Focus On: Jenny Holzer

As I am using image and text in my project and i am creating narratives I looked at the work of Jenny Holzer

Source: Jenny Holzer Projections Buenos Aires (2000)

Source: Jenny Holzer Projections Goslar (2002)

The use of text and image in her work through light projection works well with the messages that she is trying to send out - it is commentary on politics, life, sexuality, violence and power: 

'The main topics of Holzer’s work are violence, oppression, sexuality, feminism, power of war and death. The artist is emphasising and bringing to light important issues of the capitalist society by cleverly commenting on sexual identity, gender relations and a variety of political and existential issues. ' (Widewalls 2016: Jenny Holzer)

The stories I am using are personal however as with any art piece there may be a universal meaning one that everyone can relate to and so this work of Holzer's although biased in the sense of the message shows a narrative highly visual solution to to text and image.  the image here is the location and it only the text that the artist is adding.  In the work I am creating the words are not mine but I will create or reappropriate images to highlight the words.

I will be exploring further text and image and how to make a narrative work in an art piece.

My Mother's Story On Website

Here are the screenshots and link to my website to My Mother's Story:

I may change the layout of this story but I put the story together on Photoshop and then uploaded as a page as this was the easiest way to ensure I got the layout that I wanted.  The link to my website is: Zoe Van-de-Velde

I now need to work on making the other stories consistent and finding the right images ot go with each story.  

My Mother's Story

I first left home when I was 17 or 18 and I moved in with a girl whose real name was Marion but she liked to be called Marianne because she felt that she looked like Marianne Faithfull.

Source: W Magazine: Marianne Faithfull

My Mum and Dad came home and I told them that I was leaving home, my Dad was very disappointed and the photograph that is linked to this story shows me looking very happy at the thought of leaving home except that there had been a big argument, so it was the camera telling a lie.  When I moved out I only managed to stay gone three months because my flatmate was hardly there and I got very depressed being on my own having lived with a family of six (including me) and she was having boyfriend problems which resulted in alarm clocks being thrown through the window and the police being brought in. I had to phone my Daddy and say 'please can I come home?'

My Mother & Father (1968) 

This is the picture my Mother sent to go with her story - and this is her with my Father whom she married a few years later... This is 6 years before I was born and my Dad had hair...

My Leaving Home Story

I was sixteen and just finishing my GCSE's I had a place in college to do A levels in Performing Arts but I just didn't want to stay so I enlisted the help of The Lady magazine;



Source: The Lady Album of the Week

This magazine has adverts from people around the world seeking staff for their (very big) houses.. They also have adverts for au pairs to look after their children.  I had decided I wanted to go to Germany, I thought it looked strange and romantic but also I thought it was full of all the structure that I did not feel at home.  So I applied for many jobs, as I was underage it meant that the person employing me would have to be my Guardian so it was a little more difficult.  Finally I was offered two jobs and I took the one that sounded the best.  It was a family with three children aged 11, 9, and 4.  I remember the day I left I had packed (not well) I hardly took anything with me and hadn't even packed a coat (the woman I worked for ended up buying me a coat when it got cold) I left my Mother at the airport she was upset, I don't remember really crying until I got on the plane which was full of just German business men - I felt so far away before I had gone anywhere...

I arrived at Frankfurt airport and was met by the woman from the au pair agency, I remember driving through the German streets thinking how different everything looked, a different smell, different trees, a different feel.  I arrived at the house and met the children and the Mother - they showed me my room which was in a grey basement and had a tiny window with bars and all I could see was the mason's opposite who had gravestones in his garden .  The room consisted of two mattresses on top of one another some bedding, a table and I think a chair.  The advantage of the basement was that I had my own bathroom next door to the room but other than that it was a very austere room that despite my efforts with posters never looked much cheerier!  I went out for a walk on my first night, got promptly lost and had great difficultly finding my way back as I couldn't speak German and did not even take a map with me.  I think I spent the next six months lost ....

Interlude: Zoetrope looks back...

Everyone, I thought I would blog something I found whilst I was working on my project.  It is me when I was you!

My student card at De Montfort in my first year of University.  I look so innocent that it hurts...

In relation to my project by this time I had left home six years prior to this.... story to follow. 

Further Thoughts and Ideas: Major Project: Leaving Home

Thinking further on this project I will use the same model as Calle's in the sense that I will start with my own story of leaving home and add images that are related/representative.

I will be using my Olympus E3 DSLR to take the images - I may use a variety of lenses (wide angle/telephoto/pancake) to get the shots I want.  I will shoot all images in black and white.  I will do minimal editing as I aim to get the shots I want in-camera.  All post-production will be carried out on Photoshop - this will mainly be layout related and designing pages like a book.

I will ask students/people I know to tell me their stories about leaving home and I will use a iGearPro Voice Activated Audio Recorder to record their stories - I can then transcribe these into a book page or I could digitally add the sound over the images - I will try both versions for the project.

The images must reflect the personal of the story and add a new dimension and feeling to the piece.

I like these Gillian Wearing videos as the voice-switching of the children with the Mother is quite disturbing - I like the stories being told the telling on video in this way does add a new dimension to the piece.

Gillian Wearing 2 in 1

I also really like the beauty and poignant nature of the Chris Marker film Sans Soleil here is the opening scene:

Sans Soleil; Opening

I am interested here in how the narrative is overlaid over the images, how the sound and image work together to create feeling and a sense of time.  

