Photography Assignment; Abstract fear

Instillation art is art that transforms the perception of a space, be it a room, landscape or anything else.  Work is normally three dimensional and can be permanent or semi permanent and is done in a wide range of materials such as art, sound and performance. Instillations are normally site specific meaning they were specially designed for the space that they have been placed in. Instillation art became very important in the 1970s.
The instillation artists that I am going to look at first is Berndnaut Smilde who's a dutch artist who made an indoor cloud. To create the cloud he used a smoke machine combined with indoor moisture and dramatic lighting to create an indoor cloud. I absolutely loved this instillation there is hardly any information on the internet about it, but I think it works well as research because he brought the sky down to earth and let people witness a cloud in front of them. what really fascinated me about this was thatI have an absolute want in my life to be able to fly like a bird, so I really liked how he'd brought a piece of the sky that we can enjoy down on earth. The cloud formation was set up into a few different rooms but like the one in the picture, they were all pretty plain, I think if there was any other detail in the room it would have distracted you from the meaning of the piece, and also because it's meant to be bringing a piece of the sky down sometimes there's nothing else around, not even any more clouds! 

The next instillation artist I decided to take a look at was young artist Chiharu Shiota who's work she classes as very personal to herself, her work that I picked to look at was a piece she did on physical recreations of child hood trauma, this piece she called 'in silence', in which she burned a piano then encased it in black wool. This stood for when she was little she watched a neighbours house go up in flames and she remembered how the piano sounded going up into flames. She classes her self as 'painting in the air'. She says with the black wool she creates protection but also a prison. I really love her work, it reminds me of spider webs and it really captures all the space she worked in with the wool rather than just  having an object in the middle of the room. I really like the dark look to her work, I would like to portray this feeling through my work. What I really liked about this wool effect was how busy it made common objects feel like chairs, the black wool wrapped around everything, for me represented chaos and scattered thoughts of the people using these objects. I feel this gives off such strong feelings, and I would love to be able to create similar feelings in my work. 

The next instillation that I am going to look at is a really interesting one by Leandro Erlich, called the swimming pool.  Looking down on the instillation the piece just looks like a normal swimming pool but it's actually only ten centimetres of water on some glass then the underneath is open.  This piece really warps reality, and completely changes the perspective of the place that it's set in. There sadly wasn't very much information on this piece on the internet. For some people this would create a sense of fear I think if they had a fear of water or drowing, but if someone absolutely loved the idea of water they would love it, it's what the person takes from it, but with my project I need to create a sense of fear or comfortablenesses to anyone who looks at it. 

When first reading through the brief I started to research into different types of fears that people experience. From pretty common fears like spiders and the dark to some quite unusual ones, like the fear that a duck is watching you Anatidaephobia. A lot of the different fears were really interesting, I thought about doing clowns and had a look at lots of different makeup ideas that I could do on different people but after having a think and writing some notes I decided that I’d like to tackle something that effects quite lot of people in different ways. I have decided to do my project on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. There are lots of different types of fears that come with OCD, ones such as urges to wash your hands over and over again through absolute fear that you’re dirty or that something bad will happen, the need for things to be neat and fearing things that feel out of place and the idea that something terrible could go wrong if these things aren’t completed. Looking on the internet there has not been many, projects trying to portray how it feels to go through life with this problem. My aim with this instillation is to portray how it feels to be in the mind of someone with OCD using both photography and sound tracks and the possible video. 

For references to other peoples work for inspiration for my own I tried to google the different fears, the best place that I found art and photographs based on OCD fears was on Deviantart. There wasn’t as much as I’d hoped but my favourite photograph by blacknightingale I found that I think so perfectly showed OCD and the thought process of it. Reading her details about her photograph she'd written that she'd gone for the checking side of OCD. I do like the idea of having bits of paper stuck onto the subject in the image with thoughts out, but I didn’t like how one part of the writing was cut off. For an image that was representing OCD I thought that this didn’t really fit in with the idea. I did think about the idea of writing things on, but I think I would like my images speak for themselves and for the viewer have to think for themselves about what Is going on, and for then in the background have slight whispering of some thoughts going on. 

I carried on having a look on deviantart, one of the photographs that I have decided to do in my head uses only a persons eyes to convey how uncomfortable and scared and anxiety filled they are feeling so I decided to find photographs that people had taken that had achieved this exact thing. I found this photograph by buh-liss and thought they did it absolutely perfect. Her eyes absolutely scream fear and worry about a situation so this is definitely going to help me in achieving my final pictures. I really like the De saturated look of the photograph it really adds to the mood, where as If the photograph was full of bright colours a complete different emotion would have been given off. Like Chiharu Shiota's work I want to create an image of a busy mind and what it's like to be in someones mind with this problem. 

