Critical Appraisal

My final piece is an abstraction, suggestion, representation and even perhaps provocation. It represents its location in such a manner that provokes the viewer into questioning and forming their own narratives around it. It represents a single location but points towards a larger context through the use of different angles and even slightly variations in tonal quality to provide three different representations of the space. Image 1, with its red scale tonality notably caused through the red spot on the wall, is a geometric based image, with striking horizontal and vertical lines providing what boarders on a more formal, constructional approach. It almost has a militaristic feel with the barbed wire fence, which points towards the buildings former usage as part of an airfield. Image 2 is far more dreamlike in its execution. The building appears to be imploding into itself which points towards ideas of this location being a former shell of what it used to be, and has the most obvious appearance of a layered image/double exposure. Image 3 sees the building interact most heavily with the countryside around it, with the shadow of the tree strongly emphasised on the building. This shadow is something of a motif within the work, along with the appearance of the long grass – it is present in every image and perhaps the most certain way the viewer can be sure that this is in fact three representations of the same building.

The layering technique used to create the images affords the work not only a dreamlike quality, but is the key factor to creating a sense of the passage of time within the work. They appear almost as long exposures where it is not the camera that shifts, but the landscape itself. This is especially evident in the second image.

The main set back when both creating and installing the work has been over-ambition. I based a number of key decisions on an ideal situation rather than the practicality of finishing the work to high standard. This has lead to some more technical based flaws such as imperfections in the woodwork, especially the frames, and the work still has a slightly home-made feel, despite the attempted switch to a more clean, clinical approach. Perhaps if this approach had been adopted in the first instance, the finished design could’ve been altered to achieve this to a higher standard. However, despite these issues and the degree of naïve determination employed, this was how the images had to be presented.

Displaying the prints on backlit film and on light boxes enhances not just the aesthetics, but also the intentions behind it. It heightens the dreamlike quality and the use of layering. The actual light boxes also afford the work a degree of weight and a certain degree of defiance – they remain concrete objects and it almost appears as if this is a world inside the box. The frames heighten this by separating the images from the space around them, not as to provide them with an elevated ‘artistic’ status, but to highlight their otherness. This is a real location, but in its presentation begins to become a nonplace. Its location is indiscernible, as its function, and perhaps even its significance. The warm tone of the lights themselves not only brings out the colour palette used within the images, but also provides an aged, almost nostalgic feeling to the work which allows a more evocative reading to take place than if a whiter light had been used, as this would’ve added a more clinical feeling to the work. This in turn would lead to a more detached reading.

During FMP1 I decided I wanted to carry forward the idea of creating open narratives within the work. I feel this is achieved here as the work is suggestive, not directive, and the viewer is invited to interpret it as they will. As Uta Barth writes, “there is always something that motivated the taking of a photograph,” which leads the viewer to attempt to identify the significance of the subject. My work is not pointing to a definitive reading but leaves space for the viewer to create their own narrative around the work.

The nature of the subject itself raises a number of questions which are never fully addressed within the work. The selection of images ensured that the building and its context within the surrounding landscape is never fully displayed –  this leads the viewer to deconstruct the images in order to piece them together as a whole. This is then further complicated by the flipped final image, (although will never be known by simply viewing the work,) which then distorts any perspective gained from the first two images.

The Water Scissor Stepping Stone (WSSS) exhibition was an invaluable process in furthering the work. It proved that the light boxes needed to become a method of display rather than a feature of the work. By having white boxes, as tight to the wall and seamless as possible, and by the addition of a frame, the image is then free to function in its own right – it creates its own unique world within the space provided by the box. There is then room for the images to be interpreted in their entirety, whereas as at the WSSS exhibition the viewer’s attention was split between the image, the box, and the method of attachment, which lead to the images having far less impact.

I have left the work as Untitled to make the work as nondirective as possible. Although previously keen to title the work, it is mysterious in its nature and a concrete title would then detract from this sense of the unknown.

Word Count: 948

Final Show

My work is done;

Update

The frames are all built and have had at least a base coat and first coat of emulsion. They will need repainting after attaching finally. I'm screwing them into the sides of the boxes to ensure they hold and are sturdy enough to support the images. They will also be glued together and pollyfilled to ensure the best finish possible.

Also, the images have been trimmed to fit the perspex.

And More Setting (Wiring) Up

Today I finished off the wiring. It's a good job no one can see behind this wall, I haven't exactly been left with an ideal working space, but working well around it. This is how the wires come through the wall;

The connection lead I was using would require a sizeable and problematic hole through the wall, especially with the separate layers of chipboard to go through, so the other option was this - wiring plugs after the wires had been taken through the wall.

