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Assessment 3: my contribution to the 12 page document.

I traced back to three particularly fond memories and mapped them as they are in my brain. They may have warped and changed a little over time and I expect they will continue to do so as I carry them with me throughout the years to come.

These places are extremely personal. Places of discovery, wonder, innocence, home, love, adventure, intimacy and melancholy. I have a very strong memory of each of these places, which is why I selected them for this project on NOWNESS. They each exist in the past as a chronological punctuation in my life and they exist now in this moment as I recall them in my mind and their vibration exists in this space of NOW.

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Assessment 3: Visual Inspiration

Team Andrew (Nada, Josh, Rachel and I) are exploring topography as a method for illustrating physical space. We are each creating three topographical images of physical spaces that we remember from our past and illustrating them as they are now, suspended in our memories. The erosion of memory can warp the way in which we remember physical places over time and often we embellish these memories, tagging them with smells, particular faces and weather. We the concept of NOWNESS with regards to wether memories exist in chronological order or whether they are drawn into the present by our conjuring them.

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Uncreativity

I loved Jen Bevrin’s tapestries, The Dickenson Fasicles, 2004 - 2008 which detailed Emily Dickenson’s systematic punctuations of - and + in her poetry manuscripts. Bevrin states that “I have come to feel that specificity of the + and - marks in relation to Dickenson’s work are aligned with a larger gesture that her poems as they exit and exceed the known world”. I like the idea of drawing inspiration from poetry or prose and creating direct links in your artwork.

http://jenbervin.com/projects/the-dickinson-composites-series

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‘Permission To Tear’

CONCEPT STATEMENT

For my second assignment I further explored my chosen topic: the open/closed binary with relation to the weekly topics of value and desire. During my practice-led research I explored the subjective value of something once it has been opened or left sealed.

The closed/sealed object holds the power of mystery, secrecy and elicits a burning anticipation for its grand reveal. This can be true of boring letters from the bank, love-notes, birthday presents and important, anticipated documents like university offers. This concept extents far beyond the opening of letters and presents. The unopened and preserved object can hold real value. For instance, once you have opened a jar of a perishable good, you have unwittingly set a time-limit on this item. The unopened item holds potential and promise, as though its best years are ahead of it, and once opened the value of the object changes entirely.

The act of opening something is as though the object has now been born, even consummated and proclaimed to the world. The object takes on new meaning and purpose, bearing its fruit to the beholder. I was interested in looking at the emotions and thoughts one can experience in the process opening something. It begins with a flood of impatience, curiosity, excitement and even dread at the opening of something which feels somewhat like a drumroll. I experimented with opening letters (even something as banal as a letter from the insurance company) and I found that I was impatient to rip open the envelope yet expectant of its contents. Is a letter more valuable opened or sealed? More specifically, how much power does the mystery of a sealed letter hold with all the momentum of our imagination and curiosity, over the understanding and relief of opening one. By opening something, it is as though you make a quiet announcement that this object shall henceforth have its contents consumed and digested, or read and understood or acknowledged and appreciated. An open object is now deemed in use and thus, the value has changed.

I researched Pamela Rosenkranz’s ‘Our Product; (2015) and was fascinated by her take on embarrassment, self-consciousness desire and blushing. The physical tells of desire is a theme that I wanted to incorporate into my final work. I wanted to translate the feeling and physical signs of self-consciousness, excitement and impatience I feel when I am opening something such as a letter or a present. Rosenkranz’s work explores the significance of blushing as an outward tell of embarrassment and sexual knowing. Blushing has long been celebrated as evidence that someone has sexual knowledge and is no longer naive. It can also be extended that the blush is result of knowledge of something secret and sealed to other people. I was most interested in using the colour-blocking technique in ‘Our Product’ for my own assignment.

In my final artwork I did a series of three illustrations of hands opening a letter. I chose to continue with hands as a core element of this project as I find that they express a great deal of emotion. The orbs of colour are intended to represent pangs of emotion and thought. The pink, fleshy tones are to highlight the physical, visceral experience of revealing/opening something…blood-vessels dilating and swelling blood to the surface of the skin, all senses keenly alert, eyes singularly focussed. How does it feel in your body, when you are opening a letter or a present? Perhaps your palms begin to sweat and a blush floods your cheeks. Or perhaps you feel none of these things and are seemingly unaffected by the process. My investigation of the concept was to look at how these experiences differ between people but ultimately represent my own, personal experience in the final artwork. The pink orbs are designed to have a building ripple effect, as though they contained a pulse or a rush of blood to the head.

The value of an object/information changes over the period of time where it is sealed and secret, to where it is opened and revealed. The process of opening an object stokes our innate desire to satiate curiosity and attain the knowledge of what is yet to be revealed to us.

Bibliography

“Pamela Rosenkranz “Our Product” At The Swiss Pavilion Venice Biennale/ MOUSSE CONTEMPORARY ART MAGAZINE”. 2015. Moussemagazine.It. http://moussemagazine.it/rosenkranz-swiss-venice-2015/.

“The Daily Splice”, 2016. Thedailysplice. Com. http://thedailysplice.com/.

“ADAD1002-5167_02032”. 2016. Moodle.Telt.Unsw.Edu.Au. http://moodle.telt.unsw.edu.au/mod/folder/view.php?id=916475.

