FINAL MAJOR PROJECT - UCA
By Leanne Bond
ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE
For this project I hope to show my audience the horror of what's becoming of our earth, whilst also showcasing the beauty of our environment and juxtaposing colour with darker images to show what we see vs the reality.
Favourite image - the end of our earth
Representenation of 'the end' of our earth due to overconsumption and pollution leading to climate change. Here I captured my friend lying on the floor and wanted to enhance the horror of this happening through the use of darker colours and an uncanny text overlay inspired by David Buckland to really enhance the impact we have upon our planet, hoping to drive environmental change through the representation of the horror of the reality of our earth.
PROCESS
HOW AM I GOING TO CREATE AN IMPACT TO DRIVE ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE?
Through my work I would like to create an impact through emotion to allow my audience to connect to our environment and how important it is to us, and how crucial it is that we act now, to create environmental change. I plan on doing this through words, colours, filters, facial expressions, drawings and photography.
I will be picking out different forms of art from different artists which I go on to research, and experimenting with the different ways in which they create emotion, and how I can go on to use these to develop my work further.
I hope to print an poem for my film onto various types of scrap materials to not only display the amount of litter we use, but to also work sustainably.
I also want to use drawings and photography with a satirical effect to allow our audience to understand the truth behind our actions through a sense of humour.
With my photography, I hope to create a vintage 70s through to 90s aesthetic through filters and using noise and grain or film overlays to represent the age of our earth alongside the pollution and change throughout the years. I also hope to showcase my work through a vintage horror movie aesthetic to enhance the idea of the horror and mystery of what will become of our earth, in hopes to really create an emotional impact which will lead to the biggest change.
When moving on with my project, I plan on creating a film to visually show our earth and how we have polluted it, using different forms of colours and filters to appreciate our earth but to also present the future of out earth if we don’t act now.
LOUISE BORGEOUIS EXHIBITON
Responding to Louise Bourgeois’ work
Although Bourgeois’ work doesn’t link to my theme, I took a lot of inspiration from visiting her exhibition.
From looking at the way she hangs objects, to the way she uses colour and juxtaposes this with her darker work, and her installations, she creates an emotional impact to her audience. One of the guards within the exhibition mentioned that her work left many people in tears, causing them to leave the exhibit.
This inspires me to enhance the emotion I create from my work, to allow people to feel so connected and really understand their impact, making them leave to reflect and impact on their actions.
Moreover, the use of juxtaposition within her bright against her darker work, creates an understanding of beauty and admiration, vs the damage.
Bourgeois’ installations inspired me to create a similar feel within my video, using manual work to enhance my film and broaden this emotional impact I plan on creating. Her use of larger scale installations inspired me to use a larger scale to reflect how large the impact upon the environment is.
I hope to leave my audience stunned and understood with my work, hoping to drive environmental change and to reflect upon their actions.
Bourgeois was a French-American artist, best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art. She was also a prolific painter and printmaker.
I have chosen Bourgeois as an artist to research because I am absolutely in love with the mixed mediums she uses and how she creates a huge impact on her audience.
I love how she uses large scale sculptures and installations to impact the audience and their understanding on the themes of unconsciousness, anxiety, sexual desire, loneliness, betrayal, jealousy, fear and the body.
Her large-scale sculpture work reflects how overpowering and huge trauma can be, whilst also making an escape and letting her childhood trauma out into her art to free herself.
Meanwhile, her paintings and printmaking's share a childlike sense, and allow us to connect with her childhood self and understand her trauma.
I am interested in experimenting with large-scale sculpture for my project, as it creates a bigger emotional impact, and can reflect how big the issue with climate change is.
From looking at Bourgeois’ work, I am focusing on creating a huge fish from scrap materials, and filling it with plastic, to create this vision of how plastic is killing our marine life.
experimental images
experimental images
With these images I was focusing on appreciating our earth whilst juxtaposing these images with a black and white filter, similar to Akomfrah's style, allowing my audience to feel a sudden sense of darkness and understand the upcoming destruction to our earth.
Here, I wanted to enhance the idea of examining and understanding the beauty of our earth, whilst also using typography to enhance
Here, I was trying to enhance the idea of litter throughout decades, with a retro feel to the images by using a matching colour palette, grain and glitch effects, to enhance this sense of mystery and destruction of our earth.
The placement of these images allows us to understand and admire what life was like previously, whilst understanding how we are now effecting that image through our destruction.
Film title
Glitch effect practice for my film
Scratch overlays for my film
EVALUATION
I was exploring the question, ‘how am I going to create an emotional impact to drive environmental change?’ Throughout my project, I researched artists which were relevant to my topic, who also used emotion to create an impact which drives change. Those artists inspired me to create work with similar themes, whilst using my own style to enhance the emotional impact I wanted to create. I would say my work evolves slightly, from starting off experimenting with colours which were genuinely associated with the environment, and evolving into darker colours which created a mysterious, uncanny effect which left my audience with a sense of fear and a hidden sense of the reality of the future of our earth.
