..Assignment 2
Click subsections to view individual parts of the assignment or scroll down to see the continuous version of the assignment.
1. Final Assignment 2
2. Thoughts & Research
3. Contact Sheets
4. Final Contact Sheet
5. Pre Reflection
6. Tutor Report
7. Post Reflection.
Assignment 2 - Unseen
Halfway Land
Click subsections to view individual parts of the assignment or scroll down to see the continuous version of the assignment.
1. Final Assignment 2
2. Thoughts & Research
3. Contact Sheets
4. Final Contact Sheet
5. Pre Reflection
6. Tutor Report
7. Post Reflection.
Assignment 2 - Unseen
Halfway Land
Halfway Land is an exploration of our individual perception. Fractured time and memory a reminder of our fragile existence. A place where a split second can change the world as we know it. We recall, share and retell our stories filling in the empty spaces and creating the new, trying to bridge the halfway.
This work explores the halfway through image and text, a collaboration between two people involved in the same event. An event that was and is witnessed by many.
This work explores the halfway through image and text, a collaboration between two people involved in the same event. An event that was and is witnessed by many.
Thoughts and Research
Idea formation is starting for the assignment but I am not sure where this will go if anywhere. The trigger of the idea was an image that OCA tutor Clive White post on the OCA forum.
Clive White gave me permission to use this image [accessed 08/01/2018]
discuss.oca-student.com/t/post-your-just-because-photograph-here-ver1-1/4302/772?u=alan515735
The thing that struck me was what looked like a ghost, seemed to be looking at the work on the walls. The Sculpture was created by Don Brown and is called "Yoko XVII" is it a sculpture of his wife draped by a white shroud. I thought about the second assignment and using props - a white handkerchief, grief and the possibility of using it has a white shroud (a ghost). How I could present I didn't know. I decided to begin to sculpt a ghost of my own to use has a form for a handkerchief to be placed on.
discuss.oca-student.com/t/post-your-just-because-photograph-here-ver1-1/4302/772?u=alan515735
The thing that struck me was what looked like a ghost, seemed to be looking at the work on the walls. The Sculpture was created by Don Brown and is called "Yoko XVII" is it a sculpture of his wife draped by a white shroud. I thought about the second assignment and using props - a white handkerchief, grief and the possibility of using it has a white shroud (a ghost). How I could present I didn't know. I decided to begin to sculpt a ghost of my own to use has a form for a handkerchief to be placed on.
I have been unsure where this could go if anywhere. Until today, it occurred to me that I am currently working on the theme of death but more importantly in the last assignment with Postcards. This could work has a continuation from Two Sides. The postcard in Two Sides you only ever seen the true side of the postcard - The backside. It is a message to my dead mum what about the other side the "Unseen" side, the receiver and the front of the postcard? Could that work? So I did a test image
Not sure if it does work but I will see where it goes. This presentation of the ghost, postcard within the home, almost fits the idea that Andy Langford mentioned “do you think that your deceased mother would like to ‘see’ more about you and how you live?” Langford, A. (2018) Formative Feed, Context And Narrative - Assignment One.
I also did a number of other other approaches, this was further exploration of ideas to discover if this Ghost had a potential work over a series of images.
I tried different approaches, moved locations, removed different elements and I felt it just didn't work, maybe because I invested time into the creation of the ghost I thought it needed to included in every image. It just seemed forced, to controlled I wanted it to be sophisticated and I had managed to produce something that if I am completely honest something quite the opposite. Coming to the end of taking some of the test images of the ghost, I had the idea of using my epilepsy has a subject of the unseen. I began to shoot blind and handheld with slow shutter speeds using different points of view not knowing how and if they would produce anything.
I have epilepsy this condition is by and large unseen until I have a tonic clonic seizure which cannot be missed. Although my last seizure was 5 years ago its impact was quite widespread. It was the first time my wife had seen me having a seizure. The personal experience of having a seizure is difficult to described it is an unseen perception and very difficult to put into words, I lose time and memory they become like dreams of the events, in and out of focus. One minute I am here and the next I am not. My wife's experience is also unseen because I was never there to see what she saw.
