In groups of two (Ollie and I) we had to produce a poster that reflects on one of the key areas of Jersey Identity, we were given “Communities” to explore.
This is our poster, our main focus was the different communities in each parishes, and how each parish is slightly different which is depicted on there way of life. For example, St. Helier is very built up and Trinity is more rural and less busy.
The notes around the outside inform the reader about the how, the Honorary Police is one of the oldest police forces in existence, and embodies the best Peelian principles of policing by consent. The Parish Hall Enquiry system has been celebrated as a highly effective model for restorative justice, with minor offences dealt with at a community level in a way that does not necessarily criminalise first-time offenders. Meanwhile, the twice annual Branchage and the Visite Royale are both examples of important historic rituals that form part of Jersey’s Identity.
Under the map, there’s information about how the parishes got their name, with the correlating symbol on the map and next to the information. For example, St. Helier and how the blue symbolising the sea, and the axes symbolising the martyrdom of Helier at the hands of Saxon pirates in 555 AD.
Finally, the part under the map is based on the different languages in Jersey such as, English, French, Portuguese, and Polish. However, the main section is about the language Jèrriais, as it is in the DNA of Jersey. It’s a crucial historical aspect of our identity. To quote Professor of Linguistics Paul Birt, ‘There are few languages I know with such a richness of expression, some of her idioms are poetry… Jèrriais belongs to Jersey, and without it Jersey would, I believe, stop being Jersey.’ However, if we can agree that we should not allow Jèrriais to die, then we must fund its revival properly. Jèrriais should be an integral part of our Island Identity, promoted by Government, the States, businesses and organisations, and can be used as a unique selling point to those beyond our shores, also helping to differentiate us further from neighbouring countries. Teaching it in schools can embed a sense identification, pride and citizenship in Jersey school children, regardless of background.
French is also one of the crucial components of Jersey’s cultural heritage and identity. It is important for its own sake as the language of our nearest neighbour, and as a stepping stone to Jèrriais comprehension. Additionally, all of the road names are in French, like, Rue Due Mielles.
Overall, I believe that our final image and film have turned out very successful as they relate strongly to our initial intentions of commemorating the women who have fought for their own rights throughout history. I am really proud of what we have accomplished during this project, learning new skills on different software such as Premier Pro has been really beneficial in discovering the limitless elements of photography and all we can do with it. I believe our final film succeeded greatly due to our setting, lighting, camera angle and casting – using a model who has such a timeless look helped us portray different decades and styles which all together sustained the aesthetic of our film. Additionally changing our idea to using a static camera shot, instead of panning along as the model moved, assisted with the fluidity of each video; we developed our ideas well as a team by working together and listening to each other’s input. I believe that our message comes across clearly in our film through our use of visual imagery and audio, the idea to use clips from historical interviews helped focus on our main objective. Our final image was created by choosing our 4 favourite images from our shoot and editing them together to form a collage as if our model were seeing different versions of herself through a mirror. I believe we really captured a sense of pride in this image, it represents looking back on the empowerment and rights we have been given by our ancestors, feeling confident in oneself of all that has been accomplished. One part of this image that I think works particularly well is its repetition of the colour orange, symbolising strength and confidence being such a bold colour while also keeping a theme of regality throughout. If we were to have more time on this project I would have liked to improve my skills in digital animation using Adobe After Effect, we brainstormed how we could use this software in our final film but couldn’t come up with an idea of the right standard. Nevertheless, I am extremely pleased with how our final film and image have evolved and developed – I believe they represent a fight for gender equality and female empowerment successfully.
Statement
The evolution of women’s rights into the future Metaverse, a time when diversity and equality are the norms, where a woman can choose what she does with her body without the input from the government and society around her. The concept of our NFT film is to explore the three major waves of feminism in the last 100 years and to celebrate the women who have fought for women in the present to have equal rights to men. The name of our film came from a play on words for Mankind, because as a society in general we are referred to regarding men, by switching the prefix Man to Woman we are making a statement on the power of women collectively. We capitalised the K as an ironic reference to the stereotype of women being gentle and sweet-tempered. Conveying ideas about women’s rights throughout the years, suffragettes, protesters and so on, we show the cyclical theme of women standing up for what they believe in and gaining confidence, that we should all have, in themselves.
