Bookmaking, music and film oh my!

So this post is all about my progress on my honors book and the collaboration video project. This last week, I photographed, developed the negatives, scanned in the negatives into photoshop, and edited the images to use for my cover and back cover of my book. The images are put in my layout and everything for that book is just about done. I just need to do a couple more edits on my artist statement then I should be ready to order the sample book by thursday! yay!
For the cover/back cover, I decided to do a simple image of the orb with no human interaction. Then the back cover is the same image, a little bit lighter and lower contrast. This lets the viewer see a subtle sign of the footprints around the orb, giving a clue that this had human interaction at some point in the past... also a little mysterious and I like that. I also think the cover photo is mysterious, but in a different way, as if you don't even know what it is to an even further extent. I have also been figuring out where I want my title to be and what font/color it should be. I decided on a gray for the font, sense that sort of represents the "human" color in the series. The font just seems right but I want other artists opinions on that, and it seemed like it would be very visually strong to put the titles inside the orb, but I'm not set on that...

The collaboration video project is going swimmingly! I heard two different ideas from one of my composers and I really like where hes going with it so far. He really captures certain qualities of the movement with the dancer, so I'm sure his work with only strengthen the piece.

Reflection on relational artists...

    Photo from: Noritoshi Hirakawa, film still, "Vier Zwei Eins" 
 

          Photo from: Noritoshi Hirakawa, film still, "Vier Zwei Eins" 
  Hello everyone! Yesterday I gave a presentation to my digital class on artist Noritoshi Hirakawa. Noritoshi was born in 1960 in Japan, and ever sense 1993 has been living and working in NYC. Noritoshi's work is about sexuality and censorship, by combining the public and private image into the same image, which theoretically, gives the viewer a more sincere depiction of that society. Noritoshi studied applied sociology, so most of his work is critiques on social construction and censorship. We talked about in class how and why he would be mentioned in Boreau's book "Relational Aesthetics" and I believe it is because Boreau is interested in looking at artists who try to depict society and experiences just the way they are. Noritoshi Hirakawa in a sense, is doing this by combining two-- very real-- aspects of our societies into one image. When Noritoshi puts these images together into one image, often the viewer feels uncomfortable or surprised by the image. This reaction to the image is a result of a constructed society facade which creates a culturally uncomfortable feeling when a public interaction intertwines with a private, for instance: bedroom, interaction takes place at the same time. To leave with you something more specific about Noritoshi's feelings on the matter, this is a quote from him during an interview about his work:

"The framework of society is based on fictions and this makes people lie," says the photographer. "It is always easier to believe the lies. But it is these lies that are loosening the bonds of society." - Noritoshi Hirakawa. 

The other presentations were also really helpful with better understanding the concept of Relational Aesthetics. Even though Hillary really didn't like her, I thought Venessa Beecroft was supper interesting! I also thought her work related a lot to my artist in the aspects of censorship. Venessa does seem a bit strange as a person, given what information Hillary spoke about, but I can help but be fascinated by her work. 

Here are some images of Venessa's work, check her out! 

               Photo from: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWNpulBF4hR3YHYILNpF8sxtVA3FvCUB5Em4r5_bpamIsi9NavzJg0URBvLpaDgeDCBbVtsYiQgyBWzapbMa8q3hRFN1r6EFCeYY-LfnB0FQeDYvQqE9cHZ5Exz2eAED6SBvApJt9LM-_v/s1600/MuseoMagazine-VanessaBeecroft-V

                                     

photo from: http://gliving.com/vanessa-beecroft-less-than-sympathetic-artist-becomes-unbelievable-character-in-sudanese-adoption-documentary/

vanessa beecroft, vb61: still death! darfur still deaf?, 2007, performance, pescheria di rialto, venice

Nick Olson's lecture

                                     Photography from Nick Olson, from Nick's Website
Nick Olson, 2008 alumni from Lawrence came to speak about his work on monday night. Nick works with a very old photographic process called collodion tintypes, which is not done by many artists in the contemporary world. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend this fascinating lecture due to lovely airport delays, but reading about his work through his website and what I heard from students in and out of class, as well as talking to the artist himself these are my reflections...

I think that his decision to use such an old technique really fits well with the concepts behind his work. He says in his artist statement as well as in person that it is largely about him creating an "object" as well as an image for the viewer to experience. This process creates more of an object you hold in your hand and interact with rather than the viewing experience of a silver gelatin or even more recently an image on a computer screen would be viewed quite differently.

I also related a lot to his ideas about space and how one reacts to their environment changing based on our cultural time. I think bringing up the Thoreau stuff is a little "overdone" but at the same time his work does relate to that within a more contemporary context so I don't have too much to complain about that.

Overall, really nice guy to talk with and I really liked his work.

Nick Olson visit

Photography by Nick Olson. from Nick's website

Contemporary Collodian artist/ alumni Nick Olson came to campus yesterday to give a talk about his work with the old photographic technique Collodian process and his time in a log cabin in the woods.  Today, he spent time with students giving art critiques, having lunch with students, and coming to my senior seminar class in the afternoon. Reflecting back at the experience, there are a few aspects of his visit and work that really stuck out to me such as the obvious (working with a very old, hands-on medium in contemporary art) and his thoughts about my work after our critique. 

First off, I think its really awesome he's working with the collodian photographic process. I think people these days get too wrapped up into working with the "newest" medium or technology and honestly, if your work is better supported using a process thats slower and more "hands on" then I think that makes you a more accomplished professional. The element I would watch out for though, is to make sure that your ideas are relevant to the current contemporary climate audience because if your just repeating the past historical work then your really not bringing anything new to the table. Though, after saying that, his artist statement in his website does say he is not interested in contemporary ideas, and who knows, maybe hes got it right and we'll all be dissatisfied at some point with new technology. 

Second part I wanted to address was my art critique. He looked briefly at both bodies of work and had a lot of positive things to say regarding my images and overall concepts. He said he could see a strong similarity between both bodies of work sense they both have subjects interacting with objects in particular spaces. He also was interested in seeing a film aspect for my senior show work. Nick mentioned he could really see the presence of yoga and dance beliefs and movements within my work without me really saying much about my background in both of those areas. Overall, good critique and his work makes me reflect a lot about artists decisions with their process and equipment  reflecting back to their ideas behind their work. 

Project update!

                                    (Photography by Ali Scattergood from series I am who am)


My project continues to make progress! yay! This last week I've finished scanning all the 120 negatives into the computer and photoshopping those images to be ready to be put into the book.(This is for both my senior show book and my honors project book). I'm also almost done assembling my images into both templates for books and want to get some opinions on the layout before I order any "test" soft cover books. I've made 8x10 test prints of my large 30x30 prints so I will be ready to print some of those this week. My film is going well too... I'm working on editing the shakiness out of the cuts and ideally would like to get the dark spot on the glowing orb edited out as well.

These are the links to the template applications for the books i'm creating.
my publisher: http://www.mypublisher.com/

Booksmart:  http://www.blurb.com/make/booksmart/?ce=google_brand_booksmart&gclid=CMqs8c-HiK4CFQsBQAodrFgH7A

This week I'll be working on editing the film more, writing an artist statement for my I am who am series to use for the book and finalizing the layout of both books. (Maybe I'll even get to printing some large 30x30 inc jet prints!)

wish me luck!

p.s- I'm co-curating the Rabbit Gallery art show this year (and running the whole business with 4 other lovely people) and the opening is Wednesday, February 8th 6:30-9:30pm. It would be wonderful to see people there if you are in town!
http://www.rabbitgallery.com/