw, i would question to myself "Are they here to end their life?" "is this the final pace they will see?". Admittedly, it would be a beautiful place to see last of all, but with all these negative thoughts looming over the place, it has a dark atmosphere.
I decided that i want to try to recreate this place. This is probably going to be my hardest scene so far as i somehow have to involve water/ a lake, which i have never done before. Also, the scale is going to have a large difference, as my last scene i was making model trees, now i am making model mountains! Well, here goes!!!
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by Jane Hutton. This journal discusses the idea/ activity that when children have been exposed to serious problems and situations, that in order to overcome that fear that they use their imagination. A child who may have experienced a family murder or been exposed to household violence, are encouraged to use their imagination and transform their fears. They can make up playful settings where the can overcome the situation and be the victor. They can now be someone who watches from the sidelines ad for it not to include them. By replaying and/or adapting what happened, they can take control.
This is interesting in relation to my work. I am seemingly making something playful, in the moments that i am making. In effect, for myself, i am taking the fear out of my work and only letting others become scared by it. I am choosing situations/ places that i may find fearful and changing them into something that i enjoy. So after looking at some soviet montage films/ adverts i saw the appeal that they have to creating tension within a piece of film. I decided to try this out within my work. The basic thing about these films are to have lots of short repetitive clips in order to get your message across. The message that i was aiming for was for the viewer to be scared. I decided to have the first few clips slower, and then as the film progresses each clip gets shorter. This effectively creates tension and confusion with everything happening so fast, at times it is hard to make out what you can see. I used mainly clips of my model woodland scene, and also took two clips of real footage in a woodland. I did this as i wanted to have someones feet in it, and you moving round a tree. This is the first time i have ever placed anyone within my work, and i believe in this case it works well as you (the audience) can place yourself within the piece. Another thing which i think worked well, was looking up through the tops of the trees, and slightly spinning. This gives a great illusion of confusion, and works best in the fast clips towards the end. I am not sure if i am going to pursue this type of film more, but i'm glad i tried it within my work. I am not sure if it would work with my trenches sculpture, however that said, i may give it a go with my new water sculpture. Finally the two differences between these films are the use of sound. I kept the one silent to see what that gave, and then to the other i placed the sound of birds at dusk. I had a small clip of the birds chirping, and i played with that on imovie, shortening it, clipping it and changing the volume levels. I tried to make the bird sounds become erratic towards the end, like with the film clips. The beginning was quieter and then as it progress, harsher bird noises were made at a louder volume. Between the two i believe the one with sound works best as a stand alone piece (not on repeat). If it was to be on repeat the sound would be too intense!! Unless it were to be played through headphones. I first saw Richard Mosse’s work in the Venice Biennale 2013, he was representing the Irish pavilion. He, and two other men, travelled to the congo to film the tragic daily lives the people there have. His film is pink as he used an old surveillance camera, which picked up infrared, transforming the green Congo to shades of lavender and pink. The infrared film picks up things that are often hidden, which was why he chose to film in the Congo. Many do not realise the constant bloodshed and loss of lives that happens there daily. He was making the unseen seen.
