presentation of work

so while i was at it i decided to create a cover for my dvd as well as a sheet with my blog on (as we was asked to write it down!) and i thought that was a little boring so i took two photos, one with my blogger address on it and printed that, and another to create my title dvd sleave for my dvd case.

The Final piece and evaluation *drum roll please*

Diary of a self harmer by Dani Martin

So i finally finished editing together my work and uploading it. And here it is. Overall i prefer it alot to my christmas peice which was diar compaired to this in my own personal view. I wanted to work alot more on producing that polished look in comparison to my last video which i personally felt was abit poor in quality. I desided you use a more natural lighting, and editing it alot slower, with more transitions and more panning shots included. I wanted to insted of pressing on the idea of sorta horror, dark, ect which is what my last video was leaning more towards, this one i wanted to give the audience more of an understanding of how emotionally numb and slow and just well, the video being slow i think it just explains some of the feelings abit more then focusing on the torment of my first video. I kept some of the visuals the same, and added more, such as the scribbled out face was and idea that steamed from the idea of not being able to show who u really are, hiding, mixed with the scribble scene form my first scene. i think the lip scene, while not being so dark, captures the feeling of being silenced abit better being sandwhiched between the two images in the mirror, the first showing that the person does want to ask for help,but the touching of the mirror implying intrapment, and while being alot lighter and less contrasted (in lighting this scene) is doesnt seem so horrific, but still keeps its power.i used cross fades as the transition of choice and this was done to show one moment blurring into another which is what is often felt. like its all leading on from each other. and i also used the diary for the start and final images because of the idea that what we are seeing is the visual interpriation of the diary. The music played an important role in helping to order the visuals, as well as choosing to edit alot slower rahter then the style before of just POWPOWPOW one image after another flashing on screen. I also decided to take abit of a surrealist idea in the 'dream sequence' which is the candles surrounding the objects of self harm and sucide, and then showing the person waking up, but it doesnt end after she does. my favourite scenes are the two start 'numbs' the skin one and the hand one, just because they fit so well in with the music, and prob the least fave part is the 'still' from the video of the scribbled out face with the numb wrote on it, just due to the fact that it looks to static, the other images that i used 'stills' from the video doesnt look to bad because they are editing amongst other things, and if i had to redo one thing it would to animate that still slightly. Personnally i am alot more confident in this piece then i was my original video (before christmas) and feels it works alot better as a piece.

MY WORK- the editing and abit of 'splaining

So i had to take a slightly different approach to editing this video in comparison to my video before handin. Mainly because of the music soundtrack im using is alot slower, so instead of using all fast cuts, i used alot more transitions and alot slower shots, i even desided to film some panning shots to add more movement to the video, which actually works really well with the music i chose to use. it adds more of a flow to it. I also gave it a title, 'diary of a selfharmer' mainly because the intro shots and finishing shots are going to be of a diary, but also because i wanted to show slightly the progress between what happens when this person has the breakdown. By having the dairy at the start and at the finish i feel it adds more of a narrative to it, such as the idea that what the audience is seeing is a direct visual representation of the feelings this person is putting in the diary.  Also going from what my lecturer said to me to try and encorperate some of the lyrics into the video as words, which ive done by filming shots of close ups of the body with text on it. as well as that, i did try and add the visuals to fit well with the lyrics. at one point it says a line about screaming and the visual on screen matches up. at some points i did find it hard to edit with the song, others it came alot more easy. i used alot of cross fade transitions but thought carefully about when they should been added.
i also chose to include some stills from the video in the video if that makes sence? i took the shots that wasnt working very well (even sometimes after i reshoot them! mainly the banages shots) and took a single frame from them, working as like a photograph and encorperated that into the video,which isnt exactly what i planned on doing but i addapted my work to fit what was psycially possible.

MY WORK- lip scene

so when its come to doing the big 'shocker' scene with the lip. i wanted to experiement with a few ideas that i had. 

one was the straight forward lip scene reshot in better lighting and with the lipring hole recovered so it looks like its broken through the skin.

the second was a more gorey version of the lip thing using some fake blood.

and the third was to try and edit a transparency of this scene, over someone talking or someone trying to tlk and like stopping before they can.

so while filming i was going to experiment with all three ideas and compaire to which i think would work best expesh along with the music. 

out of my three ideas, the one that worked was the simple version, the gorey version didnt work due to the nature of the song, but also the fact that the blood wasnt the right consistancy and didnt 'run' enough


and the overlay just looked very over/ complicated. which didnt really suit the rest of the video.

cutting moments

warning this video is very graphic, and even makes me cringe! it is a scene from the film cutting moments. someone told me about this clip in relation to my lip scene. it is very graphic but almost insinuates the feelings that i want that scene in my video to give, that feeling that u cant talk to someone, u cant cope with not being able to tell someone what ur bottling up and in the end it results in this scene with a woman scouering and cutting her own lips off. it is rather shocking. 

