Degree Project: Digital Sketchbook

02/12/20 I had an end of semester informal assessment with Jane to see where I am at – theoretically/practically. We discussed this new relation of social media & the female gaze where I have tried to make it work in my practice as I am working with the digitalization of the gaze through time due to social media in my dissertation.

Reflection 19/02/21: Was very beneficial as it directed my focus back within the male gaze, sexual objectification, women as treat like object etc, from the female gaze. My work has in-depth meaning that is reciprocated in the visual.

I want to use my dissertation within my work, but only aspects of it e.g. the male gaze, sexual objectification. Reflecting on my group crit 20/11/20, the feedback I received was very beneficial for me Only Touch With CLEAN Hands presented effects of the male gaze but at the time I tried to bend the feedback round to the effects of social media instead to make my theory work. As the feedback I received was very male gaze heavy me and Jane discussed I should use it.

• Hands & breasts conveyed women are dominated still by men. Hands sanitisers suggested how women are seen as these objects to have sex with and then disregard afterwards. Dropping of the breasts create the idea of destruction/heavier visual of women being disregarded after use. Counting of the breasts represented ideas of a body count: women have sex they are seen as dirty, but is the complete opposite for men. – All these fall to sexual objectification of women through the male gaze and don’t suggest social media. Rewatching the crit allowed me to see that my practice with social media didn’t work as successfully as I felt.

Reflection 15/03/21: It was as though the concept of social media simplified my work and appeared to not have any depth further than the statement. With my current films To Bite, there’s the harsh visual forced in front of the viewers face, as though they must watch.

But, with The Haze of Social Media, I felt this theory worked well for this work. There’s the visual distortion from social media that creates this illusion for everyone one to see, that you must be perfect. As in my dissertation chapter 3 focuses on building my argument of social media creating a warped version of the gaze and created an inverted self surveillance for women and adapted them to become a self-surveyor of their own body compared to what they see on the social media screen. With this comes the paranoid paradox and censorship with the body. This all worked for my dissertation but not my work as The Haze of Social Media suggested pregnancy/fertility – something I hadn’t seen before/didn’t want to explore.

• It opened up more confusion than discussion for my artwork – it question my research/theory.

Reflection 14/04/21: I am glad I came to this conclusion as it allowed me to develop my research/work to respond to exposing the effects of the male gaze/sexual obj in life, cinema and pornography upon women through a female perspective. This allowed me to realise performance has been very successful within my work.

For my dissertation I have been researching the development from the gaze, to the male gaze to the female gaze due to social media. For this I have searched theorists and writers like Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Christian Metz, Laura Mulvey and Charlotte Jansen. This is something that works really well for my dissertation as it allows me to explore the growth and where its adapted/changed in the world among women as well as artists. I am really interested in the way social media has changed the formation of the gaze to have created an inverted self surveillance within women for my dissertation.

I wasn’t too sure where I wanted to approach Only Touch With CLEAN Hands from, I had previously mentioned social media abut I am unsure of it’s workings. I hope for some good feed back from the group crit 24/11/20. Only Touch With CLEAN Hands was extremely successful. As mentioned, with film comes noise, movement and visual appearance. There’s a lot more to consider/involve when you create films. It engages the audience and could easily evoke more emotions of discomfort/awe as it helps you visual and immerse yourself into the film as “you felt like you didn’t know what was going to happen, you feel as though something else would happen so you keep watching” said by a peer. It becomes an “immersive experience” which is what I am hoping to continue with this performative element.

Reflection 08/03/21: The word immersive is what I like to work to since this crit. Only Touch With CLEAN Hands and Are You Watching? are two different kinds of immersive experiences. One being on a screen, the other a space – I want to work with this, the space, noise, content in my end of year installation for Sweet Tooth B&W.

It was mentioned it would be interesting to create an illusion of a loop, keeping people hooked – will it end?

Reflection 15/04/21: These are on going ideas I am working with today with Sweet Tooth B&W, I have taken forward the illusion of a never ending film of eating – plays to the loop.

Possible research points for me and my work: The use of speed of film was effective from the feedback. In the film starting out slowly and delicately and then speeding up and become aggressive – this was reflected in Martha Rosler’s Semiotics of the Kitchen in 1975. See below, it was less about language and more about body language and the way we convey actions, much like my piece Only Touch With CLEAN Hands. She works with the patriarchal roles of women in the kitchen in a confrontational manner.

