Research In Practice -- Memory In Image

28/03/2014

97 Years -- Jo Hellier

97 Years is my favorite video installation work. This work give me some good inspirations to my personal work. especially I got a good idea from this work is the aspect for the video voice.

Jo Hellier is a Bristol based contemporary artist working with performance, installation, film and sound. She makes considered works for different public spaces, experimenting with form and narrative structure to create exchanges both personal and expansive.

The video here: http://vimeo.com/63820996

Approximately 800,000 people within the UK are diagnosed with Dementia, an illness that affects the memory, communication and empathy. Jo Hellier‘s 97 years is a conversation between herself and her grandfather as she attempts to unlock his fondest memories.

Instigated by Jo Hellier, the art installation began with the organisation of a selection of fresh and rotting apples.

Transfixed in her mission to find the perfect combination, it was a case of trial and error as she scrupulously aligned the fruit in the correct order. Combined with the dimly lit staging, apple bunches hanging from harp like strings, and the repetitive visuals of apple orchards, this only added to the mystique of the narrative, an unanswered question of the apple’s significance. The visuals began to take prominence, as the footage meandered between the elderly male protagonist wondering through serene gardens and orchards whilst a droning and jarring soundtrack played. This contrast between the imagery and sound created an at mospheric , surreal and intriguing setting, a mysterious world all of its own. A gradual process, the audience became an orchestra of speech and memory as Jo conducted our every move. Each audience member was assigned one of the strings, each controlling how far up or down the apple bundles were positioned. It were as if she were seeking our help to clarify the situation and the hazy sounds. Eventually, the soundtrack became audible sentences, as they were revealed to be the words of Jo’s Grandfather. It became apparent that the apples were a source of association, a means to accessing memories, engaging in conversation and unlocking emotions. The apple bunches on the surface not only signified nature and the serenity of agriculture, but the strings symbolised Jo’s grandfather’s mindset and the attempts by people from the medical profession, friends and relatives to reach out to him as his memory faded. This was powerful, and heartbreaking as the piece then transitioned into video footage of Jo and her grandfather having a conversation. Visually, the shadows created by the apples on the screen created flecks, impairing the footage. A way of displaying the decline of memory.

So I feel Jo Hellier’s 97 years is a unique, engaging and fascinating video installation, she was integrating the audience into her and her grandfather's memory world.

My artwork is same with Jo, it consider to make a project around ' Memory '. I also use the video way to explain this topic, it will focus on the different images of that swing in my last three years life. In this project, the creation object is the swing. In my opinion, the memory is like a non-stop and metronomic cycle. I always sit on the memory swing to think about the past things. But I know the time is always balanced, it will not because you are miss something and to let you go back to that moment. However nobody is willing to stop the memory easily. People sometimes will still stay in the repetitive memory to feeling the expectations and the lost, and miss someone or something.

As before I said, 97 Years give me a good inspiration for the voice aspect. In my video, the clock sounds very slow is the inspiration form in 97 Years video, Jo's grandfather's slowly voice.However the idea is different from her. In my opinion, I think when people stay in the memory, rhythm and regularity of time will always be ignored. We through out brain back to the previous image and the story, through the eyes of all the things happened in the past. So the slow clock sound is a hint, it is from we have become slow flashback memories in our minds all the time, but it also exists in the memories of the whole process. It suggesting that our memories of the images although looks real, but could not escape fate of time. They are doomed to become the past, eventually become our experienced lived memorial.

I also thinking about the installation part for my video work. I don't want to just make a simple video to show to the audience. The mainstay for my work is the swing. Like for Jo's work the mainstay is the apple (contact the orchard and her grandfather) That is the most important item in my work. So I think I should show the real swing with the video to audience together. The real swing will contact the video story, to let the audience feel my memory story in the reality. I plan to finish this idea in next term, to make my project be a video installation work.

The sketch for my work set up

26/03/2014

Conclusion

After research the art works and literatures from these artists and philosophers, I can more understand how to express the memory in image for an art aspect. And also I have studied more knowledge form the philosophy theory. Function and meaning of memories can never be replaced by technology. But we should be grateful for the presence of those who may be reproduced , playback memory's technology.

Photography and video honestly recorded the particular imges, that images are from the part of the past, every detail can not be copied. They are unique existence.

