Author Archives: Richard Dalgleish

Tutor feedback #1

My feedback this month from my tutor was very helpful to me. It helped me set scene for this unit and to deal with the gap between 3.1 and 3.2 which I think has removed pace and energy and structure and focus from my work.

I presented an update of work in progress including thoughts on student feedback on my creative works, my ongoing research and creative works and the future development of my project as well as an initial draft of a plan with thoughts on the external project and reflection on my literature review, dissertation proposal and some key words relevant to how I see my project at this point in time.

My tutor explored what I had written and her overall feedback was that there was much in here that was interesting but at same time she felt my thoughts slightly less coherent and focussed that at end of 3.1 with more confusion and doubt. My tutor mentioned the emotional and mental impact of my project which is something we both knew would be a part of my project and ongoing studies. She also expressed thought that some of my questions would remain unanswered through my work. I thought a helpful suggestion was to try and keep a grasp on my focus and to be clear and certain what my work was for. Maybe seems a simple thing as I write it, but sometimes I maybe need to restate the obvious, to keep track of progress, to record work in progress and to arrange thoughts around learning outcomes.

On practical matters, my tutor suggested I consider approaching other students to expand on potential different directions for an external facing project and I should look again at my planning for this unit.

Of most interest to me was suggestion I look at liminality and Rites of Passage by Arnold van Gennep and his thoughts on the tripartite sequence related to rituals of separation, transition and incorporation. as this month progressed I have found much in the idea of liminality which interests me and seems relevant to my project.

Reflective commentary #1

The first month of this unit asked student to produce a summary of work in progress, a tentative plan and a reflective document of around 1,000 words to include a summary and reconsideration of literature review along with a re-treatment of my dissertation proposal along with some key words to help define topic as is relevant to me today.

Reflection

In my literature review I explored the thoughts of Roland Barthes in his seminal work, Camera Lucida, with respect to his mother’s death and his memory of her and his search through old photographs for her essence. I asked if Barthes’s life was surrounded and framed by loss as his father died when Barthes was an infant. His conclusion is that how could any photographs capture the totality of a person and our memory of the dead. Barthes tells us that all he finds in photographs is death. I explored how memories fade and our sense of the dead changes and might be shaped by words or pictures and, of course through time and our own aging. I used the work of Geoffrey Batchen, Marianne Hirsch and Susan Sontag to interrogate Barthes’s ideas exploring thoughts such as remembrance, nostalgia and whether the authors of the ideas I explored had a pre-occupation with death. As I re-read my literature review, I was struck by what Batchen said about what photographs in themselves do not record, “the way they moved, the manner of their speech, the sound of their voice, that lift of the eyebrow when they made a joke, their smell, the rasp of their skin on yours, the emotions they stirred.”

This takes me neatly to my dissertation proposal and my ideas of how to progress my written and my creative work.

I have been questioning the direction, or maybe just my understanding, of my creative work which in turn relates to my written work. I worry in case, subconsciously, I have been taking a safe path to try and avoid discomfort, emotional pain and turmoil. In turn, I wonder if a sense of safety might be restraining my work and my learning and my sense of myself? Am not at all certain but this is a vague thought which been tugging at me for a while. Am struck by Barthes’s idea that all he finds in photographs is death. Does that in part explain why I am questioning the meaning of my work and my vague sense of ‘niceness’ and ‘comfort’ and is a more natural feeling maybe ’discomfort’?

In my dissertation proposal I wanted to look at why people record death through photography in an apparent attempt to stop time and to preserve memories. I stated at the time that this was a very broad base for study. I have been wondering how to approach this subject. I have been thinking about the sense of place and how we might collect objects and whether the photograph in this context is another death object that holds the presence of the dead such as clothing or hair? I wonder about how instant the point of death is and what survives to help build memories in those that live on. The death objects themselves become symbols for the memories they are used to try and preserve. This year my creative efforts will focus onto an external engagement. I can visualise some creative works which start to explore these ideas.

After death everything that is us still exists yet the person is gone with the destruction of the mind. The construction blocks of our bodies doesn’t vanish at the point of death nor after the disposal of the body. After we die, there is a sense that part of us still exists. Is this a metaphor for memory? This brings me to the idea of materials being important. Materials, objects and the very construction blocks from what we are made are all imbued with memory. I wonder if the idea of materiality lends itself to textile artists or maybe pottery or ceramics?

