WEEK 13: SUPERVISOR SESSION (W/ SHANE)

THREE OPTIONS WHAT THE SERIES WOULD LOOK LIKE

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The new ones are just not working. The other images of the series are minimalistic and adding any more layers to the one image doesn't actually make it any better.

F E E D B A C K

Seeing through the water is kinda cool but the ripples and the second layer of clothes are not. But if it doesn't work, then don't force it. Go with your instinct. You tried it, it didn't work, so move on.

I still have to replace 2 images but otherwise, I believe it's done. Due 27/10.

Due 26/10.

My reason for the project is that I want to celebrate that we are all individuals, that we're all different, and that it's good that we are. Yet, I sound like a hippie calling for world peace if I say that.

The way that you could frame something like that:

Often in terms of a rationale, it is about locating something within a part of society that is well known but further research happened. Or a part of society that is changing.

We are at one of those critical moments in history (critical moment / trajectory of social change) where a person's identity is very much becoming part of a pluralist conversation around biology, culture, and society in ways that it hasn't before. The idea of someone being able to define their own identity is a defining part of the 21st century. That and climate change are probably the two main drivers of social policy/change (same-sex marriage, gender neutrality etc) – they have always been there but they are a very open and legitimate part of social change that is happening now. You could link it into that.

»In the context of … (see above) this project seeks to contribute to the growing dialogue around cultural identity, a sense of belonging in self, and how we relate to others through our own understanding of who we are and our identity.«

My working in a collaborative way, asking the subjects if they are ok with my ideas etc. gives the subject the power to define for themselves who they are (and not by me).

You could position that through the notion of authentic self (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). And extend that with the photographic triangle (three-way conversation between operator, subject, and spectator) that has predominantly been positioned as three separate things. What you're suggesting is that at a time when people's sense of who they are is defined by themselves (challenging contemporary society), the same thing is happening photographically. Where the idea that the operator and the subject are independent of each other is old. A popular phenomenon within contemporary photography that this idea of being involved in the imaging of yourself (= concept of self-representation).

When you talk about a social photographic project, it is very much contested if you do a photographic project of others without involving them. So, you're aligning your practice with this form of contemporary photography. Which is about inclusiveness and collaboration around the authentic self and self-representation. Rather than the distant and independent operator, subject and spectator.

You only have to explain the relevance to contemporary photography (you don't have to change the world).

You don't have to justify what you're doing, you just have to explain why you're doing it. You have to explain what it means to you. Why are you doing it?

Gesamtkunstwerk. Bring it back. It's relevant. It's an important way of aligning/locating the project within your cultural background. Then you start answering the question of why you're doing this. What's your connection to this? You define it as a way of working through a particular cultural descriptor / cultural phenomena / way of thinking that resonates with you as a practitioner and you wanted to explore that.

It's an interpretation of the Gesamtkunstwerk, not a Gesamtkunstwerk (I'm not making/producing everything). But everything connects to one concept. A critique? An expanded use? A way of laterally applying an idea/philosophy that comes from your own culture/upbringing? All of that is valid. Or it's a re-interpretation of the Gesamtkunstwerk. As humans, we take some of these old ways of explaining things and apply them in a new context. Which is a perfect example of that. And that also feeds into the rationale around that we're at this time of cultural change where the biology, physiology, identity, and culture of a person are coming together in ways they have never before.

About lily: As this work is about identity, disrupting at the time of presentation by bringing in the alter ego makes perfect sense.

I'll prepare the test installation as me presenting. Maybe speak the trial presentation in the 3rd person. They will ask about it and say it's part of how I am finalizing the presentation. If they push me, just say I worked through this with my supervisor, they are supportive of it and you'll just have to wait and see.