Degree Project: Digital Sketchbook

We had a meeting for our exhibition with the Art Station, 25/01/21. We  discussed our poster, title and thinking of how the film is going to work e.g. with how we approach the lay out for the house. We are going to create more films within our house so that I can begin to piece a draft of the film together so we get a feel about how it will flow through from start of finish. See image below of meeting initial notes.

See the updated poster below for the group & Instagram square poster for the ‘take over’ week. This is new territory for us and means we have a different range of elements to consider creating an online exhibition. We settled on using 3 images throughout the day of our instagram take over so the Art Station’s Instagram is not overloaded but displayed enough. Using stories possibly between uploads.

The other new area is the website, the lay out can depend on how successful it is, see initial drawings below. We have to think about how to place our main film/image below our own individual bios about us/our work, alongside considering on having a slide show under our own bios and film/photo to show extras we have within the exhibition.

Reflection 27/02/21: Jane created the website for us, here’s the link!

For this, developing artist bio and group bio for the exhibition, I started by writing the starts of the group bio for everyone to look at, add and change so its got everyones take on it. We have also discussed the route to go with the film, currently we are considering using the front door, to the kitchen, to the living room, under the stairs, stairwell/hallway and finally the spare room. This may change when we experiment but it seems the most logical without confusing the audience. As my room is first, the kitchen, it would make sense for me to film going through my front door towards the kitchen.

Reflection 29/01/21: This appears to be very successful now, lights/fairy lights in the hallway etc work well with introducing the audience to the image of us working within our homes/feels homey to them too.

I continually experimented with the way I want to showcase my work, see below. I’m unsure if we are involving stills. Reflection 29/03/21: Instead we used different sections of filming eg. stills, film and edited them together, we decided as a group ti allowed try audience to have a feeling of all aspects to the work e.g. images = details.

I decided to try The Haze of Social Media projected see below, Something I love from this is the colour from the projector reflected in the breasts themselves. The moving textures, skin tones and scale. Is still photography stronger?

Reflection 29/01/21: I think colouration is what has become most successful with projection for this exhibition as it brings the space alive in different ways.

I wanted to revert back to my performance work for this exhibition as that was most successful from my group crits. I feel it could work well with the relation to the domestic setting and the physicality of the clay breast.

Reflection 29/01/21: It was the movement that causes a distraction with the sculptures too, it would be successful if it was in a simpler space and not behind breast sculptures as the attention draws away from the breasts. This is where I realised different works suit different spaces.

See below, I have used Only Touch With CLEAN Hands projecting over the kitchen. I like the imagery and relation to the cleaning of the hands as it settles with the image of us students working from home due to COVID, as well as this image of women needed to be clean/perfect/untouched. The handling of the breasts above the oven and the projection on the breasts, explores the visual of the objectification women face within the home/kitchen. I wasn’t sure about using my performance work again, but I think (?) it works well for the final film with it being a moving piece.

Reflection 29/01/21: Too much was happening with the film as well and wasn’t very successful as you couldn’t clearly see the hands. The camera adapts the colouration fo the projection when you move/film moves so this didn’t work.

We had a meeting 15/01/21 to discuss as a group, what we are planning to do for our Interim exhibition which is coming up in February. (15th-19th February 2021). See notes below.

We’ve decided to each chose a room in house to work in/display our work in: a dolls house, we think it will also reflect our current situation – art students stuck at home having to work in unusual environments. I have chosen the domestic space of the house: kitchen. Where women were/is tied too due to their gender which will play with the representation of my work too. I have begun to trialed different imagery for the projection, the bodies below aren’t readable. So far the breast projection works best, see further below.

Reflection 23/02/21: The breast imagery worked well as a kind of mirror imagery of the sculptures, it created distortion yet depth to the sculptures, space and projection.

These are some images I have been working with in projection, see below. As I have said the breasts sculptures hadn’t been working in my practice, was struggling to create effective work with them for what I want to explore – body image and the gaze, but they worked well in relation to the kitchen/display using the setting to my advantage.

Reflection 16/03/21: This exhibition allowed me to see where my work wasn’t quite right, but with Are You Watching? it was extremely successful. It allowed me to adapt a space/reach a goal with a certain path in mind – the kitchen. I have tried to work in kitchen before e.g. Baking wasn’t as successful however, here the projection/clay breasts work well with the style of filming we were all doing as a group.

I do like the moving projection of Up Close, over the breasts, see film, yet it’s unrecognisable. For Congruous I want the imagery to recognisable. Reflection 29/03/21: It was refreshing to learn how to adapt and change my work for an exhibition/working with a group.

