jwilsonmajorone2020

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Final Consideration

I thought I would add a last post that considered how the film would be exhibited if ever the opportunity arose. Inspired by Josef Alber’s use of squares framing squares I decided to draw out a square on my wall using wire tape, and then projected the image into the square. The idea was that the black square was the boundary layer between reality and the abyss. The reality, like a man hole cover, sits atop the black square, and the Red lies beneath like the sewage. But as the Red grows and grows it eventually burst out in a flood of colour that not only overcomes its black borders, but also overcomes the images of reality till they are washed out. The idea was also inspired by Castle one by Malcom Le Grice, as what I like about that piece is that the material nature of the film becomes external (the light bulb) and reminds the audience that the illusion they are watching is subject to external influence.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

XI Cathedral - Final Project

The title is in reference to the St. Francis cathedral built in China. They say the Cathedral was built because St.Francis is the patron saint for those dying alone. The title is also in reference to the experimental film ‘Castle one’ (1966) by Malcolm Le Grice.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Self Evaluation

'XI Cathedral' is a single screen projection, abstract expressionist film, that intertwines the philosophical thought of Jacques Lacan, and a personal experience to create a piece of work that effectively replicates the current mental circumstances I, the creator, am undergoing. Having had a nervous breakdown, I began to experience seeing a faint red square in the centre of my vision. Knowing that no one cares, I felt inspired to investigate the image myself in my work. My aim was to produce an Image of this Red that felt as true to the experience as possible. I believe I have accomplished this. The Red image itself is agitated. It pulsates as if growing like a living organism, and it makes me aware that something soon will end. My mental decline has been steady over the last year, but what pushed me was the abuse by my father whilst home and the recent information that he has been diagnosed with cancer. Such has left me nervous, left me twitchy, and most of all, left me feeling ambushed. These are all emotions I have attempted to produce within the spectator of my film. The constant flashing of images, and the discordant rhythm in which these images appear, I believe, irritate the senses and put the spectator in an uncomfortable position, such as my own. I also think that having constructed reality out of abstract images, I have put the spectator in a position to investigate the experience to comprehend what they are undergoing. It is only through examining the books can one know that the words are still there.

Academically my piece works on several levels. Its form reflects its meaning (i.e., The image of Red is made with an end film leader, and the Red to me was an image of the End), the composition of the piece visualises the academic theory mental structure by Lacan (The abstract images at the front are the base of the triangle, they are reality formed by images and symbolic meanings, masking the Red, the Real, which is an abyss that haunts existence, that infringes once discovered), and the way I executed the piece imitates the artists referenced and their practices (i.e., abstract expressionist used spontaneity to create their images, and so I edited my piece as if drip painting like pollock, guided by feeling). I do believe that I could have referenced more artists in my work, and have addressed Lacan's theory more lucidly. I chalk my failings up to time management and the fact that I only realised what my piece should appear as ten days before the deadline.

Throughout the module, I have addressed and referenced many artistic aesthetics. My original concept of a fiction piece in the style of Jean Cocteau fell through due to Covid-19 restrictions, and my desire to make a piece focused upon Catullus and Roman poetry, whilst interesting and well researched, fell short due to a lack of consideration for the task I had set myself. It is clear to see that my early posts do not resemble my final product. However, I do believe there is a long thread that ties them all together. Each piece, in its own way, has addressed the subject matter of struggle. Whether that be a creative struggle, a political struggle, or a mental struggle, each piece has been an attempt to comprehend the issues I encounter that prevent my self-expression. What I have realised about all this is that I do not yet know my aesthetic preference when it comes to creating art. But I do know my subject matter or at least the foundational issue that each piece I seem to make seeks to resolve. I make the work I do to understand myself in relation to the world. I make the work that I do so that I know I exist.  And it has been through changing aesthetics in this module that I realise this.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Note

Now that the film is completed I feel as though I can elaborate on the films connection to Jacques Lacan’s theory of the Real. Now I wont try to explain the theory in its entirety because PHD students are still trying to do that, but what I will say is that the Real (symbolised by the Red in my film) is considered by Lacan to be the ultimate terror in existence. It is nothing, its everything, and so it makes everything seem like nothing. Lacan believed once one had seen the real one could not come back unless they underwent extreme treatment. The idea was that trauma, that which caused severe PTSD, was what pierced the veil of perception, creating a rupture in one reality so that the Real was revealed to them. Now I cannot say if I have seen the real, but what I can say is that trauma put an image of Red before my eyes, which I still seem to be seeing on and off, that makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable to the point of sickness. It is this then that I have tried to replicate in my film. One one sees the image of Red in my film it is impossible not to focus upon it. It makes all the other images seem redundant like white noise. This is how I am feeling, and this I believe is well reflected in my work. If my interpretation of Lacan’s theory is crude, I understand, I am not overly well versed in the subject. However I do belive my understanding of the concept, and my relating it to experience, has created a piece of work that visualises the interpretation I have developed of the concept.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Film Editing like an abstract expressionist Painter

