On Companionship

Thesaurus on Companionship

COMPANIONSHIP

RELATIONSHIP THAT EXISTS BETWEEN PEOPLE OR THINGS

COMPANY

FRIENDSHIP

CAMARADERIE

COMRADESHIP

HOUSE

CLOSENESS

FAMILIARITY

ALLIANCE

AMITY

SOLIDARITY

UNITY

LOYALTY

DEVOTION

CONSTANCY

RELIABILITY

DEPENDABILITY

TRUSTWORTHINESS

On Blurryness

Thesaurus and Other on BLURRYNESS 

VAGUENESS

HAZINESS

FUZZINESS

MISTINESS

DIMNESS

AMBIGUITY SITU WHERE SOMETHING CAN BE UNDERSTOOD IN MORE THN ONE WAY AND I NOT CLEAR WHICH MEANING IS INTENDED

FAINTNESS REMOTE

INAUDIBILITY

SHADOWINESS

UNCERTAINESS

NEBULOUSNESS NOT CLEAR DISTINCT OR DEFINITE

BLEARINESS

IMPRECISION

INDEFINITENESS

UNINTELLIGIBILITY

(CLARITY CLEARNESS – Antonyms)

OBSCURITY

SMOKINESS

DOUBT

ABSTRUSENESS DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND

OPACITY CONDIION OF BENG OPAQUE: OBSCURE MEANING

EQUIVOCALITY

IMPRECISION

INDISTINCT

INDEFINITE

INCOHERENT

VAGUE INTENTION

NOT EXPLICIT

NOT HAVING A PERCETIBLE FORM

IN THE SHADOWS

UNABLE TO IDENTIFY THE SOURCE

ABSTRACTNESS

WHERE WHEN WHY WHAT HOW

WHAT IS BLURINESS

OUT OF FOCUS

NOT SEEING CLEARLY

HAVING TO THINK ABOUT WHAT IS THERE OR WHAT IS NOT THERE

MARGARET CAMERON

UTA BARTH

On Silence

Abstract thinking on the topic "On Silence"

Silence in the wind

Silence when I listen to the birds sing

Silence in the creaking of the floorboards

Silence in spring

Silence in the garden

Silence in the sound of music

Silence in the rhythm of life

Silence between friends

Silence in painting

Silence of the heart

Silence in knowing there is silence

Silence of the spirit

Silence of the Song

Silence of the Soul

Silence in the air I breathe

Silence is golden

Silence in the beauty of things

Silence within

Silence with God

Silence in knowing

Silence in the mirror

Silence in remembering

Silence in thought

Silence to perceive

Silence to work 

Silence of the camera

Feedback on First Draft of Essay

PCAD 500 Penny, you have been splurging which is one good way to start writing - you could try some other techniques to organise your thoughts through improved structuring - we identified some themes through the text and wondered if these could be chapters? SILENCE, BLURRINESS, COMPANIONSHIP? Need to edit here and you need an opportunity to refine a few ideas rather than touch the surface with several. We thought that John Cages lectures and writings on silence would be useful. What would Liz Wells say about silence do you think?
By Lecturer Maddy Pethic

First Draft of Essay

Examine How Structuralism Influences the Visual Interpretation of an Image

“Nothing is ever fully present in signs. It is an illusion for me to believe that I can ever be fully present to you in what I say or write, because to use signs at all entails that my meaning is always somehow dispersed, divided and never quite at one with itself, not only my meaning but I can never have a pure, unblemished meaning at all”

Quote by Jaques Derrida Wells. L (2003: 168)

Image “Duet” Penny Davies (2012)

It is my intention to examine how Structuralism influences the interpretation of the image, using photographs from my own practice, and the art of the Abstract Expressionist painters, the photographer Uta Barth and film maker Tacita Dean (or artist David Hockney). I will analyse the methods by which the viewer is encouraged to encounter the visual image, by investigating the theories of Ferdinand du Saussure and Claude Levi Strauss, and post- structuralists Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes. The visual interpretation of an image is limited by the viewer’s social and political experience, perception, expectations and assumptions.

