Self Appraisal...

Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
School of Art
BA(Hons) Fine Art Level 5
Module: Individual Practice 2: Review and Orientation

Orientation: Outline the imaginative explorations and technical and practical developments in your work in this module. Has the context changed or developed?

• Start point = without making a literal self-portrait I wanted to explore my own existence.
• Used a new practice, film. Was meant to be a recording of time and of a part of my life, but some thought it was surveillance. This was emphasized in the display of the film.
• Series of images of the living room, bedroom and building work showed the development of time and someone living in that space.
• Drawings of the same spaces above to show my own viewpoint and emotions perhaps to that space.
• The variation of these drawings meant some encourage me to look at Michael Craig-Martin and his relation to stain glass windows.

Appraisal: Review and analyse these advances. How have these informed and developed the content and meaning of your work?

• Although starting with and concentrating on human existence the documentation of film and the series of photographs of the living/bed room with the screen shots of the building work meant that I focused on the recording of human movement.
• Not focusing on the figure meant that the absence of figure yet presence of the person being there was the most appealing factor of the work.
• Display of the film having such an effect on its meaning was interesting if wanting to change its meaning, but has made me decide that for its purpose as a tool to draw attention to something normally ignore is most effective when shown singularly as one film, in silence and displayed on a simple screen so the focus is on the film alone.
• Hand drawings of everyday scenarios made those ‘mundane’ things special by highlighting them
• Consideration of how else to display this style of images (after focusing on the style of Michael Craig-Martin) led to the display of the images I create on larger scales, framed to look like stain glass windows, actually creating my own stain glass window, and suggesting the idea of having the image outside through the use of Photoshop.
• Although the sketches and Michael Craig-Martin inspired works had the desired effect a lot more needed to be produced to have more successful images to work with, something to consider later.
• Realisation of this was when seeing the same image being used and the same environment; however this was needed for the image produced. In future a need to look a site specific art is necessary.

List of skills acquired / developed: in relation to the module learning outcomes, identify the acquisition of particular practical, technical and intellectual skills.

• Film (basic editing and making into a film).
• Photoshop as a painting tool rather than just a photo editing program.
• Analysing film.
• Consideration of the presentation of film and larger pieces.
• Consideration of the environment that the work is displayed in and how that effects the work.
• To have confidence in my own ideas and thought process so that more work can be produced.

Final Tutorial before first assessment...

To start this tutorial my tutor and I discussed the work I had previously shown in the group tutorial. Out of the Black and white photographs my tutor felt that the one showing everything in the room (the middle picture in the photo shown below) was the most successful, the more you look at it the more you question the action around the glasses, picture the people that could have been there and why they're not there now. Also the placement of certain items, for example the cushion with a dinosaur on it, is so personal that it makes you think about the type of person that might own it. This description makes me think that it's almost a portrait of the my flat, the physical and the those that habit it.

Something that my tutor brought up on a different note was that the scene looked almost science fiction because of the absence of the people in the room. If it was one glass it would suggest that maybe someone was getting ready and had to leave in a rush, if it was a night maybe everyone went out and if it was messy then it could be the remains of the night before. However this scene looks like it was stopped in action during the day and the people have just been taken out, possibly abducted. I was recommended two artists that reminded my tutor of this, Gregory Crewdson and Jeff Wall. Both look at the authenticity of photography and are famous for physically creating a scene and then photographing it. Crewdson uses the same process as those in the film industry, building sets and using massive film lights and having actors play their part to create one still shot. When looking at his work I can see the creepiness of the shots that my tutor was talking about. Something unnerving about the people that are in it, always stood as though not moving or caught out doing something odd. All are in dark places, lots of blues and blacks but lit but some form of spot light.

Jeff Wall also creates a set for his photographs, but not as cinematic as Crewdson but still like a film with the set up and actors, they just seem to appear more like a low budget independent movie.

When looking at the Michael Craig-Martin inspired examples I had made my tutor comment that they had a painterly quality and possible printed. Seeing as these are my favourite practices I think I would enjoy moving these designs and style into these methods. when looking at the difference between the hand drawn edited versions and the computer edited versions you can see a similar style but different qualities. My tutor said that she felt that the hand drawn edits seemed more personal as they could have been effected by the person drawing them, I was pleased with this response as the initial idea for my hand drawings was to show the room from my perspective rather than the camera shots I have produced to show the room. A suggestion was to perhaps combine these two processes, the graphic sharp lines (which were compared to architectural drawings) and the hand drawn quality.

Something that we noticed was that where I also found the most successful image to be the one looking down on the living room I have used it a lot on the work I have moved onto, so I need to produce a lot more images  giving me choice to get the best pieces to work with. When I look at capturing more images I know what to look for now, I need to concentrate on the space around the objects, focusing on the idea of the absence of the figure yet the presence of the person.

When talking about the stain glass window I create it was suggested that the work was strongest when experienced, obviously as the window was displayed in my flat it couldn't be moved so the only way to document it was through photographs which weakens the effect of actually being there. However the image relates to that site and highlights the movement in time around it but showing what the room used to look like. Also the projection made by the lines also would be better when viewed in person seeing as they can move around the room in the time you're there, almost like a sundial, the audience in that sense are my flatmates.

