Final Presentation Ideas

21stMay2014
Matthew stone is an artist that I came across when researching magazine styles for my editorial shoot, I saw some of his photography demonstrated in Dazed and Confused magazine and found it really interesting. produces objects, photographs, exhibitions, performances and social events advancing the proposition, quoted in a gallery news release, that optimism is “the vital force that entangles itself with and then shapes the future.” His photographic-sculptural hybrids illustrate that thought literally. They consist of muted photographs of entangled, youthful, nude bodies printed on plywood panels, which have been cut into triangular sections, reassembled with hinges and displayed as folded constructions. Stone takes 2D images and translates them into “3D photographic sculptural forms”, He uses his prints in an unusual way by transferring them onto fabric and geometric sculptures. In his series of work that interests me greatly “Optimism as cultural rebellion” he demonstrates experimenting with abstracting the human form “I like the idea of trying to make something that has some solid ground, but then has the potential to move. I like the idea that it is almost impossible to re-install the work in exactly the same way.” 

(Imagery taken from art shaman blog, post about Matthew Stone, Series of work Optimism as cultural rebellion)

25thMay2014

I am really interested in displaying my work in an unconventional way so that the idea is turned into something completely different, I want my final piece to not only be beautiful, but I want it to intrigue people and have a thought provoking sense to it. Ive enquired about using a projector for my final piece, but it seems that my idea is too time consuming and ambitious for the time and space we have. Now that the projection idea isn't possible the combination of the projections and Stone's work seems more achievable. Before moving on to a final idea I tried experimenting with alternative ways of displaying some sort of projection. I filmed a piece of fabric on my washing line blowing in the wind. The fabric had an identical image of my final photography on it, so in order to demonstrate how the projection would look I edited the film and the still image together at a 50% opacity. The imagery and film works really beautifully together once slowed down, it has an angelic elegance to it. I initially used ballet music with the moving image but soon after realised it didn't have much relevance to my initial concept of contrast. In order to relate it to my work with more relevance I added a personal touch to it. I edited together snippets of  audio from one of John L Gardners fights. This soundtrack seemed to work much better in my opinion due to the obvious contrast between elegance and masculinity. It also added an obscure nature to the film, beautiful, floaty, angel-like imagery accompanied by the sounds of cheers and punches, which I think is a unconventional and  less obvious choice. Although the idea of projecting the moving fabric onto a still image is not possible for my final presentation, I am still really interested in capturing movement in one more dimension other than the overlapping photography. After looking at the work of Mathew Stone and adamant I incorporate this third dimension, I came up with an idea that could potentially work. I decided to put the fabric used in the film to good use. Instead of solely creating a sculpture or creating a projection of movement, I thought of combining the two ideas and creating a 3D image that had an element of sculpture and projection. I began to think of aesthetically pleasing ways of doing this. I thought of photographing the material gathered on top of the image creating a second overlap. But then I came up with the idea of strategically pinning the fabric onto the image to create a more 3D, waterfall-like aesthetic. As you can probably imagine this concept proved difficult to achieve. I mounted my image onto MDF board and began to place my fabric over the top. Of course when lying down the fabric has a very different quality to when lifted up horizontally. So after pinning my fabric down once, I had to then remove the pins, stand the board up and start again. I managed to cover up the majority of the holes created by my first attempt. Other than a few minor problems with creating the final presentation, I am really happy with the final outcome. I think that it translates my initial idea of contrasting masculinity in boxing and the not so obvious feminine/elegant side to it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           (Authors Own, Small films representing idea for presentation) 

Development

20thMarch2014

(Warpaint, Bands Album Cover)

After producing the short film more ideas started to flow based on some of the effects that were available to play with and the sound track I used. I found a piece by Rob Dougan called Clubbed to Death, it starts off quite sweet and soft - which reminded me of swan lake - I thought this concept was perfect, referring back to my  initial proposal, my main idea was to contrast the obvious masculine side of boxing and the hidden feminine side to it, based on agility and balance. I also gained ideas due to an accidental error when producing some mood boards in the primary stages of the project, this idea was then strengthened by a billboard that interested me. The billboard featured an album cover of the band "warpaint," the image depicted was interestingly difficult to define due to an overlapping effect, I thought that the imagery created was elegant and feminine and this may help me to produce an alternative photo shoot. 


Overlapping images is a series of work by Ho-Ryon Lee which consists of several awe-inspiring oil paintings that resemble double exposure photographs. They are based on actual photos taken by the South Korean artist and explore themes such as sensuality, lust and desire. He paint on canvas but the previous process includes the artist taking several photos of the model in specific poses and composing them together via photoshop. The suggestive and dynamic nature of his overlapping images - especially in this case - was highly erotic and competent to make them visually delightful and there seduction and voyeurism revealing the hiding object of desire. 

(Lee, Ho-Ryon. Collection of series of paintings)

(Ariell, Nir. Collection of images from the series "tension")

Nir Ariell is an American photographer who has an iPhone motion capturing breathtaking snapshots of male dancers as they perform arabesques allongé across ethereal spaces. His series entitled, "Tension" combines the intimacy of portraiture with the artful airing of digital photography producing, dizzying images that really celebrate the beauty of the male form. Ariell began his career in one of the most unlikely places - as a photographer for the Israel military, but after his stint in combat he turned to the performing arts focusing on the graceful and bizarre aspects of dancers in motion. Ariell find particular inspiration in movement in male dancers using digital manipulation techniques to turn several contortions into one stunning movement. "In my project I function as a visual choreographer making up certain movement language that is the outcome of a verbal dialogue between photographed dancer and I" he stated to street anatomy. "Working with dances is much more about collaboration. They bring so much into the process. And you know I'm not a dancer and Ive never danced or choreographed, so a lot of instructions that I give a very vague and kind of abstract. I give them descriptions of feelings or atmospheres or just visual descriptions of how I want the movement to be  and they translate it into an actual movement, so their part in the processes is huge. And that's the reason I can't use any dancer, I'm using highly trained and intelligent dancers that are able to do this kind of translation. There are a lot of things that don't need to be said, they understand what I'm trying to get at and they appreciate my work. Photography is all about this one moment, it's all about that decisive glorifying moment and dance is kind of the complete opposite: it has to be about a series of moments. Thinking about how we can create an image that holds the qualities of these two mediums. And that's how we started experimenting with double exposures, because we wanted to bring several mediums into one picture."