I believe that the ‘Human Form’ project has been a pivotal point in my art practice so far. Writing at the end of the project, though not necessarily finished with concepts and certain pieces, I can say that there is still the mixed-media element seen within my previous ‘Collections’ project, though my interests are far more evident and I have pushed them further.
My approach to this brief began near the end of ‘Collections’ as my friends and I had been discussing this slightly philosophical matter over our pints and lunches – “Would you rather be blind or deaf?” That was my starting point because I started to imagine myself in the position of people who are physically disabled, and in the past I have only explored mental health and lifestyle in terms of personal differences to others. Over the project I became sensitive to the use of derogatory slang terms such as ‘flid’ after I’d read some articles about Thalidomide, which isn’t a funny matter at all. I think that when a project can tap in to your life on these emotional levels it’s definitely an exciting one. In response to “Would you rather be blind or deaf?” I filmed a social experiment where I asked 8 girls to walk around the drama studio, blindfolded, for about 5 minutes. The aim was to watch out for behaviour patterns and it was incredibly insightful, though the video itself wasn’t great quality so I didn’t use it any further. Within my sketchbook this project only surfaces towards the middle.
After the filming I took a step back because I didn’t want to become too focussed so early in the brief. A visit to the Tate Modern clarified to me just how vast an exploration of ‘the Human Form’ could be if I didn’t refine it in some way eventually – so many artists across the ages study nudes, from Caravaggio to Ron Mueck to Francis Bacon, and they all execute this interest in a way so different to each other.
At college we were asked to make these large tracings of our bodies then develop them with mark-making or printing. I found this quite unappealing but tracing my body took 5 sheets of A1 paper and there wasn’t a chance I’d let them go to waste. The start of my sketchbook sees some experimentation with this line drawing of me – photographs of me next to it, almost like a crime scene or an idea of moving through time. My body shape has been roughly like that for over a year and I have kept all the A1 sheets in case I ever fancy comparing myself to it again. Translation between collage, drawing and digital media ensued.
We had compulsory metalwork and sculpture workshops. At the beginning I wasn’t particularly interested by either, but the encouragement and ideas I received from the tutors prompted some interesting work and a new passion for working in 3D.
I looked at the work of Henry Moore, Jenny Saville, Francis Bacon, Kienholz and Tracy Emin to assess how other artists approach work regarding the human form. However the most interesting and relevant studies were of Frida Kahlo (who I had never studied before) and Gillian Wearing’s ‘Homage to the woman with the bandaged face who I saw yesterday down Walworth Road. Kahlo’s art seemed, to me, quite similar in ways to that of Tracy Emin, as they both deal with the painful and unattractive truths of womanhood within their art. However Kahlo is arguably a more traditional artist as her work was all 2D, whereas Emin, part of the Young British Artists, blurs dimensions and media. This may account for some of the stigma against Emin’s art – the combination of her brutal honesty and non-traditional artistic approach and I still believe that her art receives more negativity than necessary, but that’s a whole essay topic I could dive in to there. Gillian Wearing is also part of the Young British Artists and the video I studied is something I’d consider to be conceptual art. It exists now as a series of stills and interviews about the video and her inspiration for it, and the motivations behind the video are the most interesting part of the work.
After that my sketchbook explores the blindfolded experiment and video that I had made, as well as the transcript from that. The audio of the video is more exciting than the visual occurrences and I did hope to use the transcript at some point, though I never decided how. I don’t believe that I’m done with that yet; regardless when I pick it up again it remains unfinished. I find it far too interesting to abandon. The audio provides some kind of voyeurism - without the accompanying video footage could be rather disturbing, as the laughter within it seems to disguise insecurity and panic.
Further metal and sculpture workshops inspired an idea for a wax sculpture which I would film melting. I still believe that’s a great idea, but I didn’t execute it correctly as my knowledge of the materials was insufficient and my video was too grainy and the camera too amateur for attractive results. But I still have the cast that I moulded the wax work in, so I could revisit this with a better video camera and knowledge of how to melt the sculpture, however it may be something I put aside now.
I set out to film a paper chain made from one of my life drawings, several short clips in three different locations on my way to college. Fortunately I had a friend’s good video camera with me so the quality is better than the other videos I made. This video explores the idea of agility and fragility in every person – the fluttering of the man in the wind reflects the younger and freer body, but the use of paper as a material suggests how easily we can become physically broken, especially in older age. The movement in the film is interesting, but 12 minutes of fluttering would have been rather dull and incomplete. A side project had developed an interest in audio work so I bought a Dictaphone and started interviewing people about their bodies, especially their fears of age and experiences of growing so far. So far I have only interviewed 3 females of 17, 19 and around 40 years old, and I am more interested in the responses of mature adults. I plan to collect more responses and then slice the audio up (partly for anonymity) keeping the words and phrases I find interesting and relevant to the themes within the video. Parts will be played over other parts. Fortunately I have friends who are savvy with audio technology so I will be receiving guidance for this - so far confusion has prevented me from starting the audio work, I have no idea what software I’d use or how I’d use it. The audio work will be played over the moving images and I’m hoping to put this piece of finished work in my portfolio as a successful piece of intermedia art since that’s where my interests are heading.
This project has been quite experimental for me, I’ve explored things I hadn’t thought about before and I’ve taken risks. It’s been quite concept based but that’s when I can really sink my teeth into a project. It’s been my first attempt at using time based media and I hope to improve these skills and use them in future projects.
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