Week 7 - presentation, thoughts and readings on materiality

I presented my photographic works in the installation space in the sculpture area after having them printed A3 size. It was helpful to receive constructive feedback and advice where to take the exploration next. And a good time to clarify my journey so far ....

At the first workshop I brought in a wide variety of materials ranging from organic natural forms to synthetic objects. One such thing caught my eye - some thick plastic that we d received some furniture for the home wrapped in. Here was my first link back to the domestic space. At first I explored the material qualities of the plastic : photographed it and made some pretty bad videos of it examining in particular its relationship and the aesthetic caused when it interacted with light.

I became interested in cobwebs when I attended the Sydney Biennale and once again photographed them on my small canon camera and phone and made some more rather poor videos. I found it a silent and small yet powerful idiom as it swayed gently in the breeze whilst through the window behind it people were visible rushing on by.

In our workshop week 4 I explored these materials further by using the plastic as an added lens over my camera which then captured scenes that were influenced and distorted by the plastic. The light and materiality of the plastic were key interests to me during this experimental period. I shot in different rooms in the house wanting to utilise the concern of the domestic space as well as natural lighting from the windows.

At home I discovered another spiderweb and endeavoured to explore it - this time in my own backyard- and had a sense of looking through the spiderweb into the domestic domain beyond.

After consulting with Chris I decided to explore further using plastic as a filter through which to view the world and I wanted to push the experimentation further by trying different opaque and transparent materials such as organza, cellophane and the catalyst for this path of experimentation : cobweb paper as inspired by the natural cobwebs I had been interested in previously.

Of particular interest during this period of experimentation was the question of where to focus- the material or the room beyond.

As I was working certain elements of the readings Chris had posted started to inform my experimenting process. From Carolyn Walker Bynum's contribution to the article on Materiality (Rosler et al. 2013, p. 12  Notes from the field) I learned her stance that medieval devotional objects should be understood more as the presence of the holy rather than being just symbols or icons or indexes of the holy. She states that the closer you come to the inner shrine the 'central encounter with the holy' then the more 'tactile and three-dimensional the scene' and in this way 'the inner shrine both emphasises and sublimates its stuffness'. In an interesting paradox Bynum sees these shrines as displaying 'earthly mutable, malleable stuff as lifted into heavenly changelessness'. Bynum explores this further and goes on to state that for medieval believers 'the entire universe is Gods creation and manifestation ... Gods footprints'  and as the nun Mechtild saw in  a vision that all creatures and particles on earth are 'caught up in the humanity of Christ' thus when these statues and altarpieces etc called 'attention to themselves as material stuff they asserted themselves to be creation, the expression of the divine'.

I became interested for my project to search for and show the expression of the divine through the materiality of the 'filters' and in this way bring the binaries of the material and the sacred together in the domestic space - a site of the routine and mundane - to explore that maybe there each moment is still infiltrated with the sacred. As Ann Voskamp writes 'though time moves on and the planet spins, a blur its moments are holy. And you can slow and you can wake  and you can trust and find the joy that you are aching for by paying attention to all the moments with your whispered offering of thanks. Because this is how you begin to spend your one life well- receiving each moment for what it really is: holy, ordinary, amazing grace.' (Voskamp 2013, p. 7 One thousand gifts).

This for me also helped clarify photography/ the digital image as a relevant medium to explore the idea of time based moments yet to also make them timeless in a sense.

Another reading that helped me along this path of enquiry and exploration was from the same paper written by Michael Ann Holly. Holly states that she sees materiality as 'the meeting of matter and imagination- the place where opposites take refuge from their perpetual strife' (Rosler et al. 2013, p. 15  Notes from the field). Holly is exploring materiality in the light of  digitalisation and opposes Bill Brown's idea that materiality has a new sense of urgency due to 'the "threat" of digital media' stating instead that these digital images themselves have a 'presence'  even though are disembodied from the material world and that they enrich our perceptions and stretch our 'visionary capacities'. Holly concludes by stating that 'the fact that the image is neither here nor there does not mean its immaterial. It is an event in the world .... and evinces tangibility sometimes without physical touch and even might cunningly illustrate materiality without being material'.

