Here is my final piece entitled “LOVES’ ENCOUNTERS”. I chose the title of this for my final piece in order to represent the broad relationship between traditional and non-traditional relationships. To create this front cover, I have used a silver pen on top of assotate in order for the title to stand out more.
LAYOUTS FROM MY LEPORELLO
These are some of the examples of my final piece layout and how I have laid out the Traditional Images against the Contemporary ones.
Layout showing contemporary love.
Layout of traditional photographs.
My Major Inspiration
Throughout my project, I feel as if my major inspiration has come from the works of Lina Hashian, KasslesKrammer and Ed Templeton, as they have inspired me to use the concertina and leporello form. This is because throughout their individual works they have demonstrated duality’s within story’s, and promote cross contextual references which make the works look, feel and seem more personal, encouraging you as the role of the reader to empathize with what is happening.
Am I pleased with my final outcome?
I feel like I am most certainly pleased by the way I’ve represented truth and manipulated it in an alternative way. Before the start of this project and investigation, I was unaware with the effects that would happen when a concertina was unfolded. From becoming an artist with the concertina form, I have learned skills such as being able to narrate a story with the absence of words and telling that story with a steady, flowing pace – visually and physically. Overall I feel the effect my leporello has upon a reader is significant in a way which can allow the reader to interpret love for themselves, within my stories and for themselves, as well as how the reader’s interpretations can differ by the reader’s place in society: (age, race, culture, gender, etc.) I am very happy with this overall outcome as I feel the overall message and moral of truth shows a framed narrative, promoting how important it is to be realistic in life, and not how always we should appropriate it. The algorithms behind my project, is that love and truth never lie.
I am going to be creating a Leporello in the style of Lina Hashian and Ed Templeton, to show the dual sides of love from a contemporary and not contemporary perspective. This will include other material such as photographs from my family archive, as well as images I have kept of my friends over tine. I feel this aspect can help level out the narratives presented on this leporello and can depict certain stories that people can relate to or empathise with.
Specification statement and algorithm:
to use Appropriation as a source of manifesting profiles of people usually perceived and associated on Social Media against those considered ‘normal‘ ways of courting love.
Final Images for my Photo-book (Traditional)
These are my final images for the traditional side of my Leporello:
Mum and Dad
The first series I have selected are my family archival photographs. I felt using these was a really important aspect as my project as a reader can follow the journey of their relationship just by giving them a selection of photographs. The first two images inspired me as I felt this could be a good comparison towards the works of KesslesKrammer’s “USEFUL PHOTOGRAPHY 010“. Krammer’s ongoing use of typology has inspired me as repetition is an ongoing theme. With this in mind this is why I have included two images of the wedding cake of my mum and just by itself as I think during a wedding, the cake is one of the most notorious features in a traditional marriage.
The image of my parents above I thought was important as it makes it clear what the celebration is really about. However, I think this image also poses an important argument that even though finding love is alternative in contemporary society, the celebration of your wedding has pretty much always stayed the same.
In the style of Ed Templeton, I have included material such as this envelope to make the reader get a more personal response to this project. This letter was written to my mother when she was very young, and indicates the time and the place of production and destination. I felt this was an important feature in order for the reader to feel a sense of background within my family, therefore empathising with the images more easily.
This image which I have captured is a contemporary representation of how my parents are still in a very happy relationship. I want the reader to understand my parents relationship like a story and how it unfolds over time. This is why I have captured an image so recently in order for this narrative to progress.
Nanny and Pops
For my investigation on my grandparents, I have used various recourses in the style of Ed Templeton, in order for the reader to get a better sense of context, and how important it is and has been influenced upon my grandparents.
This image shows the poster our family used during the celebrations of my grandparents diamond wedding anniversary. I felt this aspect was extremely important in a way in which it allows people to get a sense of how long they have been together. The reader, this way, can step back and compare this with contemporary relationships, as 60 years ago was a very different era and time surrounding an allot more diverse and social culture; such as, World War ll.
In conjunction with the images I had used before of my mum and dad, I felt using this photograph alongside the others was important as it can be used as a follow on to KesslesKrammer’s “USEFUL PHOTOGRAPHY 010“. This way, the reader can almost see my leporello as a small typology, as I will fit the images in a grid like form in order to replicate the works of Krammer and how significant it can be.
Including images of my grandparent’s wedding day is also a good way of showing parallels between my parents, as this tradition is shown to have been ‘passed‘ on through generations. Below is also an example of a contemporary photograph of my Nanny as well as my Pops, in order to show how they are very much together. Even though I have captured them in two different frames, I feel like the narrative has flowed by incorporating previously the archival material that I’ve extracted.
Below shows how I have incorporated images that I have screen-shotted from google maps, in order for the reader to locate and trace back memories just by single images. Alike what I did with my parents, the uses of letters and other sources of material transgress the boundaries of how events over time have seriously effected the relationship of my grandparents, in this case however, for the better. With the deportation of my Grandfather to Bad Wurzach, and my Grandmother remaining in Jersey, this liberation post war shows how their relationship can be too, using these sources of material as a metaphor for how love is ‘united’. This can also be empathised with the works of Templeton, as I’ve used various mediums in order to narrative this passage of time.
Paula
My final reference which I have used for the ‘Traditional‘ side of love is my family friend, Paula. I though it would be nice to get an alternative outlook on relationships that I am not aware of as much, like my grandparents and my parents. Because of Paula’s Portuguese heritage, this dis-farmilularality made me interested into how her relationship with her husband, Joseph, may differ to ours. This in itself, can create a dual between the differentiation of languages and culture, as well as comparing contemporary with the non.
My archival research for Paula was me extracting an image of Paula and Joseph, taken about twenty years ago. This vague and delicate aspect can drive the reader to interpret it for themselves, almost in the style of Lina Hashian.
Final Non-Traditonal Pictures
For my final images for the Non-Traditional side of love, for all the images I have included my edit of the ‘Tinder‘ frame. I felt this was a good way to get a modern perspective on how Love in influenced by social media, and in particularly mobile apps and website like Tinder which promote the act of Online Dating.
William
This images shows how I have endorsed the image of William into the Tinder Frame. Using only once image per person, I thought this image was most dominating out of the series I took of will because of the overly vibrant, red colour. This aspect can relate to love in a way which overpowers the readers eyes, allowing them to empathise with how the colour of ‘red’ can relate to love.
I have included these portraits of William also, in order for the reader to get a closer, more in-depth insight of his interests and hobbies. These images promote a more realistic side to his character, juxtaposing with the Tinder frame and comparing with the Traditional side of love.
Holly
This is the image of Holly in the Tinder frame. I felt this image I have used is the most strong as it is a full body shot. This image can be seen as truthful as every aspect of Holly is included in this image.
I have also included this image (pictured above) to show Holly’s natural setting. I feel this image contributes importantly to the images flow and journey as the reader gets a closer insight into how Holly is as a person, and how her personality can therefore be interpreted. Below shows a set of images that I have extracted from my own archive. Taken at Reading Festival in 2015, I thought these images juxtapose with the ones previous. This continuously follows the theme of duality, and how this can be metaphorically symbolised throughout my project.
Alex
This is the most prominent image of my boyfriend, Alex, whom I captured in order to make my project feel more personal. This image which i have super-imposed into the Tinder frame describes him as himself – in a realistic perspective. The setting around him suggests how he is alike a typical and stereotypical teenager which is something I wish to establish, especially with the comparison with other images in order to maintain a rounded and realistic perspective.
Above are some of the images which I have extracted from my own personal Archive. Taken also at Reading Festival 2015, I wanted to show how Alex’s personality is well rounded. Depicted as someone who is quite timid and shy, to someone who is fun can show that on Tinder profiles, depictions are most usually false.
Myself
Using a blank tinder frame which i will eventually overlap using assotate, and draw on top of it masking its true identity. Because I don’t actually have a Tinder account, I feel like I am manipulating truth by creating my own fake profile, twisting reality as it wouldn’t happen in a real life situation. This is all a response to the MTV TV Show: CatfishThis image shows the overlapping of what my blank Tinder frae will look like on my leporello. I feel this is interesting at the viewer starts to question what the situation is. This could be a response to Lina Hashian as the reader is left to interpret the narrative for themselves.
Will
This is my cousin Will’s picture which has been imposed into the Tinder Frame. I feel this image is different to one you’d typically see on an online dating forum which is why i thought it would be significant to use.
Including aspects of Will like his shoes can give response to Ed Templeton, as he has influenced me to show a different side to a character by objectifying certain things.
Freddie
This is my final image of Freddie amidst the Tinder Frame. I Like this image of Freddie as I feel this represents his character. By including his setting, his clothing and his stance, I feel this representation is valid and is truthful, if it was to be used on an online dating Forum.
These images above which I have taken recently I feel represents Freddie’s character further, as it shows his interests in a clearer light. The photographs of his music equipment and the images of him smoking, shows to the reader a more realistic approach to just one single image. This is because Freddie’s picture in the Tinder frame presents him as quite a smart and well-ordered person. So I feel like I’m questioning the truth of Freddie by showing him realistically through photographs.
These images above show my use of archival material. I have references images I feel reflect Freddie’s personality, yet as well including images that me and Freddie are featured. This makes my project more personal to me with the hope people will then empathise with it.
Emma
This is my friend Emma’s picture which I have put in a Tinder frame. I felt this image reflected Emma realistically and shows her interests and personality.
As I don’t own a Tinder account, I thought it would be an interesting idea to manipulate truth by creating my own profile in order for me to delve into this world of Online Dating. Prior to this creation, I have done some research and have looked at both sides of the online dating world, from adaptations of TV Programmes to Documentaries all centralising the apps attractive and addictive features.
My Interpretations of ‘Creating’ a new and realistic Profile
For my own interpretations, I have drawn over a blank tinder frame and profile in order to ‘create‘ my own interpretation. I have written on top of images like the style of Ed Templeton, to allow the reader to understand a narrative in a more clear and flowing way.
This is what the Tinder blank background looks like. By drawing over this, I feel I am creating my own truth by making what seems realistic false but at the same time truthful because of what I am stating. This concept acts as a metaphor within itself as the reader is drawn into questioning what ‘real’ love is.In this frame, I have drawn over a fact in order to represent a photograph of someone. Around the image I have used quotes such as “Beauty is everything on here”. I feel this blank portrait could remise to how a person’s personality is not shown vividly throughout the Tinder algorithms as the first thing a person see’s is their profile image.On this frame I have written only text. I have included quotes like “Just because I’m smiling doesn’t mean I’m constantly happy” and “A vortex of perception” as I feel this contradicts the way Tinder users are forced into only including four images of themselves. This narrowing of choice dis-broadens the way in which people see that person, instantly labelling them as a ‘type’ to decide whether they approve of them in a quick and efficient way.In this frame I have included outlines of two people. Because many Tinder users include images of their friends, I thought it would be a good influence to show how using pictures with their friends present may subvert the viewers eye onto likening the person that isn’t yourself. This can change the way we see the app as truthful as in real life this mistake wouldn’t be made.
Case Study: Catfishing
Urban Dictionary definition –
“to lure (someone) into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona.”
MTV’s Catfish: the TV Show
Catfish is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, involving a young man, Nev, being filmed by his brother and friend, co-directors Ariel and Henry, as he builds a romantic relationship with a young woman on the social networking website Facebook. The film was a critical and commercial success. It led to an MTV reality TV series, Catfish: The TV Show.
Examples of episodes:
The Mobile Love Industry
This this episode of Love Industries you look at the ways in which mobile apps have become an essential part of our search for the next hook-up, true love, and everything in between. Karlie Sciortino manipulates this industry by placing herself into it by creating her own Tinder profile. This allows her to try online dating herself as well as seeing if the truth behind people profiles are really what they say they are.
Following on with my research of the concertina and leporello form, I thought it would be a good idea to research Ed Templeton’s notorious work “Adventures in the Nearby Far Away“. The recently contemporary book by Templeton is presented as an accordion-fold continuous book which spans 27 feet once extended. The books plot surround the journey 26 miles across the Pacific Ocean from the tangled mess of humanity that is Los Angeles and Orange County sits an island paradise called Santa Catalina where time has stood still and visitors can experience what California was like before the Europeans sailed in.
“Adventures in the Nearby Far Away is a photographic diary of my many visits to the island over the years, a place I have been visiting since I was a boy, and been documenting photographically since the late 90s.”
– Templeton
All photos are shot on film and are taken all by the artist. I feel I can relate to Templeton as in some of my shoots I have used the form of short video clips as a recourse to get closer in on the subject. In the style of Templeton, I could use this form of video to include selected frames of some of the people I have videoed, to show the continuous rhythm effect it has similar in “Adventures in the Nearby Far Away“.
The front cover of “Adventures of the Nearby Far Away” is encompassed in a cardboard sleeve. This little feature could represent how the books’ plot shows a story within a story. This Leporello shows symbolism throughout, and Templeton could add this to rise tension and expectation before the reader even opens the concertina.
In some images, Templeton uses other mediums such as drawing over photographs in order to create a larger perspective of the narrative. Including personal images and quotations can show how the driving force of the photo-book progresses because of its personal connection and realism. I feel this could be a good technique to use during the production of my final Leporello, preferably using a material like associate or tracing paper to really represent significantly the masking and imitation of peoples real thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Here is a video link showing Templeton’s book layout –
JUST THE TWO OF US: Photo book, self-published, 2014
Klaus Pichler was born 1977 and lives in Vienna, Austria. After graduating from university in 2005 he decided to quit his profession as a landscape architect and become a full time photographer- without any education in photography. The topics of his work are the hidden aspects of everyday life in its varying forms, as well as social groups with their own codes and rules. “Just The Two Of Us” was made and published in 2014 and is a handmade Leporello, that is 645cm folded to 38 pages, on hardbound paper. The black cardboard cover has a silver-metallic hot foil stamping. 26×16.6cm (open: 26x645cm), 38 images, printed on Munken uncoated paper. The Photographs and text are written and produced by Klaus Pichler, and are written in english.
The digital front cover.The Leporello front and back cover.
“Dressing up is a way of creating an alter ego, a second skin which one’s behaviour can be adjusted to and causes a person to be perceived differently. ‘Just the two of us’ deals with both costumes and the people behind them.”
Jobson opens the article by stating this comparison to ‘Halloween‘:
“We’re less than a day past October 31st and it would be reasonable to assume the people depicted in these portraits are wearing Halloween costumes, but they’re not.”
This statement sets the reader up to expect the most ridiculed of concepts. Halloween is traditionally associated with things which are in opposite to things associated in love. Words like horror, terror and a dissimulation with nature, contradicts the juxtapositions Pichler makes with breaking the norms of traditional love. In Pichler’s ongoing series of portraits titled “Just the Two of Us”, photographer Klaus Pitchler gained access to the homes of Austrian costume play (cosplay) enthusiasts where he photographed the elaborately costumed individuals against the backdrops of their everyday life.
Just the two of us, Klaus Pichler, 2013Just the two of us, Klaus Pichler, 2013
Jobs asks the question,
“Who hasn’t had the desire just to be someone else for awhile?”
To which he answers,
“Dressing up is a way of creating an alter ego and a second skin which one’s behaviour can be adjusted to. Regardless of the motivating factors which cause somebody to acquire a costume, the main principle remains the same: the civilian steps behind the mask and turns into somebody else. ’Just the Two of Us’ deals with both: the costumes and the people behind them.”
I feel here that Pichler has really governed the effects of Love’s truth onto Jobson as he understands the concept of ‘masking’ the truth by minipiulationg peoples normal expectations. By dressing up these characters in costumes, the reader is unable to comprehend what the real person his behind them. Yet Pichler isn’t worried about what people he represents through costumes, its what they do normally which makes people question the sanity of the act, its puts people in the position of allowing oneself to except the norms that have been pushed.
While the costumes are incredible, terrifying, and laughable, it’s the strange juxtaposition of ordinary home life and the unknown identities of each individual that create such great images.
My Interpretations of Pichler’s Algorithms
I felt from researching Pichler’s work and his intentions have inspired me to be a bit more adventurous within my hypothesis. I feel this is a good opportunity to mask people in a way that puts them in a different frame of appearance against what they are really are like as a person. This could be a good way of confusing a reader and therefore manipulating the truth in a way people wouldn’t know. This could set my project out more personally then most.
