REVERSE ENGINEERED CINEMA?

Idea development to remember. Big apparatus and screen but tiny projection to reverse the cinema experience to that of one viewer. Question the notion of cinema going etc.

GW: DOCU-DRAMA AND DRAMA DOCUMENTARY

I am experimenting with documentary form and modes I the documentary but also with the type of documentary I am making. In Sarah Casey Benyahia's excellent book Film & TV Dcoumentary she outlines the different types.

These are not to be mistaken for Nichols 6 Modes (Expository, Observational, Participatory, Reflexive, Performative and Poetic), which I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog. I am using a variety of these in my piece to construct my narrative and message. These modes, are defined with reference to documentary techniques rather than subject matter like their feature film counterparts.

Types of documentary are more like sub-genres of documentary and have a great breadth and depth from direct (fly on the wall) cinema to docu soaps about airports for example through to reality TV and shows like Big Brother. the two types or sub-genres that interest me for my current piece though are drama documentary and docu drama.

The Global Warmning piece I am creating is a move away from my last piece where the creativity was in the marriage of aesthetic style and ideology. The creativity in the Global Warmning piece is in the content and the storytelling less on the creative aesthetics and stylistics. What will be more important is the mimicry and use of the codes and conventions of the modes to create pieces that feel like types of documentary that the audience are familiar with.

The Global Warmning piece is going the a fictionalised piece but it will be grounded in fact. I am creating imaginary characters, narrative and events but these will be grounded in fact and interlaced with real events and characters referenced throughout. It will be a combination of pieces of filmed content to build this multimedia narrative including a TV News package, possibly online Vlogs and an interview to tell the story in unison.

So I am working in the realm of a hybrid of the docu-drama which uses documentary form to tell an invented but plausible story and drama-documentary which is based on real events but uses conventional fictional forms (scripts, actors, narrative and structure) to tell the story. I need the audience to feel that the documentaries are right so an excellent understanding of the form is essential. I decided to look again at the documentary modes and to see how I could use them in the construct of my Global Warmning piece.

Below I have outlined the codes and conventions of these two types of documentary to help me understand how to utilze and mirror their codes and conventions in my work

DRAMA DOCUMENTARY
Definition: A dramatised television programme or film based on real events. They use documentary techniques and interviews alongside narrative techniques such as re-enactments. They are basically a documentary with some use of fictional film storytelling techniques.

• Dramatic Documentary
• Uses conventional documentary techniques (interviews etc..)
• Combines these techniques with narrative techniques, such as reconstructions to engage and attract its audience.
• These techniques can help the documentary deliver its message
• Verisimilitude is incredibly important to make the reconstructions look authentic.

Examples of drama documentary include Touching the Void (Kevin MacDonald, 2003), and very recently Tower (Keith Maitland 2016)

DOCU-DRAMA

Definition: A television programme whose story is based on an event or situation that really happened, even though it is not intended to be accurate in every detail. It is technically a narrative piece of cinema but uses documentary stylistics. They are basically a fictional film that draws upon factual source material but dramatise it.

• Documentary Style Drama
• Technically a narrative piece of cinema but shot in the style of a documentary
• Can use the same conventions as a documentary film (hand-held camera work, interviews etc…)
• Verisimilitude is key to create a realistic environment for the film.

Examples of doc drama include Battle of the Algiers (Gillo Pnotcorvo, 1966) All the Presidents Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976), Cathy Come Home (Ken Loach, 1966) and very recently Spotlight (Thomas McCarthy, 2015)

SARA PROJECT: ART WALKS POST-PRODUCTION

With all of the footage from the shoots on location and from the studio at my disposal I set about editing a test clip of the piece.

As there were several layers workflow was important so I started in Permiere Pro and cut all of the clips. Firstly the shots with audio and picture of Sara shot on a green-screen in the studio a variety of sizes. Then I edited the images of the footage that was shot on location and found clips that reflected what Sara was talking about that were the right length to match the variety of shot sizes talking about the stage of the walk.

From previous attempts in After Effects where I was going to composite the images and sound this was the best way to do it in tracks all then individually exported. This made sure all the timings on all of the pieces of content were the right length and this is easier to do in Premiere than After Effects.

Next I imported them into After Effects where I composited them all together. This is always a time consuming and fiddly job especially as i am still learning the software although I have grasped the basics. It involved lots of scaling, re-framing, animation paths to get it right so was process heavy.

Once all of this was done it was then the creative tuning. Inverted titles with images underneath, backgrounds, opacity,  grading and effects on the footage. This was trial and error as it needed something to marry the images on location and the studio green screen elements. I tried a multitude of colours, textures and filters but I am still not all that happy with the result.

 Overall the piece seems a little flat perhaps due to Saras delivery but it also looks a little too 80's TV. There is a style in there but I have not nailed it yet and it seems a little cheesy and not in keeping with mine or Saras original intentions. I have included area I think need developing if we decide to take the piece forward.

SARA TEST STUFF BEST from Jon Saward on Vimeo.

Things to consider moving forward.

• Greater clarification of the intentions of the piece. Jane Jacobs, walks in general or Saras walk specifically as this is a little confused.
• More grading and time spent refining..
• Smoothing out of the images and backgrounds a little contrasty.
• More footage shot backgrounds, pieces of work against the green screen etc.
• Sara does come across a little cold more coaching in delivery as she is not a presenter.
• Quotes work OK but need more.
• Graphics style close but too clunky and 80's TV the elements need refining.

JANET CARDIFF: 40 PART MOET

Janet Cardiff: 40 Part Motet (2001)

40 Part Motet by Janet Cardiff is a audio only piece installation but is almost structural too in it's presentation on  a multitude of speakers. 14 minute 40 track immersive contemporary sound installation playing polyphonic choral music written in the mid-1500s by Thomas Tallis.  The installation consists of 40 speakers arranged in a large oval turned inward. Sung in Latin and a cappella by the Salisbury Cathedral Choir, one singer’s voice comes from each speaker. The audience are allowed to move amongst the configuration of speakers to discover what the artist describes as “walking into a piece of music.”

