Text on methods

[STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

Abstract: This text functions as an insight into my artistic practice. I will look at a few strands of visual and conceptual ideas which occupy me at the moment. Below I will discuss how my research can be divided into three strands of thinking, and also how this will be translated practically. Then I will talk about a few works.


Intro:

Currently I am working and researching in three distinct areas: firstly the photographic medium as such, secondly the occult and the mystical, and thirdly LGBTQI related themes and queer cinema. I see my work as one on going process, so it is not necessarily project based. The occult and the mystical overlaps with my research in queer cinema and my photography overlaps with LGBTQI topics. Actually one could say al three areas are not so distinct and overlap each other one way or another.

My photographic work is on the one hand about looking and on the other hand about the photographic medium itself, the photo as an object, the materiality of it but also what they communicate and how they relate to the real world. Questions that arise are: why does the subject affect me? What do I leave in? What do I leave out? What kind of analogies are created by putting these images together?

In my photographic practice I collect images, these can be taken digitally or analogue, but can also be found footage, collage, scientific images or digital collages. Sometimes images are staged, sometimes it just happens to me. By ‘curating’ these collected images I want to create new analogies between them. I photograph to 'collect' but also to get closer to people and objects. Inherent to photography is the gaze, what I photograph gives away my way of looking and what I am interested in. Particularly I am interested in the gay gaze or the queer gaze. Yet photography is always personal and objective for me because of the giving away of the gaze. The objects that I depict are often men, rocks, outer space images, people, daily life snapshots, but also abstract images. The idea of an archive plays a role as I sometimes come back to images previously taken years before. It is not important for me when the photograph is taken, if I suddenly come across an image of 5 years ago and it seems to have a relationship with images I took yesterday then it makes total sense to me to put these images together.

Secondly I am focused in making the cinematographic language my own. I do this through making short experimental films. Important research area's here are queer (or gay) cinema, magic and rituals. I also would like to use some CGI elements in these films when I'm more acquainted with the medium. The interest in magic and rituals started after seeing work by Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger, (see previous essay). It is also interesting how magic and rituals seem to find their way back again in contemporary art. Perhaps this is due the uncertain times we experience right now, Ernesto de Martino described the role of rituals and magic as a way for individuals to try to regain control again in times of uncertainty and confirm their presence in the world.

(analysing films of: kenneth anger, derek jarman, ursala mayer, brucelabruce, Alejandro jodorovski, Sergei Parajanov)

And finally I feel an urgency to react to LGBTQI discrimination issues. World wide LGBTQI rights are under pressure, in the Netherlands LGBTQI regularly get beaten up because of who they are etc. etc. I do not want to play a victim card, but I do want to react on this in one way or another. The LGBTIQ reality might already be prevailent in the other two distinct areas, so It would be nice that all three areas would overlap more. Maybe it's already enough to include LGBTQI people in my work, but I am still not certain. Another thought that crossed my mind is to organise self-defense classes for LGBTQI persons. This already exists in Amsterdam, so my plan is to participate one of those classes and see from there if there is any useful aspects in it for my own practise.

Past:

Present:

Future: