NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Brief: The Final Major Project consolidates the fundamental learning and skills taught and developed in the previous years. Produce an outcome that represents your investigations and research.
- Statement of Intent -
‘No Place Like Home’ is an exploration into the subject of place, and how ones memories, experiences and sense of being is affected by the environment.
The concept of a place is surprisingly complex yet intriguing subject matter, no two individual experiences of a place are the same, it is a very personal element that is constantly evolving and changing over time.
This project centres around the Fens, a vast open flat landscape in East Anglia, a place that I have grown to call ‘home’. Through a mixed media approach of moving image, illustration, collage and photography, I have explored what place is to me. Depicted through the environment of the Fens I seek out the forgotten stories, the hidden away memories, the current state of mind or even the uncertainty of the future; all of which is influenced by the environments we walk. the places we see, and the air we breath.
- Research -
The research I gathered for my project established a foundation of inspiration and theoretical understanding towards the subject of place, this in turn established a concrete foundation to grow my initial ideas, explorations and experiments from. The following pages highlight my theoretical and artistic research.
Theoretical.
‘Place’ - Tacita Dean and Jeremy Miller
Tacita Dean and Jeremy Miller present an exhibition in a book, displaying some of the most challenging art to address the function of place in the contemporary world. Arranged into themed 'rooms', it reflects a wide variety of artistic attitudes and practices. An interesting aspect I found when reading the book was how some artists prefer to look at itinerant wanderers with no claims on the earth, or to focus on anonymous non-places that lack any real identity of their own. This concept began to make me think of what happens when you flip the idea of a place affecting an individual, to the individual affecting the place.
‘Space And Place: The Perspective of Experience’ - Yi-Fu Tuan.
Considered one of the key figures in human geography and arguably the most important originator of humanistic geography, Yi-Fu Tuan’s book ‘Space And Place: The Perspective of Experience’ is an insightful study of the ways in which people feel and think about space. The book explores how humanity form attachments to home, neighbourhood, and nation, and how feelings about space and place are affected by the sense of time. An outstanding pointer of Tuan’s book is his study of space, place and the child. Here Tuan talks about how a young child perceives and understands the environment in which they find themselves learning and growing up in. For me this poised an interesting avenue for exploration - do the places we experience as an infant form attachments to our adult memories and in turn affect the outlook we have on them at an older age? This was an aspect I wanted to explore more in detail going forward with the project.
“Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other. There is no place like home? It is the old homestead, the old neighbourhood, home town, or motherland.”
The Science Behind It
To reinforce my knowledge of place I felt it was important to understand the science of the brain, in relation to memories and their attachments to certain places. Below are two articles articles I have sourced, one from the ‘New Scientist’ and the other from ‘The Atlantic’ which describe two similar studies corresponding to the human brain and its function towards memories and place.
Artistic.
David Milne
Considered one of Canada’s most prolific painters, David Milne’s depictions of northern American landscapes are a master class of negative space, through which environments are projected onto the canvas with a air of gloomy beauty. I visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery where a major exhibition of Milne’s work was presented.
The gallery showcased a wide selection of his oil paintings alongside watercolours, drawings and photographs, to reveal an artist of true originality and vision. Arranged chronologically, the exhibition follows Milne’s artistic development as he moves from the bustling sidewalks of New York to the war-torn landscapes of northern France and Belgium and back again to the woods, fields and skies of the northeastern US and Canada.
For me the most outstanding aspect to Milne’s work is the impact place had on his career. Milne’s could be titled as a wandering artist, never settling in one location - through examining his paintings and experiencing the exhibition you can understand how place can effect our on look on life. From the hustle and bustle of the New York streets, to the tranquil lakes of northeastern US and Canada there is an evident transition to Milne’s paintings - the further Milne’s took himself out away from the city, his work began to breath and become more expressive and freer. This aspect to Milne’s artistic mentality, alongside his negative space approach is something I took with me going forward with my project.
Eddie Peak
A secondary exhibition I visited during the research process for my project was ‘Concrete Pitch’ the latest exhibition of mix media based London artist Eddie Peak. The White Cube was host to a series of new sculpture, painting, sound and performance works, which Peak presented in an immersive and constructed environment.
