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.
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.
After looking at the work that Daria Produced, it has inspired me to produce a set of images in a similar style , because I find that style quite interesting/captivating. I remember looking at a poster with a hand print on it, and therefore came up with the idea to incorporate this idea of a hand print on a body to represent a mark left from an abuser. I plan on creating images that are blurred and plan on creating a specific image where there is a hand that looks like it is hitting the subject. I could perhaps use a slow shutter speed in which it looks like the subject has been hit, but I would have to see if they work well together.
Because of the fact that Daria used herself within her images, I plan on doing the same and will do it using natural window light and dark tones (similarly to her style). As far as creating a physical hand print on my body, I plan on just using black body paint to replicate this and I plan on creating this on my neck (inspired by situation a friend of mine was in).
I decided to look more into the ways that awareness is conducted and found some posters that I believe visually strong and emotive. I feel like I would like to respond (not in a poster style) but these images have given me a few ideas of how to incorporate certain elements within my own body of work.
I like how the subject in the middle image has tape over her mouth, I feel like I can incorporate the context of the image on the right alongside this. The fact that a hand is over her mouth, not letting her speak standing as representation of the truth and reality behind this and even if there isn’t physically a hand over their moth, it can be just as hard to communicate and talk about negative encounters. Therefore, I plan on using the tape to represent the fact that they can’t speak out, along side the words on the tape which represent what some victims did say when they did have the chance to speak out.
SPECIFICATION
I plan on responding to this idea of not being able to voice certain things. I had an idea to combine things that a previous photographer Valerie had stated throughout her work (that women had stated to her) and I think it will be quite interesting to perhaps create portraits of various women and write in a sharpie over that tape with some of these statements:
It’s ok. It was my fault.
I have nowhere else to go.
I’ve waited for him to change. It’s been eleven years now.
It started when I first got pregnant.
My mother asked me what I had done to cause this.
I haven’t told anyone.
I’m afraid to go out.
I still love him.
I plan on conducting this shoot in the studio with studio lighting because I want the focus to be on the statements written over their mouths and not on anything in the background. I definitely think that using a variety of people will look better than just one person with all the different statements and as far as rule of third, I plan on placing everyone in the center of the frame because I think it would be odd to have them off centered.
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.
For this project I have decided that I want to create a series of images that will be put together to create one image, looking like story boards. Each series will have a caption either on top or underneath them, I feel that this personalises the images a bit more and adds in some more context to them. I was also considering soaking each of them in coffee overnight to make them look brown and more like film reels from old film cameras but am unsure whether or not this idea would work out and I may not have time to do this. For one of my series I have decided to go a step further and create a flip book. I thought that this would be a good idea to take my love of film and incorporate it into my photography work. I feel that this method is a whole lot more interesting for my spectators to be able to look through and see a match-on-action series. I really like this idea as it brings my story to life and adds more to my final project.
The first flip book was made back in 1868, a time period in which most of my own photographic series are based so I thought that it fit in quite nicely. This ties in with my work on the hidden mother’s and how the Victorians always seemed to be finding new ways of experiencing images, hence the creation of the praxinoscope and zoetrope. I wanted to bring this flare to my photos and create something that would have been around at the time period that I have focused on. The flip book was invented by John Barnes Linnett and it was given the latin name kineograph which means ‘moving picture’. Simply a flip book is a series of images all stacked on top of one another that slightly vary as they go down making it look as though the images are moving. I really do love this idea and think that it could work out really well if done successfully.
Creating My Own Flip Book
I decided to only make one of my series into a flip book as I had an idea before hand of how time consuming it can be so I decided to focus on my hidden mothers inspired series that I recorded and took stills from. For this I put my film into Adobe Premier Pro and paused and took screenshots at every snap so I ended up with 311 photographs in the end. I then took to Photoshop and lined them all up on A3 sized sheets 5×5. I thought that this would make it easier when it comes to printing and cutting everything up. This took some time to get each and every one at the same size and length. I took these files to Jersey Archisle where I have been doing work experience and printed them all out which took a few hours as they needed to be printed on Matte A3 paper which needed to be put into the printer piece by piece. I think that this process went well and the images have turned out really great. They looked really good and it made me keen to see the end result. I then went back to school and started to guillotine each sheet individually just so I could get the perfect measurements. I have been busy cutting out each photograph individually and want to make them the exact same size. Something that I have realised that I will remember for next time is that I didn’t leave any space at the top for the holder and so I will loose some of my image but I don’t mind so much about this as there is a bit of blank space on the top as the recording gave the shots more of a panoramic feel to them. I do think that this will work out really well in the end and make for some good final outcomes. I have also realised that I am going to have to make a few flip books as they won’t all fit into one, this is fine and I have started to separate them all up into packs of 50 images each with the final series having a few more images as there is an odd number of images. After getting them all together into each series I went and got tiny holes drilled into each one of them but when taking off the masking tape the image on the top and the bottom were ruined and so each set has now got 48 instead of 50 with the final set having 59 as there were extras left over that went best with the final set. I then decided to just feed thread through each hole with a needle and basically went round a few times and made sure that it was all secure and together. This took some time but I do think that it has worked out better than a clamp would have done and it also goes better with my theme of having everything based in the late 1800s.
