How Many Lives is an on-going conceptual art project raising awareness of corporate greed and oppression amongst the west. Focusing its audience to those saturated in the consumer lifestyle, and have no whereabouts with the world. A heavily corporate dominated nation leaves nothing but distraction, and empty fulfillment on it's people.
The series features an expressionist film attempting to relieve a few minds, in a short amount of time. In book photography represents a narrative journey, beginning and ending with honesty. Particular themes across the series are; identity, politics, oppression and Spirituality.
I once heard someone speak about living close to an airport, how you deplete the noise in your mind over time. Your personal health suffers in this environment; it causes behavioral stress patterns to develop unavoidably. If looked at visually oppose to audial, our excessively stimulating contemporary society is doing the same thing– creating behavioral disorders with its bright distracting lights, adverts etc.
When reminded of the airports noise 20 years on, the people begun to fight against it. I figured if I could help awaken even one person out of our overpowering, over regulating and over indulging society, back in to our analogue world, I would have done the world one favor.
Title: When beginning this project I ordained the title to be something about urban decay, or western society, but this now looks as though it could have been title to work too. When debating these titles I decided I did not want anything too aggressive or insensitive to the viewer, as I understand that this topic holds a lot of identity themes, and is the sort of subject that can make you question yourself.
Bearing this in mind, when I viewed an image from late last year ‘How Many Lives’ I decided the condensed housing shot from Luton, would do great being titled ‘How Many Lives II’ – as they’re the sort of images you could count the human boxes in. I then realized the whole project could focus around how many lives are affected by these different controlling attributes of society, hence the title. Feasibly it could fit under every image I have created this year.
Subject:The main themes in my project are; western societies, circular causalities of life, oppression, the female stereotype, and national lies/gimmicks. The biggest contemporary art themes in the work are identity, time, place and spirituality. The project I have chosen was said to be a very large topic to try and cover, I am constantly aware of this and hope those understand why I have done it. Being my final year I knew I could choose anything, knowing the current state of the world I figured my attention would be best set here.
I have tried to make the work a subjective experience for the viewer, particularly by adding quotes and writing poetry in the beginning of the book. However ultimately the work is more objective, biting back against ignorant social norms with honest content. Which was my primary focus for the entire project, to be truthful.
My background research for this subject required a variant of artists working conceptually, objectively and in mixed mediums. Predominantly I focused on looking at anti-capitalist artists working in photography and collage. Video artists were also very helpful in the development, documentaries, and fine art videos. Theory books I read were very informative in past discussions on the subject; No Logo; Naomi Klein, The Society of the Spectacle; Guy Debord, The First Sex; Elizabeth Gould Davis, and Ways of Seeing; John Berger. I also read Themes of Contemporary Art (visual art after 1980), which was very helpful in understanding where my work is according to present themes. Naomi Wolf; The Beauty Myth was also very insightful to understanding and representing the oppression of women in modern society. I also read Camera Lucida, by Roland Barthes.
For individual image analysis please see my blog www.aprilkaycooper.tumblr.com. The content of my work has been ordered into a flowing journey for the viewer, I was aware that if seen each image at random it could be difficult to fit together as a series. Taking this on board I used my ability to arrange it into more of a narrative, so it could be understood similarly.
My favorite image from the series is either the pair in Breakdown of Consumerism, Chaining Spirits or Gimmicks. I am drawn to the images where I have juxtaposed illustrations, but particularly I like the positioning of the ‘realizing’ images (part two of Breakdown). Also the 11oven image, as when reminded about Cindy Sherman’s film stills, I really loved the similarities. My least favorite images would be 007, and ‘I’m lovin’ it’ images. 007 I feel may have too much going on, but needed to include it to complete the flow of the book. I would like to create more simplicity in this image, so it doesn’t bombard the viewer too much. I feel the ‘im lovin it’ images could have been stronger too, possibly by adding the tag by collage rather than digitally.
Aims and Objectives: After the first presentation session in February, I knew I still had to edit a lot of the base images – and make them my own. To do this I begun experimenting arranging more than one image together (ex. 11oven, Breakdown of Consumerism, ‘im lovin it’).