Looking at more of this girls work I found this photograph it’s in the same style as the last one, I again think her eyes convey so much emotion in this photograph but I’m not too sure about her mouth, I think it looks too posed. Learning from this I would like to be able to bit across immense fear in my photographs without the usual screaming face in the photo, focusing on her eyes.

For some more references for my work I decided that I could look for colours in photographs that I’d like to re-create in my work and learn how to add a fearful look to my photographs. We started to do this in Toms lesson, we had the challenge of going in and around college and taking three photos of things that scare us, then we were to edit them in photoshop to show people how scary we think this thing is! We learnt about photographers using film who’d successfully produced a scary looking image with in camera effects and changing the negatives.  The three images that I decided were to take were images of stairs, they're only stares for most people but I have a massive fear of falling down them, so here are my three original images of stairs.

For the editing of these photos and trying to make them look a bit creepy, I have decided to take inspiration from the work of Jerry Uelsmann and do some double exposures but in photoshop, here's some examples of his film camera ones. 

Here are my double exposure images with two of the stairs pictures I did. I used the burn tool on the edge of the photos, I absolutely loved the ways these turned out. I think the burn tool on a photo makes the photo look so much stronger and when used on colours in the right place makes the picture look quite sinister, I intend to use the burn tool on my final photographs. 

For my last picture I decided to have a go at doing a solarising effect on the photograph. Originally solarising was accidentally discovered and was used alot by Man Ray. While processing the film it was accidentally exposed to white light meaning parts of dark and light in the photograph got mixed up, from then on they perfected the solarising technique.I first used the solarising filter in photoshop which changed the colours drastically, I didn't really like how they turned out so I turned the photograph black and white. I then used the burn tools on certain parts of the photograph and changed the brightness and contrast a bit. Here's an example of a solarised picture that man ray did, then my own picture. I like the effect of the solarised images, I don't think I'd do any of my images like this, but I might try and incorporate it somehow into my project. 

Next we had a go with a film camera and some film then scratching the negatives to try and change the look of them.

Here is my first go at this, but it didn't really look as distressed as I wanted it to be when I printed it

The negative that I burnt and scratched. 

The negative that I burnt and scratched. 

Test strip, I used 3 seconds, then image printed.

I next had another go with a different negative and just scratched this one this time.

Scratched negative. 

Test strip. I used 5 seconds.

I decided to crop my picture a bit from the original negative, then the second picture is a contact print where you lay the picture on top of another piece of photographic paper and expose it to light.

I carried on looking around for pictures for inspiration for my project. I had a look in my book called 'The polaroid book' and found this photograph by Blythe Bohnen. This book I find fascinating there's such a vast collection of different photographs there's always something that inspires me in there or that will help me with my project.  After flicking through the pages I found this image that really caught my eye, the person in the image looks in pain, like they're vanishing or wishing they were something that they used to be. 

To me this picture looks like a young girl and an older woman in the photo, I think it could be a fear of growing up or a wish to be younger again. I think the photos quite creepy but really effective at the same time. I think that it could also represent mental illness, that's the feel I get from it, this is why I felt it fit well with my project. For me I think it could be someone who's young, but is aged by the mental illnesses she suffers and they're ageing her mind. I think I might have to have a go at doing a photograph with the same feeling as I like the idea of also showing the emotional stress of mental illness.

As well as trying to include people in the photos, I have decided that at least one of my pictures should just be objects, or at least have the objects as the absolute main focus of the picture. With OCD I could have done lots of pictures of objects in order etc but I was trying to focus on the more medical side of things, I was thinking I could have done pictures of injections for fear of contamination and needles or I could focus on obsessive cleaning through fear of contamination. 

I want to do a desaturated look to the pictures of the needles, I really liked this idea after finding this photo, I couldn't find any information on it really.

I really liked how there was only a little bit of colour left in the photo, I plan to do this with my object photos.I decided to do pictures of some needles we had from when my dad broke his leg, I've decided to lay them out like this. 

Here is a picture of my set up and I safely put them on a piece of glass outside.

Here's my contact sheet of the pictures I took. I used the program bridge which really helped to help me pick which picture was going to be my final one.

I am really happy with how this shoot went, I really liked the low depth of field I got with the close ups of the needles, I took a lot of pictures from lots of different angles, and then found one image I was really happy with. I am glad I used natural lighting for the photos because I think if there was flash involved it would have effected the shine on the glass of the needles and would have looked too harsh. Quite a lot of the needles had caps on but on my main image I had a picture with one of the needles out and sharpened that image a lot which I think made it the main focus of the image and looked really effective.

