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A2 Personal Investigation

Draft Essay Question and Introduction

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Essay question:

How does mass surveillance and the ‘big brother theory’ cause a common paranoia and feeling of insecurity within the general public?

Need to include names of photographers that you will be writing about in essay:

Looking at the work of Thomas Ruff and Sophie Calle: How does mass surveillance and the ‘big brother theory’ cause a common paranoia and feeling of insecurity within the general public?

or simply

In what way have Thomas Ruff and Sophie Calle explored  mass surveillance in their work.

Opening Quote:

”The notion that “Big Brother Is Watching” has been around for decades, it is an often-used catchphrase to describe surveillance or privacy infringements. The evolution of the Internet, cellular networks and the growth of high speed connections worldwide has allowed an endless supply of devices to connect to this global network and produce an infinite supply of very specific, personal data.” Robert McMahon – Quoted from ‘surveillance and privacy in the digital age: a primer for public relations’ Page 1

Or?

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four, Part 3, Chapter 4, Pg 37

Introduction:

Mass surveillance has become an overruling and unavoidable force of governmental power, which puts the general public in a state of unease and discomfort, sometimes even as far as paranoia. There are many theories and ideas behind the subject of mass surveillance and what exactly it consists of. So what does it directly consist of? The idea of ‘The big brother’ is something that has remained apparent for several years now, becoming very relevant since the publication of the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ by English author, George Orwell, in 1949. In this novel Orwell looked at the way in which he believed in the soon future, the population of the world would become victims of boundless mass surveillance by the governments around the world. It seems that since this publication was made that somewhat, if not completely, this has become the harsh truth which we are faced with in this day and age. Being surrounded by different forms of visual surveillance such as CCTV cameras and cameras on our own personal technology is just one of many ways in which we are watched and kept track of by large corporations and the government. Among various other techniques of surveillance such as audio, data and location surveillance.

Next part you need to introduce Ruff and Calle and provide an overview of how their work as photographer’s are exploring mass surveillance.

Last part should be you providing an overview of your responses and how the work will develop

(maybe use on main essay in conclusion) Some people are not as aware of these circumstances involving surveillance as I believe they should be, however it seems that as time goes on more and more of the public are becoming aware of the problems and consequences of mass surveillance in the modern world. The modern world being a consistently developing place and therefore surveillance just becoming more and more common. This ubiquitous increase in surveillance  is something which is slowly causing more and more people to become paranoid and feel like they are being controlled and watched at all times; again a concept which is covered within George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four novel, that is worryingly becoming more realistic by the day.

Bibliography:

McMahon, Robert. Surveillance and Privacy in the Digital Age: A Primer for Public Relations. Pennsylvania: Arcadia University, 2015. LINK TO SOURCED TEXT 

 

 

 

 

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Contextual Studies

reviewing and relfecting

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Lesson 1 – Reviewing and reflecting: Objective: Criteria from the Syllabus

  • Essential that students build on their prior knowledge and experience developed during the course.

