Project Progress: The End Times

 As can be seen from my previous posts I have been working on the concept of end times for photographs and paintings.  So far I have completed research on expressionism, the end times and I have begun on more specific research for the pictures I have planned such as the maniacal laughter and the 'lustmord' idea from Otto Dix. These test shots have shown that I still need more work on the maniacal laughter and I was reminded of the image by Jeff Wall 'Dead Troops Talk' (1992) 

Dead Troops Talk (1992) Jeff Wall

The depicted scene is clearly fiction: it shows us dead soldiers who seem to talk and joke with one another. This was a staged image that was created in a studio with the soldiers being photographed separately and then put together through digital montage. For that reason, Susan Sontag referred to this image as the' opposite of a document'  in 2012, his work Dead Troops Talk fetched $3,666,500 at Christie’s, New York, making it the third most expensive photograph ever sold at auction.

This black humour is what I wanted to capture in the images, it is almost hysterical, on the brink of death laughter that I want to show.  This has been quite a challenge to achieve in photos and in drawing - so I will keep working on this.

For the other images I am still deciding on the content but I may use food as the one thing we now do is eat at home always so something surrounding these solitary meals.  Also, something to do with sleep as now we live in a state of anxiety sleep is most definitely disturbing. 

I may consider the whole project as about disturbance and this is what I might call the end collection. 

References

Sontag S. (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others, Penguin Books Ltd. London

CBS News (08/05/2012) Jeff Wall Photograph sells for a record 3.6 million [Online] Available from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/jeff-wall-photograph-sells-for-record-3-6m-us-1.1205822#

(Accessed 17/02/21)

Collective Work

 In class today we worked on a collective piece. We all had to use the following description to make an image: 

'You can see a face it is a man's face, grizzly and marked, his mouth is but a black slit and his hair a nest of dirty matted strands, his eyes are emerald green, piercing and shining, looking right at you, seeing into you…’ 

This is my image ...

I will add the collective work when it is complete!

Please find collective work from the class here: 

Maniacal Laughing: Test

 I was discussing the laughter in previous posts now I wanted to test it out so I could work out how this would look.  I used my Olympus Stylus SH-2 again with the film grain filter as I still want these to look gritty.  These are just some quick test shots. Just one contact sheet 

Here are a couple of the ones I might try to use for studies for a painting.

Settings: F3, 1/20 ISO 800 FL4mm

I blackened my eyes so that they would slightly more disturbing.  

Settings: F3, 1/20 ISO 800 FL4mm

In these two the top one I think I look insane and unhinged and this is what I wanted to capture - these shots are a good first test of the look and expression I am trying to create - I will shoot these again but as a first test I feel I am getting somewhere ...

Disturbance: Experimentation

 After the last post with my test shots, I have experimented with mixed media using the photograph.  I mounted the photograph on canvas board (just using mounting spray).  Then I used the monochrome colour palette shown on my folio board to experiment with the medium.  Below is the original shot and then the mixed media piece.

I liked the idea of disturbance and a more painful look to the image so I created cuts to the legs and the hand appears bloody.  

Death is a disturbance to those looking at it, as is pain and this is what is expressed here.  Kiefer often used photographs, mixed media and incorporated writing into his works here is an early piece from the 1960s. 

Anselm Kiefer (circa 1960s)

'In his series 'Occupations' Keifer immediately challenges the viewer to ponder once again the incomprehensible horror of the Nazi era; in the flamboyance of the Nazi 'Sieg Heil' he spares neither the viewer nor himself since he serves as the model for the saluting figure (as above)' (Kiefer A. 1987)

This idea of shaking the viewer and the artist through the work is something that I wanted to explore here.  Obviously Kiefer's work has the weight of history, the pain of the millions at its heart ...

References 

Kiefer A. (1987) Anselm Kiefer. Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA

Media & Art: Test Shots

 I wanted to experiment first with the look of the photos I will be creating which essentially will be a study for the paintings so following my folio board I was working on this look  'Lustmord' (1922) by Otto Dix  

'Lustmord' (1922) by Otto Dix  

This is my first contact sheet - I checked the light and then shot these in black and white.  I used a film grain filter so that they had a gritty look to them.  To take these I used my Olympus Stylus SH-2 and tripod. I took these in the morning so I would get as much natural light from the window as possible.

