maddie-l-blog

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR4s1DE9J4DHzZYXMltSMAg

https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/art/education/definitions

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21565503.2016.1276022

https://www.sidint.net/content/what-body-politics

https://www.genderspectrum.org/quick-links/understanding-gender/

https://www.colormatters.com/color-symbolism/gender-differences

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EXPERIMENT 3

AIM: use controversial words that women have been called throughout history - written in red lipstick as a act of protest for feminism. Lipstick -> beauty (society), words -> reality, writting -> protest (political). Experimenting with lighting +position / cropping. 

REFLECTION: Upon reflection overall this experiment was a fail as the lighting of the setting is unflattering and hard for the letters to read. The position of the video is off centre and are unable to see all writting. The bad lighting enhances bad features such as the cringles in the paper and water splotches. Furthermore, outside materials such as the match box and paint brush - are not to be included in the scene and ruin it. From learning these mistakes and learning more about how to use the tools on the imovie app. I ended up cropping and enhancing the exposure of this video to make it more aesthetically pleasing for the final project.

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EXPERIMENT 2

AIM: change rotation of video, exposure, colouring - through imovie options

REFLECTION: upon reflection learning how to crop, rotate and reposition a video clip through the cropping tool bar - allowed me to learn more skills on the imovie app. Not only did this change the video effect it made it more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, as well as humourous to watch. Through selecting all clips (shown in screenshot below right) I was able to have the exposure and saturation all the same for all the scenes. The rotation of scenes - create humour behind the scene - which was linked to my inspiration behind the work that being the ‘How to Basic’ youtube videos. The rotation of the scenes add to the ‘randomness’ of the video - the concept of remixing scenes to in the end reflect the remixing of genders.. having no binaries

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EXPERIMENT 1

AIM: slow motion of the flower burning + lighting match. Black and white colour filter.

REFLECTION: upon reflection having been stuck on how to use imovie - I learnt a number of tips and tricks to enhance meaning behind the video scene. Now knowing how to change the speed of which the video is shown and filter of it - adjusting the exporsure and contrast thorugh settings. I have created a number indepth video clip. Although I found when first doing this the video quality reduced and I had to increase the sharpness and exposure of the video to make it better quality. Personally I found this experiment to be both a fail and success - fail in regards to it loosing the quality of the video and a success in which me knowing how to imovie and effects available on the software. I aim to include this scene in my final project as is symbolise the ‘feminist’ topic which was inspired by the ‘affect and body politics’ weekly class topic

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700 WORD RATIONALE

Contemporary art and design often looks at the idea of constructed binaries, such as man/woman, straight/gay, dirty/clean, organic/synthetic. Considering the history of these ‘pairs’, how can art and design interrogate these binaries and offer new insights?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48tvsa_JoCA

The term ‘Contemporary art and design’ can be defined as “the very lack of a uniform, organising principle, ideology or ‘ism’…. their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts and subjects that challenge traditional boundaries and defy easy definition.”.

In my conceptual video piece, I chose to furthermore explore the binaries between male and female (from assignment 1), and how there are not only two genders but there are many. Inspired by our weekly topic on ‘Affect and Body Politics’, I learnt that our bodies can be used as a form of protest to bring awareness or attraction to an issue that needs to be addressed. Exploring the ways in which all concepts are political and how contemporary art of today challenge the traditional conventions of art and emphasise political ideas and actions. As well as the relationship between the body and it’s surrounding environments - known as ‘micro-politics’. Feminism being a big movement during the 60’s as a ‘body politics’ is clearly represented in my video through the symbolising of lighting the flower on fire. The act of this was to destroy the stereotype of the female gender as portrayed as ‘soft’ and ‘feminine’ by alighting it with fire allows the stereotype to virtually disappear through this violent, more masculine act. 

Furthermore, the meaning behind my video is represented through the objects, colouring, video effects and actions involved. The bizarre, ‘randomness’ of the video was to not only show the link between the inspiration behind my project ( ‘How to basic’ youtube videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRpWnoKdKYM) but also visually depict how there is no binaries between gender as they are all one. The remixing of scenes and ‘randomness’ is to directly translate this concept through my final work. The meaning behind using the black and white filter effect is some of the shots was to visually show the term ‘gender’ as one - as colours like pink and blue have been genderisalised and the power behind loosing their colour is to represent the no barrier between them too. I chose to include the orginial background audio into the video to show furthermore show my link to inspiration of the ‘How to Basic’ videos where they too use original audio is there’s to create humour behind the video shown. 

