Chance: A chance is the same as a possibility. It means that something can happen and there’s a probability. A chance can also be accidental, it’s very much based upon opportunity.
Change: Change is all about the difference. It could relate to the public’s changing reactions. For example, if someone has a sad expression and then becomes cheerful and happy.
Challenge: A challenge relates to taking part in something, it also is similar to a test. You must demonstrate your abilities and provoke an outcome.
Dynamo is an English magician and stunt performer known for his exceptionally surreal and visually outstanding illiusions. Dynamo was born in Bradford, England in 1982 as Steven Frayne. Dynamo started learning magic at the age of 10 from his Grandad, a former Navy Marine and amateur magician. Dynamo began his career performing street magic in the streets of Bradford and soon came to prominence through the Prince of Wales Young Talent Scheme. Since then Dynamo has exploded into worldwide fame with millions of YouTube views of his performances, and an extremely successful, award winning UK Television series ‘Dynamo: Magician Impossible’. He is perhaps most famous however for his stunt in 2012 when he appeared to be walking unaided across the river Thames.
The type of artistic movement that Dynamo follows is surrealism. Surrealism relates to creating artwork/performance that displays something which appears to be illogical and supernatural, making the viewer perceive the event outside of their own notion of reality. Dynamo’s performances take this concept to the extreme, making events which are totally impossible and inconceivable appear realistic and viewable to an audience. Dynamo magic tricks are guarded totally by secrecy. This is a deliberate effort that Dynamo makes to keep the viewer/audience guessing exactly how he is able to pull of his remarkable illusions, and this also protects the surrealism of his magic, as the audience is allowed to fully experience to wonder out the performer, without the tools or knowledge to translate what is happeninginto something less then beautiful and miraculous. The surrealism that Dynamo creates with his magic forces the viewer to question what is really possible, and challenges them to world outside of their own concious perception. His magic is also a protest against the negative, limitating nature of society. As Dynamo says himself, “the most rewarding thing about what I do is to see the look in a person’s eyes and believe, even for a second, the that anything is possible”
Dynamo has stated himself that the biggest motivation and reward that gets from his work is the reaction of surprise, wonder and astonishment from members of the public after they have witnessed a performance. It is through the response of an audience that makes his work more surreal, as the reaction is a reflection of the nature of the performance. This reaction is impossible to predict as no one quite knows how to respond to witnessing something outside of possibility, and it is very entertaining to see people struggle to conceive what they have seen. An example of this is when Dynamo accurately predicted all of the results of the Euro 2012 two weeks in advance. The reaction of BBC Radio 1 presenter Scott Mills as he opened the concealed envelope and reaveled the accuracy of Dynamo’s prediction was one of complete shock and to some extent, denial of what he had just witnessed.
Dynamo’s performance style is non-conspicuous which means that he does not like to attract any attention towards himself as an individual and likes the performacne to be the most important aspect of the event. This is why after every performance Dynamo walks away immediately. He is not interested in gaining any credit or personal fame behind his work and instead he remains a fairly modest individual who uses his performances as a means of expressing. Though not quite to the same extent, this is similar to the concept of the French Mime Artist because the performer is de-individualised to give the performance dominance over the actor.
Remy Gillard is a French comedian and prankster who is famous for his many daring, satirical YouTube videos, wherein he pranks and surprises unsuspecting members of the general public. His videos are extremely funny, clever and in many cases simply outrageous. Gillard started to make videos in 1999 as a way to pass the time when he got fired from a shoe shop. Since then Gillard rose to fame and prominence with over 5 million YouTube subscribers, the sixth most subscribed comedian in YouTube’s history. He has been known to complete some very daring and unlikely achievements, for example: emerging form the stands and partaking in the lineup for the French national anthem of a televised volleyball game; dressing up as Mario and driving round France in an electric go-kart; and dressing up as a giant bee, capturing a police officer in a giant net.
