Video Art

These are video pieces I made wishing to dictate a narrative which breaks from the traditional expectation of narrative (beginning, middle, and end etc.). Their purpose is not to tell the resolution of a problem, as is often found in stories, but rather to highlight the fixation with mundane happenings in the hope that they will progress into something more meaningful. In this way, the pieces are very much a reflection on the viewer, and the need for narrative, the hope for an ending..

Research Beginnings

A few notes from the reading of the past week.

From Camera Lucida:

• In chapter 4, Barthes talks of three practices (or emotions, or intentions) of making a photograph: to do, to undergo, to look; the Operator, the Subject, and the Spectator – the same three I had established previously.
• In chapter 5, he talks of being photographed: "I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image." He goes on to talk about his (the subject's) concern to appear revered: "If only I could "come out" on paper as on a classical canvas, endowed with a noble expression – thoughtful, intelligent, etc.!"
• He goes on to mention the uneasiness of seeing oneself on paper, different from a mirror, and also says: "For the photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity." 

The points made here regarding photography and portraiture are pertinent to this investigation, and with plenty of room for discussion. I need to return to them later when I can conjoin them or counter them with research more specifically on self-portraiture. 

From Portraiture

• 'the oscillation between art object and human subject, represented so personally, is what gives portraits their extraordinary grasp on our imagination' - portraits are intriguing because of the resemblance, the notion that it is them.  
• A portrait is a portrait because of the artist's intention to allude to the subject by representation (portray them) foremost over the viewer's recognition of the subject.

Again these are not points specific to my research, but I feel it is very worthwhile to circle the subject widely, whilst slowly moving in, so that any opinions I have on the core topic, are well informed ones.

I found a couple of other books which would also help me in this respect. Train Your Gaze by Roswell Angier, and Self-portraiture in the Age of Photography edited by Erika Billeter. As well as helping with the method above, I think these 'simpler' reads will give me a more comfortable starting point to the topic, and hence more confidence when tackling the in-depth literature.

From Train Your Gaze

• 'Portrait photography is about (or records) the exchange between photographer and subject' - A solid and simple way of summing it up, which of course leads me to question the nature of that exchange, or of that record, when the subject and photographer are the same.
• Bayard's early photograph 'Self-portrait as a drowned man' was noted as one of the first portraits to deal with strong personal emotion, rather than informative representation. 

From my personal reflection

• The idea that the triangle relationship is not flattened, that the photographer and subject, although the same person are taking different roles (intentions?).
• I grasped on to the idea of performance. The inherent difference between portrait and self-portrait, being that the subject knows the image is being made, in what context it is being made, how it will be presented, how they look, how they will appear. And so through knowing, they will behave, perform. 

Following this reading/thought will be the second tutorial with Ed Dimsdale, and an attempt to determine a hypothesis. 

Alienated Sensory Mash Up

This is not as bizarre nor terrifying as it sounds. It is a task that is part of the #Phonar module, and explained in detail here.



The photos were taken by Paul Hogan, the audio was recorded by me, on the same route, at different times unaware of the other's choices of image/audio. This is my edit of the walk through Coventry. My audio tracks can be found on Souncloud here, and mine and others' photographs of different walks on Flickr here.

Audio – recording it, using it, and understanding it – is all completely new to me. The length of an audio 'document', the time spent recording and then communicating it, becomes a much more significant and challenging factor than when working with still images. When making images for this task I 'shot from the hip' and quickly, hoping to respond immediately – and without being fettered by notions of beauty in the image – to the subjects I encountered. All in all an enjoyably experimental and educating project.

Expanding the Initial Idea

Progressing from last weeks thoughts, I 'fleshed out'  the intial research idea under the following suggested sub-headings. This was in preperation for our first tutorial with Ed Dimsdale, of LCC.

Question
How does a viewer judge a subject in a self-portrait? What control does a photographer have on that judgement?

