I wish I finished stronger.   

Statement:

Learning and playing are my intentions.  I am making compositions I intend on being effective through different image making processes and manipulations of materials.  I got to this place photographically through the use of a scanner, 1,000 w light, a view camera, a dslr, scissors, and various materials I manipulated.  I am making this work because I feel that experimenting with the process affords practice with not only making and subverting space — but also hoping it will translate into a means of communicating an idea and/or feeling in the future.  Making these images is meditative for me.  I feel that this process affords a different way of thinking for me that is both analytical and emotional.

*all are in camera except for the bluish/pinkish one which is all of the negatives of the people that came to support me in the Open Studio layered together.

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Problem Statement:

The project considers the process of perceiving.  I am concerned with this because it is inescapable.  It is also inherently tainted, distorted, skewed. There are evolutionary reasons for the ways in which our perception is shaped.  There are biological processes. Psychological factors. There are many elements that contribute to our whole perception.

I take the pieces of the process out of context (detach them).   

Perceiving the pieces of perception as symbols, interpretations, abstractions, concepts, synonyms.

The project itself could be an analog to perception — it is a non-factual, representational, personal interpretation.  Perception has been said to be an analog to the real world. This could potentially be an analog of an analog.

Project Description:

I visualize the the process of perceiving through interpreting biological and psychological elements as representational forms.  Rods and cones become rods and cones. The scientific depiction of rods and cones become a part of a landscape. Overlap (the first way babies develop spatial recognition) will contradict itself.  When the viewer gets comfortable — they will notice another part that doesn’t make sense. This will in a way express the inherent distortion of perception.

Formal, Conceptual & Contextual Considerations:

Forms & Patterns: Cones, rods, lines (direction, black/white, broken, straight, jagged), grids (square, circular), horizon line (sometimes – making a landscape environment for representational forms),approaching shapeless human faces (as far as I can get from human form with it still communicating as human form).     

Color:  RGB (for cones), additive and subtractive primaries, complementary hues, non complementary pairs, gray/black/white rods.

Space: Layers, overlap contradictions, translucent, solid, reflective, reflections of reflections going on forever.  

 

PLAN/NOTES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION:

I will also work on making obvious optical illusions to express the limitations of our perception.

 

non–redundancy (uncountable)  

http://www.altx.com/vizarts/conceptual.html

 

https://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_9/ch9p1.html

 

https://blog.ted.com/ted-weekends-explores-how-our-minds-shape-reality/

 

(some) research:

 

Perception:  

A- result of perceiving : OBSERVATION

B- a mental image : CONCEPT

Perceive:

: to attain awareness or understanding of

: to regard as being such

: to become aware of through the senses especially : SEE, OBSERVE

Observe:

: to watch carefully especially with attention to details or behavior for the purpose of arriving at a judgment

: to come to realize or know especially through consideration of noted facts

 

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Cognitive dissonance – the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.

Cognitive dissonance addresses the pervasive human tendency to rationalize.

Rationalize-  attempt to explain or justify (one’s own or another’s behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate.

reorganize (a process or system) so as to make it more logical and consistent.

convert (a function or expression) to a rational form.

 

This week I researched cognitive dissonance.  I felt as though simultaneous contrast would fit with cognitive dissonance.  Cognitive dissonance and simultaneous contrast both have to do with the brain’s attempt in “balancing” and also with skewed/tainted perceptions.  Both include an alteration of something to reduce discomfort and restore balance.  I feel as though all of our perceptions are inherently skewed — these are, as I see it, a couple of the more exceptional examples.  I hope that the act of looking at the collage is cognitive dissonance in itself (in a way).  That the collaboration between the image and the viewer is an experience of cognitive dissonance — of the viewer’s brain perceiving the figure on the left as a bit yellow and the figure on the right as a bit green. 

I also wanted to begin playing with multiples.  After last week’s critique, Jay’s feedback helped me to identify a pattern in my work.  He asked, what if you include 5 of these, and made them different sizes…  I realized then that I’ve been sticking to the center and including one form (for the most part).  The collage I made this week is a mild beginning to what I plan to play with.  I’ve continued reading Art and Visual Perception and will begin a tangible journal dedicated to notes on the book.  I feel as though highlighting just doesn’t cut it with all that I want to soak in from the book.   

I made some sketches of ideas.  I tried both the scanner and camera.  It is important to me to make an image that I feel “works”.  I keep thinking about how Jay said something along the lines of, “the more you do, the more there is to do”.  

