Day Three: Discussing Transformational Projects

Today I have been looking at research for my project and as I had quite a few books to discuss I have made a small film.  Hope you enjoy...

The books that I discussed in the film are here: 

I made the film using Olympus OM-D 10 Mark II - enjoying this camera!  I edited the video on Movie Maker on Windows so it was a very straightforward process - I have uploaded to youtube as blogger was struggling with the size of the video.  Although I am not keen on my voice or face on film this is a really good way to discuss the information for this project and talk about research and why it is important. 

References

Nott C.S (1965) Teaching of Gurdjieff: An Account of Some Years With G. I Gurdjieff and A.R Orage in New York and at Fountainebleu-Avon, Routeledge & Kegan Paul, London

Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001) Crossway, Illinois, United Staes of America

Perec G. (1997) The Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Penguin Books Limited, Middlesex, England

Ono Y (1995) Instruction Paintings, Weatherhill, Tokyo & New York

Calle S. (1999) Double Game, Violette Ltd, London 

Calle S. (2003) M'as-tu Vue? (Did you see me?), Prestel Verlag, London

Day Two: Before Work Yoga/Poses for Anxiety/Stress

Today before work I completed a couple of poses and made polaroids of these - I will add these later as I left them at work!

This evening I did poses for anxiety/stress as part of the idea was to create a more calm me..

curious mind magazine yoga poses beginners anxiety stress relief

I did these poses and they did make me feel calmer and more relaxed I am going to try to do these on a daily basis.  The article that was with these poses states;
'Harvard Medical School writes about the way yoga supports mental health. Namely, when we practice yoga, our heart rate slows down and we breathe more easily. One study even proved that yoga practitioners have higher pain tolerance as a result of practicing yoga.' (Williams E. 2015)

I like the improved breathing as I used to practice yoga tranquillising breathes quite often as these really did used to make a difference.  Looking into this further I found the breaths that used to help me and these are called Nadi Shodhana Pranayama (Alternate-Nostril Breathing) and these breathes should help to lower blood pressure and studies show that these had an effect within seven days.

Here is a visual guide to the technique it should be repeated 3-5 times 

Alternate nostril breathing

I am going to practice these before bed...good night and sweet dreams everyone..

References 

Williams E. (2015) Curious Mind Magazine Yoga Poses for Anxiety & Stress Relief [Online] Availabel from: https://curiousmindmagazine.com/yoga-poses-beginners-anxiety-stress-relief/ (Accessed 12th April 2019)

Levine J. (17th June 2015) Yoga Journal 5 Pranayama Techniques With the Power to Transform Your Practice—& Your Life [Online] Available From: https://www.yogajournal.com/practice/importance-breath-yoga (Accessed 12th April 2019)

Day One: Work Yoga!

Everyone, as promised the first day of my challenge with my first yoga exercises recorded.  As I was at work and I needed to make sure I fitted it in I went to the Clephan Life Drawing Studio and did my yoga poses there.  It was very uplifting - perhaps not relaxing as it had to be fitted in between things but it certainly was good for me! 

Here is the shots of me doing the yoga I used interval shooting on my Olympus Stylus SH-2 it is one of the features I really like as I can do things and it just shoots at intervals.

Hope you enjoy!

30 Day Challenge; A Transformative Project

After my last post I have chosen the route I would like to take in terms of development and I have chosen to complete a 30 day yoga challenge.  I have chosen this as I started do yoga when I was a teenager as I was picked on at school.  Doing yoga every morning used to really help to calm me down and make me feel happier. Now many many years later I find that although I walk aa lot, have a vegan diet (for 30 years) and am not too unhealthy.  I do have quite a hectic life which has caused me some stress and I think that this would actually counteract some of this and I think I can make this into a project using film, photography and text.

Yoga Pose

I think to complete this project I have to use in the manner of Sophie Calle.  Calle uses rules for each of her art pieces that she follows strictly as stated here; 

'SOPHIE CALLE: The rules of the game are always very strict. In Take Care of Yourself I asked the participants to answer professionally, to analyze a breakup letter that I had received from a man. The parameters were fixed. For example, I wanted the grammarian to speak about grammar—I wanted to play with the dryness of professional vocabulary. I didn’t want the women expressing sentiment for me. Except maybe my mother . . .' (Neri 07/03/09)

My project rules will be as follows:

To complete at least 10 minutes of Yoga every day
Aim to increase the time over the four weeks to at least 30 minutes
To document each day through a diary
To engage in Guerilla yoga at least three times (more of this later)
To use photos and film to document the process
To complete a portfolio of these documents

I will use basic wheel of yoga foundations, I will not do cat yoga, llama yoga, hot yoga etc!

