Presentation Script/plan

Plan:

Similarities:

Emotions 

Importance of the audienceviewer's experience 

Lost Communication- Conveying a voice/story 

Difference: 

Reading; Hayley and Psychology, Alisha and Mythology, Claudia and Poetry & Literature

Artists: 

Location: 

Gallery 

Engage our audience through emotional content 

After discussion we all seemed to be interested in ideas around the viewer's experience with our own work, and their emotional connection. We aim to achieve a universal attitude in our work, with an attempt to not limit, or exclude who can appreciate the work. Regarding the viewers experience we all agree that a big part of our work is creating a trigger to some kind of emotion in our audience. We believe this type of art work is the most rewarding to create, in the sense that we're not just communicating our work with our own interests, perspectives and opinions, but keeping in mind that there is a wider picture; filled with a variety of people with different expereinces and circumstances. 

The idea of galleries today. Most exhibitions I go to don't seem inspiring. This idea of having to know lots of context before even entering a gallery and needing a higher understanding of the arts is projected in most exhibitions. I think it limits arts audience as a whole. People feel like they dont have enough knowledge or don't think in the 'right way' therefore feel they don't 'get' the work and automatically dismiss it. I want to focus more on WHERE I exhibit because it is important. 

PRESENTATION SCRIPT HAYLEY

'Being and Nothingness'

Text I initially was told to read from Bernice over summer, thought the others might enjoy it as I realised we had shared interests in psychology and people in general when it came to art work.  

The book challenges the reader to confront the fundamental dilemmas of human freedom, responsibility and action. It's approach challenged all previous assumptions about the individuals relationship with the world. 

Sartre talks of 3 kinds of entity in existence; 'beings-in-themselves', 'beings-for-themselves' and 'beings-for-others'

BIT.-meaning a non-conscious thing, an essence which exists on its own from any observer

BFT.- meaning a conscious being, their consciousness renders them entirely different from other things- in relation both to themselves, to one another and to other things.

BFO.- an eavesdropper, entirely absorbed by getting his ear to the keyhole he barely distinguishes himself from his surroundings, suddenly hears a footstep in the hall and becomes aware he in under observation. He suddenly begins to exist in a different way- he begins 

The descriptions he creates are not merely to illustrate a concept. But they are written for us as readers to understand the nature of the phenomenom by accepting the truthfulness of the story. In a similar way that we may be convinced by the truth of a representation e.g. life in a film or a novel.

Just going to give you one example' The Spirit Of Seriousness

The idea that people believe all values are absolute, given somehow independently of any human subjective judgement. This spirit makes us pretend that the quality of being desireable or undesireable is somehow a quality of the things themselves. Once this spirit is dismissed, it necessarily follow that a man will recognise himself as the source of all values, and when he has done this it will follow that he realizes that he can choose to value whatever he likes. 

I'd say in relation to us all and philosophical ways of thinking;

Alisha and Claudia look more at the relationships with themselves,and the objects around them in particular whereas as well as looking at my relationship with myself I am more interested in other people and my relations with them. Whether it be something scientific or psychological or be emotions I relate to a certain person time or place which I have previously experienced personally. What influences this? Why do I do certain things or see things in a particular way?

Is it better to try understand it all from a mental health perspective?
This idea of constantly analysing the way i live and think and why we do the things we do I felt initially would help me solve some of my own personal issues, which is where my work usually rises from, but from being this outside viewer constantly looking in and evaluating things, creates this  strange distance and relationship with myself that can be quite tiring and isolating.

Audiences and the viewers experience.

After discussion we all seemed to be interested in ideas around the viewers experience of our own art work, some wanting a specific audience and some more unsure. I personally want my work to be universal. Regarding the viewers experience we all agree that a big part of our work is creating to trigger some kind of emotion in our audience. We believe this type of art work is the most rewarding to create in the sense that we're not just communicating our work with our own interests and perspectives in mind but looking at a wider picture. The idea of galleries nowadays. Most exhibitions I go to don't seem inspiring. This idea of having to know lots of context before even entering a gallery and have a higher understanding of the arts is projected in most exhibitions. I think it limits arts audience as a whole. People feel like they dont have enough knowledge or don't think in the 'right way' therefore feel they don't 'get' the work and automatically dismiss it. I want to focus more on WHERE I exhibit because it is important.

