When I applied for level 3 and explained my areas of interest and potential project, I had no real idea of what was involved at level 3 study. I think level 3 feels radically different from previous levels. Every student comes to the start of level 3 having been taught certain skills in level 2 and before in level 1. These skills include critical essay writing, research for essays, reading skills as well as skills specific to the subject of photography, capturing images, seeing and imagining the image and the craft of photography as well as selection and presentation of your work. The difference in level 3, I think, is that at its core I think it is about teach self-reliance. There is no strict brief nor is there coursework which builds towards a series of assignments and then an assessment. Instead, there is a broad outline setting out a framework based around a project plan, a literature review, a proposal for a piece of written work all based around my own choices of research and creative works.

I started on the journey towards level 3 in my final level 2 unit on Digital Image & Culture. Here I used my final 2 assignments to start to build towards where I am right now, creating test pieces and thinking about potential outcomes. In level 2 and at the start of level 3, I had a vague, less than solid idea about using medical scan images and putting back a sense of the individual shown in these photographs yet unrecognisable as a medical subject. My research in level 3 has looked at many things and I know that if I write these down will seem like a random collection of thoughts even though there is meaning and purpose behind my choices, and given that a meaning and purpose might not be immediately obvious even to me at the time I studies these themes. I looked at abstract forms and symbolism surrounding death along with metonymy looking at the written work by Geoffrey Batchen, on why there seems to be a human need to capture images of those about to die, about the medical view of death and of life flashing before our eyes, related to this I thought of the words of a medical professional I spoke with who told me that the emotional and scientific aspects of their job were compartmentalised, this led to the idea of boxes. The boxes surrounding death, graves, coffins, gravestones and more. In turn this led backwards to death symbolism. As part of this I looked at ancient stories about plants and flowers associated with death. I looked at memories and the past, history, melancholy. I researched the difference between the death of a child and the death of a parent and I looked at Barthes idea that a photograph is a prelude to a death. My most recent research has built upon my earlier work looking at Barthes and has been on how death is portrayed within visual art.

In all of this at times I felt lost, that my ideas were pushing me in random directions as with the wind. It felt out of control and random and I worried about losing sight of where I had come from and with no certain destination in view. Should my research feel so random?  I wonder if what I have in my mind isn’t a single idea of how my creative and written works will pan out further into my journey at level 3, but is actually more than one work around which I can spend many years working either as part of future studies or outwith the realm of academia. Why should a theme as vast as that of our own mortality be expressed by a single project? I am aware here that the idea of a visual art projects with a defined start and sudden end provides an echo of the move from life to death.

My key themes and big questions will coalesce more as the unit progresses but at this point in time, I have the beginnings of some useful thoughts.

At this stage in my learning journey, I think a key idea is of the idea of a memory box. That is a box or container of ideas, mementos and memories designed to give an experience of life after we are dead. The box does not contain the dead person, it is a gift from the person about to die to the living. The box in itself and what it contains is a symbol or series of symbols. I am interested in whether this box should be open or closed. Should the visual art of the contents be on full display or as is case with human thoughts, hidden? As some of my thoughts in this course come from a physics perspective, a corruption from an idea in quantum mechanics sense might be that the contents of the box can be different things as long as the box remains closed and we do not know what lies within and what state those things might be in. It is a space of multiple possibilities which only coalesces into a single meaning should the box be opened. Does this idea start to bridge idea of how death is experienced by the dead person which the live person can never know?  I was struck in my studies on Batchen that he explored a dressing mirror which had an image of a dead person in one panel. I wonder on this idea of the mirror as it allows me to introduce the audience to be a part of that memory box and so to question their own mortality. I can vaguely envisage a work where the audience looks into a box where different images are shown and the viewer looks through one image to the next with final frame in box being a mirror designed to place that person into the death/memory box. I do not know yet how this might work, I could perhaps print on perspex so each image is see-through and forms part of the next image. I could also do this digitally so that each image switched on and off in sequence.

A different idea I am attracted to is the idea of a graveyard as a stage. I recently went to see an exhibition on van Gogh and while the exhibition itself did not interest me; I was intrigued by some of the ways the artworks were displayed. One of these was a top-down projection onto the floor. I immediately thought of a grave. The idea links to idea of constructing a virtual graveyard. Could I create a digital walkthrough graveyard or bring a kind of pop-up graveyard to a gallery space?

A third idea is about fragmentation. I explored this in a test piece but was unhappy with result and more importantly for me, how this work made me feel. So, I might revisit this but try and understand better why I didn’t like this work and what I can change.

Although these ideas have a 3-dimensional real tactile element, I still wonder about my original medical scan images and whether I use these as symbols of death like skeletons as seen on gravestones. In next few months I would like to further explore and produce some test pieces looking at the ideas of a memory container and of a stage.  I would also like to search for other practitioners to see if anyone else worked in a similar way.

This review asks for key sources and to list 2 which are most important to my understanding of my project so far. I think the Geoffrey Batchen work, Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance. Even the title of this is so interesting with idea of hat we leave behind hoping to be remembered in some way yet at same time the idea of remembrance being for the living and not the dead. My second key text is Barthes and his work Camera Lucida. I have chosen this in part for second part of book which is about Barthes trying to find and keep a hold of a perfect image of his recently deceased mother. This work is immensely helpful to me for another reason which is that so many other academics and key thinkers reference Barthes which creates a gateway for me in my research to access multiple other linked resources.