The slowed down approach could be something fun to use too which was suggested by another peer, like with Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho in 1993. See below, Gordon slowed down the whole film over 24 hours a film with so much action carried so much more drama due to suspense in the film Psycho.

Later a peer said it’s as though “the more breasts in the hands the more they were disregarded by being dropped at the end, the value has deminished”. Like the more women a man or woman has, the dirtier they feel – wash their hands thoroughly after. The use of a female hand holding the clay breasts open up the visuals of not only men being able to manipulate women, but women can do it to each other and themselves? Self gaze? It was also spoken about how men possibly struggle to get over the patriarchal change between men and women? No longer as divided, still is there!

Reflection 27/03/21: There has been an underlying approach from the female gaze within my work that doesn’t seem to fully addressed early on, due to still writing my dissertation I was still learning. It becomes about forcing the viewers to see sexual obj and male dominance from a female POV.

Dehumanisation of the breasts, separate from the body like objects. They are so small and as I discussed in Talking about breast sculptures, they are sweet size, resemble delicacies, desirable element which adds to the way I hold/use them. Reflection 26/01/21: this desirable element is playing within my Interim exhibition currently, especially juxtaposing with the environment of the kitchen where the breasts are displayed, continues ideas of women being desirable foods for society/men.

Sexual objectification is too a present among issues that come with the male gaze and it also reflects “the porn industry and their representation of women by using them. The visuality of the hands suggests the manipulation of women”. – peer.

Reflection 15/04/2021: Pornography has been a comment I have thrown around a lot surrounding my work, currently I am tackling it and it’s adding layers to the sexual obj of women/representation. With Only Touch With CLEAN Hands, there is this representation of women being used, fondled and disregarded just like the industry. So early on there was dark avenues within my work where I hadn’t chose to explore.

“I never have seen anything like it, cleaning of the hands could suggest the NHS hand wash routine for COVID”. The hand sanitiser was part of my film to suggest the climate we are in currently – COVID, need to be clean & the cleansing of the hands before you touch a women. There’s this image of women being pure, untouched, a prized possession. I was glad it was viewed this way in the group crit and as I have discussed hands having a language, I thought it was interesting that my peers to picked up on this. “The cleaning of the hands thoroughly suggest the clear intention those hands have for the women”, however this is contrasted with the squeezing/dropping of the breasts, suggesting “abuse/harm” to them. A humorous/dark contrast with the film.

I wanted to distort the actual work this time. I wasn’t sure of this while creating The Haze of Social Media, I was scared to damage the breasts but I became more confident and decided to place the breast in a cup of water to exaggerate the distortion more. I liked that I was physically changing the environment of the breasts and the appearance as some were damaged and turned to mush. Shauna questioned me in Talking about breast sculptures 6 , is it a negative thing that they are damaged? Or is it part of the process?

From Water, I continued this imagery of pebbles in Clay Boobs in Water, see below. Slowly dropping the breasts in the glass of water evokes the idea of women drowning due to pressure to be socially accepted.

Reflection 21/12/20: within my bath projections I really enjoy the use of ripples as it manipulated the film/projection of the female form.

Reflection 15/04/21: There’s this play on distortion which I have noticed has been relevant within my practice this year. I am still using distortion and destruction within Sweet Tooth B&W with the physical act of chewing damaging the soft icing breast, suggests this crushing control of the male.

Jane and I discussed how I have began to involve myself into the frame of my photographs and becoming confident with film. I’ve started using my hands within my work and this has produced performative elements which is something I didn’t see coming. A Handful of Women is a still image which didn’t have the movement and impact like a film would. It would allow the viewer to see the intensity of holding the breast and the motion in the hands as all hands have a type of language.

Reflection 14/04/21: This is where I began to involve myself into performance and currently now use others instead, Sweet Tooth B&W – I feel they make more captivating images as well as films which then play to the display/exhibition of them affecting the way they are further more perceived.

Richard Serra was an artist recommended to research for the use of film/hands in my work to develop this performative element further. Firstly he began with the Verblist, see below, a list of ‘to do’s’. He would choose one e.g. ‘to drop’ materials of his choice. He uses “actions to re-late to oneself, material, place and process.” (Buchloh, 2000, p7). This meant that he could explore different elements of the materials he was working with as well creating a different and new kind of work in the late 60s.

