- 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.
[what:]
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. =


Images from graduation project

[why:]
The starting point for this project consisted out of the idea of de-baptization and photographing holy water under the microscope. I wanted to make a personal project about being raised religiously but being atheist and gay at the same time.

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.


The idea of the table is now my modus operandi. Nevertheless there are some changes in what I photograph. For example; the self-portraits, even though they are still present, are mostly replaced by LGBT people from my close environment. There are no more pictures of other people’s family albums, and also there are no pictures taken around my family home anymore.

sketch for a group exhibition at x-bank

Video:
Below you can find two video's of one of my first attempts exploring the cinematic language. Through the use of slowmotion, colorful lights, black and white, sounds of outerspace, and by not having any dialogues I try to conceive a mystical/uncanny atmosphere. You see a young man, partly undressed looking and laughing in front of the camera, while a glass of water is being poured in slowmotion and in reverse. The poring of the glass is partly based on a never finished film by Henri-George Clouzot, L’enfer. The story was about a man who is overly jealous. He imagines in terror that his wife Romy Schneider is a sort of nymphomaniac, cheating on him with men and women. The scene were she is poring the glass, is part of a hallucination the man experiences. Instead of a female leading role, there is a young man playing the part, the gender roles are swapped. Other influences came from Kenneth Anger’s films, the use of light, and the overlapping of images but also the homoerotic content.

The second video is a continuation and also has no narrative. In the short film you see a friend of mine, dressed up in his usual attire. While I lie on his lap, staring into the camera, he shaves of my hair. As I am performing in it myself, there is a more performative element to it. Unlike, Untitled 2017, this video not filmed in a professional studio. For this film I transformed my friend’s own apartment with the help of redhead lights and colorgels.



These two experiments will serve as a starting point for the project I mentioned in my project proposal. There I talk about the film The Love That Whirls made by Kenneth Anger which has never been seen by anyone. It contained nudity and therefore it was censored/destroyed by Kodak who at that time had a monopoly on developing film. [I will elaborate on this later.]

Bibliography

Gregg Araki:
Chua, L.; Araki, G., (Fall, 1992), Profiles & positions: Gregg Araki (interview), BOMB, No. 41, pp. 26-28
Hart, K-P. R., (Spring 2003), Auteur/Bricoleur/Provocateur: Gregg Araki and Postpunk Style in The Doom Generation, Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 55, No.1, pp. 30-38
Moran, J.M., (1996), Gregg Araki: Guerilla Film-Maker for a Queer Generation, Film