More more glue - sound recording

After testing last weeks sounds in the studio - they are very quiet.  Booked time in sound studio for 4th and 5th august but will try again with boom mic and  try to make sounds as loud as possible and hold close etc.

Attempt again.

Full body peel!

Test 35mm Scanner

Met with Suzie to test 35mm scanner

Didn't work

Body Animation

Today I will shoot a body animation from the front, gradually getting heavier.  I will take care to make sure each frame is a gradual increase of shape but applying paint over the areas each time rather than applying paint all over my body and pressing lightly then heavier.

Here is the result:

More Glue

More Glue

Brains - Not Showing at Exhibition

Today I decided not to show the brains at the exhibition.  After watching the animation I feel as though the other two ideas are very direct applications of myself.

The brain films just do not fit with the other films visually or conceptually.

The Skin and the Body are expressive and involve much more direct applications of my body.  The brain just really does not fit well within the three.

First Body tests (after tests from last year!)

These are the first tests after setting up my new studio.

First, I tried to apply paint all over and then press gradually lighter, as I attempted last year.  This seemed to make the animation appear far too fast, I tried again being much more careful, though it is apparent that taking much more time over this and having someone to help apply the paint would be a much more efficient process.

 

More Glue - for sound recording

glue for sound recording

Glue

Attempt at doing full body and face, without help.  Didn't work

How did it feel? what I need to change and remember for next time.  Takes LONG time to dry.  Very uncomfortable and painful when peeling off.

Setting Up Studio - Continued

Continuing to set up Studio ready for body animation

Setting Up Studio

 Setting up the garage ready for painting animation.

Lucy Reynolds

http://lux.org.uk/taxonomy/term/227

Sandra Lahire

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/sandra_lahire/index.html

Proposal

MA Animation and Sound Design

Laura Cain

COMPLETION DATE
18 August 2011

Assessment Methods:

• My Masters Project will result in three separate pieces of experimental film with sound, based around representation of my body, displayed as part of my exhibition in September
• Creation of a Masters Project Blog to show development of research and practice as I progress
• 1500 word Critical Evaluation

Autobiography through Self Expressive Animation

Thinking back to when I initially started my Masters Degree, I intended to concentrate on revisiting traditional techniques. These included some of the painting and drawing I did before my undergraduate degree, but with a continuation of themes explored throughout my creative career so far. These themes were based around the body and its representation through different concepts of identity, figurative portraiture, philosophical ideas of what it is to be human (during my undergraduate dissertation), etc. My ideas started to take the form of very abstract, self representative and expressive reproductions of myself, which was very much due to a self-driven desire to experiment and create. This was partnered with my love for traditional techniques and wanting to ‘get my hands dirty’, along with a seemingly lifelong obsession with the figure and body as represented in art and imagery. As a continuation and conclusion of my Masters Degree, the basis of my Masters project will be the development of experiments of three different film representations of autobiographical animations. Each film has a different approach via scale and mixed media, though all are direct applications of me, my body, my skin, and my own brain scans.

My first idea is to produce a stop motion animation showing full body marks of paint on full size bed sheets. I will pin white bed sheets to a wall, cover myself in dark paint and press my body against them to make marks, imprinting an image of my body on the sheets. I will try a series of different techniques, pressing very lightly to begin with, and then getting heavier and heavier as the animation progresses.  The process of producing this animation will be very emotionally driven and involve a lot of movement, it will be almost theatrical. This animation appears to represent my obsession with my own body image, particularly my frustration with western culture’s pressure for women to conform to a physical ideal, to be ‘perfect’. The female form in contemporary culture is under constant pressure to take on the ‘ideal’ appearance and body shape. My images represent this by looking almost skeletal to begin with, getting larger and larger until completely distorted and unrecognisable. I will be animating the weight and density of myself through the medium of paint on sheets. I want my animation to appear very ‘alive’, presenting my form, body shape, movements and emotions. Different ways of pressing against the sheets will give different effects, all of which will be explored and documented as I progress. I hope to present one of the sheet prints as an installation in my exhibition, as I really want the viewer to see close up the marks of paint on the sheets where my body has been. As this is very much an autobiographical approach, my intentions for the viewer are to be almost voyeuristic, but also curious and provocative. The animation presents the form as possibly objective to the viewer, a female body imprinted on a sheet, but, like all my ideas for my Masters Project, it is actually very personal and represents my exposed form. 

Yves Klein, Anthropometry ANT 85

 Yves Klein, has produced similar work to what I intend to produce for my first idea. He used the body as a paintbrush to produce a series of images of the female naked form. His Anthropometries series of works were usually performance art based using subjects and spectacles. While the end results are very effective, Klein’s work to me feels very objective. I want my work to be autobiographical and emotional, hence using my own body as the ‘paintbrush’. The way he has ‘used’ the women to produce the paintings, as seen in video footage of the performances, feels indirect to the artist, although the idea of having the subject itself forming the image is a strong theme seen in my ideas for films. My animations will also add the dimension of time, through animation rather than a sequence of stills.

Closed Contact #10, 1996

An artist who has used her own body as a subject is Jenny Saville. I would like to draw attention in particular to her Closed Contact series (a collaboration with Glen Luchford), where she squashes herself against glass to produce images of her own body looking almost deformed and misshapen. This was a response to Saville’s observation of reconstructive surgery. She wanted to represent the violence of what she had witnessed through her work, in the form of these abstract self portraits. The way in which she has distorted herself is not necessarily the approach I will be taking; my work will not involve the violence and distortion of the body to the extreme Saville has taken it, but more a direct application of my form. I admire the work she produces and how she represents herself, especially in this particular series. Jenny Saville’s approach is more about an obsession with self image and representation in regards to ideals of beauty. This is admirable and evokes a powerful response in the audience and I would like to attempt to gain the same type of responses in my films.

