Some links on exploring the animal instincts and contemporary social conditions
Human Nature
http://www.humannature.org.uk/index.html
Articles on Marcus Coates
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/focus_marcus_coates/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/jan/25/art.vivgroskop
Monday, 23 February 2009
Marcus Coates
Marcus Coates is a British artist who 'talks' to animals and connects to the spirit world by covering himself in animal skins and making various animal noises. He presents himself as a kind of a shaman and travels to many places to help solve people's problems by asking for advice from the animal spirits.
His film 'The Plover's Wing' is currently part of the Altermodern triennal exhibition at the TATE Britain.
His film 'The Plover's Wing' is currently part of the Altermodern triennal exhibition at the TATE Britain.Friday, 20 February 2009
Generating a monster I have no control over
Here are some thoughts I walked away with after the tutorial with Paul on Friday 20/02/2009
My issues:
Who to photograph?
As my brief-led project's mock-up showed, photographing a random person and editing his facial features ever so slightly to resemble an animal, don't really have the effect I was after. Even though Eva Lauterleins Ghimeres (my visual inspiration) have the same 'problem'. So, my idea was to photograph either a very well known face (aka celebrities) or myself. Photographing celebrities would create another set of annoying issues, which I don't want. They would bring a different layer of meaning to the project which I am not interested in. Therefore, photographing myself would be the best option. In so, I can better convey the meanings behind the project that I initially had - that of (me) being tired of the big city life and everything it comes with, while loving the life of a metropolis. This dilemma or contradiction seems to be the very centre of this project in both the concept and on the technical part.
Feedback:
Continue with the idea of photographing myself. Not only will this make sure that my dilemma is tied to me and not an overall condition of people living in big cities, but it will also bring more interesting thoughts along.
Now, if I digitally edit and animate my facial features so that they start resembling an animal, I want the different features (the eyes, the ears, the nose, ect) to change constantly and randomly. Once I start the animation, it should be programmed to change randomly, so that I do not have any control over it.
Pauls response:
I am generating a Frankenstain 'monster' of myself, let it go and loose control over it.
To do:
To make sure the aesthetics of the changing animation will work the way I want it to work, I need to find out if it is technically possible.
Go through blogs of technical stuf on Photoshop, Flash, Actionscript and Javascript to find if there is anything on generating random change with using parts of images. Post questions on blogs and discussion groups. Ask technical staff at the uni and other lecturers if they know anyone who could advise me.
My issues:
Who to photograph?
As my brief-led project's mock-up showed, photographing a random person and editing his facial features ever so slightly to resemble an animal, don't really have the effect I was after. Even though Eva Lauterleins Ghimeres (my visual inspiration) have the same 'problem'. So, my idea was to photograph either a very well known face (aka celebrities) or myself. Photographing celebrities would create another set of annoying issues, which I don't want. They would bring a different layer of meaning to the project which I am not interested in. Therefore, photographing myself would be the best option. In so, I can better convey the meanings behind the project that I initially had - that of (me) being tired of the big city life and everything it comes with, while loving the life of a metropolis. This dilemma or contradiction seems to be the very centre of this project in both the concept and on the technical part.
Feedback:
Continue with the idea of photographing myself. Not only will this make sure that my dilemma is tied to me and not an overall condition of people living in big cities, but it will also bring more interesting thoughts along.
Now, if I digitally edit and animate my facial features so that they start resembling an animal, I want the different features (the eyes, the ears, the nose, ect) to change constantly and randomly. Once I start the animation, it should be programmed to change randomly, so that I do not have any control over it.
Pauls response:
I am generating a Frankenstain 'monster' of myself, let it go and loose control over it.
To do:
To make sure the aesthetics of the changing animation will work the way I want it to work, I need to find out if it is technically possible.
Go through blogs of technical stuf on Photoshop, Flash, Actionscript and Javascript to find if there is anything on generating random change with using parts of images. Post questions on blogs and discussion groups. Ask technical staff at the uni and other lecturers if they know anyone who could advise me.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Interactivating the image
Here's one possibility to interactivate my project by using the Nintendo Wii remote and infrared sensors. Johnny Chung Lee has some interesting ideas worth researching. johnnylee.net
Saturday, 7 February 2009
The detail I am after
Here are a few example images from a Turkish film director and photographer Nuri Bilge Ceylan. What amazed me about his photography is the amount of detail in the images. I knew already that I want to have my images desaturated and with cold colours, but combined with this contrasty details they woudl be much stronger, I think.
Mr Ceylan told me that he uses a similar camera to the Mamiya we have in the university. It's medium format and digital. He often uses a panoramic camera though. His tips were to photograph with as little contrast as possible to gain the control over contrast once post-processing the images in Photoshop. He thinks that digital technologies are a blessing to artistic minds as it gives more opportunities to experiment and is much cheaper. He also said that he is not afraid of absolute dark areas on his photos as it is not important to show everything. With this he can draw attention to areas on the photos that really matter to him.
His website www.nuribilgeceylan.com
His photos are printed out in quite large format. The technique he uses is archival pigment ink on 460grm cotton rag paper. This gives the images a subtle texture and painting-like apparance. Mr Ceylan prints out his images himself.