Along with my photographs and soundtrack I thought about including a piece of art into the instilation. I was thinking about sticking lots of different things to a canvas and have them all perfectly inline except for one thing then have a red circle around it, like they'd found fault in it. Another Idea I had came from all the shock campaigns that are around now a days telling us all to watch our health, these personally really scare me, I hate all the statistics that are thrown at you, they make me into such a hypochondriac. So from this I thought I could write loads of the slogans down on something, but after walking past some leaflets in the doctors I decided that I could collect them and paste them onot a canvas, but they'd have to be perfectly straight fitting in with the OCD theme. To include alot of them onto a canvas I have thought about cutting out just the shock slogans and sticking them onto a canvas, I really like this idea. So I plan to go and try and either ask for some old leaflets from the doctors on health care, or collect some new ones from one of the stands. I cut all the lines of the leaflets out that I think fitted in with my project, there's a picture of them all scanned in. 

After having a think about my art project I have decided instead to scan the slogans in and incorporate them into an image them self. I first double exposed the image using the idea from Jerry ulesmanns work that I talked about earlier. I started messing about with text masks and writing certain things over the images. 

Here's what I came up with!

I really like how these came out! I think I might do four of these to hang up. Here's my last two!

Ideas for another photograph!

My first will be in the studio and will be of a girl in a pristine white outfit with all their  make up done absolutely perfectly, but then will be pulled by multiple sets of hands out of the picture, with one of the hands over her mouth. This is trying to show the fear of contamination and I will try and show her emotion through her eyes like buh-lis from deviantart did. 

My next photograph will be in the style of Blythe Bohnen and Jerry Ulsman using the look of movement and double exposure giving the look of double vision. For this picture I would like take a picture on location in a run down place and have again someone looking very clean, have them with a mask over their face, and again try and show their emotion through her eyes like Buh-lis did. My idea was to make it look like she was absolutely terrified and emphasize on the contrast to her cleanliness to the dirty background. 

Here is my contact sheet from the shoot, best image, then final image.

Before I came to the conclusion of the editing style I wanted to do with this photo I decided to have a go with solarising the picture and double exposures. 

For this final picture I cropped the image, and edited the background to complete black as when I was taking the picture I had a bit of light on the background that make it slightly grey. I touched up her skin a little and brightened up a bit. 

I am extremely happy with how this shoot went, it's exactly how I'd pictured it in my head. If I was to do a re shoot of this photoshoot I would have had the left hand side of the picture people more lit up, because compared to the right side they're in the dark and I would have also gotten them to stand a bit further away from her so there was more of their forearms showing. I also would have made sure that I stood the model away from the background and make sure there was no light on the background because it was so difficult to have to edit it to be completely black. 

For my third picture I'm going to have someone in a doctors mask/air filtering mask, stood in a really really dingy place and in photoshop put evasiveness how clean and how unclean her surroundings are.  

This photo didn't really go to plan as I'd wanted it to in my head, I couldn't use the person I originally planned to use and had to improvise quickly and I panicked  as much as I like the photo I took, it doesn't fit in with the project at all. So from this, I have come to the conclusion that I will stick to two final images and edit them further to the project.

Here's the picture I took today.

I plan to present these final pictures printed out and mounted on foam board, then I plan to hang them from the ceiling.

Since I was planning to double exposure on this picture in referencing it back to other photographers work, I have decided to experiment with double exposure on my existing pictures and maybe with my leaflet cut outs. Here's my experiments.

Here I had a go at a over laying, like the double exposure by Jerry Uelsman using a text mask onto the photo and writing 'unclean' then saturating it. I really liked how the mask and saturation made parts of the picture really bright, it reminded me of fire. But you can't really read what it says, so I'm going to see what other options there is for doing something like this with a text mask on the photo.

On this attempt I only put one line of text on, de saturated the text then feathered the selection to 15, I then put up the light ness of the selection. I think the text looks germs, I looks really unclean.

I think I'm now going to have a go at doing this on my injection picture and my leaflets picture, because as much as I do like the font on this, I like the picture how it is.

I tried to do the same font as I did before with it looking a bit dirty, but there was far too many different tones and colours in this photo for them to show up like with the last. 

I'm not really sure on this, but at least I had a go.

To fit in with this set of photographs I plan to create audio to aid a better understanding of the photos and the experience I am trying to portray. My ideas for my audio is to have whispering of what it's like to be in the head of an OCD sufferer. From using my own experiences to writing this, I am also going to do some research to what has been written before on OCD.

Here is an extract of a poem I found on http://www.ocdpoetry.com/poetry.htm 

'Cleaning frustratingly, on and on,

The clock keeps ticking, the sun almost gone.

And tomorrow I’ll rise and do it all again,

The battle keeps raging, but I’m determined to win.'

I really liked this poem, I liked how it referred to OCD as a battle, which is what it feels like.   

I wrote down lots of ideas for my script, here's a picture, then I'll write my final script underneath. I want it to be read in a whisper. 

Final script.

''Wake up, you're not clean, things have to be clean today.