The works in the exhibition weave autobiographical elements and an examination of self-identity with more general themes of desire, the body, architecture and urban landscape. The title ‘Concrete Pitch’ was inspired by the bare, concrete recreation ground in Finsbury Park in London where Peake grew up, which was used as a playground, a sports field, a meeting place for people of every age, class and ethnicity and location for encounters and scenarios of all kinds. Its this connection with his youth that captivated me the most. Walking around ‘Concrete Pitch’ you are immersed within Peak’s childhood, teenage years and adulthood all at was, although abstract on first glance beneath the broadcasting oldskool jungle and drum and bass, and fluorescent paintings there is an evident connection with place and the human state. Memory is key to ‘Concrete Pitch’, the exhibition alludes a looking glass into Peak’s origins; it offered a new intriguing perspective for my project, in particular capturing my home environment of the Fens in association with childhood memories and experiences.
Todd Hido
San Fransisco based photographer, Todd Hido offered a unique insight into landscape photography that in turn I took forward and experimented within my project. Shooting out of a car window, Hido’s photographs are a great depiction of pure rawness. Hido offers the viewer a very unique perspective of his environments, through his gloomy, hazy and blurry lens an air of sadness and dreariness is captured, that in turn reveals a subtle beauty. The concept of shooting out of a car window alludes to a road trip or form of journey, a journey that appears lost - visiting a past that is now gone or possibly searching for something that hasn't been found? Similar to Peak, this idea of seeking past memories or experiences through place is interesting, yet through viewing Hido’s work it began to make me think what happens when you gain a sense of place that could affect ones future?
Adam Jepsen
Adam Jepsen is another photographer that took my interest during my research process. The Danish photographer is in contrast to the other artists I have looked at, Jepsen captures environments and landscapes that seem to be anywhere places. Location and context appears to be irrelevant in his photographs, it is as if he wants us to view and contemplate the photograph with out being influenced by what we might feel about a particular location. Often photographers like to go to a place that we all know and show us their own vision. There is a certain freedom that comes from being able to look at a photograph without a sense of place, it is like a neutral space that one can put themselves into. This idea of manipulating a place to appear to be empty, for new experiences from different forms to project upon it, was another aspect that I wanted to play with.
Emmanuel Lubezki
For technical inspiration, in particular reference towards framing of landscapes, I looked at the work of Emmanuel Lubezki, cinematographer of such films as Gravity, Birdman and most notably The Revenant. Lubezki’s ability for creating immersive, natural experiences that draw viewers into the story, often embracing wide angle lenses and long continuous shots, has become his trademark. His cinematography within The Revenant captures an organic pure beauty of the wild environment. Using only natural lighting Lubezki combines his wide angle, long, and extended continuous shots to encompass the natural landscape in an aura of immense power and vastness. Lubezki’s technical approach to using wide shots, particularly interested me and was something I took forward and explored for myself.
Poetry
An idea I had from the outset of this project was to use poetry to influence and inform my work. In particular I wanted to use poetry within my moving image outcome to support and guide the narrative of the subject matter. I feared without it, the film might become to abstract and the meaning I wanted to present would get lost.
With this in mind I explored many different poems surrounding the theme of place, home, memories and nature/landscape. I ended up debating between two poems, ‘Remember' by Joy hard and ‘Place’ by Brian Turner. Initially I settled with ‘Remember’, I admired the sense of memories that was evident within the poem, however upon second reflection I felt it leant itself to much to the past, and was not really that relatable to the present of future, which is something I wanted to try and incorporate within my work. Also the poem was a little to long, I felt if I was to use it within my film, then it would take over the piece; I merely wanted the poem to support the moving image and narrative rather than the moving image be based upon the poem. In the end I decided to use ‘Place’, I felt I could relate to it a lot more on a personal level, the description about place and landscape within the poem reminded me of the Fens and the countryside that I grew up in. Additionally the poem is a lot shorter, and was more manageable to work with.
- Process -
Having gained a valuable theoretical and artistic understanding of place, I began to plan and work on my outcomes for the project. From the outset I wanted to explore my chosen subject matter through a mixed media approach. This has always been a key feature of my work over the past three years at university, I enjoy the process of exploring a varied avenue of materials and techniques; because I feel it is interesting to see the multiple channels of expression, and how different or similar they can be, through the final outcomes. With this in mind I decided my final pieces will be a short mixed media film, an accompanying book containing a selection of photographs and illustration, and a series of sketchbooks displaying my experiments; all of which highlight my explorations into the fens and my sense of place.
