I was reading over my dissertation today and I thought about the correlation between my critical exploration and my practical exploration. It is evident that critically I was interested in societies perception of beauty however I am now interested in societies understanding of emotions:
This chapter seeks to underpin the way that art can controversially challenge the depiction of beauty within the female form. Lucian Freud’s nude paintings will help provide a basis of analysis when exploring the development of women’s representation in the art world. Freud’s detachment from the women in his paintings produces an uncomfortable suggestion that he views them from a superior perspective. Freud paints his subject with a distinct lack of emotion, focusing only on the study of composition, colour and line. It is therefore interesting to view how the female form is portrayed from a male point of view and how this deviates from societies norm. The depiction of the female form as a subject, has dominated societies perception of what is beautiful and what is not. In today’s media saturated environment we are surrounded by images of what is deemed ‘beautiful’, thus making it easy for a superficial ideology to be established. The establishment of this ideology has resulted in a lack of acceptance towards anything that deviates from this norm. When this idea is put into the context of the art world it can be expected that any artwork produced that deviates from the ideology of what is beautiful, may also be controversial in its being.
The feminine beauty ideal is dependant on the development of the media, and as the significance of the media has expanded, such has the importance of female appearance. The socially constructed notion of physical attractiveness, being a fundamental aspect to women’s lives has resulted in significant damage to their self-esteem. The beauty ideal for many is near on impossible to achieve and can be a cause for a multitude of both mental and physical health problems.
In one study, adolescent girls described the ideal girl as 5 ft. 7 in. (1.70m), 100 lb. (45.35kg), US dress size 5 (UK size 8), with long blond hair and blue eyes. (Nichter & Nichter, 1991, cited in (Wykes and Gunter, 2005)
Due to the vast amount of exposure of the feminine beauty ideal, when society is presented with an image that does not comply with this it can be deemed as disgusting and grotesque. If we look at the depiction of women in early Renaissance paintings such as Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, (1486) (see ill.1) we see today’s societies ideal beauty envisaged over 500 years ago. Venus is shown central to the composition with her long blonde hair covering her modesty and her skin portrayed as flawless. Frances Borzello concludes: “Freud is famous for casting a non-idealizing eye upon the naked body” (Borzello, 2012. Pg.93). Lucian Freud’s paintings do not conform to these ideals in any way. The artist paints his models in awkward posing, exposing unflatteringly naked skin. The female ideal is depicted as having smooth, clear skin however; Freud certainly does not paint his models with the same airbrushed effect that dominates the media.
”Your camera is the tool,
You are the artist,
The rest is just an expression.’
I have been looking at the technicalities of shooting a video as part of my studio practise work. I have messed around with video on y iPhone however, I recently brought a book called: The Moviemaking With Your Camera Field Guide by Olivia Speranza which is brilliant for anyone that wants to use an SLR camera to capture video.
The book gives tips on all the basics such as; White balance, ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture and Depth of Field. This is handy for anyone that has an understanding but may need to quickly refer to reference for support. Further the book going into the problems you may have filming with an SLR such as the length of film you are able to capture. understanding all these problems makes it easy to plan solutions, rather than to discover them on location and be unsure of what to do. Anything that saves time in my eyes is very helpful!
the book also going into post production, syncing audio and lots of other useful tips that I will certainly be taking into consideration when shooting my video. The only thing I am yet to find solution for it how I am going to show my video.
A couple of weeks ago I spent the day in London hoping to get some materials for my mannequins and for the organ in jar sculptures. I spend a lot of my time in London, I love to people watch and found sitting on the embankment with a coffee for a little while to be of great inspiration. I couldn’t stop looking at this busker that was before me. She was oozing so much energy and emotion, juxtaposed with the hustle and bustle on London’s crowds sparked some great ideas for me video. I filmed the busker from a variety of angles and also took her promotional flyer in case I needed further resource. Watching the busker sing with people walking past as if she didn’t exist made me relate to my work. It reminded me of how inside we can be bursting with emotion yet people can continue to pass by with out identifying.
The idea for the video is to have start with the busker and the people walking past and then fast forward through all different shots that could represent an emotion. I then want to real time a particular shot of the portrayed emotion before going back to the busker. This will then be repeated showing examples of all five emotions and will finish in time with the song.
Next I decided that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of going to the Tate. The exhibition that was currently on was called ‘performing for the camera’ and explored the relationship between photography and performance. I did however find other exhibits more interesting such as the Pop Myths exhibitions.
I always feel the same when going to a gallery, unlike most artist fanatics who claim to be inspired by viewing artworks unclose I feel like a fraud who walks around waiting to be captivated by something only to end up keep walking, but never seeing something that causes me to stop. This is not what I want for my work. I want people to stop. I want people to want to see my work, not to just walk past.
https://vimeo.com/161601718
Ive been posting on here for a few months now and I suddenly realised that I haven’t posted about my mind map. I love doing big colourful mind maps as they really help me to visualise my ideas. I love to use colours and nearly always use felt tip pen. I don’t know why but using pen always makes a mind map seem was to read and more accessible to me.
I have used different sections to show what directions I am going in, different contextual influences that I have as well as questions I want to answer. I also filmed myself making this mind map. I really enjoy experimenting with time-lapse. I hope to combine all the time-lapse videos I make into one video to provide a video mind map approach to evidencing my work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWry8xRTwpo
I find TED Talks very interesting to listen to, however I find this particular talk to be very interesting when considering my degree project.
Patryk & Kasia Wezowski begin by explaining how America’s election winner could be predicted by looking at voters micro expressions. Kasia also said that this was the first year (2013) that the presidential elections could be predicted because of emotions- not opinions. This really inspired me as I want to enable people to understand and identify with each others emotions however through my research I believe that this will be difficult if not impossible as people are influenced on their own experience and cultural opinions.
The talk then goes on to discuss what makes leaders successful. They speak about their own experiences of how they learnt to predict body language as a child. Patryk shares his experience of having a hearing disorder and how this encouraged him to read body language to help with communication. I believe that body language is universal throughout all cultures, of course there will be ever so slight differences however we are able to read when a person is happy, sad etc. This is what I am really struggling with at the moment. We understand that our body language is universal however we only know for example if a person is smiling they are happy. There has been no evidence to prove otherwise. However, we also identify with the ‘fake’ customer service smile. So if a person is acting, then how are we supposed to identify with how they feel. Furthermore, if a person is smiling they may be feeling sad however their reaction for sad is a smile and ours is happy- we both have difference understandings, therefore we never know otherwise.
Kasia first started studying body language at just three years old by examining the shoes of passengers on a bus. I think a lot of the time as human beings we make judgements on other people by their exterior. I want to examine the interior.
A very interesting part of the talk refers to Charles Darwin’s study of blind peoples facial expressions. It shows that even people that are blind from birth show micro expressions is the same way. It is interesting that in this example there is a person that has never seen another human being, nor had cultural or environmental influences. This shows that in many cases the brain causes these micro expressions to occur by foxing the muscles to contract in a particular way depending on the emotion.
