Serious Play
As a class we are now researching further photographic games and how many different types there are to create. We have practiced over 5 different types of 'serious play' including our own games which we made over a 4 week period. All of this is related to the Surrealist Movement which is the main focus for our A2 course. We have focused on the idea of Anonymity and Appropriation when playing these games as we feel they play a big role in creating and playing games. Surrealist photography officially began with the publication of Andre Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism (1924). Double exposure, solarisation, distortion, shadows, reflections, and extreme close-up all became common approaches. Such photographs, and 'found' photography, are widely used in surrealist publications.
Instructions Lucky Dip GameEach member of the class wrote a vague instruction on a piece of paper and placed it into a 'lucky dip' for another member of the class to take out. The other member of the class was to follow the instruction and document using a camera.
Anonymity GameWe had to do both a writing and drawing exercise in which we did not think about what we were doing. The writing activity enabled us to write whatever words or phrases popped into our head as a stream of conscious thoughts. With the drawing exercise, we started with a scribble on a page and let the pen just move and once we saw a connection between the scribble and an object, we then attempted to quickly without thinking scribble the object.
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Exquisite Corpse collaborative drawingsThe Exquisite corpse game involved each person drawing only a section of a human(ish) feature, and then folding the paper for another person to draw another section. The idea of the game is that no one can see what the other person has drawn so you are left with some interesting and unique final products.
Random Word GameWe generated 5 random words from the internet or from pages of different books, which we then had to create 3 sentences with. Much like all the other games, the result was obscure and original due to the many possibilities of words and sentences that could have been created.
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Based on the Exquisite Corpse game, we then used our own photographs to follow the same technique to create a collage-like picture which is seen below. The Surrealists were interested in this idea of 'serious play' which embraced chance, yet had the sophistication of rules to form artwork. "The Exquisite Corpse" was one of the most well known surrealist games.
Evaluating Using the Formal Elements
The focus of the picture is predominantly of the woman's back and head although she is turned away, because she is in the foreground of the image our eyes are naturally drawn to her. The possible reason for her facing backwards could be to either conceal her identity or show a sense of demoralising the female. This could also be suggested through the chains and flail-like weapon draped across her neck and back. The picture in the background is also a large focus point, as the woman is turned that way we are inclined to want to see what she is perceiving. The picture on the back wall has more detail in than the woman herself and this is exaggerated through the photographer's use of light in the photo. The left side of the image appears to be lighter than the right, allowing the picture in the background to be clear and more in focus than the woman's hand resting on it. Again this can suggest how materialistic items are valued more than the female figure in the 1920's society. The lines within the photograph are fairly rigid, being quite straight but slanted; there is the rectangular shape of the poster, and the slanted shoulders of the woman. There are not many flowing or curved lines within the composition, even the head of the woman can be seen to resemble a hexagon shape. There is not a lot of empty space, but where there is, the plain tones help to bring forward the central focus. The empty space is most probably a wall that the woman leans on, also suggesting a woman's dependence on either materialistic items or the incapability to strive by herself. The Surrealists were keen to explore the unexplored and create new rules, therefore this photograph could be perceived as a rebellion against other typical photos taken from this time. There is a contrast in the texture of the photo, the smoothness of the woman's naked body compared to that on the hard and rigid chains hung around her neck. Perhaps physically explaining the frailness or fragility of a woman and the strength of a man?
Curate an Exhibition
We were asked to choose a minimum of 2 photographs out of a selection to put into our own exhibition, providing that they each had something similar and a difference. I chose the photographers Sally Mann and Lewis Baltz and focused on their structure and lay out in their images. I looked at the first two photos by Sally Mann and noticed how there was a similarity in the pose of both her daughter and son, both lying horizontally across the photo, central focus. I then saw the Lewis Baltz image and noticed how it fit with Sally Mann's image of her daughter and the dead deer. Both of the images have a strong vertical sense and can be broken into 3 sections in each photo. The vertical photos contrast to the subject lying horizontally and create a more rigid and geometrical effect.