Editing the images was relatively simple. The Red picture was a film leader I spliced off of a found-footage film about redwood trees, which I then looped. And the black and white abstract images are taken from science education films that I found on an archive. The idea I had was that I edited the black and white images blind. I figured that if the whole point of my piece is that the abstract images represented reality, then how I compose them should maintain the human spontaneity that created the world to begin with. Therefore I turned off all the layers that held the images and placed them in accordance with how the music sounded, without watching back until the end to see what it looked. I believe this auto creative editing gives the piece an energetic feeling that is more authentic, then it would have been had the placement of the visual been calculated. Such an approach to editing is inspired by how many abstract expressionist painters (Jackson Pollock, for example) came to the canvass and reacted spontaneously to the moment they found themselves within, to create their pieces. Expressing precisely the emotion, they went to the canvass with.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Sound Editing

Due to not having any musical equipment here in the New Forest, I resorted to using sounds that I had either recorded on prior footage or had produced in the past. The first line of sound in the top image is the sound that came connected to the film leader I used to produce the image of Red. What I have done to it, as I have done to the footage, is loop it so that when the Red dips into black, then flashes into white, there is a restarting of the sound. This has in-turn created somewhat of a rhythm to the piece, beating with a fuzz each time the Red restarts. The second line of sound is connected to the logic screenshot beneath. The recording is of a drone I created with fellow student Jay Brown from before Christmas. What he and I did was blow on symbols and bow a bass so that there was an atonal noise that sounded mostly like a thick wind. Using logic, we added a "big reverb" with an envelope that builds and sustains without fading out too much to hold the drone of the bowed bass. Then we slapped about a piece of metal so that light thuds rang within the drone. The other elements of the beneath image are simple equalisation and pitch shifting techniques that gave the track its distinct nothingness tone. The line of sound beneath the drone is a collection of sounds from footage I recorded over the last few years. There is a recording of a New York art gallery and a family dinner that implant this slight hint of a voice within the piece. The concept was to use these subtle voices and diegetic sounds to reference the material world within the outside of the piece. The other line of sound is a recording of a Bell from the St Francis cathedral in America. I added this sound to give the piece an element of sonic climax, a suggestion from fellow student Jack Richards.

The concept for the sound in its entirety harkens back to the place crit where Matthew criticised my use of music for being too suggestive. Because the piece is an abstract expressionist film, I believe it is fundamental that my sound does not allude to any specific emotion, allowing the spectator to conjure their own perception of the film's tone primarily through their experience images. So I set out to create a sound body related to the images' dark aesthetic, without suggesting a desired emotional response.

My inspiration sonically was Brain Eno Reflections (2016). However I don't believe my piece resembles Eno’s work in any way in tone, or instrumentation.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Josef Albers and Colour

Considering that my film uses the colour red symbolically, especially in relation to the black surrounding, and appears as the shape of a square, I feel as though I would be remiss not to mention Josef Albers’ work. The art work above ‘White Line Square XV’ (1966) is one of many pieces by Albers that studies the interaction between multiple colours and the form in which they appear. Albers often claimed that language failed colour, and that colour must be experienced to be understood. “If one says 'red’ — the name of color — and there are fifty people listening, it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different,” Albers stated in Yale University Press’ Interplay of colours from 1963. I believe what Albers’ states is a crucial element to my film. When discussing trauma, and the experienced effects post happening, it can be challenging for those listening to comprehend what the sufferer is revealing. In which case language fails the suffering, thus abandoning them to their experience. So when I say that I have been seeing Red, agitated and pulsating, to anyone who hears such an explanation, the image they conjure will differ from the truth of my experience. In which case, to be as lucid as humanly possible, I must produce this pulsating, agitated, Red for others to see so that they may understand my experience. In short, this Red must be experienced to be understood.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Reality Laid Out

The above images are those that I shall be using to construct the image of reality. I have lain them out like so as to have them displayed in a way that resembles the before mentioned Rene Margritte painting. The images and their objective meanings are as followed: Rain (top left), Wind (Bottom left), Trees (long one at the top), The sun (Middle), and People (bottom right). Such meanings are not to be disclosed prior to screening, however I do feel as though it is important I state what I believe the images represent here on my blog.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