Can we ever truly communicate what we want to anyway? How important is this?
Aware that viewers will reflect their own personal experiences onto the work therefore will all take something different.

Answering the questions from my point of view

What do you Share?

I feel the main interest we have in common is 'emotion'; Hayley appears to be more interested in the psychological side, and the way in which politics may affect an idividual emotionally, and her interactions with others. While Alisha bases her work on an event or feeling personally effecting her at a specific time. The way in which I use emotion is more a mixture of the two. I will begin by reading something, and finding something I connect with from literature, and then extract it out in a universal sense.
Hayley- Interactions with other people.
Alisha- Interactions with the 'self'.
Claudia- Interactions with literature.
We all take the emotion that is surrounding us, whether it be direct or indirect, and create of the basis of feeling something. We share the aim to create work that allows a viewer to stop and take notice, to feel something, rather than simply question, or inform. We appear to want to tell a story through our work to allow the viewer to feel, whether it be good or bad. Alisha through her own story (combined with another interest), Hayley through opinions and interactions, and myself through literature and the universal idea that we are all 'beings' that feel.

My work

On Friday 16th October I filled in the form for my tutorial. 

My aims, intentions and interests that I was exploring through my work were; 

Narrative, Literature, emotion and juxtaposition. My aim is to always produce something with emotional value. I've been underlining and writing out the words I have an interest in, or those that I feel relate to an idea for a piece I want to create; words kindly, delicately, thoughtfully, permenently placed into a novel, those plotted in a television series, or those delectable and shadowy words spoken, overheard in passing. Lost to the moment, the then, the past. 

A struggle I was seeming to have was to be able to connect this writing in a clear way. To try and capture the essence of a lost thing, something lacking a voice. Words act as a vessel to time gone by.

Other words I am interested in include memory, time, change and quiet.

During the tutorial I was recommened to read the works of Hélène Cixous, Georges Perec and Roland Barthes. I feel like these books are something I will mention in the presentation. 

How we are similar, and how I differ.

We began initially by revisiting our 'ten words'. This resulted in emphasising our differences rather than our similarities. Therefore we found it necessary to each pick one word, rather than ten, that acts as the foundation of our thoughts, processes and responses to both creating a viewing art. 

The conclusion we came to, through discussion, lead us to the importance of 'emotion', 'time' (in very different ways), and what we could only explain as a lost communication. 

From there we decided to attempt to use these words and phrases, either writing a short paragraph on each, or just incorporating them into our small piece of writing, then reading one anothers. 

My paragraph: 

'Personally, I feel my work involves emotion on the basis that I want the viewer to feel something when they view it. I feel my work is less about receiving a personally opinion or view, but at the moment, more feel the emotional context to something missing. 

Whether this be something visibly missing, or more quietly something lacking its own use, but still being recognisable as to what it is. 

I suppose I want them to feel something uncontrollable has happened with time, a sort of acknowledgement to there being a separation and juxtaposition of two things. Our mortality to be made clear in a subtle way. 

The lost communication comes in the form for things that we take for advantage, once again relating to the passage of time. Words, feelings, the now, slipping like grains of sand between our fingers, being forgotten and unappreciated along the way. Words that are said in communication that go unwritten, those moments that go unphotographed, undocumented. Words and stories that have no other path other than to eventually be lost to our own mortality.'

From reading one another's writing, something Hayley noticed, agreed and shared something I'd spoken about; the idea that we all want our viewers to feel something. We all appear to find the 'connection' the viewer has with a work of art to be vitally important. 

For our talking about our own work I was planning to combine the questions with the same word related statements and try to work around it like that, pulling in aspects of my own work with Hayley and Claudia's:

(This space will have that in, I'll likely wrote it up tomorrow)

Personally I haven't quite got my head around Sartre yet, so I'd like to keep as quiet as I possibly can. We do all definitely have a psychological link in our work, which is why I intend to work out what it means a bit better, that way I can start to look at what I do using it, and maybe use it.
It seems that our points of reference for this is mainly emotion based, rather than scientific.
What influences this- why do we do things certain ways?
I'd say it's probably better not to try to understand it.

