The space hijackers are a group of people who originate in the United Kingdom. Space Hijacking is mental graffiti, designed to change how the space is perceived and take some of the power away from the people who own or design the space. The aim is to ultimately prove to people that space isn’t used effectively and to show how restricted areas can really be unrestricted, you can boycott the rules right, then you’ll get away with stealing power from someone.
When they were formed in 1999, their first major action was the Circle Line Party – a party on London Underground’s Circle Line which attracted around 150 people armed with sound systems, disco lights and bars all disguised as luggage which attracted a lot of attention, but they were not being illegal. The Space Hijackers exist mainly to change the public’s perception of spaces it regularly uses, mainly by staging unexpected events. Their explicit objective is “to effect and change the physical space of architecture”, and, avoiding violent protest and other forms of transparent direct action, their methods aim “to invade and re-brand corporate space”.
The Space Hijackers inspired me to try more ‘out of the box’ ideas for my final outcome as I want my work to have a wider range of ideas to show more diversity in my work. They’ve made me think of lots of ideas to use for more videos rather than photographs which is more my thing, I want to do something i’m not as comfortable with to do how I cope with it and to see how I do with it.
Objective: Contextual studies and developing final ideas
There is now 3 weeks left of this module and it is time for you to begin to develop ideas for final outcomes.
From the Planner Summer 2015 it states that you MUST Produce a number of posts that show evidence of the following:
1. Research: Look at a number of different starting points for developing your own ideas. In particular other artists within performance, photography and video for example see ppt: Performance and Photography, Photomontage and resources from below. Choose at least two artists references.
2. Analysis: Select key works for further analysis. Describe techniques used, interpret meaning, evaluate aesthetic quality. Make links to art history e.g. concept of Dadaism, Photomontage, Futurism, Surrealism, Experimental filmmaking/ Avant-garde cinema, Situationism, Psychogeography, Performance art/Live art, Neo-dadaism, Conceptualism etc.
3. Planning: Write a manifesto with a set of rules (6-10) that provide a framework for your final project. Describe in detail how you are planning on developing your work and ideas in the next two weeks. Think about what you want to achieve, what you want to communicate, how your ideas relate to the themes of Chance, Change and Challenge and how you are going to approach this task in terms of form, technique and subject-matter. Illustrate your ideas with examples, mindmaps, moodboards etc. You can work individually or in groups.
4. Friday 3rd July Group crit:Critical reflection and presentation of your work/ ideas
5. Upload and process images/video using Lightroom/ Photoshop/ Premiere.
6. Final outcome: Edit, experiment and evaluate with a number of different creative outcomes using still images or video. Produce a number of posts that illustrate your working and thinking process, using screen-graps, images and annotation.
7. Create a title for your work and write an artists statement.
Review, reflect and describe the ideas, influences and meaning behind your final outcome. Reflect also on what you have learned during this module on Performance and Photography and evaluate how successful you were in realising your ideas and how it relates to themes of Chance, Change & Challenge.
8. DEADLINE Friday 10th July: Feedback and creative input. from Tom Pope and Gareth Syvret. Make sure you have work ready for presentation!
HELP & SUPPORT:
A list of art movements that you may use as contextual research. Many of them also produced Manifestos:
Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism, Situationism, Neo-dadaism, Land/Environmental art, Performance art/Live art, Conceptualism, Experimental filmmaking/ Avant-garde cinema (those studying Media make links with your unit on Experimental film)
Here are a list of artists/ photographers that may inspire you:
Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Yves Klein, Bas Jan Ader, Erwin Wurm, Chris Arnatt, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, Francis Alÿs, , Sophie Calle , Nikki S Lee, Claude Cahun, Dennis Oppenheim, Bruce Nauman, Allan Kaprow, Mark Wallinger, Gillian Wearing, Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade, Andy Warhol’s film work, Steve McQueen, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Marina Abramovic, PipilottiRist, Luis Bunuel/ Salvatore Dali: , Le ChienAndalou, Dziga Vertov: The Man with a Movie Camera
A few Youtube clips (view at home or in class on teacher’s computer)
John Baldessari: I will not make any more boring art
Vito Acconci
Bruce Nauman: Art Make-Up
Yoko Ono: Cut Piece
Martha Rosler: Semiotics of the Kitchen
Gillian Wearing: Dancing in Peckham
Mark Wallinger: Hymn
Chris Burden: Shoot, 1971
Joseph Beyus: , I Like America and America Likes Me
For the Family Album Challenge I asked my Nan if she would be able to find the old family albums of my mum from when she was younger, so far I have found pictures from 1958-1970 and then 1974-1981, although I am hoping my nan has some pictures from 1971-1973 elsewhere.
These are the photos I have already found and I will be looking to find the rest of the images during this week.
This experiment was made because we wanted to look at how different people would interact with the setup. From discussing this idea/plan with the two people who were observing with me; Hayli and Claudia; We thought that there could only be four outcomes:
1. Person(s) walk directly past without noticing.
2. Person(s) walk over, read the sign, and walk away.
3. Person(s) walk over, read the sign, pick up the camera without taking a photo, put down the camera and walk away.
4. Person(s) walk over, read the sign, pick up the camera, take a photo with the camera, and then put the camera down and walk away.
The sign we left, said in french (we hope, although Google translate isn’t the most accurate) Hello! We are Jersey Photography students, and we would like your help for a project. Please could you take a photo using our camera. Please do not move or remove the camera. Thank you 🙂 We then later added another sign above with slightly bigger writing which said, Please can you take a photo, thank you. Have a good day.
Within our Lunch hour we ate at a cafe/restaurant which was only a couple of metres away from the tree where we had placed the camera, so that we would be able to observe how people were interacting with it. The most common of our four expected outcomes were numbers 1 and 2, which was what we had expected. We were slightly surprised by just how many people spent a minute or two reading the sign, to then shrug it off and walk away. We thought this might be down to:
a) people not being used to this kind of thing and so being slightly suspicious of it;
b) not wanting to be seen doing this thing which is slightly odd;
c) if they were alone, not wanting to seem lonely to us, the anonymous students;
d) not being able to understand the atrocious French on the sign.
We did however, get a couple of people who acted differently to how we’d predicted.
First there was a teenager who was in a group, who first took a photo of himself, and then got all his friends together to take a picture of all of them.
Then, after he had taken the photo of all of them, one of the girls to get out her phone before walking away, and took a picture of the setup.
Next to where the tree where the camera was set up, was a temporary art shop, where about four artists work was displayed and they were trying to sell it. One of the artists came over to us and asked if she could borrow the camera, but said that she would replace is after and said that she would take a photo of her work;
When looking through the photos after, I also noticed that in one of the pictures, the young girl who took the photo, without knowing, got us in the back of the picture (yes we were all staring because we were intrigued as to whether they would actually take the picture, which they did, and we were also waiting for our food)
I also think that something happened to the film for some reason, so we lost (we think) 9 of the photos taken by the people, all of the film had been used (27 images) however we only got 18 images back when we developed the camera (the last 10 were taken by us just to use up the rest of the film) so I only have 8 pictures to show (which I am still very happy with, as I only expected about 3/4 images).
These were the 8 images we got, in the order they were taken:
When we were going around St. Malo we found a small childs blanket left on the floor with the name Charlie James and the date 10-04-14 sewn on. We picked up the blanket and placed it in different locations to give different meanings for the viewer to think of.
I like this set of images because of how they can be interpreted and how they all have a slightly sad and lonely feel to them.
We then left the blanket hanging on a railing, which was a couple of streets down from where we found it.
For the next couple of days I am over in Durham for my brother’s graduation. In this time I want to use the opportunity to put together my practise of subversion and performance photography into practise by taking photographs around the Durham area. I have no particular objective that I want to achieve but instead will see what I find as a go along. I am looking forward to this task I have set myself because it is something new and different. The problem with Jersey in many cases is that it is very repetitive and can be tedious to photograph the same sort of places over and over again. I have only been to Durham once before so it will be quite interesting to photograph somewhere unusual and unknown to me. I will enjoy exploring a more ‘outsider’ perspective, in a community which is alien to me. I have considered going at some point in the early morning because I want to see what the city is like when it is less busy. I find the community of Durham is connected very richly associated with tradition and heritage. Therefore I think that it will be a good idea, using my newly found knowledge of how an archive works, to take pictures of major monuments within Durham and compare them with historical photographs that I find on the internet. I will also combine this study with a more comtemporary task, taking candid photographs around the city, attempting to capture images that are most striking and interesting, perhaps the publics reaction to a stern busker or even a homeless person. I want to capture realistic, but nevertheless surprising aspects of life. I WIll attempt to remain objective however if present with the right opportunity, I will not hesitate to take a more direct approach.
Whilst Tom Pope was here, he enlightened us about his personal influences. He stated that he was guided by the situationism movement and used it in his photography. He allows himself to be lead by his surroundings and let that guide him.
Definition:
This psycological theory suggests that our behavioral changes depend on the situation that we’re in. Therefore, it implies that the environment may have control over our feelings and emotions. It isn’t concerned with personal opinions, personalities and ideologies. It also disregards any sort of innate thoughts.
For example, if you visit a park, you may be drawn to the aesthetically beautiful qualities in it. This is because, as a photographer, you may have trained yourself to only photograph the best things. Whereas, situationism allows you to expand this view and help you to try and explore something less ordinary. Likewise if you are in an unknown scenario and you feel uncomfortable, your behavior may be impacted.
Situationism comic art.
Experiment:
The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted, to test the theory of Situationism. In this study, everyday people where selected to participate in hopes of proving the theory. They were instructed to act like ‘guards’. The remaining participants were assigned the ‘prisoners’ role. It was noted that the ‘guards’ began to adopt a stereotypical behavior. They were acting in a more aggressive and disciplinary fashion towards the ‘prisoners’. This shows that they may have based their mood on their roles and the fact that their in a prison building. Therefore, this experiment supports Situationism, as it indicates that people change their demeanor, depending on the situation.
