Contexual Studies : Conceptualising your own work


This is a piece of photography by the Photographer Ansel Adams, Adams was born in San Francisco, California on the twentieth of February 1902, and he died on The twenty second of April 1984. The following piece I am going to talk bout is called “loneliness” made in the 1920s. the American photographer is famous for his landscape photos his nature photos of the American west. This is an image of a man walking alone along the dessert, with his deserted footprints being left behind to show the viewer what Adams means by the title. Adams created this image to portray the fear of being alone, although when you look at the photo you immediately see the loneliness that is said as the title, you also see some other meanings like, the space surrounding and freedom of independence shown with the man just walking and he’s very comfortable being alone. This confuses the eye of the viewer into thinking why has Adams named the photo “loneliness”. Adams shows depth well, where the man is in the distance and the footprints are what you notice first. The time and space is shown well as you can see the first thing you see is the footprints in the bottom left corner where the man walked minutes before the photo was taken. This shows the meaning well because you see only the footprints of one man, which shows he is alone, so you know there’s not a meaning hidden within the image. I have used this piece of work by Adams because this piece is very similar to my piece of work shown below.
This is an image of my own. I decided to take a photograph of my footprints left in the snow on the second of December 2010, I did this because this would show a part of my journey taken in my life which I was documenting for my piece. Even though when you look at the image you don’t see the footprints clearly, I find it unusual and the thought of not knowing is very inviting. This makes the viewer want to look more into the image to find out what is going on and why I made this piece. I was inspired by the photography Ansel Adams because I have seen a few pieces of his work where he documents the journey through time, with the piece “loneliness” where he documents a mans footprints while the man walks in the sand. The artist Richard Long also inspired me in this piece because he documents journeys in a similar way of his travelling all around the world. This image is the original, have decided not to edit the image because I find the roughness very affective in showing the simplicity of my meaning, (My Journey, space and time). When looking at the image I see a long path that shows no ending, this adds depth and creates an effect, which makes you feel that my journey is never ending.

ND1 2D design.. All photoshop works

Music (apple) project..

Paperchase project..

Circles project..

ND1 Lens based

we mirrored out image to create the double which is odd looking and unusual..

i added a background to this image after editing all three images together to create the effect of a surreal piece.

ND1 lens based

2D pattern design chinese birds nu rave etc.

magazine project

ND2 contextual studies essay, theme sculpture

Kirsten Lilley
ND 2 Group 3
Theme: sculpture
November 2010


Appendix






Appendix 1 Appendix 2
Title: Unique forms of continuity in space Title: La Foret
Artist: Umberto Boccioni Artist: Alberto Giacometti
Materials: Bronze painted Materials: Paris on the base,
bronze painted
Date: 1882 – 1916 (1913) Date: 1901 – 1966 (1950)
Size: 43 7/8 x 34 7/8 x 15 ¾” (111.2 x 88.5 x 40 cm) Size: Height 23in. (58.4cm)







In this essay I am going to compare two works of art which relate to my chosen theme of sculpture. Firstly I am going to describe both works of art separately considering their context as well as their formal elements then I am going to compare and contrast the two.

The first piece of artwork I have chosen is (Appendix 1) “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”, this is a piece of sculpture which was made in the year 1913, by the talented Italian artist Umberto Boccioni. This piece of sculpture is made in bronze and has been painted gold. This sculptures size is (111.2 x 88.5 x 40cm) and there are a few versions of this sculpture seen in the Museum of Modern Art.

The second piece of artwork I have chosen is (Appendix 2) “La Foret” by the artist Giacometti, this piece of art is sculpture. This was made in the year 1950. This sculpture is entirely made from bronze; Giacometti has used seven figures representing different people, using the different heights and the specific build of each figure. The title “La Foret” means the forest, this meaning is incorporated through the fact that each figure does not show a direct human trait, when you look you and see tall treelike figures, a forest or trees, a forest of figures, which brings in the theme from the title and shows the meaning well. You will find this piece of artwork in the Tate Gallery.