MY WORK- scribble-effect

Also from my previous video i really liked the effect of the scribble on the paper, so i am going to use that again in this video but changing it abit to improve it. instead of over text like before im going to create a scene where you see a close up of the person scribbling over a photo, an extreame close up and then showing you a collection of images on the wall all of the same person with there faces scibbled out. it reminded me of the beginning of the pearl jam video jeremy. where we see him inthe woods scribbling. also it reminded me of a scene from that great horror classic 'the ring' in which we see images of scribbled out faces, and circles scribbled to signify the well she died in. its just a powerful imagery i feel, and shows agression or one way a person lets out the anger in away which isnt dangerous 

the ring trailor:

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example of 'scribble effect' at 1:28- 1:30

Franklyn

Franklyn is a complicated story based around three people. Emilia, milo and david. each with there own differnt problems. it all takes very different looks at mental health issuses and also features self harming and suiside.
Emilia is a troubled woman who constantly is trying to make attempts on her own life. struggling with her past and a somewhat abusive father who died, and a mother who liked to act like nothing happened. Emilia films her own suiside attempts for her collage art project.
Milo was resently dumped by his soon to be wife, and goes into termoil believing that his childhood sweetheart was following him. he tracks her down at there old school and arranges to meet her.he mentions it to his mother, who turns around and tells him that sarah his childhood sweetheart, was actually an invisible friend he made up when there father left them, and now that he once again is down and feeling alone she turns up again. and that it is all in his head.
David lives in a neo gothic fantacy world where he interperates the real world as something its not, after having a breakdown returning from iraq to find his sister died from a hit and run. His alter ego is jon priestly and lives in meanwhile city. this personally is the most interesting character because as we see his father searching for him we see characters in there real state, as well as how david views them in meanwhile city. it climaxes as he trys to shoot his own father or the 'individual' because he blames him for the death of his sister 'the girl he couldnt save.'
this film is a real unusal take and look at mental health, and i love how all of the storys intertwine. 

the chumscrubber

a friend of mine recomended the chumscrubber to me when i told her i was looking at music videos featuring suiside and being me, im always open to watch a new film. This film was very useful and very interesting. its a very dark film and takes a look on the reality of subberban american life. It makes statements about how american familys view there own family, and deals with the idea of drug taking to make us happy, and suicide. the main character is dean and the story begins as we see him discover his best friends suiside. amongst all the sub-plots between familys, teenagers who kidnap a young boy and when they tell there parents they think its a joke, the main underlying theme is how dean copes with the death of his friend troy, who in the end he ends up imagining him places and talking to him. over all it is a very random film, but the torment felt by dean is very hard hitting.i really think the scene in which dean breaks down after  'seeing' troy is very touching and very well acted. as well as the scene shared by troys mother, and dean when dean breaks down and tells troys mother what her son was really like. there was one peice of editing that really stood out for me and that was the scene where troys mother is digging in the garden late at night the day before troys memorial and we see dean in bed, troubled, and the scene is juxtaposed together, bringing them together by montaging them together.  and i also liked the mix of videogame and reality. this film was well worth the watch and has been useful to see another take on the idea of suiside and how it effects those who love us. 



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while i couldnt find an actual video of the scenes i wanted, this 'music' fan video uses some of the footage from the film, including the part in which dean sees troy.