He posed as a journalist and was able to be amongst armed groups. Mosse shot different aspects of the Congo: women doing washing, death, haunting lives of the soldiers, landscapes and camps. He successfully combines the horrors of these people’s lives, with the beauty of the Congo through a pink hue. This creates a problem for the audience, as they question themselves on how they should react to this. In the installation room that you walk into there are 6 huge screens hanging at random distances at different angles. Each screen has a film being projected on it. Most of the times different aspects of their lives are being played, but as something striking happens, like the death of someone, the films all start to link up and just have that playing, and then slowly the again play different things. There is a little audio to it, but it is not in accordance to the films, as it has to work with everything being played in there. It was great how immersed you become within the films when they are all playing around you, you cannot get away from what is happening. The audience becomes part of the piece, you are there in that moment. I feel that this type of display would work well in relation to my practice. It would help reinforce the deception as to what’s happening and where they are. I don’t think I would necessarily have lots of different aspects in one film, but rather have one particular aspect for one film and something different from the next. The only problem I have is space! I would not be able to have 6 massive projections playing. In an installation room I could probably get away with 3, maybe 4. However, I could try smaller projections on suspended A0 sheets of paper and see how that works. Wearing's work is based around the ideas of what is real and whats not, blending the lines between fiction and reality. Her work touches on themes of the psychological nature, questioning interaction between humans. She is particularly inspired by the photographs by Diane Arbus and the television documentary The Family. 60 Minute Silence 1996, is a film of 26 police men and women who seem to be posing for a group photo. They are all lined up and arranged in a similar fashion to how we all once were when we had our photos taken at school. However, it is once you have start to look at this seemingly photograph, that the people blink, their shoulders move where they are breathing and one person slumps to the side. These actions clarify to the audience that they are actually watching a film not a photograph. It is almost like an endurance test is being held, who can hold and sustain their pose for the longest. For me it suggests a solemn tone. When something reads 'a silence' i immediately think of remembrance day and the silences held for then. This is probably why silence within my work is becoming ever more important. It sets the tone straight away though its knowledgable connotations. I believe this clever use of slow film plays a strong role in capturing your audiences attention in fooling them. It allows them to see that what they once thought may be true is wrong, and they want to watch more to see if their assumption was correct. This was the first group crit since our hand-in in january, so it was interesting to see what people thought of my videos, especially from people who don't know my work at all!
This is going to be a rambling waffling post, so here goes: "silence is important" really liked this from the silent trenches soil falling. Some thought that it was as though from the gunning noise, your ears had been damaged from shock which led to the silence. Everyone seemed to like the stillness, it gave it an eerie effect. It added more mystery, and had to make you focus more, reminded them of films. On how to set it up: Lulu suggested box screens, so you would have multiple things being shown. This idea is good, as i could show different elements, and it might make it seem as though cameras are watching the place. Another suggestion was big projection. This then reminded me of the Irish Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale. I will look further into his work and way of setup. What they enjoyed about the helicopter film was that it had a complete motion, that they wanted to stay to watch the whole thing. However, this is a really short clip, it lasts for just under a minute. And i feel that having this on a continuous loop would be too repetitious. However, if it were to be maybe presented in a box, where you can only just see in, it may work. But i don't believe it would work large scale. Someone suggested for wind i could use a hair dryer. However, because i film outdoors, this could prove difficult!! Someone suggested embracing the cinematic appearance of it by definitely having it BIG. I said that i would want a little note by my work informing the viewer that it was a film of a small model, and everyone seemed to agree in the group that they would want this. I was asked why i like to deceive and to look at the artist Simon Fujiwara. Lucy suggested that the next piece i do to be a lake. As hard as this may prove to be, i think this could be fun to make, and i am very keen to try this out. There is a lake in the lake district called Wastwater. It is the deepest lake in England and is know to be extremely cold. It is also know for being one of the places where most suicides are committed. And finally three words to sum up: Death Emotion Fear. This is going to be a really vague post as i am not entirely sure on what i am writing about?!? ...so Gillian, one of our course leaders, organised this little project where different students collaborate around the writings of Vladimir Nabokov. I am not really sure who he is, but from a little research he seems like quite a big deal!! He was a Russian writer, but ended up writing English prose. He also made some really interesting essay questions, but mainly some really obscure ones, like discuss the use of the word and though out the book.
I decided to attend this session as my work is all fictitious and i thought it would be interesting to collaborate with people off other courses. I believe that someone said that he teaches you to look at stories as though they have their own worlds within them..? But anyway, i am looking forward to seeing how these sessions/ meetings go in the future. So as you can see from the post below, control is the main under pinning aspect of my work. It has made me realise why i can never find a connection between the scenes i make, because at the end of the day they are not the most important factor. The most important factor is deception, that i have controlled my audience into believing that they are looking at a real life scene, and not just a model. i enjoy having the upper hand with my audience. Everything falls back on me.