Film and Photoshoot
I began with planning my short film and photography outcomes. I decided to complete both processes at the same time, because they lend themselves to one another. Before I went out and began shooting, I planned the locations I would visit, the times and days I would go out, but also the weather; which was probably one of the most important aspects of the shoot. Inspired by Lubezki and The Revenant, I wanted to use all natural lighting and real locations; and also capture the environment through a series of different weathers, sun, rain, cloud and fog - fortunately the three weeks I was in the Fens for the shoot, I had all four climates to work with. Using google maps I printed screen shots of the surrounding area, and simply circled the rough places on the map where I wanted to capture. A lot of my chosen locations were accessible by foot, however some I drove to which enabled me to experiment with taking pictures out of the car window, similar to that of Hido’s technique.
With a plan drawn up regarding locations, weather and timescale for the shoot I turned my attention to outlining the equipment I was going to use. For the photographs I debated about using a 35mm disposable camera, how ever I felt it wouldn't capture the quality I wanted but mainly practically it would cost a lot of money and be quite time consuming to buy the film and process it all. So I settled with using my digital Olympus E-PL1 with attachable lenses, I experimented with using several different lenses from the standard M.Zuiko ED 14-42mm to the more longer lens M.Zuiko ED 14-150mm. However, again inspired by the framing and visual approach of Lubezki I mainly used the 12mm lens for micro four third cameras from Lomography, this enabled me to capture an extreme wide angle which suited the environment I was in; because I could capture not only an expanded view of the fields and countryside, but ultimately the immense skies that are very evident within the Fens. With regards to the filming I wanted to use a Sony Hi8 video recorder. The main reason for this, is I wanted to capture a sense of memory though the footage, so by using a VHS camera I was able to film the environment that upon reflection alludes to a home video; this in turn establishes an aura of past memories and experiences.
With a solid plan in place, an equipment and rough shot list drawn up I began to go out to film and photograph the environment. The shoot lasted three weeks, over which time I managed to capture each of the climates I wanted and gather a vast amount of photographs and footage. The only real challenge I faced on the shoot was being patient with the setting. It took me some time to adapt to working out in the real environment, a lot of the time the shot I wanted to get would appear for a brief moment, so I had to adjust my usual quick working style, to become more patient and controlled. It was a refreshing way of working that I feel has benefited me going forward with other projects, both regarding personal and professional outputs.
Another technique I wanted to include in the mix media film was animation; having captured all the live action footage and photographs of the Fens I turned my attention to experimenting with different ways of animating. In past projects I have used rotoscoping, however after doing a couple of experiments I felt an alternative approach would be more suitable. I wanted to create a certain subtlety to the animations, I found instead of rotoscoping but drawing the animations from free hand offered the solution. Using my photos as a reference, I highlighted an area on the image that I would animate and then began illustrating the frames needed to make up the movement of the sequence. Because I was tight on time, I used a 12 frame format, which I then doubled each frame to make the standard 24 frames per second. having drawn up around eight 12 frame sets of animation, I had around thirty seconds total animation footage, which doesn't sound a lot, but it was enough to add that slight rawness of hand drawn animation, that I was looking for.
With all my assets collected and completed, it was time to begin the edit. However before I did so, I drew up a storyboard and edit list to help guide me through compiling the narrative together; I often make a story board after I have captured all the footage, instead of at the beginning, because I feel it is easy to visualise what the end piece of work could look like having the relative assets at hand. With the storyboard drawn up I started the rough cut edit. Using Adobe Premier Pro - a software I am familiar with having used it on previous projects - I imported all the relevant footage and began putting it all together on the timeline. Going back to the poem, I had recorded myself reading it and then edited it slightly within Garageband to give my voice a slight megaphone effect - I felt this effect suited the aesthetic of the old footage, in turn reinforcing fluidity to the piece - I then imported the final sound recording in Pr and synced it with the footage. Next I rendered and exported the rough cut and viewed it several times, made notes on some changes and was ready to complete the final edit.
The biggest change I felt was needed, was music needed to take over from the raw sound of the footage. When viewing the rough cut I felt the beginning worked well, with myself reciting the poem and relative imagery projecting over it, but after going into the main sequence of the film it became slightly boring; the impact of the footage was there but I felt added music would extend the audiences attention and interest to the piece as well as adding another layer of character and emotion. With this in mind I went back into Garageband and began to produce a piece of music to accompany the footage. I played around with a mixture of different sounds, but in the end I found using jazz influenced tones suited the aesthetic of the film the best.