Deb Mansfield's Armchair traveller also helped me to think about this idea of bringing binaries together and n this way creating another space, another way to view things which is what I was hoping for my project ... well these first steps towards a resolved outcome.

Bibliography

Rosler et al.  March 2013, Notes from the field: materiality, The Art Bulletin, pp. 11-37.

Voskamp, A 2012 One thousand gifts, Zondervan, Grand Rapids Michigan.

Week 6 - editing

Photoshop elements - adding layers, high key, lomo effects 

as well as adjusting levels...

creating a familiar yet surreal territory - 

week 6 - further experiments with materials as filters

Using the thick plastic as in the previous experiments but trying out different rooms within the house

New 'lenses' - cellophane is more transparent than the thicker plastic, shinier and creates interesting reflections.... looked great in the 'red room' because of all the light

Experimenting with where the focus is directed ..... here looking beyond the cellophane veil 

Using organza and focusing on the fibres and the light falling and catching them

Inspired by natural cobwebs experimentation with cobweb paper as a filter

Trying out the plastic again in different locations - different light strength different effect

The red room was for me the most enjoyable to shoot in due to the light 

week 5 - experiments at home

The spiderweb ... again ..... the ephemeral and sublime as a window to see the domestic and mundane through ...

Could it be that there is something sacred even in the most mundane moment or situation

Could it be as s writer Ann Voskamp writes -
that by paying attention to all the moments with thanksgiving ... we can receive each moment for what it is...

....'holy, ordinary and amazing'
Voskamp, A 2012 one thousand gifts

Week 4 - workshop with materials

Looking at the world through a layer of lenses .... first experiment with thick plastic

Questions to consider - where is the focus ? the materiality of the plastic ... or the objects behind ...

                                        what am I thinking ? what am I trying to say ?

week 3 - learning to read artworks - Zhang Huan

Week 3 – Learning to look at artworks

Article on reading artworks

https://bblearn.griffith.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-853055-dt-content-rid-1749601_1/courses/1309QCA_3141_SB/Suggestions%20on%20How%20to%20Read%20an%20Artwork.pdf

Zhang Huan

To raise the water level in a fishpond

1997

DVD colour, stereo, 6:19 minutes.

This video portrays a number of Asian men and one child lining up, removing their clothes down to their underwear and entering into a pond in an organized and orderly fashion. The pond is bordered by a row of trees yet there is the presence of a large city in the background. The video shows the men exiting the water and then finishes.

From the didactic the audience learns that this is a collaborative work whereby Zhang has invited 40 rural migrants, who have come to Beijing seeking work, to participate. They wade into the Nanmofang fishpond, located in Beijing, and displace the water level with their mass. The didactic also points out that these migrant labourers and fishermen are known as ‘the floating population’.

The fact that this work is a video with sound instead of photographs or other documentation methods for me highlights the human element. These migrants are portrayed as a group yet also individuals are focused upon and we see the expressions on their faces in close range and hear them talking and laughing amongst themselves. Whereas migrants can be represented in a negative, stereotypical light this video for me uses playful humour to underly the struggles the migrants may face and show their humanity.

The use of the declothed body suggests vulnerability and once again emphasizes the humanity of the migrants. There is a sense of irony in the fact that these migrants are often labeled ‘the floating population’ yet Zhang undermines this label as when they enter the water the migrants stand firmly. This sense of solidarity in the group is highlighted in the orderly fashion in which they enter and leave the water and there is a sense of hope that Zhang places in the power of collaborative actions to have effects such as raising the water level. The idea of displacement is cleverly expressed as the migrants displace the water yet they themselves have also been displaced in their search for employment.

Throughout the video however there is this sense of playfulness as the men chatter and laugh amongst themselves and as they are exiting the pond the fish start leaping everywhere! Only one child is present in the water upon his fathers shoulders we assume which for me speaks of the next generation and raises serious questions amidst the irony and humour of what the future may hold for the children and future generations. In addition there is reference for me to the impact that industry and people have upon the environment as we see the fish getting displaced themselves as well as the water- a vital life giving element that we are all reliant upon.