I wanted to make it either 100% in camera or primarily in camera.  I feel as though this week I was more attached to my pre visualizations than in weeks past.  I decided to make a collage and will revisit my attempts in making a photograph because it will bother me.  I still am not happy with my collage — but I do feel that it somewhat expresses what I’ve been thinking about.          

Narrative Dynamics

 

I overthought the project again.

 

-Archetypes starting point

-Look at cause/effect (active force/physical effect)

-All about becoming/not becoming

-Change in state of affairs

-Sensory call/response

-Movement, changes, modifiers

-Relationships are mechanical

-If you want to know what to do in this corner of the picture, look at that side of the picture.

-Music is 4 dimensional

-Negative space can allow eye to go from positive space to positive space, from form to form.

-Subdividing planes in space

-The world reduced to set of shapes/forms and become something else completely.

-Reduction

-Sequences tend to be static

-False narratives?

-Layers, overlap, combine, depth

-Light, color, medium

-Isolate

-Context vs. no context

-How you present it is very important

-Setting up circumstances that viewer must consume

-How do you get viewer a part of scene?

-Make it act in different ways

-Instead of looking at it as an object (noun) look at it as a dynamic object (verbs, adjectives).

-Think cinematically

My process:

I am thinking about voyage and return — but am also thinking about rebirth in terms of its definition.

 

Voyage and Return

 

the real value of the Voyage and Return story comes at the end. Once the protagonist has returned to a place of safety, they are able to reflect on the experience.

 

The Voyage and Return helps to communicate that there is value in failure.

 

Vector- connector

Actor- vector departs from

Goal- passive, where vector is directed at

 

Simple stories-

1- “Beginning”

2- Situation modified

3- Resulting situation

#2 and #3 are partial repetitions of each other.  #3 represents partial modification of #2.

 

Stories= hierarchical structure

 

Narrative constitutes as a signifying whole because it can be grasped in terms of the relational structure obtaining among actants.

 

TRIAD- functions + actions then narration

Functions= foundation or fill in the gaps

Indices= atmosphere/action/info on time and place

Actions= representations and reiterations?

Narration= telling, ordering, and evaluation of action.

 

Narrative – Representation of one or more than one event (one or more than one change in a situation or state of affairs.)

 

-Isolate

-Describe

-Classify

“Structural Description”

-Dissect narrative phenomena into their component parts

-Then attempt to determine functions and relationships

 

Narrator’s relationship to her story

-present or absent in it?

-first or third?

FIRST- narrator is also a character on the level of action

‘Relation conditions’

Other minds problem

 

Try- plot revealing story, rearranging the timeline, so reader gets an ‘a-ha’ moment when rediscovering original events.  Multiple POV?

 

“Subjective conscious mind is an analog of what is called the real world.”

 

Description of description

Consciousness of consciousness

 

Challenge precepts of narration

Pure sensations

 

Narrations existence outside of the image

Narrative through typology

 

Indicate worlds inside/outside of the frame

-phone?
*Call awareness to echoing activities of the mind

 

“Process that invents our analog world.”

Photography forces question of intention

-Digitally manipulate…why?

 

Description

-Looking for something that puts our unspeakable feelings into a discreet form, so we can back off and study what we’ve done.

-Recognize our own feelings as an object.

 

Inextricably linked – one need not force one to address the other

Style vs substance

 

Discover, define, communicate

 

Voyage and return –

-accompanied by moral

-central transformation in main character

 

Uncovers basic social-psychological tasks people confront in lifetime

-dependence/independence

-selfish/sacrifice

-birth/death

 

Recurring/repeating

-elements

-themes

-patterns

 

Interpret in terms of repetitive structures

 

Narrative/story= “To Know”

Through story, come to know

 

Effect perception, influence expectation

 

Base Component

-embedding one into another

Singularity transformations  

 

 

The discussions and critique felt helpful.  

I asked Peter if he would be open to taking notes for me during my critique.  He took notes for me and I took notes for him.

Courtesy of Peter – a few notes on my critique:

-Scanner depth of field is about 1/16th of an inch.

-1000 watt light to counteract.

-Get those edges sharp!

-Use a tripod!

-Red/Cyan one: simultaneous contrast, get more neutral gray in that and it would really vibrate.

-Non complementary pair in bright one.

Things that I will remember from class (thoughts, things said):

-The closer you get, the further away you get.

-Extra optics into the lens – exploit the camera.

-Clashing patterns.

-We rarely see “a color”.

