The Modern Music Video

(First Posted over at the good blog, Heavy Blog is Heavy)

Last year I wrote an essay for my course at Uni where I argued that the music video as a medium was dead on its feet. It was over. Done. Nobody paid attention to them anymore, they’d lost their power in attracting audiences, no label was prepared to put money into them, that they were surface-level tedium, and that they were obsolete as a promotional tool. In many cases I still maintain that these aspects are true; old ideas are recycled constantly and cheap performance videos multiply overnight. But I think I’ve changed my mind since then. I now believe that the music video is re-emerging.

After a decade of new internet services siphoning off the music video’s previous purpose, to expose and promote the band visually and to develop a band image they are able to sell, broadly the music video is still filled with the same old content, but the bands and their management are using them differently. Instead of drumming up hype before a release they are now utilising them as a means of remaining in their audiences’ consciousness. In an environment where there are hundreds of bands, nigh thousands domestic and internationally, vying for media attention, the videos have transformed from ‘ooh we have a new release check us out’ to ‘we’re here, we’re here, we exist!’. And so if a band receives any sort of attention it’s integral that they remain in the news in any way they can, and a music video serves that purpose. As Marshall McLuhan said, ‘the medium is the message’.

Akira Yoshizawa

Elephant!

Monkey!

Origami has it's own natural beauty, a beauty which is may not be so clearly defined possibly due to our Western eyes, our appreciation of art having a somewhat different nature, however no one can say what the master origamist Akira Yoshizawa achieved in his career is nothing but beautiful. He was and still is considered as one of the greatest orgamists ever and, well, I'm not one to argue.

Art often baffles me in so many different ways. Most often it's with the profound mechanical skill of an artist with pen or paint, sometimes it's the mind-blowing concept behind a piece abstract work, but this time round  it's one of those 'HOW DO YOU DO THAT?' kind of feelings. It's the incredible lifelikeness of his folds. The fact that the medium and material is paper and is essential blank in any context or colour or connotations and then for his pieces to come across with so much personality imbued in to what are just seemingly folds.... I'm just insatiable with this mystery. Witchcraft is what it is.

And it appears Google too was quite in love with him too as they celebrated Mr. Yoshizawa's birthday with a doodle not so long ago, he would have 101! Head over HERE to check it out.

To read up on an interesting article about an exhibition in years-gone-by and to see more of his origami follow this link HERE for a good time.

Oh, and what the heck, here's a biography too HERE!

It is a truly special art from on which I could and should get in to. Check it out yourself!

Don't forget to enquire about our Zine dedicated to Writing, Illustration & Photography!  

William Carlos Williams - The Use of Force

William Carlos Williams was an American poet and short story writer who had strong ties with modernism and imagism and had a background of being a working physician. He is probably most famous for his poem 'The Red Wheelbarrow' which implements the 'ideas in things' ideology where the language is stripped down and imbue emotions within concrete images. This style of writing can be influenced as strongly by photography as well as writing. 

Here you will find probably my favourite Williams short story, where he makes use of his physician background entailing a rather difficult home visit on a sickly little girl. The frustration and forcefulness is conveyed powerfully and engages the reader with the struggling doctor-patient relationship. 

...

They were new patients to me, all I had was the name, Olson. Please come down as soon as you can, my daughter is very sick.

When I arrived I was met by the mother, a big startled looking woman, very clean and apologetic who merely said, Is this the doctor? and let me in. In the back, she added. You must excuse us, doctor, we have her in the kitchen where it is warm. It is very damp here sometimes.

Malleus - Roadburn 2009 Posters

I don't think I can emphasize enough about how much I love the work of Italian screen printers extraordinaire Malleus. I narrowed down their portfolio just to focus on the posters they produced for the Roadburn festival back in 2009 and it is these works which first gained my attention of the art collective. 