Audience- We all seemed interested in idea's of audience and the viewers experience of our artwork, some wanting a specific audience, and others being more unsure. We all shared the fact that we didn't want our work to be cut off from anyone, especially not if it was due to them not having as much experience with art. In short, we wanted it to be universal. We wanted our work to have some sort of impact on whoever is looking at it; we wanted to move them in some way. We know that our original intention isn't always going to be what the viewer see's, so we're quite interested in how other people interpret it. I know that what is behind my work isn't always clear, but this relates to a point Hayley made; Can we ever communicate what we want to? I don't think we can, not completely anyway. Each viewer will have their own experiences which they will project into the artwork, and it's definitely something which needs to be considered. Most often my work is shrouded in a fantasy based narratives, so getting past that can be a challenge, sometimes even to me.

As I'd already began to talk about, we all felt provoking some sort of emotion in whoever is engaging with our work is important. Bonus points if it's the right one. We thought this was important because we believe that good art will make you feel something, make you think about something.

*Cue discussion at end of presentation*

Format of presentation?

Just wondering how we're going to present and what. Regarding information about our own practices I think we've got it covered but we need to talk more about the things we share and don't. 
.
?????????????????

I think we should all start by talking individually about our own work and links we've found between each other(So plan some writing for that. A quick overview about what we've found out) we could turn it into a short open discussion between ourselves and everyone else afterwards. Maybe ask other people in the tutor group some questions we've been discussing???

Talk about Sartre and our linked ideas? How we all have aspects of psychology in our work. Yours two more so about the relationships with yourself, objects and the world around you? Mine more so about relations with other people.  (I need writings off you both)

 Then talk about our importance of audiences and what experience we want our viewer to have with our work? Do we want to create universal work or work for a specific audience? Communication? The importance of different aspects of communication in our work? Can we ever truly communicate what we want to?

This could then lead on nicely to talking about why its important for us to create some kind of emotion in our viewer when engaging with our work? Why do we want our viewer to feel something and reflect on their own life in some way? Why do we feel this is the best kind of art work? 

Then we can look at 3 images of each of our own works at the end together and discuss what we get from each.  This would fit in nicely with the idea that we're all aware that different viewers will take different things from our work due to their own personal experiences. And by doing this is would then give us all an individual voice again and would highlight our differences.

Les Vampires

Source: http://38.media.tumblr.com/94886f6bc27e8798df367a72ea414ead/tumblr_nk1ily33FG1rsxqqio1_500.gif

I came across this gif of  a scene from Les Vampires of  Marfa Koutiloff dancing as a vampire bat in "The Ring That Kills" which is episode Two of the serial. The imagery in this looks fantastic, and something about this scene in particular is really captivating to me. It's framed so well, with the central focus being the bat like figure, but her movement leading us to the woman who's asleep in white (and that contrast is pretty strong). The background is pleasantly simple, which it really needs to be, as to not take away from the foreground, and has a gothic style to it, which is a great support to the vampiric atmosphere. 

I think I need to watch all seven hours (there are ten episodes of this). 

Questions Answered- Hayley

What texts are you reading?

Jean Paul Sartre- 'Being and Nothingness'
Dale Spender- 'Man Made Language'


Which artists are you looking at?

Egon Schiele
Linder Sterling
Frida Khalo
Louise Bourgeois
Lynne Hershan Leeson



Which films etc share a similar territory?

BBC documentary series- 'The Ascent Of Woman'
Ron Howard- 'A Beautiful Mind' 2001
Lars Von Trier- 'Nymphomaniac 1 and 2' 2013
David Lynch- various films


What sort of location does your work require?

Completely depends on the work and materials. I work in many ways with different medium. Location hasn't been a big aspect of my work so far, it usually comes as an after thought. Maybe I should give it more time.

Who is your audience and how might your work gather or engage your audience??

Everyone. Not just people who have a high understanding of the arts. I want my work to be universal and for it to affect people in some way. Whether it just simply makes them think about the here and now, whether they think about the ideas behind it a few weeks later or maybe they would revisit a scene from their own past whilst confronted with the work. I'd like to think Id engage an audience through creating conversation by the topics I present to them and also through an interesting aesthetic.

What workshops have you signed up for?

None because I cant find them

The Ascent Of Woman

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0693dsh

There is only one episode left on BBC player but you can find the 3 previous ones on youtube. Found this a few weeks ago it's a really great watch in relation to the transformation of language from when it was created, to the current age. This series focuses on women and strong influential writers who fought to a position of power to change the way they were treated and percieved in a male dominated world. Claudia you'll find some good stuff in this in relation to Enheduanna(the worlds first named author), writings and brail.

