WEEK 1: SUPERVISOR SESSION
Preparation
What I want to talk about:
· What to I want to work on? Becoming an artist or a commercial photographer (portfolio)?
· Topics I thought of for this semester's project.
Art vs. Commercial Photography
Commercial photographers can be distinguished into two groups:
· Dienstleister (service provider). The client comes with the exact vision and just needs someone to do it. You have to adopt to the requested style.
· Profile based. Your distinctive style appeals to clients. Examples: Samantha Everton, Helmut Newton, Wolfgang Sievers.
Suggestions:
· develop own style and approach to image making (rather than defining an aim)
· professionalizing my practice
· Website should be folio based (add last semester's project as a micro series)
· enter competitions (aim is to promote myself and getting my work out there):
· Optika
· CCP Summer Salon
· MGA Bownes
· … (something in Queensland)
· Seek clients! (client centered practice)
· workflow and how to present (also to Shane in Supervisions)
· Workflow: Cataloging system in Lightroom or Capture One
· Kunstmatrix, Lightroom, Book, Instagram Feed etc.
TOPIC: Forgetting
13 years ago, I worked on my thesis (end of bachelor hons project), about the topic forgetting. While I was working on last semester's project, I noticed that I was now working in parts on the opposite topic memory.
Comparing the two themes, I actually find the topic forgetting much more appealing: it's darker, on first impression it's negative, but can just as well be seen as positive. And actually you cannot discuss a forgotten topic (as then it's not forgotten). I find this discrepancy interesting. I compare it to talking about a hole: you can only describe its surroundings but not the hole itself.
Now I could revisit that topic as 13 years is a good amount of time later.
Shane:
· Geoffrey Batchen “Forget me not”
· absence
· new form of photo technology (things we don't see, we didn't know about) > black hole
TOPIC: “Cover”
I think I should get better at writing artist statements. A way to properly work with statements of other artists is by using them as a template to new work. So, working the other way around. At the same time, my result could (and should) be different from what the original artist made.
Several thoughts lead me to that idea.
One was looking at Anna Fafaliou's work last semester and what she said about it. Her words resonated with my project to a certain extent but she drew different conclusions and therefore her work looks completely different than mine. Which I find interesting.
A second thought was a very cheesy German TV show called Sing meinen Song, where seven musicians come together and every evening everyone has to play a cover version of one art's song. As I'm not a musician, I wasn't aware how much work goes into making a cover version and yet, it's very interesting what others do with another one's song. So, I thought how I could do something like that.
Shane:
· notion of appropriation (Richard Prince, Jeff Wall)
… more links to Richard Prince.
… more links to Appropriation:
»Sherrie Levine wurde mit ihrer Appropriation der Fotografien von Walker Evans berühmt, die sie aus Bildbänden abfotografierte und unter dem Titel After Walker Evans unter ihrem Namen ausstellte. Im Jahr 2001 wandte Michael Mandiberg diese Aktion auf die Künstlerin an: Er fotografierte Sherrie Levines Kopien ab und präsentierte seine Fotos unter dem Titel After Sherrie Levine. Mandiberg war nicht der einzige Vertreter der „zweiten Generation“ von Appropriationisten, die die erste Generation appropriierten: Yasumasa Morimura inszenierte sich selbst nach Fotografien von Cindy Sherman, auf denen sie sich selbst in verschiedenen Verkleidungen und Rollen porträtierte (Film Stills). Da Sherman als Frau auf ihren Bildern oft in männliche Rollen schlüpft, Morimura jedoch als Transvestit auftritt, wird das Verwirrspiel geschlechtlicher Identität noch gesteigert.«
… more examples: Barbara Kruger
· done a lot in advertising
· augmented reality
· investigation: terminology
· book: »Photography Speaks« (150 artist statements)