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FINAL ARTWORK 'Permission to Tear'

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RESEARCH Pamela Rosenkranz 'Our Product', Venice Biennale 2015 The physical tells of desire is a theme from this artwork that I would like to carry into my second assignment. Blood pumping faster and raising closer to the surface of the skin, pupils dilating, nerves rippling... I find this extremely interesting in terms of exploring how I can translate desire in my artwork. I love the use of single block-colour in 'Our Product' signifying the blush of desire, embarrassment and knowing. With regards to my letter-opening idea, I think it's important to weave in desire and look at the pulsing, curiosity, excitement, dread and elation that floods you in the moments of opening something.

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EXPERIMENT Continuing with the letter-opening idea, I want to translate the feeling of desire, anticipation and impatience of opening something. I think colour-blocking has an interesting orb-like effect that translates pangs of emotion and thought.

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EXPERIMENT

Continuing with the letter opening experiment ~ I am interested in the impact of the still photograph of this experiment vs the video footage. I really like the audio of the video…familiar tearing of paper, fumbling, discarding and placing down. They are rather simple sounds but I think they’re also quite beautiful. However I like the implied movement of the photographs, frozen in time. I think it gives more depth and interest to such a menial task as opening a predictable letter from your insurance company. I also have a fascination with hands. They’re so expressive.

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EXPERIMENT I wanted to explore the concept of value with my chosen topic of open/closed binary. I decided I wanted to open a letter and see what the visual result would be (even something boring from the insurance company). I found that I was impatient to rip the paper open yet expectant of the contents. Is a letter more valuable closed or open? In the sense that when it is sealed it carries secrecy, exclusivity and anticipation and when it is opened it brings explanation, understanding and relief. I will experiment with different forms of this opening/closing.

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Assignment 2 further brainstorming. I'm interested in looking at the binary of open and closed with regards to the theme of value. The banana experiment got me thinking about the value of something once it has been opened...is something more valuable when it is opened or closed? I am also looking at drawing aspects of desire into my project as I feel it is relevant to opening something or leaving it sealed.

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‘Value’ Class experiment

Unfortunately I was absent for the in-class activity but I made a $5 artwork with strings to my chosen question.

So naturally I bought a few bananas for my experiment.

I wanted to explore my assignment theme of open/closed binaries and how that can be distilled into something as simple as opening a piece of fruit. It got me thinking about the value of an item once it has been opened. It is as though that opened object has now been born, even consummated and proclaimed to the world. I was inspired to research the theme of desire in relation to my assessment question and I think this experiment draws out the idea that we desire to preserve, keep closed, measure, tear open, finalise, consume and absorb in equal measure. Is something less valuable or more valuable once it has been opened? Does it perish? Or does it begin something new and flourish?

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Experimenting In exploring the Open/Closed binaries I wanted to strip down to basics and look at open and closed forms. I also wanted to see how I could draw differently by using a puncturing technique and allowing back-light to form the drawing. I was also quite intrigued by the puncture marks on the board I used below the paper.

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'Desire' research collage. Desire is entangled and multi sensory and its satisfaction does not quench the desire but rather perpetuates and sometimes resuscitates it.

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Desire Project, Paddington. The first image is of a repeated sign on the yellow wall that says: 'Bill posters will be prosecuted' which is an example of desire being prohibited. The second and third images felt as though they alluded to the exclusivity of living in that particular neighbourhood and attached a kind of desire to it. The fourth image shows constructed/fabricated desire in a makeup store.

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ASSESSMENT 1: Final Work and Concept Statement

(Addressing question 5: Constructed Binaries)

The constructed binaries I was most interested in further exploring was the notion of soft/hard and open/closed. I have been specifically focussing on the space between the distinctly different camps and the relevance of these notions in the way in which we express and communicate. The way in which we express our softness/hardness is intimately connected to how open/closed we are. We consciously and unconsciously wear our emotions and thoughts like a second skin through the way we move and hold ourselves. I was extremely inspired by Julian Meagher’s work ‘The Space Between the Clouds and Mud’ (2015) which challenges the nature of modern masculinity/femininity by highlighting the grey area between these constructed binaries and their fluidity and connection rather than their separateness. I found this work to spur further questions about the binaries I have chosen to research and the beauty in the fluidity between the pairs and how they articulate as a whole. The poster I have made is a culmination of the research and lose tethers I have so far and how I feel about the topic. I chose to focus on hands and the way in which we silently communicate our inner-state through the way we hold them, fidget or tense. Our hands are often an interesting point of expressing elements of softness/hardness and open/closed for example, tension, worry, anticipation, stability, affection, ease, love and vulnerability. I want to further explore the fluidity of these binaries across which we traverse every day. The illustrations are comprised by a great number of tiny dots, creating a softened, slightly blurred image, which I feel speaks to the grey area between the binaries.

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Assignment 1 research/inspiration Angelica Mesiti's 'The colour of Saying' 2015, explores silence as a powerful tool of communication. I was inspired to explore hands as an extremely expressive part of our body through which we can communicate.

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Assignment 1: Experiments

I’m looking at hands being an extremely expressive way of showing someone’s softness/hardness.

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