Once I had 12 base images ready inspired from the film, I printed them A3 for a tutorial. From here I knew by biggest aim was to create unique images that are conceptually honest about this subject. My advice from this session was too start looking at collage artists who work on these topics, and begin to downsize my basic images in to a few great quality collages. This is where ‘The Economic Prison, Chaining Spirits, Corporate Dragon, 007 and Gimmicks’ images were created. I choose to work on these images because I felt they needed to be stronger in their messages
As I have come towards the end of term and this project I have assembled the work into a book. During my tutorials we discussed the big mix of different ideas in the work, and how I would have to find a way to unite them all in to one progressive series. The book I felt was my best step in achieving this aim, as I created the imagery alongside the film – which has conceptual flow – I needed to find this order within the images too.
I have completed this objective by trying to create a subjective journey for the book viewer, beginning with a title for its biggest audience ‘The lost sheep.’ Following with a poem I wrote about the meaning of the book, requesting a mind shift. I then arranged the pages as narratively possible, ending with one of the biggest truths taken away from contemporary masses.
I once heard someone speak about living close to an airport, how you deplete the noise in your mind over time. The noise pollution does not do your personal health any good at all; it causes behavioral stress patterns to develop unavoidably. If looked at visually oppose to audial, our excessively stimulating contemporary society is doing the same thing– creating behavioral disorders with its bright distracting lights, adverts etc.
When reminded of the airports noise 20 years on, the people begun to fight against it. This is one of the main driving aims behind my project, to help awaken even one person out of our overpowering, over working, and over indulging society, back in to our analogue world.
Audience: The most prominent audience for How Many Lives is written on the first page of the book “The lost sheep”. This is those who have no awareness of this subject what so ever, and wrapped up in the consumer bubble. I guess any public viewing is great, it is offering the ability to understand what is going on in the world via photography art – which makes it relevant to almost anyone, engaging and giving understanding in single images, rather than a long-winded documentary. The world is consistently changing and this subject needs endless attention; to build awareness in its minorities.
The UK is one of the most consumerist societies I am aware of, when we compare its consumption by geographic scale. There are many minds that are lost to the never-ending cycle of desires; blinded by distractions their whole lives. These lose all sense of natural life as they were stripped from the birthright when born into a concrete jungle. With no means and no money how on earth do they climb out of the desire pits? That only fight too keep pulling you down. The main audience priority is the human mindset realizing this – because corporate have absolutely no intention of stopping. It’s not so bad when you put on a western mind, but flicking that distraction switch turns the lights off somewhere else in poverty pits.
Context: My work is going to be viewed in Sydney Cooper gallery, Canterbury. I will be showing a 5-minute expressionist film I made on this topic, two – three A1 prints, a 14”x11” book, and three 10”x8” books. A portfolio will be handed in where reference images can be seen – however for higher quality viewing please make sure to see disc and printed book. Everything from this new series will be uploaded too my website shortly after completion, and all of my research and developments can be seen on my studio journal blog.
Research Methods: I began my research for this project with a chronological/historiographical timeline dating back to the first days of capitalism in 1600s. Beginning on ship trading between countries, I learnt that our now evolutionary society was created from these first decisions of trading, and expanded out of control via stocks, and banking... and greedy people.
To explore this subject conceptually I needed to go back to its roots in order to understand it fully, studying the various ideologies over the centuries that have shaped our current reality.
I took all this on board to create a modern representative of how and why we are at our current economy, both in my final work and my blog.
References; for my inspiration references please explore my blog, analysis is given for each.
I think my project works in connection to artists I explored - it helped shaped my ideas, and the majority of the work I was drawn too study focuses around uniqueness. Looking at an over view of my project, I am pleased with its originality mix of illustrations, photography and collage. As time goes on I’m sure I can refine my work to make it fit in with more contemporary methods of production, as always there are many areas still for improvement.
Here are some images of the final books ready for hand in and Gallery use. Overall there are some issues with the thickness of the larger book, although it is functional - making it from scratch lead two a few minor downfalls (thickness, and dust jacket slightly too small), for future reference I will surely improve this.
The smaller books work really well, the only down fall on these is the binding margins, where some images have lost their edges and spacing. I did want dust jackets for them all, but it was going to work out £160 for the covers alone, let alone page printing also.
Overall all the books are functional, presentable and include high quality prints. The total price to produce all four including tools was £120.. I figured this was very expensive, but likely to have cost me the same if I had used an online service.