The type of performance that Gillard specialises in is subversion. His objective is to test social barriers and boundaries to a great extreme. Gillard is also very daring in his work. He is not afraid to take extreme risks or challenge social taboos in an upfront and direct manner. An example of risk is when he dressed up as a giant bomb and walked around an airport, as a way of challenging the taboo of terrorism. It is an extremely controversial and unusual act, testament to Gillard’s fearless desire to use his performances as a reflection of issues within society. Gillard’s performances are very risky and he has been arrested on many occasions. This is however something that I find remarkable about his work, the fact that nothing is too extreme for him and that he would be prepared to try anything for the sake of his comedy. It is easy to dismiss Gillard’s work as reckless, stupid and distasteful, however this is most certainly not the case. Behind the pranks and anarchy, there is a much deeper and more serious side to his work. His work is effectively a protest against conformity within society. He is asking his audiences to question what is socially acceptable, because as he argues in his term “C’est en faisant n’importe quoi qu’on devient n’importe qui”, which means “It is by doing anything that we become anyone”. Through this Gillard basically is saying that nothing is impssible and therefore nothing is ‘too far’ in terms of challenging society
The main intention behind Gaillard’s work is to act as recklessly and subversively as possible. Through the unconventional manner of his performances, Gaillard therefore stands out greatly and is able to draw larger responses from the audience or intended subject. For example, he has done a series of videos whereby he dresses up as a clown and often at a random moment with no apparent reason, Gaillard will prank an unsuspecting member of the public by throwing a foam pie in their face. The shocked individual then often runs frantically and angrily towards Gillard, and a sense of chaos arises, almost like as in a cartoon scene. In many cases, it is the public’s reaction like this for example that creates the element of comedy. Gaillard anticipates these reactions beforehand is attempting to provoke the biggest possible type of reaction. This is comical because Gaillard is establishing a juxtaposition of a serious reaction against a trivial matter.
I draw many comparison’s of Remy Gaillard work to that of Tom Pope. Both artists use similar philosophies and influences. An infleunce in particular that both of them use to a great degree is farce, which refers to ‘comedy based satirical elements, punctuated at times with overwrought, frantic action’. Which effectively refers to the fact that both artists use extreme forms of physical comedy and nature to enhance the effectiveness of whatever message they are attempting to convey.
This outcome depicts a game of ‘selfie battle’ taking place between Ben and Mr Toft. I find that this image is effective because it captures both individuals completely submerged in the game, putting all their focus and attention into it. Whilst the game is taking place there is a small gathering of people looking intently at the game. This image is evidence to support the appealing nature that performance plays beacause it has created a ‘spectacle’ (see blog post on Situationism) by which people surrender their focus, time and effort towards. A question which is interesting to considered is whether the audience is concerned with the material aspects of the game itself (i.e who wins and who loses) or instead are they concerned with the moments of fun and interaction in which it creates.
There is something which i find very appealing about this image. There is a sense of positivity that it evokes form two people enjoying a simple, unplanned moment. There is also a certain intensity to it. You definitely can see a battle going on, and tension is evoked through the look of excitement from the crowd.
In this photo, I have captured a few people observing one of Tom Pope’s performances. What I find very interesting about this image is that the individuals appear completely drawn into awe and fascination by the performance taking place. There is a definate feel of intensity in this photo in the sense that all subjects seem to be diverting all of their attention and energy into exactly the same place, and all seem to be drawn into absorbing the feel of a particualr moment. This photograph I think shows how powerful single moments have in creating an effect on people around. This therefore explains the potential that performance has to convey important messages through the large amount of focus and attention that it seems to evoke an audience.
There is also a sense of mystery to this photograph. They are looking intently at something which the view of the image has no knowledge of. This therefore forces the viewer to consider the what type of performance or event that is taking place. A moment is created because of a completely separate moment, a domino concept which i find to be very fascinating.
This photograph shows a few oranges lying on the ground after the orange throwing game. Some of the oranges were dropped on the floor and therefore have been bruised, split and cut. This is a subtle image that effectively shows the consequence of an action. Because the oranges were thrown around they therefore dropped on the floor in some instances. On a deeper level this symbolises the fact that an action will allows be followed by a response. This logic can subsequently be applied to performance photography. The performance will always result in a reaction form an audience, whether that is sub-consciously, subtly or dramatically – it does not matter. The act of the performance will occupy the viewers mind for a certain point and temporally control their action, viewpoints and perspective.
