Thinking about Assessment

Sept 13th:

I'm using this earlier post from July to update on my assessment plans so far.  With just a few weeks before the November submission deadline I am pretty much on track to be ready. I chose a black portfolio box for my 16x12 Body of Work prints that I feel displays my photographs in a professional manner; on top of those I devised a card pull-out in order to display my magazine and small Target Practice exhibition hand-out. By the time I'd done all this I realised that I'd forgotten to include my methodology and artist's statement. These are already included in the bound assignment 5 folder but I think they should also be read and interpreted as part of the BoW presentation. I think I will try to find a black A4 envelope and include it on the pull-out tray, maybe underneath the magazine.

This means of presentation will provide a number of ways to approach the body of work in line with the notion of the polysemous photograph. The BoW images could be viewed in a self-contained context, without external reference to other texts; with the artist's statement, indicating my intent when making the work and my creative influences; with the small exhibition hand-out card, that includes the relay-texts that accompany each image thereby creating a resonance between the images and the words to add another level of meaning; with the magazine, that provides additional research garnered and analysed during the development stage of the BoW; or with the methodological diagram, that describes my artist's process from the research stage to the making of props and working through the creative/developmental stages to final outcome.

So to summarise the assessment submission for Body of Work will include the five bound assignment folders with tutor reports, my essay notes, supplied images and sketchbook drawings and plans for each assignment. A bound learning log, the portfolio box as detailed above, and the online learning log (blog).

Here is a short video I made of the submission:


Body of Work presentation submission from ammoniteM on Vimeo.


July 15th:

For November assessment I need to think about how to show my body of work to best advantage. I'd initially decided on producing a set of large prints in a portfolio box; included would be a small handout card that contains my artist's statement and some background reading on Josef Kohout.

A second booklet containing the numbered text that accompanies my images is at present unfinished. I'm not sure how to produce this one. This 'text' booklet has a single piece of numbered text for each image and consists of a number of pages. It could be incorporated into the handout card in some way but that would bulk out and destroy its simplicity. It is designed to look like a Christmas card and references the postcard sent by Josef to his lover, Fred, that condemned him to four years in a concentration camp.

Handout card

After my final feedback session with my tutor, Keith we discussed the possibility of clarifying my artistic process for the assessment examiner. As Keith pointed out a lot of time and research goes into my process with regards to making props and thinking about how they will work and what I'm trying to say in my images. It is a shame if this process is lost or not clearly understood in the final portfolio. Keith has sent me a methodological diagram that will help me to design something similar that will show my process in visual form and can be included with the body of work. I think this is a really good idea as I very much enjoy looking other's artist's creative processes when I see workbooks at exhibitions.

At the same time I'd sent off and received a sample pack of different format paper magazines from an online company. I was thinking that I would like to produce my body of work in a magazine format and could include the discussed methodological diagram and maybe even the 'text' booklet as well. By producing the body of work in an additional paper format I can disseminate the important hidden history information without feeling uncomfortable about putting Holocaust work into a fancy handmade book which wouldn't feel ethical to me.

Sample pack

My next step is to start designing the magazine format so I can see how well it works and what to include.

Target Practice magazine handout

With all the additional material garnered during the research phase of my body of work I thought it would be a good idea to put selected pieces of research into a magazine. This was done not only for assessment but with an eye to a future exhibition. Personally, I love looking through handouts and bits and pieces created by the artist to take away after the event.

Here is a short video I made of the Target Practice magazine:

Target Practice magazine from ammoniteM on Vimeo.

'I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual'

This biography of the concentration camp experience by Pierre Seel has been a useful adjunct to the book 'The Men With The Pink Triangle'. The section of the book I have found most useful is where Seel details life after the camps where the treatment of homosexuals in his native France was still a matter of living in secrecy for many. Seel details the anguish he undergoes as he cannot explain to his family why he has never applied for reparations for his incarceration by the Nazis; The reason being that homosexuals were not eligible. Discovering this fact during my research and being aware of how this impacted on their daily lives has been illuminating. The degree to which homosexuals affected by the Nazis were still being punished after the liberation is appalling. Seel also details the gradual rise of gay liberation and attempts to set their own historical narrative during the early 1970s. Sadly, Seel laments that this change in fortunes will improve the lives of younger men but he feels separated from these changes; The internal homophobia and pain inflicted upon gay men by others was sadly carried with them through their entire lives.

Seel does eventually move himself to speak and with growing confidence 'Outs' himself; his biography is the result; it is forthright and confirms a number of similar experiences that occur to Heinz Heger in the 'Pink Triangle' book. Seel also begins to fight for reparations although the French authorities, for whatever reason, appear to be obstructive to say the least. Finally Seel details the disgusting treatment of gay groups that attempt to take part in the official memorials to the deported mainly during the 1980s and 1990s.
   

