‘Playtime’ by Will Lakeman explores the nostalgia of childhood spaces and the strange memories the adult brain retains of them. Focusing specifically on Fort Regent and his childhood visits to the leisure centre. He uses AI software to manipulate images creating odd perspectives and bright colours to mirror the way his memories are old and not always truthful. The images feel sensory with shapes and colours whilst the exhibition uses sound and light as well as not only flat images including a life guards chair and old signs as a physical way of immersing you further into his memory . Some of his other photos are displayed in light boxes him explaining that printing them lessens their look and looses their bright qualities.

“Through my work I try and communicate something of the weird, vivid sensations of my dreams and nightmares. I dream inside a world of intense colour and strange symbolism, but I also daydream in my waking hours as I drift around the place. I also experience synaesthetic hallucinations where my sensed become confused.” – Will Lakeman

To me Lakeman’s work does a very good job of capturing the way memories are warped and the childlike perception of spaces. I like the dream like quality of the images, some images feel as if they were rooted in an idolization of the fort whilst others have a more disturbing tone to them with the ways the Ai bends and merges things, effectively displaying how not all memories are good.

Having not lived on jersey until recently I have no experiences in fort Regent but I still found myself able to relate and experience the nostalgia just with my own memory, Lakeman creates images around experiences with places and imagination most children have had so its easy to remember your own experience.

Lakeman explains that finding photos of fort regent as it was was a difficult task many he has taken from archives or other people have submitted. Others he has taken himself straight to the point photos which he then runs through an ai generator to achieve his ‘memory’.

Use of AI

I don’t think I can review this expedition avoiding the topic of Ai generation and art. Coming from the standpoint of an artist I find AI particularly frustrating and almost scary I don’t think human art and creativity is something that should or can be automated. I think AI spits out watered down and jumbled renditions of artists work usually without credit, compensation or permission claiming it as ‘new work’ devaluing years artists have put into there craft. Inevitably AI will be used instead of hiring illustrators and designers. There is masses of ethical issues with how AI takes work and even how it depicts certain things and I think it is concerning to hand the responsibility for creation of art and what is put into the world over to a machine who can only learn from our history so far and not create new things or take steps forward.

“The move towards white features and sexualised females aren’t the only biases present in AI art generators. In the case of DALL-E, the training data has been filtered to reduce violent or sexual imagery which inadvertently resulted in fewer women being created, something telling of the portrayal of women through history.“

I think the most beautiful thing about art is how it has always been used as a course for change throughout history expressing current issues and documenting the past whilst still moving forward. I think AI is stuck in time.

AI Art & the Ethical Concerns of Artists (beautifulbizarre.net)

However I think Lakeman uses AI in an interesting way of aiding his photography and as a means of enhancing his own creative work I think the AI perfectly depicts the ways memories are warped and strange whilst also showing that perhaps AI and art can be used hand in hand.

“Sometimes it’s really frustrating, you just do it over and over again and it looks nothing like you hoped it would, and then suddenly it looks exactly like it did in your dream.”

Analysis

I think this image is effective in achieving the aesthetic and fever dream look Lakeman aims for in his work. The yellow and blue create a nice contrast with little other colours showing how memories often only have very specific thing such as colour and little detail. The image shows a swimming pool being dead centre and stretching across the entire image with nothing else allowing the viewer to focus more on how the Ai warps the perspective and shapes of the image whilst still keeping decisive lines leading your eye around the image and still allowing you to discern what you are looking at. The edges are not sharp and instead blurry creating less structure and more of a feeling tying in with how Lakeman wishes to capture ‘sensations’. I would 100% recommend this exhibition the anyone with the way it captures nostalgia along with the use of Ai which is not much seen in exhibition and raises a lot of questions.

Saul Leiter

Helen Levitt

William Klein

Tom Wood

I attempted to paint over my images using pallet knifes to create thick layers of paint for texture. I used more pastel colours as I wanted to emulate the the softer colours and tones used by Sian Davey in ‘The Garden’. painting over the images was also a direct link to the work of Tom hunter as he recreates painting I wished to do it more literally with actual paint whilst also alluding to the original painting.

I used paper cups to create circle around each of the subjects almost imitating halos

Femininity vs Masculinity

Painted

‘Martha’ Inspired

Environmental Portraits

School–

Studio Images

Worked on balancing the light and creating contrast

Finals

selected images that best showed my experimentation with lighting.