Richard Serra, Verblist, 1967-68.

“a simple verb-based action becomes a powerfully minimal work of art” (Chayka, 2011). I really like this quotation for Serra’s work. It’s about the focus within the action rather than the material/object he’s working with. This was something I had taken from Serra’s work, to focus in on how to manipulate the clay breasts, to create a visual language with movement, hands and action. – exploring surrounding the female gaze & male gaze.

Reflection 28/03/21: In reflection to what works best within my practice, this performance element has been a strong piece of work that I have returned back too with creating Sweet Tooth B&W work for the exhibition proposal – holds more attention/visual meanings.

Repetition is strong. In Hand Catching Lead, see above, there’s a mesmerising element of seeing the same action over and over. It becomes slightly different every time with the way his hand opens and closes and if it will land in his hand. It appears his works are all about “possible manipulations” (Michelson, 2000, p25) which I love. The use of repetition was also something that was spotted in my sketchbooks – displayed images that were similar in a row. This is where the repeated flow continues within work subconsciously and I aim to develop this further. Also suggest stills taken from a film.

Reflection 14/04/21: I have noticed I used a series of 3 stills from film, To Bite, for my print workshop, going down vertically this worked well in regards to composition, colour and relation to my practice.

Reflection 08/03/21: ‘To eat’ – repetition in a current development/adaption of Consuming 2, called Sweet Tooth B&W and To Bite Again and Again. Working with this uncomfortable feeling of a never ending consumption of women by a male.

See below Serra page from my sketchbook: I’ve decided to use my blog as a way to finalise what I am exploring:

Every hand is different/ personal. It becomes an intimate thing to watch hands; hands holding clay breasts. There is this sexualised stigma that comes with this. Breasts are intimate but so are hands. When they are placed together they cause emotions of discomfort and intimacy. But there is also a large difference between a female hand and a male hand which I aim to continue. A male hands appears aggressive and dominant. Reflection 21/12/20: Like how Consuming 2 was projected large in CUBED and felt even stranger! I projected Only Touch With CLEAN Hands large in the bathroom – it changed the whole meaning of the female hand when they were projected large. Does it becomes more meaningful being in intimate spaces of the house? & bigger?

In Hand Catching Lead, the hand appear strong, large and aggressive. Whereas women’s hand are soft and delicate, there’s a different message that comes across with a female hand. I chose two verbs from Serra’s list. ‘To collect’ and ‘to drop’. I decided to indulge into a performative film, of me, placing and holding the clay breasts in my hands and due to fact that I would be unable to hold them all, naturally they would drop. See below.

Reflecting from my 1-1 with Newson, I have continued the ability of “using things in my environment” (Me, 2020). I feel it’s more personal as well as the new need to be clean clean. I continued this idea of women being there for the males needs, as delicate objects and COVID, I combined the two issues to explore how they come across together in performance. Breasts have a stigmatised image of them where they have been overly sexualised and object that represents women. The caress/claw like hands evokes the image of women being secured yet, controlled. I used my own hand to play with the representation of women’s online presences with women. I wanted to contrast the imagery of control and darkness with the bold pink background of glamorisation.

Reflection 14/04/21: Glamorisation has been continued throughout my practice – this element of glamorising the sexual obj of women by the cinema, pornography and the male. – Sweet Tooth B&W exploration with cellophane.

Reflection 26/01/21: This was good experimentation for my Interim exhibition – the representation of breasts and play off of sexual objectification of women within a domestic setting creates an impacting environment. I learnt that the breasts displayed on their own was enough without the action of dropping too.

The hand sanitiser is there to coincide with society’s new rules of washing your hands every 20 minutes. I wanted to show the cleansing of the hands before and after as though the hands are touching ‘a prized possession’, like how women are seen as though they must not be dirtied by the hands of men or society. Reflection 04/03/21: I have brought it into the bathroom to project in the shower/bath, extra layer this idea of cleanliness.

Reflection 24/11/20: My group crit regarding this work was amazing. Interestingly enough even though it was hand doing the holding, a woman, my peers related their ideas to male domination and sexual objectification by a male. Will these stigmas always be around?

This film allowed me to experiment and to not be so precious over it as I struggled with massively in L4 & L5. The dropping of the clay breasts from my hand damaged them, are they actually damaged? Or does it add to the result/effects of actions in the film? See below. What would it further mean if it was a mans hand doing the dropping?

Reflecting on my recent 1-1 Jane, we spoke about how the breasts represent pebbles due to the size/roundness of them. I wanted to take this idea further with develop how water distorts whatever is in it. I photographed the breasts through water orb to create a distorted appearance of the breast, a soft watery haze, see below.

Reflection 21/12/20: This work was another turning point for me, they weren’t as successful as I first thought they were (the message/portrayal), many different people said they suggest ideas of pregnancy and fertility instead of this distortion of social media. Having feedback that was the complete opposite to my meaning message, made me realise my work wasn’t coming across as clearly as I wanted to address.

Reflection 15/01/21: I have been creating projections of the form in the bath/running water where there’s this relation to the way women are presented/sexualised in Hollywood cinema through pools scenes. I learnt this within my dissertation research and that there’s this expectation that comes with the body when you’re observed so heavily, instead I am using water to emphasise/exaggerate the natural form.

The distortion plays with the concept of how social media distorts everyones perception on the natural female form. We are forced to see ‘idealised’ images of all women online. There has always been and may always be, the want for what we don’t have. Social media has enhanced this massively and has created pressure surrounding body image. It doesn’t bode well for young women and their mental health.

Reflection 14/04/21: This moment in time was difficult as I was trying to find a new path and create new work, I didn’t realise then that I didn’t need to make new work all the time as now I have learnt that it’s about exploration and trial, especially with Sweet Tooth B&W, there is a continued range of possibilities.

I wanted to distort the perception not the sculpture. See above. It plays with the idea of what you see in the image may or may not be real, like a false perception, like how social media works and the cinema. The haze around the breast is what was most successful in this series of images, refers to the ‘soft focus’ of women in page 3 of 70s; it’s known for a new image of a naked women daily. Sexualised. Social media has adapted the way we see and promotes the idealised over the natural. This is what I have looking at in chapter three of my dissertation and is something I am very passion about being a young women in the height of social media’s involvement in life which is becoming a scary other dimension. See films further below.

Reflection 15/04/21: I have mentioned this idea of a soft focus/page 3 rep of women throughout L6 and currently I am investigating the representation of pornography on women – Andrea Dworkin. It’s interesting to see this continually pop up through my blogs. Reflecting back these works have a very sensual element to them which wasn’t what I wanted to achieve at the time.

See below my sketchbook pages:

We had a workshop: recording ourselves speak about our work, see below. This was very useful to me as I worry that I struggle to get across what I am trying to say, this exercise was good for me/work/confidence to know that I am saying is what I mean to express! See below the films of the interviews:

Reflection 10/05/21: I feel with the films below, they worked at the time but now reflecting they feel v narrow in the sense I was trying to focus the ideas of social media onto my work. Currently I have learnt from this that I have a more direct focus point with stronger tangents during my exhibition proposal exploration.

Film quotations and thoughts:

“I wanted to focus in on the boobs as they are the part that represents the women” “I like the size of them because they are some to hold and squeeze” – me.

“I wanted to make them so they represent how women are seen as objects and you feel you can handle them, where as when I photographed them, I felt they then looked real and not like an object at all” – (Me, 2020) Reflection 10/05/21: However, the photographs still suggest the how the objectification is still present even if the breasts don’t appear as objects, will they always been seen as objects? – “In order to make them more real they have to be photographed, becomes mediated” – (Jane, 2020) which is the opposite bc you photograph to make them more real.

Reflection 03/05/21: “In the photographs you don’t get that tactile feel – I like that you can’t touch them, you can only look as a viewer” (Me, 2020) In Only Touch With CLEAN Hands this was explored more as I allowed the viewer to see their weight and firmness as I squeezed and dropped them.

I combined the noise of running water which I recorded from my garden to play to the visual of the breasts being in water. – Represent collectables/something you’d find? This allowed the viewer to enter the concept even further and to work with experimentation as I have only worked with sound once before and that was in Be A Lady, a poem reread by myself about the issues that surround being a woman. This was a big step for me and my work. Films with sound below. Sound – exhibiting and installing with noise of water running in background? I aim to continue to develop these in a range of ways. Performance is intriguing me.