The obsession - Rene Magritte

For inspiration in regards to my abstract images that shall construct reality  I have turned to this painting by surrealist Rene Magritte. I believe the painting to be very self explanatory: these are the images of reality, any greater connotation is stripped away: these are not Brazilian trees, they are life's trees. This is not an American soldier, this is the worlds soldier, and so on. I hope to be as universal with the images I create, and will most likely consider the images I use to represent earth, sky, mans doings, and undoings.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Structural Consideration for Red

I believe it is worth writing a post about 'Red's' structural considerations and the relationship between the films' meaning and form. Perhaps only because I wish to justify the pieces' simplicity. 

Form: The use of film lead to create the image of Red is in direct juxtaposition to the pieces digital foundation; this is intentional. Film has become fetishised by popular culture and is obviously a spectre of the cultural past that lingers due to capitalism’s instance of repetition. However, my piece does not use celluloid to imitate a prior aesthetic. Instead, my use of the celluloid is to juxtapose the digital bleakness that the Red comes to overwhelm. Celluloid has a naturally more physical appearance to it, so by making the danger from celluloid, I insinuate that the threat, the red, is a genuine physical threat, and that the digital blackness that exists around the image is, at most, an immaterial world that harbours the present danger. 

Meaning: I believe this use of form is in line with the conceptual influence of Jacques Lacan's theory that Images and their symbolic meanings construct reality to repress 'The Real'. The idea is that the digital blackness is reality and is immaterial because it is always in flux due to human persistence. Whereas 'the Real' is in fact, the only true thing in existence, despite not being physically represented. 

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Abstract, Minimalist, Structural Film

The minimalist nature of ‘Red’ reminded me of Nam June Paik’s piece ‘Zen for film’ (1964). Made in 1964, the film was Paiks contribution to the structural film movement that had been growing rapidly through out the sixties. Paiks work on celluloid is lesser known in comparison to his work using video, however I believe ‘Zen for film’ is quite the underrated landmark of the structural movement as even Tony Conrad, who’s film ‘The Flicker’ was heralded as the ultimate structural film, couldn't resit his film having some sort of narrative. I am inspired endlessly by artist who make bold artistic decisions to produce art, and I find Paiks use of clear celluloid to create a white image very influential. For most such a piece, especially today, would seem redundant, or if anything worthless, but I believe it is now more than ever that pieces such as ‘Zen for film’ have significance.

This is the before mentioned film ‘The Flicker’ (1966) by Tony Conrad, and it is simply the most inviting film I have ever seen, for one could only turn away when bowing their head to throw up. Similarly there is Peter Kublunka’s film ‘Arnulf Rainer’ (1960) which is father of both aforementioned pieces.

To brighten this post up I am including Hollis Frampton’s film ‘Heterodyne’ (1967). Heterodyne, was the inspiration for my use of leader to create Red, as Hollis collected several leaders, coloured them, and spliced them together to create his piece.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Constructing Reality: Trees

Inspired by Agnes martins piece Trees, I set out to create what I consider to be trees. By cropping footage taken from an educational film about fluid mechanics, I have constructed trees that transform as if moved by wind. The idea was that behind the trees, like behind all things, lies the danger. I have, however, decided not to use this type of imagery as I feel it leads me into a dead end, and is just generally shit.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Agnes Martin, The essence of act

As a self-proclaimed abstract expressionist Martin sought out to resemble "Nothing that represented a cause." Instead, once she had developed the style she is known for, the style that had evaded her for 20 years, her ambition was to investigate the self, and respond to beauty whenever possible. Having left New York due to mental decline, Martin took up living in a New Mexico Adobe home. Her intimacy with loneliness is well documented, but what seems most apparent is that her being alone did not bring her sadness in any way. Contextually there may be something to say about the current circumstances of government-issued self-isolation, and how Agnes Martin could be considered an example of how to handle living with one's 'Back to the world,' however I could not admit to being any more apt for the situation simply because of my admiration for Martin. But I see how when one turns away from the world and all things within it, one will develop a new sense of what they experience as being.

In context to my work Martin assumes a broadly influential role. I consider the piece I am trying to make abstract expressionist, as the emotion depicted is central and the cause alludes, which is something that Martins work directly inspired me to consider. Atop that, her use of lines is something I intend to experiment within reference to how I will construct abstract Images of reality. The images above; 'This rain', and 'Trees', are good examples of how Martin interpreted reality in a way that spoke more to the essence of an object than the form.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Producing Red (The Real/Abyss)

As the result of tragic a moment Red appeared before my eyes. This Red has still not let up, and so I intend to depict it in my work so that others may understand my experience. It is clear to me that this image of Red is a product of rupture. Understanding Lacan’s theory of the mind informs me that my construction of reality has been pierced, and that this Red is the abyss (The Real), staring right back at me.