MY WORK- first shot

the first shot of my video, i want to keep similar to the start of the video i did for last term. using a diary style entry to introduce the video. however the last video the diary part took to long. and it really didnt turn out how i wanted it to. so i am going to try and change it slightly. Rather then having the text wrote on before, or actually writing it out like i did with the previous video, i wanted to try and almost 'stopstart' animate the text appearing on the diary, but i want it abit jittery, rather then just sorta popping up, so if the diary moves slightly it is giving abit of movement. i was thinkin of using the idea from the 'what sarah said video' where it has a piece where there is no music before hand just silence. but i think i will wait until i edit the final whole video to see if it will work or not.
i know i wanted to keep it in black and white, however i dont want it to be as dark as it was for my last video so i will think about abit more natural light and reflectors if needed. 
  as for the text, i was going to use lyrics from the song, however the song is wrote as if its someone looking in, watching someone self harm rather then first person, so the text im going to use is just going to be a short piece just saying how hard it is to pretend but no one would understand.  


so heres what i got for the start, and i really like the mix of shots, and where i was moving behind the camera infront of the light source (which purely i didnt realise until i played back the footage slower) i got this great strobing effect over the stop start of the diary entry. which gives it that jittery effect that i said before that i wanted to achieve. i really like the extablishing shot of the diary as well.


I did try the footage both with and without sound (see below) as i originally wanted to create an opening without the music, however looking at it it didnt really work as without sound it just didnt seem right. However putting the music over the top it would appear that it almost perfectly fits with the guitar playing before the lyrics start, although i would need to extend it slightly but i could either do that at the start (the panning shot) or at the end where we can see the whole diary entry for a few more seconds, to settle i will prob experiment with both, but overall i really like this start.  I was thinking of fading in from black also,rather then just straight into the video!

Self harm music videos continued

Darkane- innocence gone

This video is rather disturbing to me, the story is about a young girl, a child,  who is raped by a guy. seemingly the images are cut quick and very cleverly done however its the subject that really is abit disturbing. within the last 20seconds it shows the girl cutting herself and again it does go for the less subtle 'gore' rather then other ways they could do it. however is gore really needed to get the point across of how disturbing it actually is?

Linkin park- Numb

While this video has no real obvious linkage to self harming, apart from scars that can be briefly seen in one of the scenes, i wanted to include this video because it really sorts of shows alot of the emoitions felt when someone is depressed or dealing with self destruction issues. i really like some of the scenes and the actress portrays the anger and frustration as well as the lonelyness very well. i love the scene where everyones rushing past and shes just sat there still. 

Between the trees- the way she feels 

This video is very cleverly done. we never see any blood or gore, and it tells the story of two girls who cut at the same time. one girl whos father has died and thats why shes cutting, the other a girl whos father discovers her blades for cutting. its got a great ending, that when she witnesses the other girls father's pain as he finds his daughter cutting at school, that she gives up cutting for her father and leaves the blade on his grave. theres one bit of imagery that i loved in this video and thats the blade in the jewerly box. its just very hitting, almost suggesting that that girl sees the blade as a precious object. 

death cab for a cutie- what sarah said

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This video is prob the best shot video i have analysed for this. i just love how its shot, every angle, every movement was very well designed. the translations of what 'sarah' wrote:  On the mirrior: "He loves me." On her hand: "A little?" On the wall: "Much!" On her arm: "Passionately." The cuts on her leg: "Madly." The addition to the mirror changes it to say "He does not love me at all." The song repeats, she writes "He loves me" again and tries again. which really helps you to translate the video as it were. the shots i really liked where the mirror shot, the shots of the guy having his breakdown (angles were good) and reminded me of my video from xmas handin.) and i just really love the look of this video!

Self harm music videos

after searching around abit more i managed to find a few videos that contains self harm which is more along the subject i was originally looking at, even though the sucide videos were useful to look at. 


Deadstar Assembly- Breathe for me 





















This music video is very graphic in its portrayal of self harm, the extreame close ups of the cutting of the arms could be seen as abit to literal in a sense, its not really what i am going for. However i do like how it is made out to be some form of home video and looks like it was shot on a hand held. some of the shots are slightly abstract in comparison. which is rather nice. 

Simple Plan- Crazy 
click here to watch (embedding enabled) 
This video for simple plan is actually pretty well done, its subtle compaired to the first image and seems to focus on self destruction abit anyway. it uses small sections of well directed clips thrown together with the footage of the band. i also like the clip of the girls diary, its reminisant of my first video and the diary in that. which is something i wanted to try and encorperate in my video again. the actual self harm clip just shows the scars of a self harmer which was rather nicer, and seemed slightly better shot then the video above. i also like the fact that its shot in black and white.