The avant-garde are people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm. This relates to the unit that we are studying, trying to creat videos or pictures that push boundaires. The avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from post modernism. This type of photography is what I am really interested as it focuses on manipulating a model by physically making them look unsatisfactory for society, and I love to be creative. These images have really inspired me to try and make someone look different so that I would get public reaction from walking down the high street.
Tom Pope was talking to us about the idea of surrealism in photography which basically means that when he takes a photograph the picture has a much deeper meaning than possibly portrayed which is hard to show through one photograph. Photoshop allows you to manipulate photographs to make the image more surreal and force the meaning to come through. Ultimately, photographers aren’t just taking a picture because it looks nice, mainly they are produced to show some sort of deep meaning that needs to be addressed. The questions you need to ask yourself when looking at pictures is why was it taken? What is the contextual reasoning behind this?
After the french trip, I used premiere pro to edit my videos to collaborate them together in a sequence to form a video. I did this by importing separate videos . This enabled me to fade in and out of the videos so that it looked smoother, my videos weren’t the best quality but I feel like the contextual side still made my final a good standard. Next time, I would like to improve by experimenting with the flowers more by tricking the public that i’m going to give them one and just holding it in front of them with the camera close to them to see how they deal with the situation. Also, I want to add the other video that has some people rejecting me so that I have positive and negative reactions in my video to show a contrast.
Also, I want to improve the video by possibly adding music to it to make it more interesting as the video as a whole isn’t at a high quality. However, I do like the idea of involving people in my videos and this was a very good way to interact with them, therefore, I am pleased with this video but improvements can always be made.
When we went to meet Tom Pope for the first time, we visited the Societe Jersiaise to watch and listen to a couple of presentations given by Tom and Gareth who also works at the archive. Tom presented his videos to us and explained the reasoning’s behind them and how he got where he is today which started from the RCA college in London. He wanted to inspire us as young amateur photographers to try and make us produce something that we weren’t use to. He took us outside and paired us up to shoot some videos to start to get a feel of what it is he does.
He gave us an orange between our pair and the idea was for one of us to throw the orange up in the air and let the other partner taking photographs as the orange is landing on the camera. This idea related to Tom Pope’s work when he threw apples at the camera were the trigger release was to try and make the apple take the picture instead of him, this was guess work but came out as interesting photographs, especially with the public reaction. He threw 60 apples and ended up with only 6 images, but I like how the guy in the background is just watching him, it completes the picture.
Orange throwing
This activity was very strange to me at first but as the time went on, it was actually really enjoyable and made me realize that I should have more fun with my photography. Tom Pope was very laid back and really did inspire me and as the day went on and he tried more activities with us I got more intrigued. We also went n groups and had to all think of an action to do and capture, for example I chose spin and we had to photography ourselves spinning, and capture a technically bad photograph but a contextually good photograph.
On this day we went to Societe Jersiaise were we were introduced to Gareth Syvret who took us through some images in the Jersey Archisle, through this we looked at how portraits of childhood had changed from the 1840’s to 2010’s that had been placed into the Archisle. I think that it was interesting overtime how the portraits changed overtime and how photographers change their styles of how they take their images. The purpose of having an Archisle is to save photographs and make history and to keep history so that in years time we can look back at the images. You can also gain a lot of knowledge from looking at the Archisle, which Gareth said ‘having knowledge is power’. The Archisle is important as it is there for everyone to look and and is used as a source for people to use as research, and to inspire them in their own work to make further images, which could possible go into the Archisle.
Other historical and contemporary photographs who have worked in Jersey with the Archisle are Michelle Sank, Yury Toroptsoe.
Foot, Francis
Foot, Francis
Foot, Francis
Foot, Francis
Foot, Francis
de Faye, Francis George
de Faye, Francis George
On this day we also met Tom Pope and we went out to take some performance photographs with him. For these images we went out into an open space and someone would throw an image and you would have to catch it and try to take a photograph at the same time as trying to catch the orange. This was an interesting exercise to introduce us into the idea of performance photography as you are performing and act to take the photograph. The idea was that you had to try and get the orange as close to the camera lens as possible. Before we took these images we changed our camera settings so that the camera was on manual focus and we focused the camera on the orange close up, so then when the orange was in the air and you were trying to catch it, the orange would be in focus.
