Research - Immersion and Walker Evans

noun

[mass noun]

• 1 The action of immersing someone or something in a liquid:his back was still raw from immersion in the icy Atlantic sea
• baptism by immersing a person bodily (but not necessarily completely) in water.

• 2 Deep mental involvement in something:a week’s immersion in the culinary heritage of Puglia
• a method of teaching a foreign language by the exclusive use of that language: as a teacher she advocates learning by immersion [as modifier]:an immersion school

• 3 Astronomy the disappearance of a celestial body in the shadow of or behind another.

Origin:

late 15th century: from late Latin immersio(n-), from immergere 'dip into' (see immerse)

 As mentioned in a previous post, I would like to look at immersion. I would like to make my subjects look 'as one', with the projection. This will be shown by the clothing and the projection chosen. I will also play music that the subject likes and photograph their natural reaction to it, rather than getting them to pose. 

This led me to research Walker Evans's series 'Subway' in which he took photographs of people riding on the subway in New York and going about their daily business, completely unaware that he was documenting it and thus capturing a range of natural emotions.

Below are some of my favourite images taken by Walker Evans. 

Timetable

I am required to make a personalised timetable for part of this module. In this I will divide up the 14 forthcoming weeks over which I will be doing my final major project. Creating a timetable will enable me to manage my time effectively and make the most of the time that I have.

I will divide my timetable into five parts:

- Theory
- Practical
- Contacts
- Framing and printing
- Exhibition

For the 'theory' part of my timetable I want to

- Undertake artist research and any other relevant research
- Spend a minimum of 5 hours a week reading relevant texts
- Post a minimum of 4 blog posts a week.

All in all this will last 12 of the 14 weeks. I have decided to have this long to do blog work to guarantee that I have a strong blog.

For the 'practical' part of my timetable I want to

- Do a test shoot
- Experiment with my images
- Do the real shoot
- Edit my images

This will last 10 of the 14 weeks.

For the 'contacts' part of my timetable I want to

- Find participants/models for my shoot

This will last only 3 of the 14 weeks.

For the 'framing and printing' part of my timetable I want to

- Find a suitable printers
- Order my prints
- Find suitable frames for my work

This will last for 7 of the 14 weeks. I chose to have this period of time as 7 weeks to allow for any printing errors or in case anything was to go wrong and so I would have enough time to rectify it.

For the 'exhibtion' part of my timetable I want to

- Send invites
- Set up
- Finishing touches

This will last for 3 of the 14 weeks. I chose to have 3 weeks to allow enough time for invites to be sent and to give people plenty of notice about the exhibition.

My Professional Practice Pack Part 2

I found making my second practice pack incredibly helpful as it gave me some starting points, like looking at psychedelic art festivals in other countries. Through researching this, it gave me a lot of new artists that I was not familiar with and could potentially influence my work.

I also researched past galleries and exhibitions and when I explore these further, I will be able to add to other categories that I have, such as 'photographers and artists'.

I decided to research into magazines also, and stumbled upon an interesting magazine called Oz. I will definitely be researching this further as the covers alone were interesting enough.

My Professional Practice Pack

The past week or so I have spent time compiling a list of useful websites, galleries to visit, where to find arts based jobs, stock libraries etc. for use in the future. I also have to make a second and more personalised practice pack for this project which will help me with my final major project. Below are some screencaps of my first professional practice pack.

Questions For Subjects

I need to be asking the subjects questions about the music that they listen to as to get a good idea of what projection to be using.

- What imagery do you associate with Psychedelic Drone/Psychedelic Folk/Psychedelic Garage/Neo-Psych/Space Rock?

- What kinds of videos do you associate with Psychedelic Drone/Psychedelic Folk/Psychedelic Garage/Neo-Psych/Space Rock?

-  What is cliche Psychedelic Drone/Psychedelic Folk/Psychedelic Garage/Neo-Psych/Space Rock?

- What does someone who listens to Psychedelic Drone/Psychedelic Folk/Psychedelic Garage/Neo-Psych/Space Rock wear?

- What does listening to Psychedelic Drone/Psychedelic Folk/Psychedelic Garage/Neo-Psych/Space Rock make you feel like?

- What kinds of bands are your favourite Psychedelic Drone/Psychedelic Folk/Psychedelic Garage/Neo-Psych/Space Rock?

Hopefully by asking these questions, I will be able to gain some knowledge about sub-genres of psychedelia that I know less about and subsequently have an easier job of finding suitable videos.

Presentation and Feedback

Below are the slides for my presentation:

For the presentation I got the following feedback:

It looks like it has been taken in a nightclub and there maybe something I could do with this.
It was interesting in the way that I look immersed in the music and to research the following on 'immersion'

Walker Evans - Subway

Philip Lorca diCorcia – Heads

Bettina Von Zwehl – Portraits of people listening to music

Lucy Levene – Ministry for sound

William Eggleston – Black and white club portraits

If I am restaging things I have seen in clubs then I should look at Jeff Wall's work and to see Bright and Cotton's books

To consider the notion of the social mask. 

My work acknowledges the slippage of the social mask which Sontag writes.
Music does have a way of 'affecting' us but how is this registered bodily? 

Research into theories of affect by looking at Affect Theory Reader. 

