Google Image Search

In order to give the Marine and Natural History Photography student I am to be working with an insight into the kind of photograph I am after, I am making up a Pinterest board of images. This seems useful for my own process as well as it has quickly become apparent that I have a very set idea of what I want (compositionally, colour-wise, level of detail etc.). Really, I am looking to make similar images to the once I have already, but with a far greater level of detail (and taken more expertly).

I have been Google Image Search-ing using some of the photographs I have and find the results a little amusing... the suggestions of similar images almost exclusively brings up pictures of planets (if on the black background) and jewelry or jewels (if with the white background), both things I have explored as connotative concepts to the contact lenses.

Another intriguing result was this one below !! ...I wouldn't have said that the original image looks particularly like an eye but I love that it brings them up. The arbitrary nature of Google Image Search can be quite uncanny when it aligns like this - it highlights a kind of gap between what we register subconsciously and what we openly acknowledge in viewing images.

The Pinterest board can be found here: Contact Lens Images (Ideas)

Scratched Glasses Lenses

I was playing around with focusing light through my glasses and realised how scratched and dirty they are. The marks remind me of the images of the contacts through the microscope. I find these such beautiful and interesting images because they're really mysterious - I'm certain I could never guess what they were if I didn't know. The way the light is warped to make different colours is mesmerising. I feel this would make a cool video piece if I were to record it properly, although I'm not really sure what it would say. I suppose it is turning something bad - imperfections - into something beautiful and therefore changing its value. Although I think maybe, along with their visual similarities, perhaps these images are also like the microscope ones in that they don't allow much for the imagination to go off because they are so obscure. They don't have any strong associations that I can think would be particularly poetic or significant.

Death Cafe Exhibition Ideas

My immediate thought about what to exhibit in Lost For Words is my Dust From A Doctor's Waiting Room piece, which I presented as part of the Schism show last year. I feel this is my most 'deathy' work to date, and the one with most potential to mean something in this particular context. At the moment it is just in a petri dish, which I might keep but I can't think at all how it would work in such a big space... it would need to be on a plinth or a shelf or something to make it more substantial and more of a work. I'm going to aks for people's opinions and do some thinking over the next few weeks. 

Presentation Experiments

I meant to make this work for the last assessment but the delivery of the jewelry box was extremely late. I think I'm a bit glad that it was as it now seems to me a really 'cheap' work - the associations with the contacts being precious are too blatant. I'm after something more subtle. I thought I may as well play around with the box anyway....

I've been reading up on museum display and the curation of galleries, along with Marcel Broodthaer's approach to presenting his work as a gesamtkunstwerk - how my work is displayed is particular important as I am dealing with everyday and disposable objects; its all about how their value will be perceived. 

Contact Lenses Through Microscope

I posted on the Marine and Natural History Photography facebook page asking for help in taking photos of my lenses through a microscope and managed to get hold of someone who would help. As I had no idea what I was doing or what kind of images I would find I feel I came away from the experience with images that are a bit lacking. I found it really frustrating because what I saw through the microscope was absolutely fascinating - I loved the colours and the image was really clear, but it just didn't translate to the camera. The final image below is one I have edited to look more like what I saw without the camera.

In my tutorial we discussed how these images don't leave a lot for the viewer to go on in order to get anything from them... they don't look like anything, just abstract shapes, which (for me anyway) doesn't spark the imagination. I was so proud of myself getting hold of someone and using their skills - its such a shame that it didn't work out first time, but I hope to try the microscope again in future as I'm sure I can make some really good images with it. 

(Geological) Time

I laid out all my contacts like this and realised that they looked like pieces of rock or jewels, which had me thinking about geological specimens and how rocks can describe periods of time. I think in mind I had Katie Paterson's 'Fossil Necklace', made of beaded fossils spanning geological time. I LOVE this - I think I mentioned it in my essay I wrote about Paterson's work last year, and how it condenses the immense and immeasurable. The necklace is almost a metaphor.

The little numbers underneath the pairs of lenses relate to a key which I made, describing the dates when the contacts were in use e.g. May 2013 - November 2013. In my mind thre would be no real explanation of what the work is and it would be open to the viewer to decide what the objects and the dates mean together.