However, there is still an uncanny feel to my scenes, if we are looking for a visible theme. My work is dark, not right, and that's not just because they are model scenes. Something always seems wrong with them, like something bad is about to happen or has happened. And i enjoy this aspect of my work, i don't believe my work would be as effective if it didn't have this uncanny nature to it. Our most recent essay was to produce a piece of writing in relation to our studio work. This really helped me to underpin what my work is truly about and why/ what led me to this. I have chosen a few selected paragraphs:
So this is my finished medal. I am really extremely pleased with its outcome, it was worth the time spent on it! So i believe the last thing that i wrote about this was that it was in its wax form ready for the bronze to be poured into the cast. Once that was done, and the hard outer casing shell was chipped off, my medal and clasp was left and i had to file it. I sorted out the outsides where the stems had been attached to make it seem like it was never attached to anything. I then re-engraved some of the writing around the outside to make it more legible. With the top section i filed down the top flat bit and filed/smoothed some of the finer detail of the clasp. It was due to where the section of the clasp attaches to the medal being fragile, that i changed its way of attachment. Instead of just clamping on, i filed off the metal 'pincers', drew a hole through the medal and put a pin through. (This was actually a lot harder than it seems and very time consuming as i needed help from the technicians). After all of this was done, my medal was ready for patina. I chose a slight rusted bronze colour, in order for it to look aged and in keeping with previous war medals. Finally, i sewed on the ribbon (but in this case bias binding). I feel this is a suitable length for it to be. White is there for the representation of peace, for both past wars where men were corporally punished, and for peace now.
This piece was focused on me thinking how I could present a sense of uncertainty within this, whilst keeping the camera still. As I would not have people in my pieces I thought it would be interesting to suggest what might be happening up and the trenches. This led me to having soil falling and being slightly blasted into frame, in order to suggest that there is fighting/ explosions happening. I decided to have no sound to accompany this; I wanted the subtle movements to speak for themselves, for my audience to create their own sound. After showing this to some people in my studio, they thought that the silence worked really well. One person suggested that it was as though their ears had been hurt from the blast and they had gone deaf from it. I thought this was great that they were getting this from it. I know think to improve this I could try and see if I could blur it at times, as though you are now the person who has just had their ears damaged in the blast and your vision has been slightly effected. I might also like to try this one again with some smoke, like from what you could get from the gun powder. This piece came from me thinking about what typical things you see when watching war films. One thing seems to be mist. This was really hard to produce within this piece. I tried smoke from burning things but this was noticeable too thick and got taken with the wind too fast. I then waited until it was a cold day where I could use my own breath. This kind of worked. I was only able to exhale for so long which meant that I really had to slow the frames down though make it last a while. This then gave it a slightly jumpy feel to it. Ideally I would have a smoke machine! I wanted some sort of sound to go along with this film, but I didn’t want something really obvious and in your face, like the sound of guns. From all of the war films that I have watched as a child I can always remember the sound of the whistle when the men have to go up and over the top. I thought that this would be a subtle enough sound to use. However, this then proved rather hard when trying to find that sound. I ended up having to use a clipped part from a youtube demonstration, as the other better sound pieces had sounds of guns being fired and of the men. I did not want something as obvious as that. As a result I am not entirely happy with this piece. It is quite jumpy from the frames being slowed and the actual sound is of a very low quality. This film began by me thinking how much can I make it look like a photograph. In order for this to happen I kept it silent. However, I did want my audience to know it was a film when they stopped and properly focused on it, so I added in slight movement to it. For example: gentle movement of the camera, and the wind blowing the hessian and the barbed wire. I was pleased with this and felt it worked well with keeping it to this parameter. Ideally I would like to see this piece being projected on a large wall space, helped the audience to become somewhat lost within it. |
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April 2016
Kerry FosterThird Year Fine Art Student at Falmouth School of Art. Fellow artists: |