The term ‘leporello‘ refers to printed material folded into an accordion-pleat style. Also sometimes known as a concertina fold, it is a method of parallel folding with the folds alternating between front and back. The name likely comes from the manservant, Leporello, in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, who the Famed rogue and lover Don Giovanni (in Italian – also known as Don Juan in Spanish) has seduced so many women that when Leporello displays a tally of his conquests, it unfolds, accordion-style, into a shockingly long list. Many leporellos are used as a way of telling a story, while others are purely visual.
An example of a visual contemporary Leporello and Concertina book.
In the Victorian era, leporellos were quite commonly used as travel souvenirs, depicting beautiful, panoramic scenes of the places travelers had just seen, customs and culture of the region and the like. They are often used in illustrated children’s works, as well. Collectors of books and paper ephemera will love their scarcity and delicate beauty.
Tree-bark manuscript] Batak Divination Book in Toba-Batak language from the end of the 19th Century. Leporello.
Book: The Dailies by Thomas Demand
Artist and photographer Thomas Demand partnered with London-based publishers Mack Books to create a limited edition catalogue for his project, entitled ‘The Dailies‘. Demand has created the poetry of the everyday; haikus of glanced objects, dreamlike scenes and liminal locations. ‘The Dailies’, as the photographic installation is called, recalling the daily rushes of a feature film, takes over a whole floor of the building. Accompanying the exhibition (presented by Kaldor Public Art Projects) is a limited-edition catalogue, which Demand produced in collaboration with London-based publishers Mack Books.
The substantial 32-page volume can be displayed in a circular fashion, appropriated to its leporello binding. Its concertina pages, a nod to the fluted pillars which make up the base of the building, come together to form a 16-pointed star which is encased with a magnetised closing system in faux leather, ‘The Dailies‘ was designed by Naomi Mizusaki of Supermarket, who has worked with Demand on a number of books – such as his most recent publication, “La Carte d’apres Nature“. The photographs that make up The Dailies are of cardboard and paper sculptures. Some of them – like the coffee cup caught in a chain link fence or the twist of paper trapped in a grating – speak of transient urban scenes. Other constructions (of windows, doors or changing rooms) are places of passage, not residence; as is the location of the exhibition, a members’ club for travelling salesmen.
In the CTA building, each of the photographs are framed on the wall of a different room, radiating from a circular corridor. Demand has made subtle adjustments to the contents and fittings so they complement his beautifully melancholic images of life’s lost details. The installation is a collaboration with the writer Louis Begley, author of About Schmidt, who has penned a short story about a commercial traveller’s dream-state visit to the CTA. Fragments of the story, Gregor in Sydney, are printed in each room and on the pages of the book. A unique scent has also been created by Miuccia Prada.
Read more at- http://www.wallpaper.com/art/book-the-dailies-by-thomas-demand#kXF1HvFXJodlWO3u.99
My Further Interpretations
I feel using the concertina and leporello form would be a great way to narrate a story and a pattern, as well as being able to compare two different narratives exploring my hypothesis of love. By appropriating some of the works like Thomas Demand, I feel this is a good way of using similar skills by comparing ‘non-traditional photos associated with love‘ with those that of ‘traditional‘ love images on the other side, submerging the concept of how they can be cross-contextually similar or even indifferent.
During my research process, I thought it would be beneficial to contact the Societe Jerseaise Photographic Archive in Jersey, in order to get a larger perspective towards what ‘love‘ was like historically, and whether it fits my specifications of it being seen by society as ‘truthful‘.
I emailed Karen and Gareth explaining the hypothesis of my project and that I was exploring the perceptions of what love is like in the modern day and our contemporary lifestyle patterns, in conjunction to what was seen as traditional methods of relationships. Gareth suggested I should look into weddings as a good way of approaching love, and I visited the Archival Website and searched up images associated to words like “weddings“, “ceremony” and “Church“. These where the following results:
Image Ref: SJPA/001378, “Wedding portrait of Captain Frank Ahier and Mrs Hilda Ahier, posed in front of hedge in a garden”, dated between 1898 – 1903Image Ref: SJPA/005699, Studio portrait of young couple, Mr and Mrs Catton of 1 Brighton Villas, St Helier man holding top hat (possibly wedding portrait)”, Dated 1903Image Ref: SJPA/017688, “Painting or print depicting interior of large church or cathedral, sun streaming through stained glass window, service in progress, with large congregation”. Photographed by Lester Baudains, dated 1955 – 1975. Uncertain copyright.Image Ref: SJPA/005705, “Studio group portrait of Maillard wedding group; bride and groom, two bridesmaids and two men”, Dated 1907Image Ref: SJPA/001282, “Portrait of an unidentified woman wearing wedding dress with long train, dress decorated with flowers and woman holding bouquet (dated in French 20th June)”. Photographed by Ernest Baudoux.Image Ref: SJPA/000889, “Studio portrait of Mrs Logan wearing high necked wedding dress with veil and long train”. Photographed by Ernest Baudoux.
The Laporello
During my time down at the Societe Jerseaise Photographic Archive, Gareth had kept ahold of a archival artefact that had been sitting around for a while within the archive. Gareth kindly allowed me to take the Laporello and to use it at my own will. I think this Laporello is beautiful, and could be something that I use as part of my final piece. The red colouring of the box could be used as a metaphor for Love. Love symbolically can be associated with the colour due to its passionate and vibrant animosity.
Further Research
Reading the news paper the other day, I came across an article explaining about how a story of a man names Joseph Tierney. The article reads how Tierney’s death during the Nazi War, is remembered on a “small plinth in a rural part of the Czech republic“, in the village of P´sov. The Jersey Islander was taken in 1943 after the German Forces arrested him for ‘spreading seditious information’ – “small hand written notes transcribed from BBC Broadcasts taken from illicit wireless radios“. The article’s main focus was how Islander Pat Fisher found the plinth in P´sov and discovered the remarkable finding of her father after spending decades wondering what had become of him.
“I knew he had been taken and I knew the reason why he had been taken, but mum never really spoke about it because it upset her so much”.
I felt this article has had quite an influence on my project as this concludes the desperation of communicating with someone when social media is not around. The difference of this is this is not particularly a ‘love story‘ but a story including ‘loved ones‘. This similar concept still speaks the same anthology’s, and that is that the difference between contemporary love and traditional love is obviously comparable. Mrs. Fisher goes on to add how letters where so important in tracing the footsteps of his life:
“Really, we didn’t know what happened because he wrote letters from Frankfurt, but there were no more letters after that.”
The discovery of her fathers whereabouts, Mrs. Fisher added how it “reduced her and her family to tears”, and following the breakthrough, Fisher was then invited to take part in a BBC Documentary entitled “Finding Our Fathers – Lost Heroes of WW11‘ along with Guernsey resident Jean Harris, who was also on the search for her fathers grave.
Mrs. Fishers mother Eileen kept allot of documents relating to Mr. Tierney’s imprisonment on the Island, as well as letters he had sent round from various camps. Despite the camps awful condition, the Jerseyman’s letters and messages from Europe maintain a lightness and a “sense of optimism“. Mr. Tierney frequently refers to his wife as ‘Snooks‘ and sometimes off as “the twerp“. The note begins:
“My husband Joseph Murray Tierney was arrested by the Germans on March 3, 1943, five months before the birth of our daughter. The Gestapo placed him in solitary confinement in the Nazi Prison in St. Helier, Jersey, where he went through many nights of mental torture. The Germans then took me to the prison where they used me as the final weapon in their foul endeavours to make my husband talk and confess to what they already knew. They threatened me, pregnant at the time with being sent to a concentration camp in front of my husband. After a whole day’s worth of questioning they allowed me to finally go home. After this experience I was I was always terrified whenever I saw a member of the Gestapo or the Feldpolizei”.
I feel this quote really strongly shows how relationships where put under allot more stress during the time of the Second World War. In contrast to our contemporary lifestyles, this shows how these sort of factors seriously compromised the emotional and physical states of what relationships had the envelop.
Pictured: Joseph and Eileen Tierney in happier times – on their wedding day.
“Never in any of his letters does he ever complain. He said all the time, “don’t worry about me, I’m alright” He was so caring. Even in letters some people who had been in prison with him wrote, they said what a caring gentlemen he was”.
Mrs. Fisher is pictured below holding a picture with her father, Joseph Tierney.
Jim Goldberg was born in 1953 and is an American artist, photographer, and writer whose work reflects a long-term and in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations. Goldberg is part of the social aims movement in photography, using a straightforward, cinéma vérité approach, based on a fundamentally narrative understanding of photography. His empathy and the uniqueness of the subjects emerge in his works as shows by his statement:
“forming a context within which the viewer may integrate the unthinkable into the concept of self. Thus diffused, this terrifying other is restored as a universal.”
Goldberg explores the theme and motif of truth by writing sets of narratives on top of images to dictate a story. This could be an example of false representation as what people can really mean in photographs is not always what the person means in text. This un-reliable narrator shows how this could be a ‘take-over‘ of an image in order to dictate public assumptions from their own interpretation. For instance, the reader is unsure whether or not to judge if the person in the image had written the text or if someone else had partaken on the act. This makes the image in effect un-truthful as especially in Goldberg’s most influential book ‘Raised by Wolves‘ it shows how love had become un-truthful by the way Goldberg writes text on top as another significant medium.
Cinéma Vérité
Cinéma Vérité which is translated to ‘truthful cinema‘ is a style of documentary filmmaking, invented by Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov’s theory about Kino-Pravda and influenced by Robert Flaherty’s films. It combines improvisation with the use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind crude reality.
A collaboration between sociologist Edgar Morin and documentary filmmaker and anthropologist Jean Rouch, is considered a pioneering work of cinéma-vérité.
Cinéma Vérité in relationship to Direct Cinema and Observational Cinema, It is sometimes known as observational cinema, if understood as pure direct cinema: mainly centred without a narrator’s voice-over. There are subtle, yet important differences among terms expressing similar concepts: Direct Cinema is largely concerned with the recording of events in which the subject and audience become unaware of the camera’s presence: operating within what Bill Nichols, an American historian and theoretician of documentary film, calls the “observational mode“, a fly on the wall. Many therefore see a paradox in drawing attention away from the presence of the camera and simultaneously interfering in the reality it registers when attempting to discover a cinematic truth.
Raised byWolves
Predominantly considered Goldberg’s most seminally influential project, Raised by Wolves combines ten years of original photographs, text, and other illustrative elements and mediums which include: (home movie stills, snapshots, drawings, diary entries, and images of discarded belongings) to document the lives of runaway teenagers in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
USA. San Francisco, California. 1991. “Dieter.”
Review: Cororan Gallery of Art
A review of the exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art noted that Goldberg made reference to other artists and photographers; used photographs, videos, objects, and texts to convey meaning; and
“let his viewers feel, in some corner of their psyches, the lure of abject lowliness, the siren call of pain.”
Although the accompanying book received one mixed review shortly after publication, it was described as “a heartbreaking novel with pictures”, and in The Photobook: A History, Martin Parr and Gerry Badger praised it as
“complex and thoughtful.”
USA. Hollywood, California. 1989. “Oasis”
USA. Hollywood, California. 1991. Dave’s jacket.USA. San Francisco, California. 1986-98. “Hollywood and Highland.”
In this series, Goldberg has a knack for focussing in on the pleasures of different mediums and material, his attention to the use of mixed media such as polaroids, the use of archive and a variation of portraits and landscape imager allows the reader to get a rounded glance of the havoc presented in a stereotypical teenagers lives.
USA. San Francisco and New York. 1989. “Echo’s Map.”USA. New York. 1995. “Echo’s Home Movies.”
Here is a short story of Goldberg’s ‘Raised by Wolves‘:
San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art
Jim Goldberg discusses the larger stories told through his photography practice:
The final shoot commencing my images of Non-Traditional lobe was of my best friend, Holly. I composed these images of Holly alike everyone else, to create repetition and coherence with the realism I wish to create and adapt upon. The first images I composed of her was her wearing her usual, and chilled clothes. Within her house there is a room which is lit purely by natural light, coming through large window which overhang like a skylight. I thought I could play around with this effect as the uses of shadows could be used to symbolise the darker meaning of ‘truth‘ but in a more symbolic and metaphorical way.
I composed the first image (as seen above) of her sitting in the sofa with a sort of hidden appeal. This is contrasted with the image below, as the harsh over exposed light could reflect Holly as a dual character. Te absence of light in this sense, (the above photograph) can show the darker side of her truth but the bottom a more realistic image. If Holly was to upload these images I’m sure the reader would grasp a sense of ambiguity.
I wanted to frame this image (above) as a full body shot as I felt the image before was quite restrained by the way I used the sofa. I defiantly wanted to create this contrast in order to represent the truth behind herself as I feel if she was wanting to pursue herself online she is able to do so with the rounded qualities she is demonstrating in all photographs.
The next image (below) shows the first image agin but different in a way that I’ve composed this as more of a close up shot. This differentiation falls under how the reader is unable to comprehend where about this image is taken, and therefore is unable to interpret or relate to it as they are fixed on Holly to give a narrative for the photo to become compelling. I think this is why the use of light and dark with shadows and light is so effective, as the reader can critically acclaim Holly as a character who is mysterious yet significant in a way they don’t know what the purpose of herself is. This is not to say Holly is being perceived as a boring or mundane character, but one who is normal instead of staged in order to reflect her inner self. Yet, at the same time, she is ironically being staged to not being staged, releasing the truth within itself – the reader doesn’t know who or what to trust.
The next image of Holly was one that I composed in her bedroom. I felt the more light in these images would allow the reader to understand her character more, as well as giving her personality a more realistic approach. I composed Holly to wear different clothing for this one in order for this reaction to be catalysed.
The final image I took was of Holly outside wearing her normal casual wear. Putting the image in black and white, could re-alliterate what I mentioned earlier about how the truth is manipulated within a photograph by its attention to contrasting colours. Holly’s warming stance can give the reader the idea of how she is a friendly and kind character and can see the journey thats progressed in order for people to become ‘attracted ‘ to her, as people are attracted to different things.
My next shoot I did was focussing on my friend, William, and his alternative lifestyle. I wanted to compose these images of William at his home, as he spends most of his time there. My main aim was for the reader to understand how William’s character can be asserted if these images were to be used on an Online Dating profile, such as Tinder. I have composed these images of William wearing his usual wear, smart wear as well as laid back wear, in order for the reader to elaborate upon his well-rounded and significant character.
A Casual Setting
I composed this image of William in his back yard. I felt this was a good location to capture ambiguity as I felt the palm tree really illustrates how William can be seen in a different place to that of reality. For instance, a palm tree is usually accosted with tropical or hotter climates. Being this element the first thing the eye sees, the reader can work their way down to William to show how the ambiguity is shifting, as the reader is unaware of who this character might be.
I then began to take a range of closer range shots, yet drew the ambiguity in a different way by covering the way in which setting isn’t very clear, as the sky doesn’t give an indication of where the location could be. I felt if the image below was used to document William on an online dating site such as Tinder, the reader would feel confused as to what he personality is like. Because the image is set in a mundane mise-en-scene, the connotations a reader can draw from this are simply sparse, dictating this as an ambiguous representation of his person. By capturing other images alike this one, I felt the significance of his personality would simply end up becoming more rounded, as the reader is able to relate to him more.
Smarter Wear
I captured this image in William’s bedroom because I really thought the dominating red colour could be used in order to signify how ‘red‘ is usually associated with ‘love‘. Red is the overshadowing element within this image and I thought I could contextualise with theoretical stereotypes in which people are able to characterise him through his appearance and the setting that’s around him.
I prefer the above shot to the one below as the reader gets more of an insight into what William is really like; his bedroom is quite messy so it could show the ironic juxtaposition between his smart appearance to his messy actions. If William was to upload a realistic image like this one, people might be turned off by the fact he shows his messy lifestyle, which is in fact, his real one. What I tried to pursue the most out of these shoots was definitely the masking of people’s profiles on social media and online dating websites.
