Degree Project: Digital Sketchbook

Reflection 26/04/21: These 1-1’s were very useful in the fact that they were both male responses to my work. I discussed with Jane on 23/04/21 the male reception of these works is just as successful as the other responses I have had. It’s important to remember/acknowledge that men find these works just as uncomfortable as women, means it working.

I met with Jane and took Sweet Tooth B&W projected images with cellophane into uni and finally used the daisy chain effect on the projectors – linking two projections projecting the same image. From my group crit 24/03/21, it was discussed that I could look at ways of projecting the films/images further but to continue down the ‘old fashioned’ film path route which is working really well. I really enjoyed this process and mirrored projection, it transformed the way the film is seen, making it even more uncomfortable and intimate suggesting a pair of breasts see below.

Reflection 18/04/21: Gary in my 15/04/21 1-1 suggested the pair look like eyes, a watching gaze back at the viewer – this was a comment mentioned in 24/03/21 by a peer that said the one breast looked like a singular eye, made it uncomfortable. As though you’re being caught looking.

I had a 1-1 with Gary and Matt on the 15/04/21 regarding these new images. See initial notes below from both tutorials. It was really interesting to see that straight away there was this strange look they gave trying to figure out what is happening. As I had experimented with these images it was also clear to me that the breast was becoming unidentifiable and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. This was something Gary picked up on in image below, is there a point where the projection becomes too distorted that it plays with the work too much?

I am currently playing with some of the colours/editing on these images/films as I really liked the original grunge look of the colours but also think they work as well as b&w – intensify the act. The cellophane in the projection feels as though its in the space, if I brought it into the space as well would it be too much? – An encapsulating space. Gary mentioned that there’s something visceral about a mouth and breast being black and white, so close up. Plays with the psychology of consumption and this desired approach of the mouth from fetishisation/sexualisation even further as there’s no colour to ‘pretty’ up the act. It becomes weird to look at someone eating, let alone a breast in a mouth and double – uncanny. NOTES: I also wanted to involve within my current work a comment from group crit 19/02/21 where there was a defined difference between projection and space, see below.

I wanted to focus in on the mouth while I projected, experimenting for our exhibition proposals, to see how the space would work – floors, corners and walls. Consuming the walls of the projection really helped zone the eye to the uncomfortable, you’re forced to see it. As Matt mentioned in the 1-1, there’s two different dismembering acts of the women present, focusing of this objectification – violence is implied where there can be male dominance, as well as the intimate act of a breast and mouth. There’s two angles of uncomfortableness where my work is still unnatural to the human eye. Like films/cinemas, pornography plays with context to normalise the situation – sex, where as my films suggest the unnatural to get attention and discomfort to see all that is wrong with sexual objectification within life, pornography and the cinema. Matt suggested my work looks film stills: Jacques Bouffard and French philosopher George Bataille, Mouth novels. Bataille makes the human areas connect deeply to bring back the natural/uncomfortable.

Reflection 10/05/21: Hal Foster quotes about Shermans Untitled #190 that “This body is the primary site of the abject” (Foster, 1996, p 111) and I think this is present within these projections too, the body – the mouth is the main focus and the act becomes the main “terror” as Kristeva says, of the abject.

NOTE: I like this uncertainty that comes with my work, until you begin to see what is in the mouth, it becomes uncomfortable and unusual. Gary mentioned to hold this level of attention and to not confuse the viewer too much. Keep it simple and eye catching/not look away – Freudian.

Gary mentioned J G Ballard film Crash – works with fetishisation and pornography – could explore through the ideas of violence/destruction.

While stretching the projection onto the floor, see below, like I have done previously this year with To Squeeze/Only Touch With CLEAN Hands, they begin to look distorted, something I have played around a lot with this year and really enjoyed. I liked the depth to these images, there’s photography, projection of photography with cellophane and now more projection and working with natural distortion within the space. This kind of projection would play well within a gallery space, feels interactive almost, having to walk around/into it to see more or work out what is happening. The immersive-ness from the two walls is something to develop further, like Yayoi Kasuma, as it would also making an interesting space – feelings of not being able to escape.

