fjesusbbbwc2021

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practice 7 assessment

instagram.com/daydreamingbbbwc

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self-evaluation

My idea for ‘daydreaming’ came from my frustration of being at home for so long. Inspired by Paul Sermon’s ‘telematic dreaming’ (1992), I decided to have a bed projection art installation. Bed, a green sheet, myself and a camera were my main materials. I filmed myself doing things I do on a day-to-day basis in my bed, such as mindlessly scrolling my phone, or hopping from tab to tab on my laptop to try to pass the time, and edited onto the green screen what I wish I were doing in those moments. I used stock footage because for obvious reasons I couldn’t film those kinds of things now and the use of that footage just cemented the point of this project.

I chose the bed as the place for this project because I think beds are the most intimate places in our houses, our nests. Beds are also gateways for sleep and dreams - hence this project’s title ‘daydreaming’, which portrays being stuck in a bedroom, daydreaming of going out. By having videos of myself sitting/laying down on my bed being displayed on Instagram, this project breaks the barrier between private and public. Using Instagram as the platform to display my videos was a conscious decision: the app is very voyeuristic and promotes feelings of loneliness and FOMO, which are two feelings I explore in ‘daydreaming’.

I think this project goes beyond the white cube because my ‘gallery space’ was the instagram account I created for this module, my ‘cube’ was my 'feed'. I ended up choosing nine clips as my final project because I think they fit into Instagram’s grid aesthetic. I also chose 9 clips over 12, 15,18, etc. (that also fit the grid aesthetic) because I did not want this work to feel overdone and more of the same, so I chose quality over quantity.

I managed to create audience participation by creating the hashtag #daydreamingbbbwc and asking the question to the audience ‘where would you rather be?’. The audience sent me photos of themselves on the place they spend the most time in and told me where they would rather be.

Sound was discussed and considered, but I decided that since these clips were going to be posted on Instagram, I wanted them to feel more like gifs rather than actual videos, as gifs fit more into Instagram’s style.

I feel like this project fits with past themes of my practice, which include nostalgia, intimacy, loneliness, identity, always with a dreamlike feel to them. I'm also very fascinated about the boundaries of the digital and human, and I think this project was a good way to start exploring that.

While researching for this project I encountered some artists that have inspired me immensely, such as Ana Mendieta and Marina Abramovic, and I will be taking that inspiration with me in my future projects.

Ideally, I would have posted one video a day on my account, to give the audience a feeling of a ‘reveal’ every day “what’s going to be on the blanket today?” but I felt a little bit held back by my anxiety which got a bit worse towards the end of this module and with it came lack of motivation. I feel glad I managed to finish this work and I’m quite proud of it. I would like to continue experimenting with green screen on different surfaces and projections on my body in my practice. I think it get my message across without feeling too depressing about lockdown, it rather feels hopeful and on theme with the rest of my practice.

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audience participation

When posting my videos on instagram, I always used the hashtag #daydreamingbbbwc so that the audience could engage with my work.

I got my friends to participate with my work through instagram stories.

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editing

My editing for this project was quite simplistic. I cut all my videos down to the length of less than a minute long (instagram doesn't accept 1 min.+ videos, they instead get posted on 'Reels') and found stock footage to go with the clips of me in bed.

These are all the stock videos I've used:

All the stock videos received the same editing: high saturation colouring on iMovie to make the videos feel livelier and dreamier

I then used the 'ultra key' on Premiere to edit the green screen and placed the stock clips.

All the editing I did for this project was quite simplistic as I didn't want anything that would be 'too much' and that would overwhelmed the imagery.

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all the experiments (cont.)

Experiments that didn't work:

Duvet was too creased and made the images not perceptible.

Awkward positioning.

Awkward positioning and it felt more of the same; I didn't want my videos to turn repetitive/too similar.

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all the video experiments:

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performance art

"While the terms ‘performance’ and ‘performance art’ only became widely used in the 1970s, the history of performance in the visual arts is often traced back to futurist productions and dada cabarets of the 1910s.

Throughout the twentieth century performance was often seen as a non-traditional way of making art. Live-ness, physical movement and impermanence offered artists alternatives to the static permanence of painting and sculpture.

In the post-war period performance became aligned with conceptual art, because of its often immaterial nature.

Now an accepted part of the visual art world, the term has since been used to also describe film, video, photographic and installation-based artworks through which the actions of artists, performers or the audience are conveyed.

