#I was so concerned for his well being since 156. I’m beyond happy to know he is okay and with everybody else at the family reunion. PHEW.

[goldfishshithead]

everybody wins

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Will you do your fave book? Or if you already did it, the next fave? And so on...

Short opinion: I am constantly torn between wishing that The Beginning was twice its actual length and being in awe that Applegate manages to cram so much into a sparse 156 pages.

Long opinion: 

As I mentioned here, #54 is actually my favorite book in the series.  I’m probably the only fandalite on the planet for whom that is true, but I am a complete and utter sucker for tragedy. And this is tragedy in its purest form.  Tragedy is frustratingly hard to find in contemporary American stories, because it offers no happiness or culmination at the end.  Bad guys don’t always get punished; good guys don’t ever get medals from princesses or happy retirements into the sunset or reunions with lost loved ones; the very notions of “bad” and “good” get irreversibly complicated.  A tragedy is the story of well-intentioned and deeply sympathetic protagonist(s) coming to a bad end that is at least partially one’s own fault, at least partially the fault of random Shit Happens, and entirely coherent and fitting with the tiny cascade of random events that led to the fall of a lightning-struck tower.  

The purpose of comedy (i.e. stories with happy endings) is easy entertainment.  The purpose of tragedy is to inspire fear and horror through making the audience wonder whether it is possible for each of them to meet a similar end.  With the arguable exception of Cassie, every one of the Animorphs gets his or her own tragedy in the end.  This series is a war epic about the costs of violence.  It was never going to have a happy ending.

Rachel’s loss, in the opening moments, is the most obvious character culmination of the series.  She has been struggling for months if not years to define herself outside of the war, attacked on all sides (her best friend, her boyfriend, her cousin and field commander, her own mother) for the very role that they all nonetheless demand that she perform in order to keep them all safe, not only from the yeerks but from themselves.  Rachel has been the team’s first and last line of defense since the EGS tower battle (#7), and has all-but taken on the title of trash collector since becoming the one to handle David (#22).  Killing Tom is her final act of protecting her found family; completing the suicide run is her final ability to use her comfort with violence to do something good.  She might have done and even become terrible things, but she ultimately succeeds in turning that terror against an even greater evil in her last moments of life.

Arguably the next domino to fall is Tobias.  I’m with Cates: his is the ending I find the least satisfying, because it devalues his friendship-cum-familyhood with Ax.  However, I also can’t say that Applegate didn’t set that ending up.  As early as #13 Tobias shows worrying signs of codependency with Rachel; as early as #3 he proves willing to retreat into his hawk side when the going gets tough.  The scene where “Ken and Barbie” disturb his self-imposed exile through their simple reminder of humanity suggests that Tobias’s retreat isn’t nearly as complete as he’d like it to be, but then he’s never been able to escape being human no matter how hard he tries (see: #3, #33, #43, #49).

Part of what I find so fascinating about Jake’s character arc (fascinating enough that I wrote a goddamn novel or two on the subject) is how much his family story starts complicating this hyper-normative idea of married-parents-two-kids-fenced-backyard-golden-retriever-nice-neighborhood-white-upper-middle-class familyhood starting right in the first book, and how it only makes things worse once the war is over. Jake’s family continues to look “perfect” (i.e. normative) from the moment he first gets home and joins his brother and parents (and resident yeerk) for a home-cooked dinner in #1 all the way up until the alien inside his mom is firing a dracon beam at him from the front seat of her minivan, putting the first scar on the otherwise flawless siding on the facade of their two-story McMansion in #49.  So it’s only natural that Jake’s first thought on committing fratricide in the immediate aftermath of mass murder is to wonder “how would [he] explain this to [his] parents,” and it makes a fair amount of sense that he basically tries to retreat back to that safe haven he (unlike all of his friends) has before the war begins (#54).  But Jake can’t go home; home isn’t there for him to retreat to anymore.  His desire to retreat back to his childhood home borders on pathological, since in many ways he’s older than his parents have ever been, and he’s gone beyond the point where he could ever hope to give his burdens back to them.  

And then there are three.  And then two.