“Structuralism is the theory of language and knowledge. It is allied with the theory of semiotics. Things in the world – literary texts and images do not wear their meanings on their sleeves. They must be deciphered, or decoded, in order to be understood. Things have a “deeper structure” than common sense permits us to comprehend, and structuralism purports to provide a method that allows us to penetrate that deeper structure.”

Wells. L (2003:166)

The “Duet” is from a body of work that began as an exploration of memory, and the connections between myself, and the inherited family objects that link my past and my present. The important aspects of this work for me, is the role that the camera plays, and the silence in which I photograph the space at home, where I have now succeeded in achieving the images I want to exhibit. It is in the silence that I see with my heart. The silence holds no distraction, my mind is allowed to release itself from all thought; it is in silence that I feel at one with my camera, my surroundings and myself. This is important to me because it is my heart that intuitively perceives what my mind can only see, and my camera can only look at.

The Camera is my tool. Through it I give reason to everything around me”

Andre Kertesz Sontag. S (2000:207)

My camera plays an integral role in my life. It has become a part of me that documents and records aspects of my life. It is the tool I use to express visually what would otherwise remain lost to me.  My camera demystifies my thoughts and emotions. It has become my friend and ally. I can take a photograph intuitively, but it is not until I see the image that I understand its meaning. The importance of the camera has changed as I have progressed with my art. At first it was a learning instrument, an object I could hide behind. It became a friend that I relied on to develop my skills and abilities; now it has become my passion, part of me that I miss if it is not there. The camera and I have become as one.

 “The camera is a fluid way of encountering that other reality” Jerry N Uelsmann Sontag (2000:200).

It is important to me, that in my photography, the visual experience is shared with the viewer. Photography for me is theatrical; there is always an emotion in its depths. The Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko said that “nothing should stand between my painting and viewer.” He resisted attempts to interpret his paintings. He was mainly concerned with the viewer’s experience, the merging of work and recipient beyond verbal comprehension. “Explanation must come out of a consummated experience between picture and onlooker. The appreciation of art is a true marriage of minds.” Teshuva (2003:7). His work is a drama that unfolds slowly as it is viewed. This is what I am trying to achieve in my art. Wassily Kandinsky, from the same art period, said that his art “embodies both the senses and the mind.” (www.artexpertswebsite.com 19th Mar 12 8.17am). He says that as he painted he heard tones of colour, and chords of music. I feel that the landscape, exterior and interior, are the music of my eyes. Music has an influence on my photography in memory.  There is a timeless movement in life that I perceive when I am engrossed in my work.  In my images, shot in black and white, there is a sense of history captured in the film noir style. In black and white imagery there is a haunting quality that helps me depict the spirit of loved ones I sense in the light.

 “We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost”

“The Poetics of Space” (1958) Gaston Bachelard (1884 – 1962)

 www.goodreads.com 11thFeb12 at 16.02

 There are metaphors in abundance in my work. I recognise in the images that only when we have experienced the dark, can we experience the light. The darkness is my prison, the light is my freedom. The darkness is a barrier, an obstacle to be overcome. Feeling the light is a sense of being set free. The light makes its presence known to me. When I walk into a room I am struck by its power. I relate these words to the light…delicate, elegant, passionate, energetic, verve and punchiness.

 My belief that the loved ones once lost to me in death have now appeared to me in the light and I have found them again. I am no longer afraid of death and when there is no fear, there is a freedom to live.

“Such a caring for death, an awakening that keeps vigil over death, a conscience that looks death in the face, is another name for freedom” Jaques Derrida “The Gift of Death”

If I consider now the structuralist principles, even though I see my work as a theatrical drama to be shared by the viewer, the viewer will not understand completely what I have captured or identified in the images. I can explain what I feel is there, but the viewer’s perception will always differ from my own. Also the viewer’s views and beliefs will not necessarily be the same as my own. It is also true that I do not fully understand what I have captured in my photographs until I see them in print. It may be blindingly obvious but the understanding takes time to unfold.

