How was my concepts and contexts presentation?
To be honest with what I wanted to say was rather what I thought nail pushing because I hardly got the chance to explain myself too much as I was put on the spot as I was trying to answer a question. I did not feel too comfortable that day because as I was trying to answer one teacher’s question, then another teacher interrupted me as to say that I could not answer the question fully which would resulted in my unclear explanations for my work. So moreover having unclear explanations towards my work will not guarantee myself a very good grade for my whole body of work.
I felt utterly inconfident because it almost felt like I was in the situation of the tv show apprentice… I wanted to feel confident in my work which I normally am confident but I think the questioning act did not help matters for my own support of my work.
What will I do now for future terms?
I guess now I will still keep confident with what I am doing and keep on churning out more ideas towards my printing, sculpture and installation works. I will as always reflect on all the processes that I make along with any ideas that I have in mind and document everything in my Independents Arts Practice Module and Professional Development Module. So I plan on doing something in the lines of another reflective journal but only this time I will question myself more and highlight any main points within my Journal for Independents Arts Practice and Professional Development Module.
Looking back on my learning agreement, what has changed since then?
I do feel that I was a bit mind boggled at first with what I really wanted to do so my ideas were really a rough plan. At first my aim was to try make an artwork with my Chinese and English foods and medicines and also create a Chinese and English school recording.
- Chinese & English Foods and Drinks
I have examined the foods and drinks pretty well and with careful consideration, I have decided to not do anything much with them as I have plans for them later on right now. I plan on making these objects human size as to represent me and my girlfriend in a human size but we are represented as objects. I do not think that I will do much with these foods and drinks until after this module and we will see how this idea works out. So I do feel that I have lacked a little on ideas with this Chinese and English foods and drinks objects idea but I will generate something good out of these objects in the end. I will continue this idea in independants arts practice.
- Chinese & English Medicine
Again with the idea of the Chinese and English medicines, I was thinking about displaying these as photographs at first. But now I am thinking of displaying these objects in perspex cealed cabinets so that they cannot be touched. I want to recreate medicine type cabinets which will have perspex plastic on the front to see the medicine and mirror card on the back so that you can see all around the objects. Again I feel I have lacked on this idea of the English and Chinese medicines idea because there were other major projects to do such as the Chairman mao print and the Chinese and English illness sculpture. I will continue this idea further after this module in Independants arts practice.
- Chinese and English School recordings of Children
Again in this idea I have lacked on because of other work such as research methods and my other major projects such as the Chairman Mao print and the Chinese and English illness sculpture. I feel that all three of these ideas from my learning agreement have been slightly put to one side because of other developments with other art works. But I may choose to study this idea further in independent arts practice module.
What do I feel now since the learning agreement?
I feel like I have took on more artwork than I can chew to be honest… At first I had my original ideas in my learning agreement but now I feel that they have been put to one side for now… into further study. I feel that my ideas since then have been much broadened to new concepts and contexts within my artistic themes of memories and cross culture of China and England. I feel that Since my learning agreement I have been thinking of so many new ideas that must have seemed more exciting to create more than my original ideas because maybe I was not sure in how to work with them objects of the Chinese and English foods and medicines.
I feel that i was stuck at a brick wall with these ideas and it was not until later on that I finally knew what I can do with them. Now I will think much deeper in how i should display them objects. Now that most of my other work is almost out the way, I can now focus on these other art ideas from my learning agreement. It has been an interesting and much more broader experience doing this concepts and contexts module…
What have I looked into?
The Decontextualisation and recontextualisation of materials and objects in some artists works hark back to Dada and the surrealist whereby additional and unplanned associations are generated by new juxtaposition. In this, the objects for example in bourgeois’ Gonzalez_torress and Emin’s works are more than illustration of a life history.
In support of my own work, the term recontextualisation is a process that extracts signs such as traumatic memories from its original context known as decontextualisation which is widely introduced into another new context to make the art.
Since the signs depend on their context, recontextualisation signifies a change of meaning and is often as not changed for communicative purposes towards the audience too. To put my work in a nutshell, I am basically going to continue with my cross-culture and memory themes. With my theme, I will extract them and recontextualise my memories into another meaning where my artwork will just give clues. I call this representational Indexicality.
Please enjoy this 3 minute funny animation of myself explaining my own theory of my themes that connects to representational Indexicality, Enjoy! LOL…
What have I looked at?
An example of proximity and defamiliarization is found with another example of Wim Delvoye’s works called ‘Sybille II. The term proximity means nearest and also means approximate and is used as an artistic term for making microscopic images or fragments taken from the original context. The example of Sybille II is a close up movie that shows fragment surfaces of human skin with bursting blackheads and spots. Even though this piece of work is a close up and comes under the abject, it is still an example of the defamiliar.
How does proximity and defamiliarization relate to my own work?
I look into this example of Wim’s work because defamiliarization presents to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar.
In my own English and Chinese illness sculpture, it is defamiliar in a way that the Chinese toilet is almost alien to English people and the fact that my illness experience is presented in a mere fragment from its original scene just like Wim’s close ups. the toilet is the only object to be lifted out of the original Chinese scene to represent myself in a defamiliar way in which the cracked bricks become my body going wrong instead of using my actual self.
So even though my work is not as abject as Wim Delvoye’s movie, my work is still defamiliar in a way that it presents a fragment of my original experience just like Delvoye’s close-ups in his movie.
What theorists have I looked into?
Afterwardsness is the concept that an earlier event in someone’s life can later acquire a meaning. The memories of someone’s mind are repressed which has only become a trauma after the event took place.
Sigmund Freud’s theory is highlighted by theorist Jean Laplanche’ theory.
“Freud’s concept of afterwardsness contains both great richness and great ambiguity between retrospective and progressive directions. I want to account for this problem of the directional to and from by arguing that, right at the start, there is something that goes in the direction from past to the future and in the direction of adult to baby, which I call the implantation of the enigmatic message”.
With afterwardsness, Freud used this idea to think about the way out histories are constantly being revised in the light of current experiences. Our histories are necessarily our experiences of our histories and this may, and does, change in profound ways over the course of our lives.
Why look into Sigmund Freud?
In my current situation, I still suffer the fragments from the illness that I suffered from in China and reflecting back on what happened then has enabled me to think critically about my Chinese and English illness work.
