My project began as an attempt to question the link between our movements and our identities and understand if our engagement with mundane physical activities may be seen to contain relevance.

I have narrowed down the range of movements to focus on walking, an activity unique to humans, in an attempt to provide a framework to examine some of the issues around the lived body.

White sheet was an early piece that incorporated the use of  mundane movements; in it I tried hiding the body with the sheet to express the idea of the hidden, unconsidered body.

I used the format of slide share in order to create a very basic form of interaction with the piece. These are themes I would like to develop within the final piece.

The things that worked about this piece:

The camera set up.

Using a video clip to lift stills from.

Using an activity that hides/traps the body.

What would I develop further from this piece?

Save slide sequences as iMovies and incorporate sequences in to Korsakow to keep interactive element.

The things that didn’t work in this piece:

The imagery is too soft /hackneyed it doesn’t convey the idea strongly enough. It is too pleasing.

I wasn’t clear enough about viewing slide show quickly like a flick book to create the sense of movement rather than as a series of photos.

Haven‘t provided clear rationale for using slow motion.

What would change next time?

Imagery.

Might also try speeding up sequences.

Provide a clearer rationale for image speed.

Writing my MPR this week helped bring in to focus a question that had come to a head from doing the August step video project.

 

This was:

 

 The role of location (and of clothing) and the relevance of this added information it threw in to the mix when photographing or videoing walking. Initially I  had thought to concentrate on the focus being about the physical act of walking, but was finding that the steps were being inevitably connected to a location and was getting confused by this.

 

 

At the very start of this project in 2007 my aim was to find out whether there was a link to every day movements (e.g. walking) that we didn’t necessarily pay much attention to establishing, maintaining and as repository for  our identities. My initial idea was to present these movements in some way as a portrait, as something that could be seen to relate to a particular individual and their identity.

 

 

Because I had little prior knowledge of the theories and  philosophies that might support my initial idea it has taken me a deal of reading to create the thread to help clarify the idea behind my project, that is that our identities  are partly rooted in these movements, and that we process all sorts of information through our bodies, at a conscious and sub conscious level and that this information directly feeds into making us who we are and the person others perceive us to be which in turn then feeds back in to our understanding of our self.

 

The body and its movements when seen in the light of embodiment theory, as a ‘lived body’, can be seen to act as a sort of conduit which allows us to give and receive constant information about ourselves, others and the world.

 

‘The surface is where self meets what is other than self’.

 

Leder, D.  ‘The Absent Body.’ University of Chicago Press 1990 (p.11)

 

 

So the surface and/or environment where these movements take place (interface?) could be seen to become as relevant as the body movements themselves as the body movements don’t happen in isolation but take on meaning by happening in a context. (That context will need some defining too…e.g. geographical, sociological, environmental, and political to provide it with understood frame work of relevance?)

 

‘The body is at once a biological organism, a ground of personal identity, and a social construct.’

 

Leder, D.  ‘The Absent Body.’ University of Chicago Press 1990 (p.99)

Previous Post

MAVA started back on Tuesday with the 1^st group chat which caught me on the back foot as I had only remembered in the morning the chat was taking place.

 

T he chat discussion was around the essay and tagging and curating the weblogs.

 

Have felt dislocated from the blogging process since the chat with Andy a month or so back and been unsure as how to use the tool. There was an interesting discussion with Jonathan Kearney abut learning and methodologies to achieve learning.

 

It again brought home to me how entrenched I am in a previous understanding about learning and aims and how I need to make adjustments to my practice.

 

The area around providing a structured context both with in my own vision and also in terms of others practice is proving to be my biggest challenge, to keep a coherent overview rather than to just go with the flow.

 

I am struggling to move away from just letting my practice evolve organically and not keep on top of it to build a context.

 

 

Have been thinking again about the journey of my questioning of movement that developed through becoming aware of repeated actions whilst printmaking, which then lead me on in to dance practice to try to explore this better. The time spent in a dance focused environment provided me with a valuable way of looking at body movement and awareness.

 

I am finding myself struggling across disciplines and their languages or terminologies and thought structures and also across what really amounts to over 30 years of disparately weaving in and out of practice. The request to draw this all in to one directed line of discussion is a big ask. But something that feels core and something that is one of the core reasons I have chosen to take this MA despite it challenging me in any areas.

 

This week I returned to researching movement ideas by looking at choreographers who take repeated movements and build with them.

 

Choreographer Edouard Locke’s work is very specific and precise.

 

He makes this statement about movement:

 

‘the only thing that gives us a shape is our memory of a shape.’

 

And

 

‘Because we are imative creatures if we are not clear about the shape of the body we are perceiving we are unclear about our own shape.’

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaM0B6Cnx90&feature=related

 

 

And:

 

‘when we look at something we have multiple layers. We look at the thing we are looking at and we often have mental images beside them… we are used to creating multiple series of layers visually.’

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMRhfYtQQfc&feature=related

 

 

And for an example of his choreography:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRJd5UeEwI4&feature=related

Have been taken up over the last week with printing and putting the summer issue of Mail Art together. It is quite a time consuming business as a lot of the pages need hand feeding through the printer and the each page has to be folded. Given that there are 100 copies in each issue and around 9 A4 folded sheets it is a lot of work.

 

Last Tuesday I met the online students in year one who I will be joining. It was very nice to meet them and they were a very welcoming and dynamic group. Looking forward to working alongside them.

 

 

I had been trying to draft together an outline of my project last week to update my thoughts and post on the blog. I put the outline to the group. I’m not sure if it was very clear. 

 

Anyway here is the outline:

 

 

The original area of study for my project was about the ‘lost’ physical ephemeral body movements in relation to our identities.

 Movements that we generate everyday but are not aware of and which are absent in our online lives and to question the possible changes with our communications and identities this may bring about.

Initially I took some time to identify the type of movements I wanted to focus on and settled on non body language movements and then set about to research if there is a connection to our identities with these movements.

If it could be proved that these movements do in fact feed back in to the construction of self/identity then it is relevant to try to understand how that might affect our consciousness and relationships, understanding of self/others when taken into a digital arena where those movements are no longer necessary or relevant.

As I carried on with my research I wondered why this phenomenon might be so readily accepted and have recently begun to look at the idea of Cartesian duality.

I have just got a book by Drew Leder ‘The Absent Body’ which looks at the inner, visceral body which is generally absent from conscious experience.

I have been interested in the idea of this hidden visceral consciousness becoming more apparent during times of ill health and have been drawing on my own experience of health issues and that of my son who has on going health issues to do with allergies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Putting Mail art together although a lot of work is something I enjoy. I like the focused repetitive movements. It is a process that demands concentration. Unlike an activity like knitting where it is possible to allow your hands to do something familiar while you focus else where. I want to try to think some more about defining the type of movement and awareness. I wonder if it is something we all share to the same degree or if it varies?

 

Frank Jackson’s Mary’s Room

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary’s_room

 

The spiralling philosophies from it intrigue me.

 

 

 

Do we all experience our physicality to the same degree? Is there a gender difference in this experience? Does this experience change with age/ health?  How would one begin to establish any differences in something so subjective especially if it were done with a verbal questionnaire? How does this impact in our developing digital life and identity?

 

What about the advancements in digital technology which has lead to games such as Wii fit which taps into the physicality of the player but provides a nonphysical arena to enact these transferred movements? Will these games and type of physical interaction have an impact on our own physical awareness? Will the fact that these actions happen in a non physical arena develop or subtly change our sense of self?

 

 

During last weeks chat Jonathan asked me to explain my practical work for the project, this was surprisingly a little difficult, but it did tie in to something I have been thinking about and that is that I would like more space to make work in.

 

Here are some photos of my work room which I share with Samuel.

 

It is a nice room but not large and not really somewhere that is easy to make larger work and I need to think round this.

 

Also I would like to change the title of my project to be a little clearer about defining the idea involved if that is possible.

 

I have been thinking about the ephemeral physical daily movements we make and that are the core of my project and looking to find a way of transforming them in to digital information. I have brought a USB pedometer. Aim to use this to keep track of how many steps I take every day and convert that figure in to data, possibly each day’s number of steps equating to an R B G value.

 

 

Been wondering if our acceptance of the digital world in some way explained by the Cartesian philosophy of duality between body and mind?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_dualism

 

 

 

 

I have been thinking about the body in digital arts and the idea I mentioned a couple of posts ago that digital media have provided me with a wonderful new set of tools to engage in examining physicality and to try to question whether this digital environments impact on our physicality and therefore our identities.

 

It has made me try to re examine an idea of the body as missing or absent in our digital lives impacting and thereby possibly subtly altering our real physical body/identity and expectation, due to the changed mental and physical interaction we experience when engaging in digital media or virtual worlds.

 

It has also made me re examine the query about defining digital art. Is digital art defined as any art work using digital tools like cameras, printers or is it an art form that exists only in digital form, or can it be a hybrid form?

 

I would like to try to look at these questions a little more.

 

During some on line research I came across this online article by professor Alejandro Lleras of the University of Illinois in the  the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Journal, about his findings on how the  body’s movements influence problem solving..

 

http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/life_sciences/body_movements_influence_problem_solving_132511.html

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/uoia-bmc051209.php

 

This week has proved quite a challenge and quite draining. But have managed to keep looking in to rotoscoping and Photoshop and try the Credo soft wear down load a little more. So the ideas here are not as clearly expressed as I would like but am posting so as not to loose the thread.

 

At the start of the week  was reading ‘The body in Society’ Alexandra Howson.

 

 Howson puts forward the idea of bodies being used in society as:

 

‘…a natural symbol which different societies use to make classifications between what they consider to be pure / polluted, clean / dirty.’

 

(P80. Chapter 3: The Civilized Body.)

 

Have been thinking about this in relation to virtual life bodies. The virtual world could be seen to create the ultimately acceptable human body in society, a body free of leaking, spewing, and aging.

 

 

I am interested in this idea of how we present ourselves through our real life movements and the differences between our physical real life movement and our virtual life movements where we can make different choices about self representation. Also the idea that virtual reality holds out of non corrupting or aging bodies. How might we be changed if not challenged by the constantly changing physicality and constraints of our bodies?  If we can to some extent represent ourselves in this virtual body to form friendships and interact with others in online communities. Will we feel the discrepancy between physical and virtual greater?  Will we become more ill at ease, dissatisfied and uncomfortable with our physical bodies?

 

 

 

 

So using the Credo down load I have been trying out the idea of combining video and animation together and am looking into the idea of creating a piece that takes place in real time. Looking online have found some more free soft wear trials that may be helpful with this but want to get a little more familiar with the downloads  already have on board before jumping into undertaking to learn more.

 

 

 

Used the programming already provided by Credo to make the figure walk. I am still in the learning  process of learning how to programme figures with Credo.

 

 

 

I mentioned in the last post that illness has created a kind of chaos in which routine and expectations are disrupted and dissolved.

 

Currently perceive myself as existing in a fragile sort of non space during this year out from MADA, health, identity and expectations of my own capacities to do anything change on a day to day basis.

 

The aim of my project was to create a sense of our physical everyday movements and explore  the link between them to our identities through non body language movements.

 

 Have realised that I have been very over ambitious in my aims for this project.

This is why I have been unable to bring clarity to the outcome of the final piece.  

 

The aim for the final show piece was to create an installation that could be walked through.

 

 

There is quite a big issue around finance and the necessary technology etc. to produce the final piece  even if I  hire it out.

 

Is sponsorship an option worth looking to?

 

 The question that then stares me in the face is: am I the right place for a sponsor to be able to take seriously?

 

My mother was always fond of quoting G K Chesterton at me: that a true artist only needed a pencil and a paper bag to draw on….

 

 

 

Do I get the piece shown down in London or up here? I could never guarantee getting to London, but sadly the same question hangs over being able to navigate space and time up here. Also there would then be the necessity to provide a link for it to Camberwell to have some sort of presence at the final show.

 

It would be exciting to be able to afford to link the 2 sites…. need to think about it.

 

 

Dance City in Newcastle have a studio with projectors which is used for interactive, v-jing and video work. I was hoping to use that space at least to try out some ideas there and resolve if maybe it would be suitable to create the final piece there.

 

Failing that there would be the possible fall back of  hiring the community centre where I filmed last summer.

 

 Also another issue confronting me is I can’t see the step ahead of MADA. I am not employed in the arts; my health is under question, my time divided between being a carer to my son and providing a home education for him. Free time is rare, time to visit galleries, museums etc is frighteningly negligible.

 

Need to look at my parameters very carefully; they  go a long way to defining the form of the outcome.

 

This course has provided an environment and platform  in which I could still produce work and share ideas, access current practices, ideas and individuals.

 

 

That very environment has come to present a fundamental question about the link between our movements and identity. That is whether online interaction and what the loss of physical interaction may create or change in us.

 

 

If we exist as social creatures how does taking away the physical from much of our social communication change/challenge us? Is that change important? How might I create something relevant in support of it with in my parameters?

 

 

Monday, 09 February 2009

 

 

This week I am starting to piece together the next issue of Mail Art One.

 

Hope to be done binding by the end of March and posting out to venues in April.

 

Last week I finally tackled getting the correct USB port installed on the computer for the second hand JVC video camera off ebay I got back in the summer to replace the previous camera I dropped and broke.

 

For some reason it is only uploading files as Windows Movie maker and currently I cant convert them to other formats.  So it is long winded to make stop motion and the quality is not too good due to all the format changes.

 

Need to think about sound. The music clip used here was to explore the dimension that a sound track can give and was just used as the phrase fitted the duration neatly.

 

 

 

Now know the camera must be on the tripod and motionless as I want the back ground to be crisp.

 

 

 

U2 w5(?)

 

 

 

Mail Art One issue 2 was completed last week and posted out. Sent out to London Print Workshop, Northern Print Workshop and also to Camberwell for the interim show.

I was pleased to finally finish it as I felt a responsibility towards the artists who had contributed their work.

 

I am in the process of completing forms to take the year out and waiting for a letter from my GP in support of this on medical grounds. I hope to keep both this weblog and Mail Art One going over the next 12 months as a life line.

 

I am finding it quite difficult to keep the various threads of the practice going. As my concentration isn’t very good at the moment. The small clips of film I have submitted for the interim show are quite laborious to compile as I extract stills and have to be precise tracking the changes in the movement sequence.

 

I would like to make a longer piece in this way using Korsakow. It is good to be able to work in very small segments.

 

I need to get a web site up as a platform for Korsakow. I hope to do this slowly over the next 12 months. Also should be trying to read and make notes for the papers.

 

David kindly sent a clip of film of himself walking and I found it very helpful. It brought home how much information there is just in shots of legs and feet.

 

This has made me think again about how best to film these clips and possibly filming or photographing movement in very low light levels or very close up.