Reflection 18/04/21: The floor projections created a grainy appearance to the mouth/face, working with the stubble – suggests Serra’s old fashioned Hand Catching Lead films, this use of repetition.

This lead me to involve objects/boxes. The use of projecting onto a box reminded me of Naomi Uman’s Removed – visually objectifying the women in the film with white, suggests the same way I have in my projection, using the box below, to highlight the breast, to make the breast more of an object in front of you. – Definitely something to work further with. I combined the distortion and the objectification in one. As discussed with Matt, it’s an even closer angle of what its happening in the film, an isolation of the violent/sexual act. – Abjection of the body/uneasy. Tony Oursler was a name mentioned again! Previously mentioned my peers. Oursler works with fabric/projection, where objects become the host of the work, like the box does with my work below.

After experimenting with rough surfaces such as the floor/wall, I enjoyed the effect within the film, it aded the grainy and unusual look/old fashioned film. I aim to experiment with cellophane within the space as well to slightly recreate Sweet Box with the projection/cellophane but in person to see how it comes across too.

I began to research Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography: Men Possessing Women essay. Jane mentioned I should start searching the representation of women in pornography as have previously spoken lightly about it. Dworkin addresses that pornography creates this “truly obscene idea that sex and the domination of women must be combined” (Dworkin, 1981, p199) and even though this essay is 40 years old, it stills carries the same ideas now of women in sexual situations, if not worse. “With technological advanced methods of graphic depiction, real women are required for the depiction as such to exist” (Dworkin, 1981, p200). Technology makes it more real/more visual as these women are real people and real situations, it puts the perspective into the viewers mind that that is how they should also treat women in real life. Previously I have spoken about male domination over women in my work and especially visually within Sweet Tooth B&W – chewing suggests this destructive tense control that does also suggest visual of female representation in sexual situations. See the essay below, I have highlighted the quotations which relates out to my practice and notes my initial thoughts.

I’m surprised I’m enjoying this topic I feel quite passionate about it and feel it may take my work further forward in regards to the cinema, representation and forms of confrontation.

Reflection 26/05/21: I wish I approach pornography sooner as there is so much to learn and work with regarding female representation. Along pornography stands fetishism and it is a topic Sigmund Freud focused in on and is something I discussed slightly within my dissertation. I hope to take this further as fetishism was originally discussed by Freud as a male perversion which stemmed from anxiety castration, as “if a woman had been castrated, then his own possession of a penis was in danger” (Freud, 1927, p153). And from my dissertation I wrote “From this the child pans down the mother and focuses on the feet; this introduces the theory of fetishization and acts as a “sexual satisfaction” (Freud, 1927, p153) for the male, which acts as a distraction from the violence of castration.” (Lockwood, 2021). Feet become the fetish and with this many other things become fetishised, especially revolving women and form while aligns with pornography and it further impacts further the way women are seen as sexual beings and objects.

Dworkin writes, “Whores exist only within framework of male sexual domination. Whores exist to serve men sexually.” (Dworkin, 1981, p200). Pornography derives from ancient greek which means “writings about whores” – there’s this suggestion that women and sex have always been referred to as whores, as though that is all they are and all they will be when it comes to sex. There automatically comes this idea that women, ‘whores’, only have the purpose to serve them sexually and have no control over domination – it’s quite upsetting and disturbing. Dworkin writings are so well written, she’s very straight to the point, no dancing around the subject, feels very factual yet confrontational. This is the same angle I am trying to approach with my practice, quite raw and disturbing visuals in a uneasy environment, hoping for impact.

• During this research, there is this similarity to the cold and isolating feel of women in pornography, as though they don’t have a voice/say, this is presented in the dark space within Sweet Box – experimentation for my exhibition installation proposal, showcasing the visual effect of women being consumed.

It makes it impossible for women to to not be sexualised and seen as an object of desire – as pornography isn’t going to change, neither will society’s view/men’s view on women. Even though pornography is easier to get hold of now due to technology, cinemas follow a very similar path, as said before, glorifying and sexualising the female figure almost plays to pornography in a twister way.

“Men have created the group, the type, the concept, the epithet, the insult, the industry, the trade, the commodity, the reality of woman as whore” (Dworkin, 1981, p200).

