Test Exhibition Installation...

Today, I have been busy installing my exhibition work in the dark room.

First of all, I started off by putting a new light bulb into the mains fitting on the ceiling, to actually see what I was doing (also a bit of a challenge because I have never fitted a light bulb before):

I think the light fitting is quite cool, just purely because of the bars which are around it. I am unsure yet whether to use the main light yet within the show, as I think it would give off a better effect with the LED lights pointing at angles, making some pieces easier to see than others. However I will and have been trying out a few things with the lighting before the final crit group on Monday morning!

 

Here is a picture of the room: 

Not a really good photograph (flash of camera and mains light), but it shows the size of the room and how wide it is. I really do like the shape of this space just because of how narrow it is! Personally I feel quite uncomfortable in there, just because of how narrow and long it is, when the light isn't on it feels quite bizarre. The next step was to fit the LED lights, and see what sort of effects they have when you point them at different angles.

 

I thought that the above was the best way to position the lights facing inwards at an angle, lighting up the opposite sides of the walls, gradually getting darker as you go further in to the space.

The above is an image of how the room is lighter where the viewer would walk in. I think this would achieve discomfort, as you walk around the tiny room, it gradually gets darker then as you walk back toward the end it gets lighter again. The photographs shown in the image above are not the ones which I will actually be using for the show, these are just a test to see how the lighting will work. I have printed off some more images, of a smaller size (A4) and there will be 9 photographs within the room. I will photograph this when I put them up tomorrow on the final day of installation.

 

All in all, I think that this is going pretty well so far, however I have not had a chance to have a tutorial again before the show because of other commitments and workshops. I am really kind of nervous about this test exhibition as I have never displayed my work in a dark room before, but I think that I am slowly getting the hang of it, and it has been quite interesting to try. Obviously there will be a lot of room for improvement, and I am really looking forward to the crit group on Monday morning to receive my feedback.

 

Test Exhibition Planning.

So we have been given our spaces for the test exhibition and I got the space that I wanted. I asked for the really small dark space in the downstairs main studios, I was really interested in this space as it is really narrow and quite long, and this will give a sense of feeling claustrophobic/trapped as it is so narrow, I really like how it is not a typical space to work with, and the room is usually used for projections, so I am really looking forward to see what I can do with the space. There is also plenty of room to play about with lighting within the space, as there is already a mains light in there and it would be interesting to play about with LED spotlights and touch-lights within the room to give off different effects.
At the moment, I have lots of thoughts going around in my head as to what I could include within the room, and how to display my work etc, also feeling a tiny bit apprehensive as I have never worked in a dark room before, and don't want to get it totally wrong! However this is a test exhibition so I am sure I will have a lot of feedback to go on at the end of it.

I decided it was best to have a word with Michael Day about the space that I will be working in during the test exhibition, as this was the space that he suggested to me to work in. Some things to think about are:
- Look at Christian Boltanski - the way he lights his work.
- As it is the first time of me working in a dark room setting, play about with lighting, make sure I ask if I get stuck.
- The mains light was never meant to be in the room, it was once part of somebody else's work, and just left there - intervention in the space??
- I mentioned that the setup of the dark room seems more relevant than the images I will be showing in the room. More focused on the experience of the viewer??
- Really interested in the experience of the viewer in the space, as it is an awkward space, and I want to provoke feelings of the viewers.
- Think about how I can light the room - LED lights set at angles, pointing up/down/away from the images? Test out everything to see what works best.

There really is a lot to go on with this room, and I hope that I get it right! However as it has been said time and time again, this is only a test exhibition and I will be able to improve it massively if it goes horribly wrong and doesn't work how I would like it to work.

Photographs to follow really soon!!

Art and Psychoanalysis

Forgot to enter this at the time, these notes were taken from an interactive lecture with Graham on the 11th Feb.

Sigmund Freud:
Consolidates the notion of an unconscious that came to the fore in German romantic philosophy.
Jacques Lacan:
Using structuralism, consolidates the relationship between unconscious and language evident in Freud.

Freudian terms:
- Unconscious irrational drives (animal)
- Libido (desire) is a psychic energy motivating the drives.
- Polymorphous perversity (pre-oedipal)
- Repression (socialisation)
- Oedipus complex (socialisation)
- Part object (fetish object)
- The uncanny.
- Oral, anal, genital.
Related notions in art:
- Child mind.
- Savage mind.
- Primative/primal.
- The other.
- The body.
- Liberation of desire.
- Antirationalism.
- Expressionism.
- Surrealism.
- Dada.

