Final Project :333

 

My final project for this class was both chaotic and very rewarding. Time management? Who’s she?, but I was able to figure out the process which I thought was impossible at first.

I had to first take photos of the bed, this took about 2 whole days but then I:

1. Developed negatives

2. Scanned negatives

3. Transferred onto transparent paper

4. Printed using cyanotype chemicals onto separate paper

5. Then finally I trimmed and pasted them into the final booklet

The scanning and formatting/printing the negatives took about a full 12 hours because I had a lot to edit or clean up, and then some testers came out either too dark or too faded for my liking. Overall this process was very fun, and I am looking forward to using it for future projects, but for now I am just happy that my hands aren’t too stained from the cyanotype processing. 

In terms of putting the book together, that was a whole other monster to tackle, but I think my scrapbook type format really fit for what I like to see in artist books, and I did want my book to feel more intimate than sleek and formal, just because I think the space of a bedroom is where most of us live at some point in the day, and unless shown to others, it usually doesn’t have to be or at the very least ‘look’ formal. I will note that some of my friends made their bed for days…..in the waiting for me to take these photos, but I do feel like I got an authentic glance into where my friends live, or even how I live. 

Again, I loved this project, and I am certainly going to move forward with cyanotypes, and maybe even make a more cohesive book or series for the senior exhibition!

Artist Research Project-

 

This artist research was one of the hardest I had to do only because most of her information was accessible, but I could not find decently sized images. I did feel burnout due to the term so I did procrastinate a bit, but once I understood what I myself was saying I was able to take off and really see Bea Nettles as more than the cyanotype artist I thought she was.

Her work in the gravestone poetry series deeply affected me because even if she is using text (given the surnames of gravestones) I think she does what I’ve been trying to do with my beds, which is format her images in such a way that re-frame them conjoined with their original use, to also tell a story differently.

I am still working on my beds booklet series, but her craftsmanship in both artbooks and formatting in general has given me inspiration to find my own way to recontextualize the bed, the way she does her text and image.

Presentation Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UXa2Sb1mVBccL1HtHBjYa4t0c5Ow1I4EqxXnkpum17g/edit?usp=sharing

Journaling Project #3

 I did not have the momentum needed to tackle absorbing the Musica Practica, but I did find this quote towards the end: “ It is we who are playing, though still it is true by proxy; but can one imagine the concert - later on ? - as exclusively a workshop, from which nothing spills over - no dream, no imaginary, in short, no 'soul' and where all the musical art is absorbed in a praxis with no remainder” that interested me because it made me think about how in the moment something can be gained, but maybe with something like the passage of time, that experience can dwindle, and arguably become un-important. 

For me this quote describes my process as a photographer because, especially for prep work like developing, I know my process, and I can show it to people to,in some way, WOW them, but when Im just doing the developing I find myself get more in the motions of remembering the steps than I am waiting to see what I get at the end. Now I’m agitated that I have to acknowledge that forgetting either the steps, or what I’ve made, can be recycled into proving that at some point there is no memory, or significance of the object or process to me. However I do want to push back on this, for my own sake, because I feel like there is still some form of me in my work. I thinky only in an environmental or contextual case that I could truly choose to abandon or disown my own work. 

The update for my progress is that I did make a tester for how to both scan my negatives in as well as cyanotype said negatives onto paper. The major issue I ran into was making sure my paper dries properly, and to place my negative on the right side because both of these elements being slightly damp meant I got a weird slimy/wet look to the final print. At the moment I'm doing a bit more paper testing before committing to formatting my finalized pages and scanning in my negatives, but I feel confident, with the sun allowing, that I can finish and bind my booklet in time. 

Journaling Project #2

              へ            ╱|

          ૮  •   •)       ( •   • 7 so....the author dies?

          /   ⁻  ៸          、˜〵

    乀 (ˍ,  ل         じしˍ,)ノ 

          へ    yuh.     ╱|

     ૮  -   ՛ )           ( •   • 7  

        /   ⁻  ៸              、˜〵

 乀 (ˍ,  ل            じしˍ,)ノ

.∧ ,,, ∧              *🫧.•

(  ̳• ｡ • ̳)         .🫧°. 🫧*

/    づ/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ °🫧+.🫧.°

erm anyways...

After another read through of Barthes ‘Death of the Author’ I think a massive quote that stuck out to me was

“..by refusing to assign a “secret”, an ultimate meaning, to the text (and to the world as text), liberates what may be called an anti-theological activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary since to refuse to fix meaning is, in the end, to refuse God and his hypotheses-reason, science, law” (pg. 147)

The reason this quote struck me was because it made me realise that I’ve never truly put my art, or more specifically photography, in the fork of the road that is leaving it up to the audience or purely stating my direct intentions. I feel through the process of photography, especially for my project, I want something, but I think for once I’ll just let the word ‘bed’ speak for itself. For me, the bed isn’t even a major happening, as we’ve seen examples of more extremes, I think for me as I work on ‘bed’ I’m finding so many meaning that rather than try to pin or dissect each one, I’ll just go with the flow and see what works for my mind's eye, that’s not to say I’m being careless with my decisions, but instead I am trying to work towards a final product that has no fixed meaning.