My second idea is a piece of animation displaying close up skin prints, derived from images of marks made from dried PVA glue that has been peeled off my entire body.

I have previously produced work of a similar nature in my self-negotiated briefs. Now, I want to expand on this and produce a whole body version of skin on film. The length of the film will be determined by the size and shape of my body. I want this film to be autobiographical, but this time, it has a much more visceral approach. The skin is the largest organ of the human body, and this will be represented on film in almost its entirety. Indirectly, the film will show my size, age, scars – general history of my body as represented through the imagery of my skin on the film. I also wish to make another installation as a result of this animation, to have the glue ‘shell’ of myself hanging for people to look at closely. This will help the viewer to understand what it is they are seeing in the film (close up imagery), as well as presenting the skin another scale (actual size), and the ways it can look when presented in different forms.

Lastly, I want to produce a short, possibly looped, film using images of a brain scan (my own brain). As part of research for previous self negotiated projects, I applied to scientific research laboratories to have my brain scanned in order to gain reference imagery. I was contacted after the project had finished, but I still went through with the scan. From these images, I wish to reproduce the very measured, digital imagery of my own brain by drawing and animating them. This will suggest themes of my obsession with my own humanity, connecting my mind and body. Although the imagery produced is not direct (unlike the previous two ideas) the mark making could look very similar.  When the scans are put together as an animation, they suggest breathing. Thus the imagery becomes very organic, a direction the previous two ideas may take. An important aspect of this idea is that the images are of my own brain and this is what is, in my opinion, essentially me.

So the three ideas are my form, my flesh and my mind. To make all three ideas work and run fluidly together as part of my exhibition presents me with a huge challenge. The films will need to fit together and themes will have to be clear and not confusing or too conflicting. I realise that this will require very careful consideration and that sacrifices may have to be made whilst exploring and developing the artworks themselves. My intentions are really to invoke curiosity in the viewer, to share my own curiosity for the themes and experiments I do. I wish my audience to see the figure represented in interesting ways, through animation that is not normally seen, and to evoke empathetic responses in the audience. When considering sound for the animated pieces, I want the sounds to be fairly literal and direct, much like the animations themselves. I plan to produce sounds made from rubbing my flesh together, the sounds of the glue peeling off my skin, the sounds of my skin pressing against the fabric sheets.

The animations will be presented as part of the show reel during the Masters Show in September. They will be shown alongside installations, including a sheet of one of my body prints hung against the wall and a glue skin ‘shell’ of my body hanging. Lighting will have to be considered carefully in order to achieve the best viewing conditions in the projection room that I am hoping to have allocated.  Recording the progression of these ideas and the resulting animations will allow me to achieve my goals when displaying my work on exhibition in September.

First Body Test

First Body Test from last year

Tate Modern Creative Life Drawing Class

Last year as part of my research I attended a creative life drawing class at the Tate Modern.

Websites information:

Tate Modern
Art Rabbit - (where I found the class)
Flickr - Showing images from the class I attended


I did not find the class as useful as I thought I would and it turned out to not be very relevant to my practice.  The class I attended was very focused on the figure and its relationship with the environment, the architecture of the building and the city scape behind.  I used the opportunity to practice life drawing as it had been a while since I had done any and I wanted to re-attempt it.  The figure fascinates me and is the fundamental reason why my work has taken the direction that it has.

Ticket

Below is a copy of the handout given to us at the class:

Life Drawing Workshop at Tate Modern

The East Room - The Figure & City

Date: 19 July 2010

London Drawing Tutors:  Anne Noble-Partridge and David Price
www.londondrawing.com

Session outline

18:45 Welcome and introduction by tutors
19:00 Start working in the space
19:40 Group discussions of work made

Questions to consider:

How does it feel to contrast the figure against the city? Does the idea remind of you of subject matter by different artists?

How do you feel about the idea of creating a large compostition with other participants? How does this affect your owndership of your work?

19:50 Continue working in the space
20:30 Finishing works, feedback forms and final conclusion
20:45 End of Session

General Information

In this drawing class we aim to inspire participants to engage with the artists' work and to create your own personal creative responses to the situations.  There is no right or wrong way to draw in this class but try to experiment and try something that is new to you.  In this class we will be looking at the figure against the back drop of the city using the architecture of the Tate Modern itself.

Contextual Information

Tonight we will have the unique opportunity to work in the East Room - this space is not open to the public and is used for private events.  With spectacular views across London and amazing location this is one of the most exclusive and expensive veunes in London.

Materials and approach

We constantly aim to push the boundaries of life drawing and what life drawing can be.  We not only use the galleries and exhibitions as inspiration but also the iconic Tate Modern building itself which provides spectacular backdrop to our classes.  The East Room presented itself as a great opportunity to draw the figure against the back drop of the city.  We hope you will gain inspiration from the contrast in scale between the model and the fview, and also the subtle changes in light as it facdes ofver london.

The first half of the class will involve 15 minute poses with three models, with participants working individually on compositions.

The second half of the class will involve poses of 15-20 minutes and we will be working on a large group composition.


My best drawing from the class:

Notes on First Draft of Proposal - Chat with Shaun

Mona Hatoum

Performative pieces

Visceral
Tactile
What am I trying to say about the body?
Skin is difficult to tell what it is?

Brain - breathe

Hints statements - actions pharensics - how was it made? What was the event?

exploration of my own body, laying it out bare

helen chadwick

Autobiographical, mapping my body

Presents a series of possibilities

Brains, mark making, similar - where am I in the work, where is my 'stamp' on it.

Themes with in the body


Sheets - weight
skeletal growth
Beauty/weight
obsession - todays culture (jenny saville)
Skin - length of film as a result of how fat an individual could be

brains mark making similar to sheets growth

maybe

obsession? why me? my own obsession with my weight and mind / thought process

Notes on First Draft of Proposal - Chat with Tom

Expand Aims an Objectives into process explanation

Future plans - what my work will do to help...