I wrote about the piece in earlier posts when unfortunately I had to do it from reviews and not from being able to experience it myself. However the piece was on exhibition at the Tate Modern

Reviews of the piece include “Achingly beautiful” by the New Yorker and “Transcendent” by the New York Times. Even from the video clip below you can get a sense of the immersive qualities and impact of the piece. I love the way that it is also structural with the 40 speakers and can only guess at the tech needed to create the installation.

As far as installation audio pieces go it is reminiscent of Nam June Paiks early works where in order for video art to be more pallet able to the gallery curators more structural video installations paved the way which combined sculpturesque qualities with the vide art work. The all embracing immersive quality of the piece is also a really interesting idea. Cardiff says ‘I am interested in how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space.’ Sung in Latin, the first line ‘Spem in alium nunquam habui …’ translates as ‘I have never put my hope in any other but in you, O God of Israel’. Although Tallis wrote his music for a Christian setting, Cardiff has shown her audio installation in a variety of spaces, both religious and secular. The artist is interested in the ways in which music can evoke different emotions.



It is these last two points that I will take forward to my piece the immersiveness and the uses of multiple speakers. I want to use multiple tracks of music so could a similar technique be used to move the different music one piece to the next around the room thus directing their focus and attentions and interpretations of the piece.

DAVID HOCKNEY: THE FOUR SEASONS

In 2010 Hockney began making multi-screen video works by fixing a nine cameras to the outside of a vehicle which was then driven along a road at Woldgate, near Bridlington, Yorkshire. Each camera had a slightly different viewpoint that was to correspond to a screen in the completed work and he filmed over the four seasons capturing them all. The effect exploits the notions of Cubism explored in his earlier photomontage works all showing different aspects of the same scene but this time incorporating time and movement for the audience.  The images perspective, angles and shots overlap so when viewed as individual screens it makes some sort of sense but in its full complement of 9 screens per season it creates a bizarre wholeness. The videos explore the way a subject is seen over time but obviously also celebrate the miracle of the seasons.

The film was originally designed to be shown in sequence but later he reconfigured them as a four wall immersive experience encompassing the audience from the north, south east and west.

I found the piece incredible fascinating. the mix of time, movement perspective but the same subject and place mesmerising. It is indeed immersive and the feeling of being surrounded by the screens both enveloping and confusing due to the whichever way you looked you were missing a screen. I liked this choose how to consume conundrum for the audience though. Do you consume one screen at a time, walk around partaking in them all

• Consider resurrecting my own multi screened idea made up from TV screens and a sculptural tree but showing the four seasons reflected in its structure on the screens.
• The immersive experience was really invigorating and a great method of dissemination. It really made the audience interact with the piece. I may experiment again with multi-screened immersive installations for some of my work.
• Possibly use the technique but shoot a subject from multiple angles and shot sizes at the same time (ECU, CU, MCU, MS) but saying the same thing to show the different facets of their characters . This could then be shown on four big screens enveloping the viewer like Hockneys Four seasons and then letting the audience be their own director and choose which which screen to watch. This is also a bit like Ugo Rondinone's THANX 4 NOTHING, at the infinite mix.

DAVID HOCKNEY: PORTRAITS

Throughout his career Hockney created portraits although as opposed to many artists most often these were of couples or two subjects. Their composition, proxemics, staging and colours attempting to show the relationships between the characters.

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) 1972

The storytelling in the image is huge and the anguish, solitude and isolation of the characters is exquisite. Separated by water, look (familiar profiled figure), tone, composition, clothing and foreground and background shape a line. Is the character under water free or constricted, is the character looking forlornly on wanting to be the character or projecting a possible underwater fate? The paining is loaded with meaning and emotion. Painted at the time of their break up Hockney's then boyfriend the artist Peter Schlesinger looks on at Hockney's assistant swimming underwater. The composition and profile look of the main character of the portrait using proxemics and profile staging position to alienate the viewer somewhat leaving the subject unaware of being observed and lost in their own thoughts. These are techniques I can employ in my own work.

American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman) 1968

This picture has the clean lines, pure blue LA sky and sparse composition of much of Hockney's work of the period. Surrounded by a few sculptural pieces from their collection the couple are apart and distanced and separated composed almost as statues themselves. It has the one character in profile one straight on used in a lot of his portraits. They are held together in the frame but it portrays them more as two individuals rather than as a couple. The colour and composition are fascinating.

Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy 1968

Similar to the above "Collectors" in terms of sparseness and composition the characters are held together in the frame but it portrays them more as two individuals rather than as a couple. This separation is a techniques that could readily be applied to my own work. Even in a green screen shoot and two chairs to add an artificial background relevant to the subjects. Split screen possibilities too.

Henry Geldzaher and Christopher Scott 1969

Again the composition is fascinating and follows the full on and profile composition of Hockney's double portraits. In this paining though the composition definitely favours Geldzahers seated figure as Scott looks forlornly almost on much like Peter Schlesinger in Portrait of an Artist mentioned earlier.

My Parents 1977

A much more sympathetic composition allowing more closeness to Hockney's parents but still allowing that degree of separation depicting them as individuals but a couple. Hockney's mother appears to have the strength in the relationship as she is afforded the intimate full on gaze inviting out intimacy. His dad is not quite in profile but between this and three-quarter making him a little more accessible but given a book prop to look at to allow his lack of engagement and distracted pose.

The five works above helped me to consider a different approach to shooting a documentary echoing the together but alienated style of these paintings. The use of proxemics and staging position one character full front offering the viewer intimacy and inviting complicity with them. Then the second in profile making this subject more remote, unaware of being looked at and lost in their own thoughts. This could be re-created and applied to filming interviews with two characters in a manipulated frame sometimes both in the original frame sometimes a composite of two halves of the same frame shot at different times to create this isolation. they could talk about each other in the same frame aware that the other person it there but also independently to see how their revelations may differ.

What I have learnt and will take forward.

