#creative attitudes

[oldest icon, from when I first made my deviant art account, 2013 – age 13. Inspired by Japanese kitsune masks]

[2014, age 14. More stylised, I think inspired by Tim Burton. Its more fanciful, I wanted my icon, and how people thought of me at the time to be ‘cool’]

[2015, aged 15. I thought that my older icons were ‘lame’. Over used ideas and a bit ‘kiddish’. I started reading cosmic horror and liked the idea of being an avatar to some unknowable force so I drew a lot of eyes and tentacles, inspired by my interest in the podcast ‘welcome to nightvale’.]

[2016, aged 16 – 17. I reached a period where drawing anything other than pretty close to the truth of who I was was ‘cringe’. Although I presented myself as a cisgender male online, I drew myself as accurately as I was able to at the time]

[2018, aged 18. When I got to college, I was able to change my outward appearance more than I had in the past. Being able to draw this was more interesting to me than borrowing ideas from fantasy.]

[2018, aged 18. The idea of portraying myself accurately was a large part of this year, and since I was working on meeting briefs in college, I liked to do regular self-portraits to practice anatomy]

[aged 18, 2018. I started to head towards more unnatural colours when drawing myself and existing online again when I grew my hair out. Although blond is a normal hair colour, my hair grows in almost black. It was different enough and exciting enough for me to be happy presenting myself roughly as I was. This changed as I started to feel bored by myself]

[2019, aged 19. I dyed and cut my hair bright reds and oranges around this point. I liked my unordinary look and I wanted to reflect that in my work. This lasted several years. I would depict myself in bright colours, dramatic gore and with features out of fantasy films, i.e.., horns and sharp teeth. I leaned completely into the decadence of my interests and was unapologetic in what I enjoyed and would have thought ‘cringe’ at 15]

Animated gif made as an advancement of my painting of birch trees with human eyes.

Notes from week 7.

Notes after 1247 pm are from a studio tutorial.

In relation to these notes I want to borrow a projector from technical resources to project the illustration of birch trees into the dark space of studio 203 to build a space of identity.

If I can not make the projector compatible with my technology i Will try to animate it, in order to have a more developed idea from it.

week 8

16/03/22

'Extensive use of found objects was made by dada, surrealist and pop artists, and by later artists such as Carl Andre, Tony Cragg, Bill Woodrow, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Michael Landy among many others'

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dion-tate-thames-dig-t07669

Tate Thames Dig, by Mark Dion

'Working over a number of days, Dion's team collected large quantities of items, including clay pipes, vividly decorated shards of delftware, oyster shells and plastic toys.'

the work was presented and examined like archaeologist were working on piecing together a lost culture. the objects are kept in a wooden case with glass doors, you can see the small objects of the installation easily.

it reminds me of the cases of wet specimens in the school yard at beamish and displays you might find in a natural history museum.

'Dion's practice incorporates aspects of archaeology, ecology and detection. His projects focus primarily on current issues surrounding the representation of nature and on the history of the natural sciences.'

https://www.tate.org.uk/research/in-focus/black-wall-louise-nevelson/culture-of-collecting

The Culture of Collecting, article on Louise Nevelson.

-a taxonomic display than as a large assortment of things that have been gathered together to store or keep safe.

-Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector, which explored the history of the relationship between the hobby of collecting and professional aesthetic practices.

-The initial rise in the practice of collecting as a hobby corresponded directly to the nineteenth-century increase in manufactured goods, which ensured widespread availability and standardisation.

-Nevelson collected somewhat more narrowly. While she first sought out wooden items abandoned in the street — furniture parts, crates, old toys, posts and architectural fragments

-Nevelson could not even rightly be said to have specialised in antiques since her primary interest was in castaways

'a moving image artist working with animation and game-like landscapes. Their practice is centred around instances in which real life can be experienced as fictional' - university debrief.

Mix of animation, real life and video game

Works with layered worlds of real life and digital

Video essays of the Same protagonist exploring different landscapes

Explores spaces of video games, academic etc in multi layered images

Inspired by david blandy, and artist moving image

A conversation between father and son about art.

Inspired they to have a digital avatar to explore art work

David blandly, duels and dualities

Made a video game like street fighter where different versions of himself fight

put themselves into skyrim

Questions of reality and self identification

Does the avatar feel things, have memories, receive trauma

Uses the avatar to document a presence within skyirm

on their website they have an old style clip to doll dress up game. since flash is no longer active on doll sites I would be able to use meeker.io like I have done to create dress up games, but this time instead of characters that I like it would be of me.

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/aoqu/article/view/16048/14362

on their website there was a link to an interview; experiencing life as cinematic fiction.

[ive been really struggling to come up with a 3rd idea for my self portraits. I had my ideas relatively well planned, but I changed them all last minute during week 5.

I've managed to develop 2 ideas so far. 3 images that are focused on the idea of collections and objects. another that follows art that I planned to make and want to make personally. the second idea I think will never reach a point of completion that im happy with. with it I'm looking into mixed media.

it is made with modelling, referencing, digital painting and collage.

my final idea came to me when I was waiting for a guest lecture to start. last semester we had a lecture with Petra Szemán. I thought their work was very interesting so I followed them on instagram. their work looks at digital avatars and the idea of self and identity.