Asking more detailed questions rather than broad questions - don't go in circles!

Themes
Time of piece determined by the size of myself
Descriptive - immerse in detail
Aims and objectives and ideas - expand into writing, more detail.

How do images I've included really relate
Anthropology? Social science?
My work - experienciong things? How my work relates with me being the subject rather than something else

Proposal - Ask questions!
How will things relate to...
What themes...

Jean Genet

Notes on First Draft of Proposal - Response to Suzie Email

Hi Laura
 
The proposal is honest and contains the 'questions' you are trying to  
answer through the work, but still rather wide and needs more  
parameters.
 
It may help to go back a bit to the BASIC questions...
 
Who? (Self, and other artists who explore body and skin imagery as  
symbols of identity)
What? (Short films, mixed media, tactilist approach all taken from  
own body surface and scans)
Why? (Creation of complex moving image and sound aesthetic that  
stimulates sympathetic/empathetic response in others)
How? (Media/schedule/techniques etc etc. How do others represent  
themselves and how exactly does that relate to your own quest.)
When? (Timeline, and does the work reflect contemporary culture  
specifically as opposed to the historical examples?)
Where? (Making it, showing it, distributing it)
 
I am on an intensive course all day tomorrow (learning Logic and then  
doing an exam on Friday). But email me any time......
 
S
 

Brain Scans

Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging

 Volunteering

28/06/10

Dear Laura
 
Thank you very much for your call and for agreeing to take part in the study tomorrow.
 
The address of the Lab is :
 
Functional Imaging Laboratory
12, Queen Square
London WC1N 3BG

 
We will pay for your tarvel expenses+ 10 pounds for your time and Pictures of your brain.
 
looking forward to see you tomorrow
 
best regards
Sukhbinder Kumar
 
Dr Sukhbinder Kumar
Research Fellow
Functional Imaging Laboratory
12, Queen Square
London
WC1N 3BG

SKIN: EXPOSED

Skin:Exposed Site

Ticket to Talks

Part of my research from last year when starting my Masters Project, I attended the Skin:Exposed Talks as part of the Skin exhibition shown at the Wellcome Collection.








The Skin exhibition at the wellcome trust was a display of all kinds of approaches (historical, scientific, cultural, artistic, photography etc) to human skin.

To accompany the exhibition there were a range of special events held, one of which was the Skin:Exposed symposium on 16th-17th July 2010 more specifically looks at nudity and attitudes and perceptions of it, varying over different cultures and times.

Attending these talks was fantastic for me and my understanding of where my work lies in contemporary, theory and historical culture.  Perhaps more suited towards the Skin and Body films of my work, it allowed me to think about what I want to express with  my films and think about where I might take them in the future.

Program Index

Notes from the talks:
(had to decipher my own scribbles in the back of the programme!)

Introduction

The Mole Rat - Wickedness and splendour in its nakedness

Description of exposure - what this means - shame? sexual emotion?

'Skin' not to be apprehended all at once - skin can only be one when it has been removed from the body, can never feel the whole of your skin at once.
Memory in skin - time


John Milton - Paradise Lost
Adam and Eve - lead to covering up 'desire' 'corruption' - Columbus found Americans naked etc.

Gerda Stevenson - Trespasses

John Keats - Eve St Agnes

Roland Barthes - Striptease

G-string - ultimate triange?!
Strippers are basically objects tp ta;l anoit male strip tease alhtough written in 1957
Refuge of object - amateur

Amedeo Modigliano
Reclining nude with blue cushion

Everything begins with the skin


Michael Serres - The five senses
Skin as the Identity Card - Soul
Identity 'maps' scattered soul
tattooing
skin has history - memory - surface
Invbisible memories of touch 'caresses - material sensations
we are not monochromatic
skin - obstacle


Aonghas Macneacail
Seduction



Impressions
The Skin is alive.  It's sensory impressions allow us to interact with the world and to make sense of our individual or collective identities.  Knowledge of who we are begins at the bodys surface.  Itching, shivering, blushing, trembling and sweating are all the natural functions of the skin triggered by our interaction with the external world and with others .  Unlike these automatic reactions, the sense of touch, and especially touching others is a voluntary means of building evidence, a way to distinguish sensation from emotions to guide medical examination or treatment or simply to take care of ourselves.

Being naked as a cultural thing - depends on context

Walter Bodmer - Why are we Naked?
Science/evolutionary perspective
When did we become naked?  Hair?  Darwin - 'Sexual Selection'
Human evoloution of nakedness theories:
Aquatic Ape hypothesis
Thermoregulation amd Bipedalism
Ectoparacite protection

Science/Culture
Science brushing against culture - scientific evolution before cultural evolution, obviously!  Science of evolution with nakedness as historical context.


Lisa Blackmans - The Body
Social Process and cultural theory

Naturism
Celebration of bodies should be encouraged - sexual health - celebrate diversity
In my opinion - good for people uncomfortable with their bodies -
contemporary nudity
porn -sexual
lapdance - exploitative and sexual
clubs, pre-conceptual - prepared for sexual!
Bryons pool - people get less accepting, less comfortable when nudity can be involved with sexuality.  Has to admit that there are sexual relationships with nudity.  Talk about how to manage it rather than focus on what is or isn't naturism  people get naked for different reasons, letting people be who they are.