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The focus of the photo is the white bundle of cloth in the centre. This is fairly unusual as the young boy would often be thought to be the main focus, however the stark contrast between the dark black background brings the white of the fabric out and therefore attracts the viewer's eye. Upon first viewing this photo I initially did not see the boy as he almost blends into the tones of the sheets on which he is lying. There are three main tones within the photo, the very harsh white, the softer grey and the black of the background; each tone giving a sense to the foreground, middleground and the background. The high contrast and low exposure emphasises where the light falls and draws your attention to these spots. There are both vertical and horizontal lines in the photo, however the vertical lines dominate. These would be the hanging white cloth and the brickwork on the walls, however the slanted diagonal lines of the bed create a softer distinction between the two. The young boy adds a difference lying horizontally which is why our eye is drawn to him. The background contains a lot of space and the high contrast makes it ambiguous to tell what is in the background. This dark space emphasises and brings forward the young boy, giving the effect he is almost holy-like or implies connotations to religion. Although there is not much repetition in the image, the folds and creases on the fabric of the bed and the hanging cloth compliment each other and pose a contrast to the rigid brickwork on the walls. The shapes are either rectangular or cylinder, each showing either a masculine or more feminine element. The young boy's position gives an effect of blending in with the sheets and represents a feminine posture, almost mimicking the stretch of the white cloth hanging above him. The texture of the photograph is both smooth and rough, again having stark contrasts to emphasise the dark tones of the walls and the brightness of both the boy and the sheets and fabric. The walls in the background have a hard and edged texture, whereas the fabrics imply a soft and silken texture.
Series 1: Similar Elements
All these photos have a similar element to them. I tried to capture a consistent line running through each of the images. It would be more visible to see if I were able to display the images on a large scale and in a line next to each other. There is also the idea of the same colour theme of red throughout the series, this is much more obvious and is only the case due to the location of where I shot the images. I wanted to try and obscure the objects within the images much in the same way as the surrealists, they wanted to change the mundane and everyday into something new and twist reality.
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Just in the same way there was an anomalous looking photo in my previous curated exhibition, I also decided to include a contrasting photo that still had a single similarity within it. This is the grey toned image with a single line running through the centre. It contrasts in the obvious way of being a grey tone rather than a red colour like the other pictures. Also the line running through the image is more prominent as it is horizontal and much straighter compared to the other more ambiguous and enigmatic photos.
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Francis Picbia & Alfred Stieglitz
In class we looked at two photos, taken by Francis Picbia and Alfred Stieglitz. We thought about the extent of how chance was used in each photo. The annotations show the thought processes when evaluating the photographs.
Alfred Stieglitz- Equivalents
"Stieglitz photographed clouds from 1922 into the thirties. A symbolist aesthetic underlies these images, which became increasingly abstract equivalents of his own experiences, thoughts, and emotions. The theory of equivalence had been the subject of much discussion at Gallery 291 during the teens, and it was infused by Kandinsky's ideas, especially the belief that colours, shapes, and lines reflect the inner, often emotive "vibrations of the soul." In his cloud photographs, which he termed Equivalents, Stieglitz emphasised pure abstraction, adhering to the modern ideas of equivalence, holding that abstract forms, lines, and colors could represent corresponding inner states, emotions and ideas."
What began as a typology-like series, turned into a decade long emotional discovery, which I believe enabled Stieglitz to uncover the dream like state and sur-reality that drove the surrealists. |
Series 2: Chance Photographs
Chance is an important theme in art and photography. The first systematic investigations of chance were begun by the Dadaists and Surrealists in the 1920s. Marcel Duchamp and Jean Arp created works of art according to the laws of chance. The Surrealists, taking their inspiration from Dada, embraced chance as a new idea. The word the Surrealists used to describe the use of chance was 'automatism'. André Breton used this word in his definition of Surrealism in the 1924 manifesto:
"SURREALISM, noun, masc., Pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing, the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations."