A3 paper used
printing process
A3 prints
A3 spread example
A3 spread example
A3 spread example
A3 spread example
Zoetrope and Praxinoscope
When looking into the idea of flip books it was suggested to me to look into zoetropes and I found them really interesting. These were also around in the late Victorian period and would have been a really awesome idea as a possible final piece but I feel that the flip books work so much better for my projects as they are so long and it wouldn’t really work too well. I could however make a zoetrope out of one of my series as a little added experiment. I feel that this could turn out to be a really great little experiment as I could have this to add to my box which could work out really well. I would only make a small one out of card and stick the images around the inside. I am filling an old box with all of my ideas into it and think that this would bring a nice added touch to it and bring it all together.
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.
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.
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.
For my final project I was thinking of creating a couple of series of images for each topic that I have researched. I want to do two separate series for my work on lunacy as this is the one that I have looked at most in depth and is the most interesting to me. I also want to create a mini series influenced by Victor Barker and make it seem like stills from a silent film. I also might do something on witches or on hidden mothers. I have drawn my inspiration mainly from Duane Michals series that he creates, they are very simple but the entire mise-en-scene of his images makes them so intriguing. I have also taken inspiration from other photographers that I have researched for each individual series. I want my work to have a clear narrative and I feel that making mini series of staged images will be the most effective way of presenting my work. I want to make my images black and white as I feel that this will make the images stand out a lot more and they will look a lot better too. I will experiment with colour and black and white to see what looks best in the end. I want to make all of my mini series seem film-like as that is something I have a real interest in and want to incorporate this into my photography work. I feel that this will give an overall better effect to the images and make them more visually pleasing for my spectators to look at.
Series 1 | Lunacy
The first sequence of staged images that I have created is based on a story that I found out about a local lunatic that lived on the island in the late 1800s. The woman’s name was Jane Le Maistre and she was kept chained to an outhouse and neglected by those who were supposed to look after her. She sat in the stance of a monkey and could not use the lower part of her body, meaning that she was in some ways froze in her position and could not go to the toilet for herself. Even with this those who were supposed to care for her left her naked with a small coarse sheet over her. I wanted to recreate this to show the harshness and neglect that this woman faced because people didn’t understand her and they did not understand her illness. I also found out that she became very known by other islanders and professionals were sent round to check on her and when they arrived she miraculously had cut hair and was clean, covered in plenty of blankets with a bucket next to her where she went to the toilet. I wanted to create a series of staged images where my subject starts with nothing and with each photograph a new item appears or something about her appearance changes slightly. I wanted to put emphasis on how suddenly everything was fine and she looked a lot healthier than the actual conditions she had been left in for so long. For this series I took inspiration from Duane Michals and the series he makes as they are so simple yet effective. I also took inspiration from a photograph of Mary Ellen Mark that really stood out to me and helped me to adapt to the persona that I have created.
Mary Ellen Mark photography | Inspiration
Duane Michals photography | Inspiration
Series 2 | Lunacy
When I met up with photographer Tom Killick to look at his asylum images I found came across a really interesting on. I also thought that there wouldn’t be much point in trying to go to the asylum to make images as the building is a lot more modern than anticipated and is off limits to the public anyway. The one image that I found really captured my attention was one of a drawing of a tree that a patient had drawn in their room. I found this so intriguing and it really made me wondered what kind of troubled soul lived inside that room. As there would be no way to find out who lived in that room and what their mental illness was I decided to create my own narrative and come up with a story myself. I want to recreate this drawing of the tree in a plain and dirty room. I want to record this process of how this persona has created their art work. I will be staging this and dress as the subject. I think this will work out well and I could even make a little short film from it as well as take stills away too. I find it so interesting how this person felt the need to express themselves and their feelings in some way that they decided it would be best to draw all over the walls. Something about Killick’s image that also interested me was that the drawing wasn’t finished, it was as if the person maybe died or gave up or that could have been the time that the asylum was left and abandoned. I am aware that I could produce something almost cliche or cheesy with this which I do not want to do but again this is what the patient was drawing and I can only try to imagine and express what they must have been feeling. To me this drawing is a sense of freedom, they want to go to a place where their mind can be free. I did notice that the tree has no leaves and doesn’t look particularly bright or uplifting but then again the drawing was never finished so I can’t possibly guess whether or not the patient was going to add that in or not. I really do love this image and want to create a decent body of work to go with it and to really have a great series for a final outcome as well as possibly making a short film.
