Question: taking an approach used by artist Deborah Humm, if I use my body as a seismograph, will the biorhythm drawings made vary noticeably as a result of watching different types of programmes on TV?
Drawing1 – 23/09/15, 3:30pm, 62 minutes, Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce s1ep1 – feeling calm & relaxed but self-conscious about drawing:
Drawing 2 – 23/09/15, 10:25 pm, Celebrity Big Brother s9ep28, 60 minutes – still feeling self-conscious about drawing & fidgety from bad behaviour of contestants:
Drawing 3 – 23/09/15, 11:10pm, 62 minutes, Nashville s3ep20 – feeling sleepy & relaxed:
These feel as if they reveal something of my state of mind at the time of making, unsurprising since my body was part of the drawing tool. This feels like a perfect medium to trap motion on the train, where the seismograph would be my body, the motion of the train and the pencil. It’d also be interesting to test the difference when my body is removed from the equation.
The spaces where my surveying takes place can be considered non-spaces – railway lines, stations and the train itself – although I do capture images adjacent to these spaces as well. Images of non-spaces show locations that don’t comply with a social, cultural or environmental idea of place, revealing something more concerned with psychological or personal factors; a place localised outside time and space.
Source: Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity, trans. John Howe, (London: Verso. 2008 [Non-Lieux, Introduction a une anthropologie de la surmodernite, 1992]), p.28
I’m beginning to see a spatial connection in some of my recent photographs.
Marc Augé points out that we have an uneasy relationship with the space we occupy. Our steps into outer space ‘reduce our own space to an infinitesimal point’ made obvious in satellite photographs. (1) ‘But at the same time the world is becoming open to us’ through improving transport and via communication systems that beam pictures into our homes of events happening on the other side of the world. (2)
When I survey the train journey from Marden to London, from Augé’s perspective any representational images that result establish a false familiarity for the viewer, who feels as if they know the scene / events depicted personally although they weren’t actually there when the footage was shot. Such an effect translates equally into other situations establishing a false recognition between viewer and on-screen actors / characters, landscapes, places and historical or contemporary events. (3)
The worlds created in this way are largely symbolic and offer recognition rather than knowledge. They are ‘closed universes where everything is a sign; collections of codes to which only some hold the key but whose existence everyone accepts’. (4)
I suspect the impact on the viewer varies. So, for example, my survey of the train journey probably results in a higher balance of knowledge / ‘truth’ than recognition / sign for the one viewing the results. However, a TV series would likely switch these proportions around. This is interesting as it offers a point of manipulation I could choose to exploit in the work.
1 Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity, trans. John Howe, (London: Verso. 2008 [Non-Lieux, Introduction a une anthropologie de la surmodernite, 1992]), pp25:26
2 IBID p.26
3 IBID p.26
4 IBID p.27
I’m part-way through an interesting book by Marc Augé; (Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity) and I’d like to consider how some of his ideas play out in relation to my work.
In surveying the train journey from Marden to London, from the perspective of Augé I’m operating as a direct witness to the journey, observing and informing on the results. But Augé might say that the information I offer is less an accurate report or account of what took place and more something coloured by my own perceptions, thoughts, feelings and experiences about the journey or perhaps about a trip from my past.
After talking to Nicola Saunderson, I’m taking a step back to re-inject a higher level of fact into my project by surveying the entire journey using film. Hopefully, this will strengthen things and the possibilities will increase as I have no pre-conceptions as to where this will lead in terms of making art work.
Source: Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity, trans. John Howe, (London: Verso. 2008 [Non-Lieux, Introduction a une anthropologie de la surmodernite, 1992]), pp.8:9
I successfully applied new tactics yesterday to my train journey project, surveying the left hand side of the journey from Marden to London. Filming the other half of the trip was impossible as one journey pretty much exhausted the camera batteries. More power packs are essential!
I need to map the journey somehow to note where to shoot more footage. A drawn map feels impractical – I’ll probably have passed what I want to film before I can shoot it. An audio map might work, combining both left and right hand sides of the journey into one sound track to note points of interest just before they appear. Its flaw – it relies on trains running to schedule, but I can compensate for problems at each station.
I really noticed the effects of the motion of the train yesterday. I wonder if I can incorporate it into the footage by not using the window as a tripod and allowing the camera to move with the train?