There are two details about Ax’s role in the final book that I find really fascinating.  The first is that line (which I quote all the time, because I find it so revelatory) where Cassie describes herself and Marco as “the only two real survivors” of the war (#54).  Why isn’t Ax included in the list of “survivors” along with Cassie and Marco, even though he’s alive and (physically) well at the time?  My guess would be the hints that he is, in his own way, just as addicted to risk and violence as Rachel ever was.  He doesn’t know how to survive without the war, which leaves him “looking for trouble” in his “boredom”—right up until he recklessly stumbles upon enough “trouble” to get his entire crew killed (#54).  That chapter also contains the other fascinating detail: it’s labeled “Aximili,” not “Ax” the way his chapters are in all the Megamorphs books.  Ax has at least partially given up on the identity he fought so hard to forge throughout the entire book series.  He has retreated back into being what his society expects him to be: a leader, a warrior, and an andalite who does not concern himself much with alien cultures.  He continues playing that role, apparently indifferent to what is happening with Tobias and the others on Earth, right up to his death.

Quick side note: I find it so cool (by which I mean excruciatingly painful) that each of the Animorphs gets what they wanted in the first books in the series—and that those dreams prove to be so hollow once achieved.  Rachel gets eternal glory, and the ultimate thrill ride along the way (#2).  Ax surpasses Elfangor in reputation and respect (#8).  Jake fulfills his daydreams of being treated as a superhero (#2), and of going home to his family (#1).  Marco gets to be not only “an entire episode of Stupid Pet Tricks” but quite possibly the most famous person alive (#2).  Tobias escapes his life and manages once and for all to “fly free” (#3).  Cassie finds a non-violent way to change the world (#4); she even gets to be a horse for a while along the way (#29).  And it’s nothing like any of them thought it would be.  None of their childhood dreams have much feasibility or even appeal by the time they are some of the weariest, most mature and worn-out adults of their generation.  Only Cassie manages to find satisfaction in getting everything she ever wanted.

Only Cassie… because Marco’s not quite a “survivor” either.  He brags about his fame and materialism, sure—but then we’ve never been able to trust Marco’s narration.  (See: the amount of time he spends obfuscating and/or lying to the reader in #30, #25, #15, and #35.)  If you ask Marco outright, everything’s fine and it always has been.  But then Marco describes Jake and Tobias showing up with an offer of a suicide mission as “everything around me turned translucent, like it was all fake… an old reality emerged from beneath the illusion” (#54).  Even before that scene, it’s striking just how much time Marco spends obsessing over Jake.  Marco freely admits to Cassie that he acquired an eagle morph for the specific purpose of following Jake around to spy on him, spends almost half the alleged description of his own life talking about how poorly Jake is functioning, and actually talks Jake into leading his crazy suicide mission for Jake’s own sake.  What Marco doesn’t mention—and what we can assume from Jake’s own narration doesn’t happen—is him actually picking up the phone to call Jake and ask him if he wants to talk.  The flash and glam and seven cars and heated pool and personal butler are yet more misdirection; Marco’s not okay.  He’s just telling us about all the ways Jake’s not okay because that’s safer than admitting his own vulnerability.  Jake says “Marco, you were bored out of your mind” and Marco unhesitatingly agrees (#54).  Marco spends so much time trying to convince everyone of how very happy he is with materialism and Hollywood glam that he fools Cassie, he fools Tobias, he all but fools himself… but he never fools Jake.  Which is why he has to keep Jake at arm’s length, no matter how much his guilt at doing so might eat him up as he’s sitting around watching Jake watching Rachel’s grave in the middle of the night.

And then there’s Cassie.  Cassie who I’ve compared to an anti-Susan Pevensie, Cassie who finds a man who treats her right and uses power for good without resorting to violence.  Marco, who was the last to join the war effort, might have eventually been able to find equilibrium if he’d been willing to get a haircut and get a real job (X). Cassie, who is unafraid to work on her own and leave her team when something needs doing and they can’t help her (#19, #29, #43, #44), is already living a new normal.  Jake is right when he says that Cassie’s “a one-woman army,” and he’s right that she’s “the soldier who has fought her war and moved on.”  The two Animorphs with the least “addiction” to the war emerge from the other side the most intact (#22). Cassie’s never going to be the same person she was, but she understands that.  She doesn’t try to hide from the past, she doesn’t try to retreat into it; she picks herself up and figures out a way to live on her own.  She shows that there’s hope for life after war, but also that there’s no returning to childhood.  She lives, and keeps on living, even after two (maybe three, maybe five) of her fellow Animorphs have been eaten alive by the war.  Because right from the start, Cassie has been comfortable with leaving her team behind—and in the end, she leaves her team behind, and she can’t save a single goddamn one of them.