Linder Sterling’s collages pieces were a large inspiration for this combining the female body with the domestic appliances – how they become one through the eyes of the male gaze/gender roles. I liked this aspect to her work, the appliance is the environment. I reversed this, see below, Untitled, suggests the objectification women face that is present in the kitchen.

Reflection 26/01/21: I am currently working with this experimentation placing women (breasts) in the kitchen space on the island in, in front of the oven/projection, exploring the idea women are food to eat.

Reflection 29/03/21: The use of the clay breasts looking like ‘desirable sweets’ – was a comment from a group crit, 24/11/21, about the breasts from Only Touch With CLEAN Hands, this is now being used more intensely/physicality through icing, in Sweet Tooth B&W.

Linder Sterling, Untitled, 1977.

Linder works with “continuous provocation, the denunciation of a world that confines human beings in absurd categories and that still isn’t exactly a fair fight.” (Pacciardi, 2018) especially in response to the way women are bound to the confines of the kitchen. And, imagery that is known from the males POV, pornography suggesting this objectification is all women are used for – food and sex!

There’s this over lapping of imagery present within my piece for Interim. Martha Roslers Hot Meat inspired me, see below – my favourite works of hers. Similar to me, she places the body on top of the kitchen appliance and only the intimate areas, suggesting there’s this depersonalisation that comes with sexual objectification of the women. – This depersonalisation is how I have approached the display for this exhibition too. Looking at how women, like on the cinema screen, are used for their “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey, 1973, p116)/their body using their breasts as they’re most know for.

Martha Rosler, Hot Meat, 1972.

Roslers film Semiotics in the Kitchen is also a piece I have thoroughly researched and seems to be somewhat relevant here, the physical setting of the space. Instead of using collage/photoshop in my images, I have decided to change the environment of the space for the breasts and shown the physical change and adaption of these breasts, as well as my art practice and experience of my degree.

Alongside the practicality of the sculptures, Womanhouse was another piece of art work that inspired me to work in the kitchen, Eggs to Breasts was amazing to see the sculptures being displayed across kitchen walls and ceilings etc as well as the gradual development of eggs to breasts. Inspired me to use the projection in a productive way – imagery that there is more breasts present than there is/displaying them up the sides of the walls, surrounding the oven. The colour/vibrancy of the projector gave the breasts life. AND Risk’s Pixel Forest – is present in my work suggests the use of transforming the space into not just a kitchen.  

Vicki Hodgetts, Eggs to Breasts, 1972.

Posters! – Elgin has created a final poster, we all critiqued some posters that were made by my self, Kieran and Michaela however we decided Elgin’s would work best for the exhibition, continuing the path of a doll house theme kept simple, see the poster/logo below. Our title = Congruous. Congruous means ‘in agreement or harmony’ which sums up our class. We all work to the confines of our home/room due to the same situation of COVID.

Online exhibition – decided to do a day take over for each of us to control the Art Station’s Instagram account and connect to the viewers by showing some behind the scenes action of us propping/making/painting and creating these pieces for this exhibition, artists work that has inspired us.

Reflection 21/02/21: Jane is going to do the take over as it makes it less complicated instead of all of us trying to control the account.

I had an idea for us individually to add our images to a poster in the same style as our main one, to use use for ourselves to display the exhibition on our social media platforms e.g. show who is taking over that particular day. See my individual poster below.

I’ve been given the role to film/edit the material for the video of the exhibition – each having a film for opening door to room and then to artwork. These are currently the films I have of the space so we could get a feel for what the walk way would entail. Reflection 01/03/21: After reviewing with my class, we discussed going the long way to see more of the work – as I did this, the work grew/spread out more in the environment, it developed quite quickly/drastically.

Reflection 04/02/21: I took this imagery and projected it into the bath with water for my Lockdown and Light virtual exhibition submission.

As I was photographing into the mirror in my previous series of Up Close and Pink But Up Close, I considered how light would react with these sculptures as you point it in the direction of a mirror. I loved the vibrant light, I decided to take a photo of the cushion in situ with the lights and the mirror. See the images below.

I projected this onto the figures to see how it would change the appearance of the sculpture as well as the space around it. As it’s a small sculpture and a small space, it gave the illusion of a large installation, see below – are my up close images/films more successful than these?

Reflection 29/03/21: This series of works were just experimentation, playing with material projection, colour and lay out. I also wanted to work with the brightest colours but currently I realise its not always about the vibrancy of col0ur.

I like that the mirror gives you two perspective of the form at one time. Reviewing this work I could see Pipilotti Risk’s installation works present. Risk’s Pixel Forest see below, the installation that comes to mind: colours/imagery of things hanging down/consuming the viewer shares this relation to this experimentation – the projection of Untitled – Pink creates an illusion the body is being caressed by the ‘feelers’. It created patterns on the sculptures which immersed the body into the image/space.