William’s Laid Back Approach
I composed these next images to show more of a background into William’s teenage lifestyle. Using his car as an example shows his independent ways could be shown by his freedom to do whatever he desires. This aspect, however, could come across as misleading; The approachable attitude can show he is mature as well as a teenager. This whole concept I feel has helped to capture William in various lights in order for the reader to critique him as no necessarily a ‘type‘, but a well rounded and a multi-visual character.
The next stage when focussing on more contemporary perceptions of love was experimenting with my Cousin, Will. His relationship with one of my closest friends, Emily shows how being in a relationship can change the way we look at them micro-cosmically in a social structure. Just like everyone else, I wanted to envisage Will with a dual character with a range of his own individual personas. I captured him wearing smarter clothes, casual and more laid back wear as well as using different landscapes and setting to characterise him in a more symbolic way.
Smart Wear
I composed this image of Will on the stairs, however I wanted to frame him with the essence of including his surroundings. By doing this, it makes him the most central subject as well as making the reader question his significance. I wanted to compose Will this way as I felt this abnormal setting reflects his relaxed side, making him be seen in a more casual light. Asking him to wear smart clothes can also possess some elements of wealth, contextually referring to his place within a modern society.
A Casual Lifestyle
Referring contextually to the elements of wealth once more, it could be said that Will lives in a nicer area than some, as his views from his house are beautiful. I pictured him facing against me as I felt this could re-embark once more as to how the truthfulness in relationships can occur. If Will was to use Tinder, or any other social media websites that consist online dating, and used this photograph, I feel this could symbolically and metaphorically repress how people in this modern day and age perceive themselves on these types of websites. I definitely wanted to make this ambiguous, as truthfully this element sets it aside to be ‘un-truthful’.
This image below I though was significant in a way which was the objectification of Will’s teenage persona. In consideration, Will wouldn’t necessarily include an image like this on a Tinder app or any other online dating website yet I figured that for the processes towards my final outcomes, It was important for me to include images that could reflect will personality as an objectification rather than a clear statement.
This image above suggests a alternate side to Wills persona, yet can surely be seen as a realistic one. I feel this image below on the other hand shows a different side to Wills character. The idea at his age of owning a teddy bear in reality can be seen as a laughable matter, so I thought capturing it might be a good way of getting across to the reader the boundaries I have crossed in order to put the ‘real will’ onto a ‘real’ online dating website or app.
To carry on my personal investigations, I wanted to capture one of my friends, Emma, who is a regular Tinder user herself. I wanted to capture Emma just like I did with Freddie; for instance, her as her usual self, what she would usually dress in, and what she would make more of an effort for.
Emma in the Morning
The one thing I find most interesting about social media sites, and in this case, Online dating apps, is the fact people not perceived ever as their usual self. Allowing me to work with Emma in a way that does so is really significant as the reader is assured that in this case its a reliable piece of information that is eventually acknowledged. The first image that I took of her was wearing pyjamas. Emma like to wear pyjamas in her spare ‘chill time’, which is perfectly okay, but do her fellow Tinder users know this?or any of her recent ‘matches’ – the reader is drawn to seek questions about the vulnerability of her current situation. – Is what Emma is posting online projected as her true self? – this is something as an artist needs to find out through the use of imaging.
Emma’s Usual Self
I wanted to capture Emma’s usual self also. I felt this was a good reflection to give the reader a reliable sense that Emma is a truthful person to the overall ‘dating site community’. I composed Emma to be very natural in order for this to happen and used the setting of her room to characterise her even further. Because her room is rather messy, this could suggest that she is not what she say she is on social media, as people may pursue her as someone who is ‘neat’ by her perfectly composed / touched up photographs.
Smart Emma
To end this shoot, I dictated what would most likely be featured on Tinder, as if there was an abbreviation to its social ‘guidelines’. I composed Emma wearing her typical sixth-form uniform in order to show that she is part of the Education System, something that is may not mentioned as much on her page.
Further Ideas
In order to take this further, I plan to appropriate Emma’s character and to manipulate it by producing a Tinder profile for her. I think by having a role reversal between what was the subject s the art now becomes that the artist is the art whereby they narrate a false-looking story of someone else, in effect masking their individual persona.
Looking into the comparisons between non-conventional love against that of traditional love made it easy for me when deciding that I really wanted to use my parents as the forefront to this concept. Because they have been together for nearly 24 years, I thought it was best for me to use their story through images and some text to show the love they have for each other, and to show that there are other means and ways of going about finding love.
I took this image to show how in a contemporary image there is a truthful relationship. This image is clever in my eyes as I feel it speaks for itself as a metaphor, dictating how there are possibilities like my parents of not having to rely on things which are un-reliable, like Online Dating websites and apps.
Researching with my own Family Archive
Much like my previous shoot featuring my grandparents, I dug into my own family archive to seek some contextual references and links I can make to juxtapose those with contemporary love stories. Continuing on with links to KesslesKrammer, I felt the repetition in these wedding images are still the stereotypical ‘wedding cake pictures‘ and ‘flowers‘ and ‘relatives‘. I felt this really fitted with the theme with how looking back images where truthful because they always seem to create a sort of social pattern, yet because of the recent developments of online dating it is hard for people to empathise with certain patterns fitted by relationships as people are now finding love in various ways.
Other uses of Archival Material
The alternate uses of archival material yet again represent similar works of Ed Templeton, as I feel the uses of writing and stamps present an overlaying narrative in a simplistic and metaphorical way. If I was to use this idea of following on from Templeton during the exam, I feel it would be a goof idea to overlap the images with text and to also include maybe some stamps over the top to suggest the concepts notion. This letter my Dad sent to my mum I felt was quite ambiguous, and the envelope making it more of an un-written mystery. I think it would be an interesting concept for people to interpret this work for themselves and ask themselves what could of been inside of it. I feel this envelope can represent the era that they were in too. It was more common during the 60s and 70s to write letters instead of sending text messages like people do in our modern society, yet with letters its more detailed as to what could be happening, however, also just as misleading.
The next shoot I made was of my Grandparents. I felt it was a good idea to make portraits of them to distinguish the relationship they’ve had for the last 60 years. Recently celebrating their Diamond Wedding Anniversary, I thought it would be a great opportunity to show to a viewer that with the new developments of social media, it is still possibly to withstand such a lasting and traditional relationship. This is also viable to the words of Steven Gill, in particularly “Hackney Kisses“, as my grandparents relationship occurred prior to the effects on World War ll.
I started to compose both images in their bedrooms. My Grandparents use separate bedrooms as my Grandma prefers to sleep without my Granddad, having no particular reason but the fact he snores in his sleep. The first portrait I made was of my Pops, in reflection of Gill, I wanted to use an important feature in their lives in a repetitive way yet somewhat differentiated. Composing either of them in their bedrooms suggested a connection yet also a difference.
My grandparents go against the normal stereotypes and traditional norms of the modern era – couples who are usually considered ‘sleeping in separate rooms‘ are usually considered a couple with differences, ones who are usually in conflict, and ones who are usually unhappy with their relationship. Capturing this feature made me to combine the importance of conflict in a traditional and contemporary mind set – in this case, it would probably be considered a normal thing for couples to opt out of sharing a room with their partners.
My Own Archival Research of Nanny & Pop’s Traditional Relationship
When interviewing my grandparents, I felt it was vital to still make contextual connections between the old and the new, yet still withstanding in the frame of how their relationship can be seen as ‘traditional‘. These black and white images where taken during my grandparents wedding in Jersey in 1955.
I thought this image above was particularly significant, as it sprung back earlier connections with KessleKrammer’s series “USEFUL PHOTOGRAPHY 010“. Using the possible idea of the form of typology in the exam, this could be a good way to surface the way relationships are ‘celebrated’ and the truth behind that in contemporary and in traditional relationships.
Bad Wurzach and War Imagery
I felt it would be a good idea to include other archival material such as data response media such as maps. My grandfather was held captive in Germany under the Bad Wurzach Concentration Camp. My Grandmother, was left in Jersey. During my grandfather’s return to Jersey in his late teens, this is when they met and became as they are now. I felt including materials like this it would also give me the opportunity to draw on these maps or annotate them like a sort of ‘sketch-book‘, analytical work piece, allowing the reader to interact with it more and therefore understanding the relevance to its personal foreshadowing. This could be in the style of Ed Templeton, who frequently uses writing as a source of narrative in a different form.
Invited by curator Aaron Betsky, artist Droog was asked to participate in the Architectural Biennale in Venice, September 2008. Teaming up with Dutch communication agency KesselsKramer, we developed SINGLETOWN. SINGLETOWN focused on the world of contemporary singles. Its relevance is broad, as all of us are likely to belong to this group at some stage in our lives — and likely more than once. In fact, some sources predict that a third of people in developed countries will be living alone by 2026. SINGLETOWN was an exhibition as well as a town, an abstract interpretation of a new kind of urban space.
Visitors could walk its streets and interact with the products in order to put themselves in a perspective of someone who is single. In some ways this could truthfully represent the perceptions of people who are alone, or isolated – a false presentation of what single people actually are. I find this exhibition very controversial and conceptualised as you really have to be the type of ‘single person‘ KesslesKrammer represents.
KesselsKramer is a company which aspires to do things differently in the field of communications. The publishings are an extension of this restless attitude. In images and words, it finds new ways of expressing creativity through printed matter. All KesselsKramer Publishing projects are initiated by the creative thinkers of KesselsKramer. Each book or magazine expresses their personal passions, whether that passion is a collection of found photographs, short stories or a celebration of unusual artworks.
Useful Photography is the generic name for the millions of diverse photos, which are used daily and with a purpose all of their own; practical photography, that has a clear function and where the makers remain anonymous. In Kessle Krammer’s This tenth edition of Useful Photography is all about celebration, this time the usefulness of an age-old and traditional ritual is explored: marriage. Collected & edited by Hans Aarsman, Claudie de Cleen, Julian Germain, Erik Kessels, Hans van der Meer, this tenth edition of Useful Photography is all about celebration and its means and ways of presenting it. As always, the collection overlooked underwhelming images created for practical purposes. This time, the usefulness of marriage is yet explored. Inside this book, it becomes evident that everyone documents their big day in the same way with a constant repetitive sense: same dresses, same locations, same post-wedding kiss. The cliche use of a ‘wedding day‘ could strip the significance of each of these divided features, or in turn elaborate upon how just important they are to the wedding ‘experience‘. This book is up to definite interpretation.
This idea that love falls in some sort of pattern that repeats itself is an interesting idea. Kramer’s use of typology allows the reader to seek these repetitions in a contrasting way. Each page shows images of more or less the same things yet with the juxtaposition of different settings and compositions, it allows the reader to get an all round appeal of the action thats happening inside the photograph.
Reviews on KesslesKrammer Wedding Photography
Positive
KesslesKramer has had some very affectionate reviews towards their style of conceptualism. This could show how some customers where happy with the idea of how someone has almost narrated their wedding for them, instead of the customer in this case, taking complete direction in lead in all photo’s composition.
Negative
However, on the other hand some reviews of KesslesKrammer have indefinitely been negative. This could touch upon how important a photograph can be on someones wedding day. This woman, for example was done-founded by the lack of effort the photographer had put in. With relation to conceptualism, this photographer could well have found that where everyone was photographed was a good place, yet considering this review this ideology was proved much awe. This review could well be the answer to KesslesKrammer’s reputation of having a “restless attitude“. The photographers expression of his or her own creativity through printed matter shows how in their own passion, the selflessness to capture the wedding through the photographers eye not the customers, comes across how love can be considered un-truthful or ambiguous.
As part of my planning, I have decided to capture a few series of short-story video clips as well as a series of portraits in order for me to get a deeper insight into love stories of people in modern day society as well as those who have been in relationships in longer periods of time. I have chosen family and friends to be apart of this topic, as I feel I can relate personally as a viewer and a director which allows me to empathise with situations taking place.
My first short-story video is of my nanny, Paula. In this short video she describes her love life with her and her husband Joseph.
A personal archival image I came across of Joseph and Paula.
My next shoot idea was to capture one of my friends, Freddie in his normal environment. Through imagery and video, I wanted to capture him and his main interests, touching upon the truth behind his character just by single portraits.
Music
One of Freddie’s major hobbies is creating music. I thought this would be a great thing to use when portraying his true self as he states himself:
“I feel if I was to pursue online dating, I would defiantly want someone to be interested in the same things I am. Unlike apps like Tinder, I feel the apps distancing to personality puts me off dating in a sense I’d rather go about it a more traditional way.”
I felt Freddie’s words where very interesting – I didn’t realise as an outsider how online dating can effect someone who would rather pursue relationships in a more traditional way, especially in our contemporary society. In this personal study, I wanted to focus primarily on Freddie’s personality, creating a dual with his appearance and personality, therefore making a perfect ideology of what apps like Tinder should really pursue instead of there ‘false‘ perception.
Composing Freddie in different perspectives such as changing his clothing, made the reader feel a deeper insight into Freddie’s overall character, I wanted this to metaphorically suggest an all round approach to Freddie as a defined ‘product‘, so if he was to impose these images on online dating websites people would feel he is a more truthful person, making him more reliable online.
A Teenager
Freddie, amongst a huge volume of teenagers, wish to look for love in many alternate ways. Defining a ‘person‘ as an ‘individual‘ however, is something completely looked upon by the worldly public. Someone who immediately goes outside the box and against conventional values bestowed with ones ‘individuality‘ is then considered ‘different’ and is never usually celebrated. Apps like Tinder, don’t ever feature any person as necessarily ‘different‘. Knowing Freddie as a close friend, I wanted his personality to be celebrated as I feel in comparison to other friends he is different in many ways. For example, his preference to smoking isn’t considered a negative life choice, but something he likens to and something he isn’t afraid to share with.
Romantic Expectations
Directing Freddie to change characters by his large and vast collection of various styles of clothing, I wanted to pursue him as a character that would suit him to any time of individual. The reason I chose him for this personal study was so I could get an all round and critical view point for the reader. The reader then elopes on a journey of Freddie’s multiple personas and if I was to impose this using the Tinder app, these images would be a more reliable and less restricting way of finding love.
Short Interview Video-Story
I composed Freddie to very casually discuss his opinions of online dating and how he would consider going about the trend. I felt this video questioned truth as he was definitely interested to discover apps like Tinder, yet was unsure and maybe thrown off because of the major want for a similar personality – a debate eager to console with.
Alike any of the other major religions, Islam seeks to standardize sexual relationships between members of their society or community through moral codes. As laid down in the Quran, any form of sexual behavior – that being: intercourse, oral sex or any action that encourages sexual activity – is strictly forbidden before or outside of marriage. Of course, that doesn’t prevent Muslims engaging in ‘unlawful meetings’, hence the title. In pursuit of romantic love or the sheer fulfilment of mutual desires. Hashim investigates the secret encounters that take place between young Muslim lovers in parks, hidden between trees, or under the cover of the night on beaches and in parking lots. Using night vision cameras, inconspicuous smartphones or digital cameras equipped with long-range telephoto lenses, she captured couples enjoying moments of the greatest intimacy in very public spaces in Sweden swell as in Denmark.
“Those who come from a Muslim background follow strict rules that subsume their individuality, so that the true self is rarely revealed. The public persona and the private life are two distinct zones, creating paradoxes in everyday life that lead to a form of cultural schizophrenia.’”
Hashin’s build in tension and suspense between the public and the private spheres, which runs more acutely through the lives of these young Muslims than of their non-Muslim peers, is reflected in “Unlawful Meetings”. It lies in the invisibility these lovers enjoy in public; for the most part, passersby turn a discretely blind eye to the privacy they create for themselves in shadows and parked cars at nights. This idea of truthfulness and abiding by the rules and guidelines set out for them bombarded the natural path set out for them by there deliberate ancestors. Hashim ensures the anonymity of her subjects, and thus the lawfulness of her recordings of their acts, by leaving out colors and by never showing more than 25% of their facial features. Yet what cannot be hidden is the passion, which, according to one of the youths she interviewed, is heightened exactly for being so “secretly and so rarely enjoyed”. For Hashim herself, who identifies as a believing, but not a practicing Muslim, the project has led her to revisit the tenets of her faith as laid down in texts written in times so fundamentally different from today. Convinced that the ban on sex before marriage was written to protect women and their offspring, she wants to put up for discussion the question if contemporary women and men can’t find other options – in terms of health, or legal and financial security for themselves and their children – to take care of themselves.