Physical Learning Log Scan

Physical Learning Log Scan

Egon Schiele and Francesca Woodman - Life in Motion, Tate Liverpool

Francesca Woodman

The pairing of these two artists work at Tate Liverpool provided some interesting comparisons to be made between the works and artist's intent. Firstly, having seen and admired Woodman's work before I was concerned that the small scale of the images (mostly 5x5 inches) would be overpowered by Schiele's paintings. Thankfully the works were separated by sections of wall space and Woodman's photographs were mounted with large white borders that doubled their size. I thought the exhibition was hung extremely well and the works flowed through the gallery space divided into chronological sections that showed the phases of both artists development.

Woodman is an early photographic inspiration for me and her interest in props and experimental use of space has influenced my own work. This exhibition is far superior to an earlier curated exhibit in London a few years ago which used the daft concept of the 'zig-zag' as a conceptual device to curate her show. In Woodman's work she explores her own gender identity and body; her use of cellotape to bind her legs, mirrors, and the contorting of her body into a display case shows an extensive visual repertoire in which to examine the society in which she found herself in the mid to late 1970s. Woodman is extremely visually inventive.

Schiele's painting is fairly new to me not having taken much notice of the artist before. A figurative painter of the early twentieth century Schiele was influenced by Gustav Klimt but soon developed his own style. Schiele's work appears to mostly explore female sexuality and some of the images are quite explicit. They appear to sit within the artistic style and timeframe of Gustav Klimt and similar painters that were openly exploring the nature of sexual desire. I found many of the works expressive and well made.

A number of comparisons can be made between the two artist's. The both died young; Schiele of Spanish Flu in 1918 and Woodman of suicide in 1981. Their artistic careers were cut short leaving behind a body of work to be speculated on, manipulated and curated free of input from the artist (thinking about those zig-zags). They both made extensive studies of the human body. Schiele painted women, often in explicit poses, and this can be problematic and viewed as misogynistic as the painter is working through the lens of the male gaze and woman as sexual object. There is a power play between the artist and sitter, male and female, that is difficult to overcome. Woodman explores her own gender and through the use of her own body circumvents many of the negative aspects that Schiele can be accused of. Woodman's exploration of sexuality is more complex and has more depth than in the Schiele paintings and shows a young woman asking questions about where her place is in the world and the potential possibilities open to her. Both artist's work has a fluidity to it with Woodman's time-lapse work providing ghost-like spectres as she moves through the frame or stands perfectly still, her hand making blurred gestures; The movement in Schiele's work is in the free paint strokes often belied by the languid poses.  

Egon Schiele

This exhibition was thought provoking for me and confirmed my respect for Woodman's work. I enjoyed looking at the Schiele paintings although some of the most explicit paintings seemed to me to overly objectify women from a male point of view. I suppose it is not so much the paintings themselves but the intent with which they were made. Would a woman photographer making the same work be considered acceptable? The intent could be considered a critique of the politics surrounding the representation of female nudity and have quite different connotations. Female nudity is such a tricky subject matter in the light of unequal treatment of women in a male dominated patriarchy. It is a question that is hard to have any clear answer on.  

     

Sequencing and Final Relay-Text

Trying to finalise my sequence for my body of work can be exasperating when the work has been so prominent in my mind for the last two years. Some times I just can't even look at it as it has all become so familiar. I need to finish off the work, get the sequence sorted, and find a final piece of relay-text for the last image. This was proving to be the most difficult part. I decided I needed a break as I just was not feeling at all creative.

But it is amazing how 24 hours can be enough for a complete turnaround and the creative breakthrough came when I was emptying the dishwasher. This snippet from Josef’s diary was tucked away in my brain just waiting to be seized upon. It seems so obvious to me now but it was buried amongst loads of research material. My final image in the sequence will have the following relay-text:

‘Amerikaner gekommen’ (Americans came).

Extract from the personal diary of Josef Kohout, 25/4/1945.

The arrival of the American forces was, of course, welcomed by the homosexual prisoners after so much torture and degradation. But it was also a false dawn. Homosexual men were not able to claim compensation from the German government after the war like other groups of concentration camp prisoners. Some men were even sent back to prison to complete their sentences for the 'crime' of homosexuality. The time spent in the camps had no bearing on their length of sentence; unlike the Nazi camp guards whose time spent in the camps was counted towards their pension! Just stop and think about that fact for a moment!

In the decade after the war western governments stance on homosexuality as a criminal offence actually tightened and many men who were traumatised and criminalised were not able to speak out about their inhumane treatment. They had to suffer in silence until Gay political groups began to fight for their rights and speak out against injustice.

