Maps & Networking - Trying my Idea

I thought I'd spent enough time talking about my idea and felt that it was time to put it into practise so before I handed it over to my subjects I decided to give it a try myself. I got some paints ready, chose my song and blindfolded myself. The song I chose was 'To Build a Home' by The Cinematic Orchestra. The reason why I chose this song is because through complete accident I stumbled across this song yet found it is the song that completely relaxes me like nothing else does. It's a song that I can play that calms me when my nerves are high or when I'm scared and just really puts me in my own zone where I can drift off almost. 

To Build a Home - Before listening to the music

From a first hand experience of this, I can confirm that I definitely got completely engulfed and lost in the music so much so that I felt like I was only painting for roughly 30 seconds whereas in reality I'd been painting for 6 and a half minutes. Because of this I feel like when I have my subjects do it, I'll have their chosen songs on repeat so that they can paint for as long as they like and stop whenever they want to. The song I chose has a lot of violins in and something that I found myself doing whilst listening was actually painting to the tune of the violins as you can see the green swirls down the left side. This was really interesting to actually do myself as I didn't know how the final product would come out. After looking at the outcome I think everything went according to plan and I now know what to change for when I bring in my subjects.

To Build a Home - A finished Piece

Maps & Networking - Derek Jarman's, 'Blue'

Derek Jarman was a director and cinematographer who was born in London, England in 1942. One of Jarman's later pieces of work was his film 'Blue' (1993). The origin behind this film is what I find most interesting. A year before creating Blue, Derek Jarman was sadly diagnosed with AIDS, with would eventually cost him his life. In 1974, after seeing a monochrome painting by Yves Klein (whom I have talked about previously on my blog) at the Tate gallery, Jarman was inspired to make a ‘blue film’ dedicated to the French artist. Diagnosed as HIV positive in 1986, Jarman returned to his ‘blue film’ idea when he started losing his sight, and medication was causing him to see as if through a blue filter; Some say that blue was the last colour he saw before he went completely blind.The script was recited by actors and by Jarman himself, it alternates poetry and narrative prose around different meanings and interpretations of the colour blue (melancholy, water, infinity, etc.), autobiographical episodes and invocations to a character called Blue.

The reason why I have included this film in my research is because 'Blue' is a film that completely depends on all senses apart from sight, much like my idea that I want to further. After 'watching' Blue, I can definitely say that it really makes you paint a picture in your mind as to what's happening in the film through only listening to the sound of it. This is exactly what I'm aiming to do with my idea; When my subjects put on their blindfolds and headphones, I want them to be completely engulfed in their chosen song and really get what they feel in their mind onto the paper. 

Maps & Networking - Under the Influence (Bryan Lewis Saunders)

Bryan Lewis Saunders is a performance artist, poet and videographer. There is one piece that Saunders made a name for himself with and is the piece I am going to talk about. In his own words, Bryan said "After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of self. So I came up with another experiment where everyday I took a different drug or intoxicant and drew myself under the influence." The outcome of Bryan's pictures really are something quite disturbing which is why I believe it got so much attention. The reason why I've included Bryan's work in my research is because I wanted to show how the brain can perceive things differently when under the influence or 'sudden change' happens. This is basically what I want to happen to my subjects when the participate in my idea. The aim is to have the subject cancel out one of their senses (sight) which will then hopefully enhance another sense (hearing) which will paint a much cleaner picture in the subjects mind when listening to the music. 

Interview with Bryan:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2012/nov/30/bryan-lewis-saunders-drug-self-portraits-video

Bryan's Drawings:

https://vimeo.com/19566969

Maps & Networking - Finalising My Idea

On Thursday we had a visit from an artist called Vicky Smith. Vicky has had her work displayed in the Tate Modern in London so it really was a very interesting insight into what goes through a professional artists head when making a piece of art. Vicky showed us lots of different pieces of work that she felt powerfully about and explained how they all inspired her into making her own work.

