Image, narrative and viewer’s perception

Plan to visit this month....

Light Show

30 January – 28 April

Light Show explores the experiential and phenomenalnature of light, bringing together sculptures and installations that use light to create specific conditions. The exhibition showcases artworks since the 1960s in which light itself is used as material to sculpt and shape space, often creating evocative environments and sensory works that operate at the edges of the viewer’s perception. Light has the power to affect our states of mind as well as alter our perceptions, and Light Show will include some of the most visually stimulating artworks created in recent years as well as rare works not seen for decades and re-created specially for the Hayward Gallery.

Artists in the exhibition include: David Batchelor, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Olafur Eliasson, Dan Flavin, Ceal Floyer, Jenny Holzer, Ann Veronica Janssens, Anthony McCall, François Morellet, Ivan Navarro, Katie Paterson, and Conrad Shawcross. The exhibition is curated by Cliff Lauson, Curator, Hayward Gallery.

And....

Project Space: Objects in Mirror are Closer than they Appear

Tate Modern: Exhibition

9 November 2012 – 17 February 2013

Since its birth, cinema has made a paradoxical demand on its viewers: to consciously suspend their disbelief. This remains a preoccupation for contemporary artists who have grown up exposed to an intense flow of still and moving images. The film and video works in this exhibition focus on the tension between image, narrative and the viewer’s perception. Together they expose the fracture between what we are shown on screen and what we see. Borrowing from various cinematic conventions, as well as formats including lecture, documentary, rehearsal and found footage, they examine the limits of our imagination and credulity. With a variety of approaches, their references move between the black boxes of movie theatres and the ‘black mirrors’ of our TV screens, computers and smart phones.

The exhibition blurs the boundary between depiction and deception and questions the logic of storytelling. Does the illusive charm of the moving image undermine its authority as a visual record? And what role does the viewer’s imagination play in constructing a narrative?

Artists: Herman Asselberghs, Manon de Boer, Sherif El-Azma, Patricia Esquivias, Lars Laumann, Maha Maamoun, Ján Mančuška.

Really looking forward to seeing both shows...planning to view Friday 1st February (my 43rd bday!) before heading down to see family. last blog announced the prospect of me getting on with some literature review...well what do you think I have not contributed to anything...but hey don't despair Saturday 5th Jan has taken a turning point in which I have started to read again. The book is Kinomuseum. Towards artists' cinema. Edited by Mike Speringer and Ian White (I may have mentioned in a previous posting, not sure??) explores the relationship between cinema and the museum, White states (p23) that 'perhaps the museum is like the cinema not only in terms of the display of moving image work. like cinema ( often commensurate with it), the museum is no stranger to the entrance fee. Block Buster exhibitions frequently 'sell out'...however what is argued by contrast the museum collects and preserves unique objects, at expense with strict controls over dates and times, further it is a tomb, temple, grotto, void, theatre etc etc (allan Kaprow p140; where cinema audiences have collective ownership over the work in which each member pays to watch, in different countries, cities and times at a  duration..
im not sure where all this is leading too except another perspective into audience perception and another gap perhaps???...the museum a collector of things that watches on whilst we are merely passing through. the cinema a theater of moving image that as Kelly describes (p46).. screening an encounter in real time, and then sip into historical time as an image of the past reappearing in the present...Further Preziosi and Fargo describe the museum itself as a '' representation, an artifact as 'natural' as the 'specimens' it preserves'' (White) and museum objects are staged or framed to be read in a variety of ways...and serve as theatre, encyclopedia and laboratory, finally museums are perfomances...this also describes the conditions of the cinema...  

Has video art become obsolete? The Green Ray Tacita Dean

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2013/jan/23/video-art-in-the-vanguard
Feb 16th - to see Tony Oursler at Tate Modern

Television, Audiences and cultural studies

Bismuth

Outcome of last posting was I have spoken to SE regarding what to pursue next in terms of my research..it was suggested that I continue to read (lit review) as you know not an element I feel comfortable with but will have to get on and do! I've just read through my paper for Module: Project Management and System Thinking DE0949 together with Gantt Chart...the reason for this is I want ascertain where i have come from and where I need to go to next. Hence the title above I've decided to take another perspective and that is to look at audience studies, I  may have hinted on this in blog posting discussing Thomas Struth. 
Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies, David Morley draws on a body of empirical (experimental, observational) work to examine the emergence, development and future of television audience research. Further it looks at articulating private and public spheres of experience in social organisation of space, time and community. Looking over methodology I have pointed out that this is an area much considered to cover...what interested me (p1 introduction) was Morley quote, 'of returning over and over again to the same old questions about cultural power, sometimes reformulation those questions in different ways, and at various points shifting the angle of vision from which the questions have been asked'...This is something i plan to do, I guess it is matter of reframing the question many times to establish  where new meaning could possibly emerge??
to confirm...audience work is normally put into two areas a) is not passive, but active and b) media content (Important rather than where it is being watched or where) is polysemic (a sign, word of phase that contains lots of meanings) and open to many different interpretations. the question posed here is what these assumptions are taken mean and there theoretical and empirical (observations) consequences are..? Evans (1990) 

P 177. Ang (1989) raises the essential question of what kind of knowledge empirical research on audiences can produce. in short, what are the politics of audience ethonography? she continues to insist that doing research is itself a discursive (moving from topic to topic without order ) practice which can ever hope to produce historically and culturally specific knowledge's which are the result of equally specific discursive encounters between researcher and informants. Research is thus, from her point of view, always a matter of interpretating, (or indeed constructing) reality from a particular position, rather than the positivist approach of assuming that a correct scientific perspective will finally allow us to achieve the utopian dream of a world completely known in the form of indisputable facts.
P186. according to Hammersley and Atkinson, ethonography can be understood as...one social research method,...draws on a wide range of sources of information. The ethonographer participates in peoples lives for extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions...collecting whatever data is available to throw light in the issues with which he or she is concerned.

ongoing...not sure where this is going but opening the window as SE states and seeing whats out there...I think I need to get an up to copy of this book 1992 is it publish date...so much has happened since then in terms of how we watch tv, new tech advances, means we can basically watch anywhere, anytime...the tv does not keep us situated in time and place we now I guess keep it for when we please???

Finally I started with the 1st year students an assignment based on conversations and how random they are in may different situations...there is no outcome set for this just to consider the creative process. Ideas and how they can be extended upon and in what method etc etc. however this has proved difficult for the students to grasp, it is clear that they don't understand what is expected of them? not being able to settle on something and see it through is also problematic and finally they are not excited..I plan to talk to them this week and look to iron out issues,  go through assignment and initiate tasks. I also want to work towards a small public exhibition to ascertain if that will fire them up??? shall let you know.

signing off

Full Circle

Royal National Hotel 2012 - View from window 

I think when I began writing this blog was from student London trip (October 2011)...I have reached full circle, but this time a year on. So what has filled my life since last posting, July I believe...well I wrote my final paper for Bridging module, which I can tell you I passed, so if I decide to bail out of the PHD I will receive an MA in Design Practice. I haven't confirm yet whether or not I will do this...ummm for one I have put on hold till next September 2013 (already noted in last email) but also I have not done anything since writing paper?? I think once the OU stuff is out of the way, I shall be able to concentrate more clearly, or am I just making excuses...if I have time to read a book then I should have time to set aside for study. BUT where do I begin?????? SE has been intouch and asked me to plan a meeting to discuss with him future aims. Perhaps talking to him will put me back on track, reading my paper again would be a good idea. Something to note is that I have asked the 1st students to concentrate on the creative process only, that is not to produce any final outcome, just lots of ideas. I feel that they have had difficulty in getting started I don't think its so much as the assignment brief itself, but getting them use to working more independently and being playful with their ideas, so that one leads to another?? I shall record how this progresses over the next 7 weeks, their journals will also be a good way to find out what they have been thinking and how they have dealt with problems, situations etc etc...
Ok returning to the point of full circle..(View from Window) this was taken as a random photo, where i was testing out the camera in my room before heading out into London (Oct 9th-12th)..I really like this image, why? because I like the way the curtains frame the picture, the curves formed within the building beyond work with the verticals and horizontals of the slightly open window and finally the contrast of browns help also to decide the depth..ummm. would be good on a large scale. Right onto visits. YES Thomas Shutte..very similar to Thomas Struth (discussed in July's posting) don't get confused this artist currently showing at the Serpintine Gallery was an exciting and influential find. The beautiful pen and ink portrait drawings drawn in large circles...I shall find one now to upload...back in a tick! ok here's a couple of images mirror image, the other,  installation view with faces and figures hung high around it....caption taken from webpage..Over the last two decades, Schütte has created watercolours and drawings of acquaintances and friends, as well as numerous self-portraits, including the Mirror Drawing works. His drawings are often created in series, approaching the same subject numerous times as a means of engaging with its true nature. Schütte's drawings feed closely into his sculptural portraits, which are created in a similar spirit; the artist views working from observation as an opposition to a real, physical world that is constantly changing. Alongside his works on paper, Schütte will feature ceramic and bronze sculptures, including the impressive Vater Staat (Father State), a towering steel figure that paradoxically appears frail and isolated in spite of its scale. 

Thomas Schütte
Mirror Drawings 1998 
Watercolor, ink, pencil on paper
38 x 28cm
© DACS 2012

Thomas Schütte
Vater Staat (Father State) 2010
Installation view, Thomas Schütte: Faces & Figures
Serpentine Gallery, London
(25 September - 18 November 2012)
© 2012 Gautier Deblonde

Another excellent exhibition was Art of Change: New Direction From China exhibited at the Hayward Gallery, very different in terms of the way work was being shown, from installations (note: Yingmei-duan) to stories..taken from webpage..http://china.southbankcentre.co.uk/artists/#chen-zhen and http://china.southbankcentre.co.uk/artists/#yingmei-duan large-scale installations and extraordinary live art by some of China’s most innovative artists, in works dating from the 1980s to the present day. Art of Change traces each artist’s development, showing important early works alongside recent creations and new commissions. Change, and the acceptance that everything is subject to change, is deeply rooted in Eastern philosophy. The exhibition features works that deal with transformation, instability and impermanence, looking at how these themes are conveyed through action or materials.

Each of the artists presents works that change their appearance over time or which are volatile or unpredictable in some way. A person ‘magically floats’ above the floor, sculptures are wilfully tossed up and down, and visitors can listen to the sound of 1000 live silkworms. The exhibition itself changes as performances are enacted with various works during the course of each day.

Artists in the exhibition include Chen Zhen, Yingmei Duan, Gu Dexin, Liang Shaoji, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Wang Jianwei, Xu Zhen and MadeIn Company. The exhibition is curated by Stephanie Rosenthal, Chief Curator, Hayward

http://vimeo.com/southbankcentre/artofchange 

Duration:	27 May 2011 – 28 May 2011
	Lilith Performance Studio in Malmö, Schweden

27 May 2011 – 28 May 2011

Lilith Performance Studio in Malmö, Schweden

Extract taken from http://www.yingmei-art.com/works/imgsmall/wish.jpg  

This is Yingmei Duan’s second experience working with the Lilith Performance Studio.

Through a small doorway one-steps into Duan’s poetic fairytale wonderland, which is enacted in a forest glade. In the forest glade one hears different sounds like wind, water dripping and Yingmei herself is crouching down on a tree stump she is also sometimes making sounds…..

Yingmei is going(but slowly) and handing out many wishes which are written on small folded pieces of paper, which she opens and gives to the audience making eye contact and carefully one by one.

Some wishes/instructions involve interacting with each other, some wishes involve the space others will be realized out of the gallery. Some wishes will realized in the city of Malmö, others will be realized outside Sweden, and some wishes will be realized online. Therefore after the night of the performance the project continues.

Happy Yingmei is inspired by Oscar Wilde’s fairytale The Happy Prince – a story about a golden statue that befriends a swallow. Together they bring happiness to others, in life as well as in death.

Previously in May 2008 Yingmei Duan staged a dystopian catastrophe titled Rubbish City at Lilith Performance Studio. Even then she put herself and her dreams at the centre of the performance, lost in a wasteland of ten tons of rubbish.

Ok at last Im happy that I have spent time writing again...as I said I shall make an appointment with SE this week (wc 5th Nov) to get going again, write about development of 1st year activity...and there was something else I wanted to add but I have lost my train of thought..bear with me Im sure it will come???? no..ok shall sign off for now..

no haha I've remembered. Last week (or before Half term) DB from Hull College of Art and Design told me that they had John Smith in as a visiting speaker!! and I missed it..??? bum! but he says not all is dismay as I can get hold of the recording which I shall locate this week. let you know. Definitely signing off now..

Decisions, decisions...

Thomas Struth

Since I last wrote I have made the decision to stop my studies, I've spoken to SE about how to proceed...sooooo on the recommendations given of BY and KH he advised that I complete my MA and suspend until September 2013 after work load has calmed down, (validation - re-writes for BA's) SE thinks that my research is good, my theory is good and I can get the PhD! so I must stick with it...ok so now its the holidays I have made a start, I need to work on lit review and methodology with footnotes. The lit review concerns me as it brings back horrible memories of when I started the doctorate and received a foul mark, a mere pass as I recall, so I need to up my game, I also want to get into the habit of reading and reviewing as an on-going habit; thereby I don't end up having to review stuff again when the time come to writing the thesis!! (AS does this well). Reviews I need to do- Warhol, Robin Wood on Hitchcock, Hilliary Lloyd, Pierre Bismuth, Raimer Strange in particular who interviewed Bismuth and new find Thomas Struth*  The methodology will be ok, think through with a clear perspective and standpoints from others in the field.. 

The above film shows the work of Thomas Struth from early career to 2011...


Text taken from http://artnews.org/gallery.php?i=211&exi=6227 April 2007
Being close to this essentially private painting is something like going back to one’s emotional home’…. It means establishing an urgent relationship with the passage of events, with the existence Struth is asking himself about from his camera lens. Because deep down, a museum is a circumstantial stage, a place like any other that the artist doesn’t perceive with its connotation: there, he offers a straightforward view of the procession of people, those that gradually gain more presence in [his] work. … This parade of types... are new and concrete inhabitants of the metropolis. In Struth’s museum, a historical line is drawn that transcends all those who live in the instant: that, too, is existence.” TS


Signing off back tomorrow...

3 days in London

Invisible: Hayward Gallery 2012

..ok lots has happened since I last posted. AS and I took a trip to Northumbria University to meet and with BY and discuss 4 - 6 sessions (i think??) that we had missed in a space of a day...!! the surprise was KH said that the Design Doc would not be continuing in the foreseeable future so we have the option to continue and finish it or take the PHD route either practice based or theory...this is not bad news for me as the practice element of the Doc has always thrown up issues for me, so I am PHD (theory) all the way; but ha ha that is if I can get through this last module which I might also has the PA attached to it...oh god if only you could help me now...show me the light, guidance etc etc etc...
Anyway I have done so far my learning outcomes (draft) these I have gone through with SE  (Supervisory session Tuesday 3rd July) who actually thought they were good. Ok so now I need to reconsider my aim: taken from Report on progress Module: DE0935 

I perceive the creative process to function as a historical temporal proposition that’s intention is to interpellate the spectator into wanting to watch. Moreover it performs as a ‘conceptual narrative’ (Figure 1 & 2) (what I likened to the notion of the washing machine, Blog dated 29^th March 2012) that by putting the ‘artist, Strange (2005 p125) behind the idea and the viewer called on to participate in it’ will circulate the flow and exchange of ideas to encourage one’s horizon to change direction over and over again until there is no more use for it.

My aim then is... to examine and explore the notion of conceptual narrative as a model to a framework new discourse surrounding the creative process to student audience...

that sounds about right  ?     

Objectives: to be able to...

a. apply methods of mapping, research templates, journal entries and blog to build upon a discursive understanding of material gathered to strengthen hypothesis as research develops towards final thesis    

b. review literature associated to notions underpinning conceptual narrative theory by identifying a grounded theoretical standpoint to establish own contribution to new knowledge

c. design and develop a conceptual narrative model to acknowledge possible new modes of communication between the act of making performed by the artist (i.e. student) and student audience. 

d. examine visual culture, specifically concepts framing film theory, audience studies and psychoanalysis. Intended to establish alternative perspectives towards structuring conceptual narrative model in practical situations.  

e. employ 'live' studio situations to test notions led by b & d literature review anticipated to underpin and confirm conceptual narrative model 

f. provide and maintain peer review offered by research communities and communities of practice to expand upon and develop standpoint relating to conceptual narrative model and its contribution to new knowledge.    



There I think I may have it..shall forward to BY Monday if I get the chance, or possibly tomorrow however there seems to be a problem with logging on both email sites currently?? now that I have some sort of systematic order I can now focus on the methodology and lit review (the two areas that bother me and not confident in). Referring back to SS with SE (which I have recorded and type up, just about) he explained that I must confirmed on d, what are those areas exactly because they along with b need to determine c and e. are you keeping up here??
lastly on this I have looked at calendar to days I can effectively work on module...must get on with it and organise time in which I can safely sit down and pull all stops. My theory is if I can do well on this part and don't make it through to viva at least I've had a damn good go at it rather than just going up..and I would have completed the MA part of it too.


So to London, I went down to attend AA2A briefing Wednesday 4th July at Wellcome gallery, euston rd...good day, I met LH from Hull who is the administrator for Artist in residence scheme at Hull but will also look after Harrogate, I shall coordinate. Next week I will begin to send out emails, thinking about PG as a potential candidate! Thursday and Friday I attended the BFI creativity, learning and teaching conference, enjoyed this alot! I was hoping for new perspectives to work into my RQ, which in some ways I got, if anything it allowed time for me to reflect, talk to others, listen to disciplines in photo, film and writing...of particular interest was Ben Marsden (ITV researcher audience studies) I asked him about psychology behind AS, he suggested that I looked at Account Planning Group, David Ogilvy and Roy Langmaid. Ronan Bennett discussed clarity, structure, character building..throwing in the ingredients and seeing what comes out, meaning not to have a defiant focus of how something is going to end but to have an idea...further to throw in obstacles (can relate this to forming an argument) to make the narrative more exciting (i.e. toy story) grab the viewers attention at the beginning and then slow down. this relates to Tony Lawson (film editor) who spoke about pace, (I refer to forms of writing..shall look up memesis?? ummm no not it, its when writing is used in detail (slowed down) and then speeded up (no detail used) must look up??? tomorrow. He mentioned clarity in work, needs to be clear when considering ambiguity (Ambiguity of information, in words, pictures, or other media, is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is generally contrasted with vagueness...)  
Films to watch..Butcher Boy and In Dreams (Nick Rode films I think)

...at last, I'm back!!

BA / FdA EOYS Invite 2012

Its been just over 2 months since I was last here and you ' dear blog' have had a make over too ummm...

So what's new, or more to the point what have I not been doing reference Doc stuff??? oh dear not a lot, but I shall come to that shortly. The past couple of months has seen assessment period, external examiner (who offered me a post in Plymouth!! but I have not heard anything since so that's that) build up of HE show and PV (great success) and further the build up of FE show and PV (again another great success-met the major no.? Ive lost count)....and yet another external examiner yesterday, since then we have received a no. of texts from students wanting to know there final grades for FMP. Next week and beyond will host 2 sits of exam boards, 1 period review and staff development...I'm worn out thinking about it and you ask; why do I sit here explaining all this? Well I firstly wanted to explain my long absence and secondly I'm trying to make myself feel better for understanding the vast amount of work I do have on; which unfortunately means that the doctorate will endeavour to always come second to everything.

We, that is, AS and I are now working on the bridging module. DE0949 project management and Systems Thinking with B Young. BM started 3rd May and hand in is 28th June2012. However due to time constraints with lots of activity going on (for which I have explained above) AS and I are going up to Northumbria University Friday 22nd June to meet and discuss with BY our submissions to Viva, which basically is what the BM is all about. We have been given 2 examples of viva's which look pretty straight forward, note here I say that with such confidence????

I need to get on with it now...look at my objectives for the next 3 years, which I guess I have (need to extend upon however) looking at the obs the examples present, SN in particular, I felt had far to many, 10 objectives?? Im surprised she wasn't asked to (what's the word??) make them more to the point, no..arhh yes condense them down. Anyway I need to do that, look at a methodology, who is my audience that the research will serve most..as B Young suggests; pedagogical,  educationalist or student theoretical prop? could express a set of theories, simple way to support learning. I must also set up another meeting with S English, I had to cancel last session as working, note here to myself that last meeting with SE (10.5.2012) he feed back final mark to 'Report in Progress' (I received (D-good stuff!) needed to be more accessible to supporting links, all the underpinning stuff that feeds into paper I believe...I think this is quite difficult as a distant learning but I will take SE observation on board. Last word on this issue of openness,  is I did start to build a website...but was then weary of making work public...so reverted to 'dropbox', I guess I will need to give that more thought if my research is accepted at viva stage.

Further to the above, that is meeting with BY, I'm hoping that we will get some sort of an extension at least July? Must ask K.       

Ok some good news and what I hope to be beneficial to RQ, is that I hope (as not booked yet) to attend BFI conference, London 4th - 6th July 2012. There are some good talks being presented, in particular Friday..further I want to meet some like minded people, it will be a bit adhoc (taking a risk here) as film is not my specialist area, however what I'm trying ascertain is to look at the RQ from another perspective...will see! 

http://www.bfi.org.uk/education-research/education-events-courses-and-conferences/bfi-media-conference-2012-creativity-industry-and-learning

Last word is to Karen Thompson http://karent.co.uk/ who I met last weekend whilst helping AK at his Open Studios in Scarborough.  I bought this piece...thanks Karen! 

Karen Thompson 2012