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[laurenejohnson99]

Update  -  MP2 Book - 08/04/21

- Slightly more square than A3

- Combination of canvas and either trading paper or acetate 

- Needs to open flat or the images suffer - coptic binding looks the most promising 

Hudsult - most likely title 

design still undecided - folding open pages, cut out holes - interactive and immersive purgatory world - doesn't have to be all full bleeds for this to be the case 

- want some traditional borders - portraits on canvas - juxtaposing the digital 

- print and try all ideas 

- TORN EDGES NOT CUT 

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Final Pilot Project Video

Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1odNqtJlt1g&feature=youtu.be

Video of the final printed and bonded pilot project. 

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MP1 PROPOSAL

NAME : Lauren Johnson

PROJECT TITLE : ‘Hyperreality’

SUBJECT / CONCEPT : 

The term ‘hud sult’, meaning skin hunger in Danish was a starting point for the development of my concept. The dematerialisation of the world around into what Jean Baudrillard would call signs and simulations is leaving our skin hungry for the tangible real world. Questioning what is real in the world around us and playing with the current societal conditions of disenchantment, hyperreality and simulation are the themes of this project. The subjects in my images are caught in a purgatory between a real, tangible world and a digital realm, much like the actual world we find ourselves in now. I believe that we are currently in a state of flux between the digital and real and that the line between what is real/true and what is fiction is rapidly blurring. The book is designed to be a physical display of where we are now, a dramatised, surreal version of the actual world. I believe that society is currently lost in state it doesn’t quite understand with pulls from both the fake, simulated world and from the real, primal, tangible world. As we etch ever closer to the digital encompassing us I don’t believe that we fully understand the implications of what moving in the direction we are moving in will have, which is why I’ve tried to demonstrate that with a digital figure that is taken from reality and put into an infinite, strange and digital space. Some of the images are slightly disturbing and surreal whilst some are soft and gentle, this is representative of the contrast between fear of the future and embracing the future in the modern world. Perhaps we are engaging and living primarily in a simulation or perhaps the world has become so hypernormalised that, although we all know it is fundamentally fake, we continue our lives unfazed and accepting of those lies because we have no alternative. I have been exploring the idea of the world underneath the surface and trying to expose the possible world in which we actually do live beneath the superimposed world we have created for ourselves.

The ‘real’ that is in my pilot project book and that will continue to be in my project next semester, is represented in a few ways; the end result being a physical form, the figures in the images originally coming from reality and the re-photographing of some of the images which leaves traces of both the physical photographic materials such as chemicals and the digital shown in pixels and other digital matter. The human subjects are being taken from reality and scanned into the technology, the figures have been pushed into the digital, changed by it and then pulled back out into the physical tangible realm. My interest lies in the changes that the technology makes when trying to understand the real world and the human body, how it will never be a perfect replica as there is always something missing, strange or more unsettling. This is a similar aesthetic to technological endeavours such as AI and why they feel so queasy to look at and dystopian. The best way to turn all of my theoretical inspirations and ideas into a visual metaphor for this project was to create a purgatory space representative of where I believe we are as a society at the moment.

AIMS :

Next semester I aim to evolve my major project into a larger scale book that is an even more immersive and surreal experience for the viewer. I aim to test various paper types to find something viscerally interesting and to create a longer book with more exploration into the scenery in the purgatory I have made with addition of scanned props and furniture. I will also experiment with the landscape my model is trapped in, such as by using other images of mine as backdrops for the model. By May I will have a printed book of an immersive half digital half tangible world. I aim to explore different binding techniques in order to hand bind my book and print it at university. 

CONTEXT / AUDIENCE :

This project is aimed at just above my generation and younger as the primary audiences. Acting as a warning sign or reflective opportunity for the generations which are most heavily engaging with the technology and society that is promoting the detachment from the physical world. The disenchantment with the real and move towards a fictitious world is primarily occurring with my generation and younger and therefore I feel it would be most beneficial to this audience. I see this book within an artistic context, shown somewhere such as the Wellcome Gallery as they specialise in technological and medical modern art displays. 