More recently, performance has been understood as a way of engaging directly with social reality, the specifics of space and the politics of identity." - taken from Tate.org.uk

Some examples of performance art:

Marina Abramović - The Artist is Present (2010)

Using her body as the vehicle for her art, in this performance Marina explores human connections and an artist's relationship with their audience. It explores how we deal with the passage of time, our expectations of it, and forces us to be in the moment. I liked as well how it created an active audience, by letting people sit on the chair in front of her.

I chose this work because of how simplistic yet effective it is. It deals with the same themes I deal with in this project as well.

Ana Mendieta - Untitled (rape scene) - 1973

(Documentation of performance)

This piece was created as a response to a rape and murder of a student in the same university as Mendieta. The following month the artist invited her fellow students to her apartment, where she had left the door purposely ajar and was in the position of this photograph. She recreated the rape and murder as it was reported in the press.

I think what drew me to this piece was that it was Mendieta's first of the three most important pieces of her career. I liked its simplicity but effectiveness, which is what I liked most about the previous performance too.

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sip my ocean - pipilotti rist

Recommended by tutor Claudia on our staff swap tutorial, this is a work I've looked at in the past.

I can see why tutor would recommend it: video projections, beds used for the viewers to sit/lie on and be fully immersed. This work can be described as a 'full sensory engagement'. Its 'soundtrack' is Rist covering Chris Isaak's 'Wicked Game'.

I'm hoping my work will be as immersive, even though I won't be using sound.

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final tweaks crit

On our last tutorial before the deadline we showed our work so far.

I was recommended by my peers to colour grade my videos, make the contrast between me on the bed vs the images on the blanket more visible. They agreed with my choice of using stock footage and suggested I try to find humour in my clips to contrast with the images. Maybe do silly poses?

Tutor suggested I try to bump up the quantity: maybe make 12 or 15 videos?

I was told that the big image idea (having nine grid photos as a big one) would make the audience not click on them as they would think there was nothing else on that page

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instagram account

instagram.com/daydreamingbbbwc

The plan is for my instagram to have either 6 or 9 videos in total, so far I only have four as I'm still struggling to find what imagery to place on the green screen blanket.

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finalised idea - final tweaks

Bed piece. Videos of me spending time in bed, not doing much as lots of people right now are in the same boat, where they feel bored and lonely.

Green screen blanket as bedding - imagery of what I wish I was doing instead, but can't.

Posted on instagram as that app relates to loneliness and FOMO, two themes that are found on my project.

Use of hashtag to create audience engagement.

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hashtags

I'm thinking of creating the hashtag #daydreamingbbbwc to create audience engagement. I want to use this hashtag to get the audience to reply to my work with their own perspective of their loneliness at home right now. Since the video on the blanket is used to describe where I'd rather be, I want the audience to reply to my hashtag with a picture of them in the place where they spend the most time right now, and saying where they wish they'd rather be.

This way I could create an active experience for the audience, where they can participate and maybe even get featured on my account. I will be trying this with friends

Inspo:

#MagnumxHalsey

#grimesartkit

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split video idea

On last week's tutorial the idea of splitting a video into 9 pieces to fit into the instagram's grid aesthetic was brought up. I gave it a try by taking a screenshot from one of my videos and splitting it on https://postcron.com/image-splitter/ just to see how it would look.

I also researched this whole grid aesthetic and found some accounts such as:

Anderson Paak: The mixing of video and images

Lulu Lemon: A good way to advertise

Bottom line: I wouldn't work with videos, as it is impossible to put all 6 or 9 videos playing at once. Maybe if I posted the video on a separate website that allowed that? But I think Instagram is the app that fits most with my project

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notes on 'the poetics of space'

Chapter 4: Nests

Quotes that stood out:

“For Quasimodo, (…) the cathedral had been successively ‘egg, nest, house, country and universe’.” / “One might almost say that he had espoused its form the way a snail does the form of its shell. It was his home, his hole, his envelope… He adhered to it, as it were, like a turtle to its carapace. This rugged cathedral was his armour.”

“It is striking that even in our homes, where there is light, our consciousness of well-being should call for comparison with animals in their shelters.”

“The well-being I feel, seated in front of my fire, while bad weather rages out-of-doors, is entirely animal. A rat in its hole, a rabbit in its burrow, cows in the stable, must all feel the same contentment that I feel”.

“Well-being takes us back to the primitiveness of the refuge.”

For me this chapter really related to my piece, as I picture the bed as the 'nest' mentioned. When I think about my bed regarding this project, I think of it as a warm, safe place where I can retract to. It can also be seen through my imagery, which consists mostly of me, cozily wrapped in a blanket in bed.