While on location filming our NFT video, using our plans from the storyboard we created, my group chose three rooms in the house that rightly portrayed our three different eras. The first room shows a rustic, un-modernised kitchen with antique original tiles and cabinets to represent our early 1900’s housewife’s home. The lighting in this room was perfect for filming, with large windows spanning from the ceiling to the floor right in front of where we planned to set up the camera, providing perfect natural light to set the scene and highlight our model’s face. To fit with our idea of showing different decades, we edited this clip with a black and white filter to replicate old silent films. We also really loved the range of geometric shapes in this location as it hinted towards the idea of order and tidiness, stereotypical ‘housewife qualities’ that broke down as our video went on. Our next room we chose was a living area with two red patterned sofas relating to those of the 60’s and 70’s, we loved the minimalistic background of this shot as the blank orange walls provided lots of negative space to draw the observer’s attention towards our models actions. We felt a need to increase the vibrancy of each clip as our film went on, therefore we edited with lower saturation and warmer tones that were more reminiscent of old film camera photographs. However, the one part of this location that could steal the observer’s gaze, for all the right reasons, was the watercolour painting of a woman sat in a field of flowers. We really loved having this painting in the centre of our shot as it conveyed the feminine stereotypes we were highlighting in this whole project, relating back to our embroidery inspiration of ‘The Bugs and the Lovers’ and keeping that motif of flowers flowing throughout our piece. Our final location for representing the modern day woman, confident and assured of herself, was anther living/office area that held a grand mirror that had regal tones of wealth and luxury. As described in our storyboard, we wanted to feature a mirror for our model to admire herself in before leaving frame, and we thought this one was perfect. The golden warm tones from the artificial lighting also helped provide links to happiness and comfort in our final shot.
Audio Editing;
We wanted to create a piece of inspiring audio with links to moments in history that defined waves of the feminist movement to play underneath our film, of course due to copy right we had to find a piece of royalty free music. I researched the free music website Audio Library and found composer Scott Buckley – his instrumental song ‘Luminance’ worked perfectly for our film, with elements of drama, suspense but an overall a calm atmosphere to be juxtaposed with historical audio clips, this piece of music worked well. We also had the idea to find clips from certain women’s rights activists throughout history to layer over the top of this instrumental track. I searched on YouTube to find feminism interviews, our first is taken from Christabel Pankhurst’s 1908 speech recording, protesting for the women’s right to vote, she states ‘the ministers suffragettes, who form the women’s social and political union, are engaged in the attempt to win the parliamentary vote for the women of this century’. Our second historical audio recording is from a NBC news report in the 1970’s on the Women’s rights movement, this woman states ‘we now have ten million women backing this particular measure before congress, that’s ten million women who are united through their organisation.’ Our final audio recording is representing the modern woman of empowerment and self love, it is from Britta Badour’s 2019 poem entitled ‘Dear Young Woman’ where she reads ‘whatever you’re going through as a woman, you have the choice to make for yourself for how gentle and kind you are with yourself’. In Adobe PremierPro, I layered this audio clips over each other to create a piece of sound that told a story throughout our films movement.
Montage Images;
During our video editing process we experimented with how creating a montage for the end of our film would impact the overall message. We wanted to find images from several different decades, highlighting the suffragettes/suffragists as well as present day women fighting for equality and the rights to their own bodies. Each member of our group researched some of the most prominent protests/marches for equality in history, collating a set of images that we wanted to include in our montage. Using a mix of black and white/colour images was something we really wanted to feature. After choosing each photograph we wanted in our montage, we used Adobe Photoshop to create a GIF of our images using the instructions below;
How to make a GIF in Photoshop 1. Create layer for each image 2. Window > timeline 3. Select > Create Frame Animation 4. Drop Menu > Make frames from Layers 5. Timeline > select Forever 6. File > Export > Save for Web Legacy > reduce image size to 720 x 720 pixels
By using a GIF format to create our montage it gave us the ability to speed up the duration of each image, producing a fast paced series of photos that sat in time with the music underscoring our film. We wanted this montage to go at the end of our film to really finalize our message that these issues of inequality are still going on to this day.
Our Title;
As a group we discussed developing a title that summarised our views and message altogether. We came up with the idea of ‘WomenKind’ – a play on words for ‘mankind’, a word that is meant to refer to the whole human race however only refers to the male gender in the process, switching to ‘Woman’ to create a statement on collective women empowerment. We are not suggesting in this pun, or in this entire project, that women are better than men – that idea has been mentioned nowhere – we are simply drawing attention to the fact that for centuries women and men alike have fought for female empowerment and gender equality, we are giving our thanks and telling their stories. Additionally, we decided to capitalise the ‘K’ in kind to hint at the irony surrounding the stereotype of women being weak and submissive, showing kindness to all. This is clearly juxtaposed with our film celebrating the strong powerful women who still continue to fight for equality, our title highlights and challenges the parodic representation of women throughout history.
Our project based on highlighting ideas about the metaverse and the idea of ‘2 Lives’ was an overall success. We were able to complete the project within the time frame to a sufficient standard. My artistic intention was to deliver a project which used a-lot of digital techniques to relay a futuristic aesthetic. I believe through the use of animation and various other effects, along with the sound-design we achieved this artistic direction.