• The use of proxemics and profile staging position to alienate the viewer somewhat leaving the subject unaware of being observed and lost in their own thoughts. These are techniques I can employ in my own work.
• Consider a different approach to shooting a documentary echoing Hockney's portraits of couples together but alienated. The use of proxemics and staging position one character full front offering the viewer intimacy and inviting complicity with them. Then the second in profile making this subject more remote, unaware of being looked at and lost in their own thoughts. This could be re-created and applied to filming interviews with two characters in a manipulated frame sometimes both in the original frame sometimes a composite of two halves of the same frame shot at different times to create this isolation. they could talk about each other in the same frame aware that the other person it there but also independently to see how their revelations may differ.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/david-hockney

JOHN AKOMFRAH: THE UNFINISHED CONVERSATION 2012

In a visit to the Tate Modern I had the good fortune to experience The Unfinished Conversation 2012 is a three-screen installation by British artist, filmmaker and writer John Akomfrah. The piece explores the multi-layered and evolving subject of cultural identity and investigates how this identity can be seen as a product of history and memory rather than something fixed.

The installation is based on the personal archive of the influential and acclaimed cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1932–2014), who described identity and ethnicity as being the subject of an "ever-unfinished conversation". Unfolding over three screens, Akomfrah’s film shows Hall talking about his discovery of a personal and political identity. Identifying with Hall, Akomfrah said: "To hear Stuart Hall speak about what it is to be different in society … gave you a sense not simply of self, but of agency, of what you could do with your life."

It start with Halls early years in Jamaica before arriving in Britain as a student in 1951. It then follows Hall through to 1968 Hall when he became one of the founding figures of the new left political movement, a key architect of cultural studies and one of Britain’s foremost public intellectuals.

Akomfrah uses a wide range and variety of material alongside archival footage of Hall, interweaving his biography with historical events, readings and music. These include references to artists and writers such as William Blake, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf and Mervyn Peake, as well as jazz and gospel music, and news footage from the 1960s and 1970s. This creates a rich tapestry that are all expertly interwoven across the three screens seamlessly showing the randomness of building ones identity when jazz footage and music appears next to archive footage boats arriving from Jamaica. The two complement each other but are at the same time juxtaposed but linked in that they are both very important aspects and influences of Halls life and the music and voice over is the glue that holds all of this together. This captures the essence that the central character is not just one thing but also a tapestry of connections, overlaps and that "identities are formed at he intersections of the political and the personal".

The presentation and use of three screens enhances this as it creates this multi-faceted approach in that one thing cannot define a character and halls own ideas of identity being not fixed but a product of a varied history and memories. The screens are all embraced by the same soundtrack and voice over not individual ones and this binds them together. The images are generally archive footage that whilst all obviously compete are never individually so invigorating that you feel you are missing out and allow the eye to meander and the viewer to form their own documentary. It examines the nature of the visual as triggered across an individual’s memory landscape. With particular reference to identity and race, the film presents Hall’s memories and personal archives, extracted and relocated in an imagined and different time to reflect on the questionable nature of memory itself. This is obviously the meaning of the title "The Unfinished Conversation" in as much as the work can continually be re-interpreted, and read by the viewer and no two viewings would be the same.

I was unfamiliar with John Akomfrah's work and will now certainly seek out some more of it to look at as it does deal with similar pieces to mine and dissemination wise I found it eye opening to ideas I have been wrestling with.

The following points are all aspects that I feel worked well on the installation and could be implemented in my own work. In particular I have struggled to find the right use for using multiple screens and having images run concurrently and the Unfinished Conversation manages to achieve this balance. Like my own work though a lot of the footage is archive and appropriated.

• Three screens worked excellently together and the setting up of them one straight on the other two angled allowed the audience to experience them all fully and immerse them. It perfectly captures the essence that the central character is not just one thing but also a tapestry of connections, overlaps and that "identities are formed at he intersections of the political and the personal".
• Excellently sourced archive footage and a huge variety of sources, types and all of it relevant to the story being.
• The footage complemented each other well and never "fought" to be noticed as they were all balanced. Your eye could be drawn to whatever was of interest to you and you did not feel you missed anything.
• The audio was excellent and provided the voice over/narration as well as the important use of music were the glue that help the installation together.

John Akomfrah on The Unfinished Conversation from Tether on Vimeo.

Notes on John Akomfrah: From http://autograph-abp.co.uk/ 

"As a co-founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective (1982), John Akomfrah achieved critical success in 1986 with his debut film documentary, Handsworth Songs. Through his celebrated technique of juxtaposing and layering archive footage with new and historical photo stills, soundscapes, personal testimonies and text, Akomfrah investigates and unpacks the complexities of identity through his practice. Previous films include: The Nine Muses (2010), Mnemosyne (2009), Seven Songs for Malcolm X (1993) and Handsworth Songs (1986). Akomfrah is now recognised as one of Britain’s most pioneering and intellectually rewarding film-makers."

DAVID HOCKNEY: EXPERIENCES OF PLACE AND SPACE

This post collects together a lot of ideas of Hockney's use of space and place often creating narratives, journeys and always characters of his subject matter. The way he combines multiple elements create a whole to create these themes. The use of vibrant colour, reverse perspective to flatten and exploit deep and shallow space forcing the perspective to draw the audience in and clever use of line to achieve a similar effect are all hall marks of these works.

Going up Garrowby Hill 2000 
The picture represents a journey he used to make from his mothers house to visit a friend in York. It uses multiple viewpoints and forced surreal perspective to create a narrative of the multiple viewpoints of the journey at once capturing the highlights and the overall. He creates an illusion of depth through the foreground elements and the road takes the eye into the picture and the chapters unfolding through a rich vibrant landscape.

Nichols Canyon 1980
A similar work to the above but with an even more vibrant use of colour. Throughout his career Hockney was never afraid of colour and this piece encapsulates this. As above it is of a journey this time from his house to his studio. To quote the exhibition notes "flatness collides with illusion of spatial depth. But above all, these are paintings through which the eye dances, drawn by a sensuousness of line and colour where edges of viewpoints fold into and across each other". As before I love the interpretation of and sense of narrative and emotion of the piece.