In these sculptures there are some similarities that are obvious to the eye like the fact that both pieces of work are a form of sculpture. When you look at each piece you don’t know the meaning just by looking at the sculpture. Boccioni and Giacometti both have used similar colours for their sculpture although Giacometti has used two colours whereas Boccioni has used one; the colour scheme is very similar. Both of the sculptures have a distorted look, when you look at each sculpture you can’t tell what they are without looking back again.

I am going to compare these two sculptures against each other (Appendix 1) and (Appendix 2). I have found that when you look at the sculptures there are only a couple of things you can see that differ like the difference in size, the sculpture by Boccioni (Appendix 1) is very large (111.2 x 88.5 x 40cm) in size, whereas Giacometti`s sculpture (Appendix 2) is a lot smaller in size. As I spoke about before the colours used are a similar colour scheme, but the difference is that in Boccioni`s work (Appendix 1) he has only used one colour whereas Giacometti has used two (Appendix 2). “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”, was made in New York in 1913 by the Italian artist Boccioni, whereas “La Foret” was made in England although having a French title in the year 1950. This shows a thirty-seven year age gap between each piece of art.

To conclude this essay on the work of Umberto Boccioni and Giacometti I have analysed each piece of work and learnt information about the artists who made them. I have compared each work of art against the other and found the similarities within each piece. I am happy to say I have read into each sculpture and have learnt the basics and the important details about the work. Also I have learnt about the artists who created these pieces of artwork chosen.

















Bibliography

Appendix 1
-Boccioni, unique forms of continuity in space 1913
The collection online:
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=81179


Appendix 2
-Giacometti, La Foret 1950
Christies online:
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=3905812

pinhole camera information

A pinhole camera is the simplest camera possible. It consists of a light-proof box, some sort of film and a pinhole. The pinhole is simply an extremely small hole like you would make with the tip of a pin in a piece of thick aluminum foil.
A pinhole camera works on a simple principle. Imagine you are inside a large, dark, room-sized box containing a pinhole. Imagine that outside the room is a friend with a flashlight, and he is shining the flashlight at different angles through the pinhole. When you look at the wall opposite the pinhole, what you will see is a small dot created by the flashlight's beam shining through the pinhole. The small dot will move as your friend moves his flashlight. The smaller the pinhole (within limits), the smaller and sharper the point of light that the flashlight creates.
Now imagine that you take your large, dark, pinhole-equipped room outside and you point it at a nice landscape scene. When you look at the wall opposite the pinhole, what you will see is an inverted and reversed image of the scene outside. Each point in the scene emits light, and, just like the flashlight, the beam of light from that point passes through the pinhole and creates a point of light on the back wall. All of the points in the scene do that at the same time, so an entire image, in focus, is created on the back wall of the room. The image is very dim because the pinhole is so small, but you can see it if the room is very dark.

PINHOLE CAMERA research

A pinhole camera is a very simple camera with no lens and a single very small aperture. Simply explained, it is a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. Cameras using small apertures and the human eye in bright light both act like a pinhole camera.
The smaller the hole, the sharper the image, but the dimmer the projected image. Optimally, the size of the aperture should be 1/100 or less of the distance between it and the screen.
A pinhole camera's shutter is usually manually operated because of the lengthy exposure times, and consists of a flap of some light-proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole. Typical exposures range from 5 seconds to hours and sometimes days.
A common use of the pinhole camera is to capture the movement of the sun over a long period of time. This type of photography is called Solargraphy.
The image may be projected onto a translucent screen for real-time viewing (popular for observing solar eclipses; see also camera obscura), or can expose film or a charge coupled device (CCD). Pinhole cameras with CCDs are often used for surveillance because they are difficult to detect.

lens based

-we used normal digital cameras in this and blurred the image to create many layers on one image.

-we rubbed out the pieces of layers that we never wanted to be shown to create a better image with the beneath layrs showing through.

outdoor light

pinhole images. negative -> positive

Pinhole project

pinhole project