Due to the relationship between the room  in the image and where it was displayed I was recommended to look at Miwon Kwon and her theories on site specific art. I need to take a lot more photos of lots of different sites trying to capture the same presence as I have my chosen image. I could create methods to show these new images in different locations, for example my tutor suggested making a free standing frame that I could slot perspex into, each with a different scene in the style I have been using, when placed in the appropriate settings it could be viewed at different times, changing every time. Also perhaps looking at windows in different locations to create new stain glass windows relating to the location.

Panoramic...

When photography the wired fence that breaks up the white wall I wanted to capture the vast space between my accommodation and the the  new BIAD building. I took lots of photos panning across from the right to the left, and then edited it in Photoshop to look like one panoramic photo.

I almost prefer the more chopped up version of the photo but I like the smoothness of the final edit and how they only interruption is the random derelict house in the middle that I took a picture of earlier with the canal in front.

Taking my image 'outside'...

Using the photos taking from my walk around town I have Photoshopped some of my Michael Craig-Martin inspired edits onto the white walls, to give the impression that these could have been placed on a large scale around town, possibly even found by myself whilst walking around the building site, hopefully making people question what it is about this scene that has made it important enough to be put there. 

Photos from my environment...

After making my own stain glass window I wanted to produce other ways to make this 'everyday moment' appear special. An idea I has was to enlarge it on a grand scale. Whilst walking around town I decided to take photos of my environment, extending it from the indoors to the outside, my routes home and what I see on my daily walks for inspiration. Something that I spotted along the way was a massive billboard placed onto a temporary facade for the renovation of a building. The scale and placement of this billboard (next to an A road) shows the length an advertisement can go to to be visible, the size is probably for the people in cars to be able to see it but as a pedestrian it is quite overwhelming to walk underneath.

Whilst crossing another road there was another billboard placed in a way that was clearly for those passing by in their cars. I like the idea of almost placing my image as an obstruction like the advertisements are for the drivers.

When looking for an appropriate place to put my image I noticed an large plan for the 'Big City Plan'. In the east side of Birmingham, which is where I currently live, there is a large development plan to transform the area, part of which is the new BIAD building that I have been recording the changes of via the webcam footage. Surrounding this large building side is large white panelled walls which remind me of the sort we have in our studio space. These boards are all along the path way to my home (which you can see in the background of the photo below) so would be perfect to display my image on a large scale as a disruption in the white space that a pedestrian would follow.

The following are what I think of as appropriate photos or spaces to display the work, whether that be a plain white space or including my accommodation in the background:

I find the derelict building (shown above and below) as an interesting comparison against the new developments that would be going on around it, especially to see how this building could be transformed. 

The only thing that broke up the white wall was some wired fencing which you could see my accommodation through, almost caging it in.

 From the same spot you could see the building works for the BIAD building, this just reminded me of how some felt like my film of the trains look as though I was distant and far away from the going ons in the city area. The fencing in front of both my home and the developments around me seem to form a barrier and a large space like it does in the film.

Whilst walking along the canal (which goes inside the white wall) I noticed that from a certain point you could see the water, a derelict home and a crane from the building work. The composition of it reminded me of the scene from my window, the way that it's layered and how the crates outside my flat reminded someone of water or waves, in the same position as the canal below.

Possible final choices...

Out of the images that I took these were my favourite 8:

#1 is light airy and pleasant, includes the surrounding environment.
#2 is like a picture within a picture, being taken from the same angle as the image on the window, making it easy to compare the two scenarios.

#3 lights off to make the window the focus and the view is the same as my film.

#4 same as above however the angle is changed so that the view is just of the bullring, a recognisable landmark of Birmingham which is almost framed by outline of the table.
#5 I previously showed that when my flatmate stood in front of the window it interrupted the projection onto the wall, but this one blocks the original image. What I like about it is is the interaction with the window and how my flatmate seems to be looking past the window itself. When I filmed the trains going past this same window I received comments on how easily ignorable it was and mentioned how we go on with our daily routine without even mentioning the trains that pass, yet this window design seems to have brought the viewers attention to the activity happening outside.
#6 view showing the environment around the living room but with the lights off to show the view from outside. Within the darkness the only light is coming from the TV and my laptop, which makes it look quite sinister.

#7 like #2 shows the whole scene included in the image on the window but also includes the projection it makes onto the ceiling.

#8 I like how you can see the view through the window and with the environment surrounding it but I especially like the imprint in the cushion and the placing of the laptop as it looks as though some one was sat there, perhaps even looking outside the window.

Stain glass window...

So following on from my tutorial I made a stain glass window in my living room using black insulation tape and  painted acetate for the coloured glasses. I took images of the window at different times of the day to see when it would look it's best:

When the light indoors was turned on the tape would be doubled by the reflection on the glass.

When the light is shining behind the window the image is at it's clearest, but when it is extra bright you can't see what is outside the window. However during different times of the day when the sun was at it's strongest the picture would be projected onto the wall, moving from opposite in the kitchen, around the room and onto the ceiling. 

When one of my flatmates walked past the projection I liked the interruption it created, moving the image onto his back and distorting the overall picture.

When I stood in front of the window my shadow blocked the projection but left my silhouette in the middle, making me part of the image.

I took photos of the window from different places in the flat to trying to include other items and details unlike the pristine images placed in the window, below shows the sink, cooking utensils and work surfaces but you can;t see outside the window, where as the next one includes daily left items around the living room space and shows you the same view from the window as my film.