Wheel of Yoga

I will use a diary and will post pages here and keep documenting progress and further research here.  I am hoping this project will create a daily discipline and will be creative as a artistic transformational project ....

References

Neri L. (7th March 2009) Interview Magazine, Sophie Calle [Online] Available From: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/sophie-calle (Accessed 09/04/19)

Welcome to the New Term- Object Lesson & 20 Ideas

The new term has begun and I aim to create a project that I actually get to finish this time!!! We started in class with 20 ideas in 20 minutes....



I also created in my second lesson through the Object Lesson on Milanote this board...my object was a spiky blue ball!



As you can see this one inspired me to look at the mountains of Peru, the images of Casper David Friedrich and ideas of the sublime and transformation.

I reflected on both my ideas pieces and both included an idea of transformation or causing change. In my first piece 20 ideas there was the idea of a 30 day challenge and recording this or something similar and the idea of chance/fate/free will and consequences. I think all these ideas may come together to begin something. Therefore I will begin by researching these ideas ....

Carl Jung was a swiss psychologist (1875-1961) who was interested in symbols, dreams and myths and how they entered our unconscious. he believed that by analysing our dreams we would understand ourselves better and our own motivations. He thought that there was a series of archetypes that could be interpreted





'Jung looked at areas of the mind that constitute the psyche, and the way in which they influenced one another. He distinguished the persona, or the image of ourselves that we present to the world, from our shadow, which may be comprised of hidden anxieties and repressed thoughts. Jung also noted the relationship between our personal unconscious, which contains an individual's personal memories and ideas, and a collective unconscious, a set of memories and ideas that is shared amongst all of humanity. Shared concepts, which Jung described as archetypes, permeate the collective unconscious and emerge as themes and characters in our dreams and surface in our culture - in myths, books, films and paintings, for example.' (psychologistsworld.com: 2019)

What is interesting and useful about this is perhaps using this idea to really use my own dreams and find my own archetypes and make photographs of these. 

Many have thought that dreams could somehow be captured take this image by Commandant Darget taken of his wife's forehead whilst she was sleeping using a photographic plate - he really thought that he had captured her dream state through the image.

Photographie du Reve L'Aigle by Commandant Darget

Dreams are unconscious and random and only some dreams are lucid - which means that that you may be able to control the dream while you sleep.  Here again we are between the elements of chance and the elements of control over life, fate and consequences.

Just as an end point to this post I also looked up 30 day challenges and similar like this one 'embracing the simple' and I will look further into this as I do think that this has all the right elements for a project that I can clearly document and us.  I will develop this idea further in my next post with a small practice run!

References

Psychologists World (2019) Carl Jung: Archetypes and Analytical Psychology [Online] Available From: https://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/carl-jung-analytical-psychology (Accessed 7th April 2019)

Gabbatiss J. (17/01/17) The Man who tried to Photograph Thoughts and Dreams [Online] Available From: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170116-the-man-who-tried-to-photograph-thoughts-and-dreams (Accessed 7th April 2019)

Cohut M (14/09/18) Medical News Today: Controlling the Stories of Sleep [Online] Available from:  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323077.php (Accessed 7th April 2019)

Tiplea C. (23/05/16) Embracing The Simple Blog: Fifteen 30 Day Challenges [Online] Available From: http://embracingsimpleblog.com/fifteen-30-day-challenge-ideas-will-change-life/ (Accessed 7th April 219

Reflection

As I could not complete the actual rendering of the altar pieces I will have to find a way next term to work on a more continuous project that is more timely.  I still want to continue working on the altar pieces but these will have to be done over a longer period of time.

Camille Leherpeur, Recklessness-Altarpiece

I will look further into more modern altarpieces such as this one above and see if there are further experiments I can make to explore these ideas....

Taking a Walk...

I was taking a walk to the pub on Friday night to meet friends and as I live in town I had deliberately taken a route to avoid all street life that I might be accosted by as otherwise I often find myself relieved of money and cigarettes prior to reaching my destination.  I was nearly there when a very intense man appeared in front of and asked my if I knew if Jesus had died to save me...

I was rather late for my appointment as he insisted on speaking to me about hell and how sinful my life was and if I had been to hell I also would be there preaching too - in the end he gave me a leaflet and a bible as even though I said I had read it I don't think he believed me and insisted I take it - here it is below - The English Standard Version

I wouldn't normally tell this story here however I had to arrive at a pub carrying a bible and leaflets about Jesus and apologize to my friends for being late as usual...I thought perhaps though it is interesting that this man feels a profound need to preach the word of God and I wondered if he had perhaps glimpsed hell and that was why he was standing there.  I know this is a digression but I it did make me think further about my Mary Magdalene project - in my next posts I will show you the development and sketches I have made in preparations for my photographs...