To produce the image of Red, that must be visually vicious by its existence, I took the leader of a found footage film (seen below) and edited it using Premier Pro.

Inspired by the Mark Rothko paintings of Red seen above, I decided to leave in the white flashes, dips to black, and film dust the leader natural had so that the image of Red seemed more chaotic and unpredictable. I also believe that these elements make the image of Red undoubtedly filmic for no other medium could replicate the film image's motion.

To experiment with the concept I inserted found-footage (depicting the liberation of Rome during WW2) into the Red. The idea was that the Red, once close to the spectator, would reveal the horrors of life. However I feel this development is a little on the nose and strays to far from the intention of my piece.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993)

Pushing boundaries with both its form and subject matter, Jarman's Blue is undoubtedly a revolution in film. Composed of an infinite blue image, the textural sound work of Simon Fisher Turner, and the lucid-stone voice of Nigel terry, the film triumphs in its deeply subjective depiction of living with HIV.

To ensure the films' exhibition did not undermine its politics, Jarman had the film broadcast to the nation on Channel 4 and  BBC radio. Such presentation secured that an audience would be subject to the films intrinsic message asking for empathy. HIV was killing hundreds in the UK, and Jarman was himself battling the fatal virus when producing the film. The film stands as both a Political landmark in both British history and cinema, evidencing how the power of artistic expression can both impact the self and the wider world.

Concerning my film, Blue is a crucial influence as it brought to cinema the same radical artistic action that Yves Kline had brought to painting in the 60s. To think that a film could visually depict nothing more than a blue image was revolutionary in the 80s but is, I would argue, more radical today due to contemporary demands for a surplus of images in film. With this in mind, I will attempt to achieve something visually similar to Blue when creating my Image of Red.

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

Project Proposal, In submission for Major Project 1

Working title: Everything is Liable to turn Red.

Overview: The project I am proposing is a single channel film that illustrates the experience of an oncoming danger that cannot be stopped, nor suppressed by either fiction or the images that we constitute as reality. 

Inspired by Jacques Lacan's proposed theory that there are three registers of experience: the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real, I intend to produce a work of art that not only visualises the proposed theory but also demonstrates, and affects the audience, with the experience that the theory elucidates.

The image on the left is an illustration of the triadic structure of the mind. The conception that 'we' spontaneously structure our perception of concepts in a triadic composition is not singular to Jacques Lacan, having been used in many intellectual traditions by both post-war phenomenologists’ and also pre-feudal pagans in their rituals, but it is Lacan's triadic structure that I shall follow most closely. However, what should be recognised is that a two-dimensional representation of Lacan's theory of conscious motion would not be apt for a film. The image on the right is then a three-dimensional rendering of the triadic structure, and it is this formulation that I shall use to compose my piece. Simply put, the collaboration of the imaginary (that is of images) with the symbolic (an images differed meaning) constitutes the plain of reality. Using abstract symbols that have through artistic practice come to denote specific of this world meanings, I will elicit the construction of a reality by the audience that will masks a hidden danger (the Real), represented as a pulsating red.

Context: In my extended essay, I wrote of how cinema and its institution has become an ideological apparatus for maintaining the status quo.  That the images that have come to constitute our reality presented on the screen, are those that have been assimilated to dissolve their substance. That is to say; the culture industry makes sure all conceptions of life pass through its mechanisms so that it may establish what reality is, and not us. And by our agreement, we allow the inequitable system's reconstitution, having been tricked by its new, diverse, appearance. Essentially, the culture industry now decides what it means to 'be'. Instead of imitating us, we imitate it, separating ourselves from human individuality, resigning us as subjects to the system and its homogenised world view. This, inevitably, has compelled us to assume the role of 'simple consumer' who’s inherent trait is pacification when it comes to cultural products. My film intends to reactivate the spectator's role in film viewership through the use of abstract images. By avoiding symbols that have come to denote specific meanings in cinema (e.g., Knife=stabbing=penetration), I elicit meaning from the spectators' subconscious, thus making them active in the constitution of reality once more. To further add credence to my political intention, and why constituting reality for ourselves is so important, I will put the reality the audience is constituting under siege, the same way capitalism puts our imaginations under siege so that it may maintain its power and significance.