Girls Xpress- we're what we're made of
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 This is another one for me to look at because its actually wrote, sung and directed as part of a youth project by the three singers who are all selfharmers. it shows a narrative rather more so then some of the other videos ive looked at, and while the only thing that i did find slightly strange was the girl running down the road with her arm bleeding... but its nicely done in the fact that it shows that moment when someone close, in this case the mother, finds out.

suicide Music videos part 2

Pearl Jam- Jeremy

This video takes a much more abstract look at the subject and while it still includes the artist, like many of the videos ive looked at have, however the view point is alot more interesting. I love the opening to this video, the mash up of all the different titles and headlines. i also like the use of text through out the video which is something i was thinkin of trying with my video. I also really like the close ups of jeremys face drifting in and out of focus, scrumpled up and so on. the edits of some of the small cuts are good because it almost pulses in and out of images,which could infact link me back in my video back to my heart idea from before christmas.  i also find the part where the children are all pointing at him, while he is active the rest are frozen and the camera moves around, it sorta looks abit creepy. i even thought the underlight face was very surrealist, which is what i was looking at originally. and the ending is rather unusal as he seems to kill himself infront of his classmates whom bullied him. 

Collective Soul- the world i know
Embedding enabled
This video, again takes a slightly different take on the idea of suicide as it looks at a guy who is just fed up of living in a world with no compassion, a world where no one chooses to help each other, there love for one another gone. it uses a blue tint to sort of show the bad, leading up to his attempt to suicide. it is rather a beautifully shot video with some great close ups of objects and showing everyday unkindness. and yet when the dove 'stops' him and brings him back with the idea of hope, the tint is removed from the screen and he 'awakens' to a brighter world. 

Music videos featuring suicide

So i thought i would look at some music videos that feature or are based around the idea of suicide and self harm. ive found it alot easier to look at videos based around suicide rather then self harm itself so here are a few examples of what ive found music video wise.

Seether- rise above this


This video which is based around the idea of someone jumping of a building. While it begins like alot of music videos to include the band playing the song, it also shows a boy heading towards the side of a building, and holding a photo of his family, it then cuts to shots of the family and what happens to the son, soon apparently happens to his family.  Its quiet an interesting concept the fact that as he 'jumps' so does his family, reflecting that it affects the one we love if we was to do something like that. and this is made more apparent when it reverses and leaves the young boy looking at the photo of his family, like they are the reason he would stay.

Disturbed- inside the fire

This video is a little like the seether video in the fact that its a mixed of the band singing. I admire the fact that its a close subject to the lead singer as a member of his family committed suicide. The idea that someone comes home to see that, and even though the family member is in a 'state' and not exactly a pretty sight, they dont care and have to 'help' pulling her down and laying her down, bathing her. however these rather touching images are cut with more disterbing images with blood soaked band members and the dead girl teasing and haunting, hanging with her arms tied and the unusal movements. i like how they seem to overlay a transparent image of her with very jumping movements over footage of him which i really like. it reminded me of my experimental video where it was cutting of me on the bed and a blurred out and juttery movements. 


Funeral for a friend- roses for the dead



What i really like about this video is its subtly. unlike the last two it doesnt feature the band which is more what i was aiming for. it also is clever because it is basically two stories running side by side at the same time, however one of the stories is being told as if its occuring after the other, and while we never see or here anything about suicide, it is insinuated all the way through that the boy is the womans son, and obviously has died, at the end we see him alone in a building and it is insinuated that hes jumped. 

Masahisa Fukase 深瀬 昌久

Masahisa Fukase's work is a renouned japanise photographer. His later work, prominantly after his devorse, is very emotional and gloomy. unusally, Masahisa was unable to witness most of his success, after he fell down stairs and till this day remains in a coma. 
I found his work while looking through my book on polaroids, to which i found this image, which reminded me heavily of my 'sewn up lips' ideas and footageso far.  as you can see its pretty gory, with the needles through the mouth, and yet without any fake blood, the reminants of lipstick act as a suggestion for fake blood rather then actually showing it. It made quite an impact when viewed larger scale to this, and it does have that 'cringe' factor, that you seemed to get with my own work. 
alot of his other work, is shot in black and white, and is as i said very emotional, very contrasted and dark in some ways. He did a collection called Solitude of Ravens which includes photos of people, and the animals which always seem to have a very dark presence. 

