The End

Finishing piece: After finding the frames I decided that I wanted a label so I could write a description of each individual I met that night, how they act to the camera and in general friendly or not so friendly. With the failure of getting people to write their 'name' and a word to describe themselves on the polaroid themselves (as it smugded) I thought I would compromise! = to make the polaroids more interesting than simply displaying them in a small frame I decided on these simple descriptions to add the view of the VIEWER - the observed is pictured in full pose/natural shot. During the polaroid shots I felt it necessary to at times quickly take the picture. People were not as laid back and comfortable as I expected when faced with a camera. Don't know why I expected any different seeing as throughout my experiements when the camera was obvious or I was clearly focusing on individuals I would often receive a look of annoyance and 'what are you doing' face.

However, I wrote a short description and it all looks to fit in together nicely. If I had a little more time and money I think I would definately invested in the RARE polaroid films and shot ALOT of pictures and got a good enough pen to keep the writing on it - also I think I would have taken the time to search for an old sash window to display the photographs in. The window would symbolise the idea of SEEING creating an artifical distance between public/private and viewer/viewed.

Although the polariods were not as successful as I would have hoped (because of technical issues of flash in dark at night, expense meant I have only 8 reasonable shots and the fact it was quite chunky and really small! would have on second attempt like a BIG image) they did receive a better response than when I attempted to do the same with a digital camera, people were not impressed and no one wanted to talk to me. I think the polaroid to some extent added the fun and 'innocence' to the proposal of 'can I take a photograph of you' - less intrusive and more playful.

Secondly if I were able to go back or have extra time I would have experimented more with the images that I gathered - playing with distorting the images changing/munipulating reality. And even the movements that I found in the sequences were highly interesting! I would have like to played with them.

Thanks for reading,

Natalie

In the shops .............

Finished Painting

Speakers' Corner

Polaroids Final

Meeting A Stranger

www.kt.org

Kensington Temple
Kensington Park Road,
Notting Hill Gate,
London W11 3BY
United Kingdom

Vogue - SPY

Filippos Tsitsopoulos

Performance, Painter and Multimedia artist.

Videos: the recreation of figures, like theatrical plays. Frightening yet compelling! Strange creatures with human figures.

See the film on the Saatchi Gallery website http://video.saatchigallery.com/artist/profile/14256/Filippos+Tsitsopoulos/www.duveberlin.com

'Displacement is propel things from its present site, present place, transported them in another Dimension and gives them another use.

Turn off your brain to feed better the eyes

This issues are applying to figures that are desconected and the displacement gives to them a new identity. For example the San Sebastian Bomber you displace as well the meaning of the saint and replace him into the world of Terrorism.

But also means the explosion of the values socielly talking, and sufering religiously talking that as an example of a legend that needs a modern example for its understandingness.

All the arcetypes in the human brain, has the security of an end, we can accept the word like death of something physical.

The Idea to prolonge this timeline of life change the subject and the meaning of a life(a heroes life)for instance and re-produce a whole sceen of replacement of values.

I use to caracter life in me and myself and my face as a possible prolonge of this actitude.

Displacement is the constact word to think inverted.

Displacement are martyrs of self skin changes.

Displacement in the new reality, mostly when things are over.

In the 1920 sort off most people have portraits especially in England when they are diseased, or passed by. This commun use is to give to other people the last image.
After that point the image "dies with thee"(material, memory, symbol).

The imaginary distortion of transporting the image belongs to a no accept of an end.
You imagine that people are growing and also distorcioned with their new image even after death, the subject of the physical death of course with the extension of the soul that we give to them after death.

Each portrait of this serie is conceived as death parts of the human me autobiographical and imaginery that tranformed into a new life.

This continue no ending of things, of the values, of issues of reason produces the new identity, the icon of the aura as material made form, that even the suffering the final suffering isnt enough to a life,makes the person a martyr of his new identity of his new life.'

FILIPPOS TSITSOPOULOS (http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/view_blog/4113/showdown_saatchi_filippos%3Cbr%3Etsitsopoulos_concept)

Gallery - Ori Gersht: Places That Were Not @ MUMMERY + SCHNELLE

I went to see 'Places That Were Not' by Ori Gersht. New artist I hadn't heard of before. The exhibition compromised of two of her works 'Evaders' and 'Hide and Seek'.

Photographic depictions of landscape about memory, history and identity.

Press Release:
http://www.newexhibitions.com/uploads/upload.000/id17766/press_release.pdf

I found the exhibition fascinating, magical and mystical. The images truly raised ideas about real or fiction - they appeared as though out of a fairytale.Although the landscape depicted have historical significance such as the 'Evaders' series included the escape route, for those attempting to flee the Nazis, out of France during the Second World War. The images to some extent created an narrative and provocation for your mind to run wild with ideas; the suitcase in the middle of the second image above. Raising questions and creates ideas of identity.