Hashim uses the form of a fan-fold laporello in order to tell the story from a dual perspective. On one side of the laporello, shows the images taken with a night-vision camera and the other revealing grey-scale images using a long range telephoto lens. I feel this idea is really interesting and if I was to recreate this in terms of my project I’d use the traditional rituals of love on one side and the non-traditional (online dating) in order for the reader to visually the changes which have occurred over time in means of relationship commodities.
Throughout Hashin’s enduring project, she adopts the professional distance of the social anthropologist conducting a field study, yet at the same time there is an inescapable sense of surveillance and ghoulishness parallel to the work of Kohei Yoshiyuki. In the photographic act again we find the two zones of distance and proximity intertwined in a way that many viewers will find disturbing in its ambiguity.
Alike Hashim, the reader can be reminded of Kohei Yoshiyuki’s infrared-lit photographs from the 1970s, which capture Japanese couples engaged in night-time sex, surrounded by spectators hidden in pitch-dark public parks. But Hashim believes Unlawful Meetings is quite different, because of the community it depicts.
“A lot of white Danish people live here,”
Hashim says.
“So whenever I see darker skinned people, I’m already guessing that they meet here secretly, because they know that their families won’t find them here.”
Hashim, however, does find them. Hiding in public toilets, behind trees and in cars, photographing the Muslim couples who meet in secret, engaging in forbidden sexual acts in bushes and cars. Hashim’s photos are often blurry, the subjects partially obscured by the leaves of a tree or car doors that cover the people’s faces, though this is intentional: Hashim wants them to remain anonymous.
“The way these people met, the way they felt and the way they touched is still visible in these photos. You don’t always need to capture a face to depict emotions.”
Lina Hashim’s photography has its roots in her own childhood, in which the grand themes of family, conflict, exile and migration read like a checklist of documentary topics.
“When the Iraqis came into Kuwait, my father, who had been imprisoned in Iraq for his communist activities, was on the list of people they wanted to take to jail. He was frightened, so he ran,”
Lina tells the British Journal of Photography.
“When I was a teenager, I wasn’t allowed to have boyfriends or intimacy with anyone before getting married, and it was the same thing with my sisters and my brothers and everyone in the community,”
says Hashim.
“But my friends told me about places where they could go to meet their boyfriends, and they said I could go there with them, just to join them, and then I could maybe meet somebody there. It was always in parking lots, or by the sea, or the forest, or the kind of places where you take a dog for a walk. That’s actually how the project started.”
Lina Hashim is a Danish-Iraqi artist who lives and works in Copenhagen. Hashim was born in Kuwait, however later on moved to Denmark with her parents in 1992. Hashim’s primary artistic medium is photography, whereas her methods cross into such fields as anthropology and performance. Hashim as a former student of anthropology puts the methods of anthropology to use when she investigates, amongst other issues, the Islamic dogma of pre-marital sex. Her research draws thoroughly on her readings of the Quran, consulting imams, her family, and a number of chatrooms and online forums for Muslims. At the core of Lina Hashim’s artistic project lies an urge to investigate, rationalize and document the arbitrariness of the way the Quran is being interpreted today using what she describes as a method best understood as historical anthropology: Do the words and dogmas of the Quran make sense in a modern context? She firmly states that she is a Muslim as she believes in Islam, but she doesn’t practise.
NO WIND WITH HIJAB
Hashim began this series in 2012 photographing women’s hair, normally hidden from public view under a hijab, a scarf that covers her head concealing all her hair in the public domain. The hijab is seen as a way to protect these woman, keeping them as a treasure; for Lina to photograph them without this cover – a commandment of God – would be considered a sin in Islamic tradition. Lina’s inspiration came from the memories of how her mother and friends changed when they removed their hijab, filling her with curiosity to photograph women’s hair and chronicle the length of time they had covered it. In order to make the photographs she envisioned, allowing the women to reveal their hair and not break their Islamic beliefs, she consulted a number of Imam, or spiritual leaders, living in Copenhagen.
“I’m a member of a chatting space that is guided by a young Imam. He was very open, so I asked him: ‘If I go to a hairdresser and I find some hair on the floor that belonged to a Muslim girl; would it be a sin if a man sees the hair? And then he said ‘No it wouldn’t, because no-one can see who the woman is.’ Then I asked him if it would be OK to take a photo in which I don’t reveal any of the skin or any of the characteristics of the woman. And he said that it’s impossible to do that, but it would be OK. So I copy-pasted what he said in a document and showed it to all these girls I asked.”
As a viewer this suggests to how important religion is in Lina’s tradition, as the repercussions behind the truth of these women and revealing their identity to the world is a terrifying and consequential concept. Immediately framing the images to focus on the women as an a objectifying motif draws the reader in and is immediately asked to question the rate of rights that individual has. This factor can be seen most restricting, as as a women, the allowance and freedom to show off any hair in any sort of public domain is not tolerated, culturally and religiously. This percussion of Lina’s work is more so celebrated than mourned.
Inspiration
Lina’s focus on a single motif or symbol to represent an entirety of a subject has given me inspiration as to how I should focus on love. Like Stephen Gill’s “Hackney Kisses“, a single kiss represents a whole relationship, such as hair represents an entire culture and religion. In a way I could focus in on this, yet I could also focus on things such as holding of hands or something else to do with or is familiar to a stereotypical relationship.
Carmen Winant opens with four rhetorical questions surrounding the truth behind art and conceptualism as Sherrie Livine’s ‘Mayhem‘ retrospective opens in the Witney Museum of American Art. Visitors are bound to contemplate these thought-provoking questions:
What is “original” and “unoriginal” art?
Does an art object only qualify as authentic if it’s made by the human hand?
Does the context in which one sees an image change its meaning?
Why is a photograph of a photograph worth less on the market than its original?
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a collective group of artists including Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and Sherrie Levine at the time where considered as ones who dubbed the “Pictures” generation. This cohort began using photography to examine the strategies and codes of representation. In reshooting Marlboro advertisements, B-movie stills, and even classics of Modernist photography, these artists adopted dual roles as director and spectator. In their manipulated appropriations, these artists were not only exposing and dissembling mass-media fictions, but enacting more complicated scenarios of desire, identification, and loss.
“After Walker Evans”
The show displays Levine’s earlier photographic work in addition to more recent sculptures, photos and collages that date back to the late 1970s. “After Walker Evans” is one of her series of photos on view. To make the works, Levine photographed Walker Evans’s famous pictures of poor Alabama sharecroppers in 1979. Evans took the photos in 1936 while he was working for the United States government.
Allie Mae Burroughs, the wife of an Alabama sharecropper
Levine wasn’t using his images for source material, to document America’s Great Depression or the Borroughs family. Rather, her photographs of his photographs were the finished product. Appearing identical to their sources, only this time Levine had declared herself to be their author and the appropriation artist, the original ‘artist’ for that matter.
”The pictures I make are really ghosts of ghosts,”
– Levine said in an interview with Arts Magazine in 1985.
This series became a landmark of postmodernism, both praised and attacked as a “feminist hijacking of patriarchal authority“, a critique of the commodification of art, and an elegy on the death of modernism. Far from a high-concept cheap shot, Levine’s works from this series tell the story of our perpetually dashed hopes to create meaning, the inability to recapture the past, and our own lost illusions.
“It is something artists do all the time unconsciously, working in the style of someone they consider a great master, I just wanted to make that relationship literal.”
WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART NOVEMBER 10, 2011 – JANUARY 29, 2012
“The Past carries a secret index with it, by which it is referred to its resurrection. Are we not touched by the same breath of air which was among that which came before?”
—Walter Benjamin
The term ‘mayhem‘ hasn’t always meant ‘disorder’. It comes from the word maim, and until the late 19th century was used to denote the “infliction of physical injury on a person, so as to impair or destroy that person’s capacity for self-defense.” The words usage changed around 1870 but it continued to refer to “violent behaviour, esp. physical assault” until quite recently; according to the Oxford English Dictionary its usage did not designate “rowdy confusion, chaos, disorder” until as late as 1976. When Levine began photographing photographs, the word mayhem was not so far removed from its association with bodily harm. And while photographing photographs means that actual bodies are nowhere in sight, the show has far more to do with destruction than may at first be evident.
In Levine’s ‘Mayhem‘ the motif of discourse has tended to focus on the problem of authorship and the subversion of the unique art object. Levine’s re-photography and her re-productions of Duchamp’s ‘ready-mades‘ have provided important critiques of artistic institutions and practices. However, by 2011, appropriation itself has became so vividly appropriated that it was difficult to view Levine’s work as critical, or even realistic. The ideas put forth by appropriation had been thoroughly diluted by time and repetition, the idea that appropriation subverts the author’s function was a questionable statement in itself.
The significance of Mayhem does not dwell on the alleged challenge to the categorised order provided by an author as well as the cultural or monetary value that the author or painter’s name can confer on or to an object. Neither is it a simple matter of order imposed on disorder—artists such as Duchamp, Evans, and Courbet are thoroughly circumscribed entities that do not need to be explained or contained by Levine. Mayhem’s function, therefore, is not so much critical as it is evidentiary: Levine’s construction whereby she uses the repetition of objects and images, – its sterile organization, provides proof of an illness particular to contemporary society—a society overwhelmed by images and reproductive technology and consequently obsessed with the preservation and organization of surrogate records.
Any retrospective is a sort of archive, but in Levine’s work the archival impulse, the “gathering together of signs” into a “single corpus…in which all the elements articulate the unity of an ideal configuration” is particularly apparent. Mayhem is not simply organized, it is mentally deranging—evidence of a deep-seated cultural anxiety of which the copy, the archive, and the list are both symptom and cause.
“Repetition itself,”
writes Derrida,
“The logic of repetition, indeed the repetition compulsion, remains…indissociable from the death drive.”
Sherrie Levine, “Gottscho-Schleisner Orchids: 2,” 1964–1997.Levine’s exhibition at the Whitney offers 30 years of appropriation art by Sherrie Levine. On the wall are “Gottscho-Schleisner Orchids: 1 — 10” (1964-97).
My Further Interpretations
Following on from Levine’s ‘Mayhem‘ I have learnt the significance of repetition. In this project appropriation is a major motif – reproducing acts of love and manipulating peoples way of finding the emotion is immediately deemed debatable. The destruction of a natural path can definitely succumb to the way we live in modern society and alike Mayhem, the reader see how people change when opportunities to short-cut routes arise.
As a part of my research, I have looked at either side of the spectrum with people’s views of online dating. However, I haven’t yet focused on the extremities it takes for people to breach in order to find their one ‘love‘. This video which was produced by the BBC Newsbeat channel, shows how one man who spends countless hours on social media and in particularly Online Dating blogs. The algorithms of their sites set aside the realism and truth of how dating should happen in the real world, making this individual in-particularly a surrealist of the modern day.
Mathematician Dr Hannah Fry uses DrXand Van Tulleken as her guinea pig to test whether the algorithms that dating sites use to match people actually work.
Define Algorithm:
“a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer”
Stephen Gill was born in Bristol in 1971 and is a Britishexperimental, conceptual and documentary photographer, and is also a artist. He is known for his photographs of East London, his own publication of his books; and his attention to detail of his books as “art objects in themselves“. He works where he lives and includes this place in his books in novel ways other than just the photographic depiction. Gill has worked for many years exploring the culture and environment of Hackney in East London. Some time ago he discovered the work of a lost photographer who had begun to interpret the photo of a kiss in a special and personal way.
“Kissing can be quite like the reverie in a beautiful forest; it can also be end-of-pier theatre. Our Master of the Hackney Kisses knows how these traits combine. His sensibility transcends the profession of wedding photographer – in each kiss you see the future; the past recedes. Reenactment is a pleasure.”
— Timothy Prus
In 2012, Gill purchased approximately 9,000 negatives on eBay that were said to contain images of London’s East End in the 1950s. Gill was hoping the negatives would document the area’s vibrant street life but instead, there were thousands and thousands of pictures of East Enders on their wedding days. Gill spoke about his find:
“All the images were made by one photographer, but since the negatives passed from hand to hand, no one is sure who the photographer is. He used a high-quality medium-format camera with flash, which gives you incredible detail in fabric and textures and those overexposed cakes and flowers.”
You could say here how Gill’s perception of love in this instance is stereotyped, as he believes ‘love‘ and ‘marriage‘ is is instantly associated with motifs such as “over exposed cakes and flowers“. Because these objects are featured in virtually all selected images, it could show how marriage is a ritual partaken in a very mirrored and reflective way of every individual. Even the mention of “cakes and flowers” show their significance and importance in event such as marriage – it is a reoccurring device to show how a marriage can set one apart yet be virtually similar.
“The pictures were probably taken between 1956 and 1959. Some of the couples are a little old, and this is because many people were remarrying around that time after losing their first spouses in the Second World War.
Gill reflects here the importance of the photograph’s context, as well as the significance of marriage, which can be represented strongly throughout all photographs. Men were typically the ones to go and fight for their country and women where considered housewives and care-givers. In all these images, men are the more dominant figures – they’re posed in stances which are passionate and eccentric, possibly condoning the importance of love when they return from major conflicts. As a reader of the modern day its moving to see how relationships are strongly defined by the social structure and norms of the time and in contrast a bigger percentage of relationships are separating without the effects on war in the well recent 21st Century. World War ll can then be seen as a figurative element in the acts of love, a dual that chooses an either good or bad path, for better or for worse.
“Some couples had three or four films from their wedding day and others just six frames. I feel this reflects what the couple or the couple’s parents could afford. But something special always seems to happen when the photographer asks the couple to kiss.”
My Inspiration
The element of a ‘kiss‘ shows Gill’s way of using love as a repetition within his series. The ‘truth‘ element falls under how the photographer is never mentioned or featured in any of the images, defying the boundaries of love by making the reader feel an imminent sense of how love could be staged. Working towards my final piece and presentation, I think it would be a valuable motif that something like a ‘kiss‘, and other occurring themes in relationships could be masked and repeated simultaneously within various relationships. I could use this in contrast to archival research and how over time the traditional norms of love has changed and evolved yet still holds the repetition of various things.
To use images screen-shotted from the Tinder app to use as a frame for separate portraits. In the style of Prince, this could empathise similar to how he manipulated his own Instagram feed. Using friends accounts, or even creating a fake one for myself, allows me to delve into the world of how people mask themselves for love and how I can manipulate myself to become apart of it.
Concept:
To establish the role of images in online dating and how images influence people to be attracted purely by their first sight. This will exaggerate how the comment of ‘truth‘ lies purely in the eye of the beholder.
Below are some examples of my friends Tinder profiles. As you can see, the information states the factors of your Name, Age, Location in comparison to yours, as well as offering you to display a range of images which feel represent your true self. The most eye-catching feature of this is predominately your profile picture as its the largest subject on the screen. This could suggest an un-reliable source of finding romance as the person is only viable to ‘match’ you unless you fill the box for looks when satisfied. In conjunction, the person they haven’t decided to give matches to could be someone they seem to get on well with, initially finding it more difficult for them to maybe find their perfect match.
As displayed above, you can see a range of interests of people inhabit, something I wish to portray during my creation of a photo-book or study. I think incorporating peoples interests / lives through a collection of images is something I wish to portray in a sequence or dichotomy of images.
Richard Prince is an appropriation artist, painter and photographer born 1949 in the Panama Canal Zone. Prince now lives and works in Upstate New York. Prince began copying other photographer’s work in 1975. His image, Untitled (Cowboy), a rephotographing of a photograph taken originally by Sam Abell and appropriated from a cigarette advertisement, was the first rephotograph to raise more than $1 million at auction when it was sold at Christie’s New York in 2005.
Untitled (Cowboy) / Cowboys
Abell’s iconic photo and Prince’s “artistic” crop of it.