It’s not a happy ending.  It’s not a comforting ending.  It’s not the kind of ending that suggests people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.  It doesn’t offer the comfortable reassurance that the right ends will justify any means.  It’s the kind of ending that gets in your head, burrows down deep, reads through your memories, and won’t leave you alone.

Don’t get me wrong: I love these characters.  They were my heroes and my idols and my ink-and-paper friends throughout my childhood.  They’ve taught me as much as a lot of real people I’ve known in my life, and there’s a part of me that does want them to live happily ever after.  But if they did, they would lose a lot of the realness that makes them so precious and so painful to love in the first place.

[timpearse-blog]

Evaluation of Module 201

From the outset of this second module it was apparent in my mind that I needed to utilise my time effectively in order to make sure I would be able to fulfil the two parallel aspects of the brief. The first part of the assignment encouraged the further development of the practical work and theoretical research that had begun in module 101, while the second part of the brief, lead us towards collaboration with another artist, or towards the development of a live project.

 I thought long and hard about how best to tackle this brief, and initially, a number of ideas came to mind. I first thought about organising an editorial style fashion shoot, complete with models, makeup artists, and stylists, where I would make high end portraits in the inimitable style of Paolo Roversi, but soon reconsidered this due to my lack of organisational experience in this field.

 I then considered organising an invitational photography exhibition in the city, for Plymouth Art Weekender. This seemed much more attainable, and I began researching all of the various requirements that I would need to meet if I were to go ahead with this idea. I had organised a small exhibition for the art weekender on the previous year, so I felt quite confident in doing this again.

 I approached a number of venues in the city, all of which, however, had already been booked for the weekend in question. I came to the realisation that I had effectively missed the boat with the exhibition idea, as the other exhibiting artists had had a large head start in organising their shows, and had all the available venues on lockdown. I thought about persisting with the idea, but soon came to see that there would be no point in promising an exhibition to a number of artists, and not being able to deliver it for them.

 I began to think more directly about what it was that I had been doing in the previous module, and how I would like to position myself professionally within the context of the wider photographic community in Plymouth and beyond.    

 Through the development of my technical skill set in module 101, I had been able to learn the intricacies of the albumen printing process, as well as gain significant skills in traditional retouching and hand colouring. I knew that I wanted to continue using these skills in the forthcoming module, and that eventually I would also like to be able to offer my printing skills to other photographers as a professional service, so I thought that the live project would be the ideal arena for their application.

 Having decided upon what to aim for in a live project, I began searching for an appropriate outlet for my printing skills. I thought about advertising my skills to established and emerging photographers alike, but in the end, I decided to approach one photographer in particular, Jojo Moreschi, and pitch the idea of collaboration to him directly.

 Jojo was in the middle of shooting a new series of photographs of couples for an upcoming book and exhibition, so I suggested that we meet for coffee to discuss the possibility of me printing his digital photographs as albumen prints; an effective way of adding a certain degree of tangibility to his images that would benefit his subject matter, I argued.

 I described the process to him in detail, showing a couple of examples of prints that I had to hand. He was very excited about the prospect of collaboration, and promised to send me an image from his couple’s portrait series upon his return home. This was great news; I had found a highly appropriate outlet for my printing practice, and one which would successfully satisfy the live project brief.

 I spent the next few weeks making albumen paper and preparing Jojo’s images to turn them into digital negatives. Having had little experience in this process, I went ahead without the level of knowledge required, resulting in a poorly made first batch of negatives.            

 I printed them on to acetate using a laser printer, which made for less than satisfactory results (blog 112). The albumen prints that I made from these negatives were of low contrast, with thin tonal range and low detail. It became obvious that the laser printer could not handle the subtlety of tone evident in the digital file, leading to blotchy, low resolution prints. The pigment it used was also insufficient to block the ultra violet light effectively enough to allow for evenly exposed prints with correct contrast.

 I realised that I needed to do extensive research into which materials were best to use if I was going to produce exhibition quality prints using this process, and as the weeks went by, I made many useful discoveries in the methods, materials and suppliers for each aspect of the process (blog 114), leading to my first successful albumen prints from a digital image source.