It worked first time =)

Next week I will have to rearrange the extension behind the wall because, due to the nature of the space, it's currently not too safe.

More Setting Up

I have now polyfilled the boxes to the walls to create the smoothest, sleekest appearance possible and repainted them, as in transit between home and different buildings within the uni they gained a few marks. I was always aware this would happen, especially as I had to leave them in the care of others, so put of repainting until they were on the wall in the space.

They now appear to become part of the space, and I feel I have achieved the effect of them becoming a method of display rather than an extension of the work. The frames I am currently creating are also adding to this - they really separate the images from the boxes.

I have also begun the process of taking the wires through the wall. The holes are slightly inset from the edge of the box to make them less visible and are as close to the bottom of the boxes while still having to have the necessary space to physically drill the hole, and not risking the integrity of the bottom of the box and its attachment to the wall. I am having to use one brown wire due to restriction of which lights and wires I could get my hands on, but I will obviously paint this white so it becomes as unseen as the white wires.

I also thought it worth noting that earlier this week my light boxes passed their PAT Test. This is obviously a relief, I could've been in a very difficult situation had they failed.

Setting Up

This week's about setting up. A lot of time's been spent filling, sanding and painting (and repainting) walls to try and get the room looking as perfect as is possible for us to achieve. Now that background work's well on the way, it's been time to start installing my work.

Time and effort has been taken to ensure the boxes are exactly the same distance apart (1 foot) and they are all exactly the same height (70 inches). There was some debate after the first two boxes were half installed as to whether 70 inches was quite tall enough, but the centre of the image does fall at the average eye line and taking them much higher would begin to alienate shorter viewers. My work is also on a wall clearly visible upon entering our exhibition space, so it was important to take a distanced view into consideration and any higher than this I feel the work would feel too high at a distance glance.

There are currently a few gaps between the boxes and the wall. This is mainly due to the nature of the walls; they are not 100% straight and although I've filled, sanded and painted them to the best of my ability, the wall has slightly different levels where the different parts of chip board join. This has resulted in notable gaps in certain places so I am going to fill the boxes all the wall around to make them as much of a part of the wall as possible and eliminate these gaps.

Above is also an example of how the boxes have been slightly marked since all my paint work. This isn't an issue as I will simply repaint, as I will have to once filling the gaps anyway.

A Return to Uta Barth

Although my work has now shifted quite greatly in style, I still find Uta Barth's work incredibly relevant. The feeling her work of has of a fleeting glimpse of something on the periphery can be related to my work now through the way the photographs are presented - they are not completely focused photographs of a scene - they present a glimpse of this place. We can take time to explore the images, to look around them, interpret and decode them, but there is not necessarily enough visual information included to provide a complete answer to the question of the photograph. When viewing my work, a number of people have questioned me as to the location of this place - I find that a good sign as the images must be captivating enough to raise this question and demonstrates that people want to know more. However, I also find myself reluctant to tell them. This points to my work not being about this place but more about a nonplace. However, Uta Barth's work is obviously very different in its approach to this. As she writes of her work; "A certain kind of confusion or questioning is the starting place of confronting much of the work. Certain expectations are unfulfilled: expectations of what a photograph normally depicts, of how we are supposed to read the space in the image, of how a picture normally presents itself on the wall..."
My work does present itself in a borderline conventional way, especially if I do decide to use a frame, however my frame is not to separate the image in order to provide it with an elevated sense of status, and to provide it with the status of a 'proper' photography 'properly' displayed on the wall, but to separate it in the context of providing it with it's own little world. It's separated because it does not belong in the same space as the room, it has an otherness. Also, aspects of my images remain unfulfilled - we do not know where, what, even why it is. 

Framing

I like the way the image is framed by the lack of light around the edge of the box. This also went down relatively well at the exhibition. However, because I've always liked it, until now I've overlooked the possibility of actually using a frame, so I thought it was worth at least a quick look.

This is just a rough frame made from some mount board I had sitting around.

I like it a surprising amount. After the Unit 5 exhibition I've decided that the boxes should not become so much a part of the work, but revert back to being a method of display. This is achieved through painting them white, and ensuring the screws are no longer visible, opting for probably using photo mount to mount the images, as this is (if done well,) invisible and will not detract from the images. The frame then further separates the image from the box. Using the natural frame of no light again draws attention to features of the box.

So I'm trying to work out possible logistics of creating a proper frame for the images. At this point I'm thinking it should be wood, as mount board &c. will be too flimsy and not provide the weight the images require.