Lacan. The gaze:
- Mirror stage.
- Anamorphosis (dysmorphia)
- Symbolic order (language, society, culture)
- The real (beyond what we can conceive)
- The imaginary (imagination)
- Lack (in language, in self, in desire)
- The other (that which is not self, that which is beyond our symbolic order)
- Petit object 'a' /object of desire.
- Unconscious is structures like a language (not animalistic), creates a bridge between primal and civilised.

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) - A French neurologist - very relevant to my studio practice.
___________________________

I found this lecture to be really helpful with my studio practice, as in level 4 I was really interested in the unconscious mind, however the work never stepped forward and sort of faded into the background. After realising that my work was about the decline of institutions, and also finding a way for the viewer to feel awkward, I have become really interested in the unconscious mind again. Within my work I purposely want to make the viewer feel like they are in an awkward situation, feeling lost/trapped and possibly maybe provoking thoughts of complacence. According to Freud's theory, most of the thoughts of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as: feelings of pain, anxiety or conflict. Also Freud said that the unconscious influences our behaviours and experiences, even though the person may not be aware.
After a chat with Michael Branthwaite a few weeks ago, we were discussing how everyone has a place which they don't like, which makes them feel uncomfortable. This is something I am interested in making work, within my studio practice most definitely, and Freud's theory of the unconscious mind being not pleasant fits in well with my work which I am producing at this moment in time.

I am not really sure at the moment why I want the viewer of my work to feel like they are trapped/lost or even awkward, but I guess this is something which I will be able to answer very soon, as I feel like my work is moving on massively.

Tutorial with Michael Day 19-02-13

With the test exhibition coming up at the end of next week, I had a tutorial with Michael Day, as I really did not know what I was planning on doing for the test exhibition, or even what my work was really about, and what to include in my PowerPoint presentation.
Here are the main points from the tutorial:

• Watch "The Night of the Hunter" - Internal shots - heavily constructed scenes - subtle.
• Psychology of the person viewing my work. Dark themes - how can this be depicted?
• Sense of compression/claustrophobia.
• I need to lift the tone in my images - to reveal the detail in the darker tones. Also need to alter the contrast/brightness to take into the cyanotype printing.
• Works seem more uncomfortable than confusing. Fear/anxiety.
• Textures and colours foreboding.
• Fearing being lost/trapped. Losing freedom/imprisoned.
• Ask why.
• Why do I want the viewer to feel lost/trapped?
• Existence complacent.
• Experiences not to do with pleasure/beauty.
• Beauty - moral function - imposes moral.
• Chapman Brothers - altering works.
• Beauty and it's opposite. Different functions.
• Low tonal, textural - my visual preference.
• How can I make them meaningful?
• Anselm Kiefer talks about specific events. Rehabilitation, revealing trauma.
• Alerting the viewer to the world.
• Stallington Hospital still relevant.
• Psychoanalytic therapy - Sigmund Freud.
• Unconsciously revealing, reconciling trauma.
• Clarify how the participatory drawings with service users fit into my work.
• Clarify whether my work is about my experience of working in care? How to manage that/to do that?
• Is it historical? About that specific environment?
• Psychological spaces, characteristics. Obsolete is key within my work.
• Idea of obsolescence. My feelings/mixed feelings about my work/being left behind.
• Institutionalised - concerns me, invisible institution.
• Paul Winstanley - anonymous spaces in institutions. Cold and distanced.
• Not just psychological institutions - factories/offices also institutions that won't last forever.
• Abandoning and left behind.
• Institutions coming apart. Space.
• These ideas getting into my work.
• Maybe display my work as an installation? In a really small space. Play with sound, image, projection, painting. Dark space with lighting techniques?
• Tiny spaces in shows - gives viewer position of feeling awkward - will fit in with the meaning of my work - uncomfortable.
• Is my work more about institutions collapsing? Power distribution?
• Charcot - French photographer. Studied mental asylum inmates. Photography asserting power.
• For presentation, bullet point these notes and constantly ask questions. Fit into PowerPoint presentation.

