Image Project Research

I got three books from the library for this project. I was quite surprised how many books they had on this particular subject, so I had plenty of research material to choose from.

Collage: The Unmonumental Picture

Jonathan Hernandez - Rongwrong Series

In this series the artist uses black and white factual newspaper images and repurposes them into emblem-like patterns. I really like this idea because it completely changes the images purpose from conveying and communication facts into an art piece. This fact that they are black and white makes them also feel quite old and somewhat precious. The vague symmetry nods to coats of arms in my mind too. I think this is a very good example of rearranging and repurposing magazine/newspaper imagery, and so is a perfect research source.

John Stezaker (The artists most recent exhibition can be seen here)
This artist actually featured in 2 of the 3 books, but this particular book showcased what I think is some of the best of his work.

This artist uses a very subtle form of collage, only ever 2 or 3 images. But I think this makes it more effective and powerful. A lot of the images focus on early cinema icons, film stills and other vintage images which contrasts nicely with the modern feel of juxtaposing the images together. It creates very surreal portraits, and the combination of 2 people creates a completely new being. I am a big fan of this artist's work but it is quite hard to draw inspiration from it because it is so subtle and simple, it would be easy to mistakenly copy the style. But I may still try to integrate the feel of the work into my own project.

Here are some more of my favourite John Stezaker images that I feel show a bit more variety to his work. The landscape images echo the faces of the characters in the portrait pictures. I think this is extremely clever.



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Collage: Assembling Contemporary Art

Ludovica Gioscia http://www.ludovicagioscia.com/

This artist has layered both mass-produced and handmade screen-printed wallpaper then torn and ripped into it to reference billboards and illegal fly-poster sites. The book also says it points to the 'visual immediacy and transient nature of disposable consumer culture'. I really like the idea behind this work and I think it does a good job of changing the purpose of wallpaper and representing the ugliness of torn flyers in a more visually appealing way.

Ian Dawson http://www.iandawson.net/

Here the artist has pasted magazine images into a book and then cut through the pages to reveal different parts of the images. The emphasis is however on the shapes he creates rather than the actual images uses because they become indecipherable when only a little piece of each page shows through. The books says 'Dawson removes the object's original utility, turning a factory processed artifact (the book and the magazines) back into a man-made object.' I think this is a perfect way to describe what he does. I really like these pieces because the collage translates well to sculpture, and these are virtually sculptures. This has shown me that I could feasibly complete a sculptural piece as the final piece for this project and that it might be more interesting than a simply flat collage.

Leslie Shows http://leslieshows.com/

This artists uses various materials including collaged images to create 'frozen, depopulated landscapes.' I think this is a really unusual way of reusing magazine images for a different purpose, although it is almost impossible to recognise the images. But that is probably the aim of the piece. I also could possibly use collected images to create an abstract landscape or scenic setting like this one, but maybe make it more figurative, and the magazine pictures more obvious.

Sheena Macrae http://www.sheenamacrae.com/v2/home/index.php

This artist has condensed long films/TV series into pieces lasting a few minutes. The artist amplifies certain important images and makes others very transparent to create a short representation of the film/series. This is a really interesting interpretation of the collage medium. This is a great way to summarise a long piece of film. I don't think I want to make a 'film collage' like this one because I am already completing a video for another project, but it is still an interesting idea to consider and will still possibly influence my work.

Claire Harvey http://claireharvey.net/

This piece is an interesting way of completing a collage called 'Easily Removable People'. Here the artist has traced over some magazine images of people doing menial, solitary, everyday actions on to scotch tape and acetate and then layered then together on a white wall to create what is in essence still a collage. The people are easily removable in that they are attached with tape and also that because they were not interacting with anyone in the images, they could be easily removed from their surroundings and isolated. I really like this piece because although it does use magazine/newspaper images as a starting point it takes it further and develops it into something much more interesting. Plus it is just such a great concept.