Planning for our presentation

We began by discussing our idea's, and picking up on the ones which we shared:

Words- Silence and the power of words- Importance of communication
             what we're saying to the viewer
             Lost communication
             Conflicting words

Time- Past, not present or future
           Immortality (Morbidity?)
           Notice the things which go un-noticed

Pessimists (?) possibly more 'realist'?

Why? - We want to know why we do what we do- why do we like/not like things? Why do we make art?

We also found a connection with the following quote from Sartre:
'There is nothing more crucial to existentialism than the belief that we can only know what we live. We know that we fear the 'sticky death of the for-itself in the in-itself', because we know,or are open to persuasion, that vicious things horrify and fascinate us'

Then we narrowed it down to:
Emotion
Time
(Lost) Communication

But we weren't really sure how we felt about that either, and we felt we needed to do some alterations to this.
Not all of the communication we deal with is lost, but rather we feel this was where the emotion lies.
We also wondered about time. Really, only Claudia seems to work with, or more on, time, but due to the subject matters, me and Hayley's connection with it is more based on the fact that our work is based in the time we felt that emotion, or had that opinion. This led us to:

Communication
Existence
Personal and Private Life

We then decided to write small paragraphs about our work and how it linked to each word, in-order to establish the links we had with the words.

Hayley

Communication- Through art works and as art works in general. Always aware of the viewer and how my practice will be translated. Looking into communication with myself and others on a psychological level is a theme which seems to be consistent throughout my practice. In regards to the ideas I want to communicate. What do I want to communicate? Can I ever truly communicate what I intend to? Theorist.......... Even though this is inevitable, we must still understand that people can still relate and understand how it feels to see from someone else's perspective as well as their own. The viewer takes what they want and projects what they know onto the work from their own personal experience in regards to the topics I present to them.

Existence- Sartre's theories. What it means to exist in this world(particularly from a personal perspective regarding my work). The conscious, the unconscious. 'Existentialism does not understand the boundaries between perceiving and feeling'. 2 kinds of entity within existence; 'beings-in-themselves', 'beings-for-themselves'. Also looking at what it is LIKE to exist in this world and the emotions that come with that as well as the meanings of existence.

Personal and Private life- Looking more at women and issues within society( especially women of a similar age and also in my position as an art student). This is in regards to representation, what having a voice really entails, feminism, gender, sexuality, stereotypes, language and communication with myself and others.

Alisha

Communication- My relationship with communication is complicated- it's never been a strong point of mine, regardless of the way I'm doing it. Within my work I think my desire to communicate wavers. Sometimes, I am clear about my message, such as here, where I'm confrontational, but most often I know I'm not clear. Whilst I'm expressing an emotion or experience, it's shrouded in mystery of various sorts- hidden in fantasy based narratives. Often, my work is somewhat selfish in that respect.

Existance/Personal Life- I combined the two because they're too intertwined for me to separate. Pretty much all of my work has a personal element to it, it literally documents my experience of living. Sometimes it is about my emotions, whereby I tend to apply an emotion to a new situation, or find a way to demonstrate it visually. Most of my work has an entanglement with my mental state, because it;s where my idea's predominately come from. A lot of it involves my physical health, for similar reasons. Sometimes it;s my memories and I bring past experiences and elements of nostalgia into things, including life events and interests.

Time- I'm not sure why I wrote about time, but I must have confused myself. Since I wrote it, I'm going to put it here anyway. Time is a funny one. Generally my main links revolves around when and how I make work, such as it being an idea or feeling from a certain time. Sometimes that's not all the case is- sometimes I deal with death and decay, which is probably the most pivotal events time plays a part in. I'm always looking back to the past with my work, never the present or future, and jumping in and out of time.

