Final Seven Images (personal work)

 These are my final seven images for my personal work, I've edited them for about 7 or 8 hours  to remove spots and lines, and am pretty happy with the results and hopefully they should print ok I’ll check the edited just before printing though to make sure. I’m still unsure as to how to title them so that’s something else I’ll be thinking about a lot and how exactly I’m going to do it, I made the selection by looking for ones with more of a variant in how the image looked as I didn’t want it to be that repetitive and feel that these 7 will work well together, I plan on printing them A3 as well because I want the face to be all most life sized so that it has that connection to reality, but other than them thinks I’m all most ready for final assessments and hopefully printing will go well.

Su Blackwell (Independent Research)

 This is just a quick post about Su Backwell’s work who I found while surfing the net, she’s work in book sculptures which are incredibly interact and detailed works, she has also work in set design and done book covers, which are both interesting however I meanly looked at the sculptures, it struck me as something that would be possible to do for Eva’s appropriation project or at least something similar in the future, because it’s really cool and I like the work a lot because it to me makes me think about what’s possible in the book, I assume as I haven’t dug too deep into it, but that the sculptures are representative of what’s in the book making them like widows into setting of the imagination.

http://www.sublackwell.co.uk/portfolio-book-cut-sculpture/ (Image and information source)

Lee Friedlander (Independent Research)

 Friedlander is an American social photographer and worked around 1948 and is probably best known for them because of his ability to capture events in a way which makes them poignant, as well as this Friedlander has also gained some recognition for a series of self-portraits that he produced.

Friedlander’s work is interesting one because it captures the styles and cultures of the time period which in its self is a fascinating thing to look back on, but as well as that he has a really good ability to get picture with interesting compositions and framing along with interesting subject matters. I also like how he has used reflection and shadows in some of his images, it’s an interesting style and adds another layer to the image, so not only to you have what you’re looking at but you all so get a glimpse at who was originally looking at it, and along with that you get an idea of the surroundings of the photographer, making the images very three dimensional and engaging. 

http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Lee-Friedlander.html (Images Sources)
http://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/lee-friedlander (Information source)

Sally Mann (Personal Work Research)

Man is an American photographer who has achieved a high standing in the photographic world along with wining several awards, her work is also part of several collections and institutions, and she has also published several books of her works and a feature film about her and her work.

Mann has worked in several areas of photography including portraiture, architecture, landscape, and still life, but she is probably best known for her portraits of her family, which has often been controversial, but has still been an influence to Meany.

 I’m looking at a particular body of work by Mann one called Faces, these are images of Mann’s family members, who she has asked to lay underneath a large format camera for the duration of the exposure. I really like the style of these images, to start with the closeness of the faces is really amazing it makes the works feel very personal because of the fact that your so close to some ones face witch isn’t normal how we interact, it also make features of the face stand out a lot drawing attention to them. I also really like the style that using the film has given them with some of them being slightly damaged looking or part of them blown out, it gives the images a kind of aesthetic which makes the works interesting to look at.

This is the main inspiration and starting point for my personal work, and gave me the idea for doing a long exposure self-portrait, because I liked the work so much and felt that I could develop a good idea around the idea of long exposures and self-portraits.


http://sallymann.com/selected-works/faces (Image and information source)

Christian Jequel (Independent Research)

This is just a quick post about something I found while on the internet, the video shows Jequel producing an amazing painting of houses by just using pallet knives, it shows an amazing artist who is incredibly skilled in what he does creating and amazing piece of work, it’s really inspiring because it shows what working hard at your skill can get you to. So that’s why it’s up, it again is something that might and probably will influence my work in some way in the future.

http://www.christianjequel.com/?lang=en (Link to website)

M.C Escher (Independent Research)

 Maurits Cornelis Escher or M.C Escher is a world renowned graphic artist, some of his best known works are his impossible constructions and transformation prints, but has also produced work that is realistic. Eschers works look a lot at depth of filed in his work and illusions of things being high and lower.

I have also included some amazing examples of Escher’s work all three showing the amazing talent and skills that he had, with grate examples of depth of filed and his use of perspective, but as well as that one of his works that I think is my favourite, which is the last image of him in the reflection of the ball being held in his hand, to start with just the amazing detail and how realistic the had looks is amazing in its self, but also the reflection is really really well done and again looks real, and the use of perspective is incredible.

