A2 Photography Summer Home Learning
My definition of Surrealism : Surrealism is having a balance between dreams and reality, not only exploring reality but acknowledging dreams as well.
Task 1: Searching for the Miraculous
Investigating ways in which photographers have discovered the marvellous in the everyday.
The Surrealism movement grew out of Dadaism in Paris in 1924. They were able to quickly adapt to the potential of photography and to explore what Walter Benjamin referred to as 'the optical unconscious'.
Surrealism acknowledges the distortions generated in photographs, perceiving them as the marvellous.
Surrealism explores the relationships between reality and dreams, trying to find a balance with the two.
The Surrealism movement grew out of Dadaism in Paris in 1924. They were able to quickly adapt to the potential of photography and to explore what Walter Benjamin referred to as 'the optical unconscious'.
Surrealism acknowledges the distortions generated in photographs, perceiving them as the marvellous.
Surrealism explores the relationships between reality and dreams, trying to find a balance with the two.
Poupées accrochées à un mur (Dolls hung on a wall) by Pierre Jahan, 1945.
“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” |
“I find out a lot about myself by sleeping. Dreams, they are who I am when I’m too tired to be me.” |
Task 2: Serious Play
Chance:
1. A possibility of something happening.
2. The occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause.
3. Fortuitous; accidental.
4. Do something by accident or without intending to.
5. Do (something) despite its being dangerous or of uncertain outcome.
1. A possibility of something happening.
2. The occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause.
3. Fortuitous; accidental.
4. Do something by accident or without intending to.
5. Do (something) despite its being dangerous or of uncertain outcome.
Surrealist believe that chance is an important elemamt in photography, some artist only use chance to create their work, making their work not in their power to ortinate and reoragnise aspects of their work. such as Marcel Duchamp. Marcel Duchamp was an surrealist, whom used the element of chance to create his work. Duchamp made the work through the use of chance, dropping three meter long threads from an one meter height onto three canvases. He then adhered the threads to the canvases, preserving the curves they had assumed upon landing, and cut the canvases along the threads’ profiles, creating new units of measure, each in some sense a meter long yet all different and all with an element of the random.
Jean Arp worked in a similar way to Duchamp. Jean Arp wanted to balance chance and reason as he thought society is too dependent on reason, and to do this he created art that would incorporate chance into the method of making the piece. |
Marcel Duchamp
3 Standard Stoppages Paris 1913-14 Marcel Duchamp explaining his idea: This experiment was made in 1913 to imprison and preserve forms obtained through chance, through my chance. At the same time, the unit of length, one meter, was changed from a straight line to a curved line without actually losing its identity [as] the meter, and yet casting a pataphysical doubt on the concept of a straight edge as being the shortest route from one point to another [...] In itself it was not an important work of art, but for me it opened the way - the way to escape from those traditional methods of expression long associated with art … For me the Three Stoppages was a first gesture liberating me from the past." |
What role did chance play in the work of the Surrealists?
Chance was a big aspect of the Surrealists work. Chance enables the Surrealist to have more freedom in their work, to become excited and enthusiastic about whats is going to happen in their work and how anything can cause an unexpected turn. |
Automatism: refers to involuntary actions and processes not under the control of the conscious mind—for example, dreaming, breathing, or a nervous tic.
Automatism helps adapts Surrealists techniques, for example being more spontaneous within their writing, painting etc, having a free association of words and images, this can make creative creation like the Exquisite Corpse, which is made by being in a group of four, and each randomly draws something on a part of the paper, and then hides what they'e drawn and lets another person in their group draw something, and when its done you should have a creative drawing made by everyone. Also Surrealists were interested in dreams which showed a person's thoughts, feeling and desires To the left is an example of the Exquisite Corpse "Three (or more) of you sit down around a table. Each one of you, hiding from the others, draws on a sheet the upper part of a body, or the attributes able to take its place. Pass on to your neighbour on the left this sheet, folded so as to conceal the drawing, but for three or four of its lines passing beyond the fold. Meanwhile, you get from your neighbour on the right another sheet prepared in the same way (previously folded perpendicular to the axis of the body to be realised)...In the event that colors are used, it is a requirement to pass, along with the sheet, the colors, limited to the number of those used." |
Task 3: 'Select a number of printed photographs you have taken some ago. Tear them up randomly. Rearrange, either together or separately to create new images'.
A year ago I took these 4 images, and these are the images I'm going to use to create my new image. I chose pure black and white photos as I believed when rearranged the torn up pieced of the photographs will work well together.
My torn images. The individual torn pieces of paper were randomly ripped apart in to different shapes and sizes. Then I took one pile at a time and throw it up into the air, however it didn't scattered out like I hoped for so then I gently scattered them randomly on the table and took a picture of it. Then I put all the piles together and scattered them on the floors. I didn't want to interfere with the paper any more than what I already had, I wanted to leave the results of the images to chance.
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These are my final images and results of the activity.