15 Canvas Study of the Grand Canyon & 9 Canvas study of the GrandCanyon 1998
Hockney loved the idea of the challenge that painting landscapes of a large scale posed and when he heard of the Grand Canyon being "the despair of the painter" he rose to the challenge. Both of the paintings above are made up of multiple images from multiple perspectives. These were painted on location hence the smaller canvasses that build to create the overall image. The illusion of depth is created by using the foreground to create the depth from which the background depth and vastness is created.

Wildgate Woods 6th & 9th November 2006
Again multiple canvasses painted on location but this time back in the UK and his beloved Yorkshire. The use of light is amazing as is the vibrant use of colour and it does feel like 6 TV screens. The change of time appears to be different from the bright light and long shadows of the middle and left canvasses to the more autumnal palette and lack of light and shadows on the right. I live this changing narrative of the piece that plays with time and almost looks like 2 pictures in one but still is cohesive as a whole.

What I have learnt and will take forward.

• The use of multiple viewpoints within one picture to tell a story. I have been struggling with my Global Warmning pieces to create a narrative and journey of the debate in a visually creative way of multiple elements all on screen at one. The perspective and multiple viewpoints within these works are something to consider.
• The use of colour and shape to excite the viewer and especially line to draw the viewer in and take them on a journey.
• The multi canvas images of the Grand Canyon and Wildgate Woods works suggest something that could be done with TV screens or multiple projections. These could obviously change in synch or independently over time to reveal an ever changing image, perspective and viewpoints in place, space and narrative.
• Playing with time and narrative in different screens that make a whole as in Wildgate Woods. This allows narratives to be played concurrently.

DAVID HOCKNEY: PHOTOGRAPHS

HOCKNEY PHOTO-COLLAGE

Hockney considered there to be a "flaw in photography" and it's single point perspective not allowing a multi-viewpoint look at multi-faceted people, character and personalities. He described conventional photography as "looking at the world from the point of view of a paralysed Cyclops - for a split second". To this end he experimented with using multiple photographs, from different perspectives, heights and angles to capture his subjects building a 3D almost cubist and Picasso inspired approach to his photographic works. he started using multiple Polaroid photos but eventually became dissatisfied with the borders so move on to 35mm film.

Billy and Audrey Wilder 1982

One of Hockney's earlier photographic collages using Polaroid pictures to capture Billy Wilder and his wife. It demonstrates the technique excellently and represents the multiple sides to their characters. As with Kerby (1975) mentioned earlier it again distorts and plays with perspective, scale and multiple elements to draw the eye around the frame. The regulated, gridded form cleverly encourages the audience to see the image as individual elements as well as a whole.

Gregory Swimming 1982

Similar in layout to the polaroid grid of Billy and Audrey Wilder but due to the movement of the character a multiple character swimming around the pool is created repeated and mirrored almost in multiple frames. This encompasses Hockney's lifelong fascination with water as well as his multi-photo technique. The movement is captured from a huge variety of angles capturing the movement in detail as well as telling a story and narrative as a whole.

Scrabble Game 1983

This is an excellent example of his 35mm photo-montages and centres around a family game of scrabble. It captures the characters playing, the movement, highs, lows and storytelling of the game from the viewpoint of Hockney also playing. the layout os exciting the images exploding from the board at the centre of the game and the size of the images and this layout really give the piece a kinetic energy.

Pearblossom Highway 1986

Not as much kinetic energy as Scrabble game above but a wonderful expressionistic approach to capturing a scene with multiple photographs. This allows a texture, forced perspective and fragmented approach to the subject matter. The use of colour and real, yet unreal hyperrealism of the image is also enhanced.

I have already been experimenting and investigating this approach from a video point of view with multiple images used to create multi faceted characters. I want to try this technique with multiple images of characters in some of my documentary work. Although movement can be used to do this in video/film work this can make the images merely seem cinematic. I want to try and show the multi-faceted nature of the characters appearing in the piece and a variation on this technique. This could be multiple screens, or elements within one screen.

What I have learnt and will take forward.

• Experimenting and investigating fractured multiple images like Hockney's photography pieces using point of view with multiple images used to create multi faceted characters. I want to try this technique with multiple images of characters in some of my documentary work. Although movement can be used to do this in video/film work this can make the images merely seem cinematic. 
• Try and show the multi-faceted nature of the characters appearing in the piece and a variation on this technique. this could be multiple screens, or elements within one screen.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/david-hockney

DAVID HOCKNEY: PLAY WITHIN A PLAY

A PLAY WITHIN A PLAY

Hockney was continually influenced by other art movements and technologies and utilised these continually in his work. As mentioned above his compositions, use of narrative and character and playfulness with perspective and image often created constructs and a play within a play, pictures within pictures.

Kerby (After Hogarth) Useful Knowledge 1975

This is one work that embodies all of the above comments. This is a remade Hogarth image that playfully distorts perspective whilst displaying it plainly.  The fishing statue bottom right and man at the top of the hill lighting his pipe highlight this. There are also cubism undertones describing a subject an element at a time. As with a lot of Hockney's work there is plenty to keep the viewer entertained and no one central focus. This is an area I am again starting to incorporate in my work and allowing the audience to read around the image (or video) in my case and to be led around the image through multiple images and subjects. 

Model with Unfinished Self-Portrait 1977
Hockney often featured the art of creating art as one of his themes and subjects and this picture embodies that. It is a construct though and Hockney painting in the background is not Hockney in-situ but a self portrait canvas depicting himself in back of the paining. The set up creates the illusion with his boyfriend asleep in the foreground and the blue curtain creating the separation that creates the effect. This layering and constructed artificial composition really interests me and in my work the notion of a screen within a screen is an idea I want to experiment with.

Blue Stools 2014

This is an image that is really haunting in its combination of stitching together photo-realistic people and what appears like painted objects on the same canvas. The image on first looking appears real but as you spend time with it creates a feeling of the uncanny. The forces perspective of image contributes also to creating a hyper-realistic and disorientating and confusing experience for the viewer. Multiple images of the characters exaggerate this even more. This use of multiple images and forced realities are themes that I am dabbling in and want to explore further. In order to present the multifaceted sides to the characters personalities in my pieces using digital techniques but combining these with the moving image.