Method: Inspired by surrealist, abstract, and abstract impressionist painters I will collect found-footage to be used as new symbols to denote aspects of the real world (lines to denote trees inspired by Agnes Martin). I will then arrange these images so that they imitate the structure of Lacan's triadic structure of the mind. Beneath these images will be the real, a pulsating Red that will not let up. Utilising techniques that are afforded to me through editing software will make it appear as though the spectator is descending into the real. This should hopefully evoke anticipation and anxiety; emotions which Lacan proposed the real was the enteral cause of. 

[jwilsonmajorone2020]

IMPORTANT UPDATE CONCERNING THE DIRECTION OF MY WORK

At the end of December, I had devised a clear conception of what my major project one piece would look like, and how I intended to produce it. The concept was titled 'In the memory of Catullus' and was an experimental, found footage, narrative film that critiqued power and its ability to disrupt beauty, using the symbols made available in the mythic dialect of the Roman poet Catullus. The major step I had taken to produce such a piece was to write a poem of my own, using the language of Catullus, that would be read accompanied by a soundscape, all in service of elucidating the visuals. However, the events in my life that occurred during January have changed this. And so this post is an update to explain why my idea has changed, and how my previous posts are related to the new direction of my current work.

Throughout January, I had to complete an MA application which involved producing a portfolio, personal statement, project proposal, and university application. All whilst finalising my Extended essay, which required a lot of rewriting and research till the very end. This meant that I postponed working on my Major project piece until all the before mentioned work had been completed. But obviously, this is not why the concept of the piece has changed. Instead, my film concept has changed because my father has been diagnosed with cancer, and the news of his diagnosis has inspired me to take a new direction with my work.

First, I must briefly explain how I found out about my father's diagnosis. My father and I had just argued about me doing either a one year or two-year degree in London; he wanted me to do one year and wouldn't explain why, and I wanted to do two years because that was always the plan, and was what I considered best for me. The argument ultimately resulted in physical violence being inflicted upon me by my father, and so I inevitably retreated to my room (for I am currently at home due to the Covid-19 lock-down). That's when my mother came to me and told me of my father's diagnosis, making it clear that my father wanted me to do a one-year degree because he was afraid of where he would be in a year's time, and that the violence that happened was because of his inability to express his fear and pain with words.

Despite my reluctance to be so honest, I mention this because the incident, and not the news itself, has inspired my new direction. When my mother told me of my father's diagnosis, I expected to collapse into distress. That the anger I had just developed towards my father would be lain to waste by the sudden news of his illness. But no such thing happened. Instead, in the centre of my vision, the colour red appeared. After a while, I realised that this red was the ensuing future and that my distance from this red was the time between me and an end. Now how much of what will end is unknown; however, I believe it to be clear that this red was ultimately a sign of the sudden sense of instability I felt. The future that I had so well comprehended before this moment was now at odds with the reality of a distant threat. A threat that seemed just as incomprehensible as it was unstoppable. As my mind rushed to conjure all the tomorrows that would become lost due to this red, I began to panic. And so those futures, those images of desire suddenly felt impossible, as if they were spectres of people who had never been born, and who were slipping out of my life simply to mock me. Essentially, the image of red and the idea that It was a threat to my way of life was the only certainty at that moment.

This image of red, living at a distance, slowly coming on, is now what I would like to execute for my major project piece. In a later post I will write the project proposal, discussing the context of the piece on a larger scale, and the methods I will use to create the work but to finish this post I will discuss how this new direction relates to my previous posts.

'In the memory of Catullus' focused on Caesar's rise to power, and how his use of slaves to build Roman symbols in Bithynia stripped those symbols of their significance and beauty. The piece would inevitably have some Marxist undertones, discussing power and class relations, critiquing globalist actions and authoritarian behaviour, and would utilise images that create a sense of empathy for the struggle of those slaves forced to do Caesar's self-aggrandising labour. After January, I realised that the piece I was making was a warning for our contemporary political shift towards a dangerous existence. That the images, sound, and language, I had intended to use were all in service of warning an audience about the ensuing danger of our political climate. And so now, instead of a focus on Caesar, Catullus, Rome, Bithynia, Slaves, art, and politics, my piece will simply focus on that abstract notion of danger. To put in plainly, I wish not to show an audience a story of danger, nor use symbols to illustrate it, but to encourage a sense of it utilising an abstract impressionist aesthetic. The idea is that the audience will experience the anxiety, confusion and anticipation that comes with knowledge of a threat danger. So despite the two concepts having significant differences in their form, one symbolic, one abstract, I believe that both have the same fundamental message, and so I am dropping the symbols, and am instead focusing on the essence of such a message.