OUTCOME 3 and Audience and Exhibtion

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf8YyDz3grfNxzZCINrI1qw

^^ My third and final outcome. Himeros 9700. This is a YouTube Channel where I have displayed a selection of my video work. Here I have extended my audience to the online realm creating a digital artifact to stumble upon. The presentation is minimal with little description just a series of interlaced videos.

As well as a general fine art audience, for my previous two outcomes to be viewed in the exhibition, this channel is intended for an anonymous online audience. Whoever may find it may view it and absorb it as much or as little as they desire. I would love for it to be taken, stolen and recycled and generally spread through internet space. The emphasis here is on the free nature of the work when displayed in this way. I like the idea of sampling and being sampled, the re-use of images further evolving and TRANSFORMING these 'objects' forwards into history? the psyche? or the void?

Exhibition

In Exhibition of my work I will display the triptych of Prints and my video outcome. The prints have been framed ready for display and will be presented alongside an Ipad (depending on availability) showing my video on loop. Along side these Prints there may also be displayed some photographic prints of stills from my video and other photographic collages. Also, printed in time for the exhibition  will be a load of handouts, free to be taken,  which have been developed from a series of quick hand style drawings done in markers. Some of these handouts will contain QR codes which when scanned by a smart phone which will give a link to the YouTube Channel mentioned above. These will be set alongside my work at the exhibition.

With more budget and time I would have displayed at least 6 prints and have multiple screens displaying various of my video experiments. Alongside this would be a sound installation of music/soundscape/spoken word to accompany it. Audio is something I would have liked to develop further in this project but with the video and print being so time consuming it wasn't possible to explore it greatly.

Print out designs below:

Final Video Outcome - Untitled

Here is my Final video outcome. In this work I have continued my ideas from my prints and video experiments creating a compilation of imagery. A recurrent motif in this piece and project as a whole is flesh, whether of a fruit or of the body itself this imagery permeates the work. Flesh and skin are a universal aspect of humanity and within it we live, held together by this biological fabric. The birth, life and death of this fabric, this essential transformation, spurred by the non-stop change of the body.  

Moving on from my print outcomes this work shifts from classical to digital. The boundless collections of flesh found on the internet pulse from the masses, mirroring the billions of bodies that scrabble in physicality. Layers, fresh and fluid, rendered in pixels make-up the composition, abstractions and observations of the body and our views of the body. I am pointing in ambiguity, the body is essential yet impermanent and there ain't nothing we can do about it.





Abstract - Actual
Feminine  - Masculine
Real - Virtual
Introversion - Extroversion
Life  - Death
Good - Evil
Sanity....................................................................................................................................

Print Outcomes

This triptych of etchings makes up one outcome of my project. These etchings etched with copper sulfate on aluminum plate have developed from earlier prints and video work. The content of the pieces differ somewhat but generally form and anatomy have been explored and I have developed my own visual language the body and of its sex. The Prints form this trio through a change apparent above from left to right, where line becomes tone or vice versa.

The right hand print is the most tonal with at least 5 etches were made in the acid, with four different tonal areas created using Straw hat and Brunswick varnish. This etching has the most depth of the group with subtle line details shadowed by the roughness of the plate.

The middle etching was the clearest follow on from my earlier prints and was the first to be etched out of the three. This print has three distinct tonal regions separating the folded forms. This was a definite continuation of the fluid style that I originally developed.

The left hand print was the second to be etched and comprised entirely of line with any tonality being dictated by the frequency and density of the lines. The vague scrawl forming some lettering in it's lower half was in reference to the carved plastic of the bus seats I have sat on while journeying to college throughout the year. I liked the deeply textured surfaces of the plastic, which is carved and often melted. It was interesting to position this harsh texture alongside textures of the body, viewing the similarities and differences between plastic and flesh.

I'm very pleased with how this outcome has turned out especially with how well the prints interact. These also pose an interesting contrast with my video outcome (in the next post) which explores the same visual language but made digitally as a pose to the traditional process of etching. It was nice to see the images transcend this divide in the medium and create an overlapping set of outcomes.

The tonal print with just the lines in before tonal areas were added.

Slit Scan Developments

Here are two developments using Slit-scan effect. 

Meditating man briefly melts and spins as he reaches ecstatic plane

In the above clip I combined contrasting imagery, such as the wall-hangings and incense with a tattooed Tristan, all neatly wrapped up in a pink ribbon, to give another strange piece. Here the audio, an echoing Britney Spears loop, hints at the metamorphic nature of my artistic process creating a puzzling (even to myself) mash-up.
In reference to my earlier questions and speculations this piece has veered away somewhat, but it has certainly explored the language of the body and maybe sexuality, in a more slapstick way.





Body Watch

Here animation has been combined with a slit scan effect on clips from an earlier video experiment Grape Jizz. This has taken on a much more abstract feel, with the blinking eye fading in and out of the fleshy liquid texture.

Slit scan

Here are three experiments I did imitating the effect of Slit-scan photography. The effect was created in Adobe After Effects using a time displacement map with a black and white gradient. The gradient imitated the way the a moveable slide would be used in front of a piece of film. The time displacement effect would displace different areas of the video depending on the shade of grey. As I used a top to bottom wash seen below the slits are horizontal. 

There were a few problems I encountered when trying out this effect, the main one being banding illustrated in the second video displayed below. This was due to a variety of variables such as the amount of shades in the gradient map but mainly the frame rate. This was solved by filming in a higher frame rate (50 fps) and also speeding up the video, also giving a higher frame rate. Although I feel with the second and third videos this distortion adds to the grainy tone of the clip. This was solved in other experiments, such as the first clip below.

I enjoyed using the effect as it transformed quite mundane clips in some bizarre ways.

The above clip used a gradient which started black at the top became white in the middle and then black at the bottom. This can be seen as the bands flow from the middle. The way the video is almost liquefied here complements the video of feet underwater in an interesting way. It appears a digital imitation of a natural physics.



In the above experiment as Nabeel twists in front of a still background this combined with the time displacement map shifts is body from top to bottom. This creates this curving effect where parts of his body seem to twist around him. As well this effect I added Arabic text on top to explore the way text and language can transform the tone of imagery. I liked the humorous feel this has given this clip.



The above  clip turned into another odd montage. The original music used on the clip was removed due to copyright grounds on YouTube so was replaced through the free music available. The video consists of three experiments of a hand being distorted with the time displacement map.
Intended music was Mariah Carey's - Fantasy.

Below is the gradient used with the displacement map on the bottom two of the above videos.

Animated development of the fleshy abstractions

Here the puppet tool was used in after effects to create points whereby you can essentially transform your image into a puppet with joints at the nodes you have selected. Using key-frames these were moved over time so the object would reshape, bend and distort over a given time period. I chose to let each transformation happen over approximately 15 seconds as after experimentation this felt like a nice pace for the work. Each of the pieces contains four separate transformations. The fleshy shapes were in a PNG file format which meant they had no background, this kept distortions to a minimum as it was just the shape itself which was being manipulated instead of some of its background as well.

Above are 2 of the experiments there are altogether 5, the other 3 can be find my following links on these videos to the YouTube channel they were posted on. I was pleased with the effect of these pieces with a very literal transformation occurring in them.

-When does obscene become clean? 
-When does something become obscene?
-Define obscene?  
-Awareness of the changing state of obscenity?

-Explore the language of the body and it's relationship to the language of sex/sexuality.
-Look at the humorous nature of the anatomy and this line between obscenity and decency.
- Look at the textures of the body and the textures of the different mediums I have explored and their relationship to the central theme of transformation. 

The above questions came from my early experiments. These have further been explored in this work. The questions have resurfaced and new questions have arose. 
  
A question I often get asked of these works (filming and animating flesh and the body) is: WHAT EXACTLY IS THAT? . This straightforward observation has been important in shaping my work and has reminded me of their ever-changing subjectivity/objectivity as well as between the actual and abstract nature of these pieces. This is a frequent way transformation has been used and explored in this project.

Flesh side_by_side

Early video experiment made of two separate bits of video stuck together. Using masks and changing their positions using key-frames so the two pieces of video both fade to black in the middle. The mask can be seen below ( the yellow lines with square nodes connecting them), this has effect of cutting off the video along this line. As the background is black it has allowed me to lay the two videos side by side without an intersection, where you can clearly see the edge of the video. This has the effect of the two videos appearing to be one. It also covered up where at one point a hand flicks across the background which revealed the border of the footage. The edge of the mask was also feathered which meant if the video brighter flesh did cross the mask it was less obvious as it faded into the black rather than hitting a sharp line.

I am pleased with this experiment. I like the sharpness of the image which was filmed in the photography studio, with lighting, giving the dark background. It was fun attempting to collage video further literally laying and sticking the video side by side. To develop here more footage could be imported so I would be collaging 3 or more individual bits of video. I could also using some gentle distortion to warp the  flesh more creating more layered forms.