Pipilotti Risk, Pixel Forest, 2016.

Risks use of colour is reflected well in my use of the bright colour scheme I have. Risk explores the female body and sexual objectification and the “experience of intimacy, vulnerability” (Momus), she proposes images of moving bodies around the space to make you feel as though you are in that moment. One thing I really enjoy about my images, is the intensity of the colours in the environment/the inclusiveness it feels through an image. The recollection of Risk and her installation pieces made me think of my bright bathroom projections I had created.

Reflection 29/02/21: I took this element through to Congruous for Are You Watching?, to bring an immersive feel to one area of the kitchen, a burst of colour and display. The bold pink hugged the walls and the kitchen tops as well as the breast sculptures.

To continue this exploration and worked with Up Close film/projection as film – felt even more intimate than just the photography because its bigger than life size. See above, this was something me and Jane spoke about during CUBED – life size. These images show details you wouldn’t see from another angle where you can see how the body has been made/imperfections – similar to the way we see/feel about ourselves and other, we see our insecurities but others may not. Under the breast you can see the rough sculpting which I haven’t noticed before, I like this it shows the relation to artists and the physical making. The reflection of the image reflected back so close to the projection suggests this intimacy between the body’s projection and reflection. The use of the mirror allowed me to double up with the projection – an intense self gaze, feel as though we may be interrupting, see below.

• The projection makes the colours colder, feels like a darker gaze. Does it make it stranger to look at from a viewers POV? How would a male feel looking?

Does it become hard to see what is being projected and what is reflected? A peer noted that ‘the reflections from the mirror are slightly distorted and stretched’ – does this relate to how we see ourselves? Not for truly who we are? What we see in the mirror is different to what other people see? E.g. Untitled Film Still #2, Sherman addresses a beautiful young woman hoping to see something other than herself, e.g. a more idealised figure, even though the young women is beautiful. It plays with this relation of the eye tricking the mind/obsessive?

From my dissertation research, the “mirror is a reversed version of the way we actually look” (bright side) so it initially is a false perception and is distorted from the first glance. Christian Metz, a film theorist, explores that the cinema is too like the “other mirror” (Metz, 1982, p 4) because the cinema shows you an unrealistic reality much like the mirror does. The screen of the cinema was and is another way to gaze in at a moment in time and to place yourself into an idealised scene for us to build our ideal egos. But really it doesn’t quite reflect us at all, much like the way a mirror doesn’t really reflect our true selves – distorted.

See above, I added pink cellophane in front of the projector to play with a soft nude. Does it sexualise it again? I edited the film to play continuous, there’s a rocking motion present, as though you’re swaying while you watch…?

I projected Pink But Up Close. Pink is such a powerful colour when explore the female form, it adds life and awe to the artwork, it becomes striking/transfixing. The body also looks extremely wet, almost blood like? Sinister? Gorge? See below.

!!! Reflection 24/03/21: There is a lot of relation to the word sinister/weird previously in my work but I haven’t properly noticed before! – This wasn’t properly brought to my attention till my group crit 24/03/21, I’m finally exploring this with no colour and it appears they’re just as successful as in colour.

I was unsure where my work was going or what it was meaning. I contacted my peers/people outside of uni to get some help. I was told to reflect on my work I had done from L5 to L6, to see what I liked/didn’t like and what had worked/hadn’t worked, both of those years were experimentation periods. From this I realised I had enjoyed my photography: female sculptures/mirrors/coloured lights, see sketchbook page I spotted from L5 below which made me want to rediscover.

Reflection 29/03/21: Looking back its clear that I was stuck with where to go next, after working with Up Close, I felt like I didn’t want to explore it anymore as I had already done so. Currently I am working completely different to how I would’ve expected with no colour, Sweet Tooth B&W, it’s confrontational which I wanted and outwardly visualises the male dominance that is held over all women/imagery of women being a treat to consume. The B&W tackles inclusiveness at a new angle like Up Close was trying.

Abby a postgraduate student suggested a spider diagram see below. There was artists such as Pipilotti Risk who I researched and was influenced by last year who I had forgotten about – it was a good way to see where I have been/go further. From this I felt that the clay breasts are no longer working for me as I ‘m unsure where to place and install them. Reflection 20/02/21: However! They worked perfectly for Congruous as they were easily adaptable to the kitchen and the use for projection. They didn’t get in the way of the projector, but responded enough to capture its colour. I acknowledged that work for an exhibition can be different to my current practice as it all comes down to what works where.

I began revisiting the bold light colours from L5 which added realism/emphasis on the texture of the bodies. See the images below, Up Close, I wanted to make them more peculiar by adding a fluffy cushions to emphasise the natural body image: a peer thought it was hair dangling down – without the explanation of the image, maybe the viewers wouldn’t know what the cushion was. These different perspectives are adds more weirdness/uncomfortableness to the image. Sinister gaze from above? Could this be a path to explore? See immediate written notes below.