Within my video I use a number objects, colours and actions that represent a gender. Objects used may include;

Flower - sexual innuendo / feminity —> painting it blue was to show how a flower interpreted as feminine then being painted in blue was masculine gendered colour 

Baby Doll - represent both genders

Pink Paint - FEMALE

Blue Paint - MALE

Black and white colour effect - equal all genders

Jewellery - FEMALE

Perfume - FEMALE

Toy car - MALE

Flower on fire - act of feminism on the female POV / masculinity violence

The act behind me painting the words ‘female’ and ‘male’ in gendered coloured paint at the beginning of the video then transitioning it to a black and white filter  was to visually show the audience that two genders do not exist and black and white effect is to emphasis that no colours should be gendered as they are all the same in the essence - when look back on the structure of the human body — we are all equally the same and have a skeleton just like every human being in the universe. Furthermore, the symbolism behind me washing off the mixed paints painted on the doll was to represent how once all our gender is taken away we are all the same - we are all human. The act behind the mixing of pink and blue paint was to furthermore demonstrate how there are no binaries in gender. Furthermore, the symbolising behind me writting shameful names women have been called throughout history in lipstick was an act of ‘feminism’ protest - link to body politics, as we would put lipstick and make up on to make ourselves more beauty do to society pressures. The act behind covering the flower in blue paint and foundation was to show how a flower which is interpreted as feminine, is no destroyed as painted in a masculine colour - destroying the concept of objects being gendered. The flower being covered in foundation was to show the relation behind the concept of beauty - a flower being considered natural beauty and foundation / make up is fake beauty society emphasises on the female gender to follow. 

From learning from mistakes and experiments - I have learnt how to successfully edit videos; which includes cropping, filters, speed editing and audio. Upon my reflection of my previous mistakes I have learnt on what I have improve on the things that will make my project more successful - so more engaging, aesthetically pleasing, humourous and most importantly reflect my concept of there being NO binaries in gender!

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Gender Binaries Video

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Final Video Assignment 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48tvsa_JoCA

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‘Common knowledge and learning curves’- Keg De Souza EXHIBITION

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Experiment 1

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Assessment 2 Exercise - Exchange of Creative Labor

Video documentation of mixing colours / splashing colours

Symbolic pouring of paint (beauty)  > gendered objects with coloured paint over them (throwing them)

Material: multiple materials // paper, 

mixing of paints colours, tones, colours (gendered) etc.

Video inspiration (from Molly) : ‘How To Basic’ - youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/HowToBasic

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Brainstorming

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FINAL

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PROCESS PICTURES

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colour meanings

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CONCEPT STATEMENT

Throughout history many artists/designers have explored the topic of constructed binaries and how art and design question them and bring new light to the meanings behind these ‘pairs’. In the modern world of today many contemporary artists and designers are often looking and exploring the idea of constructed binaries. In the modern world of today there has been a growing epidemic in the identity of genders and how they are creating a non-binary gender epidemic where they look at the topic of ‘Gender Fluidity’ and many other topics of binaries such as race/nationality identity and more.

Influenced by Mario Pissarra, Robin Moodley and Russell Hlongwane 2016 exhibition ‘Beyond Binaries’ at Durban Art Gallery. I took their idea of exploring the binaries between human form of gender, race and nationality and how their all divided but underneath it all are all the same. Inspired by this idea I chose to create a A2 digital poster where I collaged pictures, colours and symbols that each have their own meaning and connect up to their ‘pair’ but in the end all create one image that have the same meaning.

In my poster I decided to explored the binaries of gender between male/female. I wanted to   include a number of different colours as each colour depict a different meaning and are ‘gendered’ within society of what colour depicts a boy/girl. Whereas when all together they are no binaries and are instead all classified as one, which is what art most commonly explores. I explore the ways in which colours, clothes and more portray a meaning and somewhat gendered but underneath it all we are all the same and I look into the human structure and how in the end we are the same and have the same bone structure etc.

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ARTIST OF INFLUENCE EXHIBITION

INSPIRATION:

Mario Pissarra – Beyond Binaries Durban Art Gallery 2016 Exhibition.

BLURB –“ Race, gender, national identity and heritage will come under the spotlight in a new exhibition opening at the Durban Art Gallery titled Beyond Binaries. The exhibition features the works of 26 artists and uses mediums such as video, photography, paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics and wire. Beyond Binaries is curated by a fledgling curatorial collective comprising Mario Pissarra, Robin Moodley and Russel Hlongwane known as Qala.”

http://asai.co.za/publication/beyond-binaries/

INTERVIEW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyX078FYn-I&t=46s

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RESEARCH: Gender Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9QnnQN880o