Tom Killick photography
Series 3 | Lunacy
I wanted to put a lot of focus of my work on lunacy and the research that I have done for this particular subject. I have found it to be the most intriguing and so want to make this series of images. I read about a story of a man whose apprentice appearing in front of him in a white sheet and the man was scared out of his wits and never recovered. I found this to be a really odd situation but I guess it was in the late 1800s and people weren’t really as exposed to horror or anything like that but again it is strange. I wanted to recreate this with myself as the subject as I think that this could work out well. It will be a very simple series taking influence from the simplicity aspect of Duane Michals. This could work out really well, I will be making the images black and white also.
Series 4 | Colonel Victor Barker
For this shoot I am still unsure as what to do but I think that I want to base a mini series on the story of Colonel Victor Barker who lived on the island in the early 1920s. I think that I will make a simple mini series where I am the subject. I will be dressed in more feminine clothing and then change into a suit and put a pillow under my belly to make myself look bigger. I think that this could be an interesting shoot and brings a visual representation of what kind of transition Barker went through as he never actually had the surgery to get the right bits. I want to do this shoot next to a window but have the entire mise-en-scene of the series to be very minimal so that the focus is maintained on the subject and what the subject is doing rather than anything else. I think that this shoot could work out well as I have taken inspiration from Duane Michals and how simple his images and sequences are. I don’t want this shoot to seem like I am taking the mick out of transgender people because I am not. I am trying to create a simple series based on the story of Victor Barker and how the transition of someone in the early 1900s differs from that of modern day. I find that transitions back then were really difficult as less people understood transgender people and so it was more hidden and new identities were made and people had to try and change their own voices and clothing without any kind of medical procedure as there wasn’t anything available for them to go through the full transition.
Colonel Victor Barker
Colonel Victor Barker
Series 5 | Hidden Mother
I really like the idea of Hidden Mothers and find it so strange and creepy but it intrigues me. I want to venture into this further but am unsure how I would do so successfully. I don’t want to make rubbish images that aren’t strong enough but think that a series would look good if I figure out what to do. I am unsure how I could stage a series of images for this shoot as often the portraits are just one image but I have just thought that maybe I could make a series of the behind the scenes process of making one of these images and have the whole set up and the before and after making the image. This could be really interesting for the spectator to see as they get a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes. I feel that this could look really good as a mini series for a final outcome.
Hidden Mothers
Hidden Mothers
Series 6 | Witchcraft
After researching into witchcraft I figured that I could make a mini series on one of the methods that people used to use to be able to tell whether someone is a witch or not. I feel that this could be really interesting to visualise instead of just having it written down or as research. I want to create a mini series of images where my subject is being trialled as a witch. I think that I want to reconstruct a scenario in a woodland area of a with being trialed and attempted to be drowned. I want to make a series of images that tell the story showing one of the ways that people were trialed for witchcraft as I find it so strange. I wanted to focus on one particular method, the drowning one. For this series I want to start off in a woods were a woman’s head is being dunked into a river as her hands are tied behind her back and after a few different shots and images I want to have a shot of a cliff from far away were the spectator can just see the silhouette of the woman and someone holding her at the edge of the cliff as if they are able to push her off.