I also wondered about exploring the sense of the boundary. The idea of the River Styx was expressed about one of my creative test pieces, the river separating the living from the underworld. I wonder about the passage of time. If I consider the very point of death where life has ended, is this actually a single point in time? Can we be between life and death, in a sense crossing that river? At what point does death begin? This took me on and I wondered about the idea of a boundary. Is science and art such a boundary? I was invited to a conference in Dundee looking at art and science because of my previous work with the medical scan and wonder if anything I could make use of here. Another option in this same area could be to approach Pfizer who I am doing some consultancy for to try and improve cancer outcomes. A collaboration between science and the physical reality of disease and death on one side and on the other, memory, loss and grief and the desire to record these through art.

One other idea I had was use of the spoken word to accompany my images. I thought about the echoes and resonance of spoken words and how the soundwaves hit our ears then die away to nothing. There is a similarity with looking at an image and, for a brief instant, that image is burned onto the back of our eye before we look away and the image vanishes. Seems that this is a way of describing fading memories and the invention of new stories and secrets. I sent an email to a writer and broadcaster who created some work around the idea of why we might leave no trace of ourselves thinking of ancient burial chambers. She was encouraging even though at that stage I asked for nothing from her. She replied that her work explored the feelings about where sounds come from and their ancient resonances which is very interesting.

I can see connections between my practice and my research with these ideas. Engaging with an external partner has potential to push work in unexpected directions and in so doing can help crystalise the focal point of my research interests and my practice in this project. I do not know at this stage if I would look at a single external facing project or more than one. I did wonder too about whether to look at my body of work as a thread rather than as a single piece of that thread. So, my work would include such an external facing project but this wouldn’t be the totality of my project.

 

Keywords

Loss. Grief. Guilt

Death and Nihilism. Death and Memory.

Boundaries. (The idea of space between – so the moment between life and death or between memory and absence of memory)

 

 

Project plan #1

My usual approach to project planning is to firstly note that the project plan is a means to an end and is not an end in itself. This plan is an initial tentative document which shows a broad structure, tasks, milestones and a loose division of time.

I will use this tentative version to check with my tutor that my chosen approach  is acceptable and has enough detail and depending on feedback will further refine plan in coming months.

 

Reflective commentary #10

Last month was a time for writing and for reflection and I have continued polishing my work to get it ready for assessment. I have been working on my literature review and adjusting this following feedback last month and my progress against learning outcomes related to my blog and my creative output.

One thought on the focus on assessment is that it gets in the way of my project. What a shame my research and project work doesn’t continue seamlessly into next year without having to worry about getting things ready for an assessment which, while important as it counts towards mark for degree, seems to me to be a diversion. The assessment has lots of time for reflection on my work and progress to date so am not saying it without any value just that it feels have come ashore from the river where my research been leading.

In addition I wrote a report following a collaborative exercise I took part in. I have also written some thoughts on work I came across relating to Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz and their attitudes to cancer and death and photography. I been attempting to understand how these people were impacted by these intense emotional episodes in their lives and how all this relates to my own project and my mindset. It is interesting to me as I look into this field how often death is a part of artists and academic’s lives. One other related thing which occurred to me as I was researching my own project area was the suicide of photographers. Francesca Woodman threw herself out of a window when she was aged 22, Diane Arbus slashed her wrists and Kevin Carter who gassed himself all come to mind. Is this a common thing I wonder? It might be interesting to look and see if I can understand if any of these deaths related to the work of these photograhers and if it in any way relates to my work.

As I was pulling together my creative works I was thinking about where I should take my project next. I have been thinking about this and have some pictures I want to capture over the next few months. I also found some packets of old photographs online which I bid on successfuly. One of these packets came with letters, medical cards and even an old driving license. I don’t know yet if I will make use of this extra material alongside images but it does present different opportunites. All in all, I feel I have some useful source material to expand on my project next year. Obviously this will depend on exact direction I take this project. I have also been wondering about different types of memorials whether formal statues or street art, stolpersteine which commemorate the lives lost in the holocaust, war memorials of which we have many in Scotland or I was also thinking about all the ruined houses which date from the times of the Highland Clearances. All would seem to have different opportunites and challenges. Maybe even finding benches which link these events and locations with my own project might make sense.

