The Box: Final Piece

This is the final sequential box images....

The Box (2018) by Zoe Van-de-Velde

Reflection:

The sequence works in terms of what I set out to achieve and although I would shoot these again as I can see how I could make the images have more impact through more precision in the poses. Overall a good sequence which I believe I have put together in a way that exemplifies the message, however my favourite image from this set is the last one..

This has everything I wanted to say inside it, it is a beautiful silent moment that I can go back inside of through looking at this image.

Creating Sequential Images: The Box

As discussed in my last post I am interested in creating that sense of emptiness and feeling of existential crisis therefore my images will be a homage to Klauke using the chair and an empty space, myself as subject and a box. The box is important, Pandora was the first woman on earth created by the Gods according to Greek myth. She was created as a punishment to mankind and was given a box that she was told never to open. Her curiosity got the better of her and she opens the box and all the illness, strife and horror is released upon mankind, however what remained in the box was hope. (greekmythsandgreekmythology.com 2018). The box in my own pictures is perhaps a feeling of Weltschmerz (this translates from German as world-pain/world-weariness) and this in turn is personal despair within the world. 

I began by setting up my chair in my flat against an empty wall and a tripod directly opposite.  I used my Olympus E3 with wide lens (this was due to space constrictions as I did not have the distance for the telephoto lens). I set the aperture to 4.5 to start with, the ISO to 400 as I was indoors and although there was natural light it was slightly dark.  I shot the images in both RAW and jpeg so that I could edit the set, I also shot in black and white but as I also shot in RAW this meant that I had a colour version of each image as I wanted to have the choice of colour or black and white in the final piece. I shot 80 images so that I had a good selection of choices for each part of the sequence. 

I then uploaded these images from my camera onto my desktop and created contact sheets on Photoshop (File-Automate-contact sheet).  Here are the contact sheets of the shoot. 

I was fairly happy with the images technically in terms of composition and light, so then I had to decide how I would like these would be placed together give the affect and message that I wanted to get across.  I wanted to include one with no subject, three with the box and two others.  I made the choices and then worked on putting these together in a simple sequence.  My next post will show the result of these choices. 

Sequential Imagery Research

 Jürgen Klauke

Formalisierung der Langeweile, 1980 - 1981

From the series Formalisierung der Langeweile

c-print, 3 panels,

24 x 20 inch / 60 x 50 cm

Source: Galerie Thomas Zander

Jurgen Klauke is a German artist who uses photography and performance to explore identity, the body and staged photography. His seminal work from 1970s uses his own body as subject and object. These sequential performances use a mixture of minimalism and surrealism to express the human state of mind - whether this is disturbed, bored (as above), depressed, excited, ecstatic or simply about being oneself.

                 

Jürgen Klauke at Guido W. Baudach, Berlin. From the Exhibition Bewegtes Ich (Moving Self) (2017)
Source: Jurgen Klauke-at-guido-w-baudach 

                

Jürgen Klauke at Guido W. Baudach, Berlin. From the Exhibition Bewegtes Ich (Moving Self) (2017)

Source: Jurgen Klauke

Contemporary Art Daily writes in its press release for this show: 'The fundamental themes of Klauke’s work are: the breakdown of human communication, losing the reason for living, the crippling emptiness and boredom of an unfulfilled existence, the suggestive threats to mental and physical identity through the power of the media, and the mechanisation of all areas of life, not excluding the human body. When Klauke does move away from this agenda, at times through irony, he does so to express despair rather than to create distance.' (Contemporary Art Daily 2017). In my own work I am hoping to create some of this sense of communication breaking down, the sense of being very alone in a loud and busy world. The images I am intending to create will I hope have this vibrant sense of emptiness within them.


References
Contemporary Art Daily (2017) Jürgen Klauke at Guido W. Baudach, Berlin [Online] Available from: http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2017/06/jurgen-klauke-at-guido-w-baudach/ (Accessed 29th September 2018)

Galerie Thomas Zander (2018) Jürgen Klauke [Online] Available from: https://www.galeriezander.com/en/artist/juergen_klauke/works (Accessed 29th September 2018)

Welcome to Neoteric Photography

Welcome to my blog.  I am a tutor at DMU International College I am using this blog as an example to students in Art, Design & Media of how to create a blog, to post contextual research and how to explore their own working practices throughout the year.

I will complete the same the work the students have been set as a pedagogical approach to demonstrate how I explore my own working practices in my own area.

I will begin here by discussing a photograph that I have always found makes me smile..

Yves Klein (1960) Leap into the Void
Photographed by Harry Shunk &

János Kender

Source: Met Museum

This image to me is important as it encompasses photography, photomontage and performance art.  This image was created by taking many images, the Met Museum states that; 

'Klein hired the photographers Harry Shunk and Jean Kender to make a series of pictures re-creating a jump from a second-floor window that the artist claimed to have executed earlier in the year. This second leap was made from a rooftop in the Paris suburb of Fontenay-aux-Roses. On the street below, a group of the artist’s friends from held a tarpaulin to catch him as he fell. Two negatives--one showing Klein leaping, the other the surrounding scene (without the tarp)--were then printed together to create a seamless "documentary" photograph. To complete the illusion that he was capable of flight, Klein distributed a fake broadsheet at Parisian newsstands commemorating the event.' (Met Museum 2000-2018)

This picture questions and plays with the idea of the photograph as truth, the artist performed the act of jumping however in his 'real' jump he obviously was caught.  The photograph (a still and beautifully silent creation) is a moment caught that now can remain forever preserved, Klein will endlessly remain suspended in the void, the unknown cyclist to the right of the image will forever also be trapped within the image without knowing that he (in the image) just misses witnessing the leap. The performance a moment, but preserved and recreated forever.  Klein wanted it mass-produced and created a newspaper to do so - perhaps if he had lived in this age he would have created this and then mass-distributed the image through social media or his own blog.  This performative photograph really does embody the values of photography that I find most interesting, it is constructed, performed, created and speaks of the photographic process itself (in this case the photographic film and using more than one negative to create a single image).  

If Klein did blog he would be interested to know that there was a study on Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation that showed that 'preservation was an important issue for photobloggers; most photobloggers would be "miserable or unhappy" if their blogs were accidentally deleted; yet, additional findings of the study revealed that less than half of them take actions to preserve their blogs' (Bushey J. 2013, P200).  Klein wanted to distribute and show his image to as many people as possible and also he would have wanted to preserve and keep this image in its original form (gelatin silver print).  As photographers today we have a duty to preserve and keep our work in an archival format, this image is nearly 60 years old - I am hoping that in 60 years maybe someone will discuss one of my images in a similar way. 

References

Ed. by Farnell G. (2013) The Photograph and The Collection: Create, Preserve, Analyse, Present, Bushey J. Web Albums: Preserving the Contemporary Photo Album, MuseumsEtc Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. 

Met Museum (2000-2018) Heilbrunn: Timeline of Art History, Leap into the Void [Online] Available from: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1992.5112/ (Accessed 23rd September 2018)