Initially, I started with exploring recycled materials and trash to physically show the items which cause such damage to our earth. I found this tricky to create a piece within my style and felt it didn’t really leave my audience with the sense of mystery which I’d hoped, it just left them feeling guilty, which may show some emotion, but not the emotion in which I’d hoped to create throughout my work. I explored my question through research on facts which may enhance an understanding of why we need to change, and artists which explore how we can influence change. The most influential pieces of research I conducted would be David Buckland’s work and John Akomfrah’s work. Both artists created strong emotions for their audience in many ways. Buckland used overlays of words to tell his audience about his photographs, and what is happening within the image, and what we don’t see on a daily basis. However, Akomfrah uses a contrast of admiration for the earth and bright imagery, and then goes on to explore the reality of our destruction, and what we don’t see as it genuinlly doesn’t affect our daily lives. Akomfrah juxtaposes these ideas with his bright imagery and his black and white imagery. I felt Akomfrah influenced my work through his colours and filters, which allowed me to explore a similar theme and show the darkness against the beauty.
I started off my project with exploring with monoprinting, painting and using scrap materials and items such as trash, to show how we can be sustainable on a daily basis. Over time, I decided to move on to my stronger skills, such as photography and film. I experimented with filters, fonts, colours, tones, composition, and vignette. These related to my theme because they enhanced an uncanny, horror style to create this sense of mystery upon our earth, which worked really well with the film noir characteristics such as the dark vignette around my images. Moreover, it enhanced the old film look I was going for, which resembled the ideas of looking back on what the earth once used to be, and the ideas of an old nostalgic image of the beauty our earth once had, allowing the viewers to think and act, encouraging environmental change.
My most successful experiments were my photographs I took of a pier, with a satirical sense on how ‘the indoor adventure funhouse’ will be our only enjoyment once we’ve destroyed our earth. I felt the old colours and vignette around my image created this nostalgic concept, of how these old images foreshadowed the future without us even knowing at the time, which allows my audience to feel a sense of regret and desire to change our earth before we look back and realise how our damage affects us. I developed these ideas further by realising, after taking and editing these images, that this uncanny, retro film theme was the way to move forward with my project, and really drive the environmental change I was hoping to create. These images inspired me to use a dark, retro theme within my work to go against the generic idea of the environment, and the stereotypical colours and themes you would usually see within work upon the environment.
Throughout this project I have struggled with my theme and how I wanted to create an emotional impact. Once I’d had a tutorial and was told to focus on my strengths of using digital materials, I manged to find experiments which suited my skill set, which benefited me massively. I started experimenting with my photography and the aesthetics I enjoy, I manged to gain confidence and an understanding of the ways in which I wanted to create this emotional effect onto my audience. At the beginning of my project, I was experimenting with manual work such as painting, monoprinting and collaging, which had no effect on me or on how I wanted to create this impact. After weeks of work I didn’t enjoy or like, I managed to find my theme through my photographs, which really helped me to develop my work and my understanding of the theme I was aiming for all along.
The most significant tutor feedback was being told to use my digital skills and focus on those. This benefited me massively and allowed me to come up with the ideas and themes I enjoy. During the beginning of the project, I was experimenting with work which didn’t suit my theme or allow me to enjoy my work, and once my tutor had helped me with my skill set, I was able to come up with work which enhanced the question I was aiming for from the beginning.
When testing the effectiveness of my work, I had shown my images to friends and family, asking them how it made them feel. They responded with the exact answer I was looking for, stating it made them scared and understanding of the damage, which allowed me to understand how effective my work was, and whether I needed to enhance the emotion or not.
My project is Fine art based but has aspects of graphic design as I was playing around with digital imagery and typography, to enhance the horror aesthetic I was looking for. I used photography and film within my work and experiments as they are my strongest skills.
For the final show I produced a film and displayed my two favourite prints. I used a projector for my film and had my images printed on a larger scale to enhance the meaning and the large effect I wanted them to have upon my audience. The installation of my work contributes to the communication of the work, as it shows the images combined with the film, and allows them to connect to one another and allows my audience to understanding the meaning of both pieces of work produced. Having both the prints and the film together, allows each one to enhance the meaning of each other, really creating the emotional impact I was planning from the beginning.
Now my work is installed on the wall, it creates the impact more on a large scale, however I feel I prefer my work on the computer screen, but with the sounds and effects used within my film, it is suited on the wall and adds to this retro effect I was aiming for.
I think my most successful outcome was my photography work, as the images mixed with the typography allows my audience to understand the meaning of the images, rather than leaving it unknown. However, some of the text overlays do enhance to idea of mystery, and what’s the writing means for the earth, which I think is both meaningful and effective, and leaves the question of change up to my audience. The fonts add a larger spook and enhance the horror aesthetic within my images, really bringing out the colours and darkness of my images. Overall, I would say my body of work successfully investigated my project question and communicated the idea of mystery well.
PROPOSAL
FINAL FILM
https://youtu.be/tnmIJC0roEQ