Major Project: Leaving Home

My major project will be about documenting people's experiences of leaving home.  The project will consist of either a sound/written record of people's stories which will sit alongside a photograph of the person or the person's things that have meaning.

I particularly like the layout of Sophie Calle's exquisite pain where she tells her story of a man leaving her and then asks 100 people to tell their stories of break ups - the idea being that her pain lessons each time she tells the story and they tell her their story.

Source: Sign of the Owl: Figuring Absence

These are the pages of Calle's book I like the layout and the idea, with images that relate but are not necessarily the person - telling the story through the objects. 

I was thinking in terms of camerawork that I could use a film camera to take the images in black and white and then have them digitised for the project.  I think this will lend a more nostalgic feel to the images giving a feeling of distance from the story.

Final Advert: Go Vegan: Pure Pleasure

This is my final vegan advert

I added the Vegan logo in the corner.  I think this advert has worked quite well, the idea I think shows veganism to be attractive and sexy which is what I wanted to come across.  I am not sure about the dripping juice on the black but it goes with the concept and I am hoping that it works. I have printed it out and I think that it looks high quality and would work in a magazine as well as online.  I do like the simplicity of it as I think this gives it more impact.

The Vegan Logo:

This Vegan logo is the trademark Vegan sign to show when products are vegan for more information you can read about this here: Vegan Logo

Here is the link to the Vegan Society if you are interested in looking further into veganism: Vegan Society

Process: Vegan Advert

Here are the screen shots from Photoshop process

I began by opening the original image I chose from my contact sheet - I wanted the juice dripping.  I then selected the mouth and juice using the lasso tool.

 

I adjusted the saturation on the lips to make them redder to stand out more.

I then created an A3 canvas with a black background and copied and pasted the selected area onto the canvas.

I then used the eraser tool to tidy the mouth up and added the text using the text tool and using Felix Tilting Regular Font.

To finish I tidied the edges of the mouth up more using the eraser tool and then ensuring my image was the correct resolution I printed the image onto photographic paper.

Process One: Vegan Advert

So this is my contact sheets for the images I will be using on the advert.  I used super macro to ensure that I had sharp detail on the images and took these in a brightly lit location to ensure the macro had enough light and did not blur.  I used a mirror to see the camera screen to ensure that the shot was framed exactly just around the lips to ensure that I did not have any superfluous background.

Vegan Advert 2nd Attempt

This is my second attempt at an idea for the vegan advert:

This time I was thinking of this with just the lips moving:

Rocky Horror Show Lips

Check out the lips: Rocky Horror Show Science Fiction

I am using this idea as I like teh 'vegans last longer advert that I blogged before and the idea of purity from my last idea so I amalgamated the two and this is what I have come up with.  I will use my own lips with red lipstick and a strawberry to make this image using my camera and self-timer.

Vegan Ad: Where;s your Mama?

Initial Layout

This is my initial layout for my Vegan Advert

This obviously needs some work and I am going to work more on these ideas.

Further Ideas & examples

Here are some other examples of Vegan Ads:



Source: Reta Vegan Ad

This advert goes with shocking  however this could alienate people - using children in adverts can often cause offence when approaching a cause.



Source: Peta Vegan Ad 2

i think this works better as it is funny and this is more appealing

Ideas for Advertising Project

I have been thinking of ideas for the advertising project and I have decided I would like to do an advert for Veganism.  Therefore I have looked at other adverts for Veganism.  Here are some examples:

Source: Peta Ad


Source: Abolitionist Approach

Final Images: What's in my Bag?

These are my final sequence images for what's in my bag.  From this you can see that my bag is clearly a work bag as it has my ID badge.  There are a variety of pens that would suggest I do something with writing.  There are tissues, various packets of cigarettes (so clearly I like to smoke), glasses (I can't see properly), some stockings and an umbrella (Pessimistically always prepared for rain!). I think that this piece does give an idea about who I am and the things I carry round with me everyday.  I like the bag contents as it shows things I can't do without each day, the things that I carry through life and feel that I need.  Perhaps another project would be to start removing things from my life to see if I can do without them - find out what's really important!

Photographically I think these work well however I think there are other projects that have done this even better I particularly liked the Artist Hans-Peter Feldmann  he paid women £400 for them to put the contents of their bag into a museum exhibition.  Check out this link: 

Hans Peter Feldmann Exhibition

this artist did this as he was interested in women's handbags as the contents of his own Mother's handbag was strictly taboo and he wanted to explore this through the work.  I like the idea that he paid the women to do this and reveal their lives through objects.

Process: What's in my Bag?

Contact Sheets: What's in my Bag?

I will choose a sequence on these images to use - I will put these together on Photoshop as a final piece. 

What's in my Bag? Research

Source: whats-in-my-bag-mark-frauenfelder

Further to my What's in my Bag? project I looked at Mark Frauenfelder

Sequential Images

My first project is to create sequential photographic images on my phone. However I made my sequential using my Olympus camera.

My idea was to show you something about me therefore my project was called 'What's in my bag?'

So I photographed the contents of my bag in sequence to show the different items

I looked at this project from The Guardian

What's in my Manbag?

I liked this project as each item tells me more about the person and I can find out about people through the objects that they keep with them.

Welcome to Zoetrope

Welcome to my blog.  On this blog I will be talking about my work in Digital Arts, looking at other artists and photographers that really interest me and I will be sharing with you my own art and photographic work which I hope you will enjoy.

My name is Zoe Van-de-Velde, artist, photographer, writer and teacher -  I look forward to sharing my work with you.