I have epilepsy although it is what I consider very mild and well controlled it is something that requires lifelong medication. My experience of epilepsy is a quite strange journey, after my last big seizure at the age of 40 I was finally given my diagnosis. I have had three big seizures has an adult the time between my last one was ten years. Normally the diagnosis is given after 2 seizures for whatever reason this did not happen.
After this last seizure I did lots of research something became quite obvious, I have had epilepsy since my teens and I had been having small seizures all through my life. When I was 16 first thing in the mornings I regularly experiencing upper limb involuntary jerks almost like a shock which lasted for a split second sometimes it would just happen once sometime 2 or 3 times. If it I was making a drink sugar, milk, water or coffee would be spilled everything. It only ever happen in the morning I was awake and aware. It was more of an annoyance than a concern I never went to the doctors I never spoke about it, it was just something that happened. When I hit my twenties and they stopped.
During early adulthood I would zone out briefly for a couple of seconds. People would say what are you staring at or what are you gawking at I would snap back into the world. I never thought anything of it, I just daydreamed and everybody daydreams and zone out and drift away. All of these thing were just normal something that I had always done. Had I gone to the doctors when I was 16 I would have been diagnosed with epilepsy and put on medication.
Of course up until my final diagnosis my understanding was like many people that epilepsy was somebody on the floor having a full blown seizure, something that was possible to miss if witnessed. I had been having small seizures without knowing, I couldn’t see it and nobody did either apart from my three big clonic tonic seizures. I have very little recall of my last seizure shortly before and after, I remember small pieces of time followed by large blank spaces. The days and weeks after I was in a dream like world.
The last seizure was the one and only my wife had witnessed, of course she found it freighting and traumatic and I had it easy really because I was never aware. I just have those small pieces.
I can’t remember when but we started to talk about that day, what I could recall and how I was feeling, she shared her experience. I tried to fill the blank spaces and she was trying to process her experience and emotions in fact we talked a lot about on and off for a number of months, in fact still to this day talk about that day from time to time. We have different reasons, most of my memory of that day is reconstructed from my wife's account. Of course that account is purely subjective but it is the only thing I have to fill the spaces.
The work is a collaboration an interview with my wife if you like and my visional expression of my account. Both unseen points of view, both memories sharing a fragmented recall of events abstract in nature.
The narrative is postmodern is it open, it creates a tension between text and image. What is happening? We know that something traumatic is occurring but it is never openly shares this allows I hope the viewer to draw their own interpretation on what the event could be.. The images not really giving away who they belong is it to the interviewee or person they speak of. It is a real event or a nightmare.
The abstract visual element created by the use of slow shutter speed and movement a metaphor of my experience and altered perception of the world in the moments just before and after my seizure, the black negative space symbolic of not being dead or alive of not being there. The text placed in the corner to allow the viewer to be sucked into the darkness first and then being drawn to the text.
The images are soft and aesthetically abstract and pleasing which is disrupted by the trauma of the text, it is confusing surely this trauma should be harsh?. Maybe this blurring is time slowing down for the witness and but also my altered state. A symbol of the shared experience.
The image the ghost, metaphor of my looking back it feels like I was never there in the past and my recall in the present is largely reconstructed by my wife almost like a false memory of a real event.
Postmodern narrative is something I need to be extremely mindful of, that yes I am the creator of the work, but it borne out what of intent. Seeded by experience and exploration of self but has soon has the intent is seen in full daylight the narrative evaporates away. Has soon as I say seizure or epilepsy its narrative becomes fixed and will only ever be seen has this, the commonality narrowed down to those have either have experienced or witnessed a seizure the viewer's ability to openly explore and interpret is restricted.
If the work on the other hand was to act has an education, to open up a dialogue on epilepsy a subject that still to the this day is not openly spoken about a condition that has many stereotypical views and misconception. The approach to the work would be more effective if approached in a more objective formal, documentary style of photography rather than an subjective expressive exploration of one's own experience, The text would need to be more factual and direct which anchor the works message and if done effectively would inform, challenge and raise questions from within the viewer.