For the next 6 months of this unit, I can see that my plan will have much more detail, drilling down to show more specific tasks and activities. More development of my ideas as they shift from being abstract towards more of a tightly controlled and indicative of my direction of travel. There is specific learning I need to do for example to prepare me for the literature review which is something new to me and looking at proposal for my written work.

Last month I revised my plan based on what I have learned about course structure allied with my progress to date. This month as my main point of focus has been on a midpoint review, I have left aside the plan with my intention to update it for second half of unit after this midpoint review. However, I have been thinking about how my planning should evolve over second half of this unit.

I will refine plan using the improved structure I introduced last month as I recognise the second half of unit is less broad in scope and delves deeper into my subject in terms of research  as well as more refined thoughts about my creative works and trying to have more links between my practice and my theory and with the work of other practitioners.

In addition I will build some trials and drafts of the literature review and dissertation proposal into my plan. So far in first half of unit, I been working at an even pace producing an assignment every month. I have planned for this but as my plan has some slack in it, I might take some time out at tail end of summer for a break. This might be useful as time for further self-reflection on my progress and a chance to pause and think about my project and my direction.

My work was slightly different than previous months and in addition to continued research this month has had a focus on the half-year review looking at progress to date, looking at where I think my project might lead me and the interconnectivities between creative practice and research.

My research this month led me to look beyond the ideas of Barthes and his assertion that a photograph is a precursor to death and to look at the ideas of what is meant by death, how different deaths might impact us in terms of whether we knew the dead person, if they were a stranger to us or how their social background and cause of death might impact us. I started looking at this to try and better understand how death is portrayed in visual art. This research might be something I return to as the subject seems vast but also very interesting.

I also looked at Myths, Emblems, Clues by Carlo Ginzurg but hit a brick wall as so far been unable to locate the original source of a reference in an argument about origin, memory and history. “Written culture had for a considerable period of time attempted to give a precise verbal formulation for this body of local knowledge that was without origin, memory, or history.” which Ginzburg tells us comes from a similar argument in Foucault’s Microfisica. So far, I have been unable to locate this in the original but maybe, in part, it is because I am finding Foucault difficult to comprehend and to access or maybe Ginzburg accessed the original in the original language?

As part of my midpoint review, I have been considering my creative test works and trying to make sense of what I have done and where I am heading. At this stage, the areas I find most interesting are in considering the graveyard as a stage. I have ideas around transposing this stage to a gallery setting. Also, an idea about using objects as memory devices I first say in Batchen’s book showing a dressing table mirror which been adapted with a photograph so the person sitting using mirror would see this image every day. I wondered on idea of death symbolism including the medical scan, photographs of my daughter and more contained within a box where end panel been replaced with a mirror. I can vaguely envisage how this might work with images printed. My creative work is missing some more concrete links to my research and to other practitioners working in similar field or in similar ways. I will expand on this element in coming months. I did a previous test work on fragmentation and although the idea still interests me I was unhappy with my execution so this might be something to revisit.

In Project 6 next month my initial step will be a revision of my plan for the next half of unit in addition to further research and looking at literature review.

Tutor feedback this month was a written report rather than a video chat as trying to find suitable space for both tutor and myself was difficult.

Very interesting comments on the idea of the “graveyard as a stage“. My tutor went onto comment that “Rituals and commemoration are about the performativity of status, both of the deceased and the mourner and the culture of the two protagonists“. (Xenou, 2022)  It is a fascinating idea that the photograph is also about performance. My tutor introduced a thought on how the interested parties provide points of balance between “the deceased/subject; the mourner/installer/holder of the photograph; the culture that elevates these ideas and the medium to the importance they hold”. (Xenou, 2022)

I will do more research on these ideas as they feel crucial to my work. I am especially inerested in idea of the culture in which these ideas sit. My own culture and how a death of a child might be thought of and how the representation of a medical scan showing the brutality of cancer and the frankness of death and then considering the medium of how I record such motifs and make sense of these and make them my own are of particular interest.

One interesting piece of feedback was on a thought I had about photography freezing time  but that also death freezes time. Today, it so happens, is my daughter’s birthday. She would have been 25. Yet Rebecca died when she was 18 so is forever frozen in time at the point of death (or before). It interested me that my research poses questions. This in turn leads to reasearch and attempts to answer questions. The paradox here is that some aspects of death and loss cannot be resolved or satisfactorily answered. I can start to see questions I can pose which might form the backbone of my written work. Running in parallel with my questions requiring thought, research and investigation is my creative work which looks from a different viewpoint and asks questions in a different form. This goes back to interesting comment from my tutor, “Remember that what is expected of death and places of commemoration, such as burial grounds, is a cultural imposition that is only of importance as far as it can show the researcher the social approach to these notions and allows for a challenge”. (Xenou, 2022) What I take from this is the idea of a challenge or a question. A written work and a creative photographic work which poses questions to the audience and to myself. I think of this as a work under tension.

One practical thing on my creative visual test pieces is to continue my progress in linking my research with my creative work. “reflect closely on what you are representing and how it feels – do the aesthetics of your artefacts work appropriately? Which parts work and why? Which don’t and why not? How can you resolve the parts that don’t?“(Xenou, 2022)

Looking forwards, next month, in addition to continuning my research, I will produce a mid-point review, which looks back at what I have done so far and forwards to where I might be heading.