Prince has created an alternative twist to Abell’s work, his painting incorporating a bountiful perspective and outlook originally presented – this ‘wildness‘. From a reader, the difference between the sculpture as shown above juxtaposed with the paintings questions the truth of the artwork, what one was the original interpretation?
Taken from Marlboro cigarette advertisements of the Marlboro Man, they represent an idealized figure of American masculinity. The Marlboro Man was the iconic equivalent of later brands like Ralph Lauren, which used the polo pony image to identify and associate its brand.
“Every week. I’d see one and be like, Oh that’s mine, Thank you,”
Prince stated in an interview.
Prince’s Cowboys displayed men in boots and ten-gallon hats, with horses, lassos, spurs and all the fixings that make up the stereotypical image of a cowboy. They were set in the Western U.S., in arid landscapes with stone outcrops flanked by cacti and tumbleweeds, with backdrops of sunsets. The advertisements were staged with the utmost attention to detail.
It has been suggested that Prince’s works raise the question of what is real, what is a ‘real’ cowboy? and what makes it so? Prince’s photographs of these advertisements attempt to prompt one to decide how real are media images. The subjects of Prince’srephotographs are the photos of others. He is photographing the works of other photographers, who in the case of the cowboys, had been hired by Marlboro to create images depicting cowboys. Prince described his process in a 2003 interview by Steve Lafreiniere in Artforum.
“I had limited technical skills regarding the camera. Actually I had no skills. I played the camera. I used a cheap commercial lab to blow up the pictures. I made editions of two. I never went into a darkroom.”
Starting in 1977, Prince photographed four photographs which previously appeared in the New York Times. This process of rephotographing continued into 1983, when his work Spiritual America featured Garry Gross’s photo of Brooke Shields at the age of ten, standing in a bathtub, as an allusion to precocious sexuality and to the Alfred Stieglitz photograph by the same name. His Jokes series (beginning 1986) concerns the sexual fantasies and sexual frustrations of middle-class America, using stand-up comedy and burlesque humor. This photo is now displayed in the new Renzo Piano-designed Whitney Museum of American Art.
Re-photography uses appropriation as its own focus: artists pull from the works of others and the worlds they depict to create their own work. Appropriation art became popular in the late 1970s. Other appropriation artists such as Sherrie Levine, Louise Lawler, Vikky Alexander, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger and Mike Bidlo also became prominent in the East Village in the 1980s.
During the early period of his career, Prince worked in Time Magazine’s tear sheets department. At the end of each work day, he would be left with nothing but the torn out advertising images from the eight or so magazines owned by Time-Life. On the topic of found photographs, Prince said:
“Oceans without surfers, cowboys without Marlboros…Even though I’m aware of the classicism of the images. I seem to go after images that I don’t quite believe. And, I try to re-present them even more unbelievably.”
Prince had very little experience with photography, but he has said in interviews that all he needed was a subject, the medium would follow, whether it be paint and brush or camera and film. He compared his new method of searching out interesting advertisements to “beachcombing.” His first series during this time focused on models, living room furniture, watches, pens, and jewellery. Pop culture became the focus of his work. Prince described his experience of appropriation thus:
“At first it was pretty reckless. Plagiarising someone else’s photograph, making a new picture effortlessly. Making the exposure, looking through the lens and clicking, felt like an unwelling . . . a whole new history without the old one. It absolutely destroyed any associations I had experienced with putting things together. And of course the whole thing about the naturalness of the film’s ability to appropriate. I always thought it had a lot to do with having a chip on your shoulder.”
In 2014, Prince continued his appropriation theme with an exhibit of 38 portraits at the Gagosian gallery in New York City, entitled “New Portraits.” Each image was taken from his Instagram feed and included topless images of models, artists, and celebrities. Underneath the images, Prince provided comments like,
with the copyright and registered trademark symbols likely being references to his interests in authorship.
“Possible cogent responses to the show include naughty delight and sheer abhorrence”,
wrote art critic Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker.
“My own was something like a wish to be dead.”
As with previous appropriated Prince works, the Instagram prints draw attention to the intersection of art and copyright infringement; Prince has been challenged in courts but has so far won his cases. Some of the unwilling subjects of his art, notably members of SuicideGirls, have started selling their own derivative works based on Prince derivative works of their original works. This makes Prince’s work more conceptualised as people understand art is not there to be like but to prove a message that re-worked art can be categorised as art. In 2015, Prince would repeat his exhibit from Gagosian with a new exhibit for the Frieze Art Fair in NYC. However, Prince would end up making headlines due to selling the portraits for profit–at the fair, Prince sold enlargements of his Instagram feed and comments for $90,000.
How has Prince’s re-workings of his series ‘New Portraits‘ inspired me to use Tinder as a way of appropriating people into finding new ways of love?
In response to Prince, I think it would be an interesting idea to frame my own portraits within a tinder profile. During my development, I will ask my friends to screen-shot their Tinder profiles and display each image they use on their tinder profile. Capturing separate portraits could exempt the idea of how truthful they are behind their profile. I will also ask family and family friends who have been in longer relationships previous to social media and online-dating coming about, as well as their insight into how they met, how successful the relationship is and their opinion into social media being a tool of love making.
To continue researching online-dating, I thought it was necessary to focus mainly on debates on Appropriation, as this is something I will focus on during the production of my photo-book and videos during the creation of my final pieces. This video (below) I thought was very helpful within the discussions of ethical boundaries of uses of library collections online and in physical spaces. What is given online within the public domain is discussed to show how people manipulate, copy, and appropriate images to trademark it for themselves.
To mark Fair Use Week 2015, a community celebration of fair use coordinated by the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Digital Research and Scholarship’s Scholarly Communication Program and the Copyright Advisory Office hosted a panel discussion around freedom of expression in art and photography as it relates to fair use. Panelists discussed fair use from different perspectives in librarianship, copyright law, photojournalism, and copyright activism, and explored the opportunities and impediments that fair use in art and photography presents.
Panelists:
Greg Cram,Associate Director of Copyright and Information Policy at The New York Public Library
Rachelle Browne, Associate General Counsel, Smithsonian Institution and Adjunct Lecturer at Goucher College’s Masters in Arts Administration program
Mickey H. Osterreicher,General Counsel for the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA); Parker Higgins Director of Copyright Activism, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Moderated by Rina Elster Pantalony, Director of Columbia University’s Copyright Advisory Office.
For more about the event and the Research Without Borders series:
Tinder has matched more than 11 billion potential couples since it was founded in 2013, so the dating app has a tremendous amount of data about what works and what doesn’t.
Tinder’s CEO Sean Radstates:
“one of the most surprising things I have learnt from looking at an aggregate of all the data is how we underestimate how much information humans pick up from a simple photo.”
– “So what makes the perfect photo?”
These images show the profiles of two women advertised on Tinder. This is the normal layout with the most outstanding subject you see being the image, information is then displayed below in a smaller font.
Rad was asked on stage at Advertising Week Europe in London on Wednesday by Cosmopolitan UK editor Farrah Storr.
“The data shows this: When your photo expresses something about your interests — like a skier skiing — or something about your personality, you do better”
Rad says.
“You do better as in you get more matches. I always tell people to be yourself.”
This argument shows that Rad encourages people to become their own individuals, and not those that ‘follow the crowd‘. The suggestion that matches purely come from your interests is controversial, as the first thing people see on your profile is your profile image – does this suggest people fall in love purely by the sight of someone else. Tinder is then put in the light of a dating website more for the looks of someone rather than personality based – its the immediate decision for people to either ‘swipe right‘ or ‘swipe left‘.
Sean Rad, speaking at Advertising Week Europe in London, 20 April 2016.
“The model-y poses never work”
Rad, who uses the app for both work and dating, said. He said also he didn’t understand why people put up photos of themselves with a lot of their friends. Eventually, users swipe through the initial image and work out who people really are. Head-shots apparently don’t work either.
“Shots that display what you look like but the environment you live in, and your interests — they work,”
according to Rad.
Tinder’s algorithm
Rad reveals that Tinder’salgorithm gives unpopular users “a little boost“. An algorithm can be defined as: a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations: “a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations“. Rad gave away how the Tinderalgorithm, which attempts to surface people that users would like to meet in the real world, actually works. There are plenty of eligible singles on Tinder who pick up dozens of matches every time they log in to the app. But some find it a little harder. Those users get an extra “boost” and find themselves presented in front of some of the most popular users on Tinder.
Rad said:
“About 89% of our users, just through normal behavior, find matches and have meaningful connections. But there are a group of users that despite swiping, I think, can’t find a match. We give them a little boost to get extra love and attention and hopefully they end up meeting someone.”
It’s initially the “meeting someone” that is Tinder’s ultimate success metric.
– “Success is ultimately defined by how much real-world interaction we can created”
“Online dating or Internet dating is a personal introductory system where individuals can find and contact each other over the Internet to arrange a date, usually with the objective of developing a personal, romantic, or sexual relationship.”
Online dating services usually provide unmoderated matchmaking over the Internet, through the use of personal computers or mobile phones. Users of an online dating service would usually provide personal information, to enable them to search the service provider’s database for other individuals, using filters in order to find their ‘perfect match‘. Members use criteria other members set, such as age range, gender and location.
“Online dating sites use market metaphors to match people. Match metaphors are conceptual frameworks that allow individuals to make sense of new concepts by drawing upon familiar experiences and frame-works. This metaphor of the marketplace – a place where people go to “shop” for potential romantic partners and to “sell” themselves in hopes of creating a successful romantic relationship – is highlighted by the layout and functionality of online dating websites. The marketplace metaphor may also resonate with participants’ conceptual orientation towards the process of finding a romantic partner.”
Heino, R.; N. Ellison; J. Gibbs (2010). “Relationshopping: Investigating the market metaphor in online dating.” The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
Deferences between the preference of online website:
Most sites allow members to upload photos or videos of themselves and browse the photos and videos of others.
Sites may offer additional services, such as webcasts, online chat, telephone chat (VOIP), and message boards.
Some sites provide free registration, but may offer services which require a monthly fee.
Other sites depend on advertising for their revenue.
Some sites such as “OkCupid.com“, “POF.com” and “Badoo.com” are free and offer additional paid services in a freemium revenue model.
Online Dating Downfalls
Online dating however, makes it easier for people who have less confidence and can end up putting people in the position of having a relationship purely online. This can be cause to many people who are self-conscious about their sexuality or have trouble communicating this across to people because they are scared of what they might think and will end up being put off by them. These videos bellow show how online dating in this context has effected a group of men and women who call themselves transgender.
As you can see, the video’s suggest that the website ‘OkCupid’ allows for people to categorise themselves in order for them to make people more comfortable when describing their gender. This is why OkCupid is known to be the most popular online dating website for people who are transgender.
A study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that around 35% of the couples who got married between 2005 and 2012 met online. This data surely reveals how important social media has become in the field of relationships and love.
The Internet, social networking, and online dating has affected how people meet future spouses, but little is known about the prevalence or outcomes of these marriages or the demographics of those involved. We addressed these questions in a nationally representative sample of 19,131 respondents who married between 2005 and 2012. Results indicate that more than one-third of marriages in America now begin online. In addition, marriages that began on-line, when compared with those that began through traditional off-line venues, were slightly less likely to result in a marital break-up (separation or divorce) and were associated with slightly higher marital satisfaction among those respondents who remained married. Demographic differences were identified between respondents who met their spouse through on-line vs. traditional off-line venues, but the findings for marital break-up and marital satisfaction remained significant after statistically controlling for these differences. These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself.
The rise in the Internet has transformed how Americans work, play, search, shop, study, and communicate. Facebook has grown from its inception in 2004 to over a billion users, and Twitter has grown from its start in 2006 to more than 500 million users. The 2011American Time Use Survey indicates that, on average, men now spend 9.65% and women spend 6.81% of their leisure time on-line. The Internet has also changed how Americans meet their spouse. Meeting a marital partner in traditional off-line venues has declined over the past several decades but meeting online has grown dramatically, with on-line dating now a billion-dollar industry with many markets people invest in. Experiments in which strangers are randomly assigned to interact using computer-mediated communications versus face-to-face communications show that the more anonymous online meetings produce greater self-disclosure and liking as long as the interaction is not under strong time constraints. Consistent with these experimental studies, research of online users suggests that authentic online self-disclosures are associated with more enduring face-to-face friendships.
The demographic characteristics of the respondents who married between 2005 and 2012 as well as US Census data for married individuals indicated that the weighted sample of 19,131 respondents was generally representative. For each marriage, participants were asked the month and year of the marriage and, if the most recent marriage ended in divorce, the month and year of the divorce. As summarised, 92.01% of the sample reported being currently married, 4.94% reported being divorced, 2.50% reported being separated from their spouse, and 0.55% reported being widowed. As in prior research, marital break-ups were defined as separated or divorced and constituted 7.44% of the sample.
Online Dating has been critically acclaimed however that it is more of a ‘Taboo‘ subject rather than a serious matter. Ellen De Generes was discussing on her show the major online mobile and internet site ‘Tinder‘ in conjunction with a viral video claiming that Queen Elizabeth was using the site. This video shows a parody towards the Queens masked reaction when a person asks her opinions towards the app, this is all however, a false claim made by Elizabeth herself.
Case Study: Tinder
Tinder is a location-based dating and social discovery service application (using Facebook) that facilitates communication between mutually interested users, allowing matched users to chat. The app was launched in 2012, and by 2014 it was registering about one billion “swipes” per day. Tinder is among the first “swiping apps”, where the user uses a swiping motion to choose between the photos of other users: swiping right for potentially good matches and swiping left on a photo to move to the next one.
As seen above, the image shows the company’s slogan:
“Its how people meet”
The confidence and boldness of that statement shows a considerable amount of change within the dating game since online dating became a well-known, popular way of going about romance. VFMagazine, on 6th August 2015 published an article explaining: “Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”. Vanity Fair explains that in a typical night of the suburban downtown area of Manhattan’s ‘Stout Sports Bar‘ –
“Everyone is drinking, peering into their screens and swiping on the faces of strangers they may have sex with later that evening. Or not. “Ew, this guy has Dad bod,” a young woman says of a potential match, swiping left. Her friends smirk, not looking up.”
“Guys view everything as a competition,”with his deep, reassuring voice. “Who’s slept with the best, hottest girls?” With these dating apps, he says, “you’re always sort of prowling. You could talk to two or three girls at a bar and pick the best one, or you can swipe a couple hundred people a day—the sample size is so much larger. It’s setting up two or three Tinder dates a week and, chances are, sleeping with all of them, so you could rack up 100 girls you’ve slept with in a year.”
Alex, Tinder user.
“SEX HAS BECOME SO EASY”
“I call it the Dating Apocalypse,”
says a woman in New York, aged 29.
“Hookup culture”, which has been percolating for about a hundred years, has collided with dating apps, which have acted like a wayward meteor on the now rare rituals of courtship.
“We are in uncharted territory” when it comes to Tinder.
Justin Garcia, a research scientist at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
There have been two major ‘transitions‘ in heterosexual mating in the last four million years, Garcia says. The first was around 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, in the agricultural revolution, when we became less migratory and more settled, leading to the establishment of marriage as a cultural contract. The second major transition being the rise of the Internet. People used to meet their partners through proximity, through family and friends, but now Internet meeting is surpassing every other form.
“It’s changing so much about the way we act both romantically and sexually,”
Garcia says.
“It is unprecedented from an evolutionary standpoint.”
As soon as people could go online they were using it as a way to find partners to date and have sex with. “In the 90s it was Craigslist and AOLchat rooms, then Match.com and Kiss.com”. But the lengthy, heartfelt e-mails exchanged by the main characters in You’ve Got Mail (1998) seem positively Victorian in comparison to the messages sent on the average dating app today, showing that in a space of ten years people’s attitudes have changed towards the way we go about the contexts of love.
A tableau from the film: “You’ve Got Mail”
Mobile dating went mainstream; by 2012 it was overtaking online dating. In February, one study reported there were nearly 100 million people—perhaps 50 million on Tinder alone—using their phones as a sort of all-day, every-day, handheld singles club, where they might find a taboo sex partner as easily as they’d find a cheap flight to Florida.
