Unit 1 Study Statement V1
- siladan010
- Feb 5, 2024
- 10 min read
Updated: Feb 14, 2024
Working title:
I’m not sure where I am, and I don’t know where I’m going, but there is a major shift happening in the way I make, see and connect with art.
For the duration of this course, I will be challenging my approach to art and engaging with alternative ways of making, seeing, and connecting. The study statement and the study statement title are works in progress; I will revisit, adjust, and reflect on them periodically.
Aims and Objectives
· Photography and Exploration
Explore different ways of engaging with the River Thames, challenging my approach to photography aesthetics and engaging with alternative methods of making, seeing, and connecting.
Create photographic work exploring movement, reflections, textures, time, and flow while investigating the embankments and waterman stairs on the river Thames.
Collect items such as plants or lost/left behind objects that can be used for creating art.
Study water movement and interaction between chemicals coating photo-sensitive paper with the water of the River Thames.
· Screen Printing
Learn and master the screen-printing process by creating prints using either digital images or use scans of the items collected on the river Thames, or the items.
Play with different sizes, colours, and mediums such as papers, or wood, concrete, fabric etc.
· Rayograph
Use collected items to create Rayographs in the darkroom or while on the river Thames to connect with and understand its landscape and history.
Use cyanotypes, black and white negative and positive paper, and colour negative paper.
They should help me better understand the essence of the river and its history.
· Bookmaking
Explore and play using visual language to create sequences and seek new visual approaches.
Learn, explore and develop new stitching skills in bookmaking.
· Continued Photography Practice
Improve techniques, composition and aesthetics in making photographs.
Develop a greater depth of understanding of the photography theory and history.
Reflect on the feedback and critiques from peers and lecturers to refine and improve my work continuously.
Explore new ways of making photographs, such as pinhole cameras and/or cameras obscura, polaroids
Interested in investigating further long exposure, expanding my understanding of the concept of time and movement in photography
· Self-Discovery, testing limits
Discover personal motivations for walking along the River Thames through psychoanalysis and psychogeography. Understand self as Daniel and as an artist.
Test all possibilities of creating until failure; break down self like a Lego Toy to rebuild from new, aiming for improvement as an art practitioner and in personal roles including being a human, father, etc.
Expand the act of self-reflection
· Resilience
Revisit these aims and objectives and add or restructure them during the progression of the course.
Brake free from the old chains and bad habits, push my own practice to the edge, overcome preconceptions, set new challenges and allow myself to learn from “failings” through reflection.
Learn to continuously reflect and keep documentation via the blog of the making, thinking and researching process.
Methodology
· Screen-printing
Practice screen-printing using different paper types and different artworks, reflect and document on the blog proces.
· Photography
Use the photography apparatus to explore movement and time
Use different ways of editing work to create good aesthetics of the visual language
Explore new ways of making photographs
Reflect on the process on the blog
· Rayograph
Use rayographs to explore textures and movement in images that align with the flow of the River Thames.
Use b&w negative and positive paper to make rayographs, explore ways of making them and fixing them while on the river Thames
Document the process and reflect on the blog
· Psychogeography
Use psychogeography to explore the River Thames and inspire new ways of making photographs to depict movement and the flow of water in the river Thames.
· Philosophy and Photography Theory
Visit art galleries
Go to lectures, talks and seminars (online or face to face)
Read books and papers on Taoism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis -take time to absorb and reflect on my findings
Read books and papers on photography theory and history
Reflect and document the findings on the blog
· Continued Art Practice Experimentation
o Continue making images for visual research using any available photographic capturing device, including my phone camera.
o Practice screen printing.
o Join UAL workshops to learn new ways of making prints.
o Engage with alternative photography processes such as rayographs, cyanotypes, and chemigrams.
o Use my Polaroid Sx70 to make polaroids and explore alternative ways of exposure and processing.
o Explore and play more with inkjet printers to print images.
o Learn and practice about the book stitching process, image sequencing, and bookmaking.
o Apply newly gained knowledge with my students and see where this leads. Encourage free thinking and making art without setting boundaries among my students.
o Continuously seek inspiration and apply understanding do my art.
o Document and reflect on the processes on my blog
o Spend at least one day per week researching and reading photography, art theory and philosophy.
o Every week, create different types of works, such as photographs, edit work, make prints, reflect, join lectures, engage in art conversations with my peers
o Reflection and documentation of my art practice on my blog
Context
I am not sure where I am when it comes about my art practice, and I don’t know where my work is going to be, but I know that my work around the river Thames contributes to the way I see and connect to art, it’s also a way of healing, a way of re-discovery or rebuilding like a Lego toy as used by Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World where he defines Lego as the "most ingenious toy in the world" that offers “endless possibilities”. In a sense, I see my art practice as the Lego toys; it has endless possibilities to engage and/or communicate.