Postive aspects on anakedness - casting off ones clothes is like casting off your cares
Nakedeness - experience a change of consioucness (religion) alterend states
Shedding cares - removing 'identification' - interesting new perspective.  Though afctually it IS our identification
Our clothes are a mask shedding clothes sheddfing of armour.  taking off small amount of material, bikinis esp - extra sensory perception - paganism, getting closer to nakes, get naked.  Innocence - return to a childlike state (reductionism taken to extreme? We are born naked) Christianity - closeness to God - nakedness - naked friendly!
Polticss, feel empowered when naked a tool to evoke change - rebellion,
Godiva
Interesting because Godiva was a women, women are practical men - cerebal, women protest! Breasts not bombs!
Symbolic of authority - no clothes though now , autoritymore clothed
Modern day politician taking off clothes?!  Nothing to hide...
also to remid of common humanity
entertainment, shocking.  We love streaking because it is hilarious and silly! Entertaining because we share our undignified (?) humanity together.  'Common hero' - Jamie oliver, naked chef - cheekiness - semitiotics
Full Monty/Calander Girls couldn't be sleazy!
Concerning with sex/naturism - thout these films, ordinary heros breaking stereotypes.
Serious issues, body beautiful.  Greek - npoble/olympic/gods - naked
Judaism/christian - shame/slavery
Confliting tyranny of the stereotype of body beautiful and Gok wWan and other modern films helping 'break' and introduce interesting period - allowed secret(?) of democratistaion of current idea etc.
Naturism/neophillia
of a certain type of empowerment.  Tyranny of self confidence, riddled with paradox and contradictions.  Naturist - America trying to strike down, Sexual? but not on sexual conflict in churches but not on beaches - so naturists have said - no religious establishments near out beaches!
Spencer Tunic - Right context - not offending people.  Feel skin breathing when you're naked, air against your skin - who we sense ourselves in the cold, liberating.  (Consider this aspect in regards to sheets/sex etc)

Gill Renaissance Nude
Renaissance art lists of random nudes.  Due to voyages of discovery? because new worlds, people always nakewd, walk aoround naked.
Pisanello - Luxuria unique because no nudes dound before 1440ish
why does art contain so many nudes? Creation of nature, creation of art - What is it to be human, humanity.  Life drawing in 1470s, lots of nude men.

Da vinci - life drwaing good looking ,youyuthful subjedct.  Stands well - after the ideal perfection of humanity.  Beautiful bottacelli - neoplatoism - vuxhunno
Homosexual activity ancouraged before age of 30 avoiding complications like pregnancy!

Truth and Experience - Stephen Conner
Nakedness being a loss/discomfort.  romantism - getting in touch with nature - being naked for a long time - lose protection.
Touch? Nervousness exposed - not sexy to be naked? Surely context is Revelvant? How does it feel to be naked, freedom rather than nudity, nude is a fantasy?
How you define nakemess pbviously culturally defined.
Medical Gaze? Disconnect thyself from naked body in order to avoid shame.
Skin being exposed therefore something to look at.

Skin as a topic - defined by it's variable form.  as an object of knowledge - Jean Baudrillard



Wellcome Trust talks

Below information from Wellcome Trust website
Source

Skin

19 March 2010

Following the success of its recent exhibitions, which have looked at mental health and at identity, Wellcome Collection returns to the subject of the human body for its summer exhibition: ‘Skin’.

Following the success of its recent exhibitions, which have looked at mental health and at identity, Wellcome Collection returns to the subject of the human body for its summer exhibition: 'Skin'.

The skin is our largest organ. It gives us a vital protective layer, is crucial for our sense of touch and provides us with a highly sensitive and visible interface between our inner body and the outside world. Spots, scars, moles, wrinkles, tans and tattoos: the look of skin can reveal much about an individual's lifestyle, health, age and personality, as well as their cultural and religious background. The skin is also remarkable for its ability to regenerate and repair itself.
The multidisciplinary exhibition 'Skin' takes a predominantly historical approach, beginning with early anatomical thought in the 16th and 17th century when, for anatomists, the skin was simply something to be removed and discarded in order to study the internal organs. The story continues through the 18th and 19th century and approaches its conclusion in the 20th century, by which time the skin was considered to be of much greater significance and studied as an organ in its own right.
The exhibition will incorporate early medical drawings, 19th century paintings, anatomical models and cultural artefacts juxtaposed with sculpture, photography, and film works by artists including Damien Hirst, Helen Chadwick and Wim Delvoye.
The 'Skin' exhibition will be complimented by the 'Skin Lab' which features artistic responses to developments in plastic surgery, scar treatments and synthetic skin technologies, including two newly commissioned works by the artists Rhian Solomon and Gemma Anderson. Visitors are invited to participate in an interactive and sensory experience - experimenting with skin-flap models used in plastic surgery, trying on latex skin-suits or studying biological jewellery.
Skin: 10 June-26 September
Press preview: Wednesday 9 June, 9.30-13.00. A chance to preview the exhibition and meet with the curators. Contact Mike Findlay for details.
Venue: Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE. Admission is FREE.
Javier Moscoso, Research Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain and curator of the exhibition comments: "This exhibition focuses on the historical transformation of both the scientific understanding and cultural significance of human skin, plotting it as beliefs, facts and popular mindsets have all evolved. Taking a historical and cultural perspective, the exhibition showcases a range of startling exhibits that will provoke a variety of reactions at different levels by different types of public."
Lucy Shanahan, Wellcome Collection Curator and co-curator of 'Skin' adds: "The last decade has revealed a burgeoning interest and fascination with human skin, particularly among philosophers, writers, artists and designers. Meanwhile, regenerative medicine has seen major advances in the development of artificial skin designed to improve the structure, function and appearance of the body surface that has been damaged by disease, injury or ageing. So there couldn't be a better time to get under the surface of this subject."
The exhibition will be defined by two main sections and two smaller sections:

Objects

The first section explores the primary function of skin as a frontier between the inside and the outside of the body, dramatically illustrated by a selection of images and objects from the realms of medicine and art. It looks at flaying, skin removal, skin fragments and the numerous portals that interrupt the skin's surface, either exposing or leading to the body within.

Marks

The second section will explore skin as a place where natural, cultural, artificial or supernatural marks inscribe themselves on the body. Human skin provides a living document of transformation, deformity, ageing and illness. It also serves as a canvas where personal and cultural practices of decoration, construction of identity and self-expression are communicated to the world.