PROPOSED FORM, MEDIUM, PRESENTATION :

My proposed presentation of my project is in the form of a photo book which will be roughly A4 sized, possibly slightly more square shaped. The book will not have a specific linear narrative, however the ‘story’ of the figure/figures being pushed into purgatory will be demonstrated in a more free, fluid overview of the digital space. Extreme cropping of specific images will be blown up to fill full pages, sometimes double spreads. This is so the details of the photographic elements combined with the digital pixels which are both present can be recognised, making the process the images have been through clearer and emphasised. A tension between the digital and the photographic will be present throughout the book, such as having images fall into the books binding/creases will demonstrate a tension in the physicality of the pages. The combination of digital screenshots and images taken on film will also provide a mixture of both the highly real and the highly digital. In the final piece I think all images will be printed digitally whether they were made in the darkroom or on the screen as I want to use specific tactile paper for the images to be printed on. 

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Images of the binding for my pilot project. The binding method I used was a kettle stitch, following this YouTube tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O4kFTOEh6k&vl=en

This attempt at binding was successful and I learned a lot about the delicacy to required to do this technique. Next Semester I will look into various binding techniques, however this was a good first introduction to use to bind my pilot project. The front cover isn't glued onto this book as I wanted to show the binding and I have left the cover off for the video of my work, again to show the stitches. 

This book also has thin white borders around the edges. The printer automatically added borders to the pages and I decided to not risk cutting the borders at home as I have been unable to go into university to use a guillotine. The inside blue page also has a title on it, again due to the inability to print again at university. 

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Final pilot project book layout and image order. I think this was the most effective layout combined with the most interesting front/back cover. I think the pairings of images work and that blue / white and photographic / digital close up images act as an introduction and conclusion to the book. I have repeated images in this layout, as I have done in previous pilot trials. The repetitiveness, I think touches on Daisuke Yokota’s idea of introducing music qualities of echo and reverb into the photography. In doing so time can feel disorientated which is something I have aimed at achieving in this book. In the place I have created I want time to feel like it is skipping or jolting and I believe the repeating of some images creates this. 

This final layout highlights the purgatory I have aimed to create and shows the tension between the digital and the tangible world around. I think the images I have selected to be apart of the final project express the feeling of ‘hud sult’ (skin hunger), the desire for tactility in the ever expanding digital world we are being engulfed by. The images of my hand and the double spreads of the photographic/digital matter I believe show this the best. 

I think it is important that images such as page 11 (not including the front cover) have remained in the book as they show the journey and the material process the film / images have been through. The photographic matter in those images especially is what keeps this book tactile. 

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Printed Trial with Boarders

https://youtu.be/bkaTze8iZhg - Link to video of book trail 

After engaging with this small version of the book I feel that my images are stronger as full bleeds and at this stage, to complete the pilot project, continuing with full bleed images throughout created a more immersive work. Next semester however, after developing the images I have further, the classic photo book aesthetic with white boarders and blank pages, similar to that of Leiter, is still a direction my final major project could go. I didn't dislike it as layout but just didn't think it was suiting to my current, primarily digital images.

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Trial pilot of combining boarders and full bleed images - due to financial reasons I haven't printed out the entirety of this book as a pilot test but I have printed out a few pages and folded together to get a feel for it complete. 

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Purgatory

Purgatory, definition : (in Catholic doctrine) a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven. 

I’m considering my book as a kind of digital purgatory, however whether the heaven is a digital world or a tangible one will remain unknown. My book will be an attempt at creating a purgatory in so far as it is an intermediate space between the digital and the real. 

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Print test of my current favourite front/back cover. The back turned digital women as the back cover translates well in the physical form as it does on screen and I will keep this test in mind a definite possibility for the cover of my pilot project. 

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Boarder Trial

In Indesign I am finding it difficult to image the pages physically, especially when considering the boarders. I have printed these two pages to see how putting full bleeds and images with boarders next to each other translates when printed. The result I think is messy. Online it looks clear, however when printed and placed within the pilot book context it looks strange and stops the flow from one image to the next. The boarders that the printer adds also doesn't help with creating a flow from one image to the next, however overall I will avoid putting bordered images next to full bleed images throughout the book. 

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Trail cover #2

Again keeping the blue plain page and the inside page, the blue came from the electric blue colour which the 3D software I was using adds to the edges of your 3D objects. This colour blue has recurred for me throughout research and trials, I believe it looks quite unnatural and highly digital. There is also potential for this page to be blue acetate, depending on how digital and hyperreal I wish the final production to look compared to the traditional/classic aspects. 

The front/back cover in this trial is a full bleed image of my model (you can see the electric blue which is naturally occurring around the parts of the 3D objects). Although this cover is interesting and a clear indication of what is inside the book, there are better options for covers than this one as it blends in too much with the inside of the book. I prefer either the plain blue or the digital/photographic matter close ups, I think they are more enticing and interesting as covers.