"SURREALISM, noun, masc., Pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing, the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations."
Based on the work of Francis Picbia and Alfred Stieglitz, I then decided to explore chance photography myself. I walked outside and round the surrounding area and aimlessly took photos of things that interested me and sometimes I would not even look through the viewfinder. I found this quite exhilarating as there was no pressure to come up with a 'perfect' photo or one that had to be coordinated and thought through. However I did feel uncertain and it felt almost wrong to not be producing a photo which required skill and observation.
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Series 3: Equivalents
Taking inspiration from Alfred Stieglitz's "Equivalents", I then produced my own series, being guided by my own emotions. Just like Stieglitz, the photo came before the emotion, therefore whatever the subject is in the image, is a metaphor for the preceding emotion. The viewer may experience a completely different emotion than to what I felt, but as said by Minor White, "(the object) when photographed, would yield an image with specific suggestive powers that can direct the viewer into a specific and known feeling, state or place within himself".
Experimenting with Photomontage
Taking influence from Dadaist such as Hannah Hoch, Raoul Hausmann and John Heartfield, I created a photomontage from images by Sally Mann and Lewis Baltz. Using a scalpel I cut out shapes or sections of the images, I incorporated an element of chance and intention into each piece by either cutting with looking for without looking. When I was cutting the image whilst looking, I felt like I had an obvious sense of control and much preferred the idea of manipulating the image and knowing what was going on. Artists such as Alfred Stieglitz and John Baldessari also preferred an element of control, by knowing what they were going to do but not necessarily the final outcome. An example of this would be John Baldessari's book "Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a straight line". He plays with ideas of repetition and failure which links to the photomontage in the way that I experimented with different shapes and repetition but like Baldessari, did not know how the end product would turn out. When I cut the images without looking, I was a lot more weary of the shapes I was cutting and imagining how they might look once the photo was turned over. I did not dislike the alternative method, but it made me think in a different way. I had to imagine the final outcome, but by only knowing how it would be through the shapes I was cutting. Artists who preferred to work this way and have an element of chance in their work include Olivier Valsecchi and John Sargent Barnard. Their work has been created in the style of the Rorschach Test, in which an inkblot is put onto a piece of paper and then folded to create a completely new artwork once unfolded. This type of work is much more based around chance, as the outcome is unknown and you cannot see the final result until after it has been created.
Continuing with the influence of photomontage, I decided to use my own personal items and photographs to create a photomontage of elements of my life throughout the years. Some of the items are both public and personal, some of the meanings of each of the items are concealed and left to the viewer's imagination. These are the basic images without any editing. I took them in black & white because I feel black & white gives a softer and more intimate look than a coloured photograph.
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I then used double exposure to combine certain elements of my life, and also create a blur where my memory cannot remember much of the time between those years. I also added filters using the app 'Pixlr Express' to create a contrast and disorientate the photo even more. This did work well aesthetically, however to really use elements of the surrealists it needs more of an element of chance.
I then decided to layer the photomontage even more in photoshop. I used a selection of the photos that I had taken and used the colour range to paste the images on top of each other, giving the effect of double exposure. I feel that the more layered images look better as there is more to look at and disguises the photos more so than if there were only a few layers. Surrealism is incorporated into my work in the sense that a photomontage are collisions of unseeming related things in a photograph. However to include an element of chance I am going to refine these photomontages further.
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To incorporate chance, improvisation and spontaneity into my work, continuing with my photomontage, I have decided to be inspired by Stephane Mallarme's collection of poems, "Un Coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard" which translates to 'A throw of the dice will never abolish chance'. I may possibly focus on his literary creations, however an idea would be to also take the title of his poem literally and I could use a dice to determine and contribute to an element of chance.
Stephane was working around the same time as Jean Arp, a German painter, poet, sculpture and abstract artist in surrealism. Both Mallarme and Arp embraced the random, Mallarme using free verse and Arp aimed to balanced reason and chance by creating art that incorporated chance into his working methods. For example, he tore up pieces of painted paper and dropped them randomly onto another surface, gluing them into position wherever they fell.
This is an idea of involving chance into my work, however after exploring how literature and poetry influenced surrealism (documented further down the page) I may return to this idea.
Stephane was working around the same time as Jean Arp, a German painter, poet, sculpture and abstract artist in surrealism. Both Mallarme and Arp embraced the random, Mallarme using free verse and Arp aimed to balanced reason and chance by creating art that incorporated chance into his working methods. For example, he tore up pieces of painted paper and dropped them randomly onto another surface, gluing them into position wherever they fell.
This is an idea of involving chance into my work, however after exploring how literature and poetry influenced surrealism (documented further down the page) I may return to this idea.
Hannah Hoch
Hannah Hoch was born in 1889 and was a German Dada artist, most renown for her collection of photomontage. She was the main female figure in the Berlin Dada group if not the only. She had an affair with Berlin Dada artist Raoul Hausmann which fueled Hoch to write her short story titled "The Painter" which challenged the roles of men and women in society. Their seven year relationship ended and was spurred on by their difference of opinions on art. Hoch's main motivation and idea behind her work was her criticisms of the German government. She used text from the mass media to create her photomontages, and supposedly preferred metaphoric imagery to that of the direct text-based confrontation. Despite her rejection of the German government, most of Hoch's work is based around gender issues and reflects a feminist point of view of society in the 1920's onwards.
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Man Ray
Man Ray was born in 1890 and was an American painter, filmmaker and photographer. He is mostly known for his contributions to the Dada and Surrealist movements. He met fellow artist Marcel Duchamp in 1915 and collaborated with him in initiating a proto-Dada movement in New York that same year. Man Ray had been influenced by many artists including Pablo Picasso, Alfred Stieglitz, Wassily Kandinsky and Marcel Duchamp. Man Ray's work evolved over time and in 1913 he began experimenting with a cubist style of painting which then moved towards abstraction. Along with Duchamp and Francis Picabia, Ray became a leading figure in the Dada movement in New York.
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George Hugnet
George Hugnet was born in 1906 in Paris. He was an artist, poet, and specialised in photographic, drawing, and collage works. He was a memeber of the surrealist movement, officially joining in 1932. During his lifetime he became acquainted with artists such as Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, and Jean Cocteau. He had a strong friendship with the artist Marcel Jouhandeau, who was also his neighbour. Jouhandeau influenced Hugnet and also introduced him to his hero poet Max Jacob. Hugnet was one of the few surrealists to experiment with photomontage alongside Dora Maar.
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Albert Valentin
Albert Valentin is a Belgian writer and director born August 5, 1902, he died in France April 13, 1968. Some of his writing works include "L'eroe di Babilonia", "The Woman Who Dared", "The Magnificent Tramp", "L'étrange Monsieur Victor" and "Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d'une femme" which was also his last, produced on the year of his death. In 1925 he began publishing texts on films in French and Belgian movie journals and collections of texts (Cinematographic Art) . From 1929, he published texts and photomontages in the Surrealist movement. He had worked on projects with André Breton although none remain. In December 1931 he was expelled from the Surrealist movement , having worked on "À Nous la Liberté René Clair", a film "against revolutionary". In 1943 , Valentin is involved in what he believed is his best film, "The Life of pleasure" or "La vie de plaisir" it was was released in 1944.
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Each of these artists were in some way associated with the surrealists and each played a part in surrealist photomontage which I have experimented with earlier on. Each artist depicts different ideas within their work, Hannah Hoch presenting a more feminist and political view in comparison to both Man Ray and George Hugnet.