Mr Ceylan told me that he uses a similar camera to the Mamiya we have in the university. It's medium format and digital. He often uses a panoramic camera though. His tips were to photograph with as little contrast as possible to gain the control over contrast once post-processing the images in Photoshop. He thinks that digital technologies are a blessing to artistic minds as it gives more opportunities to experiment and is much cheaper. He also said that he is not afraid of absolute dark areas on his photos as it is not important to show everything. With this he can draw attention to areas on the photos that really matter to him.His website www.nuribilgeceylan.com
His photos are printed out in quite large format. The technique he uses is archival pigment ink on 460grm cotton rag paper. This gives the images a subtle texture and painting-like apparance. Mr Ceylan prints out his images himself.Testing the Mamiya
Due to the nature of the final images I am hoping to produce, I need the images to have as much digital information as possible. This means I need to use the best technology available for me to get as hgh resolution images as I can. The choice is limited to the medium format Mamiya from university kit room, so this will have to do. Here are some results and conclusions from my first day with Mamiya.
Here's one of the first images I took. I must say, the display on this camera is awful. It shows the images very dark, with horrible colours and at first there seemed to be nothing I could do about it. I'm used to cameras that display the images more or less the same way they will show up on the computer screen. Mamyia was at first a huge disappointment. 
After uploading the images to my PC I realized the quality of the results. The RAW file processing in Photoshop is as amazing as ever and the image files can be blown up to sizes that I haven't even used before. My verdict is that when well planned, I will get the images I want. Just have to be patient with the camera. 
Here's one of the first images I took. I must say, the display on this camera is awful. It shows the images very dark, with horrible colours and at first there seemed to be nothing I could do about it. I'm used to cameras that display the images more or less the same way they will show up on the computer screen. Mamyia was at first a huge disappointment. 
After uploading the images to my PC I realized the quality of the results. The RAW file processing in Photoshop is as amazing as ever and the image files can be blown up to sizes that I haven't even used before. My verdict is that when well planned, I will get the images I want. Just have to be patient with the camera. 
Project proposal
This project will examine the philosophically occult notion of becoming-animal, as developed in the work of French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari in their book A Thousand Plateaus. They write about human-animal relations, specifically about man becoming animal or animal-like in contemporary culture. They emphasize the becoming, rather than the animal, which in turn also interests me, as whilst the man becomes animal, the animal becomes something else and disappears. Therefore it is not important, what kind of animal the man becomes, but it is the process of becoming that matters.
Eventually the outcome of the project should be a set of digital portraits displayed on LCD screens that are mounted on the wall. The use of digital technology is crucial as each portrait would be digitally edited so that the facial features of the sitter would start to resemble animal features. As the animal is not important, I plan to photograph each sitter from various angles and use details from different shots to combine the final portrait, so that the animal parts will actually be parts from the same person, only from different angles. The editing should be very fine, creating a new reality and eliminating the original portrait. To take the becoming even further, I want to program the portraits to change constantly. The change would be subtle, but big enough to be noticed. In this endless state of change the sitter will never be neither human nor animal, but always becoming.
The problem with the idea is that photographing a random person, the effect might get lost as there are limitless different appearances that humans can. So, if the viewer is not familiar with the original look of the sitter and the editing has been done very well, the effect of becoming animal might not come across. Ways around this might be either to photograph celebrities whose faces are familiar to many people or alternatively photograph myself. Photographing celebrities will bring in a myriad of new meanings and might not benefit the project, but I am willing to try nevertheless. Photographing myself, on the other hand, could introduce my personal angst of being tired of the big city – the ultimate outcome of modern society – and looking for a connection with nature, which ironically and contradictively will be achieved through the use of modern technologies.
Visually, I plan to use cold colours, nearly gray and desaturated tones to create the mood I have just described. The final image should be nearly painting like, so I plan to experiment with adding subtle textures either digitally or physically on top of the LCD screen. This could be further emphasized by framing the monitor.
Eventually the outcome of the project should be a set of digital portraits displayed on LCD screens that are mounted on the wall. The use of digital technology is crucial as each portrait would be digitally edited so that the facial features of the sitter would start to resemble animal features. As the animal is not important, I plan to photograph each sitter from various angles and use details from different shots to combine the final portrait, so that the animal parts will actually be parts from the same person, only from different angles. The editing should be very fine, creating a new reality and eliminating the original portrait. To take the becoming even further, I want to program the portraits to change constantly. The change would be subtle, but big enough to be noticed. In this endless state of change the sitter will never be neither human nor animal, but always becoming.
The problem with the idea is that photographing a random person, the effect might get lost as there are limitless different appearances that humans can. So, if the viewer is not familiar with the original look of the sitter and the editing has been done very well, the effect of becoming animal might not come across. Ways around this might be either to photograph celebrities whose faces are familiar to many people or alternatively photograph myself. Photographing celebrities will bring in a myriad of new meanings and might not benefit the project, but I am willing to try nevertheless. Photographing myself, on the other hand, could introduce my personal angst of being tired of the big city – the ultimate outcome of modern society – and looking for a connection with nature, which ironically and contradictively will be achieved through the use of modern technologies.
Visually, I plan to use cold colours, nearly gray and desaturated tones to create the mood I have just described. The final image should be nearly painting like, so I plan to experiment with adding subtle textures either digitally or physically on top of the LCD screen. This could be further emphasized by framing the monitor.
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