I started to review my progress against learning outcomes earlier in second half of this unit and so will continue this so as to map progress from now until end of unit.

Photography 3.1: Practice and Research (PH6PAR) Learning Outcomes

LO1 – Examine your emerging practice through a considered body of self-directed work

Last month I stated that my research, written works and creative test pieces were developing in pace with my emerging practice. I said that my work wasn’t polished at this stage.

This was a very general starting point to how I consider my work, my learning and my development as a researcher and as an artist. It lacked any sense of anything detailed or personal.

Before I started on this 3.1 unit, I had a progression meeting where I outlined my thoughts on my photography and a specific idea I had for a project. At that point in time, I had a vague idea of the creation of a series of works based somehow around the medical scan. I had little concept of how research would shape my choices and interests.

My early research has led me from the medical scan to how doctors do their job when surrounded by death to the abstraction of death imagery and of thinking of what places of death are for other than as places to store or dispose of and to memorialise the dead. These spaces are for the living. Memory and memorials and the photographic image are all for the living. The dead are gone and only the living can celebrate and recall. I used these insights and knowledge to produce a series of test pieces and started to explore the idea of graveyards as places of a type of performance. At same time as I was working on these aspects of my project, my emotional response to this subject seemed to become clearer to me and I had new understanding of the death of my daughter and of my mother.

How is my practice starting to emerge from this? My process and interests are starting to deepen and to coalesce into firmer concepts and into more concrete creative ideas. At same time, I can see that scope in the future for my practice revolving and revisiting my original concept of the medical scan and of other projects surrounding death, grief, loss, memory and the photographic image.

 

LO2 – Apply relevant research methods and subject knowledge to test, inform, and develop your work.

Once again, my comment on learning outcome 2 was fairly generic last month and I stated that my research was leading me rather than me trying to force a direction.

This month, I will try and be more specific on my research journey.

I have researched and read extensively for this unit. In fact, I have read much more than I ever imagined I would as I thought the creative work on course would have been more dominant. I started by looking at the medical side of death, looking at brain activity in those close to death and idea of our lives flashing in front of our eyes. I also looked at photographers who specialise in taking pictures of those close to death. Allied with reading work of Barthes, I started to consider death as seen by the living and that we can never bring the dead back to life. I looked at how the photograph can shape and change memory. I did some research on death symbolism and on boxes and the fragmentation of memory. Specific to my own experiences I then looked at an area that was very close to my own sense of grief and why we might consider the death of a child differently from the death of an adult.

 

LO3 – Present informed connections between your research and practice interests.

Last month I mentioned that I felt there was a gap or mismatch between my research and practice interests.

The connections I perceive at this time between my research interests and my creative test pieces is something that is continuing to develop. I have refined some of my creative test pieces and focussed my energies on some specific examples such as the use of mirrors and shadows alongside graves and of the used of found photography from old photograph albums used next to memorial benches. Depending on how this work progresses, I might add to these ideas some typographical work around performative death or x-ray images of plants and flowers. These creative ideas or trials come from work researching the ideas of Geoffrey Batchen and thoughts of memorials and metonymy and of Martha Langford on the photograph album although each piece of research builds on previous research so it seems unfair of me to mention just 2 authors.  Based on research of Barthes, Batchen, Langford and others, I looked into what happens with forgotten deaths and invisible deaths, worn gravestones and unmarked graves. I was intrigued by this idea and started to experiment with creative test works to explore how the dead are memorialised and how I could give those who might have been forgotten or airbrushed from history a new story.

I started to think about presentation of some of my ideas but at such an early stage of level 3 study this was perhaps premature of me.

 

LO4 – Articulate your creative ideas and critical thinking using suitable communication methods.

Last month I commented that I was comfortable with articulating areas of interest, ideas that interest me from my research and creative works and with interpreting my creative impulses. As I said, I have made more of a conscious effort to write about my creative choices. More detailed methods of articulating such thoughts likely to be made in form of a video presentation which I will prepare before the end of this unit.

I have wondered about how I might present my final written and creative works. It feels early to have firm ideas on this. I always assumed my work likely to form an exhibition but at same time I have worried in my studies about emotional impact of my work on my audience so that is one consideration for me. Am aware that some of hospitals near to be have exhibition space by my subject matter might be literally too ‘close to the bone’ for a hospital. Producing a book might be another possibility.

As regards how I present my work to the assessment panel, I am leaning towards a video presentation which gives a chance to get over more of the personality of myself with nuanced meanings that can be hard to capture in a dry written description.

Had a late feedback session as was away this month so been a bit of a mad rush to catch up with quite a lot on.

This month as well as this update, feedback, a student meeting and plan update,  I attended second workshop on learning outcomes using the recorded session. Based on this I updated my learning outcomes to date. The major work this month was on a further draft of my literature review and the reading upon which this review is built and on producing revised creative test pieces.

I feel that this month, similar to when I first started working on my literature review, that the logic of the course pulled together for me. It is as if in writing my literature review helps me to crystalise my learning and pull together the different strands from my creative enterprises and my research. Maybe it just because my reading is more focussed on a specific argument for my literature review but my work this month felt very joined up. My understanding and interest in the theory been improved by my creative work and my creative work is developing nicely in part because of my research. My research based on my literature review been heavily focused on Barthes and Batchen but am supplementing my understanding of these works with  Sontag, On Photography, Hirsch, Family Frames and have just come across Martha Langford, Suspended Conversations which is very interesting as she deals with photographs contained within albums and specifically pictures where the original meaning, context and story been lost and how these images act on memory. Very relevant to my studies.