I was suprised to see images of Poland (which I have visited on numerous occassions) appearing so mysteriously.

Beginning of Painting

'Fresh Fruits' - Phenomenon of Japanese costume play

Christian Boltanski

Vitrine de référence (Vitrine of Reference), 1971


Accident Chronicle, 1973


Purim Reseve, 1989

Another artist that caught my eye was Christian Boltanski. A French photographer, sculptor, painter, and installation artist. He usually paints events of historic significance. Themes of death, memory and loss; he often seeks to memorialize the anonymous and those who have disappeared. The ties in with my project in the sense he displays people who the viewer does not know about and seeks to investigate/find out about. Public looking into the private lives of those who are no longer present in society. His work is emotive and dramatic. Often using dark colours, lighting and imagery with materials and objects to associate with the images he displays.

'We are all so complicated, and then we die. We are a subject one day, with our vanities, our loves, our worries, and then one day, abruptly, we become nothing but an object, an absolutely disgusting pile of shit. We pass very quickly from one stage to the next. It's very bizarre. It will happen to all of us, and fairly soon too. We become an object you can handle like a stone, but a stone that was someone' Christian Boltanski

Sources:

http://www.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ENS-boltanski_en/ENS-boltanski_en.htm

http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue2/boltanski.htm

Bruce Nauman's Video Art

Clown Torture - Bruce Nauman, 1987





"Clown Torture," 1987. Four color video monitors, four speakers, four videotape players, two video projectors, four videotapes (color, sound), dimensions variable.

“Clown Torture”

Nauman's "Clown Torture" is a shattering spectacle of color, motion, and sound. Displayed at high volume, the audio level of the five simultaneously occurring videos is an assault on the senses. Heard long before it's viewed, one must bravely enter into an enclosed, darkened room in order to see where all the noise is coming from. Once inside, two pairs of stacked monitors and two wall projections come into view. Immediately one senses that something is awry, as only two of the four televisions are oriented right side up. With one monitor turned upside-down and the other placed on its side, the images become abstracted and disorienting. The videos playing on the monitors record clowns in unnerving or difficult situations. In one sequence, a clown screams at an unseen antagonist. In another, a clown repeats the elliptical story "Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off; who was left? Repeat. Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence." Recited with a variety of expressions (happy, scared, mad, etc.), the clown can't help but hide a growing frustration at not being able to finish the story or have it make sense. Two videos show clowns trying balance objects - goldfish bowls and buckets of water - with little success. The final video resembles a scene from a closed-circuit security camera, only it's a disconcerting image of a clown using a public toilet.

Nauman's "Clown Torture" makes its artifice obvious, from the caked makeup of the clowns' faces to the many power cords that run across the ceiling, walls, and floor. With activity occurring from nearly every angle, the viewer - like the clown - is the subject of experimentation and interrogation. While it's easy to tell that these clowns are only acting-out traumas, it is nevertheless difficult to watch and purposefully so. "Clown Torture" makes the viewer question his or her own participation in the events on screen. Alluding to difficult subjects such as insanity, political torture, and surveillance, the work makes complex connections between theater, media, and apathy The makeup, hair, and costume of each clown act as a disguise for the actor or person underneath. Anonymous victims and inciters of brutality and pranks, these scared and scary clowns seem simultaneously real and unreal.

Gallery - Cyril Lepetit: Planning @ DANIELLE ARNAUD Gallery

http://www.daniellearnaud.com/exhibitions/exhibition-cyril-lepetit-planning.html

I went to visits Cyril Lepetit exhibition 'Planning' as I wanted to learn about the idea of a 'space' in relation to identity. The exhibition consisted of mainly installation, sound and film attempting to 'articulate a journey through' of wants, needs, and the actions one takes. The journey also looked at public and private (the home) spheres.

- Firstly, his work Technotrans, 2009 (France and England)was shown. This was a sound
installation in the back of a truck, the industrial transport ones you see often on the motorways. It was created with asylum seekers and refugees in France and England, they sing a song from their home country and an English one that they may have known before entering the UK. The recordings are presented as DJ mix in the back of a lorry at an empty truck transport. At first it really does look and feel like a gig night out in the back of a truck! The music is mixed with clubby style music.

I liked the installation - with regards to identity it really lets you see inside someone else's life, for a second be part of that journey. The space is enclosed and small and the echo of the music gives way to a bigger picture/understanding. The foreign/English singing makes you understand the distance travelled and adds elements of personal experience due to the different voices you hear. You want to close you eyes and drift away into someone else's experience/life. Quite powerful in a simple way.

- Mat & Rug & Pomegranates forms the second part installation of a Georgian house. The gallery is specifically arranged so it leads the viewer; until you come across a characters such as a drug dealer. The 'house' appears welcoming and cosy but what you find in it is unnerving.

Facebook : Privacy?

Francis Bacon

Gallery - The Huntarian Museum

Experiment: Kings Cross Station