The Light In My Eye

I had this sheet of acetate saying 'the light in my eye' left over from when i displayed it on the projector last assessment, and I've stuck it to the skylight directly above my desk. I often sit and look up at it, watching the sky grow dark in the evening and thinking about the light fading from my eye. When it grows dark, the words cannot be made out against the night sky. I find this really poetic; there is something so simple about it, but so fitting. I wonder how I would make this a work that could actually be acknowledged. I quite like it being so spontaneous and makeshift. It is also so subtle that you would probably miss it unless you were in the right position because when you are standing up it merges with the houses in the background. (This reminds me of when I'm not wearing glasses or contacts and everything that is the same colour merges into each other. I can only make out contrast.)

Simon Fujiwara - Working Method

I hurried back from Surrey to see Simon Fujiwara (aka The Great Fuj) give his lecture this year - the third lecture of his I have seen in Falmouth. After hearing rumours that the work he presented in his first talk were all faked and constructed, he has become a bit of a mystery. I also attended the seminar with him last year, which was very insightful into his working method and has continued to inspire my practical approach.

I followed what he was saying with skepticism (because of the rumours) but with keen interest. The way in which he decides to imagine things, pursue 'what if...' scenarios around the world and create extensive narratives about fictional characters is very compelling - I saw it as a kind of freedom, a playfulness, a lightheartedness, but used to pick up on quite serious cultural, even political issues. I kind of wish I could follow my imagination in this way...but maybe that is why I want to do set design, so that I can chase a 'what if' with enough justification to do so. I think my work that I am doing now has a certain regard for truth that I would need to uphold to convey any kind of meaning. Having said this, Fujiwara still manages to reveal things about the world that might not be brought into focus without his suggestion, and that is substantial and profound in its impact. I thought my interests aligned very strongly with the work that he spoke of in his second lecture - his 'Here is Now' exhibition at the Southbank Center in 2014. Here he had chosen objects that spoke of British Culture and presented them together , but without name labels, which highlighted how ingrained and recognizable the objects and images are in our culture and visual language.

After he had finished speaking, someone from the audience asked the question "what is the work?" (e.g. is this lecture the work, or is it his journey collecting research, or is it the final product...). Fujiwara replied, to my amusement, that it is up to us to decide. He said that every step within a project could be the project itself, sometimes he finds the intermediate stages more interesting than an exhibition work but this is impractical. Fujiwara mentioned that there is no hierarchy between the research and the exhibition works. This resonates with me very greatly - I really struggle to pin down works and find it frustrating that small thoughts and observations are not valued above final pieces. I often lose interest in final works too, they seem to lose momentum if they are too thought-through, and sometimes I wish it were up to the audience to look at my thoughts and everyday observations (such as those I share on Instagram), and for them to function as artworks.

Whilst doing research for my dissertation, I came across a quote about Broodthaers that I think links with Fujiwara's approach:

"A Kitchen Cabinet, 1966-68, for example, contains a range of the artist’s signature objects, from mussel and snail shells to eggs and egg cups, glass jars and advertising images. They act as propositions and generate ideas as part of an ongoing process rather than to provide finished statements. This studio nature of Broodthaers’s works, with a hazy line between ideas and completed pieces, gives them their energy and suggests why they appeal so strongly to contemporary practitioners." (Marcel Broodthaers - Milton Keynes Gallery - Schultz, Deborah. Art Monthly , March 2008, Issue 314, p27-28, 2p)

One final observation from the lecture was Fujiwara's rejection of the word 'research'. he said using that word makes it sound as if it is a separate and conscious activity instead of part of everyday life. We are always researching and there can be no distinction; (Great words from the Great Fuj).

Installation Room - Carousel Slide Projector

Over the Summer I found a £1 slide viewer in a charity shop, which introduced me for the first time to slides and this way of viewing photos. There is something really appealing about an analogue way of doing things that is almost entirely unfamiliar to my experiences of images, as everything is now viewed on a screen. Slides and film make the image an object, which is where my main interests lie. I think I am able to feel attached to objects in a way that I don't feel I can with images because they are not tangible, not material. 