when considering what I should further investigate within my project I started to think about my prior knowledge of my personal investigation and my overview so far. So far within my work I have investigated three main themes, this started off within the demonstration of narrative photography demonstrating how a political landscape should and is able to re create a personal emotion if someone  has an experience within that space. My second idea was a development of what is reality and if I could capture a false reality within my images, this being seen within the reflection of time. Lastly and currently the theme I am working within, this being the sublime and what images can be considered as painful and yet also beautiful. I have learned about how to show emotion through a piece of work and how to tell a story through not a direct narrative but fragmented images being grouped together to express a theme. I intend to further develop a theme that both links, reality the sublime and most importantly emotion. I decided if I used emotion I could denote factors about my own feelings and also those of people I photograph. I believe I want my project to be very unique but most importantly to have very interesting and individual imagery.I belive if I develop emotion I could use factors of the sublime to divide emotions into being beautiful and painful, and how emotions are so subjective to each and every person so much so that it is not the same reality for someone else.  Due to no one knowing what someone else is feeling I belive I could develop a book that shows the ups and down of what people feel. I believe living in what happens between planning for their future. So creating a book based on all my past research and shoot so far will really benefit myself. I could use the sublime to create further imagery in order to create a metaphor for how people feel during these emotions. I still want to use both a picture of landscape and portraits as this genuine combination presents a whole picture of what someone is possibly going through. To my mind when describing what themes are in my work I would say themes which have a sufficient meaning to a person and would effect their emotion shown within a sublime way. So a theme of vulnerability and perhaps a certain amount of truth to the person themselves. I have done much research on an array of artists, But I belive the most influential are those which achieve a sense of beauty and  such a unique appearance to the image itself.I believe focusing on people such as Tim walker and Claude chaun creating an interesting and subjective juxtaposition of techniques and aims within their work. Tim walkers outgoing and almost surrealist manifestos of tablo photography would enable oneself to create the eye-catching unique and sublime imagery. Whereas Claude chaun has a combination of political and social views which would allow me to achieve an emotional representation of individuality of people. Her account for fighting for gender rights and such should be prelivant within my work as the vulnerability of people is such a huge aspect. I have already done a direct response to her work, but if continue to do so with the intent of using her narrative responses this should successful work as an artists inspiration. I believe the difficult aspect of my work I am trying to achieve will be that of what approach I take. I have so many ideas and vision and I need to find the correct approach to tie all the serpent narratives into one intertextual idea. However because I want to find emotion I the sublime this is Both a combination of narrative as a reflection of what people are going through, to trying to create breathtaking and table photography images to then further demonstrate their emotions in a metaphorical physical interpretation. The skills I need are both successful convening an emotion. Through my images and yet also having an interesting composition to the images themselves. Also I think editing will be a large part of successfully creating the images I want to show. I believe I need to take a lot more photos and developing them to create the atmosphere within colour and the angle of the image itself will be difficult but would really advance and help the overall effect of my images. Techniques that inspire me the most are those which I find fascinating and eye catching, this is experimenting its under water photography, night time and light traces, close of textured work, seeing a sublime beauty within nature and lastly using colour a directed narrative to show a sense of atmosphere and the surroundings of myself and the people I aim studying around myself. what techniques am I using to create an overall synced view? As said previously I want to experiment within using many photoshop techniques as well as photographic sutures of using an experiment of slow shutter speed synced with fast capture to show many different atmospheres and characters within my work. Why am I inspired by this? I Find these ideas interesting to me because, showing emotions in such a sublime and new way, possible allows people to be more vulnerable and expressive wihtin their emotions and what they are really feeling. So many people when talking about emotions derive only negative connotations from doing so and belive emotions can only be spoken about in a negative and ill mannered way. I believe emotions should be an expression of who we are, it shouldn’t be reflected as a mirror of oursleves but should be seen wihtin our environment and those around us. Emotion have the ability to show strength and happiness. Examples of current experiments I am thinking about achieving are the following; Overall I am inspired by this through my wanting such an abstract surreal book that express emotion in such a why that is so unexpected yet so obvious to threader about its contact and the feeling it is trying to convey altogether.Emotion and sublime to my mind work hand in hand and I believe this would really successful tie my work in together.

Analysis, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Case Study

contextual study

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Invention of photography:

invented In 1839 developed but two people, developing different techniques. silver nitrate is sensitive to light, so enables an imprinted image. in the renaissance period the 15th century artists and painters used a device called the camera of obsscura, placing the images which is then projected onto another surface. although you are unable to move or change the image being copied. this vies is tons lated and flipped. In modern cameras a mirror is used to effect the shutter and flip the image once again, so when looking through the view finder it is correct in the way of you seeing it. Additionally our eyes are a form of optic, this cannot be replicated through cameras in the same way. the beginning of photoghohry was a scientific cendavour to record something more accurately, and how these experiments found a solution to capture light and shadows .