Layla Curtis http://www.laylacurtis.com/work/display/2-collage



This artist collages different scaled maps to create easily recognisable land masses, that at first glance appear to be correct but on closer inspection are completely wrong. For example, the map of the world shown above is actually made from squares of an American topographical map to vaguely set out the continents as we know them. I think this is a really fascinating idea and although I'm sure artists have used maps in their work before, I don't think I've ever since then used to make completely unique maps.

Phillip Estund http://phillipestlund.com/

This artists uses juxtaposed magazine images to create plays on scale and perspective. Mixing vast open spaces with with domestic images in this way produces abstract and surreal compositions. I really like this subtle method of collage and think it generates a much more interesting outcome than a simple montage of images. I would love to try out this idea myself and see if it leads my project anywhere.

Sarah Bridgland http://www.sarahbridgland.com/index.html

This artist uses vintage images and boxes to create these miniature collage sculpture pieces. They are hectic and somewhat random, but because they are made of paper, they feel very fragile. This work really jumped out at me as innovative and is a great use of vintage ephemera. I would love to complete some work like this and will definitely be trying out some 3D collage ideas.

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Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage

This book although relatively new was not as good as the others as it did not provide any explanation behind the artist's intentions, which meant it was hard to know what the artists were trying to achieve without looking it up online. But I'm still including it as it did have some different and interesting artists to the other two books.

Bill Zindel http://www.billzindel.com/

This artist has used collaged images to create diamonds/gems by using different geometric shaped pieces to portray the facets of the stone. I can't find out the intent of these pieces even from the website, but I do really like the effect of the bright collage and the dull brown paper. It is a really effective method for recreating the look of a diamond/gem. From his website I have also seen that he uses lots of vintage images to create very modern collages. If I could stumble upon a large collection of vintage imagery, I would definitely use it in my work. However, it is very sought after and quite a common occurrence in a lot of collage work, so maybe it would be too cliche.

David Plunkert http://www.spurdesign.com/plunkert/index.html

This artist uses lots of vintage images to create 'couples'. I think this type of character design is quite intriguing, and is not something I would usually draw inspiration from. But it really caught my attention while was looking through the book.  Again, the book or the website give no hints as to the intent behind the pieces, but I think they are good enough pieces on their own without needing any pretentious implications.

Greg Sand http://www.gregsand.net/

This artists uses old photographs of people at graveyards with the people cut out to show printed obituaries layered underneath. I think this idea is really fascinating and the materials used are very thought provoking. It is also very dark compared to alot of the other work in the books have used. I may use this as inspiration as far as I may mix image and text in a similar fashion.

Vincent Pachero http://mudchickenart.com/

This artists work really interested me because he subtracts from magazine images rather than adding them together, the book describes it as 'decollage'. This work really surprised me as I wouldn't have thought it would be classed as collage or included in this book. I will definitely be considering working with this idea myself and incorporating it into my image project.

I am really glad I've completed this book research as it has really help me think of other final outcomes for my project which I would have other wise never thought of. I now plan to complete some more ideas with magazine images, and will be taking all this research into account whilst I do that until I find something that really appeals to me.

Context Project Research

I got a book from the library about video art to do some research for my Context project.

Vito Acconci - Three Adaptation Studies


Vito Acconci - Three Adaptation Studies (1970) by Video_Blog_REWF

Here the artist participates in 3 situations. First, a ball is repeatedly thrown at him whilst he is blindfolded and trying his best to catch it. Secondly, he stares at the camera for a short while and then tips soapy water all over his face and tries his best to keep looking at the camera, even though the soap has obviously made it very uncomfortable to do so. Lastly, he tries desperately to fit his fist in to his mouth.

This video seemed really interesting. From reading the description in the book I thought the video sounded unique, quirky and possibly a little unsettling. But from actually watching the video it makes me very uncomfortable. I think this piece links to what I am planning to do because of the 'series' aspect and also because it is a little different from most video work e.g. it doesn't have a narrative.