In my eyes I can see Alphonse Mucha's overt influence in all aspects, the consistent feature of semi-naked women, the explosive colours and the poster medium Mucha too favoured. It's also in the grace and beauty of the women and the subtle combination of the colours, though Mucha preferred earthier tones Malleus go psychedelic and burst with powerful, flourishing colour which is marvellous. 

I totally recommend you to go check out more of their work at their cool website HERE

On top of their awesome art, some members of the Malleus collective are also in the drone/doom band Ufomammut, see a cool photo I took of them live here, they are psychedelic and heavy and worth your time. 

Check out Ufomammut HERE and below...

Here and Now - ZINES!

So yeah, experimented with Blogger's 'Dynamic' layout. Didn't like it at all, so impersonal and black and white. At the risk of sounding like a three year old, where were the colours!? Bah.

Anyway, the good news is that the Zines are done and printed and looking great! Above you can see the cover bearing a photograph I took during the short burst of snow we had down here in Bath, looking up at the snow ledged on the bush brings an interesting perspective I felt. And I was stuck for ideas and had gone through several covers in the process. Believe me, that one is the best out of what I came up with. By far.

The Zine itself has short stories, some illustration which I'll post on here soon, the contributions were fantastic, and some photography by myself and Red, and if you would like one, just email me with your address and I'll post one out to you! And it will be free too, I just want everyone who wants one to have one!

My personal email is: dont_talk2urself [at] hotmail [dot] co [dot] uk

(I have to type it out like that because otherwise dirty spammers will try to send me shit. And I don't enjoy shit)

What you can also do, which would be very cool, is join our Facebook group! HERE

Also on that note, I am looking for more contributors for the Zine, so if any writers or illustrators or photographers would like to have their work published then contact me and I'll see what we can do, hit up that email above and lets get going.

We are only a one man operation, and so I use the 'royal'/'made up' 'we' when I refer to ourselves, or I mean me, or.... whatever. Anyway, what I mean to say is, any support is much appreciated!

Record Review: Crippled Black Phoenix - (Mankind) The Crafty Ape

First Posted at Heavy Blog Is Heavy

Chapter I – A Thread
01. Nothing (We Are…)
02. The Heart Of Every Country
03. Get Down And Live With It
04. (In The Yonder Marsh)
05. A Letter Concerning Dogheads

Chapter II – The Trap
06. Laying Traps
07. Born In A Hurricane
08. Release The Clowns
09. (What?)

CD2:
Chapter III – The Blues Of Man
01. A Suggestion (Not A Very Nice One)
02. (Dig, Bury, Deny)
03. Operation Mincemeat
04. We Will Never Get Out This World Alive
05. Faced With Complete Failure, Utter Defiance Is The Only Response

‘Craft’ is one of my favourite words in the dictionary (my most favourite being ’clavicle’, it has such sweet phonetics). It denotes as skilfully producing something by hand, and it is this ‘by hand’ bit which I wholly endorse. ‘By hand’ leads to something unique, something which has been imbued with its creator’s personality and skill. However, ‘Craft’ can also mean deviousness and trickery in an archaic form, and I believe it is this denotation Crippled Black Phoenix had in mind with the name of their latest record, especially when they still consider us all as those primordial apes.

On paper, and by right, Crippled Black Phoenix should be a crushing doom super group, with ex-Electric Wizard, ex-Iron Monkey, ex-Gonga and ex-Teeth of Lions Rule The Divine members; you wouldn’t have expected then that they undertake an expansive Pink Floydian approach to progressive rock. Yet, within the lush psychedelic soundscapes and handsome guitars and thumping rhythms they have that element of deviousness, that feeling of a pretty mask hiding the ugliness beneath, which lends a cliff-edge to this warm flowery meadow.

The comic-esque record artwork is interesting to interpret. The wolf face echoes the same one that appeared on 2010’s I, Vigilante and is now attached to a human body, and though it is snarling and looking fierce it’s running away. In fear, perhaps. Maybe there’s something worse than a wolf-headed man, something scarier?