-”Maybe the only use we have for CDs is to make pictures out of them”.

-Surround gray with pure hue / don’t surround pure hue with gray.

-Squares are like grids.  Squares push forward. If you can do squares right, it can be amazing.

-With rectangles there is an implied diagonal.

-False horizon lines.

-Iridescence: highlight/shadow role reversal, colors shift.

-Lenticular Photography: Multiple planes on a flat surface // cheapo hologram.

-Edges can become lines.

-”Never eat anything bigger than your head”

-You just need to know where to look.

-Work expands to the time allowed.

-A photograph is an analogue

-A replica/model becomes a symbol

-Objects become figurative

-De-contextualize: examine out-of-context, take idea of something and force it into new set of circumstances.  

-See how much I can take away – make viewer fill in the gaps.  We fill in a lot of gaps with our brain.

-What is (are) the fundamental elements?

-Poetic Gestures: extend my thinking about what I’m shooting.

-Imperfections indicate reality

-BE SUBTLE.

-I Read introduction and chapter I of Art and Visual Perception.

-Read Readings

I attempted to make images that show where I am at right now.

 

Show and Tell

Rinko Kawauchi

Her work instills wonder through intricate attention to small gestures and the details in her every day life and environment.

In Illuminance, she explores the extraordinary in the mundane.  She organizes the natural world into formal patterns.

In an interview she says that she likes photographing things in groups.  She explains her approach is the same when photographing both people and starlings.  Her attitude is, whatever she is taking pictures of, she needs to discover something.  She wants an impression from the object. She sees life as a series of dualities. Light/shadow, Life/death.  

 

“Iridescence” means the state of being colored like a rainbow or like the light shining through a prism.  Illuminance means spiritual or intellectual enlightenment, a lighting up, decorative lighting or lighting effects, decoration by the art of illuminating.  I will bring in her book, Illuminance. Published in 2011 by publishers Aperture / Kehrer Verlag / Editions Xavier Barral / POSTCART.

https://www.sfmoma.org/rinko-kawauchi-contemplates-small-mysteries-life/

https://fkmagazine.lv/2011/12/09/10-minutes-with-rinko-kawauchi/

https://aperture.org/blog/rinko-kawauchi-my-favorite-color-is-blue/

https://theculturetrip.com/asia/japan/articles/rinko-kawauchi-10-things-you-should-know-about-the-first-lady-of-japanese-photography/

http://www.shift.jp.org/en/archives/2012/08/rinko_kawauchi_exhibition-3.html

 

 

My Images:

 

The discussions and critique in class felt helpful.  

 

Things from class that I will remember (from critiques and lecture)

Questions/Thoughts/Things Said/Potential Ideas throughout class

 

-A grid will make everything advance

-White is associated with yellow // Blue is associated with black

-4×5 is stable geometry

-Letters have powerful figure/ground relationships

-Any color on dark ground becomes more important

-We are always searching for something that makes sense

-Nominal: Named thing

-What does it look like on dark/light ground

-Try thinking of the object (photograph) itself as the figure

-Repurpose forms, retain meanings

-Extend pattern elements of figure to ground and vice versa

-Plastic, stretch

-Create forms through the death of others

-Pattern from form

-Matte vs. glossy — interact with each other?

-Flat form, deep background?

-Fall apart + come together again

-Mix up roles of specific colors

-Use light to isolate figure

-Deep space made shallow/Shallow space made deep

-Play with focus

-Real, not real

-Tap into my own entropy

I feel that I prefer focusing on where I can improve.  

Incomplete list of places in which I can improve:

Time management.  I spent a lot of time constructing spaces and making images this week and saved the reading until Tuesday.  The reading felt enlightening and reading about Daniel Gordon’s process gave me ideas that turned out being, in my opinion, my most successful images of the week.  It is important for me to take advantage of the materials provided to aid my learning process.

I experiment and play — but I think it is important for me to be more intentional with my compositions.  I ordered Art and Visual Perception and will read a chapter per week in addition to the readings provided.  I will read Thursday afternoon/evenings.

I went to a fabric supply store in Pilsen.  It is amazing and huge. I found a stretchable white material, somewhat shiny black material, and two different colors of a material that could make a moire pattern.  I also found some opaque material. I cut shapes into a box and placed a light inside of the box so that it shined through the shapes. I played around with covering the shapes with graph paper, gels, and opaque materials.  Trying to make images that (hopefully) subvert cognitive cues. I attempted to construct constructions to photograph on friday evening. On saturday I found that many of my constructions did not photograph how I had thought they might.  I then made constructions and photographed them and changed them around. On sunday I worked on similar constructions. On monday I played with mirrors. On tuesday I played with my scanner.

