Lens-based Media

For the start of the Lens-based Media rotation week we visited the Tate Modern art gallery as a class. There were several works exhibited there that I took a particular interest in; the following artwork that I photographed is called Movable Shoulder Extension by Rebecca Horn. 

This piece in particular sparked my interest due to its unique format of being a wearable item. Both the artwork itself and the photo have a particularly minimalistic and striking design and function which I felt was worth taking note of. Unfortunately, however, I found that the artwork had very little commentary presented alongside it and no explanation of its purpose - suggesting that it was more of a purely visual work. 

This work is called Interrelated Portraits by artist George Condo; I decided to take note of it due to its stylistically appealing nature. The artist blends an iconic cartoon-like style for the figures while blending them together in a surrealist way; this particular mix is striking due to the juxtaposition of very opposite styles, giving it a disturbing yet endearing quality. The artwork was also created with ink and the loose nature of the lines contributes to the uncertain and surreal nature of the piece.

The following artwork is called The Life Saviors by Hamed Owais. The Whitechapel Gallery, where this piece was exhibited, did not allow for photography within the building, so this is an image taken from the Internet (source). The image is a striking commentary upon world situations, but I chose to take note of it due to its stylistic features.

The disproportionate nature of the main figure adds to the disturbing quality of the work, as similarly to Condo's work, it gives the image a surreal quality. The style of painting is flat and uses desaturated colours and I find this to be aesthetically appealing and appropriate to the message that Owais is aiming to depict through this work.

Our first exercise as a class during this week was drawing-based. We were to draw a certain figure that we encountered often during our lives, but whom we never spoke to or weren't personally acquainted with. I decided to draw and write about an intimidating man who often sits on my doorstep. You can see my contribution to this class exercise on the top-left hand side of the following page.

For the above exercise, we we went on to draw a photograph that we had previously taken within the space of 20 minutes. I found this particularly difficult as we were also required to cover an entire A1 sheet of paper for this drawing; this paired with the time restraint led to a lack of concentration, and the sense of perspective within my drawing was ultimately lost. 

During most of the week, we worked on a collaborative film project that had to have relevance to a recent news event. The topic of choice for my group was the recent findings of water on planet Mars. This is the majority of what myself and my peers spent our time on during Lens-based Media rotation week, but I cannot write more about the project as I do not have access to the recording.

To conclude the Lens-based Media chapter, this movie is the product of a collaborative class exercise we did called 360 Rotation. There were nine participants per group, each sat in an inward-facing circle, drawing a figure who stood in the centre. Putting each image in consecutive order, an animation was produced of the central figure, aiming to ultimately look like the subject was being viewed from a rotating angle.