Dream Diary
As a class we were asked to document our dreams and create a dream diary for the course of a week. I found that luckily I am a person that has quite vivid dreams so I was able to recall a lot of information in detail. I made a booklet, so as when presented it looked like a continuous flow of dreams that merge together, which reflects how my dreams feel to me when I am dreaming. I chose to present the cover in a surrealistic way, as to me dreams and dreaming share connotations of hypnosis, the subconscious and even the psychedelic. The dreams are set out in chronological order, because as soon as I woke up I would write the dream down in order to include as much detail as possible. I also feel it looks much like Sonia Delaunay's "La Prose du Transsibérien", although she was not a particular inspiration for this piece there are similarities. However I later focus on this work further down the page.
Some dreams are much longer or shorter than others, this is because I either did not remember much from the dream and wanted to include the feature I felt was most important or if I felt a dream was particularly ordinary or coherent, I wanted to obscure some of the detail for the reader to make it seem even more obscure and abstract. This adds to the sense of the psychedelic and enables the reader to experience a close representation of what the dream felt like to me.
Some dreams are much longer or shorter than others, this is because I either did not remember much from the dream and wanted to include the feature I felt was most important or if I felt a dream was particularly ordinary or coherent, I wanted to obscure some of the detail for the reader to make it seem even more obscure and abstract. This adds to the sense of the psychedelic and enables the reader to experience a close representation of what the dream felt like to me.
Following on from the dream diary, I decided to incorporate my earlier research on photomontage and create a physical photomontage of one of my dreams. I found this challenging as my dream was so obscure that trying to piece together a scene that was already blurred was much harder than the previous photomontages I had created.
I began by choosing a combination of both my own images and images taken from the internet (such as the gold coin and cup) as well as images from art magazines and books. I tried to make the more vivid elements of my dream larger than the slightly hazier ones. As you can tell the gold coin and the shades of blue were very prominent to me and so I have tried to reflect that in the position of the images in the composition. I feel that although everything is quite symmetrical and ordered, I cut up certain pictures and separated them to give a sense of confusion and disjointedness. I did not intend to make a piece that was aesthetically pleasing, as I felt the idea of conveying my subconscious thoughts was more important than how the piece looked. To me, if it reflected what was in my head at the time then that made a successful piece of work.
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The Rorschach Test
The Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects’ perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analysed. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person’s personality characteristics and emotional functioning. Much like Alfred Stieglitz' work, it includes a deep conscious response but not one that can easily be found. I personally feel like it requires us to physically unlock our unconscious thoughts and transform them into our more common ideas. John Sargent Barnard's work on clouds appears to correspond with his state of mind and expresses his inner expressions.
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Using the Rorschach test for inspiration, I created my own ink blots. I found the best results were when I spread the ink all over the page and not just in the centre. I can't see any particular images or representations in the first two tries, however in the third I see an elongated skull in the centre.
I then put my ink blots into Photoshop and edited one of my previously taken photos from the course into the ink space.
I feel this adds a new dynamic to the piece, however takes away the silhouette which I feel is more likely to have different interpretations of what it represents from person to person. Therefore, the images underneath the ink blots restrict you from imagining it as a certain object or thing. |
The Beginning of Surrealism- Literature & Poetry
Surrealism was inspired and began with the influence of poetry. Poetry is essentially fusing words and ideas together which in the typical novel or text would not make sense. One of the surrealists major influences was Comte de Lautreamont, a french poet. Comte de Lautreamont was his fictitious name he gave himself when he self published his thirty-two page booklet titled "Les Chants de Maldoror". This booklet contained subjects on pain, cruelty and taboos of society and combines violent lexis with surrealistic imagery. It appears that Isidore-Lucien Ducasse (his real name) used his fictitious name when publishing precarious and controversial works and intended to publish "Chants of the Good" under his real name- almost as a doppelgänger or second identity. The "Chants of the Good" was a celebration of the good and struggle against evil, which was a reversal of this other works under 'Lautreamont'. Much in the same way as Lautreamont, the surrealists also focused on taboos and throwing light on subjects which were previously seemed to be personal and reserved.