With a score settled for the film, I took the music and added it to the final edit. Having music also made it a lot easy to edit, I’ve found on previous projects when sound is involved with the moving image it makes the whole process a lot easier to compile as well as building tension, excitement, suspense and other emotions. Through out the editing process I felt it was key to not over complicate things and let the footage and animations speak for themselves, in turn enabling the places and environments I had captured to breath and display with out getting lost or obstructed. However I did choose to edit to a certain layout, where I would overlap or have multiple elements running at the same time on the screen at once. This was done deliberately to enhance my perception of place, and display the multiple different experiences, memories and state of minds that I have associated with the Fens. The biggest challenge I faced when editing the final sequence was to not make it to abstract, the music helped a lot with this hurdle, but I paid extra attention to the sequence of footage, photographs and animations and also the transitions between them; this in turn grasped a sense of narrative throughout the film which reinforces structure and overcomes the fear of abstraction and sense of ambiguity. The final stages to the edit was creating a title sequence for the end credits, I thought it would open up another avenue to the film if I displayed some of the workings behind it all; I then rendered the final edit out and exported it to .mp4.
Book, Illustrations, and Collages.
With the short film completed I turned my attention to making the book. I wanted the book to support the film but at the same time act as its own final piece. Before I began to make the book, I wanted to know where I was going to print it so that I knew the dimensions, paper weight and page range when designing and producing the final outcome. After much research into printers I decided to go with Ex Why Zed, I felt there printing examples online suited what I wanted to make, but also they were very easy to contact and assisted in a lot of technical support with the book. The dimensions of there book were going to be 210mm x 210mm which is square, because I felt it would suit the landscape format that much of my photographs were taken in; and then there would be 60 pages in total with a 4pp cover onto 300gsm and a 170gsm for the text pages. The paper would also be printed onto an uncoated stock, I chose not to go with a glossy finish, because I felt the uncoated added a certain rawness that suited the images of the Fens.
With the book details and a printer all organised I began to structure the book together. I wanted the book to essentially be a photography art book, with minimal to no text. This is because I wanted to express my explorations into place as a purely visual form, and not over complicate it with paragraphs of analytical text. I began with selecting the best of the photographs I had taken during my three week shoot, however I felt the selected images needed to be edited. I took them into Lightroom and experimented with three different presets I had made for myself, the aesthetic I was going for was that of resemblance to 35mm film; which is slightly ironic considering I chose not to use a 35mm camera, but upon reflection I realised the look and feel of 35mm film fitted suitably with the aesthetic of the Hi8 VHS footage. With a preset created it was a simple task of applying the preset to all the selected final photos, and then adjusting minor details to the hue, saturation and shadows of each image. Having finalised the edit on all the chosen photos I proceeded to place them within my pre created book template in a simple one photo per page format, however I did feel for some photos they worked better in pairs; and in particular my experiments with shooting out of the widow of the car, I decided a grid system was more applicable to the display of the photographs.
Another aspect of the book that I wanted to create, was a break of illustrations in the middle of it that would intuitively separate the sunny day photos from the more gloomy and atmospheric foggy and rainy images. Some of the illustrations I had previously produced from live first hand drawing when I was out on my three week shoot, however most of the finalised illustrations are created from drawing from my photographs. I decided to use a 4b and 6b heavy weight pencil because it offered an raw and graphic approach to illustrating, that in turn produced a powerful and energetic image. Another important aspect I had in mind when producing the illustrations, was to keep them black and white; I felt this was appropriate because it offered an interesting contrast to the rest of the book with my coloured photographs, and reinforced the break in the middle of the book. I achieved the stark black and white effect when scanning in my illustrations, I simply raised the contrast within the scanner settings which in turn produced a scan that could be compared with a screen print outcome. The final scanned illustrations I then took into Photoshop to touch up and then crop down to match each other and the layout of the rest of the book.
Alongside my illustration outcomes I also experimented with the technique of collage. This avenue of expression evolved from myself needing a break from editing my photos - I wanted to take a rest from all the digital processes and purely explore my subject matter through a more hands on approach. I photocopied a series of my photos that I then printed out in black white and white and simply began collaging. I balanced the photocopied images with using a gold foil that was highly reflective, the idea behind this being when I looked back on the finished collage I could see a reflection of myself through the gold foil and thus highlight a metaphor of looking back, remembering and even seeing into the future, all of which is influenced by place. The gold foil represented the only real thought behind the collages, they were more of a sporadic exercise to generate new ideas and express subconscious thoughts I had about the subject matter. I chose not to include the final collages within the book, because I felt along side the illustrations and photographs the book would begin to feel to busy and loose its fluidity; so instead I found use with them within my mix media film.
