My project is going to be about form as you can see from the title. I wanted to show in my last project the inward anguish of mental suffering and the disconnection from humanity that it brings to the individual. Not in a way which is normally inferred or hidden, but in a physical and highly defined manner.
I knew with that project I had only just scratched the surface of what I was trying to achieve, but I was unsure of how to express that which I was trying to. The problem lies in me as I am still too focussed on making something beautiful.
Last year I shot a series of images based on the combination of beauty, movement and form. Really it was just complimentary colours, shapes and movements to create form. From that time I have had several performance artists waiting for me to photograph them and I intend to combine the two previous examples into an evolved studio based concept.
The deconstruction task is where I looked next for inspiration and as such where I started to build up my research. I have considered using a latex sheet and having parts of the body pressed into it, trying to break through. The open mouth in a silent scream, the impression of a tortured soul trying to escape is compelling.
This really appeals to me, the way the artist has drawn the rubber stretched makes the impression of the face look innocent, yet it looks as though there are four sets of fingers trying to pull it back into nothingness. It is as if this is the moment in time between birth or death. However the images are too nightmarish and I feel a little overdone, these images are literally everywhere. Also they are too one dimensional, too apparent and conceptually below what I believe to be possible at our level.
As anyone who knows me knows I love history, so it was only fitting that I delete back in time for some further inspiration.These are the veiled lady by Raffaelo Monti 1860 and Undine Rising by Chauncey Bradley 1880 - 1882. It was the previous image with the ‘fingers’ that brought the Veiled Lady to mind and as an extension of thisUndine Rising. Obviously there is still way too much of the subject see here and as such not a lot for our imagination to ponder upon. I do however like the use of ‘fabric’ to camouflage and enhance the subjects.
Sculpture from the temple of Athena 400BC and unknown. I like the absence of a definite from, the Athena frieze has been badly damaged, but if anything this has made it all the more beautiful. The unknown shot is still wrong but the use of excessive fabric in both of these to remove distractions is a possibility for my project.
These are the Draped Shrouded Figures statue in bronze by Anthony Veale and the Burghers of Calais in stone by Rodin. I like these as we are finally losing the ‘perfect form’ and entering a realm where we have to look closer to decipher the artists meaning. Now we begin to question what are they trying to do? What are they trying to tell us? We want to look closer to understand the message they are portraying.
I do not know if this would have worked in any colour other than the base ones used here without the image losing its’ power. Now the message is prevalent, unfortunately without contact I cannot understand it. I found this on a stock site with nothing but a basic description, would have liked more.
I like the absence of colour, the soft tones and the muted lighting, however the form is still too defined. I need to evolve my work but in a way that encompasses some of what I have learned, some of what I have previously explored and take it to where I want it to be in this project.
The above image is just a basic shot of a full body stocking, but it opens up a lot of possibilities. I am going to have something similar made but in a heavier cloth, just thick enough to show movement inside and filter light.
After receiving my presentation feedback, I understand that my initial proposal was too directional and did not leave much for exploration outside of its’ remit. As such I have decided to expand this and hopefully evolve the project to a more meaningful conclusion.
I have decided to do my Major Project on psychic identity in its most primitive form. I want to try to capture emotion unsullied and unrefined in a physical state.
When we are born and for the first three years of development we only have the ID, the primordial life principle (or as Freud calls it the pleasure principle). This is the area of our psyche where, all is emotion and desire. Nothing else matters more than the gratification of these impulses. As a continuation of my previous work on mental health I have decided to go to the very beginning and explore this topic in its rawest form. In hindsight this is where I should have begun, yet I would not have been able to portray such without having explored the previous project.
Stoic philosophy teaches that it is not the significant potentially life altering events or the way that these events are delivered into our lives that create unhealthy mental difficulties, it is instead the way we react to such. I firmly believe that the conditioning we have forced upon us in our lifetime to overly control our ID are what damages us the most. For in bottling all of these integral emotions up, for believing them to be wrong and something to be ashamed of, then when the ID kicks into overdrive during times of trauma we simply cannot handle it. We are conditioned to resist our ID, our innermost emotions at all costs.
Whenever we see a portrayal of ID it is something nightmarish, mad or just frightening, but I do not believe it to be so. For to say this is to believe that we are all in part, all of this creature. I feel that Freud’s belief that the ID stops developing is questionable and that it is possible that the ID does not stop developing after our ego and super ego activate. A bit like a sub program we are not aware of, yet one that is ever evolving.
I want to try to portray the emotions of ID in as pure a form as I can and for that I am going to concentrate on form itself.
This project truly is a collaboration which can only succeed when we work perfectly in unison. I am in reality asking them to show me that which is deepest within themselves, as I am doing also. This is probably the most personal project we will ever undertake as we are revealing our deepest inner selves to each other.