“It’s like ordering Seamless,”
says Dan, the investment banker, referring to the online food-delivery service.
“But you’re ordering a person.”
This lends the comparison between movie dating and online shopping as it seems Dating apps are the free-market economy come to sex. The innovation of Tinder was the swipe—the flick of a finger on a picture, no more elaborate profiles necessary and no more fear of rejection; users only know whether they’ve been approved, never when they’ve been discarded. OkCupid soon adopted the function. Hinge, which allows for more information about a match’s circle of friends through Facebook, and Happn, which enables G.P.S. tracking to show whether matches have recently “crossed paths,” use it too. It’s telling that swiping has been jocularly incorporated into advertisements for various products, a nod to the notion that, online, the act of choosing consumer brands and sex partners has become interchangeable.
Social media is everywhere in our contemporary lifestyles and millions of people around the world have their profiles on these platforms. According to a study by the statistics portal Statista, the number of social media users has been on the rise globally since the last few years. And in 2014, it is expected to reach a whopping 1.82 billion. According also to the data of January 2014, as many as 74% of the global population have their active presence on social media. This immense presence and the resultant activities are reason enough for these platforms to have their influence on a wide range of events. And these include the most intricate things of human civilizations as well – relationships.
The story of the Instagram proposal for marriage is now visible almost all over the internet. But this is not unique to Instagram only. Social media has made it easier for people to get connected with one another. And this is visible across a wide range of platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and so on.
The account unfolds like a metaphorical slideshow of their relationship, ending with a note to look up as Parris proposed verbally, in person. Just as Diddy used Instagram to ask his long-time girlfriend if she liked a picture of an enormous diamond ring that he posted to his 3 million followers, couples are increasingly using social media as part of their marriage proposals. If Instagram and Facebook are the backbone of their social lives, it’s fitting that couples turn to these networks as a way to realise important life milestones.
Number of social network users worldwide from 2010 to 2019 (in billions)
This statistic shows the number of social network users worldwide from 2010 to 2015 with projections until 2019. In 2018, it is estimated that there will be around 2.55 billion social network users around the globe, up from 1.87 billion in 2014.
The Guardian have released a statement following the allegations of Video footage showing a young photographer posing a woman in front of a makeshift memorial. The question has arisen whether if its bad journalism ethics, or just the way it’s done?
A young photojournalist caught on video posing a girl in mourning after the Brussels terror attacks has sparked a furious debate among internationally renowned news photographers about how often news photographs are staged. In the footage, captured by Fox News during a live cross to Belgium on Wednesday morning, photographer Khaled Al Sabbah can be seen moving the arm of a young girl and directing her in front of the makeshift memorial, while he snaps away with his camera. Photojournalist ethics – outlined by media organizations, industry associations and major competitions – state that news photos cannot be posed.
“It’s one more example of a photographer doing something that destroys public trust in the media”
Michael Kamber, a former staff photographer at the New York Times and founder of the Bronx Documentary Center, after viewing the video.
Al Sabbah is a 21-year-old Palestinian photographer who lives in Brussels; his work often focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His photo last year of a father mourning his son during a funeral parade in Gaza won first prize in the Hamdan international photography awards and was republished by international outlets, including National Geographic. Social Media has shown a major impact of the choices people make when supporting the ethics of photography. Controversially, social media can be a source of a ‘diary’ form, where opinion opinion can be shared not with the promise of critical debate or expectance. In an apology posted to Facebook, he said he was not working for a press agency and had taken the photo purely for aesthetic reasons, to practice and post to his own Instagram and Facebook. A picture from the event was then uploaded to his personal Instagram – where he identifies himself as a photojournalist – but was removed after commenters accused him of posing it.
“My main ultimate goal is to take an aesthetic photo in solidarity with children no more, no less, a photo that shows the humanitarian side … Fix my mistakes instead of criticising me”
Sabbah wrote in his Facebook apology.
However, the video of Al Sabbah directing the child, posted on Facebook by photographer and artist James Pomerantz, prompted a wide debate by photographers about how common posed pictures have become.
“I see it everywhere, sadly. Congo, CAR [Central African Republic] by very well-known photographers who are seemingly respected in their field,”
wrote by renowned documentary photographer Marcus Bleasdale – winner of last year’s Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club of America and two-time winner in the World Press Photo competition.
Kamber covered Iraq for the New York Times between 2003 and 2012, and said posed photographs were “fairly routine” by local photographers, particularly because so many Iraqi publications were owned by political parties. “That’s what they’d been trained to do: take a picture of everyone shaking their fists,” he said. And if someone wasn’t shaking their fist, says Kamber, the photographer would tell them to do it. When covering the war in Liberia, Kamber said he saw a French photographer directing child soldiers to make it look like they were fighting. “These were famous photos on front pages all over the world,” he said. “You think it was taken in the middle of combat, it was a totally quiet day there with no fighting going on at all.” Another day, a different European news photographer in Monrovia, Liberia, led a chant with protesters, recalled Kamber. Once the crowd was worked up and shouting, the photographer grabbed his camera and starting shooting.
Iranian-American photojournalist Ramin Talaie, who also works as an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s graduate school of journalism, says he has encountered many local photographers in the Middle East who don’t see posed news photos as a ‘problem‘.
“I’ve been in situations like … a political rally, where the politician did something and suddenly someone missed the shot and they yell to do it again,”
– Talaie
When he was in Tehran for Iran’s 2005 elections“this one guy literally was giving people instructions on how to do it again and moving them around to get a better light on their faces,” recalled Talaie.
Yevgeny Khaldei’s photo of Soviet soldiers raising a flag on top of the Reichstag, which was staged.
Posed photos aren’t new: in response Yevgeny Khaldei posed one of the most famous photos to emerge of the Second World War, known as Raising a Flag over the Reichstag, which shows a Soviet flag being waved over Berlin. Yet in juxtaposition with problems today, as Al Sabbah points out that he is self-taught – is purely a lack of training.
“We have a lot of great photographers in places such as Palestine and Iraq. They learn photography … but they didn’t learn ethics,” said Talaie. “A lot of times, editors sitting in New York or London don’t see what these guys do to get shots.”
As media organizations close down or tighten photography budgets, staff photographers have been cut. Kamber points out that 15 years ago most news photographers would be on staff, in union jobs, and if they had a quiet day with no great pictures, they still got paid.
“The history of mankind is rife with love producing illogical and oddball behaviour. Alec Soth’s newest book Looking for Love, 1996 is, in its way, about the search for love guided by the heart and the search of love guided by the eye.”
Jeffery Ladd, TIME INC. Network
About
The cover of Alex Soth’s latest book Looking for Love, 1996 published by Kominek Books.
“Love makes people do strange things states Soth. The history of mankind is rife with love producing illogical and oddball behavior. When it comes to photography, falling in love with the medium is hardly an exception.”
For example, Jeffery Ladd from TIME INC. Network states that someone as painfully shy like Soth might find themselves impulsively photographing “strangers” without asking for permission. Or, they instinctively photograph something without any ability to later explain why. Alec Soth’s book “Looking for Love” (1996) is initially about both— the search for love guided by the heart and the search of love guided by the eye.
In his brief introduction to the work Soth describes that time as one of working a “miserable job” (printing photos at a large commercial lab) and retreating to a bar to be comforted by “the solitude I found among strangers.” He began to concentrate on his own pictures, slyly using the lab to make prints which he smuggled, concealed under his jeans, out to his car. He writes of imagining one day “a stranger would fall in love with me” – a mantra or a statement he goes by when composing his images.
The first photographs of couples we encounter in Looking for Love cling possessively to their partners and leer at Soth’s camera as if to ask, “this is mine, where is yours?” While his journey takes us through the outside landscape and various social gatherings—the aforementioned bar; a convention hall that seems to bridge religion, spirituality and dating under one roof; poker games; singles parties; high school proms—we can sense as a reader, a young photographer eager to hone his photographic instincts for metaphor and craving the fruits of collaboration between artist, medium and world.
Bree, Liberty Cheer All-Stars, Corsicana, TexasNear San Antonio, Texas
A photo of a flirtatious blonde cheerleader sits on the opposite page of a lone, slightly gothic teen outside a music club. The prom king and queen stand proudly before an auditorium empty but for a few hidden background observers and a basketball court scoreboard. An older man sits phone to ear at a ‘Psychic Friends Network’ booth while a quaffed blonde with a #1 ribbon pinned to her lapel passes by paying no mind. Alongside the underlying melancholy of some of these pictures is also the excitement of a photographer discovering their talent and seeing an affirmation of life stilled in photographs.
That affirmation makes the parting photograph all the more important. In it we see Soth himself sitting sprawl-legged in a rental tuxedo as if his own prom has just ended. Perhaps it had. I hope the love he may have found, lasts. I thought it was very important to include in my research Soth’s dominating work “Looking For Love” (1996).Soth toys with the idea of teenage sexual desires. ‘Love’ for teenagers stereotypically demises to that of little passion and loss of innocence, yet with the combination of images surrounding this idea of love as a perspective but also an ownership, allows the reader to want to crave it themselves.
This is a video I came across during my research process when analysing Alec Soth’s work ‘Niagara‘. I felt this interview was very beneficial when exploring his prospect of the project and his thoughts on love as an open force within the location.
Alec Soth is a photographer and artist from Minneapolis, United States. who makes “large-scale American projects” featuring the midwestern United States. His photography has a ‘cinematic‘ feel with elements of folklore that hint at a story and a narrative behind his images.
“Fashion Magazine” by Alec Soth, Paris / Minnesota, “Florence”
New York Times art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a “photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers” and photographs “loners and dreamers“. According to The Guardianart critic Hannah Booth, his work tends to focus on the “off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America”. Soth’s work has been compared to that of Walker Evans and Stephen Shore and is a member of Magnum Photographs.
The Context behind Niagara Falls
For hundreds of years, couples from around the world have made their way to Niagara Falls to reaffirm and celebrate their love. Niagara Falls has earned its title as the
“Honeymoon Capital of the World”
in the early 1800‘s as the world’s most wealthy, notable and elite people began to travel to Western New York for its Great Lakes, jaw-dropping vistas and, the scenic wonder of Niagara Falls. This location became a rich haven for people most fortunate to visit, and was instantly labeled as an upper-class gold mine for romance and tranquility. When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River, Niagara Falls suddenly became more accessible. Couples were drawn, not only to its thundering, majestic waters, but also to Niagara Falls State Park and its many green, secluded nooks and paths. The spacious, sublime scenery was an idealic place for love. Today, Niagara still lives up to its glorious reputation, whether on your honeymoon, wedding, an anniversary treat or to honor a long-standing family tradition of love, couples embrace this special destination for the one-of-a-kind attractions that have charmed millions for centuries. From Niagara Falls itself to the Maid of the Mist- couples can get up close and personal with the Horseshoe Falls and get kissed by the mist. This special location provides a honeymoon you’ll treasure and fondly remember throughout your years together.
“Niagara”, 2006
Soth uses a range of landscape and portrait images to re-connect the idea of love with the picturesque monument Niagara Falls. This location sparks various emotions connected to romance, as it can be seen as an notorious spot for Marriage, proposals, and even breakups within relationships. The dramatic sequence of Soth’s impacting work “Niagara”, narrates love as a histrionic force, embarking its truth and purpose within American culture.
“Falls”
“I went to Niagara for the same reason as the honeymooners and suicide jumpers,”
(2008.)
Soth explores various uses of mixed media; collections of love letters which have been found in various locations surrounding Niagara, such as motels and lets, surround the extreme emotional ties this location has in terms of love. This clever narrative form allows the reader to understand love as a round perspective, questioning the truth between Soth’s original photographs and peoples’ personal archival diaries. Soth adds thats when he photographs people, he feels nervous at times:
“My own awkwardness comforts people, I think. It’s part of the exchange.”
Soth’s persona within this series counteracts his relationship with the subject he’s photographing. For instance, his comfort in finding love within relationships could be a manipulated subject, he doesn’t know himself what the definition of love is therefore approaching the aim in a rounded way. The inclusion of actual “love letters” and “confessions,” using actual documents and artefacts as devices to tell his story make the book overall more personal and invasive.
“To The Love Of My Life”
“I became interested in the idea of Niagara as a metaphor for love and passion and began e exploring those themes. Why do people have honeymoons in Niagara Falls? Why is it associated with sexuality and passion and new love?”
Magnum in Motion. (2007).
One of his photos is of “Melissa” in a bridal gown sitting outside what appears to be a motel; he describes having made an arrangement with a particular wedding chapel in Niagara Falls which let him take pictures of couples getting married, by photographing them after their weddings. The sort of simplicity and bareness behind the photograph underlines it stereotyped feel, it can be easily repeated and sanctioned for people to copy. The fact Soth has decided to photograph her in a non-recognised, less significant area, makes the reader feel compelled more to her facial expression. Soth’s closely analysed photographs brings out the common ground within American Society.
“Melissa”, 2005.
Soth also uses the falls as a constant referral within his book. Every so often there would be a break within portraits which shows a repetition of different images of the falls. This symbolically could represent a constant reminder to the reader of the main source of love within this series. This also can present different forms of love in a very effective, clever way, as Soth plays with the idea of how Landscapes bring out emotions in Portraits, much like Rita-Puig Serra Costa in my previous study of “Where Mimosa Bloom”. Soth does this very regularly throughout his study, for instance his work “The Great Leap Sideways, 25 Niagara 28 Falls” (below), may suggest an anger, and a negative affluence with connection to his images, as the darkness within its frame suggests Niagara for some a place of violence and deceit. On the other hand, the image below shows a parallel with those images associated with passion and desire, as the red colours illustrate these positive emotions.
Tableau Photography can be seen as a ‘Visual Fiction’:
Tableaux ‘vivants‘ have been around for tens of centuries. The recreating of famous scenes and paintings was a popular pastime and in our contemporary world, the digital age brings us new stories and narratives that can be created with the revival of the tableau photograph.
A “tableau vivant” is a French phrase meaning “living picture.” Before photography was established, it was a popular pastime to re-create scenes from famous paintings at parties and other social events. Participants would dress up, use props, appropriate backgrounds and poses to re-stage the original image, to almost ridicule or mimic, encouraging more audience interest and participation. This technique saw large radicalisation, as people were going against traditional norms to suppress different emotions within photographs. A good example of this is included in Goethe’s series “ELECTIVE INFINITIES” where the Count in the story suggests:
“There are many well proportioned people here who are certainly capable of impersonating the movements and postures of paintings. Such tableaux demand a great deal of troublesome arrangements, I know, but they produce an unbelievable effect.”
Elective Affinities (Penguin Classics), Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Since the time photography came about, ‘tableaux vivants’ have remained a popular method to recreate old paintings as photographs and to create new narrative scenes in a tableau style captured as photograph. Early pioneers of the tableau photograph were David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson who, in the 1840’s, created many staged portraits of famous men of the time. They also staged images of local fish wives, fishermen and working people.
Artist : David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson, Date : 1843-1847, Medium Description: photogravure: “An image of Miss Mary McCandlish”
The Revival of Tableau Photography, 1970s
The 1970s was a time of experimentation in photography, showing a rise in the use of performance art and photography among women. Photography almost acted as a ‘sanctuary’ for women, as their liberation and freedom grew from being able to experience art forms that men originally performed instead. Cindy Sherman is a good example of how women began to express themselves through photographs in the public domain. Cindy Sherman’s “Film Stills” series dating from the late 1970s to early 1980s are all narrative tableau constructions that create archetypal women from B movies: posed, staged and lit to convey meaning and message.
Unititled Film Still #14, 1978 Cindy ShermanUntitled Film Still #53, 1980, reprinted 1998, Cindy Sherman. http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/P11519
Sherman starred in every image, turning herself into an art form. Sherman still creates tableau scenes that use herself in the image in a managed way to expose a character or tell a story.
Bernard Faucon is another example of the revival of tableau photography, and differently to Sherman, uses mannequins in his tableau photography, giving his work a surrealist edge. The line between fact and fiction becomes increasingly blurred as some of his images used a mixture of real people and mannequins; making the viewer look deeper into the image to discern what is real and what is not. Faucon’s career took off in 1976 with his exhibition “Les Grandes Vacances.”
