Hara Shinichi

Antoni Tapies

Information overload

Final seminar response

Had the final seminar of this semester this morning, which is a weight of my mind at least. For this weeks seminar my group had to read a chapter from the book "Unreal Estate" by Barry Curtis. In this section of the text he references loads of films (well over 30 or so) most of which are horror related though some are a bit harder to grasp in their relationship to the others for example "honey i shrunk the kids". Anyway with regards to the films I found it really quite hard to analyse  as I think there are only a handful that he mentions which I have ever seen in entirety and have any confidence in talking about. Never the less I was still able to discuss one in particular this being "Panic Room" by David Fincher, 2002. Bellow is the small response i wrote regarding this film and some of but definitely not all of the theories he (Curtis) brings up in the text.

  In the text the author (Barry Curtis) deals with many different architectural themes as well as horror movie themes, looking at the movies Panic Room( David Fincher, 2002) and The Ring or Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002 and Hideo Nakata, 1998 respectively) he address the ideas of the intruder and the safety of the home as well as the ideas of the permeability of the home or dwelling, which he mentions several times earlier in the text. In Panic Room the “intruders” to the house can be viewed in two ways firstly the new tenants (character played by Jodie foster and her daughter) who have recently bought the house as the means to a new start (see motivation and social ideals earlier in the text) and also the thieves who later break in to steal whatever wealth was left by the previous owner (this wealth can be considered the ghost or legacy of the previous owner as touched on earlier in the text). In the film the house contains a “panic room” designed to protect the inhabitants from just such an event, akin to that of the medieval castle keep, though once they have entered the “keep” the new tenants soon find themselves entombed with no way to raise the alarm or indeed to rid themselves of these intruders thus the architectural design features ostensibly included to provide a safe haven to your safe haven (traditional view of your home) becomes an additional complication.  This then allows the new intruders to permeate the whole of the house in their search for the legacy of the previous owner only to find that the one place they can’t permeate is the place they need to in order to complete their visitation.

This theme of hide and seek is what the author describes as “ the labyrinthine quest that lies at the heart of all haunted house films” 

some more collage of found objects on plaster blocks cast from found objects

Rather unproductive few days at college due to beating this essay that's due soon out of my head. The reflecting on an aspect of my work part of it is really helpful and pushed me into some early trials for some work reminiscent of pre masters work, which is nice. Sorry for the shit images, took them on my phone tried to edit as best i could. 

Plaster block with record sleeve collage and printed image disk 

Record sleeve collage and printed image disk

Plaster block with niche carved for found book 

Detail of book in niche

niche carved in plaster,

niche carved in plaster with printed picture disk insert

detail of niche and picture disk cut out

final seminar sneak peak

Triad crit response

CLUSTERFUCK

Military term for an operation in which multiple things have gone wrong. Related to "SNAFU" (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up") and "FUBAR" (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair).

In radio communication or polite conversation (i.e. with a very senior officer with whom you have no prior experience) the term "clusterfuck" will often be replaced by the NATO phonetic acronym "Charlie Foxtrot."

By the time the artillery came in the enemy was already on top of us. It was a total clusterfuck

Fire and Ink video

Found this a while ago when i was looking into anyone who is crossing lines in regards to printmaking and sculpture and mixing the two in different ways. Have to say im slightly disappointed by the video as it doesnt show enough of the finished work but the mixing of process is nice and interesting.

Liminal

This word came up in a discussion with Graham Todd about my work and where im at in very general terms. It sums up quite nicely so many factors in my work, where my head is currently, where my research is, where my source materials come from as well as my methods of production and materials used.  Definition bellow courtesy of Wikipedia 

Liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold"[1]) is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes, as defined in neurological psychology (a "liminal state") and in the anthropological theories of ritual by such writers as Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner.[2]

As developed by van Gennep (and later Turner), the term is used to “refer to in-between situations and conditions that are characterized by the dislocation of established structures, the reversal of hierarchies, and uncertainty regarding the continuity of tradition and future outcomes”.[3] Although initially developed as a means to analyze the middle stage in ritual passages, it is “now considered by some to be a master concept in the social and political sciences writ large”.[4] In this sense, it is very useful when studying “events or situations that involve the dissolution of order, but which are also formative of institutions and structures.”[5]

The term has passed into broad popular usage, and arguably at least 'the very wide extension of the notion of liminality had the unfortunate consequence of undermining its initial power'.[6] As an anthropological concept, liminality can be applied to “a variety of concrete problems of transformation in the historical, social, and political world”.[7] It is particularly useful as a tool for analyzing both contemporary events and problems, and for analyzing and comparing various historical periods.[8]

hmmm

Some new photos, havent put anything up in a while due to beating myself up over this essay we have to do. Anyway, had a chat well several chats with my tutor Graham Todd over the past two weeks and through conversations with him decided that experimenting with colour was the way to go down. He originally suggested bring my background in printmaking into this by trying to print a flat colour over the top of the plaster blocks as printing a flat colour can be a challenge even with normal printing materials, but due to the depth of plaster in these blocks i have just painted  this on (still using mixed inks) more of a trial than anything else. The text is a tag i have used in the past, just wanted to try out something not as traditional or legible with regards to stone carving and sculpture etc, like the contrast though preffered it without the colour def needs something over the top again to just knock it back abit and bring back the subtle nature of the white gouges in the white plaster. Maybe some half tone images from my found library.....