What went well? What went well is the actual process of the activity, My images were made out of complete chance, I scattered the ripped pieces of paper of the table and that is how the images turned out, The only thing I did to make the image was tearing up the images in various sized and scattering them on the table, I had no choice in how the pieces of paper were arranged. I also like the simple contrast of black and white and how it easily makes the separated pieces of paper blend in with one another. What could I do better? What I could of done better was to make each image the same size, so each image I made would be equal before tearing it up and scattering the torn images. Also I would of liked the images to be fitted in a certain sized area, however, if I would of gone through with it, it would of took of the element of chance I was going for while making the images. |
Evaluating Using Formal Elements
The main subject of the image is the women in the black dress with a white collar looking at the object in the see through jar. The women dressed in all black, is looking at a bright white object, this has a noticeable contrast to the image, this could suggest how angelic this object this, it still says pure and white even while being surrounded by darkness of the women in black. This image could suggest that the women is mourning, as she is wearing black, funeral clothes and the object was passed down to her, and due to its being bright it could suggest that its passing down a new light to her. The colours are very dull, only consisting of black and white and anything in between, giving the image a gloomy and sad feel about it. The noticeable lines in the image that got my attention first was the lines on the bed sheets, the light and dark grey straight lines on the bed sheets have a very consistent composition until the woman leans on the bed and disorientates the straight lines. The are a lot of empty spaces within the image for examples the walls are very bare, fitting with the images feel to it, this can also represent a woman's life in the 1940's-50', very dull, bare and at most times quite lonely for the average woman, and the surrounding represent how she feels living a lonely life. By the way she is composted on the edge of the bed, could she be missing something who previously lived in that bed? Her husband? A son? A daughter? Does she feel lonely? Dependable on a man?
Jacques Andre Boiffard 'The Big Toe'
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Words to describe the image: isolated, detached, lonely, dark, sharp lines, ordinary, uncomfortable, tones, dirty, clear contrast, bold, black and white.
The image is projected to look ordinary, even though it's not an ordinary thing to photograph. Jacques Andre Boiffard has taken the image like it's main subjected is not a toe but a flower for example making an uncomfortable part of the human body to be photographed like something beautiful. There is a sharp contrast between the lines in the image, especially the cut off from the bottom straight to jet black background. The texture of the image feels rough and hard to touch, epically it's a toe and the phobias surrounding the sight and touch of toes. The toe is taking up the majority of the image, highlight its texture and all the tinniest details of the dry skin and the wrinkles. The toe feels isolated as you can see the rest of the toes in the image. |
I only picked out these images because I they were the first ones that caught my eye. I picked up the images and randomly put them on the table without knowing if there was a connection or not. The images at first looked like they didn't have much in common , only that they have a bright white main subject surrounding by dull grey or darkness. However, after rearranging the images, there was a clear line that if positioned right throughout the three images. They have a clear, continuous line through the images linking them together.
However, apart from one or two similarities I don't think these images link as much, as they all have different textures, for example the image of the flower near the window would have a soft, fresh texture while the image of the building would have a hard rough texture and the texture from the floor I believe could be picky and wet as the building looks old and leaky. |
Capturing Images Without Being Affected By Emotions
While looking and analyzing photos, we looked at a image by Alfred Stieglitz. Alfred took an abstract image which included the sky and part of a tree. This image portrayed Alfred's emotions in a split second without no manipulation, capturing his state of mind. This is the theory of equivalent. I wanted to experiment for myself, so I went out to images without thinking about it. Without trying to make it look nice or trying to manipulate. I at first, found this hard. Then I thought the only way to be successful in go to a place or object I'm attracted to and take the image of it without looking into the lens of the camera.
This is my outcome.
This is my outcome.
Photo Montage
I made these images by using a scalpel and cutting into the image. The first image was deliberately cut, and I could see what bits I was cutting, however the second image I turned the image around and cut it by chance and took another image and put it under the random cut image. I made a photo montage by chance due to surrealists deem chance to be a very important aspect of surrealism. Chance is used by a wide number of surrealist artist such as Marcel Duchamp whom is one of the most famous surrealist artist known. Duchamp believed the role of chance can open up a whole different world of art such as he's work of the '3 Stoppages'. Other games such as the Exquisite Corpse has chance playing a very important role, as chance creates the game. This is why I decided to play with chance within my photo montage as chance is one of the most important aspects in surrealism. Also while cutting the images I tried not to think about what I was doing, I didn't want to manipulate the image, I wanted to just cut it and not let my feelings take over until after creating the image. Other artist who created images while not thinking about it is a man called Alfred Stieglitz whom took an abstract image which involved a sky and tree, with no meaning of capturing the image at the time. The Surrealist had a deep interest in photo montage from Dada, who used a technique to disrupt the main easel painting of the art world.
This is a montage I made by using my own images and images from a magazine.
A montage I made from objects at home. Each one represents either my past, present or future.
Man Ray
Man Ray was born in 1890 and was an American photography, painter and filmmaker. After going to the Armory show in 1913, he began to paint in a Cubist Style. In 1915,Man Ray met Duchamp and collaborated with him in initialing a Dada movement in New York. The fist one man exhibition in the Daniel Gallery. Then he began to make abstract painting in 1916, using vivid colours and flat-forms, while also experimenting with sculpture object and airbrush painting. After moving to Paris in 1921, he participated in the Dada and surrealist movement with painting and photographs.