I keep returning to Crippled Black Phoenix as, beside Colour Haze, I believe they are the classiest band operating today. Their I, Vigilante record was stunning, it was a descent, that weary journey from the zenith, and it reminded me of coming home from a long walk. No fanfare or crescendo, no blaze of fire but embers that smouldered in the dark and cast red across the floor.

I have found The Crafty Ape to have a much fuller and rounder sound than I, Vigilante, which was a more straightforward guitar record, now there are horns, organs, strings, choirs in places, female vocals stand out a bit more and the piano is beautifully played. It is this melding of orchestral sounds into a strong, cohesive stream or soundscape that, with recent forecasts in mind, makes me think of the weather and it’s forgotten splendour. All the elements have to be perfect, the temperature, wind, pressure, humidity, cloud cover, geography and only when they are all perfect does this pure, unique, white snow fall with it’s perennial aching beauty. Yet, of course, some sit in awe of the snow’s majesty whereas others stare in tragedy and it is this bi-polar beauty of snow that encapsulates The Crafty Ape for me. It is beautiful and psychedelic but also mournful and dark.

It isn’t all frosty, as there are sunbursts seen at the powerful end of ‘A Letter Concerning Dogheads’ and the visceral rhythm of ’Laying Traps’, but the British-instilled misanthropy and famous misery reflects most from this record.  I care a great deal for Crippled Black Phoenix, their records are always stirring and The Crafty Ape is a continuation of their triumph.

Hey, Full Album Stream... Cool...

Hiroshi Sugimoto

This past month has been, to say the least, difficult. However, here we are now, whole and well, and looking at the fantastic photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. And I like his minimalist style. A lot. It's subtle and fascinating and he likes his themes and most importantly I like his themes. Here, I am showcasing my favourite series of photos he's done where he's taken a photo of a film playing in aesthetically pleasing theatres at an extremely low shutter speed in order to capture the entire film in one image. In fact, I'll let him explain...

...

I'm a habitual self-interlocutor. Around the time I started photographing at the Natural History Museum, one evening I had a near-hallucinatory vision. The question-and-answer session that led up to this vision went something like this: Suppose you shoot a whole movie in a single frame? And the answer: You get a shining screen. Immediately I sprang into action, experimenting toward realizing this vision. Dressed up as a tourist, I walked into a cheap cinema in the East Village with a large-format camera. As soon as the movie started, I fixed the shutter at a wide-open aperture, and two hours later when the movie finished, I clicked the shutter closed. That evening, I developed the film, and the vision exploded behind my eyes.  

- Hiroshi Sugimoto

...

For me, this is genius. I am currently in post production of producing a short film, indeed I am the editor, and so the idea of an entire film and all of it's thousands of frames captured into a single frame, not only explodes MY eyes, but it makes my head hurt too. 

I am loving Hiroshi Sugimoto, and I feel you should too, check his other cool works HERE

More digestible information can be found HERE

Kozyndan

Octopus!

Courting

 It has been an utter nightmare trying to decide which images to put up to accompany this post for Kozyndan. Every place I looked there was just more and more astounding work, at one point I genuinely had six images uploaded, but obviously that's a bit much so, here we are, the two images I like the most as of this minute. By the time I finsh writing I'll probably want three other images.

Kozyndan are a husband and wife dynamic duo, where Kouze would sketch the outline then Dan would follow up with their patented colour. It is this colour use that is quintessentially Japanese: big and flat. This kind of colouration that makes me think of a diving pool full of paint of one colour, it has that richness and deep strong hue that looks like you could swim in it and drink it.

Ach and the detail too! I can almost feel the water spraying my face when I look at the bottom image!

I sincerely love everything Kozyndan have done, I even have had their work as my background on my laptop for months on end.

Check out their great and comprehensive website, it has EVERYTHING, AND IT'S GREAT: HERE

Hey, buy prints HERE

Updates, Connection Problems and Lucien Freud Exhibition

So, how bloody annoying  is it when your laptop that perfectly works for two years suddenly decides that the internet connection it's been perfectly connecting to for two years isn't there anymore?