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Trial of front/back cover and inside/last page. I’ve swapped the blue cover for the inside page and used a close up of the digital/photographic matter as the outer cover. Then I've layered an image of my digital model facing away from the camera, this image on the back cover i believe suggests a full stop or a stubbornness. I think their is a poignance to this image being used on the back cover, it suggests a reluctance for change which I think is prevalent in todays society. As previously mentioned, Adam Curtis’s concepts of hypernormalisation and the age of individualism make it clear that as a society we are too consumed with individualism to do anything about the problems in our society or to give ourselves up to anything which would help progression. This final back cover of the back turned, digital women lost in halfway purgatory, I think highlights the individualistic nature of us now. In denial of how individualistic we are and stubborn towards possible any progression either in a more digital way or a less digital way. 

[laurenejohnson99]

Saul Leiter ‘In My Room’

Saul Leiter - ‘In My Room’, images by Saul Leiter and words by Carole Naggar. This is a book I've owned for a while and have taken great inspiration from for previous projects and I feel that it could provide the other end of the spectrum for photographic books to have as inspiration, in contrast with my previous post. The book was created after Leiter’s death and is an in-depth look at the intimate relations Leiter had in his old studio/bedroom. 

The large white boarders and whole white pages in-between some images is effective in how the book flows. The images have there own space to occupy and be appreciated. Directly contrasting the previous post of Cobayashi’s book where the image bleed from one to another in a sensory overload. 

Although in my previous post I wanted to directly contrast Cobayashi’s style for my project and create a book closer to the aesthetic of Leiter. However, after comparing the two I am going to try a combination of a classic Leiter and a digitalised Cobayashi aesthetic. Using both traditional photographic means and highly digital ways of working is at the centre of my project. Therefore a combination of inspirations makes sense when thinking about the editing of my pilot project and eventually final project. To adjust my current trial printed pilot project, I will add clearer white boarders for the 3D scanned images of the body, reflective of ‘In My Room’ and Leiter’s classic, black and white photographic aesthetic. Then, I will be keeping some images as full bleeds and full bleed double pages spreads, similar to the overtly digital and hyperreal work of Cobayashi. After making the adjustments I will trial print the project and see how the combination of the two work, perhaps either a fully tradition or fully digital feel should be consistent throughout. 

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Cobayashi ‘Everything_2′

https://www.shashasha.co/en/book/everything-2

Kenta Cobayashi ‘Everything_2’, a suggestion from Eugenie to look at. The book is 297 x 210 mm (A4) and consists of glossy paper which enhances the hyperreal digital manipulations he applies to his images. Cobayashi uses full bleed images to create this immersive, conceptual book. Cobayashi is trying to create images which he see’s as true representations of Japan and “he probes into the ability of photography (literally written as “copied reality” in Japanese) to depict the truth” ( https://www.shashasha.co/en/book/everything-2 ). 

His use of glossy paper and digital manipulations makes his images more vibrant and digital. Although mine and Cobayashi’s work are thematically similar, he is trying to enhance the digital qualities in his images to create what he believes is reality, whereas I’m trying to contrast the digital with traditional photographic means. He uses his beautiful and highly digital images in this book to create an immersive and surreal digital city. I however want to explore the same theme of a hyperreal, digitalised and immersive world, but I wish to do so by combining traditional photographic means. Therefore I appreciate how Cobayashi has created his book, however I want to try opposing his style by trying tactile, thick paper (next semester) and testing out white boarders and spaces between images. Creating a more traditional and classic photographic book experience and therefore making the subject matter a surreal contrast. 

[laurenejohnson99]

Daisuke Yokota - Toransupearento

In this book Yokota combines pages of coloured vinyl, acetate and plain white paper. Images are printed on the transparent pages and two of these next to each other creates a double exposure effect against the white plain page which occur every three pages. 

The front and back cover of Yokota’s book is yellow vinyl with an image printed on. The transparency paper is something I potentially want to test for my front cover or as an outer casing for the book. 

(Image, screenshot, https://shop.yvon-lambert.com/products/daisuke-yokota-toransupearento)

The acetate paper creates an interesting transparent element and with my project focussing on the half way between digital and the tangible world, a transparent material can represent a window that can see through the hyperreal world we live in. The ability to look beneath the surface of hyperreality into the halfway, purgatory world which I am representing within the book.