Questions here: What is that?

If you cannot tell what something is, it lands in the middle ground of obscenity and decency: ambiguity. Ambiguity is another recurring motif of my work, look into this.  

Further photographs and digital collage

Developmental Prints

 Grape Jizz

In this experiment fluid again rests on flesh as well  a play with non-human (fruit) objects being placed with the body. However in the process of abstraction the fruit appears part and one with the body and an 'organ' of sorts is created. Towards the end of the video the innards of the fruit ( a grape) are exposed and cover the flesh creating a layered texture of flesh on flesh.

I feel this is the strongest video experiment of the group with crisp sharpness and contrasting textures and tones. The exploration of my ideas is best displayed in this piece.

The title of this piece was also important as the use of slang and incoherence in the language also reflects the ambiguous and exploratory nature of ALL these videos and ALL my work as a whole.

Muscle and Fat

  Muscle Fat

In this piece I concentrated more on the anatomy itself and the outer workings and textures of the body. Here two shots flash between the neck and the back. I asked Nabeel, who was filmed for this video, to contort and tense his body showing pulses and curves in his flesh. The throb and flow of movement was strong here as I used After effects to speed up and slow down the video as well as morph and curve the film heavily.

Another interesting experiment here which has further developed my imagery and use of colour, movement and time.

Fluid Skin - Video Experiment

Fluid Skin

In this 2 minute long video experiment one continuous shot shows water flowing over skin. The footage was left almost entirely as it was apart from a slight curve (Warp Tool - Adobe after effects) in the image from about 1 minute in. The colour was left unedited as the natural light, delicate and soft\ complemented the imagery well. This was filmed indoors in the morning on a bright but clouded day.

This piece follows on from my line drawings, prints and photographic experiments as it has expanded the language of those experiments though movement and colour. It has also transformed linguistically as the word 'fluid' has now been used literally as a noun to describe the piece, 'Fluid (on) Skin', whereas in the previous experiments it was used adjectively to describe the work.

I feel this piece worked well to respond to my sub-theme of fluidity in sex/gender and also the ever-changing state of the human body. 
This was before the audio as the audio much developed the piece and has given me ideas for a developed video outcome.

Reference links here - Beuys, Ovid and Whitman
-Whitman - I sing the body electric.
-Beuys - Process in work, everything in a state of change. ever changing body, described here by fluid on skin
- Ovidian transformation? organic timeless motifs?

Footnote: Audio added later. I created the audio in audacity sampling Arca's track 'Obelisk' for the background rhythm/beat. The vocals are for the most part taken from the poem 'I sing the Body Electric' by Walt Whitman, which I have edited and cropped and computer generated for the length and feel of the clip. Also sampled was an interlude 'Parents' from Gil Scott Heron's 2010 album 'I'm New Here'.

This track takes the style of a 'mashup' and for me adds extra texture to the feeling of the video (perhaps too much, too cluttered or complicated). I like the computer generated vocals another layer, maybe recognising the digital nature of this work, or questioning the reality of the body. It certainly adds more layers to the work and places one of my strong references at the fore.

Initial video experiment as development from my drawings and prints

Earth Flesh

This was the first video experiment of the series and was my first time using Adobe After Effects. The result was particularly exploratory and diverse as I was using a wide range of effects with full force to test the capabilities of the program. However the piece turned out to be very interesting with multiple close up shots heavily distorted and layered. Colour wise I removed the blue and green hues with the Colour Correction effect to create a general red display throughout ranging from bright contrasting reds to more earthy reddish-brown tones which were more melded together.

Colour was a particularly prominent aspect of this piece, which here could refer to the primal archaic earthy tones of the body.

In these video experiments I have created a series of dynamic collages continuing this theme of transformation and fluidity in sex, sexuality and the body. The videos have a general abstract and spontaneous style.

Processing animaitions.

Here are some experiments in coding using the open source software Processing. Although the style and production of these pieces has been very unusual and removed from my other work I have tried to include some hint of transformation. With some of these a transformation occurs and then reverses and repeats.