Yeah. So, until I sort that out I am very much afraid (((Hyperpower))) may sit still for a few more days.

Anyway, UPDATES!!

I've progressed exceedingly well with the Zine, out of 16 pages I have 14, and am thinking about upping the content to 20 pages, but printing costs have to be considered too. I have several contributions from some very cool people and am waiting on some more. I think it's going to turn out pretty cool. When I can, I'll post some photos of the process.

Today, I went to the Lucien Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and believe if you get the chance, go. Freud's portraits are astounding in their intensity of attention to detail and I would think, though not meaning to be photographic, obviously, in many cases better than a photograph. Freud seems to capture the sitter, in his very laborious and time consuming process - apparently David Hockney's portrait took 130 hours! - and the sitter's essence. They're not only time invested in to the painting but emotionally invested too as Freud talks to them.

The exhibition is so good and it'll be on until the 27th May so definitely check it out. Here's the website HERE

Mike Wohlberg

So, from igneous giant that is Anish Kapoor to the rocky boulder that is Mike Wohlberg (I really don't mean to sound condescending, honestly). Wohlberg is actually a very new to me by name, I discovered his being through this exciting announcement by metal news website Metal Sucks about their South by South West showcase for this year, and it appears Wohlberg did the poster for them. And boy it looks swell, swell enough for me to check him out and indeed good enough to write this blithering post about him.

I like his dirty graffiti design style and after some digging around it seems he's been designing merch and posters for some hefty hitters in the metal scene for a while, I spy Today Is The Day, Burnt By The Sun and Pelican among others.

I enjoy speculating about the imagery that is ingrained within music scenes, and it's importance in our new digital instantaneous living. Is the art accompanying the music as important as it once was? There are many arguments to say record art is losing its place, especially considering growing digital downloads and the tiny image file attached of the artwork. However, that is to exclude the other avenues within the music industry for artwork, the artwork that actually receives notice like the posters and merchandise, merchandise actually being the biggest emergent as integral for a musicians revenue.

And so the merchandise has to look good with good artwork otherwise it won't sell, and this is where artists like Mike Wohlberg come in. #tangentover

Anyway, every time I've typed Mike Wohlberg I've battled with myself to not type Mark Wahlberg.

Really all over the place today.

But really, Mike Wohlberg is super great and you should check out his website: HERE

Anish Kapoor

Orbit

Cloud Gate

Leviathan

I will confess now and say I still get a little bit giddy when I think of Anish Kapoor... and his art! (He is dreamy, though, right??)

His work, in some cases especially, is astronomical, it explores possibly not outer space but atmospheric space, it enhances the space, it shows that it's not a vacancy of air but a thing of itself. This is most apparent with his Leviathan piece which astounds me in its scope and sheer size.

The Turner Prize-winning artist isn't, actually shouldn't, really new to anyone, he's been one of the most prolific and enchanting artists in our modern era, but sometimes it is nice to take a step back and really appreciate what he's achieved. For me, Cloud Gate is stunning. It's like a piece of heaven molded in to this smooth, conclave, edible shape.

Here in Britain we're in the process of the building of our Olympic Tower, known as Orbit to Kapoor, and I for one am entirely in love with its architecture, it swoons, it dives and it surges high with skeletal refinement. I can not wait to see it finished and gleaming in the backdrop of panoramas the BBC will most certainly utilise during the Olympic coverage this summer.

To remind yourself of more of Kapoor's work hit up HERE

Truly impressive.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale For Children'

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an illustrious writer who's won the Nobel Prize in Literature and has written classics like One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and is well known for popularizing the magical realism style.

I don't know why I haven't thought of this before, but there seems to be a great resource of online versions of classic short stories and I think it'll be cool to repost them here on (((Hyperpower))), so yeah this Marquez short story gets the honour of going first. Also, it's a personal favourite of mine. Check it out after the jump....