Again like my last post this is going up because it’s inspirational, even though it’s nothing to do with photography, it’s something to look at and think that’s amazing, I’d like to be able to make something that good, and as well as that in the end any art can and probably will influence my work at some point.

http://www.mcescher.com/gallery/ (Image and information source)

Paul Friedlande (Independent Research)

 Friedlander is a as described on his website as a Kinetic light sculptor, or a scientific artist, he creates some fascinating sculptures though just the use of light, that are incredibly pretty and interesting to just look at, as well as that some or most of the work is interactive so the viewer can take control of the lights and make it a deeper experience by addling layers to how you feel it, by using vision and touch, but then there are also some that the viewer can move though, making the works very dimensional. I’m putting this work up because it’s something I found that interested me, as well as that it’s a really cool style of work, as well as that I’m putting it up because even though it’s not directly connected to my personal work or any other work that I’m doing it still interests me, and in the future this might come to mind and may be useful to me.

http://www.paulfriedlander.com/ (Image source)

London Trip (Visual Studies)

On the trip to London I managed to get to a couple of interesting gallery’s the first being the Tate modern, and saw some grate art in there, there was some amazing photographic works in there and work from loads of artists that was amazing to look at and we spent quite a while in there just enjoying the work. After that we went to the Barbican and saw a work by the United Visual Artists Momentum, who created a work called the Curve which was an amazing and fascinating experience to walk though, it felt like walking in a strange dream like space with the lights swinging but in a way which means they aren't falling because of gravity, but just slowly moving though the space, with the lights flashing and shining in a way which helps put you into the experience, along with the sounds that were playing. I really liked it because of how immersive it was, it was interesting just to stand there and experience the lights and the sounds, I also went round a couple of times just because I want to. 

(Video source, also more images)

http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=15620

Barbara Kruger (The Photograph as Document)

 Kruger is an American conceptual artist and designer, she has worked for a variety of people working on publications, magazines and art directing just to name a few. Kruger’s work is extremely conceptual and political from what I can tell, with the bottom image probably commenting on the cold war between Russia and America, and the threat of nuclear war, which would probably wipe out the planet, so her works definitely have a political concept there, and a lot of her work is based on war or war image’s, with the top two images being of a war plane and a boat exploding with what looks like a medal, the top one could be a comment of how soldiers are given medal of killing people, so the boat represents the death side and the medal, is the commendation for it, then the image with the plane could be showing a juxtaposition between what we are dropping and what should be being dropped, so the bombs are falling, but they should be aid to help people that are suffering, so there turning into bags of stuff. These are just speculation of what the works about because this is just a quick post but I like the work and find it interesting so I’ll definitely keep it in mind for possible ideas for future work.

(Images and information Source)

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/barbara-kruger-1443

http://www.barbarakruger.com/biography.shtml

Peter Callesen (The Photograph as Document)

 These are just a couple of examples of the amazing paper craft sculptures this guy makes out of just a sheet of A4 paper. He manages to get a crazy amount of detail into these things and make them look all most life like, especially with the snail and the hand both looking like they could be real. I find this work really interesting, one because they look really good and two because the thought that these are made out of one piece of paper is also really cool.

(Image Source)
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/6VRK39/:9ni7gRZM:ns@a-gyS/www.picamemag.com/a4-pepercuts/

Idris Khan (The Photograph as Document)

 This is the work of Idris Khan, who works with reappropriated works from other people, the example I’m using is of Berndt and Hilla Becher who create typologies of old water towers, Kahn took these and layered them to create one image that changes the original work and create it into something different, and a completely new piece of work, he also done this with several other works and is he main way of working, I kind of like this style it’s interesting the idea of making someone else’s work into your own by changing it, it also creates some interesting concepts, which is something I’m going to have to research more for a current project.

Caravaggio (Independent Research)

This is a fascinating documentary about Caravaggio, which when I first watched it introduced me to so many ideas about art and particularly classical styles of painting, with covering the live of the artist and what drove him to create the work he was producing, but it also covers some of the contextual and symbolical methods used in the paintings. It’s well worth a watch if you have any interest in painters like this because it explains all these things really well, and without doing it in a way which is so academic that it gets confusing.  

Annette Messager (Visual Studies)

 This is another installation artist that was introduced to use in our visual studies session, as usual I’m putting her work in because it interests me, and in the case I feel it has some relevance to me work and ideas I have about how to best display it.