Here is some of my process btw:

I sorted negatives out for printing, and I made a physical show-and-tell piece for class!

I’m trying to be mindful of documenting myself DURING the process rather than just finishing something to prove work was done.

I also wanted to add that despite being a creator myself, and so badly wanting to make sure that I am credited for stuff (while I’m alive that is), I do think that if my art or artist statements (for text) have to be sacrificial to a future work, I don’t think I mind that idea, but also I'm dead so who can really say. I just imagine my sacrifice or death as a forest fire, if I never “die” I’ll crowd what little room is left, but if I “die”, then from there the soil is new and another person or idea can come along to settle roots. I mean, I’ve been inspired, 

Haven’t you?

       

Jiayi artist talk 🖥️🐟

I felt Jiayi’s artist talk really spoke to my documenting-loving soul. As soon as I walked in I had goosebumps at hearing the clicking of the data and I was in awe at the sheer size of all the installations Jiayi had brought in.As she talked about her life I felt it was very interesting that her study of Physics was what orbited her back around to art courses like painting and printmaking which then lead to her career now in installation work. (Also, I didn't know about the warmed up bench…it is now noted!)

Another portion of her work as a whole that I was interested in was how she was making something almost invisible (aka data) into something tangible and that takes up quite a bit of space. I loved the tracking project that utilized drying racks. I didn’t note if that was the ultimate choice for the presentation, but I found it interesting because when I walked in I found myself gravitating towards the project. 

Jiayi’s goal for her works also seemed to revolve around archives for the means of accessibility. I don’t remember which work specifically, but I have noted that at some point she said she wanted one of her works to be accessible in a public library for anyone. This is what brings me to her work with the molds of the Nasa moon fragments: documentation and outwardly valuing the art process.

As I looked up close at the different mold stages and the prototypes laying across the ground or in their cases, I fell in love even further when I realized that the odd security cam looking footage on the far back wall was actually her photo gallery documenting her whole project. I wanted to note here that I did ask about the 3-4 digital photos of what was the ice molded into the rock and it reminded me of the artist who created the ice block structures MADE to melt. I say this because she was just experimenting, whereas the prior artist was creating experience. I’m so interested in how Jiayi was able to both give us as an audience a tangible “end” but continuous image of her work, but she also had the process surrounding her work to document the actual process we were given.

I loved her usage of different materials, and I’m not sure if this is the word to use but I felt the word “multi-media” really gathers everything she was hitting both in the motivation of her work and the message she was putting together. I found her interest in detail super exciting coupled with the fact that for every mold she had, she knew the process to get there, and if she didn’t she found answers to her questions.

Unlike other artist talks where the visiting artist is either crowded around or whisked away after the talk, I actually got to have a conversation with Jiayi about her work, but more specifically about her usage of documentation. I will admit here I was a huge fan, but I did say to her that I loved that her archive work was more a route for accessibility than it was isolated preservation. She shared how the documentation work she did in a way related to that of Marcel Duchamps with his box reproductions and how even years in the future he wanted his works to be understood in a certain way. I loved chatting with her and hope to incorporate her thorough methods of documentation into my work.

I also still hear the faint clicking sometimes.....

Barthes and My Art?

 

I think when attaching Barthes ideas to a project like mine, I feel more lost on what exactly a possible assumed message may be. I’m not sure I can argue that my representation of the bed as an object is a “message without a code” (pg 36), because every bed I’ve encountered says something, whether that is it saying visually that it is unmade, or if the person is a clean freak. In terms of planning for my project, I was thinking of text, but as I drafted ways to write on the cyanotype paper, I found myself leaning towards using a white posca pen, but this then made me think that my audience could see my cyanotype magazine as a blueprint/ or instructional vs. the mock-magazine that it is, due to the ques given with the blue of blueprints and that of cyanotypes. plus the usage of diagram like images. 

Another interesting thought I had was about Barthes secondary idea of a collection and its signifiers. As much as I am focusing on a singular object: aka the bed, the bed itself is more of an idea of where we sleep and rest, rather than what exactly creates the idea of a bed as a structure. 

Ultimately, as I dissect Barthes in relation to my project, I’m finding that my idea to create the anatomy of a bed is more about communicating a relationship between body and object, than it is to advertise the object like the Panzani ad

My update for my project is just earlier in the week I secured my Nikon camera, and this weekend I will be doing my rounds and taking at least 10 pictures of my friends’ beds that way I can start planning out the magazine type format for my magazine.

Int. New Media Project Ideas! ‧⁺✧(˶´u`˵)⁺‧

 Hello Everyone!!! 🫧🐟