PICTORIALISM, and time period: 

Pictorialism was occurrent in the 1880s-1920’s this is when new cameras were developed in this time and jersey was part of a large revolution and hot bed for photography and experimentation. There was 18 phoqogorhic studios in jersey in the 1940’s many pioneers of photography. soon photography was the  heigh of impressionism and was developed less from science and more into art. This made photographs think their work has to resemble a drawing of pencil or charcoal going against the nature of photography. looking more blurred and out of focus. They oddly scratch developing negatives and smear Vaseline over the lenses. They  wanted to move photos into art galleries alongside impressionist drawings and such. Then they looked at paintings for ideas of subject matter. These allegory paintings, they are based off a short story and myths from more biblical tales and then further depicted into literal paintings. They are full of symbolic meaning to convey a message and provide a lesson fo how to live your life, as this was the only device to express a view. They have a romanticised and whimsical feel within the photography images, and they recognise the aspects of artist landscape and nude pieces.Key characteristics/ conventions : This was a Reaction against, and what hey did this was due to whenever something becomes a trend their will always be a reaction and a challenge against the normal. they used many charchatertics inspired by renaissance art, and also the new development of individual expression in an artists manner which had never been done before in photography. These allegorical and spiritual matter of religious scenes applied the principles composition and deign but the subjective spiritual motive.

rule breaking:This characterisation of work could lead onto past themes I have studied such as rule breaking and how the concept of breaking a rule in photography or challenging the normal is atypical and rebirth of a new ism and movement within photography. Without these pioneers Turning science into art we would never have surrealism, romanticism cubism or be missing vital angles within the development of photography.

Artist: Julia Margaret Cameron is an artists who was a photographer in the victorian era. The bulk of her work from the categories, this being illustrative allegories based off religious and literary works. In the allegorical work in particular her work had a clear influence from that of pre rapaetlite. her work has delicate limp poses with soft lighting. Her work was unconventional through the intimacy created through he long exposure, her subject moved and by leading the lens intentionally out of focus. This leads me also into looking at how unique it was to have a own who has. algae influential photogoher at the time. Her work is very different to anything that a man would producjuce. Women are looked at as pure and seen to have. loving relationship with fmilay and sister in a clearly taboo and posed setting, almost table like. The has a strong juxtaposition to that of the male sense of photography at the time.The mans eye and the photographical gaze, Women historically are being looked at different through the representation is often eroticised and objectified.these naked figures seen as art for only the pleasure of men. However a female would show herself being empowered as a mother and ally clothed showing the sexism wihtin the period and soon this leads onto larger post modernism topics such as feminism and the fight for women rights and want for less sexualisation of their bodies.

Groups of artists: A group of artists that I think it would be beneficial to look at  a small group of artists called, photo-secession.The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular.A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 20th century, held the then controversial viewpoint that what was significant about a photograph was not what was in front of the camera but the manipulation of the image by the artist/photographer to achieve his or her subjective vision. The movement helped to raise standards and awareness of art photography.The group is the American counterpart to the linked ring an invitation-only British group which seceded from which was the underlying value of the Photo-Secession, argued that photography needed to emulate the painting of the time. Pictorialists believed that, just as a painting is distinctive because of the artist’s manipulation of the materials to achieve an effect, so too should the photographer alter or manipulate the photographic image. Among the methods used were soft focus; special filters and lens coatings; burning, dodging and/or cropping in the darkroom to edit the content of the image; and alternative printing processes such as special toning, carbon printing , platinum printing or gum bichromate processing.

The theory of naturalists photography: Soon contemporary artists decided that pictorials wasn’t what they wanted to continue due to the lack of detail to their minds this is not what photography is about. this leads onto that of:this is the mind of he outlined a system of  aesthetics. He decreed that a photograph should be direct and simple and show real people in their own environment, not costumed models posed before fake backdrops or other such predetermined formulas.