I may need to include this information in the handout at the end of the image sequence as I don't want the impression to be formed by viewers who might think that liberation of the camps put an end to oppression; but at the same time I think the works needs some glimmer of hope and an uplifting end to the sequence - and the men were undoubtedly overjoyed to be rescued from the shocking abuses they'd been subjected too. 

Methodology of 'Target Practice' project

In my last discussion with my tutor he suggested that I might want to describe my artistic practice as a process in the form of a methodological diagram. I think this is a good idea as it would capture my artistic step by step process from research through experimentation to output. A lot of work has gone into the final images that I made for the 'Target Practice' project and it seems a shame for all that effort to be buried away.

The methodology for my 'Target Practice' project consisted of three phases:

• Initiatory phase
• Developmental phase
• Output phase

These phases were broken down into sub processes that comprised six stages:

1. Initiatory phase: interrogation
   
   This involved research on my chosen theme or topic and required a literature search of academic libraries and popular culture for relevant texts; this included academic papers, biographies, primary sources, photographs, documentaries and consideration of other artist's work that inspired or made a connection with my chosen project.
   
   
   In the case of the 'Target Practice' work online Holocaust museum archives and LGBTQ group archives were queried and compared to hetero-normative accounts of the Holocaust in order to highlight previously ignored LGBTQ hidden histories.
   
   
2. Initiatory phase: selection
   
   Large quantities of data was amassed during the interrogation process that was sifted and read in order to be categorised. This was for the specific generation of ideas for art pieces or for supplementary background material that may not have been used in the visual creative process.
   
   Supplementary background material was retained for academic purposes, being invaluable for informing my practice, providing contextualisation and academic rigour. Often a text would inform my understanding or open up new paths of investigation which generated another stage 1 literature search producing more texts for stage 2 selection.
   
   
   Supplementary material was later deployed in a magazine handout for the 'Target Practice exhibition'. This was in addition to the main images and relay-text handouts that accompanied the work. The magazine format allowed for much of the supplementary material, such as old photographs and contextual history, to be included that did not form part of the exhibition itself.
   
   
3. Developmental phase: mental process
   
   
   Having read and considered my selected texts, a creative mental process took place that was a combination of conscious and unconscious thinking; the conscious element involved making focused artistic choices through knowledge acquired at the stage 2 selection; this included prior artistic experience accumulated through creation of previous projects and academic study. The unconscious part of the process was via the lens of lived personal experience, an affinity with my subject matter and exposure to art in general. The conflation of these two mental processes brought about creative outcomes that can sometimes seem logical and at other times to the artist/maker to be shrouded in a form of 'oblique random strategy'.
   
   At this stage reflection on events in the biography 'The Men With The Pink Triangle' was my main focus for the 'Target Practice' project. The accumulation of supplemental reading material, including Holocaust biographies from both heterosexual and homosexual survivors helped to inform my reflections and bring both types of conscious and unconscious mental processes together.
   
   
4. Developmental phase: hands-on experimentation
   
   
   In the hands-on experimentation stage, ideas that had formed during the stage 3 mental process, enabled me to make images or props for images. This process of transitioning a purely mental process into a hands-on physical one is symbiotic and involved numerous false starts and creative failures that fed back into the stage 3 mental process. This back and forth 'creative play feedback loop' was the major component of the stage 3&4 developmental phase.
   
   
   For the 'Target Practice' work the paper folding element grew out of a dissatisfaction with the images for a shoot that I'd organised with a model to wear my props. The images did not connect in a visceral sense with my concept and by revisiting my mental process I was able to envisage an alternative strategy that helped to evolve the work conceptually. This outcome could not have been arrived at by mental process alone. It was through the use of hands-on prop making and experimentation feeding back into the mental process, that further hands-on experimentation was generated.
   
   
   Similarly my choice of photographing the 'Target Practice' folded triangles began with an indoor shoot on a set background of tiled wallpaper, that through the symbiotic mental/hands-on experimentation process, grew into using an anonymous woodland setting as my backdrop. This choice grew from further reading during the stage 2 selection process regarding ethical considerations when making Holocaust art projects. I wanted to place an ethical boundary around the project to connote that the 'Target Practice' work is not documentary but an artistic response to a biography; I had to establish visually in some way that LGBTQ hidden histories are not usually part of the wider hetero-normative mainstream historical narrative; the anonymous woodland symbolises this artist imposed ethical boundary.
   
   
5. Developmental phase: post-production
   
   
   This involved the digital treatment of images after they have been made and consisted of minor touching-up to large scale image manipulation, dependant on the requirements to finalise each image or project.
   
   
6. Output phase: presentation/post-production
   
   
   Once the project was completed then decisions regarding how to present the work needed to be be made. Different outcomes such as work for a gallery wall, a book or a magazine each have very different production requirements. The finalised images were post-produced from their master digital file to printing sizes appropriate for their intended outcomes. This also involved colour balancing and re-tweaking of histograms to ensure as close as possible consistency across digital and analogue platforms.
   
   Once the presentation output(s) are established considerable design work took place such as magazine format, sequencing and style; meeting the requirements for an exhibition were many, including the need to hang and display work appropriate to the size and shape of the gallery space and producing handouts and posters containing artwork.
   
   
   The choice to output the work into a magazine format instead of a hand-made book was derived from ethical considerations made at stage 3&4 of the developmental phase. It did not feel right to me that work made in respect of the Holocaust should be placed into a hand-made photo-book; books that are often considered collectable and objects of beauty. Producing the 'Target Practice' magazine required very different design and presentation considerations to the larger images for the gallery wall. The images for the magazine had to be sized much smaller and had different output and colour parameters for print on paper.      

Animal Rites - Gee Vaucher

I read about Gee Vaucher's book 'Animal Rites' recently. Vaucher tears and combines old photographs to make collages that reference the relationship between humans and animals - and what that says about us as a species that has undergone 'familial and social conditioning'. The phrase is one used by psychiatrist R.D. Laing who proposes that our socialisation denies us of our own 'subjective reality or free self'. (Binns, 2016). Vaucher has claimed that Laing's theories is an influence on her work in Animal Rites. The tearing and replacing with parts of human faces blurs the boundaries between the two subjects creating a touching but also disturbing dynamic that hints at patriarchy, political hegemony, and the power that humans hold over each other and the rest of the animal kingdom. 'Vaucher has consistently maintained her commitment to animal rights as part of a wider critique of societal power imbalances.' (Binn, 2016).

I've only seen the images online and would really like to see this book in more detail. The work looks very effective and is inspiring to me. The tearing of photographs to make collage is an aspect of art photography that I would like to explore more of. This technique could well be a way to move forward from prop making in my own practice as the staged work with props is not too dissimilar to staged digital or analogue collages. There are also conceptual similarities to Vaucher's exploration of 'societal power imbalances' with my 'Target Practice' work. Whilst primarily a hidden history my body of work does has an overarching theme that references the hetero-normative abuse of power against minorities and less advantaged groups.












References:

Binns, R. (2016). Source. issue 88, Winter 2016.

Andre Serrano - Torture

http://andresserrano.org/series/torture


Andre Serrano's 'Torture' series is a collection of staged tableaux depicting hooded men in often degrading positions. The images are stylised representations of torture that have taken place in many situations like the Holocaust, Abu Ghraib, and in Northern Ireland. The work, produced in an old iron foundry, provides a dark and ominous backdrop to the subjects, some of them posed with hessian sacks to partly cover their naked bodies. Their heads are mostly covered by paper or plastic bags depriving or limiting their vision; there is a sense of waiting in the images - time spent contemplating pain, hunger, and fear.

The images are lit in the chiaroscuro style and are dramatic. Serrano uses light to denote a Christian sensibility that references the depiction of saints in Western art. The images are highly aesthetic. This for me is problematic. There is a beauty in the images that almost crosses over into glossy advertising. The foundry backdrop with its depth of detail could easily be used for a fashion shoot and the dramatic lighting builds on this feeling. My impression is that Serrano has made work that emulates the long tradition of art painting. The images are so well crafted that it almost seems that it is possible to empathise with the victims in these situations and to be drawn in to these lifelike simulations. But they are not real. The reality can never really be understood even when viewing documentary photographs.

My own work that I made for 'Target Practice' has also used models with props in an attempt to denote torture. During the creative process I quickly moved away from trying to represent actual places and situations as this felt, for me, facile and unethical. The process led me to folding my images to 'fracture' my simulations and thereby limiting the sense of attempting to portray an impossible to understand reality.

How can people that have not experienced the degradations and tortures but, at the same time, been exposed to very vivid first-hand accounts make art about these experiences? The theoretical reading that I've done surrounding the photographic portrayal of atrocities discusses the concept of post-memory photography; that the work needs to incorporate a metaphorical barrier of some kind that denotes that the work is one step removed from attempts to portray realities that have not been directly experienced. I have alluded to the concept of post-memory in my own work by using an anonymous woodland setting for my Target Practice series. The work also uses this un-named backdrop in another sense; in that it can be understood as situated within the recent tradition of uncovering hidden LGBTQ histories, not part of the mainstream historical narrative and far removed from documentary practise.

Vectors of Memory: Legacies of Postwar Europe - Nancy Wood

This book looks at the discourse around memory and how it is interpreted and contested by different social and political groups in the debate around identity politics. Wood considers 'collective memory' as opposed to individual to be 'performative'.

'Collective, national and public memory [ ] only comes into existence at a given time and place through specific kinds of memorial activity'. (Wood, 1999).

These could be through historical TV programmes, film, commemorations, historical narratives or political debates. Wood uses the term 'vectors' to describe these memorial conduits. The proposed narrative is then absorbed into the national psyche and collectively adopted as part of an accepted historical narrative. Furthermore, Wood states that:

public memory testifies to a will or desire on the part of some social group or disposition of power to select and organise representations of the past so that these will be embraced by individuals on their own. If particular representations of the past have permeated the public domain, it is because they embody an intentionality - social, political, institutional and so on - that promotes or authorises their entry. (Wood, 1999).

Throughout the book Wood examines a number of public debates in the post-modern era that have contested established historical narratives. One of these debates was around two books that recounted the perpetrator testimony of the German Reserve Police Battalion 101 during WWII. This battalion committed atrocities in Poland under orders from the Nazi regime. Although the two books used the same primary sources, different theories were elicited regarding the intent of the perpetrators when rounding up and murdering thousands of Jews in Poland. 'Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust' by Daniel J Goldhagen contends that the officers of Reserve Police Battalion 101 held anti-semitic beliefs that were inculcated into themselves and the general German population as a whole; and that these beliefs were the central causal agent of the Holocaust; that the general population sincerely believed they were carrying out Nazi ideology for the good of the German race and were happy to commit even genocide to achieve Nazi goals. This theory is usually referred to as eliminationist anti-semitism.

Christopher R Browning's book 'Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland' takes a different approach. The emphasis on Browning's account is on the 'capacity of human beings to act in a dehumanised and brutal way when subjected to a specific set of circumstances that induce conformist as a defensive - but all too human - reaction.' This view takes a functionalist approach that regards anti-semitism as just one aspect of the conditions that coalesce into the Holocaust.

'The "German" Holocaust memory thus tends to foreground the circumstances leading to the crime; the "Jewish" memory is concerned with the motives that informed it. Likewise, researchers who lack any direct or indirect affiliation to the collectives involved with the crime tend to universalise its meaning.' (Wood, 1999).

It is clear that LGBTQ hidden histories exist because of the lack of political leverage that a minority group holds in a mostly patriarchal and heteronormative society. All attempts to bring historical accuracy regarding LGBTQ events in history are gradually worn down and disappear. This starts on a fairly innocuous level but over time gay history is regarded less and less until it virtually disappears.
Historians are frequently dismissive that the sexuality of a historical figure has any bearing on their actions. This for a LGBTQ person is patently not true when their very sexuality has been criminalised or oppressed. What historians fail to understand is that to be 'queer' in a heteronormative society is to be fundamentally at odds with 'default' behaviour. For a LGBTQ person it is not just about differences of sexual activity; every aspect of society, be that social, political, or judicial, has to be navigated and interpolated as 'Other'.

This aspect of 'Other' is frequently misunderstood by historians. As part of the power battle for the collective social memory of a society, a minority group will always struggle to make itself heard. I reference this lack of agency in my 'Target Practice' work. I have deliberately placed my installation pieces in an anonymous woodland setting; it stands alone from any attempt to see the work as 'documentary' and placing it as part of the collective social memory of WWII. This approach is a conceptual one that I have chosen and although it may be viewed as problematic this is where I currently am with the work. I do not have any answers to these problems of inclusiveness in the historical narrative; all I can do is note them and try to include some the issues into my thinking and hope that it comes out in the work. Ultimately by foregrounding issues of minority exclusion I am in some small way keeping these histories alive.

  






References:

Wood, N. (1999). Vectors of Memory: Legacies of Trauma in Postwar Europe. New York: Berg.

Assignment 5

For this assignment I had to pull my body of work together for a final edit and write a 2,000 word reflection and analysis; a short introduction/artist's statement; two more images for the BoW and I worked on the handouts that will accompany the assessment and eventual exhibition photos.

For the image I wanted to push further the idea of the work's title 'Target Practice'. I decided to use one of my prop photos - a piece of cloth from a prisoner uniform with a bullet hole through a pink triangle. I thought that by printing out a number of copies all the same and folding them into triangles would create a strong visual impact.

By hanging them from a small tree in the woodland they reminded me of Christmas ornaments. This is fully intended as I also wanted to link the image to the original postcard that Josef Kohout sent to his lover for Christmas 1938; this postcard with its inscription inside is what condemned Josef to a concentration camp. The text that accompanies this image refers to the events in Josef's biography where the Nazi camp guards preferred to fire on the prisoners rather than wooden targets during their shooting practice. The image links the body of work's title with an extract from the book that explains this incident and works as a relay between the image and the words.  