What I learnt and will take forward.

• Having plenty to keep the viewer entertained and no one central focus. This is an area I am again starting to incorporate in my work and allowing the audience to read around the image (or video) in my case and to be led around the image through multiple images and subjects.
• Layering and constructed artificial composition really interests me and in my work the notion of a screen within a screen is an idea I want to experiment with.
• This use of multiple images and forced realities are themes that I want to explore further. In order to present the multifaceted sides to the characters personalities in my pieces using digital techniques but combining these with the moving image.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/david-hockney

DAVID HOCKNEY: TATE BRITAIN

On Thursday 18th May and again on Sunday 21st May I went to see the Hockney Retrospective at Tate Britain. Plenty of hype had followed the exhibition celebrating almost 60 years of Hockney's work. It spanned his early work from his student days in London to his LA pieces, Yorkshire work across a wide range of mediums from paining, video, photography and late iPad works. The work had a profound affect on me (hence the second visit) and the breadth and scope invigorated me and my practice. Whilst not working primarily in the moving image medium of my practice I found many pieces of work inspired me conceptually, visually and  creatively and will move my work forward.

There is far too much work within the exhibition to comment on hall of it on my blog so I will instead focus on a few of the key pieces, ideologies and mediums that inspired me. One of Hockney's recurring themes was that of a play within a play and challenging protocols of perspective OR highlight assumptions required for a viewer to read a picture creating works that are about making or looking at pictures. He is also very playful with character and narrative two themes which I am also preoccupied with and creating a story and often emotional ties within his pictures between characters. Lastly he has a sense of humour and playfulness in a lot of his works which in total echoes my interest in informing, educating and also importantly entertaining.

From the exhibition the rooms were curated as themes and bodies of or passages of his work over the last 6 decades. In the posts that follow I will deal with the styles, ideas, messages and techniques that have help influence my work in all of these areas.

What I learnt and will take forward.

• Having plenty to keep the viewer entertained and no one central focus. This is an area I am again starting to incorporate in my work and allowing the audience to read around the image (or video) in my case and to be led around the image through multiple images and subjects.
• Layering and constructed artificial composition really interests me and in my work the notion of a screen within a screen is an idea I want to experiment with.
• This use of multiple images and forced realities are themes that I want to explore further. In order to present the multifaceted sides to the characters personalities in my pieces using digital techniques but combining these with the moving image.
• The use of proxemics and profile staging position to alienate the viewer somewhat leaving the subject unaware of being observed and lost in their own thoughts. These are techniques I can employ in my own work.
• Consider a different approach to shooting a documentary echoing Hockney's portraits of couples together but alienated. The use of proxemics and staging position one character full front offering the viewer intimacy and inviting complicity with them. Then the second in profile making this subject more remote, unaware of being looked at and lost in their own thoughts. This could be re-created and applied to filming interviews with two characters in a manipulated frame sometimes both in the original frame sometimes a composite of two halves of the same frame shot at different times to create this isolation. they could talk about each other in the same frame aware that the other person it there but also independently to see how their revelations may differ.
• Experimenting and investigating fractured multiple images like Hockney's photography pieces using point of view with multiple images used to create multi faceted characters. I want to try this technique with multiple images of characters in some of my documentary work. Although movement can be used to do this in video/film work this can make the images merely seem cinematic. I want to try and show the multi-faceted nature of the characters appearing in the piece and a variation on this technique. this could be multiple screens, or elements within one screen.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/david-hockney

KEN LOACH AND JOSS BARRATT

On Thursday 18th May I attended an event run by Photo London as part of their prestigious celebration of the medium in the capital and staged at Somerset house. The event had added interest for me as a friend Joss Barratt was in discussion with the film director Ken Loach.

Photo London sold the event as "Ken Loach, the English film and television director, is as well known for his socially engaged directing style as his left-wing politics. Part of Loach’s filmmaking process involves stills photographer Joss Barratt documenting each aspect of the project, from set to cast. The conversation will be moderated by film and culture critic Neil Norman."

I am a huge admirer of Loaches work and the chance to hear about his process, ideology and films was really inspiring to me. I like to deal with issues in my work and Loach has made a career about representing those in the downtrodden margins of society and giving them and their causes a voice. From Cathy Come Home in 1996 that raised issues of homelessness to the public conscience and the charity Shelter coming into existence as a result, through to last year powerful I Daniel Blake centring around the benefits system Loach has championed those with no voice and shone a light on issues kept out of the spotlight.

The event was really interesting and the bias was towards Joss's relationship as stills photographer with Ken for over 20 years. They talked about the intrinsic relationship and how Joss worked within Kens minimalist, un-flashy realistic style. This suited Joss as he started out as a photojournalist and on loach's closed sets with minimal crew around the actors this proved to be invaluable. Joss's work follows Kens style of being as unobtrusive to the film-making process as possible with the actors just simply inhabiting the screen and performing off each other not to the crew or cameras. Even though the whole scene is a "construct" as the actors, scenes and lines are not "real" they are played as real to keep the authenticity going. Everything is about bringing the "story" be it message, emotion or conflicts and drama to the screen this is the only sole driving force that everyone is expected to buy into.

One of Kens favourite tactics is to "shock" the actors by surprising them to set up and try to capture "real" emotions on screen. This could involve Eric Cantona "appearing" on set in a scene to the surprise of the actor or a character entering a room and finding an unexpected "surprise"  in their to get a "real" reaction. Ken elaborated saying the first take was the shock but this shock stayed around for at least one more take of the secondary shock in the actors too! This also follows through into the fact that the actors only get the next days script the day before so they are discovering the film and the characters journey during the shoot creating an authentic feel to their reactions. he also likes to seek out relatively unknown actors so they are never bigger than the characters they are playing on screen and bring a lack of too showy a performance to the films.

