Daily Archives: July 14, 2015

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Analysis, Final presentation

Final Outcome 2

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In this short 60 second video, I got my friend to video me dribbling a tennis ball with a hand-held camera. This idea came very spontaneously to me and I had no particular objective or meaning behind it. The idea came about simply because I had my tennis ball with me and I dropped it, causing me to kick the ball before I picked it up again, which then gave me the idea to start dribbling it. I had no time-frame in which to complete the performance and it lasted as long as I felt was necessary.

Piecing it together

The free-flowing movement of the camera is important because it establishes a sense of rawness to the video, giving it a feel that is very natural, easy-going and unspoiled. The good quality of the actual film still means that aesthetically the film still pieces together well. My performance is also very simplistic throughout and I make no attempt to attempt any skill that is highly complicated, instead making what I am doing very easy to emulate, so that it is easy for most viewers to appreciate and understand.

Meaning

This video reflects the theme of chance because of the fact that it is a spontaneous event that occurred completely by accident. It was an experiment that I attempted without any idea of how well or successful it would turn out. I find this style of filming/photographing to be very interesting because the outcome is always uncertain, it could either go very well or very badly. This in itself adds to the excitement of the piece

The simplistic manner that the video was formed presents an element of challenge. By filming a successful performance without any of these sophisticated methods I am therefore questioning the need of traditionally accepted methods of creating film, such as editing, using a tripod and planning the shoot in advance. The style of the filming is therefore a subtle protest against these methods  

Influences

Dadism – I used the influence Dadaism by making my performance spontaneous, free-flowing and as un-structured as possible. By not restricting the direction of my performance it allows my work to be more creative and imaginative, using what I have and my current inspirations in order to construct the performance. The lack of direction links to Dadism because the disorder is a protest against structure and formality. Another aspect of Dadism that I will follow is  to be as subversive as possible. Dada movement artist were famous for their unusual and strange artwork and this eccentric style is a pattern that I will follow

Comedy – I will make my performance comical through the subversive manner that will go about my performance. I will deliberately run into the direction of the general pubic in order to test the way that they will react, hopefully creating a sense of confusion without causing any lasting panic or effect. Subtly within comedy is key for this type of performance, I want comedy to occur without it ruing or undermining the entertainment of the performance. I will take influence from French comedian Remy Gillard, who is famous for his satirical video whereby he tests the publics reaction to strange and unordinary events.

 

 

Analysis, Evaluation, Final presentation

Final Outcome 1

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jack

For this outcome I have created a triptych of a series of images involving my cousin Jack. The three images I have chosen are all very varied in their style, meaning and visual effect. The intention of this piece was to explore the three different aspects of what we have covered in this 6 week module being chance, challenge and change; the aspect of chance through the blurred out of focus image on the left, the theme of challenge through the center image through the subversive statement, and the theme of change on the right through the overemphasized change in mood. Visually I find that this tipritytch works well because the images help to convey a narrative. I am proud of this final outcome because it is evident of the different skills, techniques, concepts and ideas that i have studied in the last 6 weeks. It is a very subversive statement, thats mysterious nature forces the viewer to question its purpose and meaning.

Left Image

This image is blurred and out of focus. Originally I dismissed this image as weak and ineffective. However after some consideration I changed my mind and decided to include it as part of my final outcome. The image is completely accidental, and not a traditional photo in terms of view and composition. However such a style is effective to include in a story board of images because it establishes a balance between the other two images, normal (middle), emphasised (right), and in this one spontaneous. It also highlights the random nature a photography, and that you don’t have to compose an image perfectly to be meaningful and effective. From the basis of this image, I launched my idea of representing the piece as a symbol of ‘chance, change and challenge’

Middle Image

This image depicts the mid-section of Jack’s body. He is holding up a sign entitled ‘I am exercising my right to free speech’. This is meant as a subversive statement, that challenges the viewer to question if they themselves fully appreciate such an important right. This statement is effective because through the statement, Jack himself is quite literally using this right. I decided to include this in the triptych because of the use of symbolism involved. The statement is ambiguous because it does not directly convey any particular point, and different meanings can be interpreted from it. I included this photo in the centre of the triptych because it has a good balance between the calmness of the left image and the madness of the image on the right.