Candice Breitz - Mother + Father

(Video can be found here http://www.candicebreitz.net/)

This video is a collection of mother and father figures from six films. The artist has blocked out all the background setting, all other characters and most prop objects. This really draws attention to the principal parental figures. All the 'mother' scenes are grouped together and all the 'father' scenes are grouped together. This is then shown on 6 screens, where speech and image from each film are intermingled to create 2 entirely new narratives, one from the 'mother' and one from the 'father'.

This video instantly jumped out at me because of the material used. I think movies are always a great starting point and are instantly recognisable. Also the method of displaying them on an arc of screens and the way they were played in an almost 'remixed' fashion inspired me to rethink my own display method for my video piece.

Nam June Paik

(No artist website found but here is the next best thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_June_Paik)

For this artist I have looked at his work in general rather than a specific piece because I really like his unusual display methods rather than the actual content. He used a lot of sculpture around the screens to make 'living sculptures' like in his 'Pre-Bell Man' statue. He also attached screens to the ceiling in his piece 'Fish Flies on Sky', forcing the viewer to either awkwardly crane their neck or lie on the floor. This really interests me and I would love to incorporate this sort of  alternative display method into my project.

I feel this research has really helped me think about how I want to display my work, and that I should make it more interesting to try and help my work develop and change in something better.

I now plan to plough ahead with obtaining my footage, making a more detailed storyboard and then devising more interesting display configurations for my video.

Print and Casting Workshop

This week we had two great workshops. First off on Monday was the print workshop. Although I had done some printing before, this time I was shown some more advanced techniques, and we were just allowed to experiment all day. I did a few different ones in different sizes and combined some techniques and had a really good time.

Secondly, we had a casting workshop. I casted a pear using clay, plaster and the final product was made of wax. This was a really useful workshop as it was a new method of casting for me. (I had used alginate before to cast my hands). 

 

Display Project - Trivial Information

I got a really good book called 'Data Flow' from the library all about how data can be displayed in graphic design. It showed me lots of artists that use data as a starting point for a piece of design that I can use as research and inspiration for my 'Display' project. My project outline is:

'Who is Edward Tufte? Create an appropriate display system for some non-statistical, trivial information.' 

Hörður Lárusson (website here.)

This piece of work is a display of how many emails the artist received over a year, as a measure of how much work he did. Each dot represents a day, the bigger the dot the more emails he received. I really like how much the content governs the pattern, and unless you know the meaning behind it, you have no idea what it means.

Shahee Ilyas (website here.)

This piece of work shows different world flags and their colour ratio represented as pie charts. The larger pie chart shows the colour ratio of all the flags combined. Again, this is very ambiguous unless you know the meaning behind the piece. It’s even difficult to recognise each flag when they are only shown this way.

Nicholas Felton (Feltron) (website here.)

This piece is about a yearly report of this designer’s life. It shows quite random and trivial information about him grouped into vague categories. The piece also has a lot of humour. It uses a variety of display methods such as pie charts, graphs and bars. As well as single answer statistics. I really enjoy this piece, and think it would be feasible for me to complete something along these lines for my project, perhaps presented in a booklet or zine format like shown here. This piece is from 2007 and is a little dated so I shall be using his website to look at his more recent pieces for inspiration aswell.

Stefanie Posavec (website here.)

This artist works alot with using information to govern patterns. These two pieces are made by using the words, sentences and chapters from a book. The first is very organic and uses the 'branches' to show chapters and sentences and then the bigger the 'leaf' at the end of the 'branch' the longer the sentence. The second is quite graphic and modern. It uses sentence length to dictate the length of the line, and with every new sentence the line takes a right turn. I realy enjoy both of these pieces and it has shown me a different place where I could get my trivial information from that I had not thought of before.

  Michelle Allard (website here.)

This artists work was right at the back of the book and came with no caption or explanation. So I decided to look them up on the internet. It turns out their work isn't actually based on data, but it is very 'bar-chart' or 'graph' like. I think this work is amazing and it has expanded my horizons so that I am now considering making a sculptural piece to display my trivial information.

So this research has really helped me start thinking about what kind of information I am going to display and how I plan to display it. I also now have the Edward Tufte book recommended in the Field Guide booklet and I will be going through it in a similar fashion very shortly.