Impressions

The third area looks the sensory nature of skin and the delicate threshold it provides between the public and private self.

After-life

The final section will consider the preservation and cultural uses of skin beyond its natural biological life, as well as what the skin reveals about death itself.

Accompanying events programme

To coincide with the Skin exhibition, a lively programme of events will take place in Wellcome Collection. Mostly free, these events include discussions on topics such as how to tackle common skin complaints, the cultural and personal significance of tattoos, as well as a two-day symposium examining nudity in its cultural and historical context.

Exposed
Friday 16 July, 19.00-21.00 and Saturday 17 July, 10.30-17.00
A rare chance to indulge our intrigue - or embarrassment - about nudity. This event could not happen anywhere else! Often seen as taboo, sometimes as something to be celebrated, nudity is a fascinating topic for discussion, debate and exploration.
Staggered over two days, this special event will begin on Friday evening with literary readings introduced and chosen by Steven Connor. The Saturday will bring together experts from the worlds of anthropology, history of art and evolutionary science to explore how bare skin is understood in different cultures, how nudity makes us feel and how our ancestors evolved to reveal their bare skin in the first place.
Sir Walter Bodmer, geneticist, will explain how we became the naked ape; Rebecca Arnold, historian of fashion, will discuss how our clothes have changed through the ages; and Javier Moscoso, curator, will give an introduction to the 'Skin' exhibition. Further speakers TBC.
Chair: Brian Dillon, writer and critic

First Proposal Draft

Self Expressive Animation


Thinking back to when I initially started my Masters Degree, I intended to concentrate on revisiting traditional techniques like the painting and drawing I used to do before my under graduate degree but with a continuation of themes explored throughout my creative career so far.  These themes were always based around the body and it’s representation through different concepts of identity, figurative portraiture, philosophical ideas of what it is to be human (during my undergraduate dissertation), etc.

My first self negotiated brief allowed me to start to focus my practice and research and thus reduce the amount of different concepts I initially tried to involve in my work.  I gained an understanding at this stage that my ideas were starting to take the form of very abstract, self representative and expressive, reproductions of myself.  At this point I favoured drawing on film as with images of my skin and some brain scans, which was then developed and explored further in the second self negotiated brief with other traditional media for example, drawing with pencil and charcoal.

Now, as I embark upon the final stage of my work, I realise my main intentions are very much due to a self driven desire to experiment and create, partnered with my love for traditional techniques and wanting to ‘get my hands dirty’, along with a seemingly lifelong obsession with the figure and body as represented in art and imagery. 

‘’It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way not his way.’’⁽¹⁾

(1) Joint statement by Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman; written June 7, 1943. Originally published in the New York Times June 13, 1943.

I now feel presented with the challenge of truly understanding why my ideas for animated pieces are so expressive.  The above statement by Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman, is a response to an art critic’s review of their work, though to me it suggests a purpose for why I am doing the expressive work I have found myself producing.

My intentions are really to invoke curiosity in the viewer, the same or similar curiosity I have for the themes and experiments I do.  I wish my audience to see the figure represented in interesting ways through animation that is not normally seen.  Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman were abstract expressionists, an art movement seemingly in reflected in my own work and potential ideas for this project.

Aim and objectives

·         My Masters Project will result in three separate pieces of experimental film with sound, based around representation of my body, displayed as part of my exhibition in September

·         Creation of a Masters Project Blog to show development of research and practice as I progress

Objectives/Problems to overcome

·         The films will need to fit together and themes will have to be clear and not confusing or conflicting.  I realise this will require very careful consideration and sacrifices may have to be made after discoveries made from progression of practice and research.

·         I wish to consider the possibility of an instillation of pieces of work gained from my methods for animation to display alongside, or separately, to the animated pieces.  If carried out, I need to fully explain why I have decided to do so.

·         My Masters project will mainly be a series of experiments from all three films and an exploration into themes that arise.  I then will need to focus research and enquiry into more specific areas.

·         As my work takes a more artistic and expressive path, I will need to fully understand relevant aspects of critical theory.  This is another main intention as an outcome from my project.

·         I want to consider why I am using myself as a subject, is it just for convenience or is there more to it?

·         I will need to consider what sounds will be used for my animation.

Three Ideas

1.       A stop motion animation showing full body marks of paint on full size bed sheets.

2.       A piece of animation displaying close up skin prints, derived from images of close up marks on dried pva glue that has been peeled off my entire body.

3.       A short, possibly looped film (possibly direct animation) using images of a brain scan (of my own brain) from one side to another.

The basis of my Masters project will be development of experiments for each of these three ideas.  The development will also include the consideration of how they will be presented and this will inevitably present a challenge as the themes, although similar, are different.  This will involve creative problem solving through practice and research.

The representation of the figure and in particular the nude has been a common theme in the world of art, historically and contemporarily, from prehistoric fertility idols to scientific anatomical drawings for aid with surgery in Victorian times.  I need to work out where my work sits amongst this vast collection of imagery and film.

‘Unidentified Operation’ - from WW1

Female Fertitly Icon

Yves Klein, produced similar work to what I intend to produce for my first idea.  He used the body as a paintbrush to produce a series of images of naked form. 

His series of works under the title ‘anthropometries’ were usually performance art based using subjects and spectacles.  His resulting images are closer to the imagery I wish to achieve in my animated piece.

Yves Klein, Anthropometry ANT 85

Whilst the end results are very effective, Klein’s work to me feels very objective.  My work will be very self expressive, hence using my own body as the ‘paintbrush’.  The way he has ‘used’ the women to produce the paintings, as seen in video footage of the performances⁽¹⁾, feels indirect to the artist, although the idea of having the subject itself forming the image is a strong theme seen in my ideas for films.