I really don’t know why, it is difficult to describe and to explain, how can I explain with a short artist statement without saying because has soon as I explain it becomes fixed. This leads to the question regarding postmodern narrative. Work is created and borne from personal response and intent however this is give up once the work viewed. If I describe it or explain the work it becomes fixed and shuts down the ability for the viewer to add there narrative. My narrative, response and intent is mine and mine alone, the trick is to explain what the work is without really saying what it means to me.
It maybe that the work I am producing has a theme running through it although I am not entirely sure what. Maybe it is the notion of the somewhere and the nowhere, the in between, a halfway land one where I am not dead nor alive, neither past or present. It is quite frustrating I continue to have an itch that can’t be scratched. I am really not sure but what I do know it is driving me a little insane.
I am extremely lucky to have a supportive wife we talk about my ideas and work she will feedback even though she is not a photographer we have done at some level this since I became interested in photography it has grown and developed over time and has become an integral part of my practice both photographic and reflective. In fact we reflect quite a lot. We don’t just reflect about my photography but we do it all the time without knowing.
I have epilepsy although it is what I consider very mild and well controlled it is something that requires lifelong medication. My experience of epilepsy is a quite strange journey, after my last big seizure at the age of 40 I was finally given my diagnosis. I have had three big seizures has an adult the time between my last one was ten years. Normally the diagnosis is given after 2 seizures for whatever reason this did not happen.
After this last seizure I did lots of research something became quite obvious, I have had epilepsy since my teens and I had been having small seizures all through my life. When I was 16 first thing in the mornings I regularly experiencing upper limb involuntary jerks almost like a shock which lasted for a split second sometimes it would just happen once sometime 2 or 3 times. If it I was making a drink sugar, milk, water or coffee would be spilled everything. It only ever happen in the morning I was awake and aware. It was more of an annoyance than a concern I never went to the doctors I never spoke about it, it was just something that happened. When I hit my twenties and they stopped.
During early adulthood I would zone out briefly for a couple of seconds. People would say what are you staring at or what are you gawking at I would snap back into the world. I never thought anything of it, I just daydreamed and everybody daydreams and zone out and drift away. All of these thing were just normal something that I had always done. Had I gone to the doctors when I was 16 I would have been diagnosed with epilepsy and put on medication.
Of course up until my final diagnosis my understanding was like many people that epilepsy was somebody on the floor having a full blown seizure, something that was possible to miss if witnessed. I had been having small seizures without knowing, I couldn’t see it and nobody did either apart from my three big clonic tonic seizures. I have very little recall of my last seizure shortly before and after, I remember small pieces of time followed by large blank spaces. The days and weeks after I was in a dream like world.
The last seizure was the one and only my wife had witnessed, of course she found it freighting and traumatic and I had it easy really because I was never aware. I just have those small pieces.
I can’t remember when but we started to talk about that day, what I could recall and how I was feeling, she shared her experience. I tried to fill the blank spaces and she was trying to process her experience and emotions in fact we talked a lot about on and off for a number of months, in fact still to this day talk about that day from time to time. We have different reasons, most of my memory of that day is reconstructed from my wife's account. Of course that account is purely subjective but it is the only thing I have to fill the spaces.
The work is a collaboration an interview with my wife if you like and my visional expression of my account. Both unseen points of view, both memories sharing a fragmented recall of events abstract in nature.
The narrative is postmodern is it open, it creates a tension between text and image. What is happening? We know that something traumatic is occurring but it is never openly shares this allows I hope the viewer to draw their own interpretation on what the event could be.. The images not really giving away who they belong is it to the interviewee or person they speak of. It is a real event or a nightmare.
The abstract visual element created by the use of slow shutter speed and movement a metaphor of my experience and altered perception of the world in the moments just before and after my seizure, the black negative space symbolic of not being dead or alive of not being there. The text placed in the corner to allow the viewer to be sucked into the darkness first and then being drawn to the text.