Go wash your hands.. that's not enough! wash them again, that's an odd number, carry on until the number feels right. Don't just turn off the tap, you have to touch it four times, then switch the light off and on six times. If you don't carry on doing this, you'll get ill and something terrible could happen to people who you love. 

Get dressed, you're only allowed to wear certain things because otherwise you'll get bad luck. Lucky colours.

Go down the stairs, but jump the last step, that's the unlucky one, if you touch that you'll get ill.

Go out and get in your car, touch the car door three times, is everything turned off? is it? is it? IS IT? you'd better go back and check, if you don't the house will burn down and it'll be your fault. Go check things, done? go check them again, you might have turned them back on while you were checking them. Meet friends, they're asking to shake your hand, reluctantly accept it, but then make some excuse about needing the toilet so you can go scrub your hands, you have to do it four times though. 

You've got an appointment at the doctors, you need a blood test, what if they've used the needle before? The doctor has to touch me! what if they pass me on something.' 

Get out of the doctors and back into your car, get out your antibacterial wash, cover your hands, then do it again, drive home. Touch the door handle four times before you step in. 

Cook tea, all the carrots have to be the same length, no food can really touch each other on the plate, if they do, the foods now dirty, you can't eat it, something bad will happen. 

Sleep? no, you're not allowed yet, you've got things to worry about! go check all the plugs, turn off the cooker, check the doors, everything.. then check them again! you might have accidentally unlocked things, if you don't do this, your family will get ill, someone will break in and it'll be YOUR fault. Now get upstairs within ten seconds, otherwise you'll have to go check everything again.

Lay in bed and try and relax, you're not allowed too, you've got things to worry about. SO many things could happen to you.''

I have completed my sound file for this project, I combined the whispered reading of my script and a sound of someone heavy breathing. 

After my third picture didn't really work out and I was left with two big pictures and a few text ones, I decided that I needed to have a rethink about my set up of my instillation and have a look at my reaserch again to give me inspiration I had a look at what I'd written about the silence art piece where I'd written I wanted it to be more busy like someone with OCD mind. So I decided that I needed some extra images. After having a think I have decided to keep my hands one as my main image, have the four word images on either side of the photo, two at each side. Then also take a few more shots to go with the needles picture, so I have one main image using a person, then the rest with objects. I have decided to stick with the de saturated look of the needles picture and think of some more images I could take. I wrote down a big list of ideas like keys and soap that all fitted with my script that I am going to be reading out. I was thinking about doing the pictures in a richard billingham style,  like with a flash in the picture and they look like snap shots, because I plan to take pictures of every day objects that cause fear so they wouldn't be all set up perfectly and the harsh flash would give them that feel I think. 

Here's an example of his work to show what look I'd like to give my photos.

Here are the final images I took to go along with my needles photographs. 

Schedule.Have task one and two completed for the thursday the 4th of October.

Have test shots done for Sunday the 7th, with annotaion of final plans for the project.

Take and edit photographs through the next week and have them completed and sent off for printing by tuesday the 9th.

Have blog and power point all completed for the 16th.

Have photos and art piece ready for instilation for 17th.

Here's a photo of my instillation. 

Conclusion. 

I am really happy with all the research I did up to the project, I think I went through lots of different ideas and I thought I had a strong instillation  but after having to print things last minute smaller than I wanted to, I think it hindered my over all display, I also had quite a strong sound track to play over and over again, but due to lots of different technical problems, the sound really didn't play loud enough for anyone to fear or really be taken in by it like I wanted them to be. I do think my main photograph in the instillation went well, I think I managed to put across the feeling of being torn by loads of different obsessive feelings towards certain rituals. I did enjoy doing my other images, but if I could do the project again I would definitely do them with enough time for them to be printed bigger and to take up more of my space.  Another thing I would like to have been able to change is to have decided different means of displaying my pictures, although they hung well in the space I had, they didn't seem to fit perfectly straight, which they should have really been because of the OCD topic of the project, but from this mistake I made I have learnt for future exhibitions to plan out more in depth and have a back up plan on how I am going to attach and display my work. Even though the time frame in which to complete the topic was quite short, I enjoyed working to such a dead line cause I feel it drove me to explore different ideas as much as possible, I suppose doing a project about OCD in the short amount of time definitely made me feel what I was doing the project about. If I could do this again I would think about maybe adding some psycial props into the project in which the viewer could interact more, because my sound wasn't very loud, it didn't take you into the project as much as Id have wanted it to, so there could have been a table with cleaning products on or things all lined up. Over all in the time we had I think I did alright with what I came up with, and Ive learnt to plan things in depth with the means of setting  things up in a gallery space and have some back up plans in case things went wrong. I think I managed to refference my work back to other peoples work well, like the flash photos and the idea of expressive eyes. I think this was a really good project to work on, and in the future I would rather like to explore my ideas further as the project inspired me alot.