An artist who has used her own body as a subject is Jenny Saville.  I would like to draw attention in particular to her ‘Closed Contact’ series (a collaboration with Glen Luchford), where she squashes herself against glass to produce images of her own body looking almost deformed and misshaped.  This was a response of Saville observing reconstructive surgery, she wanted to represent the violence of what she had witnessed through her work, in the form of these abstract self portraits.

I admire the work she produces and how she represents herself in this particular series.  Jenny Saville’s approach is more about an obsession with self image and representation in regards to beauty.  This is admirable and evokes a powerful response in the audience and I would like to attempt to gain the same type of responses in my films.

Another artist and filmmaker who has driven and influenced me is Stan Brakhage.  His films are very expressive and use the technique of direct animation, the same technique I have used previously for self negotiated projects one and two and intend to use again during my Master Project.  It is clear in Stan Brakhage’s films that there is no narrative.  This is my intention for my films, and similar themes between my films and those of Brakhage are the experimentation with surface and medium, with no clear narrative. Yet, where my work as yet does not seem to have a clear specific theme, but a number of different possible ones, Stan Brakhage’s films usually explored specific themes of birth and death, sexuality and innocence, influenced by music and poetry.

I have attended an exhibition and series of talks at the welcome trust entitled ‘SKIN: EXPOSED’.  Upon reflection of the research gained from attending this I hope to find out where my work belongs and what I am trying to say.

To summarise, I do not want my work to be ‘art for art’s sake’.  I want it to have a purpose and a meaning.  As mentioned previously, I want the viewer to feel curious about the images I portray, though, the themes are important for this to be a success, so I can focus in on particular areas of my practice.  Through experimentation alongside research into themes I recognise (and recording them along the way via online blog) I will hopefully achieve my goals when displaying my work on exhibition in September.

Notes on Proposal Writing

Scrap 'Identity' - I hate the word

Masters Project - experiment further, basic knowledge of what I may achieve (as mentioned in self negotiated 2)

SCRAP BRAIN (put this later)
Self expression is a main factor in my practice and this is articulated best through work that is intially produced using my hands...

Self Negotiated 1

Exploring fascinations in depth that are always showing up in my creative career so far.  Resulting in self expressive, personal work

Self Negotiated 2

Purely experimental - understand better what results I can achieve with experiments preparing me for my Masters Project.

Mapping the body

Last year - needed careful consideration of how I would bring 3 films together as one exhibition, it would make more sense, as the films are very different, to present them as 3 completely separate films with a running theme.

Themes

Surface
Body
Feminism
Skin
Scale
Cognition

Aims

To produce experimental short films

around the concept of body skin image personal self expressive

Where themes clearly work together

Objectives?

Experiment
Learn new techniques
Problem solving
focus research
Discover running theme that works
find out what statement I am really trying to make

how will I overcome the problem of multiple themes?
What are/is my main theme I wish to explore and try to represent through my films?

Semir Zeki

http://www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk/splendors_and_miseries_of_the_brain.php

Robert Luzar

Marks in the wall



http://www.grammee.org.uk/www.grammee.org.uk/statement.html

In the last decade I have continued to explore performance-based forms of mark making and bodily notions of the gesture.  My works and projects have been presented through a series of live art events and exhibitions in the UK and Europe, each occasion expressing my endeavour to seek drawing in its expanded form. 

    Since 2007 I have been a member of Bow Arts Trust (London) where, in addition to a studio, I have been granted a space by the Trust as a participant in its live/work scheme.  After completing the MA at Chelsea College of Art & Design in 2005 my recent artistic  activities have included: being short listed for the Open West art prize (2009), being invited to the UK traveling exhibition project Openended (2008), and a commission to create an innovative  durational performance-drawing at the Making Sense conference supported by Jean Luc Nancy (2009).  

Often, my approach for creating appears under a conceptual and graphic motif: gramme(e).  Historically this term is in part derived from the philosophical “trace” (or tracing), and a more scientifically neutral form of measurement.  To trace is akin to the act of giving evidence to modes of investigation and concentration.  Moreover, neither the marks nor the evidence of the body in any of these works present a presence to what can be called thought, or drawing upon a sense of thought; for a trace equally pertains to the possibility of erasing as much as affirming the work of what some would hope to be an artistic intervention.  

Themes such as Time and language appear directly in my forms of drawing, more to be exhausted than for their celebration. 

Julia Kristeva

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/kristeva.html

 

Summary of Major Themes

"Kristeva and Feminism"
by Kelly Oliver

[Copyright 1998 Kelly Oliver]

Although Kristeva does not refer to her own writing as feminist, many feminists turn to her work in order to expand and develop various discussions and debates in feminist theory and criticism. Three elements of Kristeva's thought have been particularly important for feminist theory in Anglo-American contexts:

1. Her attempt to bring the body back into discourses in the human sciences; 2. Her focus on the significance of the maternal and preoedipal in the constitution of subjectivity; and 3. Her notion of abjection as an explanation for oppression and discrimination.

