05/10/20 – I had week 1 and 2 of CUBED, a space to practice/work with installing our work. Here is the space I had to work with as well as the poster I designed for my exhibition. It was scary to have such a large space to myself as I had been crammed in my bedroom during COVID.
For this space I decided (with the help from feedback in my recent Pecha Kucha) to continue working with my clay bodies, to take them further than just photographing them, but to install them as I never was able too due to COVID. At the end of L5 I created a digital illustration of a floor plan with how I wanted to display the clay bodies (see illustration below). I then adapted this floor plan to suit the CUBED space.
I realised that I need to create more bodies at a quicker pace for the exhibition and as my time in the space had been extended for an extra week, I decided to film my self in the space to show how the making and creating is just as important in the space as the end result of the exhibition. Here are a few process videos from CUBED:
Reflection 25/02/21: Yayoi Kasuma shares similarities here – use of small simple repetitive objects like in Phalli’s Field with the use of a mirrors, creating a visual of there being more than there actually is.
Reflection 08/03/20: This documentation of the process is something I have continued through my practice from CUBED, in Baking, The Haze of Social Media and Are You Watching? I realised it’s not all about the end product but how I get there too.
Within the first week I was trialing the bodies in different parts of the space. I had a 1-1 Jane and felt more inspired to work with how I could install the bodies/ incorporate the space, light and audience into it.
I placed the bodies in day light because the sun was bright and they resulted in a phallic like shadow. Adding something new to my work as well as potential display ideas. In the image above, thoughts came to mind from my dissertation research of how women in, Sigmund Freud’s theory of Penis Envy, are inferior to men due to the fact they do not have a penis. With his theory in mind I aimed to develop a confrontational image of women coming out of the male’s shadow and being in the light. I loved this and had to develop this to fit into my space with the use of projection as well as LED lights on my body sculptures. I created a digital drawing to plan where the bodies will sit among the projector below.
With the second week, I hired a projector and lights to be able to work with a pink light to play with the life like appearance of the bodies as well as the aura of the room – working with Rachel Maclean’s Make Me Up colour scheme & the feedback from Pecha Kucha. However, the space was naturally too bright meaning the lights didn’t work as well. I felt it had messed up my plans for the space and could only create an intense pink spot light on one of the bodies, not all 73 (see below).
Reflection 21/12/20: From this point I noticed how much my work thrived with a suggestion of projection. The coloured light/movement created a unique space, especially in a darkened space.
The projector was something I hadn’t worked with yet in my practice either. I projected my short film of Consuming 2 over the bodies as I wanted to create an uncomfortable space which would capture peoples attention. It worked really well as I then could create some of the shadows I had hoped for in the previous week. It gave more personality to each of the figures due to moving coloured lighting/reflecting on the clay bodies.
Reflection 21/12/20: Projection is now a massive part of my work and it not only changes the space but also the work, the colours and the meaning attached to the work. This CUBED exhibition has been a good reference point for my practice, it helped me understand and experiment a lot with a physical space.
Reflection 08/03/21: From Consuming 2, I have recently created Sweet Tooth B&W, I had reflected on what worked well in my practice that I wanted to develop further, it was the use of this projection and film here where I wanted to revisit. I have become confident in projecting Sweet Tooth B&W alone with additional material e.g. cellophane, material the will benefit the projection, rather than with clay bodies/breasts where I felt I should involve them.
The projection was still quite faint due to the brightness in the space, so instead I have rented out the installation room to be able to work with projection and shadow more successfully in the future. Below are a few images of these outcomes:
I had struggled with the lay out of this space so I had played around with the best ways to capture shadow, space and to involve the audience. I had explored a few lay outs for the figures but something wasn’t right about lining them up like in the images below. I decided to use my original digital plan, from above and decided to circle the bodies around the viewer. This was resulted in making a walk way, to feel as though the viewer is involved in the installation and feeling on a similar level of the bodies, doing the gazing back and forth.
Reflection 02/03/21: Yayoi Kasuma Phalli’s Field format is present here, circling the viewer within a distorted space.
The individualism of the figures stood out in these arrangements, this was something that was mentioned more than once in feedback. This was a learning period for me – to think about and develop more the presentation and positioning of my work in a space.
Reflection 21/12/20: Individualism is very prominent in my work, currently I don’t focus on a range of bodies during one shot, I choose a few bodies to project films over and it suggests an experience attached to that female and body.
Here below, are some of my final films of the outcomes of the space:
Reflection 28/03/21: There’s cinematic relation to the projection from my dissertation research present, the women (the bodies) act as a type of audience, watching themselves (the breast), the idealised (the icing) being eaten on the screen. It plays to Mulvey as well as the negative inverted self surveillance women feel, that comes from the male gaze and the representation of women in the cinema.
Reflection 12/02/21: Congruous shares a relationship to the CUBED projection as I continued the imagery of breasts being desirable objects expect in a space where you eat instead. I spotted this that many pieces of my work seem to circle back to Consuming or at least include elements of this eating/women as consumption.
