Mah Sard

BA Photographic Arts student  mahsard.com

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Copy of self-multination from Brus

 Apreture 22, two soft boxes in front, Large format camera

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Series/35m film camera, 

continuing the project of copy with recontextualizing the idea of ‘self-multination’ and applies it into a series of tableau photography. 

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Gunter Brus, the Series

In his performance he displays the polarization and contrast between ecstasy and extremity that is based on the human’s spiritual life.

Additionally, due to mutilation of souls and awareness caused by the mechanical world which forces its new conception of reality into mankind, the internal character hides behind the silence. The mixture of painting, sculpture, performing and photography brings a new language to explain this conflict. I want to apply this technique of mixing diverse mediums to explore more about the polarization and contrast within our internal world. 

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Working on installation, and how to present it 

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Working on the layouts

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One can learn through Karasu and its unification of art and life that full humanity needs to surrender to the down side of life as well as the upside. Michel Foucault points out, ‘we have always treated ‘the insane’ as outcasts even when they reflect our own more finely tuned responses to reality’. (Kingsbury, 2002, P, 3) Fukase discovered a liberating freedom and endless energy (hysteria) through the aesthetic of uncontrolled antinationalism.

 He wrote in 1972 that: ‘I have … ordinary (nichijo) and extraordinary (hinichijo), in other words positive (purasu) and negative (mainasu) in myself. I am only interested in these extremes, not the middle areas of my life’ (Charrier, 2016, 42).

Masahisa Fukase, Karasu (The Solitude of Raven), Afterword’s by Akira Hasegawa, Introductory note by David Travis (Fukase’s Face and Photographs), Bedford Arts, San Francisco (1991)

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Over a long period of 10 years, Fukase continuously took pictures of a mythical and strange woman, called Yohko. She was his lover and his wife.  A series of photographic narration viewed as continuously theatrical plays on life. He began photographing her from their wedding day and published them in magazines and various media. Continuously he photographs his subject, perhaps in photographing her and then looking at photographs of her, he is discovering himself, his inner being (Fig. 14). He published Yohko in 1978, a book that chronicles their 13 years of marriage, 3 years after she left him.

The camera became a tool for Fukase to discover the inner self. Every man needs a philosophy to carry one. The camera mingled his art and his philosophy. The goal was to live in present time and to receive the enlightenment from the transient moments. To become a man of knowledge, he needed to listen to the inner voice. Like a mirror, camera reflected his shadow in all that things that appeared as beings for him. The upside down senses of reality helped him to observe the reality in a different perspective. 

Masahisa Fukase, Yohko, Sonorama Shashin Sensho 8. Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama, 1978

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Soga Shokaku Daruma, Tengu (Shinto God)

Keeping on our Daruma theme, here is a standing version by the Kyoto painter Soga Shohaku (1730-1781). While Shohaku sometimes produced paintings of the greatest care and precision, he also worked in a freer style, as in this example.  Bodhidharma’s body is quickly outlined in broad strokes. His face, which turns back to the viewer, brings the painting alive through a few masterfully rendered strokes that produce a typically enigmatic expression.

 The attitude is consistent with a Zen value of freedom from restraint, which is seen in many eighteenth-century works from Kyoto. The painting is about four feet tall, and it was probably painted with a large straw brush.

http://7junipers.com/log/tag/daruma/

http://www.utata.org/sundaysalon/masahisa-fukase/

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Performance

Butoh performances have been viewed as psychological expression of consciousness through improvisation rather technical dance (Fisher 1987)

Butoh performances have taken their own  directions.

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BA (Hons) Photographic Arts

Major Project 1

Research Report

Name:

Gabriele Masiokaite

Mahsa Sadresfahani

Project Title:  ‘Birth’

In order to explain our subject and concept of our work it is important to explain the development of the project. It was after the first photographic series that we took back in the Lithuania when we started to recognize the theme of our project.

We printed out some of the pictures in the A4 size and some of them in 20 by 16inch on different type of papers such as matt and pearl digitally and also in darkroom, in order to build a coherence between the relationships of photos and find the best fine art quality prints. By the inspiration of the aesthetic and atmosphere of the printed out pictures, we started to write down a story in a poetic way to understand how to communicate our personal subject to the cultural and social theme. Due to complexity of our context, we decided to work on page and wall in this semester, in order to discover the appropriate methods for projecting our conception on the screen in the second semester. Pilot project was an opportunity to experiment different methods and opened up a beneficial path for the structure of the project. However the decisions that have been made on the pilot project are not the final ones but effectively will help to create a better foundation for our project.

 The location that we chose was a small village in Lithuania, named, Andriulenai. During the soviet times and the Second World War, a large amount of farmers and families left their houses and moved to Vilnius (Capital city) and the ‘Andriulenai’ went through the same transformation. The traces of previous living stories were still present in these abandoned houses and chaotic spaces. Various belongings left in the houses, old paint peeling off the walls, mirrors with dusty reflections and shadowy corners- they all are grimed by the symptom of hopelessness. It was striking, because even though the white window curtains had become black over time, the lights were still glimmering inside the core of these places where nature changed the previous inhabitants.

After a couple days searching for a right place, we eventually set up our cameras and began to shoot.

The second part of our plan was to capture a picture as a visual presence of a mother, expect those symbols as sense of hope that was coming from the lights through the windows. The figure of mom in this story is diagnosed with cancer. Cancer is a signature of what the culture of consumerism has brought to the world and we have found a strong link between the situation of the mother and of our work. The child went back to Iran twice, hoping to find the message of the mum that for so long the child had been waiting to hear.