 

here is one of the images from his section on ravens, they just manage to have such an eerie feel to them, and when incoperated with the other images that Masahisa took of people really helps to portray the sence of loneliness. the images are dark, shadowy and sometimes even distorted by blur. this image is also part of the same collection, and its just really reflects the isolation and lonelyness which i want to try and create in my work. standing back and watching other people, while in darkness. it just really touches deep on some of the feelings i wish to get across.

The polaroid Book

So i resently brought a Tachen book which shows a celection of polaroids from a vast selection of polaroid photography collections.  while personally, i am not wanting to use polaroids in this project, some of the imagery that i found from the book is relativly connectied with the ideas i am looking into. its been very interesting looking at this.  and some of the followingphotographer that links to my work is scene in the next post.

so where i am up to.

so ive been thinking alot about more the direction i am going to take to my final piece, following my last tutorial. Now ive desided to enclude music into my piece, i need to look at the relationship between videos and music. as well as maybe changing my idea slightly to fit more intune with the music i am going to use, the music is alot slower, so i think adding a few slower cuts rather then the fast editing ive been used to using so far. so im going to look at some music videos, as well as trying to find photographers and video makers that i think will be useful at looking at.

saatchi gallery part 2

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this piece from Tomoo Gotika entitled 'divorce' its very emotional and the use of obstracted faces makes it appeal to this project. its a very large painting, and the use of contrast and shading is very inspiring.

 this painting by Jia Aili is two canvases. its avery deep and dramatic paiting using subtle lighting. again its on the very large scale, and if you can see it the glossy effect reflected the lighting from the gallery which wasnt so good.  however i still found it a very powerful image of a child in a lake wearing a gas mask.
i like the use of colours in this work, very subtle and yet very emotive.

there were two video pieces in the gallery, this one was an animation on loop, and while it had no relation to my ideas i thought i would take this image to show the layout of the video peices. they were shown on a flatscreen plasma tv, the wires forming a thin black collum from the tv to the floor where the other electrionics (plugs ect) is hidden by a white boxed encasing. 

 the second video piece was a piece by matthew day jackson entitled metamophosis which was a collection of images of a what appears to be a wax skull, in different colours and in different states of abstraction, constantly playing on a loop. it was rather interesting to watch.

saatchi gallery part 1

ok so yesterday i went to the saatchi gallery in london and i found it really good, there were some photographic pieces, and two video instillations, however i also found it interesting to look at the wider range of art there, and even the presentation of some of the works.i managed to photograph some of the peices i found interesting to look at. 


examples like the image to the left, a painting as part of there 'empire strikes back' indian based art exhibition. i like the way the painting is liked with a box full of items to go along with the painting, but also that the painting is 'defaced' in some way. the image has, on perpose, have been covered by paint.

This piece, was one of the photographic pieces that stood out for me. it is a large print, and from afar it looks like a painting, an abstract peice in which a mess of colours and such but when u look closer you realise that its actually a photograph of a tip or waste desposal dump. i found it very hard hitting, and the title of 'the world is not enough' just shows the length of consumerism in the world at the moment.

a very bad quality of a close up. Sadly the print was covered by what looked like perspex. obviously this is good for protecting the print but it did create very bad reflections onto the image from the bright lighting in the gallery space.


















This piece of artwork i also found very interesting for my work looking towards feeling of hiding something, hiding identity. These are all vinal record covers that are painted over with white paint apart from specific features depending on the cover, letters, hair, eyes, clothing, are all selected. as a whole it looks like a very impressing peice and the repetition adds to the vastness.

This piece was prob the one that stood out to me the most. The artist had been working on this project since 2004 and has documented thedeaths of soliders in afaginistan. each had a sketch and writen information about the person, and was pinned to the wall. the different colour paper used, reflected the colour of the persons skin and if the persons photo couldnt be found or was unidentified, they were left blank. it had an exampleof her working mephods. the shear scale of this work is what took me by supprise, as well as the effect it had on the audience. it also gave me an idea for a project on documenting people in a similar way. 

experimentation with a few ideas

i created a short video from a few ideas i had, to try and get the ball rolling. seen here:

its no where near a polished look. but i really like the ending to this, the blurred face came out better then i expected. i also like the sped up and how it distorts the movements adding to it. the final clip  of the sped up blurred face is my fave part. i could experiment more with blurring of the camera. the rest came out ok, but im not sure about the editing. while the fast looks good im unsure it would fit with the music. the shots itself i would like to change. i found it hard to stay within the frame im on the edge for some shots, because i couldnt see what was on the cam. while the other thing i would comment on is the lighting. its not as contrasty as i would like. other all it was a good experience and leads me to develop more on this idea.