I’ve put up several examples of her work, but I’ll just talk about a couple of them, I particularly picked some of these because of how she’s hung them from the sealing, it’s something that I like and that interests me as a way of exhibiting, one of the works which is what looks like stuffed toy type things is to do with mad cow disease, so I imagine the ones that are suspended are to represent the cows that were kills the either lifted or scooped up to be dumped and burned in pits, and then the ones on the floor are the dead ones. Then as well as that there all contorted and burned so you can still make out parts which look like there from a cow but you not really sure. It’s an interesting work, and I like how you would be able to move though the space and move around the objects, meaning you can get closer to them making slightly more personal.

Like I said it’s this idea of suspending something that has grabbed my attention combined with being able to move through it, and these are the things I’m considering for my personal work at the moment for when it comes to thinking of displaying it, hanging them in the middle of a room, there’s going to seven of them so I’m thinking hang them to create a circle that you walk into, and have the audio I’m planning on using in the back ground, so that you’re in the middle of the work and surrounded by it.

(image and information source)
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2009/mar/05/annette-messager-hayward-retrospective#/?picture=344185267&index=9

A Good Resource (Visual Studies)

I thought considering the videos I've been making recently I’d put up a quick post about where I get the audio from, the website I use offers free to use and allow you to use it on anything you want as long as it’s part of some other work and isn't just the music, as for example putting it as a backing track is fine, the site also has a link to a form that’s already signed so if you do need to send it off to someone like YouTube you can prove that it’s from a free to use and is in compliance with the wishes of the copyright holder.

And along with all of that the website has a really good range of music types, with everything from jazz to rock, to electronic, with the ability to refine your search down to different moods and tempos, making find music to use fairly easy if you already have an idea of the kind of music you want.

http://audionautix.com/index.php

Bill Viola (Visual Studies)

 These are some stills from an artist called bill Viola, who has creates some amazing installation works this particular one is called ascension and grabbed my eye after being shown it in a visual studies session, I think the reason they got my attention so much is just because of how dramatic the images look, the motion in them with the water being displaced, creating amazing shapes and pockets from where the person has hit, creating the shield like effect of air around them, and how you have the deep blues around the subject then it quickly fades to pitch black creating this void look to the rest of the images, or even a space feel to them, but as well as that they feel a little bit religious to me with the isolation of the floating figure, and the name itself, so I’ll be putting a more detailed look at Viola into my personal work because of thinking of doing an installation type thing with my personal work, and I feel I can rework some good ideas from him.

http://www.billviola.com/

Rene Magritt (Contextual Studies)

 This is some work of Rene Magritte, who is a very influential surrealist and conceptual artist whose work I have been looking at for an essay I’m righting, I chose his work because I found it the most interesting out of all the people I had to choose from, because some of the concepts and ideas he uses, as well as that I’ve all way’s been a fan of surreal art so it seemed like a good idea to go with something I already enjoy, as well as that the little I did know about his life interested me so looking into it more was interesting again, as well as that I felt that with his work being divers it would aid me when it comes to analysing it using the theoretical concepts that were introduced in the first semester.

http://www.interiors.intendo.net/magritte.html

Progression of video work (Visual Studies)

Sadly due to some bad file handling and trying to use things from mac to windows and visor verse most of my original footage and edits have corrupted and I could use them, which is why I shot a new video for Holly’s final session for installation because the clips I wanted to use didn't work and I felt that shooting again was the best way to do it than to try and recreate something close to the original clips, as well as that the sound quality wasn't as good on the first footage but second time round I managed to improve it a bit, I also changed the typography that I used after showing the video in Ryan’s video workshop, because it didn't work very well, but I didn't keep any records of the original so sadly evidencing this is hard to do. Again the same things happened with my work for Eva, my original edit wouldn't load in Premier because of originally editing it on a mac then trying to open it on windows I lost it all and couldn't make it so it could find the clips, so I had to re edit it all, which in the end didn't matter to much because with an idea from what I did first time made It so I had a better idea of what I was doing the second time and it made it better, bud again I can’t evidence this because my videos kept going crazy because of crossing over operating systems.

My instillation peace (Visual Studies)

This is my video and the images from when I put it up as an installation peace, I feel the video it’s self isn't as good as it could have been but I was still fairly happy with how it turned out after I stopped panicking, I do how ever feel that the audio could have been better but I ran out of time so it’s a little lacking. As for the installation I feel hanging the paper to break up the focus points of the video worked well if I could have brought them forward a bit though so the stuff in the back ground was completely out of focus it would have made the sections I highlighted have even more impact and drawn the eye more, as well as that making it large worked really well as well.