Create a Title
The Challenging Portraits of Selves.

Expand the questions into a paragraph
There is often considered a triangle relationship with a portrait photograph, between the viewer, the subject and the photographer. The photographer is often considered to have a form of power here, controlling or inciting the viewer's opinion of the subject; think of Martin Parr, Diane Arbus, Bill Owens. When the three-way becomes two-way, when the photographer is the subject, the viewer is aware of the photographer's editing and presenting decisions affected by placing themselves in front of the camera. The viewer is no longer just looking but being looked at. How is the viewer's judgement of the subject now challenged or influenced by the self-portraying artist?

Three Photographers
Nikki S Lee

 

Jo Spence

Sam Taylor-Wood

Other areas of investigation
Self-portraits in painting, in video.

Ed provided the following suggestions for research:

• Liz Rideal's work.
• A previous exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery of Rembrants self-portraits.
• The book Portraiture by Richard Brilliant.
• Possibly a chapter from Graham Clarke's The Photograph.
• An early chapter from Camera Lucida where Barthes talks of anxiety of being photographed.
• Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic concept - The Mirror Stage - the developmental stage where a person recognises and understands their own reflection. 
• The notion of 'The Real' as discusssed by Catherine Belsey in Culture and the Real.
• Francessca Woodman - the notion of performance.
• Hypollyte Byard's self portrait as a drowned man.

My task now is to look into these further, to help gain more of a direction to the project, and begin writing up a detailed proposal.

A Walk - Summer Task

This is a video piece I made as a beginning to the photography and narrative module, hence forth known as 'phonar' (see the website including details of the tasks here, also the twitter hashtag #phonar).
A very grateful and respectful thank you to Brendan Beales for the music.



Reflection

This piece was critiqued by Jon Levy of Foto8. He didn't finish watching it, because he said (and I agree) that it wasn't exciting enough - or easily receivable as a narrative - to keep someone's attention for its length. You have to lead the audience along, by the hand if necessary, to keep them 'entertained' or held by your work; especially with a video, which now being a very common received piece of media, needs to be easy to watch. Or at least that's one opinion. I think for me now – producing engaging film, takes priority over creating difficult/challenging video work. I have decided to put this particular project aside (perhaps to be visited another time) but I will take forward the useful lessons it has taught me regarding the importance of delivering a succinct and captivating narrative.

Working with Photography in Context

This is the major research project for the final year of my photography degree. Regular and in depth research will take place from this time forward, and this project will culminate in a presentation, as part of a larger symposium, in March. 

When trying to answer the difficult question of what to research, I decided to pursue the ideas and theory that had most enthused me from the course so far. This came from the 'Picturing the Body' module from the 2nd year, when I conducted work on photographing the human body with a macro lens and in an intentionally ‘unflattering’ – and potentially regarded as ‘gross’ – style, see Body (own). I found that I needed to use my own body as the subject for fears of exploiting or mocking another person’s. This unease was explained in a following lecture - 'The Politics of Ageing' (see my thoughts on the subject there). The main points are:

• the notion of a three way relationship in a portrait photograph, between photographer, subject and viewer, 
• the responsibility therefore placed on the photographer, as they hold the power over how the subject is presented, and hence judged by the viewer. (the source of my unease)
• how this relationship changes when subject and photographer are the same - a self-portrait.

I resolved my dilemma by using myself as the model. I then became quite interested in the self-portrait, the consequences of it on the viewer, altering the relationship through a photograph. In a subsequent post I attempted to examine what was going on in this situation:

It comes back to this idea of a photographer holding power over their subject, and power over the judgement the viewer makes of the subject. But when the photographer is also the subject, it's like that judgement has already been made, or the option for the viewer to judge has been removed. The photographer presents herself, judges herself, and the viewer can only ponder on that, on why.

These queries into judgement, and the control of that judgement, through a self-portrait, are what I will carry forward as a starting point to this research.