Helmar Lerski

I was lookin at more surrealist photographers and i found the work of Helmar Lerski in the book 'photography and cinema' by david campany. while his work is more expressionism, the lighting reminded me much more of surrealism. Lerski's photos are portaits of people but they are in very surrealist light, while my aim is not to show the face, it will be good for when i want to do shots of just body parts. some are more normal images while others, the lighting makes the images appear more unique and different. 

Jan Svankmajer

After wanting to look back into surrealism, and also asking for an artists name on the facebook group, i was lead to the work of surrealist movie maker Jan Svankmajer.Svankmajer has gained a reputation over several decades for his distinctive use of stop-motion technique, and his ability to make surreal, nightmarish and yet somehow funny pictures. He is still making films in Prague at the time of writing.
Svankmajer's trademarks include very exaggerated sounds, often creating a very strange effect in all eating scenes. He often uses very sped-up sequences when people walk and interact. His movies often involve inanimate objects coming alive and being brought to life through stop-motion. Food is a favourite subject and medium. Stop-motion features in most of his work, though his feature films also include live action to varying degrees. i looked into his work and found some of them very interesting, some not revlivent but it is still good. i enjoyed watching the short, dark/light/dark which has no real narrative. what i did like was some of the facial expressions on the face of the head. (see below)

Also i enjoyed the second part of Svankmajer's Dimensions of Dialogue which is weird, but good, i just think its the expressions in his work that makes it all that much better, that and the odditys of what is going on. i like the first dialogue on this clip with the male and female and how they work together but end up distroying each other. 

soundscape.

ive been really thinking about what kinda sound i could use on my video. my initial idea was to use a narration, as an undertone with hints of background noise but the problem i had was what text to use. i had an idea of looking through my previous research into the feelings associated with being a self harmer but i drew abit of a blank. so i reavaluated it and asked around with my friends, and found out that one of my friends writes and sings/plays/records his own music and one of his original songs 'pretty thing' is about watching someone u love self harm, and while the idea was for the person to hide who they are and whats happening to them, it seemed like a good collabiration that the person may think they are hiding it, but when truth be told, someone else can see right through that mask, which gave me the idea to change the ending of the video slightly, so as to add abit of narrative behind the peice that at the end the girl or the person is seen or walked in on, and that whatever was hiding there face, disappears. and that person, sees the 'real' her. the lyrics to the song are below as well as the video of the music i will use. And ive also asked him if i could have written permission to use it, as well as if i want to enter it into film comps or festivals so i can provided i give credit, which of course i will.

[Verse one]

You're such a pretty thing
I dunno why you do this
You make men beg and scream
But you still carry emptiness

[Bridge]

You feel so numb
So numb
So numb

[Verse two]

I've seen you with mud in your hair
I've seen you with razorblades
Curled up in despair
With dry blood on your face
You feel so numb
So numb
So numb

[Chorus]

And I
Just don't have a clue
You sit there and cry
And still I don't know what to do. . .
Coz youre numb

[Verse three]

You scream out loud you need help
But you're on the waiting list
Torn up by mental health
You decide to slice your wrists

[Bridge]

You feel so numb
So numb
So numb

[Chorus]

And I don't know
I just don't have a clue
You sit there and cry
And I don't know what to do. . .
Coz youre numb

written by Dion McVey

Oleg Dou

Dous work consists of heavily manipulated portraits.Oleg Dou's work develops and pushes to the limit the idea of a body, evoked by the surrealists, as an object of subversions, distortions and other mutations that undermine its integrity. he distroys the photos to create almost 'maniquin' looks to his models. the only part which gives away that it is a photograph is the eyes. 

he states:

"I was born in Moscow on the 19th of August in 1983. My mother was a painter, and I grew up spending a lot of time among artists — although I was not particularly interested in their activities.I felt an urge toward the arts and creation some time ago when I was working as a designer, and I began seriously studying design. That’s how I “bumped into” photography."

"I worked hard to create my own style and technique. The main tool is computer photo-manipulation and a mix of several photos. I’ve already created several art projects and showed them in a few countries, including France, Belgium and the USA." "Creation brings me enormous pleasure. I am stubborn, ambitious and optimistic by nature; I like being different — and my work, I hope, reflects these features of my character."