I feel we effectively spread the workload amongst the whole group. Everyone had something to do at all times when working on the project.
Matthew
Camera man
Animator
Reuben
Actor
Secondary editor
Ollie
Director
Manager
Myself
Main Character
Chief Editor
This was valuable as the editing process was intricate.
Although class time was used effectively in this way, I do feel more out of class work could’ve been done to help iron out any creases in the film as I do think it has room for improvement. For example some sections of the film do not flow seamlessly but rather cut quite chaotically and therefore more out of lesson time could’ve been spent on transitions.
Our project represented the idea of having social circles online and in the physical world which reacted to the theme of community well.
Our work was inspired by artists like Beeble and I feel we effectively displayed this aesthetic using the digital style of work
Before we planned teh shoot we established initial ‘job roles’ for the project:
Matthew
Camera man
Animator
Reuben
Actor
Secondary editor
Ollie
Director
Manager
Myself
Main Character
Chief Editor
We will shoot our video using a DSLR paired with a drone. Referring back to the story board, the DSLR will shoot close up shots and eyelevel perspective shots, while the drone will take the birds-eye-view shots.
We will shoot during the day time, during overcast weather to remove any harsh lighting and add drama to our footage. We found an open field area with a cliff which is were we will film as we plan for the main character to appear as he is isolated when shooting birds-eye-view shots. The cliff also adds to the drama and the cliff will add more sublime romanticism to our footage. We want our narrative to be obvious and we are using characters who will act out this narrative effectively. In terms of props we will be using a VR headset which we have crafted ourselves using accessible materials.
Behind the scenes:
Matthew controlling the drone while I ran towards it Me showing off the central handmade prop
Am I satisfied that I have enough images/ material? – Yes I am satisfied we have shot an abundance of imagery. What are you going to do differently on next shoot? – Do not rush the takes as much and refer to the storyboard more directly. How are you going to develop your ideas? – Add animation and editing to piece the narrative together and further add visual effect to the piece to relay a more emotive campaign.
Film Inspirations:
Editing:
Video
I began by laying delegating the task of finding a backing track for the video. We found a royalty-free electronic song with a fast paced beat which would complement the narrative and visuals well. I then laid the soundtrack in a new sequence in Adobe Premiere pro. Thereafter, I began introducing clips into the sequence and cutting them to the beat. Once satisfied with how the clips where positioned and the overall sequence, I moved onto the next element of post-production, colour grading and Effects. I added a grade on all of the clips using adjustment layers. I went for a high saturation and high contrast grade to dramatize the action in the video. I then added video-game style overlays such as the one below.
For the split screen concept I first had to motion track my face to stabilise the clip more so that my facial features lined up with the animation characters features. The animation was designed by Matthew. You can see his editing process for this HERE
This involved an intricate frame-by-frame masking process.
I added speed ramps to add a sense of hyperreality and the idea that time is controllable in the metaverse more. Finally I added sound FX to add a more immersive feeling.
Image
Matthew made the the digital image in photoshop. He used a screen grab from one of the videos of me wearing the VR, and the 5 animated scenes all at the same timeframe so the character lines up.
He then added some glitched text effect by using 2 layers behind each text. To make it better he added some blending mode features, such as, emboss and bevel, etc.
He used shapes and clipping layers to add all the images into to ensure all the shapes are even.
This is the final image which represents the whole NFT film. It shows the most important scene, which is the split scene that includes the animation as the NFT exhibition is called 2lives (online and offline), it shows the real world and the virtual meta verse.
As planned in my Storyboard Blog Post, on October 14th my group went to shoot on location at Carmen’s grandmother’s house. We aimed to create images inspired by Lissa Rivera and Cindy Sherman, keeping our Clare Rae inspired shots for our video footage. Each member of our group took images on their own cameras for this shoot, however the final edits are comprised of my shots which we all worked hard on creating unique compositions and lighting for. I focused on photographing in areas of warm lighting, with side lamps, ring lights and natural sunlight as our source; I wanted to create an atmosphere of confidence and playfulness in these images. Each member of our group walked around the house to find rooms and areas where interesting images could be taken, we tried to focus on finding patterned wallpaper, similar to Rivera’s work, as well as rooms with mirrors, fireplaces and symmetrical backgrounds that could create dynamic changes. During our photoshoot we experimented with how using flash would disrupt or help the lighting of an image, for some it helped massively by providing natural highlights on our models face as well as illuminating the background – however, in rooms with an abundance of natural lighting the flash created highly over exposed images that did not reflect the warm tones as we had hoped. I really enjoyed experimenting with the White Balance, Shutter Speed and ISO of my camera to see how changing the setting slightly could effect an image so greatly.