I have set a two-year timeline for this explorative journey. I don’t think setting any boundaries, restrictions, or limitations will work for me at this stage. I might sound very broad, and one could say I might not be able to cope, and it will not work well for me, but being open to the healing and construction I anticipate will enable my work to guide me on my journey. I should have a clearer vision by the end of this academic year, and in the second year I plan to embed and reinforce my practice trough continuous development, engagement and reflection.
The River Thames employs a powerful influence on my art practice with its dynamic moods and energy. Peter Ackroyd, in the book Thames Sacred River, describes it as not just a physical entity but also a river of literature, tragedy, suicide and the river of trade and politics. The Thames landscape is ever-changing - its form constantly reshapes the embankments and tides - symbolising transformation even within its psychological darkness.
I’m examining how my connection with the water/rivers/ river Thames extends beyond personal experience and also how it connects with London’s historical relationship with the Thames.
I am intrigued by stories of individuals who draw inspiration from rivers, and I am keen on researching artists who have explored similar themes through various mediums.
I pursue incorporating in my art practice elements from Taoism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, leading me to study the works of Edmund Husserl, Freud and Jung – these should contribute to a complex and dynamic base that will inform my work and also should fuel my understanding to where I want to be with my creative practice.
Tosim, Chinese philosophy, is a way of existence in harmony, balance flow and interconnection, encouraging harmony with nature and spontaneity. It will help me to seek an understanding of simplicity, flow, and a sense of unity in my creative process.
Phenomenology investigates the essence of human experience. It seeks to uncover the original structures of consciousness and how we perceive and interpret the world around us. Phenomenology and art both try to understand things better, question what we assume, the lived experience of being in the world and uncover and explore hidden meanings.
Psychoanalysis and art share a parallel path too, both centred around the study of images—whether real or imagined—to uncover deeper meanings. I will be interested in discovering the work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and in interconnecting with my art practice and also rediscovering myself as an art practitioner.
Artist Inspirations
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “The Time Capsule”, “Seascape”
Robert Rauschenberg, Japanese ski, 1988, quote from “Japanese Ski”: “Screwing things up is a virtue.”
Catherine Yass’s “Damaged/Drown/Canal 168 Hours”
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin’s “The Press Conference June 9, 2008/The Day That Nobody Died” , “The Holly Bible”
Jonh Hiliard, Sixty Seconds of light 1970
Uta Barth, Ground 1994
Vera Lutter, Battersea OPwer Station 2004
Olafur Eliasson, Jokla Series
Paul Graham, Man on Sidewalk, LA 2000
STEVEN PIPPIN, Laundromat-Locomotion
Sayuri Ichida,E3 2JH
Philip Gusto
Howard Hodgkin
John Blackmore, All Flows
Outcomes:
At the end of this two-year journey, I will have developed my understanding and created a foundation for my art practice. With my work on the River Thames, I will have deeply explored psychogeography, Taoism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, creating work that reflects my progress and development as an artist. My skills in screen printing and bookmaking creation will be refined.
I will have discovered my personal motivations through psychoanalysis and psychogeography and tested my limits in creating art. Ultimately, I will have a clearer vision of my art practice and a deeper connection and understanding of my work around the River Thames and elsewhere.
I would have created a strong body of work on the River Thames and made a hand-stitched photobook. Showed the work in an exhibition.
Work Plan
Currently, because of work, family commitments, and my own struggles, my art practice and research work pattern is extremely chaotic, fragmented, and dislocated. I am all over the place. I am taking notes on 4 different notebooks, or on my iPhone notes, I also create voice notes and make photo notes. I work on learning screen printing in small breaks between tasks I do at work or after work. I go out and take photos at weekends between family commitments. Sometimes I update my blog using my phone when going to bed and sometimes while walking. I am very invested, but I process certain elements more slowly, and sometimes I kind of like that, but sometimes it works against me. I should soon see a pattern and use it to create a sustained pace to help progress with my art-making.
We are week 14th: into the 60-week program, for the next 46 weeks, my plan for the rest of the program is:
Next 4 weeks
- Engage with coursework, go to the lectures and update the blog.