His work is stunning to kool at, and almost removes all identity from the person, leaving only the eyes, the 'window into the soul' free from manipulation. 

untitled image

i found this image while serching blogs, it came under a blog with '30 amazing images' the only thing i now about this image is who its by Nirrimi Hakanson and i discovered herwebsite here, however this is the only image that seems relivent to what i am trying to do, and seems to be an odd one out from her other portraits of women for being more i dunno 'emotional?'

I like the way in which her pose removes her identity, and how the lack of clothing also helps to remove the idenity, and yet we see more about what is going through the persons mind by the collection of notes, snippets of what this person feels emotionally.

skin putty experiments

so after the failure of the liquid latex i looked into other ways that you can create fake skin and i found that smithy makes a fake skin putty which is a more solid way to build up the impression of fake skin. so i perchased some and here i am experimenting to see if it would get the right effect on the skin. i found this alot more messy as it wasnt as plyable as i wanted, it was a very waxy like substance and sticky, good for applyin to the face, but also ment it got everywhere. it also means that not being made from a rubbery substance it would easily be broken through.  it also was a very good colour match for mine without any foundation being added, a bonus when foundation costs so much! 


i only used a little of the face putty but it was very effective and did look more real then the latex. it was rather hard to get it smooth but with abit of time i think it would give a more clean effect, while just being done quickly here it appears like scar tissue abit. just because it was not smooth and funny enough fits in with the scars ive got at the moment from spots :\ 

Fake skin experiments part 2!

So after the first exeriment with liquid latex was abit of a fail, the fail being that it wasnt thick enough and so it wouldnt peal off of the flat serface i was drying it on. so i reset some more, let it dry. then i was seeing if it would work.
i tried to get another makeup timelapse but it runs abit fast, as im using a different webcam to do it. but i thought id include it anyway 


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(images captured from the video so they are abit crap quality) so this experiment had its ups and downs. using my foundation to cover it it didnt have much different to my skin tone, while using the eyelash glue ment it was suitable for my skin. once placed on the skin and leaving to dry it didnt look to bad, from afar it looked like there was nothing there while u could tell more close up that it was fake. but then i could of adjusted the distance between the camera and the shot or maybe even adjusted the lighting to help. however the big desider was the experimentation to see if the needle would go through this thicker layer, and while i increased the surface area so that hopefully it wouldnt pull the skin off of my face. however it did work a little better, but sadly the needle wasnt sharp enough to break through it and it ripped off my skin, and tbh i dont want to put a different 'sharper' needle in my mouth. so i guess using liquid

isnt exactly going to work out. 

so where do i go from here?!
well there was one other alternative to try and sort this out for the use in my video and thats the use of skin putty and just slightly filling up the hole, it would prob work abit better because i will only need a little bit, however i still dont know if it would work with the needle coming through the skin. but its worth a try.

Fake skin experiments

so far i tried to create a very small patch of fake skin using the liquid latex. i did try this, however the small serface area of the fake skin did not allow for the latex to break but to break the seal with the skin at one side insted. the colour match using my foundation was good and would not be to bad on camera but another of my worrys is the edges of the area of fake skin, so saying that i have left to dry two more peices of fake skin, one marginally bigger then the last piece, and another rather a bit bigger. i also made them thinner by only applying one layer of latex to see if that would make it easier to break through. i think i also will also video these experiments most likely just on webcam to see how they go. 
 















abit of a fail really, the latex was to thin to  peal off of the surface, so i am resetting some more, however i have also looked into the idea of face putty, which i may get just because i think if i can cover the hole with that, it will look better but also be easier.

Kumi Yamashita

Kumi Yamashita has a very unusal talent, and could be seen as an instillation artist, she uses shapes made from wood or metal that when the light is just right, cast shadows of people. Its a strage thing to look at but it is a wonder. after all there is a shadow of a human standing, sitting ect, but no one is actually there. The interesting bit is that without the lighting being perfect there would be no perfectly formed figure waiting there. Its very unusal. the most unusal ones being the sulptures made from text and letters that some how magically forms into a persons face or full figure. As i have been looking at surrealist films and photographers like to play with shadows and contrasts, one film that stands out of its shadows is  Nosferatu the german expressionist vampire film. Maybe i could also work in some play on shadows or even just using it as another way of deforming the figure, the person. 