Flagged Unedited Images;
In Adobe Lightroom I imported all 324 of our photoshoot images and used to ‘flagging’ tool to select which ones were the most successful. When choosing these I looked for photographs with interesting compositions, sometimes I found asymmetrical images a lot more intriguing as they showed freedom and fun, qualities of our fully empowered modern woman that, in some images, we wanted to portray. After flagging our favourite images (screenshots seen above), I went through them again giving them a 1 to 5 star rating. Any images with 5 stars I then went on to edit and refine, touching up exposure and brightness mostly, to link more to Rivera’s work and convey a sense of empowerment. When editing, I wanted to keep the warm undertones that I captured in the raw shoot as I believe they helped represent the comforting atmosphere of a woman in her own home, feeling confident and safe within herself.
Best Images – Edited;
Our images show understanding of stereotyping, taking inspiration from Cindy Sherman’s work by photographing our model in a stereotypically feminine outfit, stood/sat in exaggerated poses to create an ironic display of the female gender. We wanted to use these ideologies surrounding women to form a basis for our shoot, using irony to suggest our model feels proud of her femininity as she uses it for her own empowerment, not for the pleasure of others. Locations for these images around the house include bedrooms, offices and lounges – each holding a different stereotype being squashed by our models confidence and satirical representation of how women were (and still are) seen in society.
Image Analysis
I have chosen to analyse this image from my feminism photoshoot as it shows a clear link to all three artists I have studied with use of the formal elements and thematic composition. The first element of this image that I really enjoy is the warm lighting that creates an orange hue throughout, conveying a sense of comfort and security. The dominant colour of orange, as well as creating warmth, also helps the observer understand the subject better as the bright colour connotes ideas of confidence and happiness, things our ’empowered new-age woman’ feels in a free, equal society. The dark lighting that covered this location helped us form an image with depth and meaning from the colours that the natural sunlight, coming through a window out of frame on the right, created. This lighting also illuminated the space around our main subject, as if she were emerging from a place of purity and serenity, symbolic of a heavenly light that surrounds her while she admires herself. The range of tones in this image is quite unbalanced, with the focal point at the brightest point in the centre being surrounded by a much larger border of dark shadow. This creates an atmosphere of mystery and secrecy, linking to Clare Rae’s secretive images were she hides parts of her body so they cannot be exploited for the male gaze. The use of repetition in this piece is seen from the mirrors reflections around the edges, creating distorted versions of our models features eg. arms, hands etc, further linking to our studied artists ironic portrayal of the female gender. The reflections create some rhythm in the image, relating to the idea of flowing water around her; connoting ideas of freedom and fluidity. The overall composition of the piece adds an interesting take on the theme also, we cannot actually see the model’s physical body in the image, only a reflection of her standing out of frame. This raises the question, is she really there? Or is this maybe a ghost from the past looking in on a changed world, possibly an echo from future generations looking back on what women have accomplished – the ambiguity is for the observer to imagine.
A storyboard is a visual outline for the video you are planning to make, they are usually hand drawn, however in recent times storyboards have been created digitally in computer software. The format of a storyboard is usually chronological, helping the creators visualise the video before filming begins. Storyboards also include notes about what is meant to happen in the video, like little captions describing the process from beginning to end. A completed storyboard may look similar to a comic strip, it is like a visual script for the production team to fully plan how they want the video to look. Click here for more on storyboards.
Storyboard Examples;
Our Storyboard;
Our group created the storyboard below to help us plan how we wanted our video shoot to go, describing the different shots and how we imagined them playing out on screen. Firstly, we started with the simple title of ‘Women’ for our NFT film – however, later in the process we changed out idea to the title ‘WomanKind’; a sort of play on words to mankind while also hinting at the stereotypes of women needing to be sweet and innocent, in other words ‘kind’. Our opening shot is planned to be of a wooden door, large and imposing, taking up the entire frame. We plan on having someone open the door from the other side to lead the camera into the first room, we also aim to edit this first sequence with a black and white filter to represent the timeline it portrays. We plan for our second scene to show a woman, dressed in typical early 1900’s attire with an apron, whisking something in a bowl walking through her kitchen. We will set the camera on a tri-pod in the centre of the room and follow the woman as she moves, before seeing her stop to put on a ‘Votes for Women’ protest sash. We want the satire of the ‘innocent housewife’ to juxtapose with her later fierce and strong mood as she walks off through a different door on the other side of the room. Our third and forth scenes will follow the same filming format, however in the second our model will pick up a ‘Women’s Rights’ sign before leaving, wearing a 60’s/70’s inspired dress and edited with a dull saturation (colour appearing as time moves on, and more rights for women are put in place). Our last shot is planned to show our model in a idealistic world of freedom, walking into frame and looking at herself in a mirror, feeling confident within her femininity and loving herself without it needing to be sexualised for the male gaze. We plan for our model to look straight at the camera lens and smile before leaving through a final door into a world where she can feel confident and comfortable.