Viewing a slide through the slide viewer, lit up by its tiny, temperamental bulb is an engaging experience - you have to move your head to look closer and bring the image into focus. Having only one image in view at a time also directs attention, makes the image special. I'd love to get hold of more of these and use them as a presentation technique. I am imagining a dark room full of shelves of these boxy, endearing, illuminated images - each drawing you into a separate little world. 

Once I had the macro images of the contact lenses I was looking for a means to display them and quickly thought of the carousel slide projector. In order to get my digital images into slide format I had to compromise and print them onto acetate (digital to film costs over £2 per slide I have discovered). The detail of the images was inevitably dramatically reduced but they work as initial experiments.

I really loved the effect of the projector. I was most taken by the darkness in between the slides, when the room is black and light-less for a brief moment. I think this is so fitting with my ideas of fragile vision and blindness creeping in. It is also like the blink of an eye, and the scene has changed when the lid is lifted and the light returns. Along with the darkness, there is the sound of the mechanism clacking and the carousel rotating; the sounds seems louder without light and without vision. 

I feel with this project, veering as it is towards vintage/retro/analogue ways of seeing and capturing and displaying images, that I may be in danger of 'alienating' people (I can't think of a word that would be right)..... As these devices and processes are new and mysterious to me, they are captivating. I am aware however that to people older than me they may be familiar technology, once a part of everyday life, unremarkable and uninteresting. Similarly with the analogue methods of photography, I will have to be wary - to me it is all new and exciting, but I need to be careful not to focus too much on the process because it is already very established. Although I am discovering these things, they are not my discovery - I need to remember to make my own investigation using these things, but not fixating on them. Having said this, my thoughts and approach are likely to be different anyway - perhaps I can bring a new perspective on these things.

Quick Idea - Eye Through Taleidoscope

Again using the taleidoscope to isolate an image and focus on it. On its own and , moving around, the eye becomes quite disturbing. Although naturally sensitive, I am usually not afraid of or repulsed by eyes because I'm so used to touching them, but looking at these photos unnerves me a little. The pupil in the photo is so black and beady, it doesn't look human. There is something terrifying about the pupil, once you consider it a a hole. How strange also that the pupil is so black, when it lets in the light. 

Versator

 I've been looking on the optical section on eBay for old lenses and came across this vintage 'versator', magnifying device that you strap round your head. I don't have a plan for it yet but find it a really curious object - something to improve the ability of human vision. Actually these will be really useful for me, I often find myself needing a magnifying glass because I can't see up close all that well.

Installation Room - Pinhole Photos

I spent the day in the installation room, using it as a dark room to develop more pinhole photos. I was hoping to make some through lenses and be more experimental but I became distracted by the kaleidoscope patterns once more. These images are just much more exciting to make, they're pretty ...and i'm worried about lens photos going wrong and wasting paper as I don't really understand the science of how lenses direct light. My prediction is that I'd end up with very vague minimal images, wwhich wouldn't be very exciting to look at. (Nevertheless I really ought to just try it and see).

Although pleasing to the eye, the kaleidoscope images are a bit empty and I feel disappointed with what I achieved this time round. Really there is no concept to it, and therefore no interest or matter to contemplate. They are lovely images to have but clearly these experiments using the kaleidoscope end here.

One question that I have been asking myself is how, If I were to want to show these photos, how would I display them? Would it need to be the pinhole photos on the photography paper to be true to the process? I think I would be most comfortable with this approach because it is the process of using light to make images that I find interesting (otherwise they are just any other images made in a digital way for all the viewer knows). When I put the images on Instagram however, i edited them and made them look more vibrant with more contrast - they were very different images to what is really on the photo paper. Does this matter... that I gave a misleading impression? Or are they both valid images made through different processes?

Quick Idea - Contact Lenses Through Taleidoscope

No real reason behind this a I've given up on the taleidoscope, but actually the camera seemed to cope better photographing the projected slides of the contact lenses through it. I was struggling to take a photo of the projected images made by the carousel projector because of the contrast of the light in the dark space, but these photos show the quality of the image that is produced. I actually find the lines quite interesting - they remind me of old maps or the images in reference books that are just line drawings. Focusing on areas like these circles might be quite interesting, maybe to produce some drawings or prints.