The images are soft and aesthetically abstract and pleasing which is disrupted by the trauma of the text, it is confusing surely this trauma should be harsh?. Maybe this blurring is time slowing down for the witness and but also my altered state. A symbol of the shared experience.
The image the ghost, metaphor of my looking back it feels like I was never there in the past and my recall in the present is largely reconstructed by my wife almost like a false memory of a real event.
Postmodern narrative is something I need to be extremely mindful of, that yes I am the creator of the work, but it borne out what of intent. Seeded by experience and exploration of self but has soon has the intent is seen in full daylight the narrative evaporates away. Has soon as I say seizure or epilepsy its narrative becomes fixed and will only ever be seen has this, the commonality narrowed down to those have either have experienced or witnessed a seizure the viewer's ability to openly explore and interpret is restricted.
If the work on the other hand was to act has an education, to open up a dialogue on epilepsy a subject that still to the this day is not openly spoken about a condition that has many stereotypical views and misconception. The approach to the work would be more effective if approached in a more objective formal, documentary style of photography rather than an subjective expressive exploration of one's own experience, The text would need to be more factual and direct which anchor the works message and if done effectively would inform, challenge and raise questions from within the viewer.
I really don’t know why, it is difficult to describe and to explain, how can I explain with a short artist statement without saying because has soon as I explain it becomes fixed. This leads to the question regarding postmodern narrative. Work is created and borne from personal response and intent however this is give up once the work viewed. If I describe it or explain the work it becomes fixed and shuts down the ability for the viewer to add there narrative. My narrative, response and intent is mine and mine alone, the trick is to explain what the work is without really saying what it means to me.
It maybe that the work I am producing has a theme running through it although I am not entirely sure what. Maybe it is the notion of the somewhere and the nowhere, the in between, a halfway land one where I am not dead nor alive, neither past or present. It is quite frustrating I continue to have an itch that can’t be scratched. I am really not sure but what I do know it is driving me a little insane.
I am extremely lucky to have a supportive wife we talk about my ideas and work she will feedback even though she is not a photographer we have done at some level this since I became interested in photography it has grown and developed over time and has become an integral part of my practice both photographic and reflective. In fact we reflect quite a lot. We don’t just reflect about my photography but we do it all the time without knowing.
The above contact sheet is my response to the poem exercise in part two it has retrospectively dawned on me that there is the same motif of blank images which runs throughout the assignment.
Contact Sheets
Final Contact Sheet
The decision for the selection of the final images was based on the composition of repetitive use of shapes, lines and the use of negative space which balanced and strengthen the images. The series beginning with a distorted but two recognizable images of a living room which are then followed by five unrecognizable abstract images which need to rely on there compositional strengths. The transition from the recognizable to the unrecognizable alludes to a distorted event which is then disrupted by in focus image which then leads to a question what has happened, this is strengthened and reinforced by the text.
Pre Reflection
I feel that I have managed to explore both the notion of photographing the unseen and using props (the ghost) exploring a very personal experience. Although I haven’t listed lots of ideas I feel that visual experimentation with just one starting point continues to work for me.
Visual experimentation continues to be progressive in the development of work and aids the creative process within my own working practice which is slowly evolving. This is done by experimenting with a initial pre visualized idea which then are given the freedom to grow and change direction.
Rumination continues to be an issues, this is caused by my lack of confidence in the written and research element. I believe this is reinforced by looking at other student learning logs and bench marking myself against others has a comparative of what I should or shouldn’t be doing. This is not helpful we all have differing practice, strengths and weaknesses.
Time? It has taken me once again quite some time to submit this assignment. I feel that I should be working to deadlines and producing work but self imposed deadlines places pressure to complete on time. This could lead to putting work out that is not has good has it could be. I have also been working on assignment three and five and the same time which has impacted on the submission of this assignment.
I think that time management reviews need to be carried regularly and that the overall and ultimate deadline personally for me for this unit is the completion ready for Nov ‘18 assessment.