Mari Mahr
Mari Mahr was born in Chile in 1941 and educated in Santiago and Budapest. Enrolling at the School of Journalism in Budapest, she recieved her Diploma, while becoming a trainee press- photographer at the Cultural Department of the Hungarian News Agency. Mahr did apprenticeships with Endre Friedman and Gabor Palfai. In 1973 having moved to London she continued her studies at the PCL where she received her BA Degree in Photographic Arts under Derek Drage, Gus Wylie, prof. Margaret Harker and Victor Burgin. In 1989 she received the prestigious Fox Talbot Award at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Britain. Her work is now in collections worldwide, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The British Council, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Tokyo Museum of Photography, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh and the National Museum of Photography in Hungary. She lives and works in London, but divides her time between London and Berlin.
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism. Began to study philosophy at the University of Bonn in 1909, but became increasingly preoccupied with painting; self-taught, but influenced by van Gogh and Macke. In 1919, Max Ernst and others founded the Cologne Dada group. They posted various magazines, which were short lived, and organised many Dada exhibitions. Ernst's first one man exhibition was in 1921 at the Galerie Au sans, Paris. By 1922 Max Ernest moved to Paris. He's friendship with Breton and Eluard led to active participation in the Surrealist movement.
Herbert Bayer
Herbet Bayer was an Austrian and American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental and interior designer, and architect. In 1920 he became an architect's assistant to Josef Margold, a member of an artists colony. Continuing his education between 1921 to 1925 in Weimar and Dessa, he worked his art. From 1925 to 1928, he was the director of the newly founded printing and advertising workshop at the Bauhaus Dessau. Until 1938, Bayer worked in Berlin as a commercial artist, advertising graphic designer and painter. He was the artistic director of the Dorland advertising agency in Berlin, Vogue Magazine in Paris and a freelance employee of the magazine Die Neue Linie (the new line).
Rorschach blots
Hermann Rorschash
Hermann Rorschach was a Swiss Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and was the man who created the test. The Rorschach test was designed to reflect unconscious parts of the personality that projected onto the stimuli. In the test, individuals are shown 10 inkblots one at a time and asked to report what objects or figures they see in each of them.
"Reality is created by harmonics, physically manifest as mirror reflections of the soul." |
The Rorschach test was created as an psychological test which tested a patients perceptions within the inkblots to analyse their state of mind. This can also be used to test a persons emotions, character traits and personality. Named after it's creator, a Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach, it was used mainly for many patients who had commit crimes to see if they were mentally stable.
My Project
Set 1 of images
I started experimenting in the dark room using inverted black and white images to create my Rorschach blots. I exposed the images on the paper and spattered the chemical and folded the paper together like you would doing a normal Rorschach blot with paper and ink.
This is my first attempt at exposing the inverted image on the light sensitive paper. This attempt did work out as well due to the face did not cover the whole light sensitive paper causing the mass of white on each side of the face. To fix this I will use a inverted A4 image on A5 light sensitive paper.
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Set 2 of images
I experimented with my outcome from making Rorschach Blots. By putting an image into my Rorschach Blots by Photoshop and mirroring the image I created these outcomes.
John Hilliard
'Camera Recording its Own Condition (7 Apertures, 10 Speeds, 2 Mirrors)'
John Hilliard was originally a sculptor, but was interested in the idea of photography as a way to record his work. The series he created consist of John Hilliard's camera changing the aperture and shutter speed. ' Photography is both the medium and the subject of the work, giving not a picture of 'reality', but different versions of reality'.- Tate Britain |
Sean Woodrow
First attempt of testing out different exposers
I decided that my previous ideas had no personal meaning to it, this meant that I wanted to develop my ideas till it did.
More Refinement
However, I decided to refine my idea further, so I started to experiment with spattering developer on the paper and letting it drip off the paper.
Final Piece
Convulsive beauty
Beauty will be convulsive or not at all ... Convulsive beauty will be veiled-erotic, fixed-explosive, magic-circumstantial or not at all.
-- André Breton
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This abstract video shows the physical body up close. It;s so up close that most of the video you're left guessing what part of the body is being film. This video made me feel uncomfortable, not only with the body being filmed, but the background noise of the heavy breathing., making the video more intrusive and personal.
This video is undermining our expectations, questioning and challenging them, like what the surrealists did. |
SURREALISM ; desire unbound
While having a look through the images in the book, they make me feel more uncomfortable as I went on. Such artists as Rene Magritte, Hans Bellmer and Roberto Matta whom aimed to liberate the human imagination opposing the oppressive aspects of society and where men's desires were set free. This book has collected work from surrealists that not only showed their vision of love, poetry and liberty but also psychoanalysis, philosophy and politics. The book also portrays the expression of sexual instinct and the impulse behind love. |
Hans Bellmer
These Hans Bellmer images are all about the naked body. However, these images are about experimenting with a women's body, he's not trying to make the body look beautiful for something that would be desirable. These images are making the view feel uncomfortable to look at and even repulsive.