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

The theory of straight photography ; Is this that could also be viewed as realism within photoghrohay, reaction against pictorials and started the narrative documentary approach, often with a social concern related to it, and the athletic of people within their environments. They argued that photography should not be blurry and out of focus as this is not why is was invented and wrongly captured the formal elements.Time period: straight photographers were in the intricate qualities of the photographic medium with the ability to provide accurate and descriptive records of the visual world. These photographers strove to make pictures the were ‘photographic’ rather than ‘painterly’.  Straight photography’s time period started towards the end of the pictorial era. ‘straight photography’ is the cameras ability to record objectively then an actual world as it appears in from.aight photography emphasizes and engages with the camera’s own technical capability to produce images sharp in focus and rich in detail. The term generally refers to photographs that are not manipulated, either in the taking of the image or by darkroom or digital processes, but sharply depict the scene or subject as the camera sees it These straight or pure approaches to photography continue to define contemporary photographs, while being the foundation for many related movements, such as Documentary, Street photography, Photojournalism, and even later Abstract photography.The camera’s distinctive vocabulary includes form, sharp focus, rich detail, high contrast, and rich tonalities. Straight photography is also synonymous with pure photography, since both terms describe the camera’s ability to faithfully reproduce an image of reality.

Artists associated:Dody Weston Thompson was a 20th-century American photographer and chronicler of the history and craft of photography. She learned the art in 1947 and developed her own expression of “straight” or realistic photography, the style that emerged in Northern California in the 1930s. Her camera work is represented in dozens of museums and private collections as well as in many photographic books and magazines. She also participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions from 1948 through 2006 in the United States and Japan.In her work it is evident the inspiration se has both seemed from the new straight movement yet till themes reminiscent of that of pictorialsm.

 

 

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Contextual Studies, Essay

Academic sources: bibliography

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A list of sources I have read as part of my essay and text I will submit:

Hills,P and Cooper, T(1998), dialogue with photography.New York: Dewi Lewis publishing

…which is the point that Paul Hill makes when she says ‘verbs expression of this is most difficult and awkward, and that is annoying.’ (Robert 1998:81)

(Cacioppo et al. 2001 p. 173)

-The authors investigated whether people can feel happy and sad at the same time. J. A. Russell and J. M. Carroll’s (1999) circumplex model holds that happiness and sadness are polar opposites and, thus, mutually exclusive. In contrast, the evaluative space model (J. T. Cacioppo & G. G. Berntson, 1994) proposes that positive and negative affect are separable and that mixed feelings of happiness and sadness can co-occur.

k.Anish(2002) Tate Modern: Contemporary

– Kapoor as most powerfully expressed in the monumental void works of recent years.

E.Burke’s(1757) Philosophical Enquiry – Oxford worlds classics 

-It was the first complete philosophical exposition for separating the beautiful and the sublime into their own respective rational categories.

R.Barthes(1980) Camera lucida

-. It is simultaneously an inquiry into the nature and essence of photography and a eulogy to Barthes’ late mother. The book investigates the effects of photography on the spectator.

Contemporary arts

J.bell (2013) ‘contemporary art and the sublime’ 

-In the first section of this essay, I shall offer a directly personal take on the theme that will open out on to various aspects of current art-world thinking and practice. Many of the tactics and visual effects discussed here can easily be related to the tradition of artistic production stimulated by the writings of Burke

B.newmans(1948) ‘the sublime is now’

-The invention of beauty b the greek, that is , their postulate of beauty as an ideal. Mans natural desire I the arts to express his relation to the absolute became identified and confused with the absolutisms of perfect creations. 

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas

Academic sources: quotation and referencing:

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book reference of themes :I have read the following books

Contemporary arts: is a book written by: 

I started reading contemporary arts wi the intention to fin out more about the bass of how art and photocopy developed throughout time politically and economically and how this had an influence on the images produced and also the effects emotionally on the images themselves. These are the following notes I made when reading gah following book: Contemporary arts was founded upon the soviet war and the decision between the eat and the west,if the art of the east had to conform and to represent a specific ideology and have a definite social use,then the art of the west must be apparently free of any such direction and attain perfect uselessness. East had a celebratory achievements of humanity socialist West limits failures and cruelties Many ethnicity cultures and art influences joined the west in the way they were no longer ignored and were born to critical and commercial success.The end of the cold war broke the white genius and white monopoly of the country.The greatest effect on art has not been on its economy but its rhetoric. The demonisation of barriers