I drew this image very early at the start of first term, I'm not going to disclose a concept for the image as I feel each viewer can have a subjective experience with it, and allow it to be whatever they feel.
The image started as a watercolor and pen drawing, which I scanned and vectored. I did this for all the illustrations seen in the project. I put this image at the back of the book, following the National Cannabis Campaign. I figured it might help the viewer feel at whole about the book, Safe although a huge part of their identity may have been questioned.
This is my favorite image of them all, I really like the colors, lines and how the concept differentiates according to the viewer. I have this image printed A1 already and will hand it in with my portfolio, book and disc.
This image follows after '007' image, and represents a method of finding yourself. Cannabis has been withheld from the nations via Hemp vs Timber argument in the early 1900s. Timber and oil industries were threatened by Hemp, causing its eliminations - and in effect creating the third world; as what do the majority of third world countries have in common? Unlimited growth of Hemp. The world could run off hemp, so in the eyes of governmental practices - it needed to be eliminated.. even though it seems oil and timber are whats caused their current problems anyway. #dumbass
It is however one of the healthiest, versatile plants on earth. Here I have represented it against a strawberry, another natural plant. I added a piece of bark to represent its health prospects being as clean as nature. I was going to print "putting that bit of nature, back into the cities", however there is not much room on the print.
I choose to do this in a studio environment for the clean bright colors. I wanted all the focus to be how the two are one, and we should not be dumb enough as a nation to believe everything were told. Cannabis offers unlimited health prospects - including cures for some cancers. It wasn't until after 1920s that cannabis was deemed illegal, and with generations being brought up to think its bad, they only past that down the generations.
But its obviously a big lie.
So smoke some weed, and find yourself.
In the book I have put it next to a Bob Marley quote:
"Most people think great God will come from the sky, take away everything and make everybody feel high."
This image has a lot of media, a lot to read and understand. Firstly the title derives from the idea that living like this is an impossible task. The small made national rail tickets represent a circular jounery - spinning in circles. The newspaper clippings are referenced on the work itself. The first clipping at the top of the image shows a politician 'Here's our commitment to Transparency', on the plain piece of paper I have put a bar code, to represent this is the transparency they apply to individuals in the nation. Workers, consumers, a bunch of people to be driven in their choice of direction. Following the edges of the images, there is a comic available to read on the subject, and another clipping
"You need to control your devices instead of letting them control you"
This I thought fitted as a perfect message to give some hope to getting out of the box. The next message from this image is "at least its not crack!" with a bar code beneath it. This is being ironic again, saying the corporate/political oppression put on everyday people, is being shrubbed off by saying it could be worse. But it actually couldn't be worse, by distracting some of the largest nations in the world, we are constantly drawing off our opposed creating more poverty and unfairness in the world. If the world was not distracted, it would have been a fairer place much longer ago, people wouldn't be wasting their lives chasing empty fulfillment, they would be out negotiating the issues in the world themselves. Now were so far in, people believe it is never their place to be helping.
To create this image I used a Metro newspaper, a studio box, poster, and model. I originally in visioned just a white box surround the model, but after a tutorial decided the message needed to be clearer, and added accordingly.
This image was an older photography piece, I decided to merge it with some illustration work. In the beginning of the year I used this image for a poster in my Multimedia class, the noted Shard building had not been completed here, and has been described numerous times to look like the 'Tower of Mordor' from Lord of the Rings.
The grey atmosphere of this image really en-captures a badness about the building, a man made metal, grey, enormous stand of a pyramid almost? Times I thought we'd gotten away from, but I guess not.
I decided to combine a few of the illustrations I made to create this Corporate Dragon guarding the building. Using vertical spray lines from the top too, to give an idea of the old Sphinx's built in Egypt many years ago. A heavily slave driving nation, which to be honest isn't far from today's working societies attitude at all. The bar code at the top of the image was my biggest inspiration, it reminded me of a 'bar code king' - buildings like this run off commodities like cigarettes, tax etc to be built. So I multiplied the layer, and added a crown to the top.
This image is placed after the Economic Prison image, to create the link of where these rich, greedy power abusers sit in society. Where abouts they actually are - it also reminds me of Dragons Den, those who sit at the top guarding the ridiculous profit margins for greedy benefits.
This image is featured after Chaining Spirits in the book. It follows here to represent what it is exactly, in as easiest way I could visually show - how all of this is happening. Who holds the keys to the nations spirits, and why they won't let go.