I was trying to get the look of death but with covid restrictions - so here are the two that I thought best did this:

Settings: FL 4.5mm, 1/60, F3, ISO 125

Settings: FL 4.5mm, 1/80, F3, ISO 125

The second shot here is more successful in that it is closer and get the whole body in the shot - I like the overexposure in the background as this concentrates the viewer on the body.  I think these have some potential and I will shoot again using a different camera to see if I can create a different, maybe darker scene - however death happens even in sunshine so there is something to that.  

I will be exploring this again through sketches and experiments but this is one of the pieces I want to use in the final portfolio as I had been thinking about these shots for some time and I do think they are expressing the concept as I had envisioned.

Executing the End Times: Folio Board

 As my previous post explained I am exploring laughter, the laughter of the end times and so I created a development folio board that shows some of my sketches and ideas 

On the board here I have been working on expressionist style and then I have worked on the images so that they are laughing, I want to develop the laughing images further and the ones with face masks which I have used here on the copy of the Otto Dix image.  There is much more to do but this helped me to find the style and direction I wanted my images to take.  

Yue Minjun: Maniacal Laughter

 Yue Minjun Yue Minjun (b. 1962, Heilongjiang, China) became famous after creating the piece Execution (1995) showing the laughing protesters as they were about to be executed.  

Yue Minjun, Execution (1995) 

This idea of laughter is obviously not because we think it is hilarious, it the maniacal laughter when we face death.  This art has been term 'cynical realism' 

Yue Minjun, Armed Forces, 2009

Sigmund Freud created 'Relief Theory'  on why we laugh.  The basis of this theory is that it relieves nervous energy in us, it saves psychic energy, excess of energy is released by laughing and that dreams and humour allow us to enjoy pleasure unconsciously. (Eightron 2021)

Yue Minjun, Noah’s Ark

George Bataille also considered laughter an important philosophy and equated it with the 'the violence of spasmodic joy lies deep in my heart.  This violence, at the same time, and I tremble as I say it, is the heart of death: it opens itself up to me!

The ambiguity of this human life is really that of mad laughter and of sobbing tears.  It comes from the difficulty of harmonising reason's calculations with these tears ...with this horrible laugh' (Bataille 1989)

There is an idea that it is difficult to recognise the difference between tears of laughter and tears in facial expression.  The image below is the photographer Oscar Rejlander who worked with Charles Darvin on photographic illustrations for his books. Darwin knew many photographers as he had been photographed by many of them and he legitimized using photographs instead of the drawing and engravings in scientific books.  Darwin wanted to recognise emotions and so created a book called The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animal (1872) 'Darwin spent years collecting and studying photographs and paintings of the various emotions. He corresponded at length with zookeepers, photographers, illustrators, and even the directors of mental institutions (he felt mental patients exhibited ‘unrestrained emotions’ that would make good examples), obtaining photographs and illustrations to use in his book.' (Cicala R. 27/02/2021) 

  

Rejlander laughing and crying beside “Ginx’s baby”. Stero card, 1872 or 1873.

So why the fascination with laughter, I am fascinated by the philosophy of laugher and my work on the end times I want to incorporate that end of world laughter that we see here.  It is not laughing in face of death, it perhaps laughing despite death or perhaps just that death itself is a blessed relief.  I hope that I can feel the joy and ecstasy of laughter through this work...

References

Projects Eightron (11/02/2021) Laughter [Online] Available from https://projects.eightron.net/laughter/theory3.php (Accessed (11/02/2021)

Laura (2007) If its hip, it's here: The Magnificient Smile of Yue Minjun [Online] Available from https://www.ifitshipitshere.com/yue-minjun-smile-art (Accessed (11/02/2021)

Batialle G (1989) The Tears of Eros. City Lights Books. San Francisco

Cicala R. (27.02.2012) Lensrentals: Six Degrees of Charles Darwin, and Rejlander’s Last Laugh. [Online] Available from: https://wordpress.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/11/six-degrees-of-charles-darwin-and-rejlanders-last-laugh/ (Accessed (11/02/2021)