Birth of the Concept:
This concept started in the late 1950’s and kept going until the early 1970’s and was influenced by Surrealism, Dadaism and also Lettrism. in 1957,’Situationiste Internationale’, a very famous magazine was founded, which included various artistic things inside it. This movement began with many traditional artists. However, as time went on, the group started to include look at different ways of creating art, by looking at the theme of Anarchy.
Anarchy Photography
Situationism included two main concepts. The first was ‘The Spectaceand it’s society’ and the second ‘Détournement’. The Spectacle is used a lot in Situationism; It looks at how society is ruled by certain commands by people with more power than them. Whereas, Détournement signifies hijacking. it’s all about changing expressions against themselves. This influentual movement was used for political pranks.
My Views:
Personally, I think that Situationism is a very interesting subject. It’s something new and exciting to challenge. The fact that you must hold back on your personal feelings and almost become aligned with external features. I think that this allows humans to explore the world from a different perspective.
When starting our first topic for the A2 course we were given the title ‘Chance, Change and Challenge’. I think that this is a very fitting title for this section of our course work. I think this because we are being encouraged to change from our usual photographing way’s and to experiment with the use of film, and the interaction with the public. This is very different from our work from our AS photography work- as we were doing more traditional photography in a studio.
We are challenging ourselves to take part in different activities in the middle of a public place to gain a reaction from the public. These activities were encourages to be outside of the box and against social norm. An example of this was whilst we were in St Malo, we bought a large rug that we laid out in the middle of the main square of restaurants and sat on it and meditated. Doing something which is very different in a public space can be seen as a scary experience because of the fear of what other people will think.
The chance from ‘Chance, Change and challenge’ means to me that we should give changing our way of photography a chance, whether that is changing the manual functions of the camera, or what we decide to photograph, or what format we decide to capture our photography in (Film, photographs ect). By giving the element of ‘change’ a change, may befit out work and produce something amazing. Or it may produce something rubbish yet help us develop as a photographer.
Our recent trip to St Malo with Tom Pope and the Archilse team was an interesting and very enjoyable experience. We visted all over the town, practising the many concepts that we have learned over the last few weeks, including ‘drifting’, subversion, performance photography and situationism.
When arriving in St Malo, we were put into groups of 10 where we took it in turns to work with 3 different mentors; Mr McKinley, Mr Toft and Tom Pope. Our group went with Mr McKinley first and we marked out our route by taking it in turns to turn either left or right, a concept known as ‘drifting’. The route took us down to the beach where we began to practise our ‘performance’ photography. I decided to tie my shoe to the edge of a ladder which I then photographed. Also I marked out the slogan ‘DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER’ in chalk, a theme which I had selected to do beforehand
During lunch I decided to quickly explore the city, gaining a sense of the atmosphere which I then took a few photographs of. When we arrived back to the meeting point I gave one of my friends a tennis ball and soon a large group of people were playing a game involving throwing a tennis ball against the wall and catching it. This was a good opportunity to take some photographs of the action, and I captured some really interesting moments which explore to idea of fun, spontaneity and child-like play.
For the second activity of the day we worked with Tom Pope. Tom, using the drifting technique, navigated us down to a nearby playground. In the playground there was a gaint sized chess-board. Tom therefore spontaniously decided that it would be a good idea to have a game of ‘human draughts’. This game was a great deal of fun and involved us to work effectively as a team. I found that it was interesting that acting subversly in the ‘playgroudd’ environment went far more unotoced then it did for example in the town square. This observation drew me to the idea that acting ‘childish’ is more acceptable in a playful area then in a more formal public setting. This has made me conclude that the act of being subversive is not in fact the main thing the people judge but however the appropiateness of the act in relation to the setting and the automatic boundaries or freedms that it subsequently presents.
For the later part of the day we worked with Mr Toft, navigating our way form the town centre back to the harbour. Firstly our group wrapped Shannon in bubblewrap and pushed her down the hill. This extremely random and perculiar act was naturally very funny and the public reaction of shock, intrigue, confusion was equally amusing. This act created a very unruly atmosphere which seemed to decend into choas the longer it went on for. When making it back to the harbour I spontaniously decided to get someone to film me dribbling a tennis ball. The raw, authentic style of the video I believe works very well.
Overall I really enjoyed the day, and it was a great experience to work in an unfimiliar environent with nothing but inscint to guide us to wherever we wanted to photograph. What I found most fun about the day was simply to see different people’s reactions to the behaviourr and unussual activities that we got up to. Also the spontaneous things such as me dribbbling the ball, and also the game of catch at lunch-time was very enjoyable. An important thing that I learned about the day is that it is important to be creative and take risks. Some of my best, most meaningful outcomes came when I tried out a range of different, unusual activities that I had little knowledge in what they would be like.
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