Right Image

For the final image of the triptych, I decided to include a completely over the top image of Jack making a dramatic facial expression. This image is directly linked to my work on surrealism because visually, it goes against what is considered normal and formal. There is a certain intensity about this image, which is not neccesarily serious, but definitely full of energy. Linking to the Dadist movement, I find something very farcical about this image. The compete lack of structure and form makes it very chaotic. This image is the most visually powerful of the three, and gives the overall outcome an explosion of life and attitude.

Final presentation

Presentation

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On Friday 10th we got into groups and spent the first three hours of the school day creating a powerpoint which we would then present to Tom Pope and the rest of the students as a form of feedback and our response to the topic theme Chance Change and Challenge. In the powerpoint we included our research, experiments, and final outcomes.

Performance photography is a form of photography that differs from and challenges standard photography. The aim of performance photography is to challenge the social norms of society, and people’s acceptance in the things we do. Performance photography is more the act of taking the photograph and focuses on how it is done instead of the final outcome. Performance photography is mainly inspired by the situationist movement which is a psychology theory that began in 1968, when a person-situation debate was triggered by the publication of a monograph by Walter Mischel. There is also the Dadaism movement which began during the WWI between 1914 and 1918. Dadaism is the conflict which declared the lives of over 8 million soldiers and around an equal number of civilians.

 For our final outcomes we used moving images to show how they can be incorporated into photography, and we tried to incorporate the project title Chance Change and Challenge by videoing activities that push boundaries by not doing what is seen as acceptable in society.
Research

Dadaism

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Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. Dadaism is about not following any rules, dada was intended to provoke an emotional reaction from the viewer. Dada artworks present an intriguing paradox in that they seek to make the work clearer in the populist sense but nevertheless remain cryptic enough to allow the viewer to interpret works in a variety of ways. Abstraction and Expressionism were the main influences on Dada, followed by Cubismand, to a lesser extent, Futurism. Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/literary journals; passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture were topics often discussed in a variety of media. Many Dadaists believed that the ‘reason’ and ‘logic’ of bourgeoisie capitalist society had led people into war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality.

download Gasmasks photomontage_dadaism photo-of-Berlin-Dada-Group-469x317Dada self-destructed when it was in danger of becoming “acceptable”. The type of images produced now-a-days are similar to the ones produced during WW1 but are more developed. I like the idea of dadaism photography as it very different and interesting to look at as you have to look twice to understand what is happening in the picture. It is hard to do but the end results are very impressive and show a lot of creativity.

download (1) download (2) images (1) images (2)

 

Uncategorized

SITUATIONISM

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Situationism is a theory in psychology that began in 1968 when a Person-situation debate was triggered by the publication of a monograph by Walter Mischel.

It refers to an approach to behavior which holds that general traits do not exist (perhaps apart from Intelligence). Behavior, then, is seen as being influenced by external, situational factors rather than internal traits or motivations.

Evaluation

Tom Pope evaluation day

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On Friday the 10th of July, we Met again with Tom Pope and the Team from the Jersey societe, We were asked to make a presentation showing our work from our ‘chance, change & Challenge’ project. This presentation had to include research, our idea’s, and our final out comes. Our group was a large group, therefor we split into two groups. In my group we had to meet the assessment criteria of;

  • uses a range of visual language skills
  • consistent command skills/technique
  • selection of final material is clear and consistent
  • skillful outcomes that show a consistent level of knowledge, skill and understanding
  • work that has a personal identity
  • final pieces are well constructed
  • Perceptive connections linking own work top sources

Flora, Meghan and I created a film which was running in the background which contained pictures from the trip to St Malo and the edited films. Whilst the slides were running behind us we were talking about our trip and about our idea’s. We decided to do this rather than a power point as we thought it took a  more creative approach- also giving the audience something interesting to look at.

After every presentation we had to fill out a feedback sheet which was returned to the group. In the majority of our feed back we got either ‘confident’ or ‘competent’, however our group didn’t present enough research to support our work therefor we got some ‘basic’s’ and ‘not present’s’

Here is a picture of our feed back sheets;feedback sheet

This is the slide of pictures and movies that we had playing in the background whilst we spoke.