- Thesis Outline

[Under construction]

What do you want your thesis to be about? Introduction (500 words)


Three strands of thought could be considered in my practice. Researching the photographic medium, but also the idea of 'seeing' in itself, making the (gay) cinematic language my own, and LGBT issues/identity. In the thesis I would like to investigate further on the above mentioned lines of thought and by doing so reflecting on my own practice. 

In the first chapter I will do this by looking at my past and current work, the chapter will be divided in three parts. First I will talk about my photographic practice and work. Then I will address my use of video and my interest in gay cinema, and lastly I will formulate how these two overlap thematically and aesthetically.

In chapter two I will look at the broader context of my work, how it relates to other practitioners/writers. This will be divided in two parts. In part one I will look at the photographic medium, and the artists in that field that I feel related to, for example Wolfgang Tillmans. In part two I will look at gay cinema, what gay or queer cinema is and how it developed and by doing so looking at artists that have inspired me (Kenneth Anger, Gregg Araki etc.).

In the final chapter I will make a conclusion/reflection on the development of my process throughout the year.

Chapter one, past and current work (2000)

Photography:

To understand my current methodology and work I have have to look back at my previous graduation project. In 2012 I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht where I studied Visual Communication with photography as main focus. 

For my graduation project I made an installation and photo book dummy with digital and analogue photo’s, incorporating self-portrait collages together with found footage from strangers’ family albums, microscopical images created in collaboration with a cancer research institute in Utrecht, pictures of the sun, the moon as well as abstracted images of taken in the surroundings of my own family’s home. The starting point for this project consisted out of the idea of de-baptization and photographing holy water under the microscope.


Images from graduation project

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Before this I worked mostly in series but from this project onwards my photographic practice focused mainly on the collection of different types of photographic images. From this point one single images started to be less important to me than the overall combination of images. Through careful selection and combinations, I aim to create new analogies between the different materials. When working with photographs, my methodology consists in arranging and rearranging my ‘collected’ images. 

Therefore my work should always be presented as a ‘table’ not as a ‘tableau’. The idea of the working table and the open possibility of changing the order of the images therefore also means that I do not work in fixed series or projects with my photographic images.

Now my practice has developed in a broader sense, from looking inwards to looking more outwards. This is shown in what I photograph, the selfportraits have been replaced by photographs of people from the LGBT community.