On Monday afternoon I went down to 3C International to meet photographer/filmmaker Tom Killick to see the images that he had made of the abandoned asylum. As I am unable to get access to the building at such short notice I found seeing the images that Tom had created to be extremely useful and gave me a better insight as to what it looks like and has given me some inspiration on what kind of images that I should make. Something that surprised me was that the building looks a lot more modern that I had anticipated, I had originally imagined it to be all decaying, dark and rotting brown/black walls. It was quite the opposite, with there being white walls and the building looked in better shape than I had first thought. I really hoped it would look a lot creepier and old as you would hope for an abandoned asylum, which would’ve made extremely fun staged images but it was a lot nicer than that. I found that in most of the photographs there was just disregarded furniture and files all left in massive piles. There was only one padded cell in the entire building which had been stripped when the building was first abandoned. The other rooms weren’t actually too bad and seemed to be ok living conditions, with a bed, sink and mirror. Some of the rooms had TV’s in them that were put behind a glass wall so that the patient wouldn’t brake it. For some reason I thought that the asylum would be really small and that there wouldn’t be many residents there but when looking through Tom’s photographs he showed me images of all of the files and paperwork of these people, many of which said RIP and there were mass piles everywhere. I was shocked at the amount of patient that the Jersey asylum had in just over a 100 year period and the amount of them that died too seemed really vast. I didn’t think that such a small island would have so many mentally ill in their asylum. I do understand that in the early 1900s that there was this stigma against people with mental illness and no one really understood it unless they themselves were or had experienced it. Many cases would have been for depression or postnatal depression which is now treatable with medication and counselling. I feel that back then if someone was feeling depressed others didn’t get it at all and thought them as crazy and so they would be referred to the Jersey asylum which is really sad as it is something that needs help and depression isn’t a mental illness that benefits from isolation. I found Tom’s images really great as they show the exact state that the abandoned asylum is in and have really helped me to get a better understanding of what the inside of an asylum would look like, even if it is abandoned, and has given me greater knowledge on how I can construct a good response. I want to try and recreate some of the scenes and rooms in Tom’s photographs and create some sort of narrative and story behind it. This will come from all the research that I have done on the life of local lunatics and how they were treated in the late 1800s before the asylum was originally built.
Tom Killick photography
Tom Killick photography
Tom Killick photography
About | Tom Killick
Tom Killick is an Australian filmmaker/photographer who is currently living in Jersey. Along with two others, Killick has set up his own television and film production company called 3C International where they create advertisements for companies including Sure, Natwest, ITV and Durrell zoo. They are currently working with Durrell zoo and Henry Cavill. The team have also travelled to places including India and been to international fashion events to capture some unique fashion trends and crazes. When I met with Tom he told me about his fascination with being able to photograph places that ordinary people/citizens don’t get access to and so the abandoned Jersey Asylum was the perfect place to go. He was actually asked by the States to make photographs of the entire building while it was still in an alright state as now it is decaying and not stable enough for people to go in there and visit it.
When looking more into the local history of transgender people from the 1920s-1930s I found that there was often mention of witchcraft and how superstitious Jersey was as an island back in the 15th and 16th centuries. They would carry out so many witch hunts and have ceremonies on the beaches. I really took an interest in this and think that I could reflect more on this and possibly come up with a few different shoots for it too. I find it so interesting to find out more about this island and how the people of the past thought and the way that anyone who was slightly different was cast out and made to feel less than human. I don’t want to relate witchcraft with the topic of transgender people but I think the prejudice comes from a similar kind of place, with people not really understanding those that are different and trying to eliminate anyone that is different or that stands out in an unconventional way.
During the 16th and 17th century witchcraft became widespread across Jersey. In this era Catholicism [Catholic faith] was being challenged by Calvinism [reformed Protestantism], Anglicanism [Christianity within the Church of England among others], this made it harder for people to practice their religion out of fear, rumours and suspicion of others. Witchcraft is also known as devil worshipping and so following any kind of religion that was different to Catholicism could be a sign of witchcraft as obviously those belonging to the Church of England would practice their faith differently. Citizens often feared those that could possibly worship the devil and so communities made it of importance to seek out and destroy them. Unsurprisingly, there is no real evidence found in Jersey of devil worshipping or worshipping the pagan Gods (Gods not belonging to the Christian faith were seen as devils). It really interests me to find out more about these stories and get to really know the ins and outs of why people had this major paranoia and how much religion did dominate the world compared to nowadays.