 Upon presenting these prints to Jojo (blog 118), they were scrutinised by both of us at great length in order to uncover any issues with the process. These initial test prints were never going to be perfect; I had been forced to coat the paper in my kitchen, for instance, so there were many imperfections to be discussed and ironed out. We were though, on the whole, happy with how the project was moving, so we decided to write up a budget for the collaboration (blog 121), making reference to the suppliers I had recommended as sources for the chemistry and materials, and also to draw up an agreement covering the project (blog 128), to make everything a little more official.

 With the materials and chemistry sourced, the images on their way, and my techniques improving daily (blog 135), I felt confident in the project and how it was progressing. It was taking up a disproportionate amount of my time in comparison to my personal practical work and theoretical research however, so I decided to take a little time to focus on some of the other aspects of my practice, while Jojo finished making the last of his digital photographs. We agreed that he would send them over to me once they were all shot, after which I could begin my part of the process.

 After a couple of weeks, Jojo suggested that we meet to discuss the project. In the meeting, it soon transpired that Jojo had made the decision the pull out of the collaboration (blog 144), citing worries that he had over the quality of the test prints that I had made, and that he was concerned that the finished photographs would be of a similarly poor standard. He was also worried about the time frame that he had set for the project, and that the photographs would not be ready in sufficient time.

 I attempted to assure him that his worries were unfounded, and that the project was developing nicely, but he did not seem able to see past the imperfections evident on my experimental prints, and drew my attention to the crystalline perfection of the digital images he had provided, asking why they were not the same. I answered him as best I could, by letting him know that this was largely untested theory to me and yet my prints were getting better and better all the time, but Jojo had made up his mind, and cancelled the collaboration.

 I felt defeated. I had spent so much of my time and money on this project, and had invested a great deal of belief into what we were doing. Alternative printing processes are difficult to master, but offer huge rewards in terms of visual richness. I felt it was a shame that Jojo had not had the patience and belief in what we were doing to wait until the first batch of final prints were finished. If he had held them in his hands, I’m sure he would have felt differently.

 It was important now to find a new direction for my live project. I decided to fall back on my back up idea, one which I could focus on entirely, and not worry about the input of a second party (blog 145).

 My plan was to produce a high quality website and a set of promotional materials, setting myself up as a future proof brand. Since the outset of this module I had already been networking as best I could, by entering my work into open calls and competitions (blog 107, 113, 115, 119, 127, 137, 143, 160), and by showing my work to certain influential individuals (blog 157, 171) to gain valuable feedback. I have even been successful in gaining a little recognition of my work, having been selected to exhibit a selection of my photographs as part of the Retina festival of photography in Edinburgh, this summer (blog 155).

 I did not have a comprehensive online presence, however, with the only outward facing aspect of my practice being Instagram. This meant that potential clients, collectors, or galleries had no point real of contact with me, or anywhere to view a high quality digital version of my portfolio.

 Making a website seemed to be of utmost importance as a starting point for this new direction, with a secondary task of creating quality promotional materials which could be given to interested parties, sent to galleries by way of an introduction, or as a point of first contact.

 It was my desire to keep all of my promotional materials to the same design specification, so as to promote a feeling of brand continuity between each of the online and real world elements. I decided to therefore concentrate on designing my website first (blog 149), and when I was happy with that, move on to designing my other promotional materials to match.

 The process of designing the website began quite simply, and after choosing an appropriate template to base my build on, I had little to no trouble in creating a basic site populated with my own photographs (blog 156). I spent a great deal of time perfecting the look of the site, taking other fine art photographers websites as inspiration (blog 150), until I came up with something that I was truly proud of (blog 168). I made sure there was strong visual continuity running throughout the site, with families of fonts chosen for their aesthetic qualities, and background colours chosen to maximise the visual impact of my images.

 With the website live, I began working on my other promotional materials. I decided to create a pack of small A6 sized postcards, each pack containing twenty five different designs, prominently featuring my own photographs on one side, with contact information on the reverse (blog 158). These cards would be packaged in small, flat, black boxes, and sent out to destinations across the globe.

 During the process of designing these cards, I began to consider where exactly it was that I was going to be sending them, and to whom. I did a lot of research into who I wanted to target and why, focusing on galleries that had demonstrated an interest in exhibiting fine art photography with a similar aesthetic quality to my own, in the last year (blog 161). From this, I came up with a list of potential institutions to target. I will be doing this in the next module by sending out postcard packs and referring them to the new website.