Video Shoot Planning
Who – The model we are using for this video shoot is the same woman we had in our initial photoshoot images. Caitlin has a timeless look about her, she is also an actress who is comfortable in front of the camera and has confidence in portraying the different emotions we want to convey; eg, sadness, anxiety, excitement, happiness.
Where – We plan on using one of our group member’s grandmother’s home for our video shoot due to its vast space, rooms, doorways and availability for use. The house we aim to film in is also decorated with similar regal furniture and wallpaper as the work of Lissa Rivera, who is our main source of inspiration for the project.
When – We aim to conduct this video shoot on Thursday October 14th as the weather is meant to be bright and sunny, resulting in perfect natural lighting for the shots we want to film in the kitchen (a room with very big windows). Additionally, on this day we all have a free period last lesson which provides the perfect time to film before it gets too dark.
How – We are planning to film using my Canon camera and tri-pod so all the footage is in one place and it is easy to find for editing. We will attempt to create transitions between doorway to room – however if this is not possible in the space we are in, we have a plan B on how to film our video, using a simpler format.
Why – We want to create this video to shed light on the decades of struggle that women have gone through to get equal rights, we know that we are lucky enough to live on an island where equality is noticed and seen, for the most part, however we also realize there are many countries and areas where women do not have the same rights as men and still need to fight everyday for the privileges that should be theirs for free. We want to create a video showing a timeline of women’s rights activists during the different waves of feminism, connoting ideas of freedom and passion for what they believe in.
On Wednesday the 29th of September we took part in an embroidery workshop with Yulia Makeyeva, an emerging multi-disciplinary artist who grew up in Russia and is now based in Jersey. Yulia has a background in art history, silversmithing and jewellery making, however turned her full attention to art in 2019. She likes to use photography to help her observe textures, patterns and shapes in everyday objects – she uses these observations to create artwork that is unique and unexpected. Yulia experiments with different mediums in her artwork, using sewing, painting, drawing and photography to create dynamic pieces with storylines and meanings. She has an interest in concepts of memory, responsibility, stereotypes, borders, boundaries and multiculturalism, and is also working on a range of projects involving historical research.
A statement from Yulia reads ‘I like to push the boundaries of the ordinary. Exploring the capabilities of materials, I learn through making. I draw inspiration from my home, family and surroundings – any texture, object, light movement, story, music, etc. can become a starting point. At a research stage, before making a decision, I play with the idea in my head and with the material in my hands, tactility is very important. Actual making process comes further, usually in the form of labour-intensive contemplative repetition. What do I want to say with my art? I want to reveal a different angle and engage the viewer into an active dialogue with the world around.’
Her Work;
Inspiration
During our embroidery workshop, we did some further research into our project by looking through various collections of embroidered work in books around the class. In one of these books we discovered this piece by Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh called ‘The Bugs and the Lovers’, created from a series of drawings they made together in 2005. Two pink roses are the main focus of their piece, with various insects dotted around the watercolour flowers which symbolize the stereotypes of romanticism, women being delicate and frail. It is difficult to see from the image, however sewn into the painting is an outline of a couple making love, with emphasis on the woman’s face and body – there is obvious irony in Amer’s subject matter choice. The pink colour of the flowers and the symbolic metaphors for a woman’s innocence and fragility are juxtaposed by the explicit embroidery that overlaps, it creates the impression of women being comfortable within themselves in a society that still views them as weak and naive. This piece links to our idea on showing the representation of women as it evolves through the different waves of feminism, when deciding what to sew for my embroidered piece I took inspiration from the flowers and pink tones.
Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh | The bugs and the lovers | 2008
Experimenting with text
During this workshop, we were given the task to create a piece of embroidery inspired by our NFT Community project – taking inspiration also from ‘The Bugs and the Lovers’, I wanted to create a piece with a soft colour palette of pink and white to represent innocence and purity, some stereotypical qualities of women. We had a range of materials to work with, the main being some large fabric panels from the People Make Jersey exhibition which were placed on tables around the room for us to use in our pieces. I had the idea to cut out different words and phrases that linked with the idea of women’s rights and feminism, such as ‘who risked her life’ and ‘house workers’. I wanted to sew these phrases onto a piece of fabric that linked to Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh’s work, using the motif of flowers for fragility. After gathering all of my words, fabrics and threads I decided to lay them all out in an order that created a story – I came up with the verse ‘woman; forced hope. her sacrifice, gratitude.’ The meaning I wish to be interpreted from these words is one of justice and fighting – the forced hope of generations of women fighting for the same thing year after year, the sacrifices made by suffragettes and other freedom fighters, the gratitude we feel for those who have fought for us in the past; women.