“The phrase blindingly obvious implies when something is sufficiently evident it reaches a point at which we are blinded to its presence, rather than reminded of its presence” D Miller (2000) pg 51

Nationalmediamuseum.org 19thMar12 7.49am

“it frequently happens, moreover, and this is one of the charms of photography that the operator himself discovers on examination, perhaps long afterwards, that he has depicted many things he had no notion of at the time”

William Henry Fox Talbot Latticed Window (1839)

(Howarth. Sophie 2005: 21)

It is at home that all my possessions remind me of loved ones no longer with me. It is at home that I feel their presence. It is a presence that I wanted to capture. I am holding on to something that I fear is in danger of being lost. The “Duet” is the memory of shared moments, shared happiness and shared activity of playing duets with my mother. The photograph is a symbol of her leaving, the door half open is a metaphor that one day I will follow her, to play a duet with her once again.

 “the shadow of the object fell upon the ego”

“When we lose a beloved person or object, we begin a process that, if successful, ends in our finding them again, within us. It is how we grow and develop as people.”

Turkle (2007:9/10)

Asking myself what is memory the answer that came to me was that memory is to be immersed in a sense of time or place, when an event became an emotional response and the emotional response embedded itself in my being. The memory is cast in the structure of my DNA, it is remembered through an emotion. The emotion becomes a photograph imprinted on my heart.

“try to imagine what everyday life would be like in a society in which no one knew any history. Imagination boggles, because it is only through knowledge of its history that a society can have knowledge of itself. As a man without memory and self-knowledge is a man adrift, so a society without memory (or more correctly, without recollection) and self-knowledge would be a society adrift” Arthur Marwick Sim.S (1999:3)

The memories I have inform my present. When I was working on my last project linking the past to the present, I researched my own past, the members of my family I never knew, my family and friends who are no longer here with me, and the objects that have remained important to me. It is all of these aspects of my life that now inform my creative practice. The deeper I delve into the past and my memories, the more intense my images become. I understand more of what I am and what I see. Without my memories, without the objects, my personal history would be lost. This is another aspect of my imagery that speaks to me. There is a sense of the lost and the found, and there is a discomfort and a fear, that what I have found will again be lost.

Bibliography

Updated today at 20.33


I will add to this Bibliography as I continue to research and write on topics relevant to my Contextual Studies


Books

 

Ballen. R (2008) Radio Interview November 2008

Barthes. R (1993) Camera Lucida Vintage London Melbourne Sydney Auckland Johannesburg

Blankert. A (1979) VERMEER The Complete Paintings Granada London Toronto Sydney New York

Bloomsbury Dictionary of Quotations Second Ed (1991) London

Bright.S (2005) Art Photography Now Thames & Hudson Ltd London

Brotherus. E. (2005) The New Painting Next Level London (Susanna Pettersson translated by Michael Garner)

Bullock.W.(2001) 55 Phaidon Press Ltd London New York

Campany. D (2008) exposures Photography and Cinema Reaktion Books Ltd London

Clarke. G (1997) The Photograph Oxford History of Art oxford University Press New York

Cotton. C (2004) The Photograph as Contemporary Art Thames & Hudson world of art London New York
Derrick. R Muir R (2002) UNSEEN VOGUE The Secret History of Fashion Photography Little Brown London

Falsani.C. (2009) The Dude Abides The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers  Zondervan

Michigan USA Lee. P. Higgs. M et al (2004) Uta Barth Phaidon Press Ltd London New York
Francis. P (2009) INSPIRING WRITING IN RT AND DESIGN Taking a Line for a write intellect Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA
Hockney. D (2011) A Bigger Picture Thames & Hudson Yorkshire
Howarth. S (2005) Singular Images Essays on remarkable Photographs aperture foundation New York
Kapoor. A. (2008) Anish Kapoor Rainer Crone & Alexander Von Stosch Prestel Munch Berlin London New York
Lee. P Higgs. M. et al (2004) Uta Barth Phidon Press Ltd Londn New York  
Lester. P.M Ph.D (2000) The Zen of Photography How to Take Pictures with your Mind's Camera Writers Club Press San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai

Michals. D. (2003) The House I Once Called Home Stephen Stewart Smith Enitharmon Editions Ltd London New York
Mirzeff. N. (1999) An Introduction to Visual Culture Routledge London New York

Newton and Rolph (Edited by)(2006) Stilled: contemporary still life photography by women

Robson. E. (2003) Coen Brothers Virgin Film Series Virgin Books Ltd London

Sontag. S (2008) On Photography Penguin Modern Classics St Ives England

Stewart. S (2007) On Longing Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection Duke University Press Durham and London 1993

The Art Book (2006) Phaidon Press Ltd New York

Tilley. C (2004) The Materiality of Stone Explorations of Landscape Phenomenology Berg Oxford New York
Turkle. S. (2007) Evocative Objects Things We Think With The MIT Press Cambridge Massachusetts, London
Warren. F (2006) PostSecret Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives Orion Books London
Wells. L (2003) The photography Reader Routledge London Canada New York 

Wylie. J (2007) landscape Routledge Oxon New York

The Anarchy of Silence" at the Museum d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona.

Copyright 2009 by James Pritchett. All rights reserved.

Webistes

 www.goodreads.com 11thFeb12 @ 16.02

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/hockney/ on 29thFeb2012 @ 03.42

http://youtu.be/oikkB0Yu6tw on 10thpr2012 @ 03.19



http://www.silentfilmmusic.com/ on 10thApr2012 @10.10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY7UK-6aaNA&feature=colike on 17thApr2012 @ 05.43

http://youtu.be/pcHnL7aS64Y on 17thApr @ 05.10

athttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/blurred.html#rI4IvDoQeTRZMkhQ.99 on 17thApr2012 @17.00

http://www.annedarlingphotography.com/minor-white.html). on 24thApr12 @ 08.12

Images

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/pictures/image/0,8543,-10404595971,00.html (Iago by Margaret Cameron)

William Henry Fox Talbot Latticed Window (1839) (Howarth. Sophie 2005: 21) 

Blipfoto

http://www.blipfoto.com/Passion8


Joined blipfoto ..... looks like a good site. A daily image is not as easy as it seems. 

The Mist, A Cellar

 A Cellar

 Built 1862

Haunting Darkness

Light I seek

Black and White 35mm Film Ilford FP4 Plus ISO 125

What Secrets lie out in the mist

What stories are to tell

Smugglers Stash

The Albatross

Lost Ships 

Lost Men

No place for me

Imagination will suffice

And look and see and feel its cold

Thick mist I fear thee most

COLORAMA Smart Film ISO 200

Expired December 2003

CREMYLL

THE CITY

MONDAY 12TH MARCH 2012

David Sylvian

http://youtu.be/EiqwcP_RJm8

Thanks to Mark for sending me a link to this video. I love it!

Peninsula Gallery, Plymouth University

South Orkney Islands

(Mobile Pictures of the Exhibition)

A British Antarctic Survey. 

Simon Faithful, Keith Grant, Anne Brody and David Wheeler

"We climbed around a final ridge and saw a Whaling Boat 2,500ft below. A few moments later we saw the sheds and factory of Stormness Whaling-Station. We paused and shook hands -Ernest Shackleton.(2005)

When I visited the Peninsula Gallery today it was just to see what was being shown as I hadn't known beforehand what was there. It was the video of the Sheds and Whaling Station that caught my attention. The sheds empty and desolate, now inhabited by the seals who roam around and shelter undisturbed. They looked comfortable, and somehow their expressions conveyed a sense of "this is ours now,"  as they reclaimed this land as their own territory once again. I sat and watched them for ages, I think the video ran twice.  I was mesmerised by their presence and enjoyed viewing the snow falling on the camera, while also trying to spot the people hiding in the shadows out of sight of the seals and the camera. 

JFK Turner

http://thedelightsofseeing.blogspot.com/

Researching for my Final Major Project this afternoon and found this Blog by JFK Turner ... it is a really wonderful resource and I love his/her work on his/her Website. A gem of a find.

Thank You JFK Turner