Anders Petersen

Rain Dogs cover image

Holy shit, did I just learn how to make images big? And it's taken me how fucking long? Jesus Willy Christ. What a break through. And what a better time to start, at the top is the very famous Tom Waits cover everyone recognises from his classic record Rain Dogs, but before it existed with that honour, it is a part of a series done by Anders Petersen in the now-famous bar in Hamburg's red light district Cafe Lehmitz.

What I like about Petersen is the studied grittiness in his documentary photography, everything is heaped in dirt, that under-the-nail grime that belongs to the under-classes. It's enthralling to be able stare in to a subjects eyes who is burnt out on the inside and have lost all notions of inhibition. But they're not actually miserable, indeed it's joyful imagery, like making the most of a dour situation.... by hanging out with prostitutes and drinking lots. Cool. That's what I would do.

Anyway, hit up Anders Petersen's website, it's got a great archive and it's where I began: HERE

Stacey Rozich and Earth pt. II

Yep, I've already spoken about Stacey Rozich before and her fascinating line drawings of her mythical creatures with oriental flair, and I love it, obviously. Yet, I'm here again just to post about the new artwork she's done for Earth's second Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light records, and I think it's pretty cool.

As you could before, check out her work HERE

And here's some new Earth, enjoy...

                                                 

Josh Graham

Josh Graham is the visual artist for the band Neurosis which is how I found out about him, but he also does artwork for records and whatnot for bands like A Storm of light and Red Sparrows all of whom are very cool.

The landscapes Graham digitally produces are phenomenal, huge expanses of rich detail and awesome colour, colour that you can dive into on the physical format. His work explores ecological themes and man-made product's interaction with nature when they're disposed of, and animals inhabiting places of the most strange nature.

His work is eery, unrestrained and textured. I haven't seen Neurosis live but I imagine it's a whole encompassing audio and visual experience that drowns you in senses.

Check out more of Josh Graham HERE

And I would recommend to check out Neurosis too if you haven't HERE

Zine Progress!

Yeah, this isn't very exciting , it's just I have the layout and format of the 'zine sorted out the other day and I thought I should document it on here. I've actually gotten to the point now where I've started to design individual pages and the cover and back cover designs and asking for contributors, so yeah I've been busy in this mini-hiatus from the flurry of posts of recent. Hopefully normal service will resume soonish...

Richard Avedon

I do confuse myself sometimes. Portraiture in painting bores the crap out of me, but portraiture in photography, done well mind, is so enthralling. I imagine being asked to be a subject for a portrait means you either have loads of wrinkles, look whacky or both.

Richard Avedon had been prolific in his portraiture, photographing big, influential figures from all the arts, literature, film, music, dance and artists and fellow photographers. His work is captivating in its intimacy.

The top image has the privilege of being my favourite portrait photograph ever. It sparked off an interest in Ezra Pound, the image's subject, that later affected an essay I was writing at the time. He appeared to be a wholly complex character, knowing many other affluent figures in literature and art, dealing with unsavoury characters like Wyndham Lewis, and personal heroes like Ernest Hemingway (even though many consider he was unsavoury too, I don't I think was he was cool).

The bottom image is of much-acclaimed and well-lauded director John Ford who Avedon captured immaculately his seeming impatience and stubbornness, which portrays Ford's personality wonderfully.

I'd recommend you to head to this website where you can see whole portfolios that are uncomparable: HERE

Thomas Moran

From yesterday's John Martin I've taken stock of what I know of landscape artists and realised Thomas Moran must receive some deserved attention.

His blazing colours and expressive form breathes movement into the earth and freezes the sea, perfectly capturing the elements. Like Martin, he also does seem to enjoy a good craggy cliff-top, and I think we all love a good craggy cliff-top every now and then, and this hits the spot.