"I replace melancholy by courage, doubt by certainty, dispair by hope, malice by good, complaints by duty, sceptism by faith, sophisms by cool equanimity and pride by modesty." -Comte de Lautreamont
Another literate influence on the beginning of surrealism is french poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé. One of his most famous and praised works is "Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard" which translates to 'A throw of the dice will never abolish chance'. The text in itself is ambiguous and poetic, not only in its syntax but visual appearance as well.
Looking at how poetry merges into surrealism and photography, I have researched responses to Stéphane Mallarmé's "Un Coup de Dés Jamais N'Abolira Le Hasard" and found a phonograph response to the appearance of the poem. This incorporates music and equivalents of one art form to another. Using this video as inspiration I will create an equivalent of my own poem made by chance, using photographs to represent the lexis and emotions the poem evokes. Chance will be used in the sense that the psychological subconscious of our connections between two art forms is not our decision but an involuntary personal response, much like the mental condition of synaesthesia- both involuntary responses to pictures, sounds or colours. Wassily Kandinsky had this condition, and heard sounds when he painted and for each different colour.
An artist who has experimented with this idea before is Sonia Delaunay-Terk. She used one of poets Blaise Cendrars poems to create a piece titled "La Prose du Transsibérien". She was influenced by Cendrars poem and created an artwork which runs alongside the poem, reflecting the images it evokes. When I create my own poem, I will use William Burroughs cut-up technique to select certain words from an already existing art work to form the poem.
I created this poem from Fiona Banner's Nude Standing, 2006 . I chose words at random by closing my eyes and then writing them in a list on a separate piece of paper. Once I had chosen all the words I put them together and formed ambiguous phrases inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé's "Un Coup de Dés Jamais N'Abolira Le Hasard" and Guillaume Apolliniare's "La Colombe Poignardee et le jet d'eau". The physical appearance is also scattered, I decided which words to space out at random and did not plan any aspect of the piece. This contrasts to Apolloniare's piece as mine is less organised, however both incorporate an unusual style of physical documentation.
Using influence from both Sonia Delaunay and Alfred Steiglitz, I will then create a series of photographs which I feel are emotionally equivalent to the poem I have created. These will be displayed alongside the poem and I will use a photomontage-style element in the style of Sonia Delaunay's "La Prose du Transsibérien". |
Contextual Books
To further my knowledge in photography and the Surrealists, I have used "100 Ideas That Changed Photography" by Mary Warner Marian and "Chance" edited by Margaret Iverson. I found "Chance" the most insightful as it taught me about the many ways each artist uses chance in their work. An example being the contrast between Gilles Deleuze "The Dice Throw" and Mark Boyle 's "Any Play or No Play", where Deleuze takes a more philosophical approach stating how chance is essentially two elements which involve 1) our action of chance and 2) our reaction to the action.
"The dice which are thrown once are the affirmation of chance, the combination which they form on falling is the affirmation of necessity. Necessity is affirmed of chance in exactly the sense that being affirmed of becoming and unity is affirmed of multiplicity... To know how to affirm chance is to know how to play." -Chance |
In contrast, Mark Boyle takes the approach of whatever happens, happens. For his work "Any Play or No Play" he gathered members of the audience on stage and gave them props and costumes to which they all milled about in aimlessly not knowing what was expected of them. Boyle gave them no rules or directions and this went on for 20 minuets. Most people described it as an anticlimax and no one was enthusiastic about the performance except Boyle himself who believed "if one provoked chance the result is what it is". He accepted the outcome and believed "no manifestation of life, whether provoked or not, is intrinsically boring. Boredom exists in the mind of the recipient".
