Statement_Ways of Seeing Assessment 3.
What affects the way we see? How do we form perception, opinions and ideas, from what we see, what we are shown, and the information, both cognitive and contextual?
My final body of work is a collection of ambiguous, multi-disciplinary artworks, which don’t obviously reveal what they are about, creating a multitude of ways of seeing them. These final works, are an experimental exploration of how the information we are provided with and how contextual information affects our ways of seeing; the world, ourselves, and the media. Specifically, how the absence of this information, manipulates our perspective, and the devices of doing so; the notions of documentation, editing and erasure, all prevalent in the ways we see. Each of my works, focuses on a differing significant idea- documentation, the absence of information, and manipulation, respectively; each however sharing the same conceptual idea- that the different ways of seeing are all based on the context and the information surrounding that perspective or situation. Whilst also covering the ideal of how the lack of information and context, does not enable clear interpretation.
This piece is a collage, a digital manipulation. This work focuses and emphasises the amount of information we retain, and the cognitive overload we experience, that we simply cannot absorb everything we see, as I found, when trying to document this for 3 days, from 12pm to 1pm, an hour. I found I couldn’t record everything I sensed, nor saw in this hour, the information too dense. I wished to portray this through busy collages, overlapping, and in a chaotic structure, to emphasise this. This work depicts my notes, some drawings, and Polaroid photographs, captured during my hour of documentation. I also found that because this contextual information was so dense, I began to censor my own perception, only documenting the most significant information. Hence, when you read back my notes, you simply couldn’t have created a clear understanding of where I was, nor experience it in the same way, based on that contextual information; what we see is a singular perception.
This piece was an installation and sculptural piece, which was meant to be interactive; i.e. viewers were able to flip through the newspaper. This works, is a combination of newspaper pages, and my birth certificate, which have been ‘blacked out’ and censored using black permanent marker. I used both a public and personal publication to be representational of how both in public and private realms, censorship is prevalent. It directs focused on how the contextual information, or there lack of information affects what we see and the way we see it. There is a sense of dissociation, a lack of seeing and understanding, due to the absence and lack of information. Not every page was manipulated, to portray how only certain info is hidden and censored. Each page has been ‘censored’ to cover up information and images, making them identifiably redundant, a sense of obstruction and interference. You cannot make a personal perception of what you see, as it has been manipulated. IN many of the works, I have left some textual information, and some images intact, often these contradicted the information censorship aims to hide, creating paradox.
This piece is a short film (3.51 minutes duration). This work focuses on the manipulation and lak of contextual information towards what we see and perceive. This film, involves, me signing (sign language ASL) ‘Chandelier’ by Sia, cutting and changing from different frames. It also involves the overlay of the audio ‘Soon we’ll be found’ by Sia, and static (visually and audibly). This film is dissociated, random and disjointed, portraying how when we lack the information, the background, the purpose and the perspective, we lack the true understanding of the information that is being shown to us. Conceptually, this piece portrays how the manipulation of conditions, specifically sensory- visual and audio registers, affects what we see. You may ask, what is the purpose of this film? Does it have an anecdotal purpose? A story? Well, no; and that’s the point. You aren’t supposed to interpret it in any other way than an artistic mess, a dissociation of incoherent information, in the attempt to signify no way of seeing, based on the information, the lack of context. This work, through the use of ASL also attempts to depict the notion of language barriers, and how the lack of knowledge affects what we see, i.e. through sign language (a language which requires you to see), you aren’t able to gain audio explanation.
Was this concept successfully portrayed… I don’t know, guess its based on the way you see it.
jbbartram-illu
andulkaphoto
annaxmalina
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
kaledo-art