I’ve always been extremely scared of the idea of witches and the way they are seen in films. It really intrigues me, the amount of people who are shown as witches in film, are always women. Somehow this doesn’t surprise me as I feel that as a society we are so quick to judge women and never allow women to really have a strong voice without there being something wrong with them or without them being perceived as a witch, evil or too unlikable. Women in film are never really shown to be bosses unless there are the leaders of an evil cult that set out to kill and destroy the lives of others. I have never watched a film with a male witch, only ever a male protagonist who is the head of the witch hunt. There is so much stigma put on witches and that they are so horrible, ugly and scary but when looking more into this I found that usually it is just ordinary women. After reading more into the history of witches I have found out the cruel and inhumane ways that these people were treated. They were often hanged, burned alive, thrown of a cliff or left to drown in a river. I really do not like how these people were treated with such brutality and that those purging them got away with it and seemed to think that ‘God’ would still accept them even though they had sinned and taken someone else’s life. Obviously those people did not see what they were doing as murder but instead they saw it as purifying the land and ridding the devil worshippers of the earth.
Trials were carried out in Jersey. The trial by water meant the placement of a heavy weight at the bottom of a cauldron of water that was then brought to boiling point. The accused was then forced to plunge their hand in the cauldron to retrieve the weight and then carry it a long distance. After which the accused hand would be wrapped and sealed and had to remain like this for three nights. If after this time the hand was healthy the accused would be judged to be innocent and if there were signs of scalding they were proved to be guilty. A trial by the cross was to see who could hold their arms up in a cross-like shape for the longest was most likely innocent. The trial by fire was similar to that of water but the accused had to carry a red hot iron for nine feet before having their hand bandaged. This is so ridiculous and I cannot actually believe that people thought this proved anything at all. I feel that I would be able to make a photographic response to this, possibly with some hard-hitting images that make my spectator question what they thought about witchcraft. There is proof of trials being carried out at Gorey Castle as well as interrogation between the lesser courts. There is also evidence that people were shaved in order to find witches marks which would have been extremely humiliating and degrading. They were left in damn dungeons and so were freezing. There are also stories about how those accused of sorcery were cast from a high cliff. Other stories of witchcraft mention how many people genuinely feared witches and would carry acorns in their pockets as it was thought to guard against evil and an acorn design was widely incorporated into the stonework and entrances of old buildings.
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.
After working on different topics and looking at different things to do with the Archisle I have decided to change my specification and ideas to focus on how our society treats outcasts, anyone that is different. I have begun to look into transgender people and Jersey’s history with this topic. I find it really interesting and want to find out more and more about it and see how our society doesn’t really understand people going through their transitions. I am also looking into lunacy within the island and how people with mental illnesses are/were treated and dismissed because they are misunderstood. I have also begun looking into criminals and how they are photographed with their mug shots. I find this topic really interesting and want to look more into this as it is something different and something that I want to reflect on the truth of our society. I think that I want to focus in on lunacy within the island and create some kind of narrative with this project. I want to create a film-esk kind of staged series of images as I think that this will be the best method of recreating the stories that I have found out about. I want to focus my work on misfits, those that don’t fit in with the norms of society. I have been looking into how transgender people are still not generally accepted by our society, I have also looked into local cases which was really interesting to read up on. I then ventured into the history of the island and how witchcraft and witch hunting was so huge and at a large magnitude. Along with this I looked into lunacy within the island and historically how our society has treated those with mental illnesses. This includes pre World War 1 and how those in the late 1800s knew very little about mental health.
After properly thinking about which ideas and topics I’d like to pursue for my project, I have finally settled on one I am very happy with. I have decided to create a short film that portrays the truth behind youth culture in Jersey. I want to show how Jersey Tourism creates the idea that Jersey is this ‘perfect paradise’, where there are loads of things to do for people of all ages. But in reality, there are a number of things that aren’t available in Jersey.
One of the areas I would like to look at, is the community of skateboarding in Jersey. The reason I would like to explore this topic area, is the fact that in Jersey, skateboarding is a thing that a large majority of young people are interested. If you go out to St Helier on a Saturday, you are probably going to run into a number of different skateboarders. Although this sport and activity is really popular with young people, it is frowned upon by many people as they believe it is a waste of time. Even though skateboarding is something that takes a lot of skill and dedication, people don’t seem to understand that, and are usually annoyed by skaters. Because of this, the facilities for skateboarding in Jersey are really limited, and especially when it rains, young skateboarders have nowhere to go. I feel this is wrong, because all these young people want to do, is to practice their skills in an environment where they have freedom to attempt what they want. And they do not have the places that they can go to. Some people may argue that there are facilities, as there is an outdoor skatepark by the harbour in town, and that this is enough for skateboarders to use. But I feel very differently, as people don’t take into consideration the effort these young people put into their art.