Chapter 8: Intimate Immensity

Quotes that stood out: 

“One might say that immensity is a philosophical category of daydream. Daydream undoubtedly feeds on all kinds of sights, but through a sort of natural inclination, it con­ templates grandeur. And this contemplation produces an attitude that is so special, an inner state that is so unlike any other, that the daydream transports the dreamer out.. side the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.”

“one might say that daydream is original contemplation.”

“Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense. Indeed, immensity is the movement of motionless man. It is one of the dynamic characteristics of quiet daydreaming.”

What drew me to this chapter was the word ‘intimate’ in the title as I feel like my piece is very intimate. The mentions of daydream throughout the chapter also fit into my piece; I named it ‘daydreaming’ because the images I have playing on the blanket are daydreams of what I wish I were doing instead. In this chapter immensity is immediately related to daydreaming, and what ‘immensity’ really means is explored throughout. The author finds physical and non-physical examples to explain its meaning, and compares it to Baudelaire’s ‘vastness’.

Chapter 9: The Dialectics of Outside and Inside

Quotes that stood out:

“Outside and inside form a dialectic of division, the obvious geometry of which blinds us as soon as we bring it into play in metaphorical domains. It has the sharpness of the dialectics of yes and no, which decides everything. Unless one is careful, it is made into a basis of images that govern all thoughts of positive and negative.”

“Philosophers, when confronted with outside and inside, think in terms of being and non-being.”

“Hyppolite spoke 1 of “a first myth of outside and inside.” And he added: “you feel the full significance of this myth of outside and inside in alienation.”

““This side” and “beyond” are faint repetitions of the dialectics of inside and outside: everything takes form, even infinity. We seek to determine being and, in so doing, transcend all situations, to give a situation of all situations.”

“Man’s being is confronted with the world’s being, (…) The dialectics of here and there has been promoted to the rank of an absolutism.”

“First of all, it must be noted that the two terms “outside” and “inside” pose problems of metaphysical anthropology that are not symmetrical. To make inside concrete and outside vast is the first task, the first problem”

“In any case, inside and outside, as experienced by the imagination, can no longer be taken in their simple reciprocity”

I chose this chapter because my project the bedroom (inside) vs what I wish I was doing outside. I thought it would be interesting to research where that boundary stands and where does the inside end and the outside begin.

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video ideas

. empty bed - explores boredom and video duration. Maybe make it the longest clip? and loop the video?

. me on my phone

. me doing nothing/staring at the walls and moving around

. writing?

. doodling

. reading

.on laptop

. putting makeup on

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more experiments

I've filmed some clips just with the blanket and some other clips with the blanket pinned to a duvet like Jenny suggested.

This way I can explore the texture of both and see which one I prefer

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one-on-one tutorial notes

Today (03/03) I showed tutor my work so far, my experiments and plans.

Tutor prefers if I'm active in the videos instead of still, and thinks it would go better with my concept if I were moving as it would disrupt the blanket imagery, and make me be an active participant in the videos. Having me moving in bed, doing whatever, feels more personal than me being still. The bed also feels static so more movement and fluidity would bring a lot more energy to it. Tutor also thinks it would bring a lot more energy to the work if I wrapped myself in the blanket/ played around with it and explored its texture. Maybe pin the blanket to a duvet to add more dimension and make it look like actual bedding + it will be easier to incorporate it in the videos.

Regarding my worries about what to feature on blanket, tutor advised that I should focus on that after filming the clips, and focus on the theme of what I want to show. We decided that it would be dreamlike videos of the outside experiences we cannot do right now, to contrast with the 'imprisonment' of being at home. We've also agreed that it would be good for my blanket visuals to be edited with heavy saturation, to make them brighter, while the bed videos will be in faded tones. Tutor also suggested me to make the videos repetitious and mundane, to get the real feel of what we're experiencing right now.

I had help filming my experiments but tutor doesn't think it would be good for my assessment videos to be filmed by someone else, as the camera movement is distracting and feels voyeuristic. whereas if I film myself it will just feel documentational.

We talked about sound and since these videos will be posted on Instagram we thought it would be best for them to not have sound, to feel more like gifs. My original idea was to post 9 videos so they would fit the ig grid aesthetic, and tutor recommended me to experiment with both that and having a big video split in 9 video posts on the grid. But with that comes the challenge of not being able of having them play all at the same time. Should I not use instagram? I will try posting those clips both on instagram and another website and see which one I like best.

I was recommended to look into multiple screen works and works that explore repetition. Tutor suggested Bruce Nauman's 'Violent Incident'.

For next week I hope I have both the 9 individual clips experiments on instagram, and the 'big video' split into 9 either also on instagram or on a different website.