Man Ray
I have selected some images by Man Ray of women, the first two images can be seen as desirable to men, especially the second image linking to a commonly known fantasy of two women together. The thrid image is very abstract, with a large spider's webs surrounding the women.
Rene Magritte
These images made by Rene Magritte are very abstract and was very popular with surrealist. The main focus in these images are women's legs. My favourite image is the first one, with a fishes head and a woman's legs. I like this image as it reminds me of mermaids. However, mermaids are beautiful, delicate mythical creatures of the sea while this image is the opposite while being half fish and half human like mermaids.
Jacques André Boiffard
Jacques Andre Boiffard images are not like the other artists like Hans Bellmer. These images are more desirable and attractive than the other surrealists images.
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Jake and Dinos Chapman work involves distorting mannequins in a grotesque and sexual manner. The molding and distortion of the mannequins viewed from a feminist point a view can be seen as disrespectful to the female body, mutilating and molding female sexual organs and breasts with male sexual organs as well. Jake and Dinos Chapman were highly influenced by Hans Bellmers work of sexuality and forming their exotic fantasy in a image of sculpture.
While investigation artists, I gained an interest into Hans Bellmer's work. This work was grotesque and distasteful to a to such groups as feminists. This is due to he's art was degrading to the female body, by mutilating dolls of female children was seen a vulgar and was even criticized by other surrealist. Other surrealism criticized him and his work, however it can be argued that surrealist was to be honest in your work and Hans Bellmer was just be honest in his desires. His work enable him to possess and punish the things he desired, his personification of fantasies, by placing them in positions and setting the connote violation, threat and observation.
First Set Of Images
Second Set Of Images
Third Set Of Images
First attempt to modify images
I attempted to mutilate my images by burning, tearing, crumpling and folding my images. However, it was to simple and I didn't like the images turned out.
Second attempt
Third attempt
How to Display
Continuing the Personal Investigation
Research
Hans Bellmer's prosthesis. He created a set of images with the use of dolls as body parts. He's images are offensive and misogynistic to women, which also portrays he's erotic fantasies in his images. Dawn Ades criticized Bellmer's work by stating that he's 'method was an attempt to produce a systematic critical objectification of delirious association and interpretations'. She also suggested that 'Double images of the kind he conjured up through his paranoiac critical activity' Behind Closed Doors: The Art of Hans Bellmer. By Therese Lichtenstein, International Center of Photography |
Rebecca Horn used prosthesis in her art, for example creating long finger nails and a large metal dome around a women's bottom half, is modifying the body in different aspects, and each adjustment gives a different reaction. An example of this is the additional finger/finger nails, this makes me feel uneasy as they look creepy and unnatural. Especially for nail, it's not something attractive when modified in this way.
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Andre Kertesz
Andre Kertesz, unlike many artists, distorts bodies while taking the image. By using a mirror, he has successfully modified the women's bodies in the image to a point that the view many just be able to recognizes certain body parts. As a viewer you're taken back by the images as you have to concentrate on the image to understand what the subjects of the are and how they being distorted.
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Raoul Ubac
His work here is titled The Battle of the Penthesilea, and this is referenced to the race of females warriors, the Amazons. The print is a photograph of a collage of cut-up photographs set on a black background and re-photographed using darkroom manipulations.
The images include disfigured bodies which is showing their heavy battle. |
Bill Brandt
set 1
I wanted these photos in black and white, but I decided to take them in normal colours due to it would give me more options to edit them. This first photo shoot was more of a trial run, I will be taking more photos to gain more opportunities to get the image I want.
Here I decided to turn the majority of the images in black and white and also crop the images.
Set 2
Set 3
Editting the images
Other photoshop edits
More images
Set 4
More Edits
Grainy filter on my edited images
Display
I was planning on printing the majority of my images to out them on mount card. However, after testing different lay outs, I decided it wasn't working and it wasn't doing anything for my images. That when someone told me about laying it out on photo shop and getting it professional printed in A0. This was the layout for my final piece.
PERSONAL INVESTIGATION
I have responded to Breton's demand for 'convulsive beauty' by distorting the human form using a range of strategies. I aim to create mysterious, enigmatic photographs of barely recognizable bodies that provoke a visceral response.
I began my Personal Investigation by researching Surrealist photography of the 1920’s and 30’s. I explored a variety of photographers and their interests especially in terms of games, chance and uncertainty. I began this Investigation by creating my own game inspired by artists’ games like The Exquisite Corpse. My game was based on memory and chance. To play this game, the player would have to guess the image from a cropped photo I provided which was taken in an abstract way. This game helped develop my knowledge about surrealism as they loved the idea of finding the balance between dreams and reality and exploring both. During the making of my game I learnt that having an uncertain outcome is not a bad thing, that you shouldn’t worry, but to learn to embrace it, when chance is involved there is an element of not being in control of the outcome and the mistakes are made by the risk taking. I was concerned that my game would be boring or easy for my classmates who were testing it out. However, once tested, it became a success. My game is inspired by Surrealism as it uses the aspect of chance, an idea that the Surrealists valued in their work.