I've also taken this image and used it in a cropped format for the front cover of the handout. Inside I have placed Josef's inscription to his lover, Fred and used a cursive font so that the words look more personal. On the back cover of the handout is a 'backstory' that tells of Josef's life-changing experience after the events of his incarceration and some more general points discussing recent LGBTQ political history.

I've made a version at home using my deskjet printer and some thicker card. It looks good for assessment and for next year's exhibition I could think about getting it printed professionally. I have a second handout that has all the relay text for each image. Each piece of text is numbered on its own page and will relate to a numbered image that will fit inside a 16x12 clamshell portfolio box.

Both the artist's statement and longer analytical piece is now written and all of it has been sent off to my tutor for final feedback before assessment in November. I have a LOT of blog entries to make in the meantime. I visited a large number of exhibitions that need writing up and also some books need to be referenced here too. Thinking ahead my exhibition space for next year is booked and I will be signing up for SYP very shortly.



Here is my current artist's Statement:

Artist's Statement

In my practice I engage with themes of Queer identity. Using self-made or collected props I photograph them to make nuanced visual narratives that explore how LGBTQ minorities usually regarded as 'other' navigate mainstream society. In this exhibition piece 'Target Practice' I explore the hidden history of homosexual men in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. By drawing out extracts from the biography 'The Men With the Pink Triangle' by Heinz Heger, I create visual metaphors for the recounted memories of Josef Kohout, a twenty two year old concentration camp survivor. The imagery mostly based on the form of the pink triangle is fractured and incomplete (the pink triangle was the symbol worn on a prisoner's uniform and used by the Nazi regime to indicate criminalised homosexual men); the fracturing alludes to the broken men and their lost lives - ignored and shamed by history. Each image has an accompanying extract from the biography that works as a relay text that sets up a two-way resonance between the words and the image.

The partiality of memory and the impossibility of an artist to make work that could ever portray the reality of the Holocaust unless directly experienced was acknowledged when making the images; nevertheless, this Gay hidden history has long been ignored and deserves to be told. By choosing an anonymous woodland rather than a specific concentration camp location in which to place my installations pieces, I juxtapose the collective social memory, that by its nature dominates and excludes, with the narrative of the 'other'.



Edit 20th July:

With my final feedback with my tutor complete I just need to make a few modifications to my artist's statement and do some tweaks to my presentation outcome for assessment. Keith has sent me a methodological diagram to look at so that I can think about devising one that clarifies my own artistic process. This is a really good idea and will help the assessors to see at a glance the process that my work involves from the research, design and prop making elements to the final photograph. We also spoke about using a magazine format as an additional element to my assessment presentation. This would provide a channel for dissemination of the work as an alternative to the handmade book format (with its connotations of a prized and collectable object) that would seem to me to be unsuitable for work based on the Holocaust.

Edit 27th August:

After my tutor feedback it was decided that I should include a phrase I'd used about placing an 'ethical boundary around my work' into my artist's statement. I'd used it when writing my feedback notes and Keith pointed out how it neatly summed up what I was trying to state about the conceptual nature of my work; he was surprised that I hadn't used it in my artist's statement. I agree that it should be included and after a few minor changes to the wording here is my second attempt:

Artist's Statement

In my practice I engage with themes of Queer identity. Using self-made or collected props I photograph them to make nuanced visual narratives that explore how LGBTQ minorities usually regarded as 'other' navigate mainstream society. In this exhibition piece 'Target Practice' I explore the hidden history of homosexual men in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. By drawing out extracts from the biography 'The Men With the Pink Triangle' by Heinz Heger, I create visual metaphors for the recounted memories of Josef Kohout, a twenty two year old concentration camp survivor.

The imagery mostly based on the form of the pink triangle is fractured and incomplete (the pink triangle was the symbol worn on a prisoner's uniform and used by the Nazi regime to indicate criminalised homosexual men); the fracturing alludes to the broken men and their lost lives - ignored and shamed by history. Each image has an accompanying extract from the biography that works as a relay-text that sets up a two-way resonance between the words and the image.

The partiality of memory and the impossibility of an artist to make work that could ever portray the reality of the Holocaust unless directly experienced was acknowledged when making the images; nevertheless, this Gay hidden history has long been ignored and deserves to be told and the work juxtaposes a collective social memory, that by its nature dominates and excludes, with the narrative of the 'other'. By locating my installation pieces in an anonymous woodland rather than a specific concentration camp site I am placing an ethical boundary around the work that states that the work is conceptual and not just an historical re-telling of the Holocaust;parallels with contemporary society and human rights abuses can be inferred and are happening to LGBTQ people around the world right now. 