I have acted on my tutor feedback from assignment one with regards to consistent colour and exposure throughout the series which helps strengthen it overall. I also acted on the making use of available equipment i.e tripod was used in the ghost image.
I have carefully considered the use of text and how it affects the viewers reading of it.
I need to think about how this assignment will be presented in assessment, prints or slideshow.
Areas still to be completed before assessment submission
Write up relevant practitioners who have explored self using similar photographic approaches and health issues include
Francesca Woodman
Elina Brotherus
Peter Mansell
Explore artist from www.londonbrainproject.com/beyond-seizures/
Matt Thompson http://www.mattthompson.co.uk/helens-story
www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/09/how-i-faced-up-epilepsy-helen-stephens
Area to explore memory and trauma.
I also need to proof read all written work.
Tutor Feedback
Formative feedback
Student name
Alan Fletcher
Student number 515735
Course/Unit Context and Narrative
Assignment number 2
Type of tutorial-Written
Overall Comments
Well done on this new work Alan. It must have required leap of faith to take your ideas in this so personal and difficult a direction. I think that the collaboration between you and your wife works very well.
Assignment 2 Assessment potential
I understand your aim is to go for the Photography/Creative Arts* Degree and that you plan to submit your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in this assignment, providing you commit yourself to the course, I believe you have the potential to pass at assessment. In order to meet all the assessment criteria, there are certain areas you will need to focus on, which I will outline in my feedback.
Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity
You manage to balance your own internal recollections or equivalents of your experiences on that day with your wife’s outside-looking-in experience. I like the form and conversation that you created between the alternating types of contents.
You have managed to anchor the images a little through leaving in hints of the domestic environment and then taking them through into increased abstraction and ambiguity. They start out with a sense that they could have been connected by what you saw through your own eyes on that day, but then suggest that sight (as we experience it) become supplanted by a visual landscape that does not conform to any norms and, therefore, neither do your images. The words are much more reported and accessible and provide an effective counterpoint to your images. The text clearly reveals that two people shared the experience and that the experience itself was very disturbing and demanding.
I feel ambivalent about the image of the use of the clay figure at the end of the sequence. On one hand you did a healthy range of tests to explore if, or how, the figure might feature in the assignment so that was very positive and it does in a way help to punctuate the sequence and bring the viewer back to your earlier content. On the other hand the work now takes a particular co-joined direction that is shared between you both and offers a rich account and impression of a difficult time, so I’m not sure what the figure adds as it introduces a new dimension which I don’t think is needed.
With regard to the presentation of the work I would make a couple of suggestions. The only way that I can see the work is to scroll up or down the sequence of images. What jumps out immediately is that you shift alternatively from portrait to landscape, which is visually jarring so do think about this. At first I quite liked the switching from the blurred images into a solid black panel and the particular choice of typeface. After repeated viewings I wondered if this could be improved. You could try different variations of typeface and its placement in the frame. Maybe even try out hand written words to connect it further to a personal and diary-like form. You might even consider if the work might look better with subtle shifts of colour and tone behind the words. In this way the two forms of images could be interconnected. Like I said above please check your grammar and spelling in each panel.
Coursework
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity
Good engagement in set coursework with some stimulating responses through your own photography. I like the work using the mirror and the surface being disturbed – this should be taken forward in your own time.
Research
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
Your writing is rich in that you are clearly searching for the best way of theoretically anchoring the work and - I think of this as being very positive - that you are searching for ways to talk about the psychophysical trauma of the event at the center of the work.
