Sequential Images: Ideas & Research

 After practicing creating sequential images, I began thinking of my own ideas for a sequence.  I was interested in the work of Gurdjieff and his 'movements'.  Gurdjieff was a spiritual thinker, philosopher, composer., mystic, and teacher.  Gurdjieff'sofficial site states; 'George Ivanovich Gurdjieff startled the European intelligentsia with a comprehensive psychological, philosophical, and cosmological teaching of ancient origin. He seemed to be stepping into the 20th century from another era, bringing with him wisdom that had been all but lost in the floods of time.' (Gurdjieff, n.d.).  Below you can see an example of his sacred dance and the kind of movements that he believed brought spiritual enlightenment and transformation.  I find the movements quite hynotic and thought that these sequences within the dance would really work as inspiration for my own piece. 

Gurdjieff Sacred Dance: Canon of Seven (2020) South Korea

I would like to create a series of still images that represent these movements, so I created a small storyboard of the images I would like to create.  I intend to take these using an Olympus DSLR or fixed lens camera.  I will use the concrete stairways with white distressed walls in my apartment building as I think this will work with the movements I intend to recreate in my own sequence. I will probably shoot these in black and white as some of the earlier Gurdjieff films in black and white have a look that I would like to try to emulate. 

Considering further how I will create my piece I looked at Jürgen Klauke as he has works such as Philosophie der Sekonde (1976) which explores movement through the use of a slow shutter speed

Philosophie der Sekonde (1976) Jürgen Klauke 

The movement here explores identity and expression and use of the inverted triangle as a presentation method draws the viewers' attention through the journey through the shape created here. Klauke, through his work, pushed the boundaries of staged photography and art and photography through his conceptual pieces; 'While most other artists worked within the traditional framework of photographic practice, Klauke developed large formats independently and implemented his ideas in large-format image sequences.' (Galerie Guido W. Baudach, 2017)

The Human Face in the Mirror of Sociological-Nervous Processes

(1977) by Jürgen Klauke

In the work above 'The Human Face in the Mirror of Sociological-Nervous Processes' Klauke explore identity again with the idea that a Priest and a Murder can look the same and that we are perhaps many identities.  Klauke himself played with gender and identity throughout this work; '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.' (Galerie Guido W. Baudach, 2017) I very much like here the works that express a kind of boredom with existence and that physical identity is restraining and the message it communicates is usually unrelated the the feeling person inside.

In my next post, I will show the creation of my images and my final piece for this project.

References

Gurdjieff (n.d.). George Gurdjieff | 20th Century Mystic | Be Community. [online] https://ggurdjieff.com/. Available at: https://ggurdjieff.com/ [Accessed 2 Oct. 2024].

Galerie Guido W. Baudach (2017). Jürgen Klauke: Bewegtes Ich at Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin. [online] GalleriesNow.net. Available at: https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/jurgen-klauke-bewegtes-ich/ [Accessed 2 Oct. 2024].

Klauke, J. (2022). Jürgen Klauke, Das menschliche Antlitz im Spiegel soziologisch-nervöser Prozesse, 1977. [online] Lenbachhaus.de. Available at: https://www.lenbachhaus.de/digital/sammlung-online/detail/das-menschliche-antlitz-im-spiegel-soziologisch-nervoeser-prozesse-30013612 [Accessed 2 Oct. 2024].

ApertureDigital (2016). Jürgen Klauke: Transformer | Aperture. [online] Aperture. Available at: https://aperture.org/editorial/jurgen-klauke-transformer/ [Accessed 2 Oct. 2024].