 All in all, my experiences of this live project have been mixed, at best. Jojo’s cancellation of our collaboration really threw me, and caused a lot of undue stress and pressure. After spending so long working towards the project, I felt very disappointed that I would not be able to see it through to completion. This did lead to me making a very professional looking website and set of promotional materials, however, so perhaps it’s not all that bad.

 I do feel that the second part of this live project was the time better spent, and I do resent the fact that I didn’t just focus on self promotion from the beginning. It was much more worthwhile for me and my personal practice to develop the website and promotional cards, which have become extremely useful assets which will always be available to me from now on.

 Over the course of this module, it was my intention to continue with my experimental process lead practice, whilst strengthening my theoretical research into the abstract self. I also wanted to develop my standpoint on photographic theory, specifically within the realms of aesthetics and photographic history, and the positioning of the modern photograph as an object, within contemporary photographic discourse.

 I decided that the best way to fulfil all of these various development parameters would be to focus on the theoretical research into photographic history and aesthetics, and use this as a jumping off point from which to create experimental photographic works in reference to the research undertaken.

 I began by looking into photography’s use in the world of Western esotericism, namely within the practices of séance (blog 107), mesmerism (blog 129), and phrenology (blog 132), and its use as a persuasive tool in convincing observers that what they were seeing was real, or that the practice being observed was acceptable as physical truth.

 Photography was a powerful tool in the late nineteenth century, when the majority of esoteric practices were at their height, with even the Royal Photographic Society having declared the practice as the most accurate, practically infallible science. This lent credence to its use as an investigative tool, being expertly employed by the Society for Psychical Research as an instrument for the proving or disproving of esoteric phenomena (blog 133).

 Concerning the creation of photography’s identity during this time and the development of its own rules of aesthetics, I believe the most important roles were played by studio photographers, in two distinctly separate ways. Firstly, the fashionable carte de visite (blog 110) was the must have item for people across the globe. It was a cherished reminder of friends at home and abroad, and can truly be seen as a watermark in the democratisation of the photographic image. Secondly, the influence of spirit photography shines through as having exerted itself upon the aesthetic development of the medium, as it showed for the first time the creative possibilities of the practice, which had, up until this point, been regarded as purely based in the arena of the physical sciences (blog 116).

 Fine art photography did not yet exist at this time, and the notion of a photographic image being seen as art was unthinkable in most circles. The Royal Photographic Society distanced itself strongly from any notion of such, stating that photographic pictorialism was the lowest form of the science of chemical image making. This negative assertion caused a group to splinter from the society, forming the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring, in 1892.

 This research got me thinking about the politics of image making and how the aesthetics of the photographic method have been continually held under scrutiny since its invention (blog 152). The enormous amount of development that the medium went through in its first seventy five years caused it to have a crisis of representation, holding one foot in the scientific world, and the other in the art world.

 This implication fascinated me, and forced me to consider the core values at the centre of my own image making; and to question what it was that I was trying to say with my photography. I came to the realisation that I wanted to make work that blurred the line between science and art, forcing the viewer to address questions regarding the integrity of the contemporary photographic image.

 With this new found clarity, I began to move away from my research into photographic history and aesthetics, and begin to consider looking back at the concept of self, through these fresh eyes. Having spent a long time in the realms of esotericism, I thought that it would be appropriate to continue my research into the self from this standpoint.

 I began by looking into eastern meditative philosophy (blog 130), and instantly found parallels between Buddhist and Hindu theological reasoning regarding the self, and my previous research into quantum loop consciousness. This inspired me to create an image with this in mind, in an attempt to visually articulate the links described between the macrocosmic and microcosmic aspects of quantum physics, and Buddhist and Hindu belief structures regarding a notion of self (blog 154). I felt that the image that I produced was particularly effective, and I was pleased by the ambiguous nature of what emerged, fulfilling my new found desire to ask questions of the integrity of process and theory.

 Over the course of the next few weeks, I researched theory upon theory, responding in a number of different ways (blog 126, 139, 148, 166) to visually express the crux of my research at each point. The images that I have made articulate their corresponding theories very effectively, and I have begun to feel confident in the processes that I am using to distil photographs from ideas. Whether it is a question regarding the self as a construct of capitalism (blog 124), or how the self relates to the concept of the other (blog 138), the research I have undertaken during this module has been extremely useful in helping me to better understand my points of reference, elucidating an often abstract concept and allowing me to begin to grasp it with both hands.