Camera lucida:Is a book written by Roland Barthes 

this is a book questioning the philosophy of why photography is important and how every aspect to an image has a different precise point of interest within it, It additionally develops the idea of what is reality and emotions being reflected and held within the person in the photo. The following are quotes and reference of interest I think will benefit my work. “I am interested in them as I am interested in the world but I do not love them” often punctum is the detail dependent on a size, However lighting like, it may be the punctum has, more or less potentially a power of expansion .This power is often metonymic.‘Thinking eye’ . This is Sole proof of art to annihilate as medium .What a stubbornly see. We say to develop a photograph but what the chemical reaction develops is undevlopable , the essence of a wound, what cannot be repeated but only transformed but only repeated under the instances of insistence. We must speak of intense immobility linked to detail to a detonator Not to inherit anything other than my own eye. Within movie you are not allowed to shut your eyes, otherwise you would not discover the image.  

The third book I have looked at is Oxfords worlds classics,, Edmund burke a philosophical enquiry: This book is a clear questioning of what the sublime is and of how it has come about and what successful it achieves. Many of my notes here are Ideas burke has bought up that I think could benefit my research question that I will continue to ask myself. These are quotes and theoretical questions. 

Burke had the thought that the beautiful us that which is well-formed and aesthetically pleasing. This is differently how the sublime is something which has power to compel and then destroy us. He stated the difference was that of the tranition from neoclassical to the romantic era. Burkes thinkning was based off the understanding he had from the casual structures, this consisting of Aritotelians belief that ‘physics and metaphysics, causation can be divided into formal, material, efficient and final causes’  he belived the fromal cause of beauty if the passion of love, the material cause concerns would be the materials of the object itself, smallness,smoothness,delicacy. These ese intern cause the calming of our berves . The final cause is God and his providence. Beauty before burkes view was based oin the three deifning factors of fitness perfection and porportion. however the sublime also had a casuals tructure before urkes theory and this consisted of, the passion of fear(death), The material was the infinity, vastness and magnificence of the object. The efficient cause is the tension of our nerves, and gos role in the final cause is having created and battled satan. Pleasure is ongly pleasure if it is felt and the said to be said about pain. Three states of indifference, of pleasure, and of pain. He will feel greater pain stretch caused upon the rack, but does this pain of the rack arise from the removal of any pleasure. DIFFERENCE OF REMOVAL OF PAIN AND POSITIVE PLEASURE. Pupose, that pain and pleasure are not only, not necessarily dependent for their existence on their mutual diminution or removal, but that, in reality, the diminution or ceasinf of pleasure does not operate like positive pain. And that the removal or dimunition of pain, in its effect has very little resembelance to positive pleasure.

internet reference of themes :I have two themes to which I want to research this being emotions within photography and the other being sublime.

The sublime: I decided to dive into the Tate modern for this research and discover what the contemporary sublime is k.Anish(2002) Tate Modern: Contemporary artists have extended the vocabulary of the sublime by looking back to earlier traditions and by engaging with aspects of modern society. They have located the sublime in not only the vastness of nature as represented in modern science but also the awe-inspiring complexity and scale of the capitalist-industrial system and in technology.Julian Bell surveys the contemporary sublime with personal reflections on its continued relevance to artistic practice. Other essays reflect on the complex relationships between concepts of the sublime and capitalism and technology today. ,, The content of the sublime: global Fear of what? What is that ‘something which one immediately has to recognise is bigger’? Does the contemporary art of the sublime have some substantive content in mind? Or do its meanings reside in its very nihilism, its hankerings after the sheer effect of power? Or is that taking matters too seriously? Why should we not simply celebrate showmanship, in this our age of spectacle?