This image holds some very important statements on our current society, politics, and economy. Starting at the top right of the image money is being printed and flown across on to puppet strings, being controlled by mechanical means. These puppet strings control masses of people who are distracted by screens, desires, laws, and tax - (Seen on cash register). The puzzled £10 represents that is the puzzle controlling everything. Following that too the right there is a desk stacked of money, with space for three politicians.. one is controlling the puppet - leading on from Chaining Spirits image. The second is another television screen, showing the David Cameron, and Obama selfie with a blonde lady at Nelson Mandela's funeral.
Following this we have an absent suit with a red wine. Cash is flowing in abundance to these authorities behind the desk, but its clear they are abusing their power, playing with it because they've had it for so long.
This image was inspired by the previously uploaded scan, where I have highlighted the words 'The Economic Prison'. I was reading through this leaflet when it inspired me to create a collage, as I knew exactly how to portray what was happening here.
I used a huge variety when cutting for this image, the original was made A2. After scanning in the image, I used a selective color process to tie the whole piece together a bit more, so you were not so distracted by the excessive amount of money in the image.
This image focuses solidly around these heavily capitalist nations controlling the spiritual mindset of individuals, by taking away their connection with the world. The paper chain of money attaching to the figures belly button represents money has become their ultimate dependency. While the labyrinth illustration crown on the head, portrays they are walking a one way tunnel, that appears to have a choice of route, but in fact doesn't. Only one path can be taken from the entrance to the center, and back out again. I choose a Labyrinth for this particular conceptual reason. The varied opacities shown of the figure are to create the idea of a spirit, an aura trapped by a chain.
This was my first image of the series, its development can be seen further down my blog. In the book it follows the 'im lovin it' trip-tic, to keep the journey going for the viewer, so they can see that it is not out of humor I created those images, but instead because it is an unstoppable point of culture in heavy consumerist societies.
I begun these images in February when I was first looking at making collages with the corporate hammer. I wanted to show an irony of how the world is wrapped up in its consumption. Not that it is necessarily by choice that the nation is wrapped up in chasing desires, its is inevitably.
I took these images to my presentation where there was said to be some possible ethical issues - particularly with 'Square Corner', as there was originally a little girl in the front. I have removed her and completed the coat of the man, I think this really benefited the image. To get around the ethical issues, I decided too make the images smaller. I have uploaded here a trip-tic, traffic light style set of the three. In the book I have arranged them similarly, but in a line. I figured by making them smaller, the people in the image can not be identified at all.
The first image was taken in Canterbury high street, I have choose to use the tag without yellow writing in this one, as it was shot outside in daylight. I figured the colors fitted a little better. The second was taken not to far from Soho, London (Square Corner), and the final image was taken in Westfield shopping center in Stratford. All the strips were added digitally so I could fit them according to face size.
The tag line 'im lovin it' comes in from the previous images Gimmicks! Looking particularly how the mannequins and city has blinded the people into an over indulgent lifestyle, by distracting them from the real facts of life. My favorite image of the set is Square Corner, as I feel the people really do look distracted by their surroundings. My least favorite would be the Canterbury image, I feel there is not enough distraction in the image.
I will continue with these images in the future in heavily distracting locations, possibly begin a lot of work on this project in China. Where the lights are 100x more frequent.
Gimmicks
These two images begin the im lovin it' series, they introduce the corporate bands that create different rules of gimmicks that the nations feel they have to abide too.
The first image has "im lovin' it" tags across the mannequins eyes, once I placed these over their face - they started to represent a more robotic enforce for their sense of style. Influencing consumers into their blonde hair, dress sense and ultimately consumer lifestyle. The mannequins are raised in a shop to show off the garments, but this does inevitably create some kind of authority between them and consumer. As visible the dolls and lady both have blonde hair - a usually very materialistic choice of hair color. I felt the Boots 'feel good' bag create quite a great irony in this image, as the mannequins force their perfected ways upon young men and women, trying to make them 'feel good' - but only send the people round in circles chasing desires, adding to whatever company's annual profit growth.
This image was taken in Westfield Shopping centre, Stratford.
The second image was taken on a rooftop in Camden, London and gave a panning view of the city. The image as a whole is to represent what these wealthy buildings enforce as a lifestyle. These are the ones who are 'loving it' and they should be stopped - because they're hunger for profit and growth will never stop by itself.