Reflection 26/05/21: I have used this text above from Dworkin’s book within one of my prints for the workshop – it sums up the stigmatised sexual objectification women face in both the cinema and pornography. I have also referred to this through my current projections and is something I hope to continue to explore after my degree.

I moved onto chapter Whores, Dworkin states “the sexual colonisation of women bodies is a material reality, men control the sexual and reproductive uses of women’s body” (Dworkin, 1981, p203) – “the institution of control include law, marriage, prosititution, pornography, health care, the economy, organised religion, and systematised physical aggression against women (for instance, in rape and battery)” (Dworkin, 1981, p203). “The ideology of male sexual domination posits that men are superior to women by virtue of their penises” (Dworkin, 1981, p203), this relates to Freud’s Penis Envy theory which is reflected in pornography and the cinema, men hold a level of dominance over women who apparently as Freud writes, wish to possess a penis, is continued through sexual control.

It’s interesting to note that women in sex are seen as whores, whereas men in sex are seen as “pimps of pornography”, they are “hailed by leftists as saviours and savants” (Dworkin, 1981, p208). Women are seen to “embrace herself as a whore” and abide to those labels so ultimately there is no escape. “Rene Guyon, who argued for male defined sexual liberation, writes that “Women ages much sooner. Much earlier in life she looses her freshness, her charm, and begins to look withered or overripe. She ceases to be an object of desire” (Dworkin, 1981, p205), suggesting to women and men that there is a negative outlook on growing old, especially as pornography and films idealise the ideal women/figure.

Dworkin’s writings reminded me of Naomi Uman’s work who I researched at the beginning of L5, Removed in particular, see below. Uman uses pornography and to exploit the sexual objectification that is present within the porn industry by showing “the naked woman, an object of desire, is removed from the image with bleach and nail varnish.” (IFFR, 2000), there’s this destruction of the actual film/image/women being reverted down to an object, nothing more, of which a man has sex with, showing the objectification women face in porn and real life, see film below. Uman’s film feels as abrupt as Dworkin’s writings, they’re bullet statements which feel powerful and straight to the point, the same as Uman’s clear visual of the women.

Reflection 30/04/21: Me and Jane spoke in a 1-1 where it may be good to revise using areas of colour back into my work to work with almost highlight the objectification/consumption, like Uman does, upon the women in Sweet Tooth B&W.

“It’s hard to watch removed without thinking about the laborious work involved in erasing the women from each and every frame of the filmstrip using nail polish remover and bleach” (Rymes, 2017). It draws the attention of the male viewers and all that is wrong with the male gaze as well as porn and sexual objectification, making it almost humorous in a though provoking way. “Uman’s celebrated film is a smart retort to pornography’s obsessive gaze at the female body” (IMDb, 1999) that may perhaps always continue.

Naomi Uman, Removed, 1999.

There’s the ghost like quality to the women, as an object the colouration is cream and moves like a visual of a spirit. It relates to my current cinematic work, where Sweet Tooth B&W shares this horror story like feel to the projection, especially in the still below as the icing breast in the males mouth after projection, loses its identity. It becomes a white object too, and once its chewed, it shares no resemblance to the breast or female form, like Uman’s bleached women. Just an object. – would my work have the same impact if I was to remove the braes from the frame?

• May make my work stronger if I play to the ideas of female representation in pornography and how it impacts women today as well as the male gazes’ visual upon women.

From 31/03/21 I have used Sweet Box to project Sweet Tooth B&W into for my exhibition proposal experimentation. I used a verity of angles and close up to get a feel for the maquette space as well as an installation itself. See the stills below from this session, I used the cellophane at this perspective to curve around the mouth, almost bringing the film out of the screen and into the space. – These images have a very similar appearance to the original projections in my studio which I am glad because I have been quite successful with the box becoming a space.

• Does stills or film work best for this?

Reflection 02/04/21: In these images, the box feels large when the images are taken from inside, it’s like how I envision Kasuma’s installations, there actually really small rooms but the use of mirrors make them feel infinitive. This somehow seems to work for Sweet Box too, black = can’t see where the walls start/end and the large projection inside makes it feel larger than it is.