You seem very anxious to not totally pin down the potential meaning or reading that the work could stimulate. Personally I would leave the interpretation aspect of the final work open. These things are never simple, for instance when I think about the impact of an artist like Jo Spence who very directly applied her photography throughout her treatment for cancer. The direct way that she made it clear that her work was about both her own direct medical experience of the disease (therefore to a degree cathartic) and the capacity of photography to give insight open up debate on an otherwise difficult subject. She also developed her influential theory and practice of phototherapy. Likewise, the portraits of a photographer like Nicholas Nixon can be another example of the image moved away from aesthetics and across to very taboo subjects such as extreme illness and old age. Both of the people above use the evidential capacity of photography and the images shock and reveal something culturally challenging about being human and being vulnerable. They both use a constructed method to their portraits – whether autobiographical or taken of another subject. Your work is quite different in that it is retrospective and approached after some time after the event. As you say you are exploring the event as you both recollect it and you are aiming to give an impressionistic form to something that was emotionally and physically experienced. The strength in your work is the exploration of experience from two different positions and the concept of exploring he importance and experience of a short period of traumatic time.
A book that I think you should read is Rexer’s The Edge of Vision. Whilst is does not align exactly to this new work and the ideas that underpin it does offer an excellent survey of artists whose practices use the abstract qualities of the photographic image and outlines their reasoning. As the heart of your work is concerned with the visual equivalence of an epileptic attack I’m not certain how much the purely aesthetic understanding and appreciation of visual abstraction might interest you, but as a student you should immerse yourself in this type of reading.
In your supporting writing you generally mention Postmodernist writers, but you do need to say more than this. Which writers are you referencing in particular and what did they add to your research and thinking.
Learning Log
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
As you say in your supporting materials you will need to think carefully how best to submit the work for assessment. Unfortunately I do need to remind you again to check your writing thoroughly. This applies to both the background materials and in the texts in the work itself. In the text sections on black there are a few grammatical errors – I wasn’t sure whether you were conscious of these and that you tried to capture your wife’s own words, but they do stand out in otherwise what is an articulate piece of work. It was very positive to see the evidence of your various experiments carried out during the developmental stages of the assignment. Assessors like to see this underpinning work and to read your accounts and reasoning of what worked and what didn’t and of course why.
Suggested reading/viewing
Context
Lyle Rexer, (2009), The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photograph, Aperture
Strengths
Areas for development
Much improved documentation of developmental work
Essential to check and proof read for grammar and spelling
Growing appetite for anchoring the work in theory
More precise references needed to connect the work to contemporary practices
Good conceptual grounding of work
Tutor name
Dr. Andy Langford
Date
23.06.2018
Post Reflection
Overall a positive response to the work, the “leap of faith” is at the heart of this assignment and the somewhere and nowhere, perception, subjectivity cannot be proved or disproved and that we both rely on some level on each other to fill in the gaps.
It is slightly strange in that it is personal and surrounded around a difficult time I don’t see it in that way it is almost becoming like a created fiction which is based on my own experiences and thoughts. I think I feel this way because it is expressed in a visual manner and is magnified in order to create a sense of what the work is or could be.
I do feel little uncertain on how I feel about the theme of trauma maybe the term trauma is a little strong but equally I fear that continuing this exploration of such themes may give people a sense that in someway I am damaged and traumatized which is not the case.
I did not really consider the impact that the clay figure had on the work in terms of adding other possible dimensions and this is something I need to think about, although I am not entirely sure at this time what new dimension the clay figure adds.
I did consider the role of alternating portrait and landscape which was intended to disrupt and but to add a layer of rhythm of time almost like passing seconds a visual tick tock. However I failed to really reflect this thinking within my writing.
The possible suggestion of further exploration with text format i.e written, font, colour shift and placement is something that I don’t feel is not really needed, it is of course an important element of the work however I feel that in its current format is strong enough to stand has it is and that further exploration would cloud any judgment I make that regarding the work and would be change for the sake of change. I need to further explore the surface has I am developing an interest the photograph has an object, the implications of the digital world, the importance of the object has memory and remembrance.
I continue to struggle with spelling and grammar this is not a thing that I can correct overnight and will be an ongoing issue however I continue to be writing in a engaging manner which I think overcomes this issue and I am slowly developing a critical and theoretical approach to my work.
I need to consider the impact of working in an almost retrospective manner in terms of making work first and then researching after, although it is working for me it makes written harder because it feels like the written is like playing catch up. I need to find a way that makes this element more manageable.