 

No Face

Doing this idea and thinking of ways to hide something, hide urself, hide who u truely are just makes me think of a character from Anime Classic Spirited away, an odd spirit who takes an interest in Chihiro. Seeing No-Face standing outside in the rain, Chihiro takes pity on the creature and lets him into the bathhouse to take shelter from the storm. At first, he appears to be a strange, demure, cloaked, masked wraith who seems mute other than his breathing and urging grunts. Seen as polite, calm, and quiet at first. This soon changes as he seems to feed off of the people he encounters, and once seeing how the staff of the 'spirit' bathhouse respond to him producing gold, he becomes consumed with greed and gluttony. However once fed with a medican ball (and alot of pukeing) he seems to return back to his calm state and in turn, stays in the bathhouse as a helper. While slightly out of the ordinary and from the style and approach i am taking, the fact that he is a creature that has no face, no persona of his own, and seems to feed on how everyone else is, everyones emotions and even takes on the voice of one of the staff members he seems to eat. hes almost a blank canvus, empty, just a shell and this is what made me want to discuss this as part of my reserch. His character appearence  is also very interesting. He is almost ghosty and only regains substance when he feeds off of other people.he has no voice until he takes that of another, and the blank white face, and black cloak even starts to change as he grows with greed.

Rebecca Belmore

Belmore is a canadian performance and instillation artist, her work focuses on a range of subjects from history,voice and voicelessness, place and  indentity.  while her work is interesting, expesherly her video instillations such as fountains (added at the bottom) and while she looks at indenity, she looks at it from an angle that i do not really wish to persue. its mainly looking into her own historical identity rather then my idea of sort of hiding urself and who u really are deep inside. the reason i looked at her was a section of stills from some of her performances and instillations looked like they could relate however personally this isnt a direction i would like to take my work. the only really thing that i liked was the fountain and how the water was used to distort the video and such. expesh as the video was projected onto a water screen (a moving waterfall)  that made it more interesting to me. I found a good artical about her fountain piece on Conundrumonline.

Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins is a street artist best known for his street instillations using everyday objects such as packaging and tape.  His work is not just street based but his work is shown in galleries all over the world. His street work can be split into different stages or catagories: 

Tape Men (2003--)
Jenkins first street series in which casts made from his body using clear packing tape were installed in city streets in Rio de Janeiro and later Washington DC.

Storker Project (2005--)
In this ongoing project tape babies are "dropped" in various outdoor environments in different cities as part of a "species propagation movement." To date there have been over 100 babies installed.

Embed Series (2006--)
In this series, Jenkins dresses his life size tape casts in clothing to create realistic sculptures which he installs in various positions in urban environments—stuck into traffic cones, trash bags, cans, etc. He documents the reaction of the people who pass by them with video. The most watched of these videos features a figure sculpture positioned to create an illusion that it is sticking its head into a wall.

Meterpops (2005)
The Meterpop installation involved putting transparent lollipop heads onto parking meters in Washington DC on Independence Avenue (outside the Department of Energy).

Traffic-Go-Round (2007)
The "traffic-go-round" project converted a traffic circle (Thomas Circle, Washington DC) into a merry-go-round using horses made of tape mounted on the lampposts around the circle. The horses were faced the opposite flow of traffic to create for riders the illusion that the horses were moving past them.

Jesus 2.0 (2006)
Jesus 2.0 was a collaboration between Mark Jenkins and the Graffiti Research Lab. Two clear tape sculptures of a child in crucifixion position were fitted with LED Throwies and then installed on a lampposts in New York City.

alot of his work involves people who have there faces covered or hidden or dont even have them, as well as that but the ghostly presence of his celeotape men and women are really interesting takes, it shows no identity at all and distorts and makes the audience form a new view on who or what they might be. 

Chris Dunlop

Chris dunlop is a fashion, editiorial and music photographer. The main reason i wanted to look at him was a photo collection that he did for the band Funeral For a Friend. These images for the album casually dressed was based on the work of Rene Magritte (see previous post on him.) I wanted to include these because they show how his idea of people with this 'cloth' bag over there head would translate from painting to photography. I think they are very powerful images, and while they dont really have the same 'naturalistic' poses as Magrittes paintings they in there own right have a surrealist feel by not really embrasing the avaerage scenes and being placed in the middle of a corn feild.They also have abit of a weird mixture of colours. the last image seen here has very saturated and popping colours while the middle image seems rather paler and destaturated apart from the red dress which seemingly pops out.