I wanted to incorporate this idea of censorship of images within this exhibition maquette – where an image online shares a warning message/almost covered up but you can still see parts of the image. This was a point brought up from my group crit 24/03/21 and an issue I discussed in my dissertation. I continued to channel his through the placement of the cellophane but using it as a suggestion. This plays with your curiosity as a viewer, feeling almost drawn to see what’s underneath. It seems with the Hollywood cinema they do this with the female form by playing to the eyes of the male gaze, showing almost everything of a women in a manner which glorifies and normalises this sexualisation. It impacts the female gazes’ self gaze with the way we think we should see ourselves. I feel with this visual of projection in a setting such as the cinema which both genders attend to watch movies, it involves everyone and doesn’t target men or women in particular. – This was a point Jane said to make aware. This piece is most effective virtually, where as if this exhibition was in a space, it may be better in the real. It must be both male and female viewers for the justification of the art work to be received otherwise I don’t think there will ever be a change.

Reflection 30/04/21: The term censorship has been mentioned within my print workshop – this idea of being able to slightly see but cannot see properly until a kinda of reveal. This is also present where the cellophane almost blocks parts of the image, but not enough so you can still see the film behind.

See films below. I placed the camera down and tilted it up to the screen, to begin with I didn’t mean to cut off some of the picture but I think it really played well where you can still see the film/what it is but also the space. – It has this appearance of trying not to look but you can’t help but look.

Is there aggression in this series? The physicality of chewing the breast, to the screwed up cellophane that’s draped across the mouth suggests this but is it intensified by being a small space? The darkness accentuates the harshness of what is happening in the actual film. I’m surprised I’d like working with monotone colours as previously it’s been about the brightest I can get the images/projection. It’s an interesting contrast to almost seriousness.

The use of no sound definitely works well and especially being projected in a space like this, plays up to the horror movie aspect which was previously mentioned in my group crit 24/03/21. The black walls adds to the emotion/eery-ness of the space. I also then played to that with the editing of the actual film making it the imagery of the breast being eaten/un-eaten on a continual repeat – this makes it feels dramatic in the sense you can’t take your eyes off incase it changes. This reminded me of Bruce Nauman’s Poke in the eye/ear/nose where he would leave it playing continuously and people would fail to see where the start/end point is. With Sweet Tooth Cinema Box View Point 3 I decided that there isn’t one. (I forgot to film this one landscape!)

I really enjoy this off centred view point, it is as though there’s different seats within the cinema and each viewer is getting a different perspective. The projection also cancels out all tone/shade and instead portrays the breast as an object/toy. With censorship comes this connection to pornography and the censored images/acts. The sexual objectification in pornography must be acknowledged especially here, reminding of old fashioned adult cinemas – adult movies “did play along a couple of social movements of their time, like feminism, with women being superior to men in poster depictions” (Savage Thrills) using women in a high patriarchal role as a material to draw attention/money to the movie and to be sexualised. This is something I aim to research further. With the film below, I held the camera instead of being place down, it has a unique connection to a gazing eye watching the film, as though it is how the artist wants the viewers to see it. This is something I learnt from Are You Watching? part of Congruous.

Reflection 30/04/21: Andrea Dworkin Pornography: Men possessing women (p199) “Men have created the group, the type, the concept, the epithet, the insult, the industry, the trade, the commodity, the reality fo women as whore” (Dworkin, 1981, p 200)

• Using soft (relates to sensual-ness) fabric – Tony Oursler?

See behind the scenes below, the box is fairly large due to the size of the projection but I can’t make any smaller/increase focus. I really enjoyed this process, I felt my work jump forward a step by creating a physical space.

26/03/21 we had a session on our exhibition proposals, see initial notes from session below.

In relation to this module we have to create some installations or drawings/collages. I was really interested in creating both drawings, maquette and actual installations. Mike Kelley’s exploration of maquettes pushed me to create one as it’s more than unlikely I will be able to create a cinema installation room due to COVID. Kelley’s miniature Centre Pompidou is so detailed/life like you can really envision it, see below.

Reflection 26/05/21: I have really taken on Mike Kelley’s use of visioning a physical space except I have done this through multiple digital drawings/collage by visually placing the work in situ. It’s allowed me and my peers to understand my ideas I am unable to follow through with.

