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.
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.
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.