 

Reflective commentary #9

This month has been a time for writing and for reflection. I have been working on my literature review and combining this with my dissertation proposal. As I was doing this I was struck by several thoughts.

  • My proposal is perhaps a little broad, but next year I will have time to refine not just the scope of my written work but also my thoughts and learning around my area of interest next year.
  • My next thought is maybe basic and obvious, but it occurred to me that my literature review was all about writing. My sources produced written works to express their sense of loss and grief and their reactions to death and the photograph. I then reviewed these written works. As an example, my studies revealed lots about Susan Sontag and her experiences with TB and cancer and, importantly, the experiences of those close to her. One that interested me was the tension between Sontag’s partner, Annie Liebovitz and Sontag’s son, David Rieff and especially around the photographs Liebovitz took of Sontag when she was suffering and after she had died. I have drawn comparisons between the written word and photography when used to create a sense of memory of the dead in my essay but feel that this photographic representation of loss, grief and death and the conflict that arises from such photographs is worth studying in much more depth.

My time on this unit has been a journey. An educational journey, picking a path through my interests with a growing sense of what I have found out and all that I don’t know. It has also been an emotional journey, trying to understand my own sense of loss and grief and to find a way to express myself and to bring emotions into the open rather than internalising them. I don’t know how much my sense of this journey exists for my tutor too. I am thinking about my audience here. The tutor is the closest and most aware of my work so sits at the front of the auditorium. Tutors and also assessors deal with many students and projects so I wonder if the sense of my own educational and emotional journey is just words or if it creates any sense of resonance? This goes back to my thoughts on words and images and for that matter the physical objects described by Batchen. How do I create and express my sense of what my art says and means to me and convey this to someone else? I have previously expressed disatisfaction in some of my creative works as I find they don’t always generate the emotional tug but at the same time such thoughts are part of my own internal battle which forms part of my practice when working in the field of the deaths of children and of cancer and how we remember our dead. I feel I can express my thoughts in words. Can I get close to these thoughts through the photograph?

Tutor feedback #8

Tutor feedback for assignment 8 took the form of a video chat. it is interesting that as I progress through this unit and am now nearing end, that my reflections on feedback are much more involved than they were at the start of this unit.

it feels that my descriptions of these feedback sessions are starting to grow and change from how I used to present them earlier on in this unit.

This month I started by mentioning the emotional and mental impact of my work on myself. I have had to step away from reading certain texts and looking at some works to give myself some time and space and perspective. I always knew that my project based around death, mourning, loss and the death of my daughter would take a toll and the past month have been feeling the negative impact of this. Working on such an intimate and personal project was always going to be challenging for me. I feel that the same part of me which asked internal questions about myself and how I could have been a different father after my daughter died have resurfaced here as I been working on this project with me questioning the value of my work and of my own worth. I explained to my tutor that these feelings stemmed from revisiting that period of my life and of the emotions resurfacing and finding an outlet inside me. I mentioned this as inside I felt very much out of sorts with a different sense of perception, insecure and almost jittery with a jagged torn edge if that makes sense, although I not sure if these impacts are completely within myself and are invisible on the outside. I know these feelings will pass through time. I do not know as I continue to work on my project how often such feelings might come back.

Those negative feelings and thoughts aside, this month I have been working on production of some creative pieces based on earlier trial works. I also produced another draft of my literature review.

My tutor chatted over the emotional impact of my work and, I think sensibly, pointed out that when working in such a field that a lack of emotional response would have been odd and my response should be seen as normal. I asked about maybe recording my thoughts and suggestion made that perhaps this could form a small part of reflective presentation to introduce my work. I will think about this but in meantime have written a broad outline of these feelings in this document.

We spent a little time speaking about potential for further derivations of my test pieces such as exploring colour or monochrome. Also spoke about the reflective presentation as we had worked in a group session on this very topic the day before.

Next, we chatted about my creative enterprises this month which focussed on one strand of some previous test pieces where I used photographs of memorial benches along with found family photographs. My idea attempts to bring out a sense of the memory of people who have died and ask my audience, whoever they might be, to confront their own deaths. I try to explore a sense of a link to a past starting with the bench with the very brief words engraved on the plaque to my reinvention of the stories of people I use shown in found family photographs where I know no stories behind the people in these images. I will deal with my tutor’s responses in no specific order to how we talked these through.