I felt this image needed more to create a uniqueness - so I added an illustration I drew, and two birds. I think this creates quite a contrast between the natural and artificial - 'a little Birdy told me' was going to be an alternate title for this image, but I thought it worked well as a duplicate with the other.
When editing the image together, I first had to scan in a collage piece with the flags and bird, then move on to creating suitable colors for the illustration to match the view on Photoshop. I am pleased with this image, as its not often you get to compare London city with a drawing, or anything natural really..
In the book half of the 'im lovin' it' flag is lost, and leaves only 'it'. In the future I may cut down the whole image to this so it can spell 'it gimmicks!' - and that be the only wording on the flags. I took the image with a tripod, however capturing on windy nights was not to great for the images stability.
These two images follow on in the book from 11oven, they are to represent how many lives are affected by the corporate hammer, and oppression on the first two pages. The images although just shows contemporary society, they more importantly want to question how many peoples lives can be fitted into such a small space. I.e. if you were to count up all the different housing containers.
The first image of these two is where the title of the project developed. With both images I have cut out the line of the background and added a new sky - to create contrast with what you actually see.
The first image is taken in London, Tufnell Park and the second England, Luton. I particularly wanted to capture this shot of Luton since the beginning of my project - because it is surrounded by 9 of the most poverty stricken locations in the whole of the UK. This area desperately needs awareness - even in its architecture as a town, its built downwards in a hole - meaning a huge percentage of the sky is lost for the people living there. You psychically cannot see past many of the buildings, creating a lot of shadows and darkness. Combined with the excessive amount of housing condensed in its area, and airport, it creates quite a oppressed place to live.
Overall I am pleased with these two images, and happy to overcome the plainness of the images by adding new skies. I would have liked to shot this project with a wider lens, so particularly the hole that Luton is built in could be seen.
I was slightly inspired by Chris Jordan for these images too, he photographs the excessive consequences of consumption culture. Here I feel I am photographing the excessive culture of housing (boxes).
This image was created and inspired when shooting a re-enactment of the highly commercial, Fairy liquid advert for the film in another unit. The idea of the heavily oppressed housewife was an important subject in my project. around the time of filming I was shocked to discover that around the 1950-70, gassing yourself to death in the oven as a women, was quite the common suicide.
Why did these women feel the need to do this? The feminine lady at this time was living in the Mad Men era. Women prior to the equal pay act and gender fair jobs laws, were left to soak up the constant pressure of adverts titled 'She'll be happier with a hoover at Christmas' or 'Blow in her face, and she'll follow you anywhere', some ads encouraged domestic violence, and others promoted the thrills of baking. It was an absolutely outrageous time for male dominated corporates to press women into their maid.
Then this is where we end up, the final image. The women can not cope with the constant voice from the television/walls shouting that she's not perfect. There's so many more things she needs to do, or attain to, when she never actually needed to at all.
I decided on the round image with the two square to create the representation of a hanging portrait. The old style frames that had splitting sections similar to this - helping to give the impression of an older time. The last image is covered by a pink wrapper, I choose to do this as pink has always been stereotypically forced upon women as their color. The idea is that she has been engulfed by the pink stereotype, which pressured her to death.
I viewed a few kitchens before I made the decision on location, as I felt it was very important to have the correct colors surrounding the model. I completed hair, make-up and wardrobe duties also.
Breakdown of Consumerism
I first created the top image with an ambition to visually show a consumerist societies input and outputs on human kind. I did this by creating a corporate hammer of collage material, slamming into the females head. An important point in the image is the radiating light bulb, insinuating that when it is turned on she is distracted by its glow. I made sure the models natural hair was on show also, so the viewer can depict that the blonde hair and materialistic items, are a forgery of this societies behavior. The ads in this image were chosen at random, and I choose a grey scale image so the viewer was not distracted by the illuminating adverts. The image was taken in a studio environment to help remove any other distracting backgrounds.
The second image correlates as a realization, the colors change and a split occurs down the image to represent the moment of understanding the corporate mind trick. Gazing up toward the shadow of the feeder, although early stages of realization, the body language emphasizes a change. The colors emphasize a different perspective.
This image is the first of this series 'How Many Lives' to appear in the book.
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