Textile artist Debbie Smyth is best known for her stitched illustrations. By plotting pins with acute accuracy and then stretching thread between them, she creates work that is beautiful and somewhat disconcerting; the boundaries of textile art, fine art sketches, embroidery, and illustration are well and truly blurred.
My Embroidery
For this experiment we had to use materials that related to Jersey and the history and community of Jersey. I decided to use this image as it is a well known building and business that is still there. I decided to keep it simple and just stitch on words that I cut out from the text that was originally below the image. I chose to only use the identifying words in the text, such as the business name and the year the image was taken so that it didn’t take away from the actual photo.
As a group, knowing we wanted to explore feminism, we decided to use this opportunity to create a video showing empowerment in the world of women. Our initial idea was to use one girl throughout the video and have her walking through doors that lead to different stages of feminism. She would start in in kitchen and would represent the fist wave of feminism (women’s suffrage) as well as the women of the time, hence why she would be in the kitchen, the stereotype and mostly reality at the time. She would then walk through a door, walk through time, to the seventies introducing the second wave of feminism. This stage would have more colour and saturation implying the good changes that had come, however not fully. And through the last door would come not another stage of fighting for equality but a hypothetical world where women feel free, safe and happy.
Storyboard
Each stage lasting ten seconds would add up to 30 seconds, our aim being to represent how women have fought over the century but showing it in a gentle way. As for audio our initial idea was to change the music for each stage, however, we decided that instead, having three snippets of speeches of women at he time as well as empowering music would be much more emotional and powerful.
Save final image here: M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Image Transfer\IDENTITY & COMMUNITY|NFT/ IMAGE
Statement
Our pieces are a look at the past and the future of fashion, showing the contrast between the times. We wanted to capture the idea of fashion coming back from the past and the generational difference as a concept that could be used for other things that make our community. Inspired by the use of expression of identity through clothes and how clothes tell a lot about a person.
Evaluation
The final outcome we produced fits what we intended to create and the message we were portraying about clothing coming back into fashion and being historical and a big part of what makes people fit together as a community. As a group we worked well together and all did what we needed to do as individuals for the final outcome to work together.
Our still image is different from the artists references we chose and looks different to how we intended because we realised that our idea would be too complicated for us and that the simplistic approach we took better suits the message we wanted to portray about the evolution of fashion. However the concepts from the artists mixing old with new is still present in our video where we mix different pictures of Jersey from the past with clothing from the present.
‘A non-fungible token is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger. NFTs can be used to represent easily-reproducible items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files as unique items, and use blockchain technology to establish a verified and public proof of ownership.’
2 LIVES
2 Lives is Jersey’s first Art Exhibition that connects Art and Finance, through the introduction of NFTs. This project is destined to shape the future of the Art world, leveraging NFTs as a tool to create new opportunities and communities. 2 Lives was created by Francesco Vincenti & Claudia Runcio who came to live in Jersey in 2020. Their vision is to create a format for future NFT exhibitions that can be replicated around the world in different shades and configurations.
‘What we want to leave in Jersey is a seed and a promise of prosperity, a moving platform on which creators, artists, business professionals and students can grow.’
An NFT Artist: Beeple
Also known as Mike Winklemann, Beeple is now the third most valuable living artist after selling an NFT collage for a record-smashing $69 million. The historical sale brokered through Christie’s in a first of the kind of the famed auctioneer whipped up a frenzy of interest for NFTs and the broader sphere of cryptocurrencies.
The Charleston native had previously set a NFT art world record after selling $582,000 worth of cryptocurrency art in five minutes. Beeple’s 1.7 strong social media following results from him sharing animations and illustrations every single day over the last 13 years. You may even be familiar with some of his creations. The digital artist has developed concert visuals and Flying Lotus videos for renowned rap performers Eminem and Nicki Minaj.
Overall the process of the NFT was challenging on creating the correct timing for the movement and music while trying to add a contrast of presenting the clips and having the time of multiple different ones to start and finish at the same time by adjusting the timings of the movement. The use of different colours and patterns to arrange them to fit together is very effective as they are balanced very well. The digital image was composed by different clips of the NFT and edited two of the images to make the background black and white. This was effective because it shows a change in fashion in the digital image yet the background colour doesn’t drain the image of the focus.
