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 


.

(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.

Zdzislaw bekzinski

Bekzinski is a renouned polish painter and photographer. His paintings and drawing are gothic fantacy and are often focusing on representing surrealist worlds. His work is both visually stunning and really is rather eerie and almost frightening in places. it all revolves around worlds filled with creepy looking demons and creatures that look like they should be in a tim burton movie. However supposidly this was a vast contrast to the person Bekzinzki was because he was seen as a vastly happy man. His photography has the edge of surrealism seen in his other mediums of work. The dark and dreamly black and white contrasty photos often shows portraits but in a way that you never see the whole person, cut off and unusally framed photos. He also uses a play on shadows, sometime to the point of obstructing a whole face. One of a woman leaving the frame  reminds me ALOT of meshes of the afternoon that can be seen in a pervious post. Its very interesting and this idea of closely or oddly cropping to get just a section of a person revealed is something i have been thinking of including in my video.

Rene Magritte

while he is a painter, Rene Magritte was a very famouse belgium surrealist artist. within his work, his intended goal  was to challenge observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality and force viewers to become hypersensitive to their surroundings. His work often toys with basing work on an object (such as a pipe or an apple) and making them realistic in a sence, but adding the statement that because it is only a painting of an apple it is not infact an apple. The work that relates most to the idea i am looking at, 'hiding who you are'  are a series of paintings he did of people who had cloth bags over there heads, even though they are seemingly in natural posing positions, or that they are unaware of the fact that there faces are concealed. There is also one of his more famous paintings of a man in a suit and bowler hat, hoewever he has no face, his face is seemingly missing. and another where the buisnessmans face has been concealed by an apple seemingly floating infront of his face.  This is the sort of thing i would like to look at more,and explore how other artists, photographers and video makers hide the identity of modals, or deform the identity of a person.

down with the sickness

only resently have i relieased the similarity with the lyrics to disterbed 'down with the sickness' and how its like some of the discriptions ive heard about just one min being fine and then all of a sudden it changes and your something else, you dont feel like urself. although the video to this song is the band just singing i found this video where the lyrics are plastered across a video intime with the song.

redoing lip scene

one of the main problem from the first shot of the lip scene was the fact that because i was using my lip ring, the hole was already in the skin and seemed to make it appear to fake, however i am going to experiment creating fake skin and seeing if it will look real, but also be able to be broke through with the needle to give the effect we want for it. i found a website tutorial on using liquid latex to create a thin layer of fake skin actually for creating a needle through skin look for halloween/horror effects.

which i have here: 

fake stitches and scars

i have also perchased some liquid latex to try and practice to see if it is possible to make it look effective.
im trying with a small area of liquid latex, and although it seems abit thick as long as i can adhear it securely to my actual skin it will be easy to break through, providing it does look real once the foundation has been added and the latex is added to my skin.

plans and story board

so far ive really just been brainstorming ideas of what im going to do and in all honesty all the ideas ive had have been for video, so after much thought i think im going to focus on just the one medium. The idea is to focus on imagery and the sound to accompany it. I want it to appear so that in all the images that the face is covered, distorted, or only parts of the face showing. ive been working on the kind of imagery ive wanted to include and brainstormed and even worked on a little storyboard style thing which i will upload soon. for the sound i want to create an atmosphere, as well as maybe having a narration, if i was to do a narration but with the voice to be distorted, and just as annonamous as the face.Also i will be looking into re shooting my lip scene from my last video.