The work was made in 1997 at a time in China when capitalism had taken a huge surge forward and China was the second largest recipient after USA of foreign investment (Buster, G 2003 The transition to capitalism).

Buster states that ‘the public sector was besieged by the dizzying growth of the rural industrial sector, special economic zones and new urban private enterprises. It was also consciously pillaged by the provincial bureaucracies who, in a climate of rampant corruption, helped themselves to social funds and the assets of the public enterprises dependent on the central budget to maintain investments in the private sector in their provinces. The provincial bureaucracies could only tax their private sectors to support their budgets, whereas the needs of the provincial governments grew as central transfers fell. The central bureaucracy saw its capacity for extraction of the social surplus product of the public sector fall, and had to negotiate with the local bureaucracies over their contributions to the central budget. The regional disequilibrium was enormous, social inequality exploded, the privatization of agriculture led to unemployment for 250 million peasants and emigration to the cities for 100 million others - the so-called “floating population”. If poverty fell in the countryside, in the towns 117 million new poor appeared, 80% of them in the central and western regions. The health and education system, which had become private, progressively disintegrated.’

This research gives a new sense of impending crises portrayed by the city of Beijing in the background and despite the touches of humour and humanity this video leaves us with serious questions about the future that capitalism has created and will be creating in China in particular but also globally for both people and the natural environment.

Bibliography

Buster, G 2003, The transition to capitalism, International viewpoint, viewed 8^th April 2014 http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article117

Zhang Huan To raise the water level in a fishpond 1997 film still, mine.

Summary - Deb Mansfield The Armchair Traveller

The Armchair traveller – Deb Mansfield

Rennex, B 2013,  The Armchair Traveller: Littoral zones and the domestic environment

Wow I found this was one of the most helpful readings in terms of thinking about my own practice and life and being in the in between zone. Rennex states that our culture summarizes experiences in terms of binary opposites such as being at home or away yet that artists, philosophers and theorists endeavor to find a place beyond the confines of these to describe experiences. Rennex then quotes the theories of Elizabeth Grosz who states that the ‘in between space’ is a space to contest the ‘many binaries and dualisms that dominate Western knowledge’. This article shows how in The Armchair Traveller project which took Deb Mansfield on artist residencies to Tasmania and Newfoundland, Canada she explored this notion of the in between space. She photographed and investigated the idea of the littoral zone –a physical space where the tide flows; an in between zone that is ‘neither fully sea nor fully land’ which Mansfield likened to the psychological space of the armchair traveller – ‘imagining the unknown while situated in the known’. Us who inhabit domestic spaces within the metropolis yet who dream of adventure, exotic places and travel yet is it the fear of the unknown or the fear of risk and transformation that keeps us in our armchairs? Mansfield disrupts typical binary dichotomies in this exhibition by using these very binaries and inviting us ‘into this in-between… where two sets of binaries converge’. Rennex explains how in this exhibit work we literally experience this convergence as we the audience sit on the The Armchair Traveller (two seater) 2013, a French European high culture designed chaise yet upholstered with fabric printed with a forest, and thus are taken on a journey in the artists and our own imagination. Rennex explores how through ‘enticingly disrupted spaces’ such as A chaise on the brink 2013 where a de-robed and upturned chaise is wedged in a window ‘on the brink of being inside and outside’, Mansfield highlights and yet subverts these dichotomies as the chaise is on the brink of ‘being something else’ beyond just a chaise. Rennex also shows how this work explores the ‘ongoing negotiation between domesticity and adventure and we juggle the need for both’ which for me is powerfully shown in the work The migration of an ocean (tapestry) into the space between the house and fence 2013 where ‘an infinite ocean is made finite and a tiny backyard is made huge enough to hold an ocean’. Part of the magic of this exhibition was Mansfield’s amazing ability to keep us in this in between place and as Rennex states  to ‘offer us a way of recognizing the abundance of potentials in the everyday’.