Marcel Duchamp explored probability in his works such as the ‘3 Standard Stoppages’, relying on the uncertainty of the outcome. I wanted to experiment with playing some Surrealist games. I explored the idea of The Exquisite Corpse, a game played by several people, who write or draw on the same piece of paper, collaborating on the creation of a chance outcome. I experimented with a number of ideas, for example creating very brief instructions for a set of photographs and giving them to someone I knew to execute. After they gave me back the results I took the photos and claimed they were mine. This was an unusual idea and challenged my previous understanding of art and photography, notions of individual creativity and originality. The idea of instruction based practice can be challenging as a person uses time and effort to create something only for someone to write their name on it and call it their own. The images created using this process where different to what I took, as I went out and followed the same instructions to see the differences. The comparisons of the outcomes were very different and I enjoyed the knowing that the different perceptions of my friend and I who did the experiment.
I started to plan a resolved outcome. I was interested in responding to the Rorschach Blot. The blot is a simple shape, a mirror image abstraction that has been employed in the field of psychoanalysis. I created a Rorschach Blot by using ink and paper; finding ways to experiment with the shapes generated. I decided to continue my experiments in the dark room, at first creating photo-grams of objects and then folding the paper and spattering the chemicals on before pressing the folds together for symmetry. This attempt did not work out well. I was not able to achieve the symmetrical, mirrored effect I sought. I thought I should try using images which looked symmetrical to begin with, like a face. I took a digital portrait photograph and then created a paper negative in Photoshop. After a process of trial and error I made 3 set of images, using 5 different negatives, experimenting with different exposure times. I continued to use Photoshop to create reflections, making four images symmetrical. I also added colour and pasted images into the original ink Rorschach blots which was partially successful. I decided I needed to do more refining. I went in the dark room and thought about playing with exposures of light on my images. I started creating a set of images with varying amounts of exposure time, inspired by photographs I had seen at Tate Modern by John Hilliard, who took picture of himself taking a photo and created a typology of the different amount he did with the image. I refined this even further by introducing a degree of abstraction of the exposure of the images. After exposing the paper to light I applied the developer randomly with a paint brush, allowing it to slide and drip across the surface of the print. I chosen eight of my favourite images and framed them for display. I believe they were successful by the way I chose to develop the images by dripping and flicking the exposure on, leaving most of the outcome of the image to chance. These images where a distortion of the human face, by splatting chemicals randomly, only certain parts of the images will be exposed which will distort the overall image. By looking over at my images, I was thinking what they meant to me? Why did I carry my investigation the way I did? Why did I distort them? Then I came across an idea, this idea was that I wanted to change what the model looked like, I wanted the model to not look like herself. This is because most people, including myself, wish to not only change their body, but also their facial appearances.
To begin a new outcome, I started researching the idea of convulsive beauty. This idea was popular with the surrealist, to provoke both desire and disgust. I wanted to explore this idea further as I was interested in the way different types of surrealist would portray their own idea of convulsive beauty I looked at such artists as Kate Craig, Man Ray, Jacques André Boiffard and Hans bellmer. They influenced my work by the manipulation and distortion of the women’s bodies. At first, for my outcome I wanted to gather large significant amount of images, of different people, that show that an aspect of their body which they find disgusting is actually something beautiful. However, that idea was just a starting point, later on I started independently researching different artists and the one that affected me the most was Hans Bellmer. He’s work was horrendous, portray this exotic fantasy in his work was pleasurable for him but was disgusting for many views. At the time, many feminists thought that he was objectifying and oppressing women and is one reason why I felt disgusted looking at his images, however his images do have a strange element of beauty in them, by him portraying his own personal feelings in the images you can feel how he feels. This lead me to wanting to take picture of people’s bodies, printing them and mangle, damage and modify them. His work provoked criticisms and also showed the idea of different beauties and emotions for the artist and also the viewer and this is what I wanted to portray, I wanted to portray my feelings on beauty and my feeling towards the original idea of beauty.
I started my project by taking a large number of images of girls body parts, such as arms, legs, bums, backs, feet and breasts. I used five different girls for a variety of different sizes. I then had to decide how to modify the images, I first experimented with physically distorting the images, such as burning, ripping and folding the paper. However, these methods did not go well and was too cliche within photography, and also, I felt it didn’t make my photographs personal to me. Then I decided to try and modify it in the dark, like I did with my last piece. I made sure the images were inverted and created A5 prints and postcard stamps prints. I wanted to put on images on acetate and project them with the machines in the dark room, however I did not have the domestic printer and the resources to do this, so I improvised. The inverted images I took, I managed to make them project the images with the machine very faintly, and then I used the light sensitive paper and manipulated the images. I did this by making the paper in a role and would spin it around, so all the image was fully exposed. I also bent the paper so when the image was projected on to it it would modify it. Lastly, I would lay the A5 image over the paper and move it around and play with it like that to experiment with the outcomes. This was very fun for me, and I was was turning something seen as beautiful into something unrecognizable. I learnt how easy it was to manipulate the human body, and to some extent how addictive it was to have some aspect of control in changing the way a body can look.