I found out about Thomas Moran a while ago through asking some friends of who their favourite artists are, and it's sometime easy to forget in this internet age that your friends can provide some answers the Internet can not.

Then again, the Internet is pretty great too. I now capitalise the Internet because it's my friend too.

Check out this rather inventive website for more stuff HERE

And this site is another good'un too HERE

(((Hyperpower))) 'Zine?

For a while now I've been thinking about making a 'zine, a self-published magazine of sorts with the DIY ethos and wabi-sabi nature. Of course printed media is never going to revive itself from it's inevitable death, much to the Newspaper Man's grief, but I find the physicality of a magazine enticing. It's permanent and real. Something to grip with your fingertips and experience.

It'll essentially be an artefact of a time and place, and that tangibility is exciting. And it's a bit of fun too.

So yeah, this may be in the works in the background, and I'll make sure to record its process on these here pages, with the layout and writing and illustrations and photography.

Keep an eye out.

John Martin

Over the Christmas period I went to see the fantastic John Martin exhibition over at the Tate Britain titled Apocalypse, and some of his paintings truly incurred the feeling of the end. Huge canvases of lush seething colour depicting caverns and cliff-tops and hell and biblical damnations.

Even though the critics derided his work, I think Martin is pretty damn cool. It's high drama. Imagine living in that period and viewing a work like the ever popular Apocalypse (top image); it's horrifying and thrilling at the same time!

Sometimes art doesn't have to subtle or intellectualised or pretentious, it can melodramatic, bombastic, even explosive and that's what John Martin delivers in spades.

You can check out the highly antiquated John Martin website HERE

Alice Duke

Alice Duke has been one of those where I knew her work before I knew her. Her illustration work is fascinating, it deals in folklore and nature and human curiosity using engrossing detail and warm earthy colour. I enjoy her work, I love the mythical creatures and the transformation of the known to the unknown, especially with Exploding Shed at the bottom there, yet overall I can't help but find her work terrifying.

It truly is scary. How many heads does that scaly, hairy, feathered, winged, tangle of serpents need? And how much is the print because I want one!

You can go and check out her coooool website HERE

And you can hit the jump to check out her work with the great unsigned band Cormorant.

Roger Dean

I couldn't believe it going through our, admittedly rather brief, archive and finding that I have yet to mention the, frankly, brilliant Roger Dean. He's mostly known for his intergalactic and astoundingly beautiful and surreal landscapes, floating islands, dense jungles, monolithic rock formations, hive-like constructions and the odd pyramid or two.

However, above I've put two images of my favourite works by Mr Dean and they mainly focus on his creatures, that dragon up top is incredible in it's majesty and colour, and breathes a whole new way of thinking of what a dragon could be. And the octopus is there because I think the octopus is the boss. Obsessed with octopi(?) at the moment. Way cool.

His works are well-known for being used as record covers for bands like Yes and Rush and other prog rock royalty, and on his influencing many in the younger generations, the one that comes to mind the most is Arik Roper who is also a genius.

Check out his well made website HERE

On Writing: The Death of the Review

As a music record review writer I have found the form itself has been cheapened considerably over the last couple of years. Of course the fact that anyone can start up a blogspot and write about music makes the writing landscape so varied and interesting and colourful, but it also means there’s no filtration device. The degree of quality writing in reviews has cooled significantly.

I believe a review has it’s own art form; the writing has to be informative of the subject that you are reviewing, but it must also be entertaining and persuasive. Pure information is a pamphlet. A well-reasoned and thought-provoking discussion is a review.

This is not only restricted to digital media, which is a common misconception, printed media too have been on this slippery slope and continue to flail in their shallow puddles of vocabulary. To appeal to mass audiences does not mean the writing has to be dumbed down to the bare-essentials: clichés and a formula.

In the Music and indeed the Art industry, nothing else is as important as having your work be quality and unique, so why should it be different when you’re writing about those industries?

Here I break it down where I think the quality of reviewing is going awry, and follow with how I think a review should be.