She then showed us the piece of work that she had made after being inspired by all the other films and instillations. The idea of Vicky's piece, 'bicycle tire track', was to have a strip of film laid on the floor in a straight line across a room, she would then dip the tyre's of a bicycle in ink and ride over the film various times. After riding over the film about three or four times she would then put the film into a projector and watch what the ink patterns had made immediately after finishing cycling.

https://vimeo.com/91736834 

After seeing this piece of work from Vicky, it actually inspired me to alter my own idea slightly to a similar fashion of Vicky's work. What I liked most about Bicycle Tire Track was that you didn't know what the outcome was going to be whilst making it. I find the idea of creating something that you can't see brings a lot of personality to your work and because of this I have now thought of what I think is a better version of my project. Instead of going with my idea of painting people I now like the idea of a multiscreen project in which I am going to give 3 people (one for each monitor) a piece of A4 paper, a blindfold and headphones. The idea is to tell my subjects to choose a song that they find most emotionally powerful to them. This can be a song that fills them with enjoyment or a song that is sadder but means a lot to them. After they have chosen their song, I am going to give them a selection of paints, then I want them to put a blindfold on and paint blindly onto the their canvas only through how their song is making them feels emotionally.

I feel like this idea is much better than my previous one because this task actually gives my subjects a sense of character and personality which can be seen through what they paint onto their paper. I also think that this idea is going to be easier and less complicated to execute than my previous idea.

Maps & Networking - New Idea

After thinking a lot about my first project idea, it began clear that it was going to cause too much hassle in the filming stage. I would have to bring in numerous actors, find multiple locations, write a script & do all crew roles by myself; simply it would just be too much to take on. Having said this, I have since thought of a second idea for the Maps & Networking project:

The idea initially goes off the back of following what the anatomy of a human is and how different personality traits and quirks make us who we are as individuals. In other words, I want to show the difference in how peoples brains are wired and mapped out to one another which I feel correlates to the map side of Maps & Networking. The way I see my idea being displayed would be in a short film format. I'd like a plain white background with just my subjects in centre frame, only one in frame at one time. The subjects would be topless and would be painted in different ways to show the diversity in how their mindset is. For example, my first subject would have a lot of yellow painted on them as yellow is stereotypically used to portray the feeling of happiness, showing that the first subject has a very positive outlook. As well as the yellow paint, I felt like I could use other bright, feel-good colours to fill in the rest of their body as well as painting a large love-shaped heart on the subject to emphasise how happy they are as well as caring.

I would continue to do this on the other subjects, painting them in contrast to their outlook and mindset. After showing 2 or 3 subjects who have a fairly level headed outlook I would then show a subject which would be painted in darker colours, predominantly shades of blue because opposed to yellow, blue can symbolise the feeling of misery or sadness. During this whole film I will have a voice narrating over the top explaining to the viewer what is going on and what the paint means and what the subjects are like as people. I feel like someone with a voice similar to either Stephan Fry or David Attenborough would suit the feel of the film very well. 

Maps & Networking - Artist Research, Yves Klein

Yves Klein was a French born artist who liked to use other people to model in his work; work including making sculptures of people close to him or even making paintings of multiple strangers. Klein became obsessed with using a certain darker shade of blue, so much so that it started to become internationally known as 'Klein Blue' or I.K.B. Klein used this newly found colour in almost all of his work; He used it with sponges in his famous monochrome paintings and even on nude models, covering them then making them lay on white paper on the walls and floor.

I found that Klein's work was very interesting, especially his use of colour and how he obsessed over it. The fact that he said that 'Klein Blue' "embodied nature" really inspired me when thinking about how interpreting colours can represent certain feelings or ideas. Having looked at his work, I have now begun to think more carefully about which colours I will be choosing to portray what emotions and thoughts on my own models. 

Maps & Networking - Initial Idea

For this unit, my original idea was to go down the route of using an actual world map but instead of having the names of the countries, I wanted to have the names of things related to myself, essentially having a map of my human body. The map would correspond with the parts of me that stand out the most, for example, Russia, being the biggest country on the map would be my brain as it is the main control of my body. I would also have titles such as 'happiness' on a country. The idea would then progress onto going into that 'country' and see the memory that best represent that feeling. For example, in the happiness memory I planned to have myself watch over a family christmas from an earlier time in the same style as Ebaniezer Scrooge does in A Christmas Carol.

A video that also inspired me to think of this idea was one from creator Dan Howell. In this video, Howell makes "A Tour" of his brain, opening different doors and hatches which uncover the way in how he interoperates his thoughts and memories. I thought this was an incredibly creative idea and even thought about doing something similar on a much larger scale, even possibly making it an interactive instillation. 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PtLqawgsas