One aside I wanted to mention that I was struck by a quotation I came across from Oscar Wilde in a letter he wrote while in prison. “A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. We think we can have our emotions for nothing.” (Wilde, 1999) This caught my eye as the emotional side of my project seems difficult to set aside from any other part of my learning or creative processes. At same time I believe this is a two-way process; just as emotion is intertwined with my project, I cannot allow myself to get too sentimental or exaggerate this emotion or treat it in a false or mawkish manner.

On the subject of sentimentality, this month I was down in Manchester taking part in a panel trying to improve cancer outcomes. Allied with fact that some of my creative test pieces this month have used images of children I have felt the emotional impact of working on my chosen field.

In Project 9 next month I will continue my creative work and work some more on my literature review. I will also think about a draft of my proposal for my dissertation for next year.

 

Now am nearing end of this unit, I don’t expect my plan to undergo any more radical shifts, so this just a review and update step now. Here is copy of updated plan for this month.

Tutor feedback for my assignment 7 took the form of a video chat. This feedback was a little delayed because I was away with little in way of a phone signal.

This month I spent a lot of my time working on creative works which in themselves are based on previous test pieces. This isn’t so much what I might term a production line approach producing a series of similar pieces with the same starting point but instead is iterative with each review and reconsideration of my creative test pieces being less broad or unfocussed and going into greater death for a narrower chosen target.

I was surprised by comments from my tutor this month that she saw how I was writing and thinking about my work was more knowledgeable and reflective. I find this sort of feedback invaluable and I often cannot see such shifts from my own perspective. Have I expanded on my knowledge due to my research allied with what I want to achieve from my creative works? Maybe, on reflection the answer is yes but as the shift is gradual, when in middle of project work it can be hard to detach myself and offer up such an overview. I will go back in my notes and look to see if how I write has shifted from when I started on this unit to now.

Another very useful piece of feedback was asking what or rather who, my work is for. Is this just for myself in which case could my work stay on my computer unseen by anyone other than myself? If this is the case then why am I doing this course? If my visual work has at its heart, the communication of ideas for whatever the reason this might be, then this relationship between the creator of the work, why I create it, what I want to communicate and to what audience is important. My own work is for the purpose of learning and understanding and self-healing. Indeed, is all visual art based around this idea of the communication of ideas or of emotions? Even as am aware that in the future I need to consider my audienceat the same time, right now, it is relevant to consider that photography as a visual medium has communication at it’s foundation. Communication implies a message from one person to a recipient or audience. As my own project deals with a fundamental fact of death which we will all face, this communication of my ideas to my audience feels crucial to my work. So, how I present works at this stage in my 3.1 study which involves preliminary test pieces and research, is a core factor even if it is too early to target a specific audience at this moment.

We discussed my practical works. As I write about these, I wonder if I made too many? It didn’t feel like that at the time to me, it these tests were, in a way to me, different facets of the same idea. I specifically mentioned that I had tried to take on board comment from last month about the literality of some of my works which and I will quote here from my tutor as this seems very important, “work is literal because it begins and ends with the description of the idea. Other work is much more philosophical; it is the latter that should always be the focus.”

We started by considering a piece I created using an island on which Princess Diana is buried. I wanted to explore the idea of the changing use of the space through time with this becoming a water park. Feedback was that this piece wasn’t effective as once again was too literal although it had elements which could be developed such as the whirlpool which I saw perhaps as a 3-dimensional form into which time and memory drops. One comment which stuck with me was question of whether my image was specifically about death or remembrance. Maybe too much going on. Helpful for me to consider the simplicity, or apparent simplicity, of my photography here.

Next, we spoke about a work which was more successful in the communication of ideas, a memorial bench with figures from a found photograph placed as a transparency behind the bench. Interesting to consider the placement and presentation of ideas on the photographic page and how the elements of an idea work in a visual sense. My tutor suggested this is an idea I could expand upon with thought that it almost touched upon idea of ‘ghost’ photography.

I produced some photographs which I didn’t develop into concrete ideas. One of these was a found photograph I found on Instagram of figures posing beside an open grave with emojis and text across the page. I thought image was interesting as it seemed to make little sense to me and this tension attracted my attention. My tutor mentioned the social phenomenon of how we commemorate loss and of the performative element of why some images are made. I was interested if I could make use of such an image without changing it. If this was used as part of typological works of similar pieces then yes as long as any distinguishing names or usernames were removed. Another image I didn’t use was that of a ground radar scan of a graveyard showing unmarked graves. This had potential although perhaps once again in typological form showing other such images.

Last month I produced a work based on the grave of Karl Marx. I developed this idea considering the grave of another famous person, Conrad Roentgen who discovered x-rays. I had worried that this piece was too simplistic but was interested to hear my tutor suggest, stripping even more from image so it becomes a series on x-rays of plants and that the references to Roentgen not required and even an x-ray viewer not needed. Flowers and plants have an association with death and the death imagery of skills and bones on graves always reminded me of medical scans, where my research first started. Interesting then this idea of stripping image making back to a simpler form that asks questions.

My final image this month, I constructed using a mirror and a grave and introduced a shadow of myself as I took the photograph which acted as a pseudo body underneath the turf. My tutor thought this idea had merit and could be developed further.

The general feedback was positive and in particular my image of the bench and of the image using the mirror. I will think some more on these before I produce works next month.

Feedback based on Learning Outcomes

There was a further workshop on learning outcomes when I was on holiday so will watch the recording of this session and produce an update on my progress against the learning outcomes for this unit for next month.

Action points

Produce this summary of feedback meeting.

Continue my work on practical pieces spending time to consider analysis of my image around why I find this worth presenting and how it related to the themes of my project.

A further draft of my literature review.

In addition to continued work on:

Review of my project plan.

Review recording of workshop for learning outcomes workshop part ii.

Work on reviewing my continued progress against the unit’s learning outcomes.