The Body
Theories of the body are particularly important for feminists because historically (in the humanities) the body has been associated with the feminine, the female, or woman, and denigrated as weak, immoral, unclean, or decaying. Throughout her writing over the last three decades, Kristeva theorized the connection between mind and body, culture and nature, psyche and soma, matter and representation, by insisting both that bodily drives are discharged in representation, and that the logic of signification is already operating in the material body. In New Maladies of the Soul, Kristeva describes the drives as "as pivot between 'soma' and psyche', between biology and representation" (30; see also Time and Sense).
She is now famous for the distinction between what she calls the "semiotic" and the "symbolic," which she develops in her early work including Revolution in Poetic Language , "From One Identity to the Other" in Desire in Language, and Powers of Horror. Kristeva maintains that all signification is composed of these two elements. The semiotic element is the bodily drive as it is discharged in signification. The semiotic is associated with the rhythms, tones, and movement of signifying practices. As the discharge of drives, it is also associated with the maternal body, the first source of rhythms, tones, and movements for every human being since we all have resided in that body.
The symbolic element of signification is associated with the grammar and structure of signification. The symbolic element is what makes reference possible. For example, words have referential meaning because of the symbolic structure of language. On the other hand, we could say that words give life meaning (nonreferential meaning) because of their semiotic content. Without the symbolic, all signification would be babble or delirium. But, without the semiotic, all signification would be empty and have no importance for our lives. Ultimately, signification requires both the semiotic and symbolic; there is no signification without some combination of both.
Just as bodily drives are discharged into signification, the logic of signification is already operating within the materiality of the body. Kristeva suggests that the operations of identification and differentiation necessary for signification are prefigured in the body's incorporations and expulsions of food in particular (see Revolution in Poetic Language and Powers of Horror). These bodily "identifications" and "differentiations" are regulated by the maternal body before birth and the mother during infancy. Kristeva proposes that there is a maternal regulation or law which prefigures the paternal law which Freudian psychoanalysts have maintained is necessary for signification (see Powers of Horror and Tales of Love). The regulation or grammar and laws of language, then, are already operating on the level of matter.
The Maternal Body
Following Melanie Klein and in contrast to Freud and Lacan, Kristeva emphasizes the maternal function and its importance in the development of subjectivity and access to culture and language. While Freud and Lacan maintain that the child enters the social by virtue of the paternal function, specifically paternal threats of castration, Kristeva asks why, if our only motivation for entering the social is fear, more of us aren't psychotic? In Tales of Love, she questions the Freudian-Lacanian notion that paternal threats cause the child to leave the safe haven of the maternal body. Why leave this safe haven if all you have to look forward to is fear and threats? Kristeva is interested in the earliest development of subjectivity, prior to Freud's oedipal situation or Lacan mirror stage.
Kristeva argues that maternal regulation is the law before the Law, before Paternal Law (see Tales of Love). She calls for a new discourse of maternity that acknowledges the importance of the maternal function in the development of subjectivity and in culture. In "Stabat Mater" in Tales of Love and "Motherhood According to Bellini" in Desire in Language, Kristeva argues that we don't have adequate discourses of maternity. Religion, specifically Catholicism (which makes the mother sacred), and science (which reduces the mother to nature) are the only discourses of maternity available to Western culture.
In "Motherhood According to Bellini" and elsewhere, she suggests that the maternal function cannot be reduced to mother, feminine, or woman. By identifying the mother's relation to the infant as a function, Kristeva separates the function of meeting the child's needs from both love and desire. As a woman and as a mother, a woman both loves and desires and as such she is primarily a social and speaking being. As a woman and a mother, she is always sexed. But, insofar as she fulfills the maternal function, she is not sexed. Kristeva's analysis suggests that to some extent anyone can fulfill the maternal function, men or women.
By insisting that the maternal body operates between nature and culture, Kristeva tries to counter-act stereotypes that reduce maternity to nature. Even if the mother is not the subject or agent of her pregnancy and birth, she never ceases to be primarily a speaking subject. In fact, Kristeva uses the maternal body with its two-in-one, or other within, as a model for all subjective relations. Like the maternal body, each one of us is what she calls a subject-in-process. As subjects-in-process we are always negotiating the other within, that is to say, the return of the repressed. Like the maternal body, we are never completely the subjects of our own experience. Some feminists have found Kristeva's notion of a subject-in-process a useful alternative to traditional notions of an autonomous unified (masculine) subject.
Abjection and Sexism
In Powers of Horror, working with Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger (Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger, New York: Routledge, 1969.), Kristeva develops a notion of abjection that has been very useful in diagnosing the dynamics of oppression. She describes abjection as an operation of the psyche through which subjective and group identity are constituted by excluding anything that threats one's own (or one's group's) borders. The main threat to the fledgling subject is his or her dependence upon the maternal body. Therefore, abjection is fundamentally related to the maternal function. As Kristeva claims in Black Sun, matricide is our vital necessity because in order to become subjects (within a patriarchal culture) we must abject the maternal body. But, because women cannot abject the maternal body with which they also identify as women, they develop what Kristeva calls a depressive sexuality (see Black Sun). Kristeva's analysis in Black Sun suggests that we need not only a new discourse of maternity but also a discourse of the relation between mothers and daughters, a discourse that does not prohibit the lesbian love between women through which female subjectivity is born.
In Tales of Love, Kristeva suggests that misplaced abjection is one cause of women's oppression (see p. 374). In patriarchal cultures, women have been reduced to the maternal function; that is to say, they have been reduced to reproduction. So, if it is necessary to abject the maternal function to become a subject, and women, maternity, and femininity all have been reduced to the maternal function, then within patriarchy, women, maternity, and femininity are all abjected along with the maternal function. This misplaced abjection is one way to account for women's oppression and degradation within patriarchal cultures.
Feminism
Although many feminist theorists and literary critics have found Kristeva's ideas useful and provocative, Kristeva's relation to feminism has been ambivalent. Her views of feminism are best represented in her essay "Women's Time" in New Maladies of the Soul. In this essay originally published in 1979, Kristeva argues that there are three phases of feminism. She rejects the first phase because it seeks universal equality and overlooks sexual differences. She implicitly criticizes Simone de Beauvoir and the rejection of motherhood; rather than reject motherhood Kristeva insists that we need a new discourse of maternity. In fact, in "A New Type of Intellectual: The Dissident," Kristeva suggests that "real female innovation (in whatever field) will only come about when maternity, female creation and the link between them are better understood" (298).
Kristeva also rejects what she sees as the second phase of feminism because it seeks a uniquely feminine language, which she thinks is impossible. Kristeva does not agree with feminists who maintain that language and culture are essentially patriarchal and must somehow be abandoned. On the contrary, Kristeva insists that culture and language are the domain of speaking beings and women are primarily speaking beings. Kristeva endorses what she identifies as the third phase of feminism which seeks to reconceive of identity and difference and their relationship. This current phase of feminism refuses to choose identity over difference or visa versa; rather, it explores multiple identities, including multiple sexual identities. In an interview with Rosalind Coward, Kristeva proposes that there are as many sexualities as their are individuals.
Notes
1. For a more detailed account of Kristeva's ambigious relation to feminism, see my "Julia Kristeva's Feminist Revolutions" Hypatia a journal of feminist philosophy, 8:3, summer 1993, p. 94-114.
2. She introduces her notion of subject-in-process/on trial in her early texts including Revolution in Poetic Language, "Le Sujet en Proces" in Polylogue and Desire in Language, and develops this notion in her later writings.
3. Her recent analysis in New Maladies of the Soul also carries this suggestion.

