Stills from stop-motion animation frames edited for printing. All stills in gallery below.
Milagrosa and Suitcase Stills
Posted in Exploratory Enquiry, Exploratory Project
Tagged Milagrosa, stills, stop motion
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Reflections on animation, stop-motion, fracture and tableau
My work during this exploratory project resulted in me working further with stop motion animation and continuing my interest in creating this from collage and also combining real-world elements. It’s been an ongoing aim from the start of this program for me to investigate developing work in this vein.
In keeping with this interested, I’ve been socializing and speaking with animators and computer special effects artists. The field is daunting, in particular from a production and technical perspective. So much has been done, so many technical skills and tools can be required. I’m left wondering where there might still be opportunity for a distinctive voice? I know more about what I do not want to create, or a look and feel that I want to avoid. This includes avoiding as much as possible a visible similarity to music video, music video, comedic character studies, animated narrative film.
The key may be to maintain a simple focus and if there is a progression in action to keep this non-narrative or non-linear in some way.
The conversations with professional animators and CG artists have helped me understand where I may need to develop my technical skills and also look for tools to use (in particular editing and animation software for capturing, sequencing and compiling. I’ve also been introduced to the idea of compositing layers of moving or still images. This may include green screen techniques and possibly even “stereoscopic” imagery.
I’ve also returned to looking at Canadian artist Geoffrey Pugen’s short video loops. His work seems to be the closest to what I think I’m looking to accomplish. Straddling the border between film, animation and fine art. “Bird Lady” portrait contains some visual elements I find appealing. https://vimeo.com/10701190
Prior to starting the exploratory project I was looking more closely at the installations of Pipilotti Rist. Her recent exhibit at The Hayward was a walk-through immersive environment created by video projections and sound and installed 3-d objects. A friend who saw the exhibit said that the thought put into the placement of the moving images against the 3-d and sculptural objects was impressive.
The work on this project has engendered thoughts as to how I may come to work with “tableau” as the bigger container for my work. Stop motion not only takes a still image into the time, but also fractures motion. I’m returning to not only the notion of sequential photography but also tableau as a way of fracturing the picture plane (the picture plane of any still image be it lens-based or hand-rendered). I’m curious about using these to create a potentially performative or even theatrical space into which the viewer enters and and fully activates. The space to enter exists and because of the fracturing – the fracturing is the gap between the dimensions…
Milagrosa Stop-motion study. Inside the case…
Milagrosa inside the case.
Reflections on Exploratory Practices
A key observation that has come up in the group crits and in reflections on my own work during this project is the idea and manifestation of “openness”.
Last year on an art television “reality show” a comment by one of the judges burnt into my memory. The comment was that the best art avoids being literal by keeping room open for metaphor and multiple interpretations. (I think it was American artist Liz Cohen who said this…)
Although called “exploratory project”, I struggled on this assignment as it felt perversely constricting. This was due in part to my choice of selecting too big and intangible a category for the period of time and the intent of incremental investigation. However, once I found my path (and focused on stop-motion studies) and was able to explore, a key point of learning for me was a better understanding of what “openness” could be. It reduces the emphasis on production value, craftsmanship and technical skill to something softer and more metaphorical.
I went to an inspiring artist talk on April 25th by Matthew Monohan, hosted by Emily Carr University and The Contemporary Art Gallery of Vancouver which was a case study in exploratory practice of this nature.
The immense territory displayed by Matthew Monohan’s body of work, all originating from the idea of figurative drawing from memory, retrospectively shed light on how an entire oeuvre can originate from a simple point of focus. Overtime, Monohan’s point of departure (drawing) moved printmaking, into sculpture and then into “tableau”. Formal features that remain constant across materials and mediums for Monohan are line, gesture, flat planes and thinness. (In this regard there are similarities between his work and that of Thomas Houseago.) Monohan started his simple explorations by taking his graphite drawings and folding the paper into 3-dimensional shapes creating sculptural forms…
The opportunities apparent with this approach should assist me in identifying (and be less reluctant to identify) a personal fulcrum for my studio practice.
Intersecting painting, fashion photography and advertising.
IMG Models composite cards merge advertising, fashion photography and painting.
Posted in Exploratory Enquiry
Tagged Expanded Painting, exploratory project, painting and photography
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The Suitcase
I’ve been carrying the suitcase around with me for the week, using it as my briefcase to the office and my satchel to the studio. It comes with me in my car and sits in the kitchen or hallway when I’m home. I look at it everyday. It sparked some comments at the office. It’s heavy and cumbersome to carry. It feels like both a space for possibilities and an incredible burden. I’m going to carry it with me for the week and see what comes next. Maybe it becomes a space for an intervention. Maybe it just is – an old suitcase that I’m carrying around with me.
I’m remembering various artist projects I’ve heard about in the past…a portable art gallery in a knapsack or a handbag. There was a female Canadian artist who had an art exhibit in her handbag. Also, I believe another Canadian artist named Paul Butler had an “art gallery” in a satchel bag. He’d carry around artworks and view them to people. Another artist colleague, Rob Chaplin, always has a backpack with him in which are his various artworks including books. He peddles them relentlessly from the backpack, to the point that people stop inviting him places…
In these examples the portable “case” is a stand-in for some kind of commercial venue and a replacement for the commercial gallery space.
Angela sent me a link to a blog posting entitled “A suitcase as a PhD?”
http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpades/vol3/dlabs.html
The artist crafted their PhD design thesis as a portable experience in a “series of traveling containers that include written text and a range of interactive artefacts.” The artist describes the artefacts as tangible embodiments of the concepts and ideas of the thesis. Some sound elements were also included.
“The thesis explored ways to foster organizational spaces where collaborative activities can be undertaken using design tools and methods. I argued that for co-design activities to emerge participants have to be linked by ‘meaningful relationships’, hence emphasising that, before embarking on co-design processes, participatory design activities require participants to feel comfortable with each other, to be able to collaborate and to communicate shared languages.”
http://www.darialoi.com/suitcases.htm
The basic of premise of all of the above is that of art occurring in a transitory space that is unfixed, small-scale and alternative.
I’m wondering if the case can be more than a container or a mute “space”. This is where building tableau may come into it…if something inside the case isn’t the entire artwork, what could be done to have the case somehow be a completing and necessary part of an artwork? Like a key that fit in the lock to open the door?