'There's a tactility to all these installations, which is very different from how you view a piece of video art normally…

That's one of the things I've developed out of the language of the troll cave, which then becomes something completely different in the ball pit, and the squeeze chair, its a physical, haptic, viewing experience, that formally connects with the themes and materials you're viewing, and I thought that was an interesting thing to experiment with. The installations point to all those feelings, of horror and beauty, attraction and repulsion, erotic desire and infantile regression, which are contained within all these fetishes in the videos. The desire to be in front of your computer all day is extremely comfortable but it's a form of torture too. It's both the safest space but you're completely trapped too, and that feeling of being under balls, or stuck in the squeeze chair, is like that.'

https://i-d.vice.com/en_gb/article/jon-rafmans-internet-anthropology

Research on artist Jon Rafman who explores technology's impact on the modern mind, particularly in this work, with regards to the internet. Point's of interest are; the use of harvested material and exploration of various dichotomy's especially the boundary between the virtual and the real, and whether this even still exists. The above image, a still from his 2013 video Still Life, illustrates the sometimes extreme physicality at this border.

I found this an interesting side reference with the use and recycling of found imagery, as well as the documentation and presentation of his themes. I'd like to explore using the internet or further my use of technology in some way in response to this, potentially curate some work online. Also explore this polarity (?) between real and online life, and the use of re-cycling found images.

The expanse of media in the online world? The permanence and mystery of my work in an online world? Have an outcome that is a curated online space.

Mono lino prints

 Printed from four separate shapes of lino rearranged for each print. The forms created were body-like but very abstract, the muddiness of the ink was due to printing first a green and then contrasting colours on top. It gave a skin-like texture as they are muddier and there are hints of greens and blues beneath the main peachy brown.

These shapes and forms were an interesting sometimes animal sometimes human sort of creating a cross between human and animal. Certainly anatomical or body like these prints were an interesting abstraction of the body and allowed space for analysis of the body outside its original context.

Selection of digital textures_the first few are more close up on a micro (pixel) level, the later are more removed and the textures of the body are warmer and appear almost as landscapes.

  

Images are edited photographs I have taken and also some stills

Pixel textures of the face_photograph.edited

Early prints

 Early prints

These are some initial dry-point prints I have done to start thinking about a more developed etching on aluminum to do later on. 

These were created alongside of the harvested photographs of flesh and body. I am continuing with the flaps and folds of skin making up the main construction of the forms. They are also generally abstract and playful, anatomically ambiguous treading the line between obscenity and decency.

Through these prints I attempted to express transitions and middle grounds between femininity and masculinity creating something again perplexing or vague. Here I have further developed my own visual language of sex and body. What was also interesting doing this was observing how deeply I would reach for material and what feelings I would draw upon.


 

Initial Research - Two more Jesse Kanda videos.

Both take video of human anatomy using internal cameras to create 'alien' visuals. I like how familiar and more unfamiliar parts of the human anatomy have been transformed into something Other. 

A process of transformation is apparent here and has certainly been influential on my work. The use of immediately accessible content is also something to explore - forging something new out of the mundane. 

Initial Research - Front Load - Jesse Kanda - MATURE content

Arca - Front Load (Official Video) from Arca on Vimeo.

Interesting video and strong inspiration for these current ideas. Especially exploring this line between obscene and clean. This video arguably crosses this line and is rich in textures and sex.

Points:

• Beauty of subject/object - blur/focus - hidden/reveal
• Obscenity/decency - this line - it's cultural subjectivity
• The language of the body and sex is explored in stark humorous simplicity

I Sing the Body Electric - Walt Whitman

I Sing the Body Electric - Part 9

9

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,

I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)

I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,

Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,

Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,

Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,

Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,

Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,

Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,

Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,

Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,

Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,

Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,

Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,

Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,

Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,

Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,

Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;

All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,

The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,

The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,

Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,

Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,

The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,

The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,

Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,

Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,

The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,

The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,

The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,

The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,

The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,

The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,

The exquisite realization of health;

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,

O I say now these are the soul!

Leaves of Grass and Selected Prose by Walt Whitman  - First Published by J M Dent 1993
Abridged edition published in 1996 by Phoenix division of Orion Books Ltd

Initial Research Points - Ovid's Metamorphoses - Ted Hughes translation - Tales from Ovid

 Ovid's Metamorphoses were an important reference from the beginning of this project.This Ted Hughes translation contains a selection of his tales each with a motif of transformation. They are Romanised Greek myths and legends filled and inspired by 'human passion in extremis, passion where it mutates into the supernatural'.

These organic mythic transformations have influenced me to attempt to create something that expresses transformation more intuitively. To attempt to create something as spontaneous as feeling, just to simply create in response to feelings and experience. This is in response to the way these tales express and elevate human passion to a mythic level, creating something timeless.

Here, Cyane mourning the rape of Prosperina becomes a stream of water. 

Ted Hughes - Tales from Ovid -
First Published 1997 by Faber and Faber Limited
This copy -1997

Initial Experiments - Line drawings