Norman Mclaren

Norman Mclaren is an artist I have looked at from the start of my MA course.  His drawing on film technique is what originally inspired me to experiment using this form of animation.

His work is similar to my skin film (and the brain animation on film from self negotiated 1) in that it shares the direct animation technique of drawing on film and our work is both very expressive as a result.  Mclarens work is usually responsive to music where mine is responsive to the body and self, although his films do attempt to form correlations between stimulating the eardrum and stimulating the retina - thus forming a relationship between the film and body.


This can be clearly seen in this short film titled Dots:

Kayla Parker

Kayla is an artist filmmaker who explores subjectivity and sense of place in her practice using photography, sound, film, performance, found objects, drawing, writing, and digital technologies. She is interested in the intersection between the natural world and urban environments, in particular liminal spaces such as the industrial outskirts of the city; and she also produces collaborative work with Stuart Moore.

Her films have received numerous network screenings on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4; her work is shown worldwide at film festivals and in touring programmes, with television broadcasts in Australia, Canada, France, Austria, and Germany; and she has shown in group exhibitions at the Barbican London, the Norwich Gallery, the Newlyn Gallery, Tate, and Arnolfini. Kayla is a lecturer in media arts at the University of Plymouth and a member of the Land/Water and the Visual Arts research group; her doctoral research area is gender and creative practice in animation.

She has made two films for Animate: Cage of Flame (1992) and Sunset Strip (1996). Recent commissions include Small World (2007), an investigation into HD aesthetics for the Definitive Stories screening programme at the National Review of Live Art, Tramway Glasgow.

Source

http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/nuclear_family.html

http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/unknown_woman.html

http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/cage_of_flame.html

http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/night_sounding.html

http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/sunset_strip_film.html


http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/walking_out.html


http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/short_walk.html


http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/verge_film.html


http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/poppies_film.html


http://www.norwichgallery.co.uk/gallery/archive/ex2001/pages/animate.html

 

Phillip Warnell

Below entry from Phillip Warnell official website:

Phillip Warnell is an artist and filmmaker based in London and Brussels.

Over almost two decades he has used the body as a site of exploration producing a series of works positioned between film, performance, the visual, and the sonic.

Through various specialised media - filmed encounters, live performance, video, participatory works, photography, text, ultra-sound, ingested cameras, high-speed film - a considerable part of his work has concerned itself with the exploration of, and curiosity with, the body's interior, or more precisely, its 'insideness'. Though central to his practice, the work is not simply about the body: it exists as a foil, a point of orientation, becoming host to investigative procedures which record and transmit hidden chemical and biological transformations, often to a live audience. The body becomes a place as much as a person, an object and subject position, bringing to the fore questions of viewpoint, subjectivity and representation.

To this end, Warnell has collaborated widely with a range of contributors: both individuals and organisations, shaping works intuitively, traversing disciplines and exploring the circumstances of co-production. In 'Performing the Interior', a paper presented at the Endo-Ecto conference in February (ICA, London, 2006) Ric Allsopp contextualised Warnell's works within the histories and traditions of performance. He writes: 'Performance is a lens through which both subject(s) and object(s) are joined. What were considered visionary and imaginary entries into the individual body, associated with the traditions of shamanic, magical and theatrical performance, are now routinely materialised through remote imaging technologies which can render the hidden interior spaces of the live, active body, visible and transparent. When placed back in the context of performance such techniques can reveal 'imaginal apertures' which in turn disclose other possibilities, other boundaries for our conception of the body (and the body politic) as a transforming and generative site of representation'.

At the root of Warnell's work, Allsopp suggests, is the desire to give an insight into the complex relations that constitute our bodies - the 'tension between the desire to get at and 'see the soul', or at least the inner workings, and the elusiveness of this endeavour'.... 'The work sits across the boundaries of bodies as anatomical, physiological objects of research; as a feeling, sensate, mobilising locus, and as a topos or location of the artwork'. 

Source

Oesophagus

Sounds produced, combining voice and gargle.

Oesophagus

Borborygmus

Sounds of internal organs transferred onto vinyl, produced from various methods including ultrasound.

Borborygmus

Endo Ecto

Live capsule endoscopy medical procedure as a performance.

Endo Ecto

Host

The resulting footage from 'Endo Ecto'.

The sequences of film were then sectioned, and each element framed by the lips and set within the disruptive space of a continually opening and closing mouth. The splitting of the material and its real-time playback means that the entire recorded journey can be seen in just 18 minutes'. 

Host

Lisa Le Feuvre comments, 'In 'Host', the reality of the body is not what comes across; rather the body appears as a fiction'. The five-screen film presents 'the interior view of the body stitched on to the mouth, the mouth being the boundary point between the inside and the outside. In the recording there is no narrative, no action. It is impossible to relate to such a view of ourselves: it is a reductive process'. (Lisa Le Feuvre, Suture, London 2005).


Meet Your Inside
Endoscopic Visualizations in Contemporary Culture by Jan Eric Olsen