Assignment 4

The main purpose of this assignment is to begin to think about editing the sequence of images that form my body of work. This means that decisions need to be made regarding what images are strong  (if any) and to use the opportunity to appraise the project. If any changes need to be made at this late stage then now is the time to do it. I am happy with my choice of subject matter. I knew even at level 2 that I would be working on some element of LGBTQ representation. By narrowing down the scope of my subject to the oppression of homosexuals by the Nazis in concentration camps during World War Two, I have chosen a subject that has much opportunity for research - much of which has been wilfully ignored by professionals for decades.

My next task was to appraise the visual element of the work. The aesthetic form that my images have taken have undergone a number of changes before finalising on the concept of the triangle (the pink triangle being the badge that marked out Homosexual prisoners in the camps and also an adopted symbol of Gay political activism during the AIDS crisis years). I makde images that were inspired from events that were witnessed by and perpetrated upon Josef Kohout, a 22 year old Viennese homosexual, and the subject of the biography 'The Men With The Pink Triangle' by Heinz Heger.

When I made the initial images it was apparent that they were not working. I liked the concept but they were not visually arresting, seemed rather one dimensional in form, and too literal.

 

I began to doubt my project and wondered whether I was on the wrong track. But having the experience of the previous OCA courses behind me has given me the knowledge that it is best to work through creative problems and continue to explore alternate avenues before giving up quite so easily. Coming to a dead end and finding an alternate path or jumping to a completely new path is all part of the creative process. Experience has taught me that this is not a time for negativity!

So I lived with my research ideas circulating around my head for a few days (with the option of the freedom to abandon the subject and start afresh) when I hit upon the idea of incorporating the triangle into my imagery. I printed out some of my test shots and began to fold them into triangle shapes. Once the images became fractured their literalness faded away and some of the images retained the intent of what I was trying to communicate with my photography.

I still had a number of false starts with my creative exploration. I began photographing my folded triangles on a tiled backdrop. Although the images were all different there was a certain uniformity to this typological approach. I wasn't sure this is where I wanted to go with the work. I attended a number of Student hangout crit sessions and in conjunction with my tutor feedback I decided to look again at the work. I then began exploring the possibility of taking the triangles to a woodland setting and photographing them in an organic space; the intention was to reference this juxtaposition of natural and man made objects, as a metaphor for the terrible Nazi ideologies that tried to justify hatred and bigotry, all the while claiming that some kind of warped 'natural justice' gave them the right to imprison, torture and murder homosexuals.

I think that the woodland setting adds an extra level of conceptual depth to the imagery. My 'medical experiment' images in particular are made extra lurid because of the garish colour tones against the natural green and brown backdrop. I also began to experiment with prop-making at this time, taking the concept of the triangle and incorporating it into other ideas that referenced events in the 'Pink Triangle biography'. The reason for this was to avoid repetition and break away from any attempt by the viewer to read the work as typological.

I made a number of props, some more successful than others, and scouted out woodland locations for each of them. I photographed images during the course of a full season as the conditions changed. This was not intentional although the images can be read as marking time, and indeed, Josef Kohout worked in the slave-labour camps in all weathers for over 4 years.

To enable my concept to be completely visualised I would need to use some text from the biography 'The Men With The Pink Triangle' to accompany some of the images. This adds another layer to my work creating depth. When it comes to exhibiting the work I would rather that the textual information is not placed beside the images but printed in a small handout booklet. This allows the viewer to approach the work from a variety of intellectual and creative viewpoints - choosing to read the text before or after viewing the images, or not at all! As we all know images are polysemous and it is up to the viewer what they bring to the imagery and how the works are incorporated into their own creative, social, and political world view. My booklet indicates the artist's intent should the viewer choose to read it.

I've made a rough first copy of the booklet; it contains the text descriptions and not much else at present. I envisage that it will eventually include an artist's statement of intent and some contextual information that helps the viewer to navigate the historical aspects of LGBTQ hidden history.

My work also finally has a name after being pressed to at least adopt a working title by one of my tutors! The work is to be called 'Target Practice'. I think this is a very arresting title and graphically connotes some of the events from the biography. The title was actually suggested by tutor Clive White during an OCA crit session at the Brighton Biennial way back in 2016 and I'm very grateful for his input. I do wonder if 'Target Practice', a title that has been knocking around in my head for over two years now, has subconsciously affected my image making. Images like the one below fit very well with the title.

I haven't posted any of the text to accompany these images on the wider Internet yet as there may be copyright issues - something that is on my to do list to check out.

I have made a first edit of my sequence of images for my tutor for this assignment and will be posting it off on Monday, even though I still have one or two further images to make in the woodland; the sequence is not in its final form by any means, but it feels like I'm now on the home stretch.