What strikes you most about Loach is his class as he is a humble man but fiercely intelligent and with plenty of fire in his belly still at 80 years old. He has surrounded himself with a team or "family" of regular contributors who are all integral to his process. They develop ideas together, through trust and his relationships with the writer Paul Laverty and producer Rebecca O'Brien goes back decades through their production company Sixteen Films. there simply is no ego and the film and the cause are bigger than everybody on set. All the actors are treated as part of the crew, he does not tolerate prima-donnas and this creates the trust and sense of equality and a team mentality on his productions. As an example of this he hates the "A Film By" credit some filmmakers put up at the start of their film. he is very aware that film-making is impossible to do through one person and it only happens as part of a collaborative effort. However Ken is the conductor with the vision that is executed during the filmmaking process.

After the event I managed to grab a quick beer with Ken as I was part of Joss's party but unfortunately he had to leave early so there was no time to grill him further about his working methods. However I did go out afterwards with Joss and few friends and he reiterated that the filmmaking process was all to serve the vision and telling of the story and the narrative. Loach's films did all concern issues but were not solely about them it was the characters, narratives that these issues were happening to and the drama and conflict that arose from these. He did finally add that on set Ken rules the show and the last word but does listen to his collaborators but there has to be one captain.

There was a lot I gleaned from the event and discussions afterwards that I feel I could employ to some of my work moving forward. It has also made me want to try to write and create a short film. I have been toying with this for a while as I feel I work best when dealing with issues and causes close to my heart and it is a natural step from the character based narratives playing with representations of realism that have been preoccupying me to date.

Alongside this renewed interest in creating some issue based fictional works the points I will take from spending time with Joss and Ken are.

• Construct of reality. It IS a construct but otherwise play it as simply, un-showy and realistic as is possible within the confines of this.
• Lack of "showy" Hollywood shots. The cinematography, editing, sound and mise-en-scene MUST serve the story.
• The "real" reactions and secondary takes where you can use these. Try to apply to my work.
• Unobtrusive film-making. Small crew, minimal crew on set, hidden from the actors so they can "inhabit" the scene unencumbered by onlookers.
• Script one day at a time. I like this as it keeps the actors in the moment not thinking about what happens later in the film. You do not know your next scene in everyday life after all.
• No "A Film By" Jon Saward.

http://photolondon.org/event/ken-loach-in-conversation-with-stills-photographer-joss-barratt-chaired-by-neil-norman-film-and-culture-critic/

SARA PROJECT: ART WALKS STUDIO SHOOTS

Firstly the issue was that the competition we were going to create the film for was closed (a year ago) which we both missed but we agreed to try and create a piece anyway and I felt I could learn from it and develop and push my skills and techniques. I had looked at lots of other films about art walks and felt that we could create something very original and different. In order to add to the footage shot covering the walk I devised the idea of complementing them with a studio shoot and then fusing the two together. Sara had a script from her walks and I edited this down to the key points.

I aimed to  shoot Sara presenting them against a green screen in a TV studio then I could composite them together and get creative in After Effects. As well as the script I worked up some storyboards of a huge variety of shots for different lines to create some texture by focussing on her presenting the walk and then in post-production creating the piece.

There were some issues shooting the piece as Sara is not a TV presenter and the lines were tricky for her to remember so possibly an auto-cue would make things easier next time. Sara also needed coaching in front of the camera and was at times unnatural and stilted but across two studio shoots we got the footage shot.

the main issue was thatI think we needed to dis cuss the nature of the piece more as I was more interested in Jane Jacobs and Art Walks in general. Sara was happy to cover some of that but was really after a piece very specific to her so we were pulling in very different directions.

JOHN LATHAM (& FRIENDS)

I went to see the friends of John Latham exhibition at the Serpentine Sackler gallery and then on to the Serpentine to see the work of Latham Himself. The Serpentine summed up the exhibition like this.

As a pioneer of British conceptual art, John Latham (1921-2006) has exerted a powerful and lasting influence, not only on his peers but on generations of younger artists. In spring 2017, the Serpentine hosted an exhibition that encompassed all strands of Latham’s extraordinary practice, including sculpture, installation, painting, film, land art, engineering, found-object assemblage, performance and the artist’s theoretical writings.

Whilst none of the work really moved me some of the ideas did. I also really liked the way his notes were all exhibited and the suspended sculptures made from parts of books that you could see though as illustrated above. His social conscience and sense of fun also shone through in his work especially his painted tennis ball experiment. Latham was also a great thinker and conceptual artist making art from what was around him. He was a multi-disciplne artist who also made a foray into film-making which was interesting if not my cup of tea and too experimental and lacking in focus and direction in my opinion.

The breadth and depth of his wok was astonishing and it is something I need to do more in my own work. I have stuck too rigidly to film as it IS my practice but what i have to realise is that it does not have to be my ONLY practice. I have a great eye for photography, like making things and love printmaking. If I only take one thing from the great exhibition let it be to extend my practice more.

http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/world-view-john-latham

http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/speak-tania-bruguera-douglas-gordon-laure-prouvost-and-cally-spooner

TRUMP VIRALS: VIC BERGER (MEDIA JAMMER)

Researching around the concept of virals I discovered the work of Vic Berger. What Berger does is repurposes and re-edits existing footage of politicians and celebrities, zeroing in on and amplifying all the awkward pauses and tells in split-second facial tics, sideways glances, and involuntary gestures (such as Trump’s habitual shifting of objects away from him). In so doing, he seems to reveal the truth about the psychological makeup of the personalities behind the carefully crafted public personas. Then he overdubs canned music and cartoonish sound effects – airhorns, drum rolls, explosions – that make the whole experience even more surreal.

I really liked his work for all of its bells and whistles at its core is a simple parody of awkward moments, ill conceived actions and sound-bites. He is simply taking the situations that arise from these and through editing amplify and put them under a spotlight. He is a cultural jammer in the vein of Craig Baldwin but the internet is his exhibition space.