The words I cut out from the exhibition panels and the fabric I planned on using.My verse set out on the fabric I planned to use for my piece.
Final Embroidery Piece
The aim of our workshop was to combine traditional methods of making art (analogue), such as embroidery and stitching with digital media like photography to create a short stop animation movie as a GIF. My GIF above was created on Adobe Photoshop using these steps –
1. Create layer for each image 2. Window > timeline 3. Select > Create Frame Animation 4. Drop Menu > Make frames from Layers 5. Timeline > select Forever 6. File > Export > Save for Web Legacy > reduce image size to 720 x 720 pixels
My GIF shows the process of my embroidery, however it also tells a story of repetition – hinting at the years of constant fighting for equality through the 19th and 20th century. The overlapping images the come together one by one create a dynamic animation conveying ideas of the same thing happening (or not happening) over and over again. Furthermore, as each new word or phrase is sewn on it gives the impression of time moving forwards, more and more women standing up for what they believe in and fighting for the rights they deserve. I wanted to convey a sense of irony also in my piece, using colours like pink to juxtapose the hard hitting message within my text. The motif of flowers that also features hints towards the stereotypes of women, the metaphor of a flower is often used to describe a women to make her seem feeble and weak – the opposite to the women described in my verse. Additionally, I wanted to use different coloured cotton and thread to sew the words on to the fabric -I began by using a thick red wool to sew in the word ‘forced’, again irony as I had to force the needle through the two fabrics to sew them together, but also symbolic of the struggles and pain that past and present activists have to go through, representing passion/blood//danger. Other materials I used to sew into my piece were thin threads of cotton in different shades of pink, showing repetition and symbolism of women throughout. The flimsiness of the cotton also adds to the idea of a stereotypical woman’s place, doing jobs around the house that do not require strength or muscle – all creating a pun towards the representation of women throughout history.
Cindy Sherman (1954-present) is an American filmmaker and photographer who focuses her work on critiquing themes of gender and identity. In her early years Sherman created fine art, however abandoned painting for photography while attending the State University of New York at Buffalo, and in 1976, moved to New York to pursue a career as a photographer. Her work has been the subject of many museum exhibitions, including those at The Museum of Modern Art in 2019, and at the National Portrait Gallery, in London during 2019. Sherman captures self portraits, her most notable body of work are her ‘Untitled Film Stills’ which feature the artist herself as a model in various costumes and poses, and are her portrayals of female stereotypes found in film, television, and advertising – all captured in black and white. In the film stills, rather than quoting from recognizable movies, Sherman suggests genres, resulting in characters that emerge as personality types instead of specific actresses. The first six images of the series depict the same blonde actress at various stages of her career. Later, the character appears as a seductress, waiting at home for her lover – then afterwards Sherman might be seen as the trope of the diligent, stay-at-home wife who remains attractive and available to her husband.
Sherman’s Film Stills have been described as “a hybrid of photography and performance art that reveals femininity to be an effect of representation.”. Sherman states “I like making images that from a distance seem kind of seductive, colourful, luscious and engaging, and then you realize what you’re looking at is something totally opposite,” she reflected. “It seems boring to me to pursue the typical idea of beauty, because that is the easiest and the most obvious way to see the world. It’s more challenging to look at the other side.” Sherman on being a female photographer; “There’s a theory that there were so many women photographers at the time because we felt nobody else was doing it. We couldn’t or didn’t really want to go into the male-dominated painting world, so since there weren’t any artists who were using photographs, we thought, ‘well, yeah, let’s just play with that.’ “
I love the way Sherman can create such a strong narrative in her images, each one tells a story and forms some sort of message towards the representation of women. Her style of photography is so interesting to me, her images are intimate and close, allowing the observer to feel connected to her scene. The black and white filter also evokes a sense of melancholy in her work, and her exaggerated ‘feminine poses’ seem to mock the portrayal of women in a patriarchal society. Her work holds strong links to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, and her ideas on ‘The Male Gaze’ stating; visual media that respond to masculine voyeurism tends to sexualise women for a male viewer. This sexism within the film industry is what Sherman has captured in her Untitled Film Stills, shedding light on the negativity of some feminine stereotypes.
In our project, we really want to take inspiration from Sherman’s series of images by replicating her stereotypical style and narratives. The ‘house-wife’ character is one we wish to represent in our NFT film, using ideas surrounding what stereotypically ‘should be a woman’s place’ and filming in the setting of a kitchen. We plan on our images holding hints towards a woman’s innocence eg, wearing white flowing dresses etc to show her purity and goodness. As we plan on using these shots in the early stages of our project, the timeline will begin in the first wave of feminism and will hold reference to the suffragette/suffragist movement of the late 1800’s – mid 1900’s.