This theory follows the concern of how women are often represented in many artist and photographic works. Women such as; Cindy Sherman explored this further. This act suggests that women have more than just their physical appearance. To me feminism is the act of an equal life, respect and opportunity for both men and women. It shows how women are often labelled with derogatory terms and are ignored as intellectual individuals. In the past I have done quite a few pieces in photography based on how women are faced with all these negative connotations and objectifications which are unfair and we don’t deserve. Throughout history women have struggled to gain equal rights to men, starting simply with the right to vote. Women weren’t seen as intelligent enough or able to vote as they weren’t educated. In 1918 women in Britain finally got the right to vote only if they were over the age of 30, with women of the age of 21+ had to wait until 1928 to be able to vote. Feminism is more than this though.
Often when people hear the word feminist they think of anti-men and man haters when in fact this is completely wrong and untrue. A feminist can be a woman or a man, it is the equality of the sexes that we stand for and the equality of life too. Women are often faced with negative looks or derogatory names. I think that feminism has really come to light in the past few years as many more celebrities are becoming aware of this a spreading the word. Influential celebrities include; Beyonce, Ariana Grande, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Katy Perry, Hillary Clinton, Lady Gaga, Lena Dunham and many more.
Cindy Sherman is a famous feminist photographer who came up with a series of film stills in 1977. These took her years to create and she is the subject of each of her photographs. These film stills reflect on the cliched stereotypes women were faced with back in 1977 and that they are still very much faced with today.
My own work on the role women are often faced with in society. This is work which I have already done during my photography course during the AS year.
Struggling for Perfection – Shannon O’Donnell
This image represents the pressure put on women in our modern society of being perfect and slim. The measuring tape around the subjects face and neck portrays a indexical sign of how a lot of women feel about themselves and the strain it is on their own mental health to be this ideal woman, to be something that all men want or all people desire to have. I find as a woman there is an immense amount of pressure put on us in society to look a certain way and to be a certain body type/shape.
I also did another shoot later in my AS year and decided to expand on the idea of the measuring tape and how women feel in our modern society.
Fake it ‘Til You Make it – Shannon O’Donnell
This shoot was an array of different types of photographs focusing on the way young women see themselves and how they try to change themselves in modern society. These photographs show the spectator how often young girls will look at themselves in the mirror and only see imperfections and that they need to change and be skinnier. It shows the spectator how most young girls will wear makeup to try and cover up, hiding any imperfections that they think they have. Along with some of the photographs showing how young women should love themselves and not care about what society thinks they should look like, this is in the photos of my model posing outside and being happy with who she is.
For shooting with this model I decided to do quite a few different set ups and props. I did this so I could get a nice range of photographs. In this shoot I wanted people to really focus on how women feel they should look like due to the harsh comments of our modern society. These shoots symbolize what are expected of women still in our society and how there is still this stigma in the air that women should be doing the work at home and are there to look pretty while the men go out to work and bring the money into the home. It shows feminism in a negative light to me because this old way of thinking is so cliché and wrong. I think women should be able to go down whatever career path they choose and should be paid the same amount as men.
This photo represents how a lot of young women are seen as ‘catty’. It shows two ‘friends’ are laughing but will actually stab each other in the back to get what they want. In this photo I give a visual representation of the metaphor ‘stabbing someone in the back’.
Tom Pope’s work has been majorly influenced by this theory. Physco-geography is a physiological concept which applies to Geograophy. It’s very spontanous and different. The people who did group that created this were called “Situationist International” and they wanted to go against the rules of society which are placed upon them. They were very radical and wanted to create some awareness. Their ideas pushed the envelope, as they changed daily things into much more interesting creations.
Flight of Fancy (paper airplane template)
‘ Derive’ is a French word meaning an unplanned journey through somewhere.
This is all about being random, and letting your environment guide you. For example, you can use this technique of Derive to guide you through somewhere.