American Horror Story: Meliana says hello to a more Presidential Trump is an excellent example of his work. A month after his inauguration, Donald Trump he was to address a joint session of Congress for the first time, in a live TV broadcast, and his chance to sidestep the crude, rude and violent campaign trail bully and show off his presidential qualities. But as he introduced his wife Melania, it was she, and not he, who received a standing ovation and adulation from the entire chamber that never seemed to end. Upstaged by his own trophy wife, and her strange, alien affect, all he can do is grimace and fume, flipping the paper cover off his glass of water like a grumpy child.



Berger confesses that he doesn’t watch TV much but follows Twitter incessantly. “I’m pretty up on what’s going on,” he says. “People let me know if something insane happens.”  He adds “A big part of why I focus on certain moments,” says Berger, “is because I have social anxiety.” This nervous disorder fosters a painful self-consciousness, as well as a hypersensitivity towards others. “You almost feel like you’re looking at your own body. And you’re focusing on certain tics, like, ‘Oh, he smiled weird, or frowned or whatever, when I said something. What does that mean?’ So I focus on those things that likely happen in passing and have zero meaning behind them. But maybe they do …”

It is Trump, and his menagerie of grotesques that make up his inner circle, who offer up comedy gold for Berger.  He sees his videos as a kind of therapy, pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump’s positions while “showing empathy” for the working people “who were looking for help and never got it”. “Hopefully,” he says, “we can find a way to come together and use what Trump brought to the surface – and move ahead once he is out of office.”

Things I will take from Vic Berger

• Amplification of the awkward through cross cutting and repeating.
• Use of only found footage (with a few effects) to create a message.
• Modern day culture Jammer.
• Some celebrities and politcians suit themselves well to this.
• It can be an expose of the veneer of PC and media polish and training.

ANIMATED DOCUMENTARY

I am interested in working in or at least incorporating some animation into my work. the pieces here are a collection of some for reference that i found the most interesting. They all deal with social or political or health issue and are great for getting inspiration for my own work. I like them all for different reasons and the way they can emote a subject but also make it open for discussion.

Their approaches and style are varied and they provide lots of food for thought as to what may be achievable in my own work and serve a brilliant brain food both visually, creatively and conceptually to help me move forward.

THE RADICAL EYE: TATE MODERN

The Radical Eye was an exhibition of photographs from the collection of Elton John on show at the Tate Modern that I visited on the 16th May and also on the 21st May 2017. To briefly give an overview of the exhibition and to quote the publicity material...

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see one of the world’s greatest private collections of photography, drawn from the classic modernist period of the 1920s–50s. An incredible group of Man Ray portraits are exhibited together for the first time, having been brought together by Sir Elton John over the past twenty-five years, including portraits of Matisse, Picasso, and Breton. With over 70 artists and nearly 150 rare vintage prints on show from seminal figures including Brassai, Imogen Cunningham, André Kertész, Dorothea Lange, Tina Modotti, and Aleksandr Rodchenko, this is a chance to take a peek inside Elton John’s home and delight in seeing such masterpieces of photography."

There were a great assortment of images from the first half of the 20th century and the aim of the show was to celebrate the pioneers who were defining what photography, was and could be. This was in terms of creativity, purpose, ideology as a tool for artists and to record society as well as developments in technology that mage photography grow as an art form.

The exhibition was brilliantly curated and the rooms were themes into areas of photography. The pieces that most affected me however were the ones catagorised in the exhibition as Documents. here were lots of documentary style  1930's photographs by the likes of Dorothea Lange and her Oklahoma images as well as Walker Evans and his Alabama images. Both photographers had taken images of people and their photographs captured the time, place, hardship of their subjects amazingly well. I also loved the work by Helen Levitt of life in inner city New York capturing the place and people that lived there.

One of the reasons these struck a cord was the way they tackled social injustice by giving these people a voice in both of these cases during the depression. The work was called a "social document" factual information presented in a moving way in order to maximise its affect. I guess this is similar to the themes I want to address but also emphasises less can be more. The images are simple, uncluttered and represent a manufactured truth that is moving and contains both narrative and character. Much like what I am trying to achieve in my own work.

OLAFUR ELIASSON

I really enjoyed the conceptual yet physically beautiful works of Olafur Eliasson. He deals with environmental themes often on a large scale and site specific works often at time specific venues to highlight environmental causes. the scale of his work is immense and it is hard not to be moved by it but it also applies to many of the senses alongside sight, smell, touch and brings the issue to the audience. His work is markedly different to what I am working on but his aim and intentions are the same so looking at his methods, tactics and he addresses his audience have really helped formulate some ideas on how to move my work forward.

The following article by Ken Johnson in The New York Times is a great reference point it and adds detail to my own thoughts on his work and contains some excellent quotes from Eliasson himself. 

Olafur Eliasson displayed pieces of ice that broke off from Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull. Exhibited in a refrigerated gallery space powered by solar panels, the ice “sculptures” represented 800 years of Earthly existence, putting human’s physical experience in perspective. “The obvious lesson of Mr. Eliasson’s installation, ‘Your waste of time,’ is that global warming is wreaking havoc on nature,” 

Olafur Eliasson: Your Waste of Time 2013

Olafur Eliasson displayed pieces of ice that broke off from Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull. Exhibited in a refrigerated gallery space powered by solar panels, the ice “sculptures” represented 800 years of Earthly existence, putting human’s physical experience in perspective. “The obvious lesson of Mr. Eliasson’s installation, ‘Your waste of time,’ is that global warming is wreaking havoc on nature,” Ken Johnson wrote in The New York Times last year.

The artist who is bringing Icebergs to Paris.

On a clear day with little wind, in early October, a tugboat set out from the harbor of Nuuk, in southern Greenland, in search of a dozen icebergs for an installation in Paris called “Ice Watch,” by the Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and the geologist Minik Rosing. The installation, a circle of icebergs with a circumference of twenty metres, is installed at the Place du Panthéon during this week’s Climate Change Conference. The captain of the tugboat was Kuupik Kleist, the former Prime Minister of Greenland, an affable man in his late fifties who was born and raised north of Nuuk. “Ninety per cent of our country is covered by ice,” Kleist says. “It is a great part of our national identity. We follow the international discussion, of course, but to every Greenlander, just by looking out the window at home, it is obvious that something dramatic is happening.”