One interesting idea was that the surface of my photograph communicated the idea of barriers and changes in time and space. An example would be that in one image I photographed a bench with someone sat on it and a child playing next to the bench next to autumn leaves symbolising the change in the seasons and death. I mixed this photograph with an image from a photo album shown as a transparent layer. The image contains a path on which the bench sits, the foreground strewn with autumn leaves and on other side of path is a tidy, neatly manicured patch of grass. My tutor’s comment that the path in a way signified the movement from life to death as if it were the River Styx and was interesting that I had placed the transparent group facing the ‘real, live’ figure on the bench. It is interesting to consider the different physical elements of my image when I construct my images and also interesting to consider much wider interpretations such as the end of life and the memory of those who are dead. Very helpful to get such feedback as I hadn’t thought of my image in this way.

As part of my process this month I told about my creatives journey of how and why I was rejecting certain attempts and why I felt these didn’t work. This was a way of explaining why I had made certain choices and why I had presented the images I had. I must keep this in mind as end result isn’t always a polished, glossy piece which pops into existence fully formed but is a process of trial and error and of making mistakes and trying to understand, aided by my research, why some of my ideas seem to work better than others. Interesting that, as this unit has progressed, what I previously would have considered just a creative decision based on my personal likes and dislikes seems far more involved.

Another piece which seemed to attract very positive feedback was my use of the image of a young child. I show this image below just so that this description is more cohesive. I cut the image of the child with a book from its background and placed this as a transparent image on top of my photograph of a bench, carefully positioning the child so its feet appeared to be on the ground and I not get feeling it floating in mid-air. I placed the child’s book on the bench. My tutor said there a certain feeling about this image, something almost haunting about child turning to face the viewer. In another sense if the child looking back at the living from the past or from death and the memory of life? I had a few questions on this work; was my scaling of the child against the bench correct and my framing of child at one end of bench and whether image too simplistic. Some of my other images I rejected as being too busy with too much going on and I wondered if I had gone too far in other direction with this attempt. The feelings behind my choice of this image is the kind of idea which I found difficult at times this month because of mental side but feedback was very positive which was good to hear and was encouraging.

Memorial Bench with Child and Book

We went onto chat about the use of a shot constructed using a museum as the memory vehicle rather than a memorial bench. This seemed to work but maybe needed a description to explain this connection. As with another image where I mixed ‘live people’ with the transparent image from the past, I wondered at the added depth to the meanings of such images for example in this shot with the couple with their shoes off. Is this too much unrelated detail or a good mix between the normal things people do in life set against the memory and more formal nature of my image choice from the past?

 

Moving away from my practical works to my latest draft of my literature review. Here once again feedback was positive and it seemed my interest in my chosen topic came across as tutor expressed idea that my work was interesting to her which I think must be good as wouldn’t be best idea to bore my tutor with assessment not too far away. My written work a little bulky but I explained my usual way of producing written work was to get down my ideas and then to trim it back. Suggestions to make some changes to the structure of my essay so that I deal with each source in blocks or sections, one for Bathes, one for Sontag and so on and to place my own opinions in a separate section, maybe as part of conclusion.  I could then look to my dissertation proposal which forms part of the literature review. I did work on early attempt at my proposal so will be interesting how and where I place this with rest of literature review.

Feedback based on Learning Outcomes

I dialled into a recording of workshop on learning outcomes that took place when I was on holiday. Based on this I have updated my personal update on where I think I have made progress against my learning outcomes.

My own feedback as regards how I think I have progressed and the unit learning outcomes is a little lengthy for this document so I have left this in my blog.

It can be found here-

https://richarddalgleish.net/2022/09/27/progress-review-8-against-learning-outcomes/

I not yet added specific examples from my research and what I have recorded in my blog to my update on my progress of the learning outcomes so will do that for my next review meeting.

Action points

Produce this summary of feedback meeting.

Produce a further draft of my literature review including my dissertation proposal.

Add specific examples from my learning blog into my next review of learning outcomes.

In addition to continued work on:

Review of my project plan.

Student meetings

And at same time, trying to take time, to aid my mental health.

 

Progress review against learning outcomes #8

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.

Reflective commentary #8

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.