I am looking at Jessica Eaton

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jan/24/jessica-eaton-50-shades-grey-photographers-gallery

http://time.com/3788545/jessica-eaton/

 

Jessica Eaton was born in Canada.  She says that there is “no such thing as a color photograph”.  That they are all complex illusions made by the inner workings of the analog camera.  She says that on average one work comes out of 200 sheets of film.  Her work is very technical and at the same time it is some chance.  She paints with an additive color system and exploits the camera.  One of the big questions she is asking is “what is inherently photographic?”.

When describing her work, she says, ““In most of these photographs, what you’re looking at is more than one moment,” she says. “They aren’t static moments of time. They’re layers of time.”  She says that her photographs acknowledge “how incredibly limited our ability to perceive the world is.”

 

 

 

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My images are below.

 

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The first class felt informative and refreshing.  Looking at the ways to make space feels vastly different than it did a year and a half ago.  The ways to make space seem more bendable, breakable, and flexible than they did in the past.  The ways to make space also feel in ways more concrete and calculated. I am excited to continue learning about and experimenting with these tools.

Words spoken in class I will remember:

-80% of your vision is your brain telling your eyes what to see.

-Grace: Seemingly easy.

-Challenge space, make the viewer look more closely, they question their own place.

-When the space between elements becomes important.

-Every time you think something is one thing, it is not.

-Hubris will kill you.

-It is not about amount, necessarily, it is about use.         

I intended to make five collages exploring the ways to make space, to make “democratic” spaces, and not over-overthink it.   Overthinking proved an obstacle until my friend Rachel showed me some amazing artists to look into. I manipulated materials (mostly paper) into compositional elements.  I moved pieces around, removed them, reshaped them, replaced them, and analyzed the perceived interactions. I drew from the reading and from artists in the conversation.

The Power of The Center By Rudolf Arnheim.  The reading proved thought provoking, it made me ask questions about my life perception and sparked ideas for making work.

 

Our view of the world is based on the interaction of two spatial systems.

Cosmic:

-Matter organizes around centers, which are often marked by a dominant mass.  

-Comes about when allowed sufficient freedom.

-Occasionally has enough freedom to follow inclination and form symmetrical structures.

-Human mind also invents centric shapes.

 

Parochial:

-Our view of the world is not merely a distortion of reality.  It is a view that has an order of its own, the simplest and most perfect order the mind could seek.

-Cartesian grid

-Right angles of our living spaces afford a visual order that helps make our lives simpler.

-It has no center

-Taken by itself, it is an endless expanse in which no one place can be distinguished from the next.  This renders it incomplete for any mathematical, scientific, or artistic purpose.

We must combine the two systems.  Together they serve our needs perfectly.                   

 

SHOW AND TELL

I am looking at Hannah Hoch, Liz Nielsen, Hannah Whitaker, Jessica Labatte, and Daniel Gordon.  

Liz Nielsen

Liznielsen.com

http://www.maakemagazine.com/liz-nielsen/

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/liz-nielsen-photography-220218

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/liz-nielsen-chasing-light-through-color-a-conversation-with-liz-nielsen

Liz Nielsen makes photograms in the color darkroom.  She expresses an attraction to variables — that it is nearly impossible to create the same image twice.  Using the enlarger light as well as flashlights, bike lights, laser lights (and more)– she exposes transparent shapes on top of glass.  She makes multiple exposures with the use of cardboard “puzzles”. She describes her work, the representational subjects sitting inside abstractions, “They are what you see in them, and therefore they are many things.”

She also studied and received her BFA and MFA in Chicago.

She started off as a painter and printmaker.  She first made photographs in black and white.  She spent five years only making photographs in black and white.  Nielsen says that she, in 2001, began getting into abstraction in 2001.  She’d print the same negative from the P4 and RA4 machines. She made long exposures with colored rave lights in her closet and looked at the ways that the light and colors interacted with the film.  When she moved to NY in 2011 she lacked access to tools she had previously used — she decided to make her own negatives.

A big theme in her current work is portals.  She explains how for a moment it charges you — likening it to a great idea.

 

These images are from her work, “Tracing the Azimuth”.

*Azimuth: the direction of a celestial object from the observer, expressed as the angular distance from the north or south point of the horizon to the point at which a vertical circle passing through the object intersects the horizon.

 

 

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Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton