Figures you define me

In this work I am really trying to define figures as my trajectory testing various potential mediums and tangents of social media. I feel that I have essentially found a trajectory that I am so deeply intimate with conceptually and technically that it will continue to excite and sustain my interest. I feel I have so much to say with the enormity of the concept in itself which raises questions to wether I need to define more specifically what I am interested in exploring or whether I explore all these various tangents of social media. Ideas and implications of social media which could endure further exploration and potential development in my work is the concepts such as identity, the world of difference,  communication, isolation, representation, documentation, and defying the concept of ‘truth’. All these ideas are valuable explorations and each are constantly injecting and connecting to one another. But being so extensively broad that they each have possibilities in their own right

As well as the ability to extensively explore these tangents of social media, as an artist I need to be fulfilled with challenges of various technical and material approaches to the development of my knowledge and execution of works. 

In the work before I have continued through the exploration of charcoal on canvas to confide with the search of something ‘new’ or inciting reiterating the cycle of social media which is always in search of something superior or more inciting. Although charcoal is in no means a constitute of a modern symbolic material rather it is a historical form of material, but in the context of social constructs we are always circulating a cycle of history with a contemporary attitude much the way I have endowed in my work featured below. The use of charcoal also convenes emotions that are static with those expressed in  the raw emotion of the work. With the raw emotions creating a defiant sensibility to pain, anguish, disparity all which are redefined with charcoals grey colour sensibility of suppression and a lack of confidence which is illustrated through the isolation being in presence of only ones own clone.
The work below becomes essentially the photograph in its own right rather than the artwork. The exploration of destructing conventional states of photographing and documenting art work into a more contemporary provocative social documentation of ones self publicising the ideas of the work through seductive body language, through Instagram. This superimposes the notion of how one documents and represents themselves through a interfacing device and the isolation between the interface and reality.
The second work, is the work representing itself, with a more significant intensity drawn to the raw emotion captured in the expression of the charcoal tonal values. Which in contrast to the first work of the photograph looses this material information through photographic manipulation conveying with the true mortality of the photograph. The charcoal encounter is much more dense and flat as a posed to the manipulated photograph of the first work. It also creates a deeper sense of connection and sensibility of to the viewer who can feel the emotions in flesh rather than trying to decipher through yet another interface or morphing layer.
The desire to develop this work further I want to interfere with this work with acute gestural definition to assertively accentuate the raw emotions of the tangibility and impermanence of the body but also the inwardly comments upon the fragility of ones self.

Moment in time II

'A Moment in time II’  is drawing on the space in which we watch the world we inhabit build itself around us. We either embrace and define the world we conceive our lives apart of or we enact a stereotypical clone which we watch our lives be defined in such a hyper reality state. Such a typical enactment of a technology day and age are.
A moment in time II is created through a single frame constructed within my initial animation, which surrounds us with a short glimpse of how we get so constructed in a hyper reality state, we watch our lives be defined by a clonal perspective of how we aspire our lives to be lived or appear rather than representing true lived experience.  The life of a child is what I believe ultimately a life as we get older becomes contingent that we deny a true lived life. In this sense children illustrate a life we ultimately desire, to love unconditionally, to not understand the meaning of hate. To live each day to them selves, exploring the endless possibilities of life we become afraid of with age. To enjoy the simple pleasures that simply cannot be brought. To them there is no social, political, or economic constructs to distort their true identity, and infix emotions such as anguish, disparity, race, appearance and shame, which all prematurely confine ourselves to confide with society deluding the state of a life fearlessly lived.
Through my art I feel a sense of outlet to express and illustrate the suppression society confides our lives to be defined by. A life which I am ultimately searching for my personal identity to be defined within, revealing the raw emotions I transcend and mask away behind this opaque hyperreality I portray.
We become to alined to capture the moment through representing or retelling the experience that we ultimately are neglecting the moment in time. The way our lives become defined in a hyperreality state through which we enact a stereotypical clone, neglects the 'real' lived experiences, watching our lives through an interface or mask rather than fearlessly and unconsciously living life.

Behind the masks we wear

‘Behind the masks we wear,’ a piece which I exhibited in our year 2 show “Things Pull Apart”, is a breaking point for trajectories for my on-going art practice. This work specifically out of the two works exhibited in the show, draws the contentious transients of previous concepts such as gesture, with ideas such as freedom and energy to collide with these new pretentious ideas of identity. 

The encounter with the tittle ‘Behind the masks we wear,’ seems illustrative and derives the ideas of social identity in this work. Identity which we conceive to appear as ones inner self represented  and illustrated in this work through the face. An identity which we acutely assume is a truthful means to the way one self represents and documents themselves. Photography which is perceived to be truthful, displaying the contentious act of reality, and the illustrates the persona of ones true identity, but it does not. With the anonymity of technology, the ability to change the DNA makeup of photographs which accurately conveys a representation of the truth, is manipulated and mediates a gap between truth and what becomes fictional. Confronting our perceptions of what in fact we conceive to be truthful. Surrounded in a society with this ability to change your DNA make up by concealing and confining or correcting pretentious attributes to edit your own persona, it becomes not a mere coincidence that we ultimately are mediating a gap between a sense of hyper reality and ones true identity.

The masks we wear contentiously hides the truth of ones true identity. 

Ronit Bigal

" If the words you spoke appeared on your skin would you be more careful about what you said?"
Artist Ronit Bigal
Bigal's exhibition "Body Scripture II" is underpinned by material uses by comprising elements of photography, calligraphy and floral ornamentation. Bigal explores the bodily figure exposed completely in depths of photographs, with intimate affectional to detail captured in his drawings.  The camera acts as a frame to capture the world of hidden discoveries of landscapes, textures and eroticism captured in the intimate field of the body. Using her comprising elements of floral ornamentation and cited calligraphy taken from biblical texts she contingently wraps parts of her photos to they become almost abstract and enigmatic. The siting of the viewer becomes arousing to discover and explore the depth of the photographic image and the meaning which lies behind these intrinsic segments of text, whether there is a thematic affinity between them to, perhaps are the associations purely aesthetically?

Timeless words of wisdom

This address is completely and utterly inspirational and captivating. If you are an artist of any kind you need to watch this, you will be inspired, energised and exited by this timeless wisdom.

The more you make art the better you become.
When starting out a career in the arts you have no idea what you art are doing. This is amazing.
"People who know what they are doing no the rules and they know what is possible and what is impossible and you do not. And you should not."
"The rules of what is possible and impossible in the arts are made to by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible, by going beyond them and you can. If you don't no its impossible its easier to do. And because no body has done it before they haven't made up any rules to stop you doing that particular thing again.
Secondly if you have an idea of what you want to make, what you where put here to do, then just go and do that. And thats much harder than it sounds. And sometimes in the end so much easier than you had imagined. Because normally there are things you have to do before you can get to the place you want to be."
"Sometimes the way to do what you hope to do, will be clear cut and sometimes it will be almost impossible to decide wether or not your doing the correct thing because you have to balance your goals and hopes, feeding yourself, paying debts, finding work, settling for what you can get."
"When you start out you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thick skinned, to learn that not every project will survive."
You have to accept you may put out hundreds of things for every one work that is successful.
"The problems of failure, the problems of discouragement,  hopelessness and hunger, you want everything to happen and you want it to happen now and things go wrong."
"The things I did because I was excited and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down.  And I have never regret any of the time spend on any of them.  The problems of failure is hard the problems of success is can be harder because nobody warns you about them."

"If you make mistakes it means your out there doing something."You will learn as much from your failures as you do from your mistakes.Whatever field you may be in within the art you have a unique ability to make art.
"Sometimes life is hard and things go wrong, in life, in love, in  business and in friendship, in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough this is what you should do, make good art.""do what only you can do best makle good art."
Make your art, do the stuff that only you can do, although most of us only find our own voices by sounding all the same at some point, but the one thing that nobody has but you, is you.

"No one knows what the landscape will look like in the next two years, let alone a decade away. The distribution channels that people had built over the last century or so are influx for print for visual artist, musicians, for creative people of all kinds, which is on one hand intimidating and on the other immensely liberating."
"The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are. So make up your own rules."
"Be wise because the world needs more wisdom, and if you cannot be wise pretend to be someone who is wise and then just behave like they would. And now go and make mistakes, make interesting mistakes, glorious and fantastic mistakes, break rules, leave the world more interesting for your being here, make good art."

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012

http://vimeo.com/42372767

A moment in time

A moment in time is drawing on the space which we watch the world we inhabit build itself around us. We either embrace and define the world we conceive our lives apart of or we enact a stereotypical clone which we watch our lives be defined in a hyper reality state. Such a typical enactment of a technology day and age area.  Experience has fallen in value. We have to reconfigure ourselves and our   experiences to have authority to tell such representations of desire to be valued in a society struck in  hyperreality.
Something in the world forces us to think. This something is an object not of recognition but of fundamental encounter. (DR 139)
Life when it is truly lived, is a history of these encounters, which will always necessarily occur beyond representation. See further reading of notes from Emotion Rescue research.

The execution of this work was performed through a sequence of sketching in charcoal and ink pen with photographic computer manipulation. Which seems fitting in relation to the ideas I aiming to portray of social networking and authority of experience. This is I feel in no way a sense of completion rather a initial starting point. The animation which is approximately 7.6 seconds has the potential to fulfil a longer more engaging work to create a activated space between the viewer and reality. Another conformation of animation is the extent of time 1 second of animation requires in creating and editing a frame, where approximately accumulating 8 hours of work for this sequence of 7 seconds of animation.
Further readings and explorations into this conventional space of animation is to look thoroughly into ideas of experience and encounter, ideas broadly visited with such luminous performance artist as Marina Abramovic

Life through a computer interface

Social media is a topic everyone wants to talk about these days and without doubt these networking sites have in some way become part of our daily lives and vocabulary. 

Ultimately the game has changed and humans are changing with it. There has essentially been a fundamental shift in not only how we communicate, but also the ways in which we represent and document ourselves and our experiences. We give ourselves new names, new faces and a false sense of security, with the anonymity of the internet masking a morphing layer between reality and representation. 

Various social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter, google plus and Myspace allow an instant connectivity with various aspects of the lives of family, friends, and people we didn't even know we knew. Not only are these social networking sites specifically used for social aspects of instant connectivity, it is also used as a political tool which interact to voice opinions, organise protests and disseminate information. 

So these so called "social media sites" are accentually much more complex than a social networking site, rather they act as a way to tell stories, document experiences, share information, stay and get connected, and represent ourselves in short.

So all this seems seemingly positive in our conventional and enticing new modern age technology area. But critiques suggest Facebook in particular disconnects us not only from ourselves, but also the way in which we represent ourselves. There becomes a significant gap between the layers which conform to convey the truth, with a significant loss  of identity. A gap mediated between these networking sites and reality conforms as we start to experience life through a computer/networking interfacing device as opposed to something that is really lived. 

As humans have the power also to discriminate in their minds, with the ability to cancel out and correct things creating an ambiguity between the way they represent themselves and the way they perceive themselves creating a sense of hyperreality.
The screen interfaces such a significant gap between the way we represent our selves and reality, with the power of the mind creating concealing and confining out details of reality in this interface that the power of the mind corrects these through the way they perceive and represent themselves through social networking sites to reality, creating this sense of hyperreality identity. In shorter words this is inscriptive of saying that the this gap morphs together in our minds to perceive ourselves in reality as the typically more superior persona we represent ourselves through this interface.
Who wouldn't want to appear physically more desirable? or appear to portray social and physical attributes they desire making them more superhuman?
Through the anonymity and power of technology we can change ourselves through editing out and correcting information, much the same as we do in our mind unconsciously to some extent but seeming so much more powerful and convincing through expressing our new super self through this interface. Which I believe we therefore convince in our minds and change ourselves to match this identity we portray through a screen.
But what happens to the world 'difference' we supposedly live in when we all have the ability to change ourselves and how we represent ourselves through something that becomes an interface of living reality. We question ourselves is the world ultimately in danger of loosing difference as we all strive for a superior self?

Technology has robbed us of miracles of life as we no longer experience through the eye and senses, rather we are too alined to capture our experiences through screen interface to represent and retell the experience that we essentially neglect the moment in time.

William Kentridge, captivating time through animation

Willam Kentridge is profoundly known for his compelling and intriguing animated illusions, which have become enormously influential and a dominant force in the contemporary art scene. Kentridge who emerged from the state of being conspicuous in the late 90’s with a series of animated films.

“Nine drawings for a project.”  Where films of expressionistic charcoal drawings done by a stop motion technique with astounding virtuosity. 

The works have been shaped through tedious yet simple and minimalistic procedure, using simple tools as charcoal to fuel his erudite vision.  The charcoal drawing, which is then repetitively drawn with slight adjustments and rephotographed, frame-by-frame, creates a sensual illusion of motion. The driving of this illusion photographed frame by frame is virtually the construct of Kentridge, adding or subtracting a mark and stepping back to photograph that insignificant manipulation, which in sequence becomes a significantly mesmerizing.

The act of erasure and reworking in his animations becomes captivating through the trace of form once marked kept alive and conspire the life of the imaginative film.

Along with this formidable draftmanship, Kentridge must possess an inconceivable level of patience, with such a tedious process, refusing any kind of computerized special effects. 

Cross Roads

In my current art practice I feel I have ultimately come to a cross roads with my trajectories for the oncoming years. I feel that what sustains and ultimately creates desire and affection for my current art practice is figurative and gesture styles. Looking more complex into these styles I try to locate what it is about these styles that creates ideas which underpin my trajectories. I feel ultimately that gesture is the idea of freedom and energy, captivating the viewer with such loose expressive gestures, often non coherent to reality. 

The freedom and gap between the artist and the art work with materiality of mediums used, activates this field of energy that pulses the viewer to and away from the work. Figurative elements to this gesture I feel obis a sense of relief and sense to the often overwhelming chaotic gesture. 

In this writing i mentioned I felt I had come to a cross roads with my art practice, which i say this as a lecturer abruptly said that I am a right handed painter who creates gesture as habit, something which I should derive from. This ultimately took me back and challenged my passion for these ideas. Firstly what is habit? In my opinion gesture creates anything we express, the way we express our thoughts and feeling through hand gestures, intimate details of marks we create as a force of affection is also gesture, and any line and expression in my opinion is gesture. So how can gesture not be habit, when it is so conceived from our everyday life and experiences. 

Should I embrace and exaggerate this feeling of passion for gesture and prove I have more to say in an ongoing art practice or derive my own personal interests and follow my lectures perspective? I thought about this comment numerous times and questioned various ideas. Maybe I should do neither, I know to achieve things you've have never had, you've got to do something you've never done before. 

So exploring various territories could ultimately be hugely beneficial in spanning out and deepening my on-going art practice. But instead of walking away from my passion of my practice today, I can inject ideas of energy and freedom and expression into these new territories and also visa versa which i can see immense amount of potential development occurring through this exploration of various fields as we as artist do so naturally but I will ultimately apply more significantly in fields and territories I may not be familiar with or have yet to experience. I now after illustrating these ideas feel as those I need to research and ultimately execute different explorations without due or thought on some occasions, because when thinking to much about the work "habit" is a likely occurrence, and the play of chance more exhilarating and engaging than a work built up of repentance of "habit." 

Define me as "gesture"

To help me understand and define what gesture is in terms of my style and practice of art making I have researched various definitions to create a collective rudimental term to underpin the style frequently referred to in my art vocabulary.  

Gesture is quick, loose drawing that captures the energy and movement within a frame of work. It is that the concept of gesture is twofold: it describes the visual characteristics of the action of a figure; and it embodies the intangible "essence" of a figure or object. It is is the act of the artist loose arm movements, using the large muscles of the arm rather than the small muscles of the hand and wrist that is an action to purvey gesture. 

Many artist use there bodies to preform repetitive gestures that highlighted ordinary, seemingly pointless actions typically engaged in without notice or consequence.