After using in the dark room with my images, I started experimenting on how to display my images. At first I split the the A5 images and A6 images into two and laid it out simply. However, I wanted to keeping testing out different ways to display the images to suit my investigation. Then I thought I’ll try and display it in an abstract way, I did this by making a copy of one of my images and then cropping it in a circle so there is no it makes it mysterious. However, this didn’t add any meaning to my personal investigation and after trying it out, I decided it wasn’t how I wanted to display it. I started experimenting with lines in my images, firstly I created one whole line with different images, and influenced by Kate Craig, I zoomed in and videoed it. I liked the idea of creating lines with the photos and experimented more with it by making smaller images. By making smaller images, it felt like creating new, smaller bodies out of body parts. I went through with this idea and I liked how it turned out.
Through experimenting with convulsive beauty, and with artist research of Hans Bellmer, I believe I successfully interpreted his work and made my own versions of it. With the influence of his work, I created my own set of images, in which I manipulations and modified the body to create something personal and in some sense something I’m happy looking at.
I enjoyed experimenting with the distortion of human bodies that I wanted to carry on investigating this further, as I like the idea of trying to evolving the human body. I started researching more with distortion of bodies by artists, such as Cindy Sherman, Erwin Worms and Bill Brandt. I wanted to experiment with the idea of distorting the image after taking the photo again, not the form but the shape of the image. I started playing about using normal images of women’s bodies and then began to edit them on photo shop with the use of ‘liquefy’. However, while editing the images, it didn’t start forming into something that I wanted to, or something that was meaningful to me. This meant that I started to distort the images while taking them. But using the school’s pinterest board I started to gather more ideas of the different way I can develop my images and to distort them.
However, during my investigation I was asked why my images are only of women? What do you think about human bodies? And why do you want to distort images so you can’t recognize what part of the body they are? These questions made me thinking deeply about why I decided to do my investigation of women's bodies like I have. One reason could be my discomfort of bodies. I find bodies weird and unattractive most of the time, this could be due to my disliking to my body that I want to change others. Another reason may be due to I have always been a very private person, not only me, but my family as well. I was brought up in a private household where no one would walk around indecently. We kept ourselves to ourselves. This may have affected my investigation as I don’t want the images of bodies to be recognized due to my personal life.
While carrying on my experimentation of distorting women's bodies, I started taking images of more women’s bodies, but not in the standard positions, I started using mirrors and focusing on certain lines and shapes of the bodies. I did this to create a more an abstraction of my images to create something more interesting images to look at. Taking images likes this was like taking images of an object or a surface. I was contextualizing the image. After taking the first set of images, I experimented on editing it on photo shop. I made all the images that I wanted to edit black and white, than I started playing about with the curves, textures, exposure, the brightness and contrast and crop. While editing my images, they all had different textures, this made my images not co-operate with each other. This meant that I need to change them so they all had the same texture, which I decided was to be grain. However, it caused problems as I already edited my images and I didn’t want to have to re-create it all again, this meant I added the texture ‘grain’ on the image over the over textures. I was worried how it was going to turn out, but I liked how the texture grain dominated the image over the other textures.
After I edited and finalized all of my images to the standards I wanted them in, I started thinking on how to display my images. I printed all my edited images on A5 paper, and began to play around with their positions and the layouts. However, I didn’t like how it was turning out, and it was making the images look boring and not doing any justice for my images. It was later suggested to me that I could set up a lay out on photo shop and get it printed to size A0. It was delivered a couple of days later, and has came out very well.
From my personal investigation, I gained an overall final piece from my projects. My final piece to my personal investigation was a large A0 images of my edited images. I printed it this large because I wanted the textures I added onto the image to be easily seen, and is big enough to see every tiny detail, while small print, I feel like the viewer wouldn’t be able to look and feel the same way about the image. I made all the images black and white because I felt that if the images where in it’s original colour, they would be too intimate. While in black and white, it’s no different than looking at everyday objects. I didn’t want the viewer to feel like they were looking at intimate areas of the body. This images is meaningful to me as I feel like, without realizing, I have linked it to my own self-consciousness and also my home life. But contextualizing these images, I have taken images of bodies like they were everyday surfaces, this is because I was raised to be a private person at home, which meant that I did not want to show many intimate areas of the bodies as it felt wrong to me. Not only in my overall final piece but also my other piece, where I would distort intimate images of bodies. This was so the viewer had no grasp of what the image was, and when display it was only displayed by how the lines would meet. Again, contextualizing the image. I want to distort and manipulate the images so they are not what they seemed. What I learnt from my final investigation, is that without knowing, factors from your life with always be involved with your work, you’ll always add your own touch without knowing. Each piece I produced about distorting bodies was due to my subconscious trying to portray my real feelings about bodies, and what I wanted to do. I wanted to change and hide them.
I began my Personal Investigation by researching Surrealist photography of the 1920’s and 30’s. I explored a variety of photographers and their interests especially in terms of games, chance and uncertainty. I began this Investigation by creating my own game inspired by artists’ games like The Exquisite Corpse. My game was based on memory and chance. To play this game, the player would have to guess the image from a cropped photo I provided which was taken in an abstract way. This game helped develop my knowledge about surrealism as they loved the idea of finding the balance between dreams and reality and exploring both. During the making of my game I learnt that having an uncertain outcome is not a bad thing, that you shouldn’t worry, but to learn to embrace it, when chance is involved there is an element of not being in control of the outcome and the mistakes are made by the risk taking. I was concerned that my game would be boring or easy for my classmates who were testing it out. However, once tested, it became a success. My game is inspired by Surrealism as it uses the aspect of chance, an idea that the Surrealists valued in their work.