Mike Kelley, Centre Pompidou, 1995.

In this session we bounced ideas/envision how we would create our installations if possible or represent them. I aim to continue the exploration of mirrors, projections, cellophane, photography and film. As discussed with Catinca, small spaces and diverted eyes/gaze would be exciting in regards to the space as well as how to look/approach the art. The two initial ideas were:

• A small box with holes which would contain the projection – kneel down to look, it interacts ideals of the gazers’ gaze. See digital drawing below.

Reflection 26/05/21: The image above explores similar issues resorting around the cinema to Valie Export’s Tap and Touch Cinema – female representation and the falseness that is explored on the cinema screen. It was interesting to see the way Export used her box as a physical part of the performance, allowing people to touch and feel her body/breasts to show the realism of the female form. The viewers viewing my box would have to bend down and look through, similar performative element involving the audience.

• A larger box that would be open as a physical maquette appearance of a cinema – use to project into included cellophane draped and mirrors (?) see drawing below.

Reflection 30/04/21: The feedback from the imagery that come with this box was very effective. It gave the feeling of a small compact space in the image which is a present feeling in the cinema. I think this worked well in relation to building me up to projecting larger in the studio.

Reflection 28/04/21: A comment made by Jane reflecting on my feedback from my exhibition proposals seems as though I am exploring/creating a series of works for this exhibition proposal – effective. Allows the same work to have different perceptions/perspectives.

This session was very helpful as I had this in mind for a while but never got round to trying it. I drew the initial idea I wished to go ahead with in regards to creating (the larger box Sweet Box). My peers suggested it sounded like a theatre/cinema and to play off of this further. See developed digital drawing/collage below, I tired to have a clear path of what I wanted to do/achieve. I aim to display it as an actual cinema e.g. carpet floors/black walls and a white space for the projection in a cardboard box. – As the film Sweet Tooth B&W is becoming very eery, it feels this maquette will engross this idea further especially as it plays in a small enclosed space. My peers mentioned artist Olafur Eliasson to revisit as he works with transforming a space for his art to be in, like in Beauty below, the room became the water – this is what I aim to work with with cellophane/projection.

Olafur Eliasson, Beauty, 1993.

Reflection 07/04/21: The angling of the photography/filming in Sweet Box, of the space and work made the space feel like it could’ve been a room – this is what I wanted!

Reflection 19/05/21: I re-visited this drawing above and created an ideal situation which I don’t think I could create at uni with or with out COVID, it would be situated in a cinema space with large seats for the viewers to sit and watch. Could even be present in an actual cinematic space.

I want to use the box/space way above to capture low angles of the projection, like I did for Sweet Tooth B&W projected that I used for my group crit /03/21 – successful and gave the audience this feeling as though they were peering into something they shouldn’t/didn’t want to watch. So I decided to use a large cardboard box, see below, I worked with where the projection would sit, I cut off 1 and 1/2 sides to it to allow movement of the camera yet still enclosed enough and used gum strip to seal off any rips/cracks that any disrupt the projection or box presentation. I kept the projection running so I could mark out where the projection would project on the board – I painted this white so it acted as a cinema screen & for the projection to be bright/clear. I really enjoyed this.

I placed in a piece of grey carpet, it immediately gave a cinema vibe. I wanted to accentuate the use of angling the camera low and gazing up, as though you’re in the front seta at the cinema watching the glorification of women being consumed – to encourages emotions of discomfort and you could see this already with the camera angle, see below. This is more a in-depth maquette in regards to the content/context compared to the structure like Kelley’s physical detail. The white screen really sets off the cinema lay out.

I then use cellophane as it was part of my experimentation when projecting Sweet Tooth. I included the cellophane in the whole space, so you would have to move in and around it, almost creating this sweetie wrapper feel not only to the work but the space. See time lapse below of installing the cellophane (and final images further down) – this brought the maquette together (you can also see the size of the box in relation to me).

Reflection 07/04/21: After projecting into it the images give this immersive feel, the cellophane is so close to the camera its as though you’re in it. – suggests ideas of horror films/suffocation?? Too much?

19/05/21: Kieran mentioned this space makes the film projected in feel intimate and personal.