The memory in image will bring us to think and remember, we will through the photographic and video to think about their story and destiny, and even to imagine the state of filming . The significance of photography and video is that will freeze memories in a separate , new space ( time and space ) . And I want to do the work which is: Go through my photography and video , the audience will pulled out from the reality, temporarily to brought them in a new world which is I created. This is when I finished to read all the literature, the request for myself.

However, as the photo / video is showing up in the memories of the image, I think it must need to have a certain readability. Although the memory is a very personal thing, but it being viewed as a work , my personal opinion is : it will no longer exist in the images for your personal mind. The artists should have a responsibility to pass it with the accurate approach to the audience . The good art work will moved the audience. Meanwhile , I will measure my own work to using this standard

In another hand, especially through I read the Camera Lucida from Roland Gérard Barthes, I am strongly believe the essential characteristic of photography / video's image is real. "This really existed" (Roland Barthes said) for photography, there is no more straightforward, so a good photography / video should not deviate from the true qualities. In nowadays many people use Photoshop / After Effects for those makeovers by the "fantastic" work, I do not think those are Photography / video, at best, is an alternative to the camera as painting tools, and through computer software subjective re-creation. Of course, like painting, as it can be fantastic, but the philosophical views of photography Roland Battle of my understanding, photographs and videos should screen "real" as the essential characteristics.

I also try to use the real way to make the photography. For example, In the last term I made a photography work. In the photos, an old lady is holding a fish tank sitting on a swing. The fish tank is filled with water and there is a beautiful red goldfish swim inside.

The fish tank is meant our brain. Inside the fish tank(brain) is our full of carrying old memories. In the cold night, the memory of inside the fish tank, quiet but exudes a slightly light, the light through the transparent fish tank, passing out the warm which in the memories. The goldfishes swim in it and repeatedly wandering. It never goes outside. The goldfish looks always vivid. It is a symbol of our most persistent memories. We are never know the age of goldfish. It looks always young and never changed. However in fact this biological trait is their memory very short. So this feeling empty but looks beautiful's creature live in the aquarium repeated around, seems to be empty and helpless. So we are always carefully holding our memories, actually it is a kind of self-deception.

In my photography image, the old lady holding the fish tank. In her fish tank, there is the memory of her childhood. She can remember when she was a child, she was sitting on the swing. Someone was standing behind her and push her very gently. She is very miss that moment, because now she is old, no one will accompany her. She always feels alone. In her mind, she is very looking forward to anybody can come to push her swing like before. So she had been sitting there, very gingerly holding her fish tank(care of her memory), awaiting anyone can help her back to the memory. However in fact her swing is can't be pushes, if someone pushes her swing, the fish tank will overturn and broken.

So sometimes there are some irreconcilable between reality and memories. They are present an inevitable contradiction. In our mind, when these beautiful, long-lasting memories in the face of the reality, sometimes there are too vulnerable. Sometimes they like that fish tank, will become fragmented in the reality.

Around this work, I think the most important point which is the Luminescent fish tank in the photos. I personally think that, if the tank shining is through the software post-production (eg: Photoshop), the entire work will become boring. So I refer to Benoit Paillé's works. Montreal-based photographer Benoit Paillé has been working on a fascinating series of landscapes using a bizarre lighting method involving a suspended glowing square. The images above are not photoshopped, the 1x1 meter light is instead hung in the center of each photograph and the resulting image shows the unique form of illumination that creeps into the surrounding area. Paillé says his goal is to redefine what a landscape photograph is by questioning its reality, creating a kind of poetic moment in space and time. In my opinion. He can put photos of the device itself to make a natural light. This is the point which I most admire.

So I tried to find the natural light for the fish tank in photographs like him. Then I looked for some spotlights hidden in the bottom of the fish tank. Finally I ensures the fidelity and authenticity of the photos.

This really existed - photography and video as a cultural phenomenon, it is that different from the human eye can see "real", and is different from the nature and characteristics of the other arts. The arts, in a nutshell is the photographer through the camera's "eye" feature, art reflect the real, so real explanation of things, so real humbling.

Finally, go through analyzing the artists and philosophers theories and works can help myself better improve to understanding of the memory in image. And also will enrich the connotation for my own art work. I also improving my work have more theoretical basis.