There is also the possibility that by having a frame over the images, this may provide a way of securing the images to the box in itself, which would be much simpler and less permanent than photo mount, which has the potential to make life quite difficult.
There are, however, a number of connotations with framing work, and these will have to be considered.

On the Flip Side

When reconsidering the sequencing of my images, I am thinking of horizontally flipping the final image. Although earlier I mentioned not wanting to alter the structural qualities of the images as I want this to remain a real place, I think mirroring the image is on a different level to actually removing parts of the structure.

It's a tough call, but I think the image creates more of a narrative sequence when horizontally flipped. The original version (left) jars the end of the sequence - it functions as a crescendo to the end point of the sequence which then functions to leave the viewer 'hanging', as they are left with a cut-off part of the building. Although I would normally adopt this approach, as experimented with in my FMP1 work, I do not feel it's appropriate in this context. I think the work as a whole is intended as an insight and exploration into place, and stepping off the sequence lightly allows the work to stand freely in its own right, raise the questions it needs to raise, and then leaves the viewer with them. In contrast to this, the more jarring approach demands more of the viewer and is somewhat confrontational - this piece is not supposed to be confrontational, but more of a small provocation.

WATER SCISSOR STEPPING STONE

The Water Scissor Stepping Stone exhibition has been a lot harder to put together than I think any of us realised. As our first public exhibition, there are a number of conventions and ways of doing things that although may be obviously in the art world, were not necessarily obvious to us. Overall, we worked as a team to decide who had which space, based on considerations and technical requirements of the work, and we were relatively successful in this, apart from a slight unbalance of the weighting of work - the back of the room felt more crowded than the front.

Getting my boxes on the wall was less problematic than I had worried it could be. I drilled holes directly through the back of the boxes, and then fixed raw plugs into the walls and simply screwed the boxes on. There were initially a few issues with drilling into the walls as they were brick, so it turned slightly into a case of moving a couple of the holes in the boxes to fit with a suitable area of wall. I decided to go straight through the back so the boxes could be as tight to the walls as possible, where other options such as mirror plates would have left a slight gap. Screwing straight through worked well and the boxes were completely secured.

Overall I am pleased with the way the work looked. It was good to see it in a completely different context, especially an exhibition space. I am starting to struggle with the effects of constantly living with the work. Generally speaking, when you see something everyday, you lose the ability to see it clearly - it becomes something that just is. That feeling is starting to concern me as I'm worried I can no longer tell the difference between a good decision and a bad one. So dealing with the work in more technical, critical environment was valuable, and also gauging reactions and listening to feedback about the work has helped me realise what's working and what's not, and allowed me to see what needs doing.

I had initially planned to screw the image straight to the Perspex as attempted previously as I felt this effect was working well and I also wanted to gauge reaction to it. There was a discussion about using Photo Mount to attach the images, but when it came down to it I felt this method too risky for the Unit 5 exhibition. Although it would have been good practice for me, if anything went wrong with it (if it left an unexpected amount of residue &c.) then I could run the risk of permanently damaging my Perspex - something which could be disasterous when it comes to the degree show.

An interesting point that occurred was the appearance of the boxes before the have the images, or even the Perspex attached. When seeing them presented like this, they almost look like a work of art in their own right. This has become a Plan B option to consider; displaying light. However, this isn’t really my style of work and I would feel like a cheat just by displaying some boxes with lights in. However beautiful they look (especially in this context where they then begin to interact with the strip light above them. Perhaps a future project…)

FEEDBACK

A number of issues were raised from this exhibition.

As previously mentioned, I decided not to paint or do anything to alter the appearance of the boxes for this exhibition, mainly because this was a test run to trial ideas, and as I like the wood effect – the boxes have a natural effect and I wanted to see if this would enhance the experience of the images. However, as with a number of issues surrounding my work, the reaction to this was mixed. A number of people liked the wood effect – they like the boxes. There were also a number of people who found it hard to believe I had just left them wood – a ‘they are a method of display, they should be white’ attitude. This is the main question with my use of the light boxes – are they simply a method of display? Or is the nature of each box part of the work – a statement, a way to enhance the meaning? This was a tough decision to make, but I have decided to use the boxes as the method of displaying my work. I cannot provide a strong enough rationale to leave the boxes as wood, other than they look pretty (which obviously is no justification,) and there are vague ideas about how the nature of the work is these organic buildings that have been left to nature and faced a natural process of dereliction, therefore displaying them on natural materials that reference their own making interacts with this. I think there could be room to further this idea, but I think to make it stronger perhaps the wood itself would have to appear more aged and derelict in itself, and I think going down that road would be a very difficult and risky one and I’m just not sure enough of my own convictions to follow that through. SO. White boxes to blend into a white space. This should then make the images stand out more in their own right.