Marcel Duchamp explored probability in his works such as the ‘3 Standard Stoppages’, relying on the uncertainty of the outcome. I wanted to experiment with playing some Surrealist games. I explored the idea of The Exquisite Corpse, a game played by several people, who write or draw on the same piece of paper, collaborating on the creation of a chance outcome. I experimented with a number of ideas, for example creating very brief instructions for a set of photographs and giving them to someone I knew to execute. After they gave me back the results I took the photos and claimed they were mine. This was an unusual idea and challenged my previous understanding of art and photography, notions of individual creativity and originality. The idea of instruction based practice can be challenging as a person uses time and effort to create something only for someone to write their name on it and call it their own. The images created using this process where different to what I took, as I went out and followed the same instructions to see the differences. The comparisons of the outcomes were very different and I enjoyed the knowing that the different perceptions of my friend and I who did the experiment.
I started to plan a resolved outcome. I was interested in responding to the Rorschach Blot. The blot is a simple shape, a mirror image abstraction that has been employed in the field of psychoanalysis. I created a Rorschach Blot by using ink and paper; finding ways to experiment with the shapes generated. I decided to continue my experiments in the dark room, at first creating photo-grams of objects and then folding the paper and spattering the chemicals on before pressing the folds together for symmetry. This attempt did not work out well. I was not able to achieve the symmetrical, mirrored effect I sought. I thought I should try using images which looked symmetrical to begin with, like a face. I took a digital portrait photograph and then created a paper negative in Photoshop. After a process of trial and error I made 3 set of images, using 5 different negatives, experimenting with different exposure times. I continued to use Photoshop to create reflections, making four images symmetrical. I also added colour and pasted images into the original ink Rorschach blots which was partially successful. I decided I needed to do more refining. I went in the dark room and thought about playing with exposures of light on my images. I started creating a set of images with varying amounts of exposure time, inspired by photographs I had seen at Tate Modern by John Hilliard, who took picture of himself taking a photo and created a typology of the different amount he did with the image. I refined this even further by introducing a degree of abstraction of the exposure of the images. After exposing the paper to light I applied the developer randomly with a paint brush, allowing it to slide and drip across the surface of the print. I chosen eight of my favourite images and framed them for display. I believe they were successful by the way I chose to develop the images by dripping and flicking the exposure on, leaving most of the outcome of the image to chance. These images where a distortion of the human face, by splatting chemicals randomly, only certain parts of the images will be exposed which will distort the overall image. By looking over at my images, I was thinking what they meant to me? Why did I carry my investigation the way I did? Why did I distort them? Then I came across an idea, this idea was that I wanted to change what the model looked like, I wanted the model to not look like herself. This is because most people, including myself, wish to not only change their body, but also their facial appearances.
To begin a new outcome, I started researching the idea of convulsive beauty. This idea was popular with the surrealist, to provoke both desire and disgust. I wanted to explore this idea further as I was interested in the way different types of surrealist would portray their own idea of convulsive beauty I looked at such artists as Kate Craig, Man Ray, Jacques André Boiffard and Hans bellmer. They influenced my work by the manipulation and distortion of the women’s bodies. At first, for my outcome I wanted to gather large significant amount of images, of different people, that show that an aspect of their body which they find disgusting is actually something beautiful. However, that idea was just a starting point, later on I started independently researching different artists and the one that affected me the most was Hans Bellmer. He’s work was horrendous, portray this exotic fantasy in his work was pleasurable for him but was disgusting for many views. At the time, many feminists thought that he was objectifying and oppressing women and is one reason why I felt disgusted looking at his images, however his images do have a strange element of beauty in them, by him portraying his own personal feelings in the images you can feel how he feels. This lead me to wanting to take picture of people’s bodies, printing them and mangle, damage and modify them. His work provoked criticisms and also showed the idea of different beauties and emotions for the artist and also the viewer and this is what I wanted to portray, I wanted to portray my feelings on beauty and my feeling towards the original idea of beauty.
I started my project by taking a large number of images of girls body parts, such as arms, legs, bums, backs, feet and breasts. I used five different girls for a variety of different sizes. I then had to decide how to modify the images, I first experimented with physically distorting the images, such as burning, ripping and folding the paper. However, these methods did not go well and was too cliche within photography, and also, I felt it didn’t make my photographs personal to me. Then I decided to try and modify it in the dark, like I did with my last piece. I made sure the images were inverted and created A5 prints and postcard stamps prints. I wanted to put on images on acetate and project them with the machines in the dark room, however I did not have the domestic printer and the resources to do this, so I improvised. The inverted images I took, I managed to make them project the images with the machine very faintly, and then I used the light sensitive paper and manipulated the images. I did this by making the paper in a role and would spin it around, so all the image was fully exposed. I also bent the paper so when the image was projected on to it it would modify it. Lastly, I would lay the A5 image over the paper and move it around and play with it like that to experiment with the outcomes. This was very fun for me, and I was was turning something seen as beautiful into something unrecognizable. I learnt how easy it was to manipulate the human body, and to some extent how addictive it was to have some aspect of control in changing the way a body can look.