Emotions within photography:Here I wanted to measure how you can measure emotion within a piece of art such as photography. And how differently art and emotions can be.

(Cacioppo et al. 2001 p. 173)–Our emotions play an important role throughout the span of our lives because they enrich virtually all of our waking moments with either a pleasant or an unpleasant quality. Cacioppo and his colleagues wrote that “emotions guide, enrich an ennoble life; they provide meaning to everyday existence; they render the valuation placed on life and property”This person will experience all kinds of emotions, such as fear, amusement, anger, relief, disappointment, hope, etcetera. Instead of one isolated emotion, it is the combination of those emotions that contributes to the experience of fun. It is not implausible that the same applies to other instances of fun, whether it is sharing a joke, using a product, or interacting with a computer.–P.M.A. Desmet (in press) Measuring Emotions 1Delft University of Technology; Department of Industrial Design

artists references online and in books :

j.bell (2013) sublime and the contemporary arts – But here in the foreground, as of the 2010s, we seem to stand amidst a delta. Channels of discourse about the sublime meander all around us, but which is the main flow, which the subsidiary, which the navigation canal or ditch for irrigation has become almost impossible to tell. Ideally, I should like to draw a map of this muddle; pragmatically, I hope at least to offer a ground-level topographical sketch.

 

 

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Essay plan

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How do Birthe Piontek and Richard Billingham, express the notion of family  and relationships in their work?
  • Opening quote
  • Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
  • Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. Link to power points about isms and movements  M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\Personal Study
  • Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
  • Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
  • Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
  • Bibliography: List all relevant sources used
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Essay Questions

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Previous essay Questions 

  • How does the work of Phillip Toledano and Yoshikatsu Fujii show childhood and family breakups?
  • How does Diana Markosian and Rita Puig-Serra Costa, express the notion of family history and relationships in their work
  • How have concepts of family, separation and memory  been explored in the photo books of Sarello Casanova a

Possible Essay Questions 

  • How has the breakdown of family relationships effected photographic nature of  Phillip Toledano and Yoshikatsu Fujii
  • How can a person’s identity be shown through their possessions and the condition of these possessions
  • an you show a person experience though life in photographs ?
  • In what way does Carole Bénitah explore childhood memories through her work as a method of understanding identity and self expression?
A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas

hypothesis

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Inspired questions:

I wanted to choose questions which were specific and had similar themes to what I want to ask myself.

.Merging the Boundaries of the Real and the Imagined: How are Fictional and Mythical Characters Represented in Photography

.How is religion – specifically Christianity – linked to fairy tales?Can staged photography really be considered as a form of factual documentary photography?

.What are the differences/ similarities in a formal or informal approach to portrait photography?‘How do Paul M Smith, Ben Zank and Rut Blees display emotions through self- portraiture and environmental photography?’

.How can elements of Surrealism be used to express and visualise the personal, iner emotions of people suffering from mental health issues?

.Can surrealism in portraiture photography accurately bring out powerful and deep personal emotions?

.Examining the documentary aesthetics: A photograph should not be manipulated, so that its authenticity, veracity and sense of realism can be maintained?

How did the Bechers’ typologies of Industrial Architecture influence a new generation of photographers?

how and why do photographers use the human body to physically express hidden emotions’

My questions:

examine how the sublime and reality work hand in hand to  visualise how they reflection of personal emotion. And how the artists… and ….. show this in different ways.

how can politically movements of photography such as surrealism and the sublime effect the way which photographs see and demonstrate emotion in their work.

how does the power of pain and beauty found within the sublime, have such s strong influence on the emotions of artists and photographers.

Does objectivity and reality effect how we view and react to our emotions. How does the sublime have such an emotional response dependent on the persons current emotional status. And how do photographers capture such a unique set of emotions all at once.

Merging the boundaries of the sublime and surrealism; how are emotions and personal identity represented conceptually throughout photography. Why do these photographers consider their work to be sublime.

Examining the sublime: A photograph should not be able to have such strong emotional occupancy, so that it effects how someone perceives reality and views their own emotions.