Considering Questions for Presentation- Alisha

What texts are you reading?
The Art of Asking- Amanda Palmer
Phantasmagoria- Marina Warner

Which artists are you looking at?
Nicomi Nix Turner 
Jel Ena
Abbey Watkins
Tom Bagshaw
Joseph Cornell


Which films etc share a similar territory?
It's hard to tell. I think films by Guillermo del Toro share some similarities. There is a particular dark atmosphere, fantasy aspect, and he uses a lot of symbolism, often very strongly. Each frame of his work is like a work of art. He's a huge inspiration of mine, particularly with his films Pans Labyrinth and Crimson Peak, both of which are wonderful.
I'd say, whilst typical and a little ironic, that books such as The Bell Jar and Girl, Interrupted cover similar grounds.
Some music shares similar territory too, such as works of Amanda Palmer and Emilie Autumn.

What sort of location does your work require?
My work is generally 2D, consisting of drawing, painting and photography, so really all I know it needs is a wall. I am thinking of trying to extend into 3D, but really I'd have to wait until I've made the work to know who that would need to be displayed.

Who is your audience?
In truth, the question of who my audience are is one that troubles me. I go to most art galleries and I don't see my work. I look online and I see artists who are associated with the low brow movement, who are not brightly coloured, big eyed, or chock full of pop culture references, and I see a link between my work and theirs. I honestly have no idea who the audience of my work would be. I'd like to believe that I don't cut anyone off- I want my work to be accessible to anyone who see's it, but I know that some layers of it wouldn't be understood by a lot of people, so I'd imagine that the subject matter and style would be a little difficult for some people to connect to.

How might your work gather or engage your audience?
As I'm not sure who my audience would be, it's hard to say. I tend to create female characters who are aesthetically pleasing, but have an odd atmosphere to them. I know a lot of people are drawn to the characters, especially their dark eyes.

What workshops have you signed up for?
Strategies for Self Publishing

........

Nymphomaniac #1 trailer:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdxzno5Xp2Y

Nymphomaniac #2 trailer:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY05rcPrAss

Can find it on netflix, or just stream online.
Give a watch and tell me what you think.

Recent Work- Alisha Ward

My work largely revolves around emotions and experiences, so I guess it's more about what it is to be human. Mainly it involves aspects of my own experiences of suffering from depression, such as coping mechanisms (Escape- my attempts to escape into other worlds) and associated feelings (Untitled- attempting to disappear into the surrounding environment, to hide). I also include elements of nostalgia (such as in another piece where I included paper dolls, which harking back to my childhood) and references to physical health, mainly to the ailments I have as a result of my fibromyalgia. I also include elements of mythology, and occasionally pop culture. The checkerboard pattern in Escape is in reference to a passage from Girl Interrupted by Susana Kaysen:

“The floor of ice cream parlor bothered me. It was black-and-white checkboard tile, bigger than supermarket checkboard. If I looked only at a white square, I would be all right, but it was hard to ignore the black squares that surrounded the white ones. The contrast got under my skin. The floor meant yes, no, this, that, up, down, day, night -all the indecisions and opposites that were bad enough in life without having them spelled out for you on the floor.” 

Which is a problem I have with those patterns. The Untitled drawing makes reference to lunar phases (or rather, they literally frame the drawing) and makes reference to the symbolism of moths, being quite a dark symbol which transcends realms of being, and to some extent lunar goddesses which litter ancient religions. It also touches on the idea of freedom- freedom from life, from yourself, from reality. 

Escape, Charcoal and Conte pastel on paper, 2015

Untitled, Photograph, 2015

Untitled and Unfinished, Pencil on paper

Most recent exhibition- Hayley Darbyshire

My work for the exhibition explored the human existence, highlighting feminism in particular, questioning social structures and ideas which have been created to generalise us such as gender assumptions and the ideology behind sexual pleasure. The pieces 'What Now' and 'Women Are Just Slaves' use symbolism and others to create an alternative world of what could be, and help represent my views on today's understanding of feminism, particularly the way we live as women- outside and inside the art world. I usually approach my work in slightly humorous ways, yet it is important for me to communicate underlying serious political socialist and personal issues which others can relate to in some way.

'Women Are Just Slaves' paint and collage, 2015

'What Now?' oil, hair and acrylic on wood, 2015

Frank Auerbach Exhibition

Anyone been to Frank Auerbach exhibition at Tate Britain yet? Any thoughts?

Sartre: Being and Nothingness

So what do people think about the theories and text in general? (I'll get better quality photos up when my scanner decides to work again. But for now you can find this review on the internet) Last time I checked they don't have the book at Chelsea, but do at Camberwell and others.