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.