Friday, 31 January 2014

mirrors in art - Yayoi Kusama

Infinity Mirrored Room In New York By Yayoi Kusama

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s incredible ”Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” installation at the David Zwirner gallery in New York creates the appearance of endless, near-boundless space. She achieves this effect by creating cubic rooms in which every surface, except the viewer and a small standing platform, is mirrored. Inside the room, hundreds of hanging, flashing, multi-colored LED lights make the observer feel as though they might be standing in a galaxy or a cloud of star dust. Although she has created similar rooms at exhibitions elsewhere, this one was created uniquely for this gallery, which will be on display up until December 21st, 2013.

film by MATT LAMBERT - HEILE GANSJE

This collaboration between Dazed and Channel 4 is a raw depiction of the pains and promiscuity experienced by a group of Berlin youths. The film commands accolade for its nuanced sound editing.
LINK:
<iframe src="http://www.dazeddigital.com/embed/1505" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

Video idea

I have a few ideas for a few video pieces I would like to try out based on female self identity. There is one in particular that I would like to portray the pressures we women put on each other. I would like to combine the surreal (representing the social media and technology) with the real. The basics: two nude females strip and take blank porcelain masks into their hands (doll type masks, because women these days are constructing themselves with make up Photoshop and Instagram and plastic surgery as a doll maker constructs dolls). They both put the asks on each other but not themselves. They are in a hexagon of mirrors (to be decided, a bit ambitious) and take paint into their hands a face each other and begin to apply different skin colours to the masks to accentuate cheek bones, an evenly sculpted nose, a perfectly symmetrical face the definition of beauty etc. They then take up a marker (or dripping paint? red paint or too morbid?? blue marker like the plastic surgeons? research what marker they use) and begin to mark and circle out areas of "imperfection" as plastic surgeons do pre-op. ending to be decided. maybe the film begins the darkened mirrored room and it slowly fills with light until the end when the results are bared to flood lights and the end result of the two women are revealed.. the the camera smoothly pans out to reveal the interior of a normal suburban house hold. The mirrored room would represent the head space social media have entrapped young women in. The multiple identical figures reflected in the mirrors may reflect how the beauty products and methods today result a similar look applied to alot of girls. Everyone using these products, methods and media filters almost look the same. I like the idea of using text, as I have found alot of online forums where young girls seek help for the low self esteem caused by the physical standards placed on young females by popular media today. Maybe this film would be more effective if it were two young girls rather than two women. I imagine that two women changing their complete appearance would be less shocking than two young girls being so aware of these expectations. BUT they are, as these forums prove.

Here are some video samples that I could draw inspiration from, taken from the magazine Dazed and confused. link : http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/18693/1/our-best-videos

I love everything about this. I love how surreal this is. The text fits in nicely and the last sentenc whispered is very effective. I would like to have the camera smooth and bobbing in my film too. I would enter the house and give the viewer the sense of a normal suburban environment. Then the house would take subtle transformations to represent the inner workings of the mind and would focus on objects representing beauty because this film would be party about the objectification of women after all. the last room would be the room of mirrors. or perhaps I would do it in reverse. I would show snippets of the texts written on these forums or have a young girl read them out. perhaps she would only whisper along to the last piece of text as this in this film.

Friday, 17 January 2014

9 Things You Should Know About Female Body Image Issues

Body image is the mental representation we create of what we think we look like; it may or may not bear a close relation to how others actually see us. Here are nine things you should know about female body image issues:

1. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty hired a criminal sketch artist to draw women as they see themselves and as others see them. The social experiment revealed that women's perceptions of themselves were very different than how others view them.

2. According to the CDC, for women ages 20 years old and older, the average height for women in America is 5'3" and weight is 166.2 pounds. For fashion models the average is 5'10" and 120 pounds.

3. By age 6, girls start to express concerns about their own weight or shape. 40-60% of elementary school girls (ages 6-12) are concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat. This concern endures through life.

4. The best-known contributor to the development of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa is body dissatisfaction. The median ages for onset of an eating disorder in adolescents is 12- to 13-years-old. In the United States, 20 million women suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life.

5. Only four percent of women globally consider themselves beautiful.*

6. A global survey found that two thirds of women strongly agree that "the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can't ever achieve."

7. Researchers have found that "fat talk"—a phenomena in which a person makes negative claims about their weight to others—is an expected norm among women and a way for them to appear more modest.

8. A study published in the Journal of Eating Disorders found that while "fat talk" tended to decrease with age, "old talk" often came in to replace it, and that both were reported by women who appeared to have a negative body image.

9. The only complete way to overcome the problem is to have our beliefs about body image transformed by the Holy Spirit. As Heather Davis Nelson says in the Journal of Biblical Counseling:

In pursuing worldly beauty, we strive to become this elusive image in place of who we really are. You and I are created in the image of the living God. Our purpose is to reflect His image to the world. But since the fall, we let the world inscribe its image on us. It is the very picture of sin and ultimately death. Instead of being transformed to God's image, we conform to the world's image. We are hopelessly stuck in a lifeless cycle, exchanging God for the creature as our object of worship. But God in His mercy rescued us!

In love, God sent Jesus Christ to take on the consequences of our idolatrous affair. He became sin so that we might become righteous. In Christ, God gives us freedom from sin's power now and hope for its eradication in heaven. God makes you beautiful with the beauty of His Son, Jesus. It is in gazing at God's image in Jesus Christ that you are transformed. Romans 12:1-2 says, "Therefore, I urge you, (sisters) in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

*Update: The post originally quoted the 2004 study that found only two percent of women globally consider themselves beautiful. A follow-on study in 2010 found the percentage had increased to four percent.

Gina Pane.... crazy lady

Gina Pane | The Vulnerability of Human Body
From 60’s to 70’s the human body was the core centre of many artists’ research, as both the subject and the object of their work. The body was mainly used as a mean of artistic representation and, simultaneously, as an instrument of inspection of one’s interiority. Through the performance, the Wiener Aktionisten – Hermann Nitsch, Otto Mühl, Günter Brus, Rudolf Schwarzkogler –, and other artists such as Gustav Metzer, Raphael Montanez Ortiz, Yoko Ono, Chris Burden, Vito Acconci and Gina Pane, wanted to break the common taboo and challenged the public policy and morality. Actions were shot and recorded with video, texts and pictures, which served as the evidence of the extreme art experiences.

What was really effective in these artworks is the rituality of each act; performances assumed the form of theaters where artists played a sort of a sacrificial comedy focused on their own body. As mentioned above, Gina Pane (1939 – 1990), a French artist of an Italian origin, was one of the main representatives of what is widely recognised as Body Art, the artistic trend characterised by the practise of self-mutilation and sadomasochism. Working with/on her own flesh and blood as an artistic media, Pane laid bare the human body’s fragilities; undressing, hitting, hurting, dirtying her own body, she was able to show the sense of danger and pain.

Gina Pane, with a distinctive composure and a rational attitude, used the sufferance as a way of representing spirituality, carrying a deep emotional and symbolic charge. In Sentimental action (1973), the proto feminist artist, dressed totally in white, takes a bunch of roses in her hand and hurts herself with their spines. The blood dripping on the bouquet turns the roses from white to red. At that point, the artist cuts herself with a razor blade.

An even higher pathos is represented by Action Psyché (Essai), a performance from 1974 – documented by sketches, photographs, notes – where Gina Pane injures her eyelashes to simulate tears of blood, and then engraves her belly. Some prim viewers could be disarmed and shocked by the narcissism, aggressiveness and exhibitionism displayed in such a rough and direct way.

An anthological exhibition of the great artist entitled Gina Pane – È per amore vostro: l’altro is on view atMart in Rovereto, retracing Gina Pane’s career, from its beginning, through the Actions, getting to the latest works. The show will run until July 8, 2012

Cindy Sherman

Through a number of different series of works, Sherman has sought to raise challenging and important questions about the role and representation of women in society, the media and the nature of the creation of art. Her photographs include some of the most expensive photographs ever sold. Sherman lives and works in New York.
While in college she also met Robert Longo, who encouraged her to record her process of "dolling up" for parties.
Sherman works in series, typically photographing herself in a range of costumes. To create her photographs, Sherman shoots alone in her studio, assuming multiple roles as author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe mistress, and model.^[8

Although Sherman does not consider her work feminist^{[citation needed]}, many of her photo-series, like the 1981 Centerfolds, call attention to the stereotyping of women in films, television and magazines. When talking about one of her centerfold pictures Cindy stated, "In content I wanted a man opening up the magazine suddenly look at it with an expectation of something lascivious and then feel like the violator that they would be. Looking at this woman who is perhaps a victim. I didn't think of them as victims at the time... But I suppose... Obviously I'm trying to make someone feel bad for having a certain expectation."^[9]

In her work, Sherman is both revealed and hidden, named yet nameless.^{[editorializing]} She explained to the New York Times in 1990, "I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear."^[10] She describes her process as intuitive, and that she responds to elements of a setting such as light, mood, location, and costume, and will continue to change external elements until she finds what she wants. She has said of her process, "I think of becoming a different person. I look into a mirror next to the camera…it’s trance-like. By staring into it I try to become that character through the lens...When I see what I want, my intuition takes over—both in the 'acting' and in the editing. Seeing that other person that’s up there, that’s what I want. It’s like magic.”^[4]

Sex Pictures[edit]

Cindy Sherman uses prosthetic limbs and mannequins to create her Sex Pictures series (1992). Sherman is revealing the objectification of women through the mannequin’s positions (open legs and visible vaginas) but is also implementing a male aspect by assembling the mannequins with either androgynous or unambiguous male heads. The mannequins’ within the series appear passive and mirror a pornographic photo. Sherman is clearly commenting on gender roles within society as she consciously removed herself from this series to evoke greater dialogue than her earlier works. It is truly surprising that Sherman has omitted herself as the subject in this series (in comparison to her earlier work). However, It is apparent that Sherman’s series Sex Pictureshas been alienated from journals and articles written by well-respected art critics.

Hal Foster, an American art critic describes Sherman’s Sex Pictures in his article Obscene, Abject, Traumatic as “[i]n this scheme of things the impulse to erode the subject and to tear at the screen has driven Sherman […] to her recent work, where it is obliterated by the gaze.” ^[19] Moreover, Abigail Solomon- Godeau, a photo critic who teaches art history at the University of California illustrates Sherman’s work in Suitable for Framing: The Critical Recasting of Cindy Sherman. Solomon-Godeau writes, “[Sherman's] pictures have struck many viewers as centrally concerned with the problematics of femininity (as role, as image, as spectacle), more recent interpretation now finds them redolent with allusion to “our common humanity,” revealing “a progression through the deserts of human condition.” ^[20]

However, it is Jerry Saltz, an art critic who told New York magazine that Sherman’s work is “[f]ashioned from dismembered and recombined mannequins, some adorned with pubic hair, one posed with a tampon in vagina, another with sausages being excreted from vulva, this was anti-porn porn, the unsexiest sex pictures ever made, visions of feigning, fighting, perversion. … Today, I think of Cindy Sherman as an artist who only gets better.” ^[21] Saltz’s commentary gives life to Sherman’s mannequins who were presented as a symbolic declaration of the objectification of women within a man’s world.

Finally, Greg Fallis of Utata Tribal Photography describes Sherman’s Sex Pictures series and her work as the following,"[t]he progression of her work reflects more than a progression of ideology. It also demonstrates a progression in approach. Sherman’s initial photographs used relatively few props—just clothing. As her photographs became more sophisticated, so did her props. During her Centerfold series, she began to incorporate prosthetic body part culled from the pages of medical educational catalogs. Each new series tended to utilize more prosthetics and less of Sherman herself. By the time she began the Sex Pictures series, the photographs were exclusively of prosthetic body parts. With her Sex Pictures Sherman posed medical prostheses in sexualized positions, recreating—and strangely modifying—pornography. They are a comment on the intersection of art and taste, they are a comment on pornography and the way porn objectifies the men and women who pose for it, they are a comment on social discomfort with overt sexuality, and they are a comment on the relationship between sex and violence. Yet the emphasis is still on creating a striking image that seems simultaneously familiar and strange." Utata's Sunday Salon ^[22]

Recent projects[edit]

Between 1989 and 1990, Sherman made 35 large, color photographs restaging the settings of various European portrait paintings of the fifteenth through early 19th centuries. Under the titleHistory Portraits Sherman photographed herself in costumes flanked with props and prosthetics portraying famous artistic figures of the past, like Raphael’s La Fornarina, Caravaggio’s Sick Bacchus and Judith Beheading Holofernes, or Jean Fouquet’s Madonna of Melun.^[23]^[24] Between 2003 and 2004, she produced the Clowns cycle, where the use of digital photography enabled her to create chromatically garish backdrops and montages of numerous characters. Set against opulent backdrops and presented in ornate frames, the characters in Sherman’s 2008 untitledSociety Portraits are not based on specific women, but the artist has made them look entirely familiar in their struggle with the standards of beauty that prevail in a youth- and status-obsessed culture. Her MoMA exhibition in 2012 also premiered a created photographic mural (2010–11) that represents the artist's first foray into transforming space through site-specific fictive environments. In the mural, Sherman transforms her face digitally, exaggerating her features through Photoshop by elongating her nose, narrowing her eyes, or creating smaller lips.^[25] Based on an insert Sherman did for Dasha Zhukova's Garage magazine using vintage clothes from Chanel’s archive, a more recent series of large-scale pictures from 2012 depict outsized enigmatic female figures standing in striking isolation before ominous painterly landscapes the artist had photographed in Iceland during the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull and on the isle of Capri.^[26]

Wednesday, 1 January 2014

private lives vs public lives

The image we put out to the public using fashion and make up verses how our mannerisms change in our private spaces. Our body language changes in a space where we are comfortable, how would this work if I took the image of a girl in the comfort of her own personal space stripping off the make up she needs to present herself in public, and put this raw vulnerable image in an incredibly public space. In reality this would never happen, the girl would need her proper clothes, make up, and particular mannerisms to be comfortable sitting in public, therefore there is going to be something wrong with the image. But viewers may not be able to put their finger on it. I dont want the images of the public spaces to be hyper realistic, as this is a collage, and by the theory of collage it does not necessarily have to "fit" or make "sense". So I want to embrace that, using different mediums and different stylistic methods to underline this difference between one time frame and another.

Private lives:
A couple in the privacy of the bedroom
How they act in public vs private
people stripping off their daytime persona: the suit, the make up, the heels, the dress, the up do hair style,

going to bed, sitting in bed after a long day, the body language we see here vs the body language we see in public
relationships with cosmetics, especially as they affect self-image

Quotes from help sites on the internet about discomfort without make up etc:

"I'm so self conscious and I can''t take my make-up off?"

" I CAKE myself in make-up"

" I don't want to be fake or seen as other people as fake I wanna be seen as me "

"I also recommend 'Bare Essentials- mineral make up foundation' "

"start with nothing at home then with a hoodie etc go ot with no foundation just concealer short trip to the shop , and then bit by bit remove on every outing to the shop every day and then start over again but to like restaurants and shopping."

"Smoke you some weed"