Reflection 08/03/21: Are You Watching? used slight noise from the projector, it gave a comforting element to the work as though you’re the one in the room viewing as the camera moves, where as here for The Haze of Social Media I wasn’t sure.

I visited Firstsite the gallery in Colchester. Cornelia Parker and Hilary Cartmel were the artist I was most excited to see and their sculptures.

https://firstsite.uk/event/tell-me-the-story/

As my work is sculpture based and heavily dominant around photography and film documentation, I was interested to see how they displayed their works in different environments and used the space to their advantage. This trip helped me develop my thought process when displaying my sculptures out to an audience. I was struck by Cornelia Parker’s Neither from nor towards because of the amount of work and time that has gone into working out how to display her work as well as the effect she wants to achieve. This is her piece, it took centre stage to the exhibition (see below) and the use of lighting made the piece even larger and exciting.

The angled lights created a number of shadows for just one rock. The sculpture was hung up by very fine wire that you could hardly see that were held up from a frame above. The rocks were hardly touching and were so still. The light on the large amount of rocks created a scattered/ongoing bursts of shadow and made it appear as if there is more than there actually was present.

This was something I had tried to do in my CUBED installation but wasn’t too successful due to the brightness of the space and the lack of LED lighting. (See below).

I tried to elongate the shadows and point the light from below. This was interesting to see this exhibition to see how the level of light changes the appearance of the sculptures even more. And in Neither from nor towards, the frame work that held up the sculpture was built to the exact size of the sculpture itself, allowing the hanging rocks to evenly disrupt shadows across the floor. I have booked the installation room next Monday to work with installing my work and light and shadow to develop these skills even further. I am to develop the clay breast from Beauty Hurts, to experiment with them further with presentation and replication of a larger mass, like Parker’s piece. – Been beneficial to push my experimentation further.

Reflection 21/12/20: The installation room was very helpful – was extremely dark and allowed me to have no background noise which is where I began to create my films – Only Touch With CLEAN Hands.

See below my sketchbook page, I use my blog to finalise what I am saying within my sketchbook pages:

Hilary Cartmel, the figure made out of wood was a hard material made to seem delicate yet textured like the female form. This piece is called Sprawling Red Women (see below) was positioned so when you first walked it, it was difficult to work out what it was, until you walked around to the other side and see the female curve, the breasts and the long leg pointing up.

I loved the mix of an elegant pose of the female made with the wooden material in Sprawling Red Women because it contrast between what we visual the female form to be soft as fleshy.

• This was a point that has been made in my work with the clay figures and breasts. A contrast in materials that both shock and possible disturb the viewer as it isn’t what they’re used too. Cartmel has used a material that was in her surroundings within this work and developed it to be a dismantled piece of art when moving it to different environments. And this too shares a connection to the way I have been working with working both at uni and home, making art that is easily moveable and adaptable.

Reflection 03/03/21: Being at home has pushed me to incorporate more domestic settings into my practice, currently thinking of women roles in the household. For example, the variety of bathroom projection – successful as they incorporated a new unique space to a studio and force the female body and the domestic setting together. Inspiration – Rosler’s Semiotics of the Kitchen & Cartmel.

The trip helped me analyse the display and presentation of the exhibitions/work. I thought back to a 1-1 with Jane, thinking about big sculptures but these would be impossible due to COVID and Kara Walker had also been mentioned to me before. Walker is an artist who created A Subltey and also know as Sugar Baby. She created a massive sculpture to get people openly talking about issues that they feel they don’t know how to discuss/struggle. This involved issues such as slavery, history and women. (See Sugar Baby below). She created this massive female sculpture out of sugar icing as it was a desired food.

I decided to photoshop some quick images from my sculptures in CUBEB to see how it would look if I could think BIG, see below. I know these are very exaggerated but I love this idea of celebrating women being the dominant to have power for a change as it’s usually men (like David by Michelangelo). To be more reasonable it would be exciting to create a smaller than life size sculpture to get a feel for a much big than my hand sculpture. Even if this isn’t possible I love the use of photograph as Lookin’ At Me confuses the viewer with the size.

Reflection 15/04/21: I use projection to work with sizing/scale.