There was definitely a lot to go on from this tutorial, especially how to display my work and make it more meaningful, which is something I am really looking forward to testing out during the test exhibition week. I am also feeling more confident with what my work is about and it's meaning, as there was a lot that I did not realise before this tutorial. I have asked for the really small dark space to test out my work during the test exhibition and just need to wait until Monday (24th) to find out whether I can use this space or not. After realising what my work is about, I am really looking forward to testing it out by using the dark spaces and smaller spaces, as I have been looking for a way to make the audience feel awkward for a while, and I did not think of the obvious.
I am also still looking into other printing methods such as the cyanotype printing, as there is a workshop within the next couple of weeks on this. Obviously I will not be able to use this for the test exhibition, but this is something that I can note down and if  it suits my work, will be something I will definitely be trying out before the final exhibition at the end of the semester. Lots of exciting things ahead!

Thomas Bolton Copperworks - Froghall

As last semester, I was looking at the now abandoned Stallington hospital, I could not access the building in order to take my own photographs. Fortunately, I live just down the road from a disused copper works factory, which I can easily gain access into, to take my own photographs. Even though I had been focusing on a "mental hospital", I have decided to take photographs of other disused buildings in order to create my own psychological spaces, in attempt to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, as everyone has a place where they feel uncomfortable, and I am hoping to recreate this within my studio practice.

The photographs I have taken so far are more research-based, as I went at a time of day where there was not much daylight hours left, and I certainly didn't want to be in a disused factory in the dark. I am planning to go again during the day and spending longer there. I will also take out a camera from the University with different lenses in order to get a varied number of shots to see what I can do with them and how I can develop them into my studio practice.

Cyanotype prints

Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that gives a cyan-blue print. The process was popular in the engineering circles well into the 20th Century. The simple and low-cost process enabled them to produce large-scale copies of their work, referred to as blue prints.

 

There is a workshop being held at University on the 27th February, and I have signed myself up to go along to this, I am really looking forward to going to this and hopefully will be able to come away with a better insight into cyanotype printing, also being able to make my own prints!

Meaning of colours in psychology

After looking at the work of Catherine Yass, and realising the colours which she uses are quite calming colours, I thought it would be beneficial to look into the meaning of colours in psychology, and colour meanings.

Obviously meanings of colours can vary between circumstances and culture, and all colours have many aspects to them. There however a few connotations to each colour.

"Color is a form of non verbal communication. It is not a static energy and its meaning can change from one day to the next with any individual."

Red: is the colour of passion, or again it may mean anger.

Orange: is the colour of social communication and optimism. It is also a sign of pessimism and superficiality.

Yellow: yellow is the colour of the mind and the intellect. It is optimistic and cheerful. However it can also suggest impatience, criticism and cowardice.

Green: is the colour of balance and growth. It can mean both self-reliance as a positive and possessiveness as a negative, among many other meanings.

Blue: is the colour of trust and peace. It can suggest loyalty and integrity as well as conservatism and frigidity.

Indigo: is the colour of intuition. It can mean idealism and structure as well as ritualistic and addictive.

Purple: is the colour of the imagination. It can be creative and individual or immature and impractical.

Turquoise: the meaning is communication and clarity of mind. It can also be impractical and idealistic.

Pink: the psychology of pink is unconditional love and nurturing. Pink can also be immature, silly and girlish.

Magenta: is a colour of universal harmony and emotional balance. It is spiritual yet practical, encouraging common sense and a balances outlook on life.

Brown: is a serious, down-to-earth colour that relates to security, protection and material wealth.

Grey: is the colour of compromise - being neither black nor white, it is the transition between the two "non-colours".

Silver: has a feminine energy; it is related to the moon and the ebb and flow of the tides - it is fluid, emotional, sensitive and mysterious.

Gold: is the colour of success, achievement and triumph. Associated with abundance and prosperity, luxury and quality, prestige and sophistication. Implies affluence, material wealth and extravagance.

White: is colour at its most complete and pure, the colour of perfection. The colour meaning of white is purity, innocence, wholeness and completion.

Black: is the colour of the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, creating an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world.

(Taken from: http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/meaning-of-colors.html)

Before reading the above named website, I did not know the meanings or connotations of most of the colours named. It has been really beneficial to me, as I can start thinking about what colours I can play with in my paintings and photography pieces, in order to unsettle the viewers of the works.