I will be photographing performance artists wrapped or encased in various cloths in the studio and will have them create whichever form they are feeling at the time. With their knowledge and primarily through the use of music and colour I will set the stage. I will then be blindfolding them before covering them or encasing them in the cloths. At this juncture and throughout the music or sounds will still be playing and I will communicate with them the need for them to let go of any preconceptions and just allow the emotion they are experiencing to come forth. The artists will be asked not to pose and instead immerse themselves for a few minutes in what will be quite an alien environment for them. The aim is to keep them suspended from reality for as long as possible before asking them to move, but all of this will be communicated before and during said performance. I will tell them when I am going to shoot and then and only then will the artist move.
I believe with such preparation and an informed, willing subject, it should be possible to create pure emotion as a visual form.
The cloths used will be semi translucent to allow light to filter as I want to create a soft light in the form. At least at first I want to create an ethereal feel, almost akin to a foetal environment and the studio will be lit like this before the artist even steps into it. To heighten the feel of the individual emotions I will be lighting the artist in a specific colour as in red for anger, orange joy and so forth.
I will of course be pre-communicating everything in advance so that each artist will be prepared for all eventualities. Perhaps from this starting point I can then move on and develop this into an evolving series of images.
I do not seek the perfect definition of form but something much more unsubstantial. A form which for most of my work will be much more undefined and which will only hint at being human.
In Freudian psychoanalytic theory there are three primary areas of the mind and these are the ID, the Ego and the Superego. In all of us these are present, however the most primordial of these is the ID as this is the only one we are born with. The ID contains our most primitive instincts and as we develop and grow these are the ones we are constantly trying to hold in check, to balance and ultimately control. I believe that this is the area of our psyche which is the root cause of the vast majority of mental health problems and as such this is the one which I wish to portray in corporeal form.
However, as I have said this is now only the beginning and I will now be shooting the models in different movements and scenes with their faces exposed. I now believe that it may not be necessary to camouflage the face in order to hide the identity as our face is our mask and one which we already alter to suit our mood or environment. Perhaps in this way I can also capture the models emotions but in a more poignant way. I shall have to try both methods and see what develops from there.
I am already gathering the quite considerable materials required for such a process and have a seamstress ready to manufacture them into the styles that I desire. I have several dancers, performers and models ready to shoot and I will be starting my preliminary and experimental photography on Saturday the 16thof February through till the 27thFebruary. During the break I will be experimenting and continually evaluating throughout in an external studio but after the Spring Break I will be shooting for my finished Major in the college.
Everything will be shot on the Hasselblad as this type of sensor will give my images a different dimension of finish.
I have been reading Roland Barthes - A Lovers Discourse amongst many other works and in it he says that “The context is the constellation of elements harmoniously arranged that encompass the experience” for everything I have read so far this one little piece is by far the most poignant to me, as I feel it descriptive of that which I am going to try to achieve.
The target client for this work would be the charities Mind and Time To Change, if forced to choose then it would be the latter. On the TTC website there are testimonials and one of these I found particularly relevant. It says “Those with mental illness do not need a quick fix. We need you to listen, to check in, to educate yourself, to accept this part of us”.
If you were to look anywhere the ID is illustrated as a drooling beast, as a danger needing restrained and hidden away and as this is where so much mental illness derives from it is how most view such conditions. I want to show the ID in its correct form and not as the nightmare it has been portrayed as.
This was my first attempt at the lighting I will be using and I quickly discovered that it was going to be necessary to use a minimum of six lights just for this, possibly seven. I have did this twice now but the second attempt failed as I had too much uncontrolled list leak which washed out my colours and I now realise that for such as this an assistant is unavoidable.
The above images are me experimenting with lights, cloth, shutter speeds and movement on a three-second exposure. I have learned from this that even a cloth as fine as the one I was using is not fit for purpose, so after a lot of searching I finally found a lycra/spandex cloth online which I have purchased, paid for express delivery and sent to a seamstress to have it made almost into a cocoon.
I believe the new material can when stretched could give the feel of an embryonic sac and will fit in much better than the harder lines created by the cloth I was previously using.
I decided on three wants or desires for lack of a better description, as emotions do not really encompass the depths of such a primal thing.
This is my interpretation of envy which Freud did not include as part of our ID but is one which I believe is an integral part of us. All we need to do is look at a baby when its’ mother or father is holding another child, the baby more often than not disagrees with this and moves to an angry or sad state. I firmly believe that this behaviour is representative of envy in its’ most primitive form and as such have included it.
In all of my images there are three seperate forms, some easier to see than others, yet three all the same. This is as Freud states there are three areas of psychological development in our lives and I wanted to show the ID growing throughout these stages. I believe that our ID never stops growing, developing and runs almost like a sub program in our psyche.
For envy I have kept the form small and compact as I feel that this is a constrained part of us and one which never really grows as vibrantly as the others.