With my project I want to document the reality of what these young people have to go through, just to practice their sport. I am taking my main influences from documentaries by media group VICE, and in particular their documentaries ‘Skate World: England’ and ‘The Moped Gangs Of London: Bikelife’. The reason I am looking into these documentaries in particular, is that the first one ‘Skate World: England’, focuses specifically on the skateboarding community in London, and how a lot of the places they used to skate at have been closed down, meaning that they have to find new places to skate everyday. The second documentary ‘The Moped Gangs Of London: Bikelife’ focuses on the moped gangs in London, and their whole community. The reason I am looking at this documentary is that it focuses on another youth culture in the UK, and gives a biographical view on the way they live their lives.
For the production of this documentary, I have interviewed my friend Eddie, as he has been part of the Jersey skate scene for the past 4/5 years, and has a lot of views and opinions on what it is like. I am also using archived footage of him from his YouTube videos, that show the skatepark and different places in Jersey that people have skated.
The way this fits into the theme of Truth, Fantasy and Fiction, is that the government in Jersey believe it is a ‘paradise’, but in reality for young people, there is not a lot of effort or funding put into it.
As well as focusing on skateboarding, I may look into the larger scale of youth culture, and talk to other people that are affected by the fact the government don’t want to put effort into helping young people develop their passions and ideas.
At the start of this course I had planned out that I was going to do a project based on the environment and involve surrealism into this. I find this topic so interesting and would be really fun to carry out. However, I’ve now got other ideas in my head which I am leaning more towards as they seem to be interesting me more. I think that I am going to carry on with all three of my different ideas and once done some further experimentation I will narrow it down and finally choose my favourite topic to focus in on and work on that. Other ideas involve gender and the generic conventions of how we are expected to me. More specifically I have been looking into the transgender community and what it is like to actually be transgender. I am also looking more into witchcraft and how superstitious the people of Jersey were when witchcraft was a big thing. I really want to explore all of these ideas but feel that there isn’t much time to do so and I really need to finalise my key ideas and actually go out and do some experimentation with those ideas in mind.
I have decided to choose fantasy as my path to go down for my project. I am intrigued to go down more of a colourful route for this shoot because my last project was worked around a lot of black and white and i think it would be interesting to delve into a different type of photography and explore new photographers.
I am unsure yet what i exactly want to do i just know i want it to be colourful and as i am going down the route of fantasy i may research some surrealism photographers as well as that does interest me as well.
Something that i have thought about looking upon is the truth behind relationships, focusing more closely on the negative aspect, particularly looking at domestic abuse/violence. A lot of the time, it isn’t obvious or clear to know if someone is involved in an abusive relationship, and a lot of the time, the person/victim is very secretive and good at lying bout certain things in order to protect the abuser, either out of fear of loyalty. This idea could relate to the truth theme when considering the implications of truths being withheld and perhaps even misconstrued. Domestic abuse can either effect someone mentally, physically or even emotionally.
Some shocking things about domestic abuse includes facts that domestic violence:
-Leads to, on average, two women being murdered each week and 30 men per year
-Will affect 1 in 4 women / 85% of victims are women
-Accounts for 16% of all violent crime however it is still the violent crime least likely to be reported to the police
-Boys who witness domestic violence as they are 2 times as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults
– Is the leading cause of injury to women – more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined
These are just a few shocking facts and there are many more. I think that it is an intense and emotional topic to approach however I feel as if it would be interesting to investigate further and create visual representations from.
Another thing that is easy to forget is the fact that she cases involve more people than just the abuser and the victim. Children are unfortunately highly effected when looking at domestic violence.
“And a heavy sadness filled my soul”
When researching more about domestic violence on youtube, I came across this powerful short video in which is seen through the eyes of a little girl. The first five minutes i find is quite powerful as it follows her thoughts and struggles of everyday life living with an abusive parent, and the rest of the video really stresses more about the after effect and shows this little girl with her baby brother move from home to home (in foster care) because of the situation she is in. This domestic violence representation though the eyes and thoughts of a child, a child who’s mother is victimised by domestic violence is truly shocking and it is very sad to think about how true many aspect of this video are.
This short video is really powerful in many aspects. Visually, it captures shocking and authentic moments that occur regularly throughout homes that involve domestic violence, representing the unfortunate truth. Contextually, the story is probably one that has happened to many, however in this video, her thoughts and feelings that are voices over the clip are really powerful and reinforce the visual concept that is occurring. Children are often over looked when thinking about domestic violence cases however are often the most effected by it. This video definitely reinforces that fact and shows a little insight and representation into the negative impact of these cases.
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