Born 1964 in Brighton Sian Davey has been working as a photographer since 2014 previously a psychotherapist she uses photography to explore the deep connection with her family and others around her.

Martha

Her project Martha focuses on her teenage daughter and her life in a close and intimate way the photos appear relaxed.

Sian Davey describes her work Martha as an exploration to understand the relationship between her and her daughter.  “from the onset it was clear this was a collaboration” – Sian Davey Photowork interveiw. Her work with Martha clearly shows an intimate relationship where to viewer feels included as well creating a sense of unity. The Martha project was created over the span of 2 years which Sian Davey describes the change in her daughter growing up and the struggle to gain access to her life outside of home and maintaining a trusting relationship along side understanding delicate boundaries. ‘Matha’ – reflects an aspect of life parents are often shut out of making it feel much more exclusive and precious. Outside of just Martha Davys also had to gain a trust to her friends as they were often present in Marthas life – The project then became a huge social collaboration.

“The process had this quality of me cultivating the skill of oscillating between invisibility and visibility, letting my intuition guide me in judging when it was ok to be there or not.” – Sian Davey Photowork interview

Davey spends so much time getting to know each person and building a relationship to capture the true state of the person not what they want her to see or think about them displaying only the person not her and the work behind it.

Analysis

Davey usually shoots in bright light with a shallow to mid depth of field to focus purely on the subjects she captures and not the background. The colours in the images are always more natural reflecting to real world with little manipulation to the photographs. The compositions to her images always appear random possibly because of the situation of her taking them with little to no planning to capture people in their natural states showing the relaxed environment.

Emotional response

I really enjoy ‘Martha’ as a piece of work it is like looking in through a window into someone’s life you can see the connection she shares with those around her and that is explored throughout the project – you feel as if you are invited into the setting aswell.

The Garden

“Why don’t we fill our back garden with wildflowers and bees, and the people we meet over the garden wall – we’ll invite them in to be photographed by you.” – Davey’s son Luke – blurb of ‘The garden’

‘The Garden’ is a currently ongoing work for Davey taking their abandoned family garden and planting hundreds of wildflower seeds over the course of 2 years to create a shared space with neighbours, family and people they literally met along to way, typical of Davey’s work focusing on the person and them connecting with the camera and her on a deep emotional level. Davey again used this project to connect with her son with it being his idea they worked to clear out the graden and explore wildflowers to further understand biodiversity and make a thriving garden. The latter part of the project then included getting people to be photographed learning of their life stories as Davey often tries to do with her subjects and photographing them in the shared space they had created, Capturing their emotional connection to the camera.

“We collected stories from the people we met over the garden wall, which over time came to feel like intimate, confessional space.” – blurb of ‘The garden’

Analysis

‘The Garden’ uses soft colours and over exposure to create a light environment. She shoots with a shallow depth of field to centre the focus on the subject it creates soft edges to all the flowers as well making it appear more calming and about the feeling instead of the detail. emotionally I think it highlights the natural beauty in the people captured focusing on only them.

As a photographer I find Sian Davey’s work inspiring with her clear talent for getting people to connect with her and the camera I also prefer the more candid photos to posed and her work lends itself well to that.

Interview: Sian Davey | Photoworks

The Garden (ongoing) — The Garden (siandavey.com)

For the second photoshoot I was inspired by the work on Sian Davey’s ‘Martha’. I wanted to capture photos of my friends just existing creating a small look into their world. Like Sian Davey I want to focus on one friend specifically as she does with her daughter.

When- bright daylight/ evening – summer glowy light

Who- My friends – focusing on keria

Where- on the beach as its a frequent activity

Sian Davey’s ‘Martha’

My initial plan is to take photos of people in nature I want to keep them more simple as I plan on painting over the image later. I also want to try recreating famous paintings inspired by Tom Hunter exploring ideas of vanity and self identity.

What- my friends

when- daylight – evening

where- anywhere with thick plant and hedging – st Cathrines ,Gorey

The Garden

I want to focus on the peaceful atmosphere of Sian Davey’s ‘The Garden’. To create Images calm just focusing on the person in nature.

Tom Hunter

Paintings I want to recreate –

inspired by Sian Davey’s ‘The Garden’ I wanted the images to be warm and light. I turned up saturation to create more vibrant images and fixed the over exposure.

Adjusted Colour grading to create blue deeper shadows to mimic the darker tones in Davey’s work.

References to Tom Hunters work