I think I will do more installation type works, in my personal work, with video and stills, this has also given me an idea for different ways to exhibit my own work, so I feel that these sessions have defiantly been helpful, and will hopefully help me when it comes to the site specific exhibition which these sessions have also given me an idea for.

Final installation work shop (Visual Studies)

These are the images from the final session of the installation workshops, where we got a chance to set up the works and show them off to the whole class, where as before we had been working in small groups of 4, I personally have enjoyed these's sessions and it’s been an interesting look and an eye opening look at how hard and how much stuff there is to think about when putting together and installation.

These are images from Savannah Needham's work, she used sheets to add layers to the work, I like this because it also makes it so you can walk though the projection and experience it from different angels, and perspectives, but also gives it levels of depth.

 These are a couple of images from Ole Nesset installation who had projected his video into the fish tank by bouncing it of a mirror, and had filled the tank with loads of pictures and pieces of paper. I found this one particularly interesting because just by placing all this stuff in an every day fish tank and projecting a video into it, it made it all most shrine like, it make it no longer a fish tank, but made it into something that held every one's attention.
memory serving the tank was also a way of representing holding in dreams, hope's and memory's from his transition from Norway to swansea, which is also a really interesting way of using something everyday and using it for something interesting.

This is the installation of Oline Gjerde Myklebust who created work around living in halls of residents, and the video it's self was really well done and created the feeling that living in halls gives people, but then that mixed with how close you get to the work when the cloth is placed over your head and the smell of the cigarette buts, all mixed together created the feeling of halls.

This is the work of Rayhannah Ali who's work was about the connection between man kind and nature, this is the only installation piece that was split between two projections, one which was nature and one with the human side on it creating the really nice split where what ever sense you would normally be using most was on the other projection next to the natural thing. I also really liked how the canvases were suspended in mid air, this to me gave the projections a delicate look because to much movement could have swayed them to much, but it also gave them importance because they'd been brought away from the wall. so it's an interesting way of displaying and is something I'm now considering for my personal work

 this is a side shot of Rhys Williams work who shot his projection though a couple of layers of cloth, his work is based around nature. I don't remember exactly why he projected though cloth, but to me it gives the work a natural feel because it's cloth it feels delicate, more so than if projected onto walls, as well as that again it gives you the ability to move though the work, as well as this holly experimented with placing the projector into different places, and making it so you had to look at it from different angels.

 This is the installation of Rachel Alderman whose work was based around ducks and creating a happy kind of tripy film for the installation, then to show it projected into a mirror onto black card, and placed a disco ball in the bottom right of it to though of light. I kind of liked this way of showing the work, especially with it being low down creating that scene of reality where the ducks would be, but with the light from the mirror and the disco ball creates a dream like feel to the work and would work even better blown up massive and in complete blackness.

 This is Sophie Louise Mccabe who projected into a picture frame, with other picture frames surrounding it, the work it's self was of a simple car journey, then with the layout of the installation with old dollies on the table give the installation quite and old fashion feel, but as well as that, with the work being projected into a picture frame it made me think of a modern moving picture, picture frame which changes over an amount of time. I liked this one because of this it had reflections of old and new to me.

This installation is Georgia Saskia Roach who's work is based on her personal work which I can't remember, but has projected moving images and still memory serving into the vases which is filled with water and a peace of paper, then projected into that, this created a interesting display that created a little ecosystem that you look into and want to get closer to. I liked this way of displaying it, it's different and interesting.

this is Ina Bjørke Dypvik work, she projected into the corridor and created an environment that you can walk into, creating a more interactive experience to the work, as well as that when you see it set up it create a really interesting, dreamy kind of look to it because of how it covers the walls with these bubbles, it makes it look like your walking into another dimension, and I feel the size of this is really good and works for this work.

This is Caitlin Davies who created work about her traveling between home and uni on the train, so when it came to displaying the work, she originally back lit it on the window to create the feeling of being on a train, but as well as that projected it onto the wall to see how that looks, it's an interesting concept to project it and try and create the setting it was originally shot in.

 this is Dafydd Williams work, which was quite bright so my camera didn't like it, but in it's self I liked the work, all thought the projector wouldn't be on a ladder so that wouldn't be in the way. his work was set on him traveling between uni and home, and also had some day to day stuff that he dose in uni.

and finally this is Jed Slade's work who created this amazing installation where you look into the box and it's like looking into another dimension, because there's foil inside which reflects all the light and colour, then the objects in the back ground create this little cityscape type effect, as well as that he blew vapor into it which added another layer to the work, and was a really interesting trippy type of effect that sucked you into the work.