- Carry on with making photographs on the river Thames and reflecting on the aesthetics of the work
- Stimulate environment to facilitate accidental creations or accidental findings in my art, explore those accidental makings
- learn new ways of screen printing and by the end of the 4 weeks create a GOOD print using screen printing.
- use the items collected from the river Thames to create positive screens for screen printing and raygrams, scan them digitally, paint them and photograph them, glue them together and make a sculpture. Reflect on the process and update the blog
- Start reading Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and reflect on my findings and understandings.
- Created a dummy photobook with the work already made on the river Thames
- Finalise the photo book dummy of the work started over the summer “NoPlace”
- Finalise the work for the interim show and participate and help with the hanging of the work.
- Spend at least half day per week on the river Thames, photographing, walking, thinking, observing
o I set myself on a busy 4 weeks. I will need to keep going. I will reflect on the period and analyse what went well and what didn’t, on achievements and failures. I will seek advice via tutorials or from peers.
Following 4 weeks
- Carry on with the above
- Participate in the Low residency as part of the MA Fine Art
- Find the pace of your art-making and research
- Reflect on the way you are making art
- Visit art galleries
- Go to talks and lectures
- Read more about photography theories
- After reflecting on readings of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung read more
- Join a reading group
- Research more photography aesthetics
- Perfect the screenprinting practice, and create a second GOOD print that I’m proud of
- Start developing a good understating of what is Taoism
o Reflect on the period and analyse what went well and what didn’t. Seek advice via tutorials or from peers.
Longer term
- Build another camera obscura or a large pinhole camera (I miss so much the camera obscura I built into my camper van; I wish I didn’t have to sell the camper).
- Get a good understanding and create clear links within my art practice of psychogeography, Taoism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis – or at least the ones that make sense to me and my art practice.
- Embed the new learnings into my education practice, making sure my new knowledge is shared with my students.
- Create a strong pattern of working and making art
- Engage with gallery visits, go to talks and seminars
- Submit work
- Engage with coursework
- Refine blog posting, make it a ritual
- Keep exploring and refining the work around Thames
- Make new work on my other long-term projects
- Facilitate learning through reflection and critical thinking so I allow myself to expand my way of seeing and undertaking.
Left black here space to add more to the working plan. As I progress, this list should expand.
Bibliography –I will continually add to it.
Screen Printing
DISCOVERINGDORA MAAR
THE CAMERA OBSCURAAND THE PURSUIT OF THE UNCANNY
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: The story of two lives, one nation, and a century of art under tyranny
by Ai Weiwei (Author)
Parables for the Virtual
By Brian Massumi
The Essential Jung: Selected Writings
by Anthony Storr
The Red Book: A Reader's Edition
Memories, Dreams, Reflections: An Autobiography, C. G. Jung
The Ego and the Id
Book by Sigmund Freud
The Interpretation of Dreams
Book by Sigmund Freud
https://www.britannica.com/science/Rorschach-Test - Rorschach test psychology
The Use of Imagery in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310391712_The_Use_of_Imagery_in_Psychoanalysis_and_Psychotherapy
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ875395.pdf - Using Drawings in Play Therapy: A Jungian Approach
Read the Tao Te Ching
Phenomenology of Perception
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
How phenomenology can help us learn from the experiences of others
Brian E. Neubauer, Catherine T. Witkop and Lara Varpio
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO ARTISTIC INTENTION
By Donald B. Kuspit
"Phenomenology"
Johns Hopkins Guide for Literary Theory and Criticism entry (2nd Edition 2005)
Paul B. Armstrong
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Phenomenology
Totten Movement-Through-Space
The History of Light -The Idea of Photography
Theresa Mikuriya
The structure of the visual book by Keith A. Smith
Making Books
a guide to creating hand-crafted books
by the London Centre for Book Arts
Bookdummies
An Imaginary Studio, a Non-stop Process 1993-2015 by Victor Sira
Photobooks:
Olivia Arthur Strenger
Anaesthesia by Valentina Abenavolihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYsxx2R8TqE
Holy Bible by Adam Brunberg and oliver Chanarin
Photographic Memory The Album in the Age of Photography By Verna Posever Curtis. https://aperture.org/books/photographic-memory/
Other photobooks:
Various video lectures on YouTube and other platforms regarding photography, art
The Day Nobody Died (2008)
How to make a lithographic print | National Museums Liverpool
Note to self: This study statement should not replace the chains you are training to break free from, but instead, it should be regarded as your guide out of mental and cultural imprisonment and darkness so you can evolve as a better human and art practitioner.