James Turrell

 

This research project was very overwhelming in the beginning. The first ever image I saw of James Turrell was him illuminated by light and I really wanted to know what he was all about. This project had a lot of trial and error for me unfortunately. I went through so many of his grouped works, I looked at his pictorial renditions of the more 3D examples, I just felt overwhelmed by my options. It wasn't until his work “Unseen blue 2002” that I felt any sense of guidance with what I was trying to convey. This work helped me solely because I had more variety with the light depicted which is what I was trying to get at in how viewers are experiencing something different each and every time with his work. He also is described as both a light artist and a musician because of his usage of optical illusions and projections/LEDs that help enhance the space or site specific art he is creating. I fell in love with the differing colors in his work but what stuck out to me the most is his extra attention to how viewers would feel in a space. This ties in to his Quaker faith but that strung in experience of meditation and occupying quiet space with others is what catapulted this discovery!. Despite the difficulty I had with certain aspects, I do feel like this project helped me not only learn, but feel recognized as an audience member. This is a similar feeling I had when we had seen work by Dan Graham describing his audience and how they were seeing him both in body language and eye movement. I appreciate artists who look at art as a relationship between audience and subject rather than a one-sided action of viewing.

James Turrell Presentation

Mock-up and Progress Report✨

 As with all projects, this one has changed in several ways. I decided that instead of a complex dark room, I am going to go with bright and simple. When looking at my rough drafts I realized that I wanted to head in a different direction.

 I found a website that when you dragged a cursor it created different flat kaleidoscope stills, and from there my idea took off. I also found out about the pre-school activity called the “Bilateral mirror”. This is where you and a partner are across the table from each other, and use an assortment of colors or paper to create a similar mirror image of each other. It also doubles as a mindfulness and team building exercise.

I took these two concepts and did a test run or mock-up. The difference I found was that the rainbow pencil (I bought enough for the class) did not show up well on my paper. It was instead my oil pastels that really gave a bright mark. My revision for this instead now is incorporating the cosmic effect I want by using pastels on black paper, and maybe incorporating the rainbow pencil some other way. However, this test run really gave me something to work with and I am excited to see how it translates into my installation. I am also excited to see how people work together when it is different from friend with friend, versus peer with peer. 

Project Proposal 🪼⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

 The theme: Expressing the self temporarily

When looking into what exactly I wanted from my project, I found that I really wanted to work with 3 main elements: Light, Color, and Participation. I gained a lot of inspiration from those nostalgia-esque edits of childhood that are always floating around in ‘2000s kids remember’ type of videos.

The original idea I had came from thinking of a “pocket installation”. My mind instantly went to kaleidoscopes and how although those don't exactly count as an installation (YET), there has to be some light, beads, and the participation of an audience member (or a single hand moving the lens).

With this I was thinking about what exactly it is about Kaleidoscopes that make me want to blow the images up onto a wall and show everyone. I only found an answer when a disk labeled “rainbow peephole” helped push forward my journey into what my installation is about.

However, although the original plan had some footing with this new tool, I still didn’t know what I was doing. I aimlessly took photos of everywhere light was its brightest. I tried to take as many photos in the daytime, but especially at night. When it was night time, and I was on my final walk home from watch, I took a quick photo of the main hall. This is where my purpose revealed itself to me. 

I took this photo and instantly thought "just because the center portion of this image occupies my reality, does it make the surroundings any less real?". I love this picture as it is, but it brought on my recognition of what this was: a fractured subject.

The definition of fractured here is: "split or fragment so as to no longer exist or function". This definition seems more fitting rather than a word like shattered because this photograph still feels like a whole image. The only major difference is what I've captured with my disk is not sustainable without it. I am able to create something new, but have no proof except this photo.

I don’t really have another photograph similar to this, all my other photos are of a singular light source that is open rather than against another subject. These two photos were my favorite of the day because they are polar opposites. One is the sun, the other is man-made. 

Despite the main elements I want incorporated, and the concept surrounding these images, the kaleidoscope keeps calling back to me. In order to make the fractured idea work I would need several of these disks, and a decent sunny day to take out our group to use them, but I want to incorporate the Kaleidoscope because that idea feels much better to execute.

I imagine a dark room, with light very dim and only really strong through the kaleidoscope that is projected onto a wall. From there there are chairs to sit and look at the projected images, however the audience can change the lens position themselves, and keep changing it based on what they feel in the present moment. In how I think of installations, I want participation to be key in how people express and interpret one another. 

I want something that feels awkward at first, that begs the question of who feels what in the present moment, and yet at some point in the process someone would be willing to answer the question, even if briefly.

This idea is still on the chalkboard, but here are some questions I had when I was drafting ideas before writing my proposal. 

Questions:

• Are the photos revealing something, manipulating it, or both?

• Are emotions able to be captured with something as simple as light and beads?

• Should the space be open and light, or concentrated and dark?