Edit 9th May:

My feedback from my tutor was that the work is progressing well and has a broad depth to it. He liked the use of text combined with the prints and said the small booklet format works well as a handout for an exhibition. If I was to use the text and images for a photobook then different design considerations, such as using landscape format, would be more suitable. I haven't got to the stage of thinking about a photobook yet. I have purely focused on exhibiting the work and what that entails, I will have a think about this for assessment.

It was once again highlighted that I need to justify the chosen location for the installation pieces. I discussed this topic with Keith and I need to make sure that my contextualisation is clearly shown prior to submission for assessment. I plan to do this in the 2000 word evaluation for the final assignment. I also will write a blog post on my learning log and try to sum up my feelings on the choice of anonymous woodland location.

I was given a number of works to look at. I have already read Shimon Attie's Writing On the Wall but not sure if I have made a blog post about this yet. I am a bit behind in my blog posts for this module because of focusing on finishing Contextual Studies. Anyway I will re-look at this book as it is always useful to reread pieces of work at a later time, post development of my Body of Work, to see if any further insight is gained. I also need to look at Vectors of Memory by Nancy Wood. I think I struggled with this on first reading.

Adorno's Dictum, regarding the aesthetic representation of the Holocaust needs to be read around as well. A lot has been written on this piece and I need to write a blog post on the discussion and development of Adorno's Dictum.    

Anchor and Relay Text

The course notes discuss the use of anchor and relay text in conjunction with images. Anchor text is mostly used in advertising or news photography to make a clear point. Anchor text attempts to direct the viewer and leaves little room for ambiguity. Relay text gives equal weighting to the image and the text. They both enhance each other to create meaning that goes beyond the first level of interpretation. Much successful work has been made using both of these methods. Feminist artist's such as Barbara Kruger have based their art practise on using text and image together to communicate political commentaries on feminism, cultural consumption, and Patriarchal ideologies that oppress.

In the image below Kruger appropriates a popular song title as a relay text to communicate a feminist message that girl's (and boys) identities are bound tightly to notions of masculinity and femininity that are culturally constructed and Patriarchal. The text directly opposes the cultural pairing of the traits 'boy/strong' and 'girl/meek' portrayed in the image. Kruger appropriates both image and text from popular culture and advertising to create powerful insights into western culture using relay text as a method of communication.

Levels of Meaning

One of the exercises for this module asks us to look at the non literal use of visual codes that help to define the deeper meaning of an image. Metonymy for instance is useful when making images; metonymic words are familiar to audiences that share the same cultural codes. For example, 'the bottle' as a metonym for alcoholism is clearly understood by a wide audience. Metaphor takes metonymy one step further and instead of using closely associated connections between objects and words the association is much more diverse and works on a deeper level that may not be readily apparent.

In an assignment for a previous module I did use empty beer bottles to connote 'alcoholism' for an assignment about my difficult childhood. It seems that this metonym for alcohol abuse is clearly understood from a western cultural viewpoint.

For my current body of work I am using metaphor to convey more complex concepts. My 'Ediction machine' is a prop that I made to connote the idea of ideologies and regimes that have control over mass populations. The addition of the barbed wire and dead leaves in the composition is intended to convey a negative impact as a consequence of the edicts issued by the machine. The image is hard to read on its own and is obviously intended as part of a sequence and with an accompanying artist's statement to help guide the viewer to decode the image.

  

Natural Selection - Andy Holden & Peter Holden: Towner Art Gallery

This exhibition is in two parts and begins with a look at nest building by birds from around the world. The structure and variety of the different types of nest was fascinating. The birds made an incredible range from really basic designs to elaborate structures, through to collecting and sorting of stones and brightly coloured objects to decorate their nests in an attempt to attract a mate.

The second part looked at the obsession with egg collecting and the destruction that this has caused to many species of bird. Throughout the exhibition a narrative is woven that tells the story of the artists; a father and son and their collective interest in ornithology that has continued throughout their relationship. The father is a renowned authority on bird behaviour and the son an artist who has used his skills to pull a visually creative collection of elements together. The gallery space is interspersed with a variety of nests, replicated eggs, photographs, drawings and video screens that alludes to the symbiotic relationship between birds, man's appreciation of their beauty and an obsessive desire to own and ultimately destroy that which is desired. The exhibition is a fascinating insight into man's interaction with nature and the learning and damage that can lead to.

This was a fascinating exhibition and visually very well put together. Thinking ahead to my own exhibition I do wonder about placing my props from my photographs somewhere in the gallery space. Having sculptural objects on view certainly does enhance the gallery experience and breaks up the repetitive nature of just prints hanging on a wall. The props were not intended to be seen this way but I do need to consider this element of my practise. The downside to this is that I do not want the viewer to become too engaged with my working practice because the danger would be that my message becomes diluted and it is very important for this particular project for that not to happen.

Natural Selection - Andy Holden & Peter Holden