The idea of “Ice Watch” is twofold: the ice is arranged like a watch, or a clock face, to indicate the passing of time; and, in real time, observers will be able to watch the ice melt. Eliasson explains, “A circle is like a compass. It leaves navigation to the people who are inside it. It is a mistake to think that the work of art is the circle of ice—it is the space it invents. And it is on a street in Paris—and a street in Paris can’t be more important than it is right now. We all feel that strongly.”

In Greenland, sailing out in the Davis Strait, past Nuuk Harbor, trawling slowly, the ice Kleist was looking for wasn’t just any kind of ice but icebergs made of compressed snow—snow that has fallen for tens of thousands of years—which have broken off from the glacier, in a process called “calving.” “We can only take what nature gives us,” Eliasson says. “For Paris, the ice gave us big chunks!” The largest chunks of ice displayed in Paris are just short of ten tons, which is about the size of three New York City cabs piled on top of each other. Minik Rosing, whose work on photosynthesis in the Greenland sea beds reset the date for the beginning of life on Earth, from 2.8 billion years ago to 3.7 billion, explains, “Inside the iceberg, you see snow layers in sequence as you go back in time. Because it is compressed, the air between the snowflakes that fell thousands of years ago is trapped in tiny bubbles.”

Once Kleist and his crew lassoed the ice calves, they were dragged back into the harbor, lifted up by heavy cranes, stored in icehouses, and then transferred by container ship to Denmark before a ten-hour trip, in a truck, to Paris. (The longest trucks are the cheapest, Eliasson notes; the project was underwritten by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which also funded Eliasson’s 2008 New York waterfall project.) Ice, like glass, is both hard and fragile. Kleist laughs, “We had to be very, very careful. We didn’t want to open the container in Denmark and find a thousand ice cubes!”

Eliasson was waiting in Copenhagen. “I thought, I know what ice looks like—I’ve seen ice frequently, these days! But when I opened the truck, it was shivering and shining in the warm air of Copenhagen. The ice had gotten a shock! I put my hand to it and suddenly I drew my hand back! I said to myself, The ice is really cold! Cold ice on your hand is very different than reading about how it is melting.” He paused. “From the perspective of the ice, humans look really warm.”

Some of the questions that are preoccupying Eliasson in his work these days include: What is the relationship between data and cognition? How is data translated into doing? Thinking into feeling? Are we more likely to act on knowledge or emotion? Timothy Morton, a British philosopher whom Eliasson calls “our new Arctic friend,” has been part of the ongoing conversations Eliasson likes to have around his art installations. Morton writes an extremely popular blog, and is the author of several books, among them the forthcoming “Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Further Coexistence.” (He’s also collaborated with the Icelandic singer Björk.) Morton is a proponent of Object Oriented Ontology (O.O.O.), which suggests that, in order to realign our relationship with the planet, we must think of a plurality of perspectives. “In our contemporary ecological emergency, there’s a lot of data, but at this point we’re dumping ecological data on ourselves. It’s not helping. We don’t need to be doing that for one more minute. Olafur is putting pieces of ice there and saying, ‘Let’s try to start a conversation.’ ”

“Ice Watch” was first mounted in Copenhagen last year, outside the Town Hall, while the I.C.C.P. climate report was being written, in what Eliasson calls “a trial run.” François Zimeray, the French Ambassador to Denmark, encouraged Eliasson to bring it to Paris. There was no question, according to Zimeray, of the exhibit being cancelled after the attacks there in November. “On the contrary! The vocation of Paris is cultural life and the exchange of ideas. It is so important now to show that life is alive in the streets, in the very center of Paris!”

Eliasson and his wife, the art historian Marianne Keogh, have two young children, Zakarias and Alma, who were both adopted from an orphanage in Ethiopia. I asked how having children had changed the orientation of his work. “You know, my kids are more elaborately agile in the digital mode than I am. My generation experienced a time of innocence, but children now have never known a time without the challenge of climate change. I try to ask my children not what nature looks like; they know what everything looks like—atrocities in Paris, in Syria, everywhere. But they don’t know what it feels like. Public space in which things happen is vitally important now, and especially in Paris, where space is generated by civic consciousness.”

He asked me to hold on; he needed to wake Alma from a nap. When he returned, he said, “We are bringing ice to Paris two weeks after the attacks. The values I hold were attacked. My first thought was to respond to the authorities and be attuned to the sorrow. ‘Come,’ they said. The earth is a public space, the space is my host—I am putting ice in the palm of Paris.”

The exhibition opened last week, and will be up for two weeks. At the Place du Pantheon, if a passerby puts her ear to the ice, she will be able to hear a little moment of pop and crack. What is released is the cleanest possible air. It is fifteen thousand years old. Eliasson says, “It is a little pop that has travelled fifteen thousand years to meet you in Paris, and tell the story of climate change.” Cynthia Zarin has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker since 1983. She teaches at Yale. Her new book, “Orbit,” is a collection of poems.

OFFSHORE EXHIBITION

The following exhibition in Humber OFFSHORE part of the UK City of Culture 2017 festival, was the first joint exhibition between the city's Ferens Art Gallery and Maritime Museum. Works include a series of poems inspired by the Humber Estuary and a film about the local fishing industry. One performance features a dancer with a latex costume which changes colour in response to data received from coral at Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

The work explores the sea and examines the many contrasting ways that the sea has shaped our culture, our imaginations and our physical existence through mythical sea monsters, superstition and seaside traditions as well as trade and travel. the exhibition explored how our treatment of the sea threatens its health: climate change, coral bleaching, toxic waste and flooding are some of the issues that artists explore through their work.

China Miéville explored the ocean depths of Bermuda in a submersible to write an essay, and artist Phil Coy joined a fishing boat out of Bridlington Harbour to create a new film.

What I learnt from it most was the variety of approaches to creating environmentally inspired art. Also that subtlety can be a better way rather than hitting an audience over the head with the issue and argument as I can sometimes do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-39461175