Reflection 29/03/21: I have tackled this weird/sinister approach in my current work Sweet Tooth B&W with battling different angles, colours, materials, perceptions. – Could involve sensory touches? Make the space as uncomfortable as possible.

The soft pink light last year gave the bodies a realistic and a kind approach to the form, but this year, I want to challenge this with how the viewers see the body, not in an idealised way. Yellow isn’t as glamourising as pink, it’s a very unnatural colour to see with the body. Distortion enters through a new way of not just photography but colour as it accentuates the discomfort in the image.

Reflection 15/04/21: The mention of mirrors reminded me of my 1-1 Catinca, we discussed ways to develop Sweet Tooth further and I followed the same approach as Up Close above with the angle – resembles a peep hole/gaze from a space you shouldn’t be looking in.

Angles of the camera through the mirror – show details of the material, unseen visual of the body. An angle which you feel you shouldn’t be seeing/peering into, becomes intimate, a relationship between the woman and her body. – Similar to what Saville explores in Close Contact below. The gripping suggests almost disgust/aggression with the body as she exploits the natural form. I think it adds to this negative relationship we have with the female body if it isn’t idealised. Although the body isn’t pressed against the mirror like Saville, there is still this focus on the skin being displayed in an unnatural way, one we are not used to seeing. There becomes something disturbing about the body, a perception we as humans aren’t as open to as we should be. “Distortions confront and coerce the viewer into an examination of one’s own body and the grotesqueries and beauties inherent within” (Gagosian).

Lacan’s mirror stage theory comes to mind, the body is gazing back through a mirror at itself is scary enough for the woman to see – intense relationship between body/woman which we are looking into. Cindy Sherman also works this way with the use of the gaze and the mirror theory within her work, Untitled Film Still #2. See below, Sherman is an artist I am currently researching for my dissertation and in this piece, there is a women looking at her reflection searching for something else, an idealised form? “Sherman captures the gap between imagined and actual body images that yawns in each of us” (Foster, 1996, p 148), it’s something we cannot deny we do as humans. It also becomes not just about the woman and her reflection, but also the gazer of the women and the gazer of the the image. Becomes this thread of looking which is explored within my photography, peering at the body, the gaze of the woman and her body and the gazing of the image.

Reflection 26/01/21: For my Interim exhibition the use of breast clay sculptures is rather different to these, however the lay out of the work ‘women (breasts) sitting like they are an audience at the cinema, watching themselves (projection)’ – in situ of the domestic kitchen, reminds me of the gaze/the self gaze in Cindy Sherman’s work Untitled Film Still #2, above. Very different format but similar messages.

I created films to allow the audience to feel as though they are doing the looking – like how a cinema acts, audience have the control. I chose to intensify this by creating a wet looking pink aura. What is behind it? Insides? Wet pubic hair? Becomes quite abject, these are all strange thoughts that came to mind. See the images below – I am glorifying the forgotten! The wet looking pink body immediately gave me thoughts of Maisie Cousins work, especially Finger.

Reflection 29/03/21: I am exploring the glorification of women in the cinema and the male gaze, I have changed the way I do it by experimenting with different elements e.g. from Pink But Up Close works with luscious colours, Sweet Tooth B&W works with black and white. Almost suggesting if I am done dancing around these issues of glorifying women being objectified – aim to make a statement?

Cousins is an artist I am also researching for my dissertation, she explores the body in a real and raw way. She proposes the body to the camera in a natural state, “her work actively responds to destructive images aiming to address the damaging misogynistic ideals of beauty” (Boulting, 2017). She shows the natural body e.g. body hair juxtaposed with disgusting materials such as rotten fruit, slim, bugs etc. Things you wouldn’t normally or want to see next to the body. Cousins is breaking down this barrier of the clean and idealised form with grossness! Finger, see below, shows a flower which proposes a vagina with a finger almost poking it, it’s covered in a red liquid, working with the imagery of period blood. Showing the natural female body is bloody and real, brings reality and normality into the frame and back to the female body which is both disturbing but refreshing.

The images below question, is this imagery sexual? Or is the figure laying and gazing at itself? Or back at the viewer? A piece of feedback said, ‘the red/pink lights scream the gazing of the red light district’. Was this my intention?

I aim to take these images further through projection as that is something I have also really enjoyed doing this year in L6 which I discovered in my reflection – place projection in different environments: bathroom? Projection helps change the appearance of the environment they are in. Reflection 18/02/21: I projected these in the bath for Lockdown and Light submission and they created an immersive space, changing the water, the bath tub and stretching the body.