…

Francis Picabia

I feel I don't appreciate Francis Picabia in the right way. I suppose not in the critical frame of mind where Picabia is seen as a major figure of the DaDaism movement in France and the US in the early 20th century.

For me Picabia has always been the name next to Otaiti , that image at the top, in the Tate Modern Gallery. I've seen the painting many times with each of my visits ad with every time I am struck by its despair and tragic darkness of the image. It's probably most affecting as it's a begging and pleading naked woman on her knees with a huge disembodied hand preying nearby. The autumnal leaves and the dank muddy colours evokes the sense of transition from peak to decline.

The multi-layered imagery is superb and at times can feel like the image is moving and shifting between one scene to the next.

This the Francis Picabia I enjoy, the one with startling imagery and with stories to tell. His DaDaist works may have been influential but for me I think I prefer his images with an element of coherency.

I've found there to be a lacking of decent websites to link to unfortunately so here's a bundle to make up for it: HERE, HERE and HERE.

The Body in Photograms by Red

The Body is something which is constantly and thoroughly used within archaic and contemporary art. Whether it is the all-time acclaimed works of the legends Pablo Picasso or Lucien Freud to the more modern works of Jenny Saville, Andres Serrano and Dylan Ricci.

It is a free and marvelous thing to use as subject matter. Not one body is the same and each of us have contours, freckles, scars, lumps and bumps that artists find irresistible.

For a recent project that I have done I looked at my face and other body parts in the medium of photogams. (The best way to explain what a photogram is, is to click on the Wiki link i am afraid!) Throughout my photographic up-bringing I have always loved the darkroom and the photogram techniques.

Fox Talbot and Anna Atkins are the main proprietors of the object onto photo-sensitive paper then exposure method.....

William Henry Fox Talbot

Anna Atkins

So within this project I combined both body and photograms.

The project title being 'Primitive' enabled me to use the most greatest primitive method of producing images there is, plus it is my favourite so this was a good project for me.

I stumbled across the technique for producing photograms of my face through experimentation in the darkroom with fix on my finger tips...

Vaseline on my lips...

E45 cream on my hands...

I liked the E45 cream.

Through much experimenting I had the idea to put the cream on one side of my face and print my face directly onto the photo-sensitive paper....

It was quite a break- through as the imprint has created a foetus looking pattern or shape on the paper. I had never seen anything like this before. So I had to expand on it.

I started putting the cream on both sides of my face (above), to show contact between the two faces, as if they are kissing.

The lack of intimidating and complicated techniques within this project just demonstrate the effectiveness of experimentation and simplicity within photography. If you want your face covered in cream and fixative to create pictures which completely sum up you as an artist, then do it. Less is sometimes (well in this case) more.

These however are not all the finished pictures... there is a lot more to show. But unfortunately they are with my tutor being marked.... so... watch this space!

FIN

RED

Jake and Dinos Champman

Sorry I haven't posted in a while and neglected the blog. But am back for a reign of terror ;)

Jake and Dinos Champman I discovered in current project that I am doing in my Photography degree at AUCB, called Photography and Realism.

I am blessed with erratic and bizarre dreams which are elusive and clear as day and I hoped that this would be a great starting point for this Realism project. So within a meeting with the legend that is Hitesh Ambasna he guided me towards the Champman brother duo.

The work which I was introduced to was there constructed 'mini' scenes. Such as this...

Their work employs death, sex, Nazism, children and the actions in the consumer lifestyle.

There is such a splendid amount going on.

A lot of the work from these concept artists I cant help but feel is quite, (putting it plainly), 'fucked up'.

And I like 'fucked up'!

The work of these sublime artists evokes an emotion or terror from the audience or onlooker. The best form of art (in my opinion) is that, that scares the shit out of the viewer. It wouldnt be worth while otherwise.

Go along and get scared shitless yourself.

http://www.jakeanddinoschapman.com/

FIN