This work explored themes of childhood, with the children being replaced with mannequins who play with the elements fire, earth, water and sky. Faucon was obsessed with childhood and in 1995 his obsession came to an end as he retired from photography stating, “I had to eventually make true my claim to finish, my obsession with closing. This became The End of the Image.”
Bernard Faucon “Jeux de plage”
Contemporary Tableau Photography: Ryan Schude
Contemporary artists and photographers have used the tableau to create stunning imagery that reflects modern society and has an underlying narrative. The use of theatrical or filmic lighting adds to the effect of the images. Ryan Schude is a great example of how tableau photography as an art form has allowed him to manipulate any situation in a ridiculed way. Schude’s American lifestyle allows him to play in versitile scenes, as America is known for its variation in scenery, as well as its reputation to always commit to its vibrant character. In the words of Aline Smithson of “LENSCRATCH”, Fine Art Articles, she describes Schude as “creating new photographic worlds by combining a mixture of humor, chaos, constructed environments, and ironic fun. Ryan is a photographer who does it all, producing commercial, stock, editorial, and fine art imagery ” . Below are pictures from his series “TABLEAU VIVANTS“. This series surrounds a range of images surrounding the abnormal lives of people in American Lifestyles.
“The Diner”, Sun Valley, California, 2008Tamar Levine and Ryan Schude
I found this video during the research process of ‘The Science of Love’, module of my project. I thought this module of my project would really draw in contextual perceptions of love, but in an alternate way of ‘science’ instead of the mainstream ’emotional’ meaning.
Cheryl L. Dickson is a high school literature teacher and explains in her article “A Psychological Perspective of Teen Romances in Young Adult Literature” Dickson finds it impossible to ignore the “bantering of teenagers in love”. Dickson works against stereotypes of love when stating”
“I question who gives them the impression that love is always fireworks and roses”.
Controversially, Dickson blames the ‘media’ as she gives examples of teen movies such as “She’s All That” and television programs like Dawson’s Creek, she states: “It’s no wonder adolescents have unrealistic views of love”. “Teens watch these programs for a number of reasons. Most viewers enjoy the fantasy world they can enter, or they enjoy seeing other teens facing situations similar to situations they encounter. A problem occurs when teens expect their lives to be like their favorite character. Just as violence on television is hypothesized to increase real-life violence, television romance can likely affect views of real-life romance”.
Dickson adds that being a literature teacher creates the hope that literature could “undo television’s mistakes and bridge the gap between real love and fantasy love”. In our modern day and age it’s understandable that teenagers are influenced daily by the ‘next best thing’. Dickson sympathises with this, and compels the reader to empathise with her:
“In my mind, the literature had to be real fiction, not the supermarket romance novels. I believed teen romance series were likely to be just as damaging as teen movies.”
She then adds that she ‘predicted‘ that quality literature would more accurately portray images of teen love than teen romance novels. However, during my comparison of two novels from the Love Series published by Bantam Books and two novels recommended by the American Libraries Association, I learned that I had made some hasty assumptions.
Dickson creates a difference between ‘teen love‘ and ‘romance‘
Teen: a person aged between 13 and 19 years, (synonyms) a young adult, adolescent
Love: a strong feeling of affection and sexual attraction for someone, (synonyms) affection, fondness, tenderness
Against
Romance: a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love, (synonyms) passion, ardour, adoration, devotion; affection, fondness, intimacy, attachment.
Here, Dickson established how romance is a ‘mysterious‘ and a delved part of love. Against the definition of love, Dickson almost suggests that love, even though associated with romance, contradicts the idea that there is much more to romance than a ‘teen love‘; for instance, know one really understands love until they experience it, yet adolescents are melded with the harsh stereotypes of love in the media, and therefore are ‘let down‘ in a way when experienced.
“The Art of Loving” is a 1956 book by psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm, which was published as part of the World Perspectives Series. Fromm presents love as a ‘skill‘ that can be taught and developed, rejecting the idea of loving as something magical and mysterious that cannot be analysed nor explained, and is therefore skeptical about popular ideas such as “falling in love” or being helpless in the face of love.
An extract from Fromm’s “The Art of Loving”.
“I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and not in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me”.
Because modern humans are alienated from each other and from nature, we seek refuge from our lonesomeness in romantic love and marriage . However, Fromm observes that real love “is not a sentiment which can be easily indulged in by anyone.” It is only through developing one’s total personality to the capacity of loving one’s neighbor with “true humility, courage, faith and discipline” that one attains the capacity to experience real love. This should be considered a rare achievement . Fromm defended these opinions also in interview with Mike Wallace when he states:
“love today is a relatively rare phenomenon, that we have a great deal of sentimentality; we have a great deal of illusion about love, namely as a…as something one falls in. But the question is that one cannot fall in love, really; one has to be in love. And that means that loving becomes, and the ability to love, becomes one of the most important things in life.”
“Loving oneself is quite different from ‘arrogance, conceit or egocentrism’“. Loving oneself defines along the lines of caring about oneself and taking responsibility for oneself, respecting oneself, and knowing oneself, for example, being realistic and honest about one’s strengths and weaknesses in awe for giving constructive criticism. In order to be able to truly love another person, one needs first to love oneself in this way. Fromm calls the general idea of love in contemporary Western society égoïsme à deux: a relationship in which each person is entirely focused on the other, to the detriment of other people around them. The current belief is that a couple should be a well-assorted team, sexually and functionally, working towards a common aim. This is in contrast with Fromm’s description of true love and intimacy, which involves willful commitment directed toward a single unique individual. One cannot truly love another person if one does not love all of mankind including oneself.
According to to the creation of myths of the Abrahamic religion, Adam and Eve where the first man and first woman ever to set foot on Earth. The story created by God was for people to believe that humans would live an idealic lifestyle, and were created to endure pure paradise to its most form. However, Adam and Eve both end up falling away from that state, and live under the realistic world of suffering and injustice for their unruly consequences.
Adam and Eve adapted into an art form. Their beauty subjects to many forms of art to do with the Sublime, as the natural form is something explored deeply in this subject area.
In the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, there are two creational narratives with two distinct perspectives: In the first, both Adam and Eve are not references by name, yet instead God created humankind in ‘Gods image” and instructed both of them to become custodians of all of his creations. In this essence we don’t receive the same purposeful affiliation with that of normal humans, as they are controlled by someone, and stripping them of their own individualities. In the second narrative, God fashions Adam from dust to which he then places him in the Garden of Eden. God commands that he is allowed to eat and devour anything in the garden, everything but The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve however, is carved from one of Adam’s ribs, to be known as Adam’s companion. As a reader of this story, you immediately come to the assumption that Eve is created from Adam purely to be demised sexually and powerfully; he is her owner. Symbolically, this has changed the way the modern reader perceives love, as this creation started the roles in relationships we see today. During my re-creational processes, I would like to consider using essences from the original stories of sin and love to suppress the religious definitions and representations of its perceptions. Further along in the story, a serpent appears and tricks Eve into delving into the Tree of Knowledge, questioning her venerability. Like all females today, the stereotype to perceive women as the ‘weaker sex’ could possibly remise from this original story. Generously, Eve seen as the ‘care-giver’ offers fruit to Adam for the result of his own happiness. This also represents the stereotypical view as women as ‘housewives’, providing for males in return for their strength and well-being. God ends up killing the serpent, and prophetically tells the woman and the man what will be the consequences of their sin of disobeying God, he then banishes ‘the man’ from the Garden of Eden
Art Interpretations of Adam and Eve
JAN BRUEGHEL D. J.
Brueghel was born in 13 September 1601, in Antwerp and is a Flemishpainter and draughtsman. Breughel’s depiction of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden creates a myriad variety of forms and motifs with bright and intense colours, creating the ‘jewelj-like‘ effect so prized in his œuvre. This illustrates the sublimity within his work, and bringing out the idea of nature and natural creation, as religion is a big part of Breughel’ s depictions. The image of The Tree of Knowledge surrounded by nature and creatures suggests Breughel almost sets boundaries for the reader to understand, as there is narrative presented in the whole image.
I have decided to explore the ideas of all three applications to photography. I feel there can be some exploration to do with my personal study: the concept of love. Love can be appropriated, performed and conceptualised, and I wish to explore that aspect in a greater depth.
“The deliberate reworking of images and styles from earlier, well-known works of art.”
Here is an example of the ‘Girl With The Pearl Earring’, which was re-worked using an image of her grandmother. The artist states: “The painting represents youth and beauty, but youth doesn’t last forever, and just because you’re getting older, that doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful.”
Appropriation in art and art history refers to the “practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original”. Appropriation can be tracked back to the cubist collages and constructions of Picasso and Georges Braque made from 1912 on, in which real objects such as newspapers were included to represent themselves. The practice was developed much further in the readymades created by the French artist Marcel Duchamp from 1915. Most notorious of these was Fountain, a men’s urinal signed, titled, and presented on a pedestal. Later, surrealism also made extensive use of appropriation in collages and objects such as Salvador Dalí’s Lobster Telephone. In the late 1950s appropriated images and objects appear extensively in the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and in pop art.
Robert Rauschenberg, Skyway, 1964, oil and silkscreen on canvas
However, the term ‘appropriation’ seems to have come into use specifically in relation to certain American artists in the 1980s, notably Sherrie Levine and the artists of the Neo-Geo group. Levine reproduced as her own work other works of art, including paintings by Claude Monet and Kasimir Malevich. Levine’s aim was to create a new situation, and therefore a new meaning or set of meanings, for a familiar image.
Appropriation in art raises questions of originality and authenticity belonging to the long modernist tradition of art that questions the nature or definition of art itself. Appropriation artists were influenced by the 1934 essay by the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, and received contemporary support from the American critic Rosalind Krauss in her 1985 book “The Originality of the Avant-Garde” and “Other Modernist Myths”.
Conceptualism: Alexandra Bellissimo
“The theory that universals can be said to exist, but only as concepts in the mind.”
A conceptual art piece by Alexandra Bellissimo, Los Angeles
The Conceptual Art Movement is probably the of the most radical and controversial planes in modern and contemporary art. Conceptual art is based on the notion that the “essence of art is an idea, or concept, and may exist distinct from and in the absence of an object as its representation”. Many examples of conceptual art (well-known works or statements) questions the notions of art itself. Some conceptual artists believe that art is created by the viewer, not by the artist or the artwork itself, for example Bellissimo (pictured above) connotes that the eye of the reader is there to manipulate the subject, in any way shape or form. Ideas and concepts are the main feature of art: aesthetics and material concerns have a secondary role in conceptual art. For example, Conceptual artists recognise that all art is essentially “conceptual“. In order to emphasize these terms, they reduce the material presence of the work to an absolute minimum, for example, a tendency that some have referred to as the dematerialisation of art, counts as one of the main characteristics of conceptual art. As many conceptual art examples show, the conceptual art movement itself emerged as a reaction against the tenets of formalism. Formalism considers that the formal qualities of a work, such as line, shape and colour, are “self-sufficient for its appreciation”, and all other considerations, such as representational, ethical or social aspects and are secondary or redundant.
Performance Photography: Tom Pope
“The action or process of performing a task or function.”
Tom Pope’s work ‘Untitled’ from the series, ‘Curious Search for Nothing’
A collection of images to show the performance side to Pope’s work.
What are the connections between Marcel Duchamp‘s gesture of painting a moustache on the iconic painting of Mona Lisa?
“L.H.O.O.Q.”
Simply, Duchamp’s gesture nominates The Mona Lisa as a male figure. Arguably, Duchamp created an iconic sort of ‘mask’ that reads instantly as male but does not even pretend to conceal the woman behind the mask. In a sense, “L.H.O.O.Q.” is an artificial hermaphrodite, an image of a woman with that most superficial and nonfunctional characteristic of maleness, a moustache. (The beard is superfluous to the effect of L.H.O.O.Q., and in one version of the piece does not appear at all.) Both, however, acts as backward- looking in that their most immediate effect was to redefine the Mona Lisa itself. At the same time, both are prophetic in the way they project major shifts in the grounds of art as a system of knowledge. Duchamp uses appropriation in order to ridicule and radicalise the history of art, in a contemporary light which changes the normal social representations of women. This also suggests women as various role reversals – women are usually depicted as the ‘weaker‘ sex, and Duchamp toys with this idea possibly to lift female and male equality
What are the connections between a photograph of a cup of tea by Martin Parr and Andy Warhol‘s paintings of Campbell’s Soup Cans?
Martin Par: “Cup of Tea”Andy Warhol’s series of ‘Soup’
Martin Parr’s series is a good example of contemporary Pop Art as it depicts an everyday object. Everyday objects were often used as subject matter for Pop artists such as Andy Warhol’s ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ as he was able to manipulate mundane objects in his widely elaborated prints.
Pablo Picasso was one of the most dominant and influential artists of the first half of the twentieth century. Associated most of all with pioneering Cubism, alongside Georges Braque, he also invented collage and made major contributions to Symbolism and Surrealism. Below displays some of the major influence Braque had on Picasso, as their styles are easily suggested as similar.
Mandora 1909-10 Georges Braque 1882-1963 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T00833
He saw himself above all as a painter, yet his sculpture was greatly influential, and he also explored areas as diverse as printmaking and ceramics. Finally, he was a famously charismatic personality; his many relationships with women not only filtered into his art but also may have directed its course, and his behavior has come to embody that of the bohemian modern artist in the popular imagination. This ‘imagination’ fits in well with how love was a greatly prominent part of Picasso’s artwork. This became clear during much of Picasso’s work as the female’s pictures in his series’s dictated the perception of women of the time, contextualising his representation of art.
“Woman in a Hairnet”
Picasso first emerged as a Symbolist-influenced by the likes of Edvard Munch and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This tendency shaped his so-called “Blue Period”, in which he depicted beggars, prostitutes, and various urban misfits, and also the brighter moods of his subsequent ‘Rose Period”.
Edvard Munch’s most famous and well-known piece “The Scream”, 1893Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s work “La Toilette”.1889 (67×54 cm.) Musée d’Orsay. Paris.
Also, there where a confluence of influences from Paul Cézanne and Henri Rousseau to archaic and tribal art, encouraging Picasso to lend his figures more weight and structure around 1906. And they ultimately set him on the path towards Cubism, in which he deconstructed the conventions of perspectival space that had dominated painting since the Renaissance. These innovations would have far-reaching consequences for practically all of modern art, revolutionizing attitudes to the depiction of form in space.
Picasso’s immersion in Cubism also eventually led him to the invention of collage, in which he abandoned the idea of the picture as a window on objects in the world, and began to conceive of it merely as an arrangement of signs that used different, sometimes metaphorical means, to refer to those objects. This too would prove hugely influential for decades to come.
Picasso and Cubism,1881 – 1973, Spain,
Picasso and ‘Truth’
Picasso claims that Art is not considered ‘truth‘ or more in-fact ‘earnest‘. Art in Picasso’s world is considered a ‘lie‘ that makes people envisaging Picasso’s art ‘truth‘. Margritte’s painting ‘La Trahison des Images‘, in which he painted a picture of a pipe with the words “C’est n’est pas une pipe“, goes some way towards an explanation. Art is not considered a reality but can however, examine and model reality.
Margritte’s painting ‘La Tahison des Images’.
Picasso uses art to use as a mask to cover up usual perceptions of everyday life. Picasso famously said:
“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth”.
Picasso’s outlook of art explores the varied perception of the reader on his pieces. This outlook on an audience gives Picasso a reason to illustrate subjects like love in a way people perceive the truth of an artwork.
The Cubist Revolution: Picasso’s Strife to change Art History
Art journalist Jonathan Johns explores Picasso’s art in the light of truth and the beauty behind his ideology.
“Picasso’s eyes perceived the infinite complexity of life”.