Another similar issue is the use of the screws to secure the images. Again, this was something I wanted to test – using Photo Mount to secure the images would not raise any questions, so I wanted to gauge reactions to using the screws. And again, many people liked it. However, as with the wood, the screws then become a part of the work and it is the same justification as before, but this still isn’t strong enough. Also, a technical issue with this is that however perfectly the holes are lined up, there was a slight distortion across the face of the image that although wasn’t noticeable when looking straight at the work, it was very noticeable from a side angle as other sources of light fell on the work. The images did appear to settle and become flat after awhile, probably as the lights give out a slight amount of heat this then settled the image. This is far too risky a manouver and I can’t put my hopes in the images settling – they might not. So another method of attaching the images will have to be used, probably reverting back to the Photo Mount idea. I find the thought of this risky, and will have to gauge whether the screws on the lighter parts of the images will still show through. If they do, they may not have to be used – the other screws should theoretically be enough to secure the Perspex, but this will have to be tested. Also I am still worried about the permanence of this method. Permanence is not necessarily an issue – the boxes were initially built for this sole purpose. However, it will mean ripping the image from the Perspex after the show to take the boxes down, and the risk of the Perspex being permanently marked.

Having the images framed by the lack of light around the edge didn’t appear to raise any issues.

There were a number of technical problems though. My trimming skills leave something to be desired, and this is something I will have to be incredibly careful about for the final presentation. I found backlit film very difficult to cut through because of the thickness and nature of the material. It’s very easy for the knife to simply cut through the surface layer but not through the whole material. I will have to practice this and get it perfect next time.

Also, there were a number of marks on the images, mainly from hands. There is no excuse for this. I have now been told about using special gloves when working with images. It’s such a simple thing and I am not sure why I didn’t know about this before. So next time, I, and whoever helps me, will be wearing gloves whenever we are working with the actual images.

The distance between the images (1 foot) was spot on and I will carry this through. However, the images were hung too low. The top of the boxes were around 64 inches from the floor, which meant you didn’t have to be especially tall the see the top of the box. Next time I will hang the boxes so the average persons eye line will fall in the middle of the images. This should be at around 70 inches.

The wiring will also have to be tidied up for the degree show. I was advised when installing the work at Unit 5 to turn the boxes so the wires came from the top rather than the bottom as the plug sockets were near the ceiling rather than the floor. Feedback from this was that the wires need to come out the bottom. It should be possible in our space for the degree show for me to take the wires out the bottom of the boxes straight through the wall and have the wiring hidden that way. This was never an option at Unit 5, but should give the work a much smoother appearance, with the constituent parts being hidden from view as far as possible.

The turning of the boxes and the mistakes in trimming also altered the order which I displayed the images. Initially, I had planned the have the two end images the other way round, but the images were trimmed specifically for each box so when the boxes switched order to wire out the top, the end images had to switch too, otherwise the trimming was even more off than it already was. Next time the images will be switched back. The red spot on the (in this example,) right side image (as viewed) is a very strong feature. As we read naturally read a set of images left to right, a strong feature such as this is better beginning a sequence rather than ending it. Also, where this image, and the first image fade into black would be much more effective the other way around (to allow for an almost fade in/fade out effect to occur.)

Another technical point is that there are some slight gaps in the boxes, and between the box and the Perspex. These will have to be filled and sanded down to create as smooth, seamless effect as is realistic to achieve.

Another consideration that was raised was the titling of the work. For the exhibition I left the work as Untitled as I didn't want to hastily pick a title that could risk undermining the integrity of the work. The question then became as to whether this is about this place, as in, this particular abandoned part of an airfield in Cattfield, or whether it is about places or perhaps even nonplaces. My instinctive answer to this question is that the work is about places, not specifically this one but more an overall abstraction and suggestion, using this particular place to point to a larger whole. This is something I will need to continue to think about and I do think a title, whatever it maybe, may well enhance the reading of the piece. However, titling it Cattfield Airfield is going to elicit a very different reading to calling it something like Forgotten (obviously that's quite lame, but off the top of my head...) There is also the potential to attempt to subvert the reading by titling the work something unrelated, such as (again, top of the head,) The Toy Industry. At this point though, I think deliberately attempting to subvert the reading would be counterproductive as the piece in its essence raises enough questions about its nature without further attempting to evoke a reaction.
So overall, it was an invaluable experience and has no doubt greatly improved the potentiality of my work. I am now more aware of the standards we are working towards as well as what's not working. The vast majority of constructive criticism was based around the presentation and finishing of the work, while feedback on the work as a whole and the actual images was positive.