Berger's notion of 'who is looking at who?' 

Read Barthes (pg 10 Camera Lucida) notions of posing and being looked at. 

Peggy Phelan - performance and photography.
____________________________________________________________________________

I found this feedback extremely useful and I liked the idea of immersion. I don't want my portraits to be awkwardly staring at the camera, or to do deadpan shots, but rather to have them being absorbed and immersed into the background like they would do in a nightclub or whilst listening to music.
I would like the photos to feel as though no-one was watching them.

Revised Proposal

Proposal - Exploring the influences that the music we listen to has on our fashion choices

Key Words

Portraiture, projection, projector, psychedelic, psychedelia, drone, folk, space, space rock, garage, neo-psych, music, influence, fashion, style, genre, sub-genre, clothing, experiment, experimental, studio.

Overview/Topics of Interest

My area of practice tends to have a psychedelic theme to it, which includes a range of everyday objects, nature and people. I am inspired by work that uses bright colours and I like to work using bright colours myself. I am majorly influenced by Karl Ferris and Ira Cohen because of their use of colour and materials used within their shoots are very experimental, notably 'The Mylar Chamber' series.

The idea for my final major project was influenced by visual light shows that I saw at Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia and a piece entitled 'L'Expedition Scintillante' by Pierre Huyghe at the Reflections From a Damaged Life exhibition.

Title:

Refraction

Introduction/Research Question

How does what we listen to affect the way we dress? Does the genre we listen to cause us to dress stereotypically? Or do we not dress stereotypically at all?

Aims and Objectives

For my final major project my aim is to explore the relationship between clothing and fashion and how they influence each other. There are many different genres of music that influence the wearer to dress a certain way. This could be down to the way a famous person from said genre of music dresses or the fashion of a certain era.

I intend to photograph people whose clothing choices are clearly influenced by the music that they listen to. The way that I will show the relation between music and fashion is that I will be using an overhead projector to play a video onto the subject's face and backdrop, for example, post punk and a video of frequency waves (this would connect the subject to post-punk band Joy Division through their album Unknown Pleasures which features frequency waves on the front cover.)

Rationale

I think that this will be an interesting idea to pursue as there are many genres of music that I will be able to explore and every outcome will be completely different to the others. It would also be interesting to see if the viewer(s) of my work will be able to make the connection between the genres and fashion styles.

I would not be able to use any video I pleased and what I personally thought related to the fashion, so I would have to ask my subjects about what they listen to and who they are influenced by amongst other things as not to create a stereotypical piece of work.

Previous Research

Below I have compiled a list of sub-genres of music, along with the main genre of music that they come from, that I have researched into and that I think would be interesting to explore.

   -      Psychedelic Drone
   -      Psychedelic Folk
   -      Psychedelic Garage
   -      Neo-Psych
   -      Space Rock


General Methodology:

    ⁃     Plan questions to ask the subjects. Doing so will enable the subject and I to choose an appropriate video to project.
    ⁃    Print final pieces to either a2 or a3 poster size

Data Collection and Analysis

As mentioned previously, I will ask my subject some questions about the genre they listen to. This is mainly to avoid using a stereotypical projection relating to the chosen genre.

Specialist Needs

I intend to shoot my work in the studio with the aid of overhead projector. I will experiment using black and white backgrounds before I have the subjects come into the studio to see which would look best with the projections on it.

Test Shots

I went to the studio to take some test shots for my final major project. I wanted to play around with different videos and pictures so that I would have a few images to choose from. I found it quite difficult to try and focus the camera as I kept having to run back and forth to focus and take the picture so I ended up using the dummy in the studio as a focusing guide.

I was quite impressed with the outcome of these photographs, so much so that I wanted to change my idea from all different genres, to one main genre (psychedelia), and several sub-genres relating to this. I also think that by doing this, it will be easier for me to find subjects as I think it could be quite hard trying to locate people who listen to Bhangra music.

(These pictures were used on my previous blog 'Professional Frameworks 3'to show that I was undertaking more studio work which was one of my objectives on my Personal Development Plan. http://clairewalmsleyprofessionalframeworks3.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/more-studio.html)

Research - Stephen Gill

Stephen Gill is a British photographer. I have been looking at his series 'Outside In' that he created in 2010. This series features unusual photographs where objects and insects had been picked up from the ground and put into the body of the camera.

I was pretty amazed whilst looking at this series. The photographs are almost like projections in their own way so I can understand why my tutors wanted me to look at Stephen Gill's work.
Some of the negatives of his work were dipped into the sea or we permanently marked by having a magnifying glass shone onto them. A few of the above images have had these techniques applied to them and they almost have an ethereal glow to them.
Although not suitable for this project as I am not using film, I think that this would be a good idea to consider doing in a future project.

Research - Projection Photography

I decided to have a look at other projection photography and see what I could find off a search engine. I found a few pictures that were quite interesting just off typing in 'projection photography'. I remembered that I had seen a photograph of Nico and the members of The Velvet Underground on the sleeve of 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' vinyl I own. I decided to research this a bit further and found that Andy Warhol had taken quite a few more photos of Nico that were involving projections I had actually seen a few years ago and completely forgotten about!

Below are some photographs I took at Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia in September which show projections from oil and normal projectors.