The final aspect of producing the book was generating a cover and inside pages for it. I began to play around with a series of different fonts that I thought would suite the aesthetic of the book. However after a mid critique I was advised to explore the avenue of using my own handwriting as a font. After playing around with the concept, I settled on a final title and decided as well that an icon should be evident on the cover. I started to think about what would capture the project as a whole, in the end I felt drawing a sunrise and sunset and placing my hand-written title in the middle worked best. I then played around with possible colours for the cover, settling with a sun burnt yellow, that suitably fitted with the sunrise and sunset imagery. The last aspect of the book I worked on was the inside second page, after debating wether to include the poem I used in the film as a page spread, I concluded on using a quote I sourced from Tuan; I connected with his thoughts and ideas about space and place and felt the chosen quote worked as a subtle opener to the book. After double checking the final layout of the book, and adjusting so minor details, I sent it of for print.
The Degree Show
Having researched, experimented and produced my final outcomes to a professional standard, I turned my thoughts towards the degree show, and how I was going to present my project. Initial thoughts surrounded simply having a screen and displaying my book, however upon discussion and reflection I felt I could make a lot more out of the opportunity of exhibiting. With this in mind I began to draft up some concepts of what I could do with the space. Although a rough plan, the general idea I wanted to explore was that I would project my mixed media film onto a series of mirrors, that in turn would reflect out and offer an intriguing viewing perspective for the audience. The mirrors would also represent the same metaphor about past, present, and future times and memories I had explored when I experimented with my collage outcomes; but also could suggest my place is being reflected out to be interpreted in many individual ways, loosely inspired by the works I researched of Jepsen. Accompanying the projected mirror screening would be my book displayed on a plinth or shelf, but also a final collage or painting presented onto a continuous scroll ideally that would then be nailed to the wall. The overall proposed concept would be an interactive experience that encompasses my mixed media approach to my project, but moreover displays my explorations into the subject of place, through a professional output.
- Evaluation -
‘No Place Like Home’ has been an enjoyable, challenging and fulfilling final major project. I strongly feel the final outcomes represent what I set out to explore and question. Although at the heart of the project is a concrete subject matter surrounding place, and how ones memories, experiences and sense of being is affected by the environment, I feel the project has evolved into something much bigger than that. Through my theoretical research into Tuan, artistic inspiration from Milne, Hido and Lubezki, through the explorations and experimentations in the field during my three week shoot and finally to producing the final outcomes; ‘No Place Like Home’ has evolved into something of a much more personal matter. The whole process has been an expedition into my own memories, my present self and future being; but moreover I have been able understand what place is to me, and how the sense of place - although I feel often becomes subconscious - holds a very powerful aura around each individual. Place is all around us, we experience it, live it, and feel it; wether it is your home you have lived the past ten years, or a park bench you sit on every Saturday, or the fields of the Fens - place is a compelling force that shapes our perceptions, emotions and senses of the world we live.
Through out ‘No Place Like Home’ a major factor I wanted to maintain was a demonstration of professionalism. Looking back I feel I have achieved this, my final outcomes highlight a varied and experimental portrayal of my subject matter; but moreover are presented in a highly professional manner. The book especially is printed in a very high quality, and I gave a lot of thought over the layout but also the physical dimensions and materials of the book, to make sure the final piece was collated and presented in a proficient appearance. The final mixed media film also displays a professional working practice, although I would say it is more experimental and slightly more abstract than the book, it highlights an additional avenue of expression towards my subject matte; as well as displaying my appropriate choices of materials and technologies. My experimentations and preliminary productions enabled myself to consolidate ideas and evaluate what worked and what didn’t, this in turn demonstrates an effective communication towards my final outcome.
Although this concludes my FMP I feel this is the beginning of ‘No Place Like Home’. Upon reviewing the whole project I have realised I wish to continue and explore the subject of place. At this current moment the concept of place offers an exciting and intriguing prospect - with my time at university coming to an end and the future there for the taking - further explorations into this project could produce some engaging and refreshing outcomes. I plan to development my findings and outcomes from my FMP to present in the degree show, as this will offer another opportunity to display my work in a varied and experimental way. Overall I feel my FMP has been a success, although I have faced some challenges on the way, through experimentation, mistakes, risk taking, consolidation and finalisation I have produced a series of final outcomes that highlight my thoughts, ideas and feelings towards the sense and impact of place; through a professional and personal manner.
Final Outcomes.