Clare Rae – Never Standing On Two Feet
Clare Rae is an artist and photographer from Melbourne Australia, in her photographic practice Clare explores ideas of performance and gesture to interrogate and subvert dominant modes of representation. Her work is informed by the feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of subjectivity and the female body, usually the artists’ own. In 2017, Rae undertook an artist’s residency with Archisle: the Jersey Contemporary Photography Programme to research the archive of Claude Cahun works held by Jersey Heritage. It was during this time that she created the photographic series ‘Never Standing on Two Feet’, paying a homage to avant-garde artist Claude Cahun (1894-1954), drawing upon Cahun’s photographic archive to explore the female body, self-hood, ritual and the male gaze in cultural and geographical landscapes.
A quote from Clare Rae, on ‘Never Standing on Two Feet’ – “My series, Never standing on two feet, considers Cahun’s engagement with the physical and cultural landscapes of Jersey, an aspect of her work that has received little analysis to date. The photographs Cahun produced in Jersey are intimate. They explore an idea of self within the immediate environment and were produced in collaboration with her lover, Marcel Moore. Many threads of inquiry emerged for me while viewing the archive: Cahun’s performative photographic gestures; the nature of photographic performance for a lover; and the repercussions of imaging a woman’s body aging over time, to name a few.”
I really enjoy the way Rae’s self-portraits explore the coastal geography and Neolithic monuments of Jersey, relating body to place and creating a sense of mystery. Similar to how Cahun used self-portraiture to subvert the dominance of the male gaze, Rae has created a series of images that tease at the idea of women’s bodies being objectified, and women fighting back against this. As her portraits show parts of her body hidden away by the landscape, it conveys the ideas of 3rd Wave Feminism and the fighting women did for equal rights (including pay, reproductive rights, the ERA etc) during the early 90’s and 2000’s. The monochrome filter on these photographs creates an interesting atmosphere of mystery and sadness, representing the oppression of women still holding significance in society as time moves on.
For our community NFT project, we wish to take inspiration from Clare Rae’s ideas on women standing up for what they believe in and taking action towards their oppression. We have the idea to represent Women’s Rights Activism throughout the late 20th Century, using Rae’s technique of hiding parts of a woman’s body to make a statement on its constant sexualisation. We wish to do this by using a woman’s rights poster in shot, which will be lifted to hide our models torso as she walks past the camera – demonstrating activism, and hinting towards the exploitation of women.
Lissa Rivera – Beautiful Boy
Lissa Rivera is a photographer based in New York, she received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, where she became fascinated with the social history of photography and the evolution of identity, sexuality and gender in relationship to material culture. Rivera grew up in a small town, without much excitement or things to do, therefore she had to create this excitement and wonder herself in order to capture images of meaning and significance. Most of Rivera’s images are staged and hold an almost regal atmosphere to them – her style of photography is expressive and vibrant, something our group wants to portray during our NFT film. Our group discovered Rivera from her project ‘Beautiful Boy’, where Rivera and her domestic partner use staged portraiture as an expressive way to explore male/female identity and reclaim a personal definition of beauty.
A statement Lissa Rivera made about her project in ‘Metal Magazine’; “Beautiful boy was born out of a series of conversations between my friend BJ and I about femininity, fantasy and gender. At the time we were not in a romantic relationship and had no idea of the future. On a subway ride home from a queer film screening, BJ (who is now my sweetheart) confessed that they preferred to be feminine and often wore dresses. In college he was able to be open about his gender expression, but since moving to the city and taking on a new job, it had become more complicated. We spoke about the struggles that we both felt with femininity, how femininity is still considered weaker and less valuable in our culture. I offered to take BJ’s portrait, so that he could see himself.” Additionally, Rivera states “It is important to show his femininity as strength. I want to feel empowered as well, and to have an intimate muse. Together we investigate feminine fantasies presented throughout the history of photography and cinema. The project is a way to “step inside” images that we have found alluring and examine what it is like to live each scenario out. We explore both our captivation and our ambivalence towards these depictions of femininity. By presenting my partner within the lineage of great beauties and populating the media with our images, we are reclaiming in our voice what is attractive and beautiful.”
I love the way that Rivera can capture such innocence and bravery in these images – they inspire and break gender norms that societies have created over the years. The compositions of her photographs hold symmetry and leading lines which draw the observers view towards the main subject. I really enjoy Rivera’s use of monochrome colours in her images, the blocky pinks, blues and browns hint at ideas of simplicity in a world of chaos – where one can truly be themselves without judgement or oppression. This theme is one we wish to take from Rivera’s work, the idea of being free as yourself, feeling comfortable in your femininity and allowing yourself to feel confident without the need for it to be sexualised.
For our NFT project, we are aiming to take inspiration from Rivera’s regal setting and style of photography. The curtains, chandeliers and extravagant wallpapers are all aspects we wish to replicate during our photoshoot due to their link with confidence, power and authority – all of which a woman must fight hard to have. We have the idea to use Rivera-style videos/images at the end of our community project, representing the timeline of women’s rights with this ending demonstrating empowerment and luxury.
Davy Evans is an award winning multi-disciplinary artist and designer based in Brighton. With a background in graphic design, Evans fuses practical effects and digital techniques to create ethereal abstract imagery. He often manipulates light and liquid to replicate colour, form, and distortions inspired by natural phenomena. His work is combined into beautiful still, eyewatering creations:
And also animated distortive art visuals:
His works combine real life natural elements such as flowers with hyper realistic and futuristic astrophysical elements into one hypnotic visual. His work makes me use big words like I just did; to describe what is to be seen in Davy’s work is quite a challenge as it is so out of this world. Davys work sets a bar for what is possible for the future of digital art and the world of NFT’s.
His work inspires th efuture of art, not only for how evolutianary and digitaly advanced it is but also for how he creates it, remembering the basics of the creative process.
“I try to play with new materials and photography techniques whenever I can, allowing for happy accidents to form organically,” he says. “I like the challenge of making something out of nothing; for example, I’ll often try to use everyday household items to create effects.”
I want to include the digital design and colourful abstract elements of Davy’s work into my NFT project.
The above image is from Evans latest series during the UK’s lockdown from the Covid Pandemic. He created this work using the simplicity of flowers, water and glass. The simplicity of the arrangement adds to the absurdity of the artwork. Turning simple elements into such a complex looking, hypnotic piece.
The composition of the piece is chaotic with many elements for the eye to take in. The water droplets forming perfect cell like structure in the foreground combined with the colour they adapt taken from the flower in the background, make for a staggering piece. The image looks like a digital artwork with how supernatural it looks. Colour leaks into every corner of the composition, leaving no pixel monochrome. For how abstract the image is, Davy still manages to include tonal elements, some of the pink/salmon areas of the flower are bright and highlighted, while in the centre of the composition and the frames of the waterdrops, we see shading. I also like the blend of cool and warm temperatures in the same composition.
William is an artist from my hometown Johannesburg, South Africa. Unlike the majority of successful white South Africans, he still lives there, and operates out of the heart of ‘Jozi’. He makes drawings which he often turns into animated films. Sometimes there are also performers in front of the animated film and his work integrates into a theatrical piece. He describes this as a ‘drawing in four dimensions’. His process all starts from charcoal drawings. He uses charcoal for a varied number of reasons but mainly its flexibility, room for change and experimentation in the animation process. “You can change charcoal as quickly as you can change your mind”.
Charcoal is easy to erase and it has an abundant granularity to it. Its tonal range is good for photographing. It is also not as meticulous as other art mediums and has a speed and flow that the artist can adopt. William creates his animations frame by frame. This means his process involves making slight adjustments, step by step, and making photographs in between each adjustment. This proves to be a timely method and therefore the speed the charcoal adapts it important.
Williams normal animation setup in his studios include a physical walk from the camera to the canvas where his drawings are made. His frame by frame process involves his walking between the camera and the canvas hundreds of times. He describes this process as a physical but also mental process when new ideas are suggested.
William believes that art needs an initial impulse which has to be enough to get the first drawing done and then in the physical activity of making the drawings, new ideas emerge and new possibilities engaged with until the piece takes shape.
Williams position as an artist is one of self awareness, this is prevalent in every piece from start to finish. Williams art holds political and polemic weight. He describes himself as a child of privilege – he grew up a white middle-class South African who had the first 40 years of his life under the white privileging apartheid regime and the other 20 living in the South African democracy. He is highly aware of his privilege and also the lack of privilege the majority of South Africans experience. His work highlights both his insider and outsider aspects. This is why he choses to stay in South Africa and not flee the madness of it, is envelopes him in his work focusing on the community.
These two artists have two different takes on digital art. Davy’s work encapsulates a movement of new ideas and forward thinking. This is represented in his very colourful and digitally advanced work. His work is much more futuristic and out of this world. His work is very much a part of the metaphysical and futuristic aesthetic that is emerging in modern times. Williams work, however, uses a much more tactile form of art, and one that is very much a classic method of expression dating back to when cavemen would draw on walls. He uses this dated method and gives it new life by going through a digitisation process and animating it. Unlike Davy, his art reflects on events that have already, or are currently raking place, instead of focusing on movement into the future. His work is a lot less colourful; for the most part William only works black on white.