After using in the dark room with my images, I started experimenting on how to display my images. At first I split the the A5 images and A6 images into two and laid it out simply. However, I wanted to keeping testing out different ways to display the images to suit my investigation. Then I thought I’ll try and display it in an abstract way, I did this by making a copy of one of my images and then cropping it in a circle so there is no it makes it mysterious. However, this didn’t add any meaning to my personal investigation and after trying it out, I decided it wasn’t how I wanted to display it. I started experimenting with lines in my images, firstly I created one whole line with different images, and influenced by Kate Craig, I zoomed in and videoed it. I liked the idea of creating lines with the photos and experimented more with it by making smaller images. By making smaller images, it felt like creating new, smaller bodies out of body parts. I went through with this idea and I liked how it turned out.
Through experimenting with convulsive beauty, and with artist research of Hans Bellmer, I believe I successfully interpreted his work and made my own versions of it. With the influence of his work, I created my own set of images, in which I manipulations and modified the body to create something personal and in some sense something I’m happy looking at.
I enjoyed experimenting with the distortion of human bodies that I wanted to carry on investigating this further, as I like the idea of trying to evolving the human body. I started researching more with distortion of bodies by artists, such as Cindy Sherman, Erwin Worms and Bill Brandt. I wanted to experiment with the idea of distorting the image after taking the photo again, not the form but the shape of the image. I started playing about using normal images of women’s bodies and then began to edit them on photo shop with the use of ‘liquefy’. However, while editing the images, it didn’t start forming into something that I wanted to, or something that was meaningful to me. This meant that I started to distort the images while taking them. But using the school’s pinterest board I started to gather more ideas of the different way I can develop my images and to distort them.
However, during my investigation I was asked why my images are only of women? What do you think about human bodies? And why do you want to distort images so you can’t recognize what part of the body they are? These questions made me thinking deeply about why I decided to do my investigation of women's bodies like I have. One reason could be my discomfort of bodies. I find bodies weird and unattractive most of the time, this could be due to my disliking to my body that I want to change others. Another reason may be due to I have always been a very private person, not only me, but my family as well. I was brought up in a private household where no one would walk around indecently. We kept ourselves to ourselves. This may have affected my investigation as I don’t want the images of bodies to be recognized due to my personal life.
While carrying on my experimentation of distorting women's bodies, I started taking images of more women’s bodies, but not in the standard positions, I started using mirrors and focusing on certain lines and shapes of the bodies. I did this to create a more an abstraction of my images to create something more interesting images to look at. Taking images likes this was like taking images of an object or a surface. I was contextualizing the image. After taking the first set of images, I experimented on editing it on photo shop. I made all the images that I wanted to edit black and white, than I started playing about with the curves, textures, exposure, the brightness and contrast and crop. While editing my images, they all had different textures, this made my images not co-operate with each other. This meant that I need to change them so they all had the same texture, which I decided was to be grain. However, it caused problems as I already edited my images and I didn’t want to have to re-create it all again, this meant I added the texture ‘grain’ on the image over the over textures. I was worried how it was going to turn out, but I liked how the texture grain dominated the image over the other textures.
After I edited and finalized all of my images to the standards I wanted them in, I started thinking on how to display my images. I printed all my edited images on A5 paper, and began to play around with their positions and the layouts. However, I didn’t like how it was turning out, and it was making the images look boring and not doing any justice for my images. It was later suggested to me that I could set up a lay out on photo shop and get it printed to size A0. It was delivered a couple of days later, and has came out very well.
From my personal investigation, I gained an overall final piece from my projects. My final piece to my personal investigation was a large A0 images of my edited images. I printed it this large because I wanted the textures I added onto the image to be easily seen, and is big enough to see every tiny detail, while small print, I feel like the viewer wouldn’t be able to look and feel the same way about the image. I made all the images black and white because I felt that if the images where in it’s original colour, they would be too intimate. While in black and white, it’s no different than looking at everyday objects. I didn’t want the viewer to feel like they were looking at intimate areas of the body. This images is meaningful to me as I feel like, without realizing, I have linked it to my own self-consciousness and also my home life. But contextualizing these images, I have taken images of bodies like they were everyday surfaces, this is because I was raised to be a private person at home, which meant that I did not want to show many intimate areas of the bodies as it felt wrong to me. Not only in my overall final piece but also my other piece, where I would distort intimate images of bodies. This was so the viewer had no grasp of what the image was, and when display it was only displayed by how the lines would meet. Again, contextualizing the image. I want to distort and manipulate the images so they are not what they seemed. What I learnt from my final investigation, is that without knowing, factors from your life with always be involved with your work, you’ll always add your own touch without knowing. Each piece I produced about distorting bodies was due to my subconscious trying to portray my real feelings about bodies, and what I wanted to do. I wanted to change and hide them.