Within the interview, Jones focuses on the evolution of Picasso as an artist, and the way he has set his own guidelines to work against. His first work, “Brick Factory at Tortosa“, is “an experiment in how brutally you can reduce, simplify, solidify and abstract forms and still produce a picture that is not simply recognisable, but profoundly full of life.” It is a study in dryness and heat. The factory’s buildings and chimney offer Picasso perfect, geometric shapes to play with. Picasso’s simplistic form of art
“Brick Factory at Tortosa”, Pablo Picasso, L’Usine, Horta de Ebro (Brick Factory at Tortosa), oil on canvas. 50.7 x 60.2 cm, Source of Entry: State Museum of New Western Art, Moscow. Now at the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
Picasso and Braque
Brick Factory in Tortosa was a quiet moment during the revolution, and Picasso, together with Braque, moved rapidly towards the style that is already being nicknamed (in a review of Braque’s new paintings in spring 1909) “cubism“. The word denotes a way of seeing already manifest in Picasso’s brick factory: “the systematic transformation of surfaces into planes of colour, their jarring arrangement in rough geometries, the harshness of palette“. As a reader you can see very clearly how much Picasso and Braque owed to their discovery of Cézanne’s landscapes. The brick factory in the heat has the toughness of Cézanne’s Provencal rocks – but it has a 20th-century quality that makes it different. Factories had only been acknowledged by 19th-century landscape painters as smokestacks in the distance. Picasso looks the modern world squarely in the eye.
In the months to come he and Braque will bring their revolution further into the open and by 1910 Picasso will be painting such masterpieces as his Portrait of Kahnweiler.
It is the centenary of Picasso’s factory and of the naming of cubism – a centenary marked by a new triumph for Picasso, as for the first time he gets an exhibition at London’s National Gallery. Picasso: Challenging the Past will concentrate on his fascination – full of rivalry and respect – with the great tradition of European art. I’m looking forward to it but I hope it won’t make him too respectable. Picasso was a rebel and it will be a long time before his art settles into history enough for him to be caught in the toils of that horrible expression, “old master”. Picasso’s eyes stare into our time and challenge us. Where’s our cubist revolution?
Amongst the prevailing types of theories which attempt to account for the existence of love, there are however many types hich define these theories. For example: psychological theories showing the vast majority of which love is considered to be “healthy behaviour“; there are evolutionary theories that hold love as part of the process of natural selection; there are spiritual theories that may, for instance consider love to be a ‘gift from God‘; there are also theories that consider love to be an ‘unexplainable mystery‘, very much like a mystical experience or what can be described as a philosophical theory.
Philosophical Theories
“The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art” – George Santayana
The philosophy of love is within depths of social philosophy and ethics that attempts to explain the nature of love. The philosophical investigation of love includes the tasks of distinguishing between the various kinds of personal love, asking if and how love is or can be justified, asking what the value of love is, and what impact love has on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved.
Many different theories attempt to explain the nature and function of love. The explanation of love to a person however can be ceased as difficult to someone who wouldn’t know what the concept is and what it feels like, therefore making the theoretical philosophy a concept in itself.
There were many attempts to find the equation of love. One such attempt was by Christian Rudder, a mathematician and co-founder of online dating website “OKCupid“, one of the largest online dating sites. The mathematical approach was through the collection of large data from the dating site. Another interesting equation of love is found by in the philosophical blog ‘In the Quest of Truth’. Love is defined as a measure of selfless give and take, and the author attempted to draw a graph that shows the equation of love. Aggregately, dating resources indicate a nascent line of variables effectively synchronising couples in naturally determined yearning.
In a recent study conducted by doctors at Rutgers University in New Jersey, United States bases on the topic “science behind the love” and reveals that there are ‘three stages‘ behind the process and development of love when experienced in the connection of human beings. Each stage involves different types of chemical reactions within the body (specifically the brain), along with that there are different hormones present in the body helping to excite all these three stages (lust, attraction, and attachment) – separately as well as collectively. This article really helped me understand that there is a science behind love. This, in response, underlines the dual definitions of love as an emotional response and a chemical reaction.
Stage One – Lust
Definitions:
“An intense sexual desire or appetite”
“an uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness”
“A passionate or overmastering desire or craving”
Lust is said to be the initial stage of involvement in love. The feel of lust is backed up or instigated by the sexual hormones within the body: Oestrogen and Testosterone are the two basic types of hormones present equally in men and women’s body that excites the feeling of lust within the brain. A limbic processes in the brain in response to lust have health-promoting and stress-reducing potential. In addition, lust, love, and pleasure ensure the endurance of mankind through mating and reproduction. The mating process is a discrete interrelated process initiating attraction.
Stage Two – Attraction
Definition:
“The act, power, or property of attracting”
Second stage of acquiring love is attraction. This phase is said to be one of the beautiful moments of life. This is the phase when a person actually starts to feel the love. His or her impatience for attracting somebody leads to excitement, and the individual is left with no other option but to only think about that specific person. Scientifically, it has been concluded in the study that there are three more sub-stages of attraction that portray drastic changes over the individual’s personality. The three sub-stages of attraction are adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin.
Adrenaline
Scientists have elaborated that initial symptoms of attraction toward someone involves: Stress response, Increase in adrenalin and cortisol and Attitude reaction.
It has been specified in the study that any person who falls in love will acquire a slight or drastic change in the above stated three factors. Furthermore, attraction is one of the charming effects of life and slight changes in personality are not only natural but are also positive. For this reason, whenever you bump into your admiration, your senses decline and your reactions increase drastically, reason as to why you feel nervous, on-edge, and other emotions resultant of making a good impression on someone.
Dopamine
To follow the theoretical research, a physical experiment was also conducted to prove the veracity of physical evidence. The brains of a new couple struck with love were observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRIs). It was genuinely shocking to discover the minds of both male and female have large spikes of neurotransmitter dopamine, a chemical that stimulates the feeling of pleasure within the body. After this discovery, scientists described both the male and female minds as “equally high as if they had taken cocaine or somewhat similar drug” Dopamine is a natural stimulant providing you with ecstasy. The couple furthermore revealed the following facts about themselves from the time they feel in love until the date they were examined: a surge of energy, an observed significant decrease in appetite, sleep deprivation which has occurred previous to falling in love and that a persons attention has been more focused than ever before. This notion further elaborates on the connection between scientific discovery against the human perception of love. The common phrase ‘love is a drug’, or similar to that, ensures this comparison as a similar instance, as it ha genuinely even proved that each feeling subsides to the same emotion counteracting the admirable feelings of love as what feels like a ‘drug’.
Serotonin
Serotonin has been found as one of the most important chemicals involved for exciting the feeling of love. Serotonin initially diverts your mind and bounds you to think about your lover and nothing else. It becomes a path for the mind. Sandra Langeslag and her colleagues (2012) report serotonin levels are different in men and women when in love. The men in love had lower levels of serotonin, while the women reveal the opposite. The participants in love reported engrossing in thought about their beloved 65% of their day.
Stage 3: Attachment
When a couple passes through the above two stages of love successfully, the time of bonding with each other becomes powerful. Attachment is a bond helping the couple to take their relationship to advanced levels. It instigates the feeling of bearing children and falling in love with them wholeheartedly.
While investigating the “attachment factor,” scientists discovered two sub-stages involved. The two sub-stages are hormones in the body that attract an individual to retaining the feeling of love with his or her partner. The two hormones, namely, oxytocin and vasopressin are discussed below.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin, also known as “the cuddle hormone,” is one of the most powerful hormones released equally by men and women, especially during orgasm. Oxytocin (OT) formulates the depth of love and forges the attachment the partner. The study was second by another research based on “sexual activities between a couple and the out-comes.” The more a couple opts for sex, the more substantial the bond of attachment is. OT plays a key role in affiliation and attachments in humans.
Similarly, oxytocin helps build a strong bond between a mother and an infant during the time of birth. In addition, it is such a sensitive hormone that it automatically signals the breast to release the milk upon the baby’s sound or touch. OT mediates specific female behaviors such as lactation and parturition. Social interaction with your loved one requires affective “mind reading,” or interpreting faint cues from your partner. Humans infer internal feelings of people from external expressions to predict the other person’s behavior. In a double-blind study of 30 healthy volunteers the administered oxytocin caused a substantial boost in the ability of the individuals to interpret cues from the region of the other person’s eyes. OT improves the interaction between couples by improving this social connection.
Vasopressin
Vasopressin, known as an anti-diuretic, it performs its operation along with the kidney, therefore controlling thirst. This hormone is released in major quantity quickly after sex. Although the brains of women and men are structurally different, they both secrete vasopressin from the pituitary gland. This is a vital role in copulation and partner preference (Hiller, 2004).
Vasopressin is termed as an important hormone to promote long-lasting relationships. A study in Biological Psychology (2012) assessed 37 couples by measuring neuropeptide blood levels. Results reveal vasopressin levels were in relation to the following:
• Interpersonal functioning
• Larger social network
• Greater spousal support
• More attachment security
• Relationship maintenance
• Less negative communication
The Bottom Line on The Science and Psychology of Love
Conclusively, love is seen to be one of the most delightful feelings of our lives. The truth behind the saying saying “love is blind” and “love is a drug” underlines the fact you will never know when your brain will encounter love. A significant number of chemical reactions are involved in instigating lust, attraction, attachment, and love between couples, concluding that science has yet discovered the exact bodily reactions behind the complexity of love.
The articles conclusion is based upon the above studies: it is clearly said that falling in love involves “many mechanisms and chemicals within the brain” . You simply cannot avoid the sensual reaction of love. The partner doesn’t need to be sublime, sexy, or handsome—the feeling is deeper than a physical tactility.
“Love is a natural muse; you will puzzle over it, dream about it, and be lost in thought.”
The notion to explore love scientifically falls beside love as an emotion caused by chemical reactions in the body. I would like to explore some material associated with the production and development of how humans respond to these reactions, and then move on to connect with other people whether it is a relative, friend or acquaintance. This notion also explores the truth behind love against the perceptions explored by human beings. Love thats described as a ‘feeling’ or an ’emotion’ is juxtaposed against what it can initially be seen as a more enticing beauty of life; a mentality everyone wishes to experience within their lifetimes.
The Biology of Love
Love can be explained as ‘biological‘ by many different factors. Love biologically can be maternal, romantic, etc. A few examples can be:
A mutual parental support of children for an extended time period.
The human language has been selected during evolution as a type of “mating signal” that allows potential mates to judge reproductive fitness.
The conventional view in biology is that there are three major drives in love – sex drive, attachment, and partner preference. The primary neurochemicals (neurotransmitters, sex hormones, and neuropeptides) that govern these drives are testosterone, oestrogen, dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin.
The Association of Psychological Science
In an article lead by The Association of Psychological Science, “The Evolution of the Human Brain: Whats love got to do with it?” the human is described as an ‘evolutionary puzzle‘. Victoria University’s researchers Garth Fletcher of Wellington, New Zealand and collaborators Jeffry A. Simpson, Lorne Campbell, and Nickola C argue that the adaptation of romantic love may have played a key role in the evolution of our sophisticated brains and social aptitude during the ageing process: “Evolutionary adaptations typically have a jury-rigged nature, and romantic love is no exception” adds Fletcher.
Nevertheless, the researchers posit that romantic love allowed our early ancestors to form long-term, monogamous pair-bonds, which in turn created more available resources for raising children. This perception contradicts that with the absence of love counteracts the stereotypes within a ‘perfect’ family lifestyle. The authors subject the means of love to produce valuable offspring with the ability to attain happiness, purity and quality of life: “These shared cooperative efforts to raise offspring and support others would have enabled hominins to evolve larger brains and stretch child development from birth to early adulthood…beyond the levels apes could attain.”
Examined Existence
In an article explored by the Brain science segment Examined Existence suppress the scientific emotion of love in an article called: “Why We Fall in Love: The Science of Love”. Love is described as a ‘devoted‘ and ‘passionate‘ feeling
Study lead by Arthur Anum: Psychopharmacology (2012)
Definition of Psychopharmacology:
“The study of the effect of drugs on the mind and behaviour”
An article in Psychopharmacology (2012) concluded when compared to behavioral addiction, social attachment is similar—individuals become addicted to other because of the returned reward. In this essence, Arun subjects love as a sort of ‘drug-like’ emotions, concluding its vulnerability for people to latch onto in an addicting way. There is a chemical chain of reaction triggered in our bodies ultimately instigating the feeling of love to strike our minds. Arguably, falling in love is getting into what can be described as a “beautiful trap set up by nature, a natural occurrence we cannot fight”. According to a science-based study by Arun, on average, the mind of a person takes between 90 seconds to 4 minutes to determine whether it is struck by love or not.
Some of the highlighted points of the study –
• 55% of the role is played by body language; this means a brain detects the activities of body movement and decides whether it has received the signals of love or not
• 38% of the decision to be in love is contributed by the voice—its tone and change in frequency
• 7% is the reaction to a lover’s statement or choice of words
My first initial ideas surround the two title themes ‘truth‘ and ‘fiction‘. I believe these two opposite topics can relate to many different things surrounding the list of ideas I have thought of. Initially, this beginning idea of ‘opposites’ allows me to use two different subject ideas which juxtapose one another, symbolising a difference between the two and therefore making my topics more interesting due to there becoming a ‘two sided’ story.
Define ‘Truth’:
“A fact or belief that is accepted as true”
or
“That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.”
Define ‘Fiction’:
“Invention or fabrication as opposed to fact.”
or
“A belief or statement that is false, but that is often held to be true because it is expedient to do so.”
My Main Idea: The Concept of Love
I have decided to focus mainly on the titles ‘fiction‘ and ‘truth‘ to elaborate upon the idea of “Concept of Love”. This idea unfolds within two different segments: religion against science and how human beliefs are indifferent to that of ‘God’s natural creation’ and ‘scientific discoveries’. This idea can lead me to look into how religious ceremonies surrounding ‘love‘ (e.g. marriage, funerals, christenings, holy communions). This idea also of love being a ‘concept’ allows the viewer to perceive ‘love’ as an application to anything rather than an emotion.
Define ‘Love’:
“An intense feeling of deep affection.”
or
“A person or thing that one loves.”
Define ‘Religion’
“The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.”
or
“A pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.”
Define ‘Science’
“The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”
How will this idea develop? Whats the aim to achieve in this project?
I would like to aim to achieve this idea in a way where I promote the idea of love as a different perception towards every human. The idea and concept of love is so dissimilar to anything that it becomes almost an opposite within itself. I would like to touch upon the history and development of love in this day and age to question the ‘truth‘ and reliability of the subject against what can be seen as ‘fiction‘.
What references can I use for the ideas of this project?
Scientific analysis, documentation and Natural creation
The faithful renditions of natural life (fauna, flora, insects) in William Jones and Cath Hodsman’s paintings, for example, demonstrate meticulous observation and sensitivity. Leonardo da Vinci, Rondin and Michelangelo’s studies of human form also demonstrate these qualities of analysis and discovery. This sense of discovery is something I wish to explore within my study, how love is discovered and how scientists perceive the emotion in a biological way. Contemporary artists Danny Quirk and Gunther von Hagens continue to be driven by this fascination for human autonomy.
Culture and Religious Beliefs:
Artsist in many other cultures such as Aboriginal, Inca, Aztec, Polynesian, and religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Catholicism, Muslim, etc, seem to consciously resist trying to produce faithful likeness of their subjects. Their objectives often intend to depict spiritual qualities with a variety of belief (surrounding love especially), perhaps in a response to a fear that any accurate rendering of a living being may somehow capture its soul or spirit.
The Nature of Humans:
Baudelaire suggested that artists must be truly faithful to their own nature. Artists have often been singular in pursuing their personal vision of the world. William Blake argued that he did not want to observe the human figure because that would “get in the way of his own inner vision of how people looked… I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.”
From these ideas I believe all three of these concepts show the idea of love through the following themes:
Human Rights (in religion arranged marriages and ceremonies destroy the ability of humans to gain rights over which person they will share their life with). This is particularly prominent in females as their fathers usually pick their righteous husband for them.
Science against Religion (how beliefs contradict the essence of scientific discovery.
These ideas all contradict the truth and perception of ‘love‘.
![IMG_1073[1]](https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2e/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2016/05/IMG_10731.jpg)
![IMG_1074[1]](https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2e/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2016/05/IMG_10741.jpg)
![IMG_1078[1]](https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2e/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2016/05/IMG_10781.jpg)
![will 3]](https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2e/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2016/05/will-3.jpg)