In our photographic series we have a variety of shots from the windows. The windows in here can be interpreted as a metaphor for the searching mind through the mystery of the shadow and light, which represents the way the mother wants to describe to child also.

As well as those symbols, which exhibited a sense of hope that was coming from the lights through the windows. The second part of our plan was to capture a picture as a visual presence to represent the mother.

The geometric shapes plays a significant role in the images which we continue to follow throughout the book by adapting it in its design. While working in a team and combining two different cultures we decided to show the title in two languages- Iranian and Lithuanian.

  Our project is divided into 3 parts:

The wall: 3 or 4 framed images, following geometric theme. Picture of the window that signifies the mom along side the photograph of a figure coming through the whole in the wall. Pictures portrayed in frames with mount.

 The book: Two titles in different languages. One cover (from left to right) Lithuanian text, another side from right to left -Persian text.

 The video installation: Projection of moving and still images. Considering portraying the projection on a matt glass sheet. The quantity of the screens and the design is still under the process of development.

 Locations (LT and Iran) :

•  Inside the abandoned house represents the exterior world - the objets, corners, windows peeking into exterior worls, shadows created with a torch.

•  In a huge space in an old garage- place for performance, catching the right moment for the natural light.

•  Boat in the lake- filming.

•  Hospital in Iran- documenting figure of mom.

Equipment:

Bronica, Hasselblad 120mm

Minolta, Fujifilm Klasse S  35mm

Nikon D4 for filming

Inspiration:

There are two photo-editors that we are mostly inspired by are, Japanese photo-editor, ‘Akira Hasegawa’ and Italian photographer, ‘Giovanni Chiarmonte’, Marc Camille Chaimowicz

Tentative and expressionistic style of prominent contemporary artists and filmmakers, such as Andrew Tarkovsky, Esther Teichmann installations, Thai film maker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Francis Bacon and Japanese contemporary photographer Masahisa Fukase is well studied, in order to configure the structure of our project. Reading and also writing down a dissertation about these artists encouraged us to learn more about their methodology. The unification of art and psyche is the myth of their methodologies.

Instant Light, a photo book that contains Polaroids of Trasovsky edited by himself and Chiarmonte’.

Karasu, The solitude of Raven, considered in 2010 to be the best photo book of the last 25 years.

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Masochism

However, Masochist’s demand is calling for decompression, As how Psychotherapist Elsworth Baker observes:’ not pain, but is willing to suffer the pain of only the unbearable tension can be abated’.

 This sense of physical sexual forces, are resulted partly from the intense nature of the narrators unconscious and as how Suzuki said: ‘blind infatuation with the West’. (Suzuki, 1996, 169) However, after the first and second World War the psychological abnormalities particularly masochism expanded all over the world, due to the rise of alcoholism and side effects of the war.

Tomi Suzuki, Narrating The Self,1996

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Working on the cover for the book

Gimimas :

in lithuanian means Birth

تولد :

  in Persian means Birth

applying two different letters from two different languages,. We tried to express the beauty of birth by combination of two different cultures

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Proposal 

According to Henri Cartier-Bresson:

‘through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds - the one inside us and the one outside us. As the result of a constant reciprocal process, both these worlds come to form a single one. And it is this world that we must communicate.” wrote Cartier Bresson, in his photo book The Decisive Moment’.

In this project, we do not want to convey an idea or massage.

We tried to learn more about life through this project and let the canvas of our creativities go underneath a fragrant shadow that art cast over life.

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Gallery Visiting

In Weerasethakul’s films conventional narrative unravels as storylines change course and genre morphs from fiction to fantasy to documentary.

Ideas for video projection. Projecting on a matt glass 

Primitive 2009 comprises nine videos in which the history of the border town of Nabua, in northeast Thailand, is re-imagined as an elusive science fiction ghost story rooted in Thai folklore. Nabua was historically the scene of racial strife and violence, and the town also harbours an ancient legend about a widow ghost who would abduct any man who entered her empire. Weerasethakul transforms the town into one of men – the teenage male descendants of communist farmers – who fabricate their own memories and build a new world, manufacturing a spaceship in the rice fields.

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'But that's life, no?" says Weerasethakul. He is a delicate, softly spoken man. "Sometimes you don't need to understand everything to appreciate a certain beauty. And I think the film operates in the same way.’ 

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Beyond the pleasure principle

The hysteric and the obsessional neurotic likewise primary form of narcissism ‘abandon their relationship to reality, assuming their illness develops to that point.  But analysis shows that they by no means forsake their erotic relationship to people and things.’

Carl Jung introduced the terms of introversion in his essay, “Psychic Conflicts in a Child”, and raised the possibility that ‘the introversion of libido may not be a pathological phenomenon but instead a creative stage in the development of the human being’.

Carl in his theory of introversion talking about the significance of unconscious fantasies and argued ‘that unconscious fantasy life may also illuminate an unconscious dimension of the psyche that is structured like a higher "mind."

 The analytical model that they developed remains deeply rooted in the psychology and metaphysics of the individual ‘subject;, or self, and of discourse that is thought to be controlled by that self (185)

Beyond the pleasure principle and other writings, Sigmund Freud 1856-1939.

John Reddick; Mark Edmundson 1952

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Esther Teichmann_Fulmine from Esther Teichmann on Vimeo.

According to Teichmann:

 ‘In your short essay, ‘Sleeping in Dark Rooms and Caves’, despite mentioning the relaxation as a result of swimming, you’re utterly drowning. In Viscosity there is lustrous skin suffocating in water. Your works usually limn duplication in relation to life and death, or joy/the erotic and death. Why do you have this strong bond with loss, the missing, or desire and melancholia occurring as a result?’