This film was created to highlight the fact that everyone should be able to wear what they want, when they want. We added a voice over as well as music in the background of the video. We did this so that the message of the video was fully understood and conveyed.
The background of the video highlights the fact that colours are often stereotyped to a gender. However the white colour highlights the fact that clothes should be gender neutral, that is why we had a male model wearing a dress.
The voiceover is to further emphasise that people should be themselves and that no one’s opinion should sway how they feel about themselves or stop them from expressing themselves. The voice over is a male because many judge men for dressing more feminine and call them derogative terms. The stereotyping of fashion could be harmful to the person’s mental health. Men are often thought as strong, unemotional and self sufficient. Often if men do not act this way they are seen as weak and fragile. The most common derogative names given to men who are not the media’s idea of masculine are called “flamboyant”, “gay” or “pansy”. Though these words in general are not commonly used to be offensive; the media has caused these regular words to be seen as rude and should someone be called these, they are not good enough.
Although we focused on the male perspective in our project that does not mean that this topic does not apply to women. Women have been called “sluts”, “tramps” or even “slapper”. The media judges women on the length of their clothing as well as their appearance (e.g. makeup) and brands a label on them which will often be seen by younger audiences which are more easily swayed by the media and its opinions, and will plant an idea of what they ‘should’ be wearing when they actually should be able to wear what the want without the fear of someone telling them they don’t look normal.
The media is the worst thing to read if you want to feel happy with yourself. The media constantly fixates on the topic of fixing yourself or making yourself look like the most famous celebrity (that often has a hair and makeup team, and possibly plastic surgery). The media shows celebrity “flaws” which then sways the reader’s mind on what they see as an acceptable way to look and dress.
A storyboard is a collection of images in a certain order to portray a concept someone wishes to execute in their film.
The first picture illustrates the idea of the film containing same-sex actors within a church, sharing looks and doing personal readings of the bible, at a distance. We then wish to find authentic clips of old riots/protests against LGBTQ rights to use in the middle of the film, this is to project a clearer idea to the audience and adds a real element to the film, showing that is actually happens in real life. We will be flicking these clips in-between dazed, over exposed fantasy scenes that we will shoot in an open field with natural lighting. The aim of the middle is to show the thoughts of the pair if they wish to pursue a homosexual relationship, thinking of both negative and positive impacts on their lives, considering religion.
To end the film, we will direct the couple to move to sit together, there then they will compare positive verses they have both found. This is to show that they are supporting each other, helping to show the other how to accept their sexuality.
To link back to the title and topic, we will present the verse which states ‘love thy neighbour’ as a close up. We chose this verse as it can be interpreted as an umbrella for christianity to encourage all to accept those for who they are, de-stigmatising learnt prejudice from society.
We wanted the model to be more serious and stereotypically masculine whilst wearing the first outfit. We did this because we wanted to show the changes in his confidence, when he was wearing the different outfits.
When this is edited the green screen will be a light blue colour to highlight the masculinity of our model. Blue is associated with the male gender. It is also linked with the ocean which is known to be fierce and uncontrollable. As well as the ocean, blue is associated with the sky and which is a major part in our life as it protects us from the universe around us.
Outfit 2
The second outfit was used to show a slight transition between the 1st and 3rd outfit. The baggy sweatshirt is hiding the masculine shirt; this could be seen as the beginning of the model feeling more confident in dressing in feminine outfits.
We wanted there to be serious poses as well as more laid-back / happier poses, leading up to the final outfit. We wanted to show the fact that the model doesn’t need to act a certain way to wear a certain style of clothes.
Outfit 3
For this outfit we asked the model to be a little bit more confident with his poses to ensure that it’s known that he doesn’t care what people think about him.
Outfit 4
For the final outfit, our model had more serious poses in the original unedited video (which is where I got my screenshots from), however the footage used in the video is showing the model being a lot more laid-back and relaxed in the outfit that he is in.
We used the footage from when the model was in this outfit throughout the film to help foreshadow what will be happening at the end of the film.
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