Although both definitions of chance are plausible, there are differences which no matter how you see them are also correct. Chance could simply be the acceptance of an outcome based on an action you did, or it could be the outcome itself, unchanged and totally unpredictable.
Although both definitions of chance are plausible, there are differences which no matter how you see them are also correct. Chance could simply be the acceptance of an outcome based on an action you did, or it could be the outcome itself, unchanged and totally unpredictable.
Mock Final Piece
I have decided to instead type my poem out rather than write it, as I feel this follows in the style of Stéphane Mallarmé and will enable me to change text font, size in a more accurate way than I could do by writing. I have then taken photographs which I feel correspond to my emotions when reading the poem. I have laid them out in an order that matches with the chronological order of the poem, but still ambiguous enough that the viewer does not know which picture coordinates with which part of the poem. I then raised the poem on a foam board to give the poem more dimension and emphasis compared to the photos which are a secondary aspect of the final piece.
Refining the Final Piece
After producing the final piece, I am looking at ways that I could improve the piece and refine it to make it better. I have decided that the photos I took did not involve that much of a chance element, therefore the next time I will include chance into the production of the photos as well. Instead of taking photos that illustrate the poem, I will create a series of chance photographs that somehow link to the poem but in a way which is disguised or more ambiguous to the viewer.
The process I will follow to get the images will be to take the first letter of each phrase or sentence from the poem, and then whichever letter of the alphabet it is, go to that page of a book and take a photo of the page and then create a photograph of what the page indicates or suggests. This way, the photos still represent the poem but in a less direct way. Although a more complicated process, I feel this enables me to further explore the use of chance and makes the piece even more interesting.
I have used a range of different books, chosen at random to photograph and use for the process, ranging from John Baldessari's 'Pure Beauty' to a book of Shakespearean sonnets, 'The Photo Book' by Phaidon and 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte. The first stages of the process are shown below. After choosing phrases from each of the photographs, I then selected at random which ones to take photos of. This way even I do not now know which image I take will represent which part of the poem it originally stemmed from.
The process I will follow to get the images will be to take the first letter of each phrase or sentence from the poem, and then whichever letter of the alphabet it is, go to that page of a book and take a photo of the page and then create a photograph of what the page indicates or suggests. This way, the photos still represent the poem but in a less direct way. Although a more complicated process, I feel this enables me to further explore the use of chance and makes the piece even more interesting.
I have used a range of different books, chosen at random to photograph and use for the process, ranging from John Baldessari's 'Pure Beauty' to a book of Shakespearean sonnets, 'The Photo Book' by Phaidon and 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte. The first stages of the process are shown below. After choosing phrases from each of the photographs, I then selected at random which ones to take photos of. This way even I do not now know which image I take will represent which part of the poem it originally stemmed from.
The phrases I have picked out to use are:
- An eye more bright than their's
- The lights flame
- Sweet self too cruel
- Despite of wrinkles; this thy golden time
- Misty and cold
- Some fierce thing
- Deep sunken eyes
- Marigold of the sun's eye
I will then create a series of photos that I feel are equivalents of these phrases. However, of course their purpose is to link back to the original poem, but because of the complicated process no one will know what each photo is supposed to represent from the poem. The images below are all of the unedited pictures i have taken which I will then edit to further represent the phrase it corresponds to above. I may or may not use all the photos depending on how well I feel they reflect the phrases.
Series: Equivalents
Equivalents: Further Refining
Taking a selection of the photos above, I then used the app Pixlr Express to double expose the images and add filters to enhance the phrase they were reflecting even more. I personally like the exaggerated and obvious editing, as it added an unrealistic element, almost further taking us away from what the original phrase was.
The refined final piece will be the same size as the other one, however I have decided to make some images bigger than others. This is to give more impact and reflects the photos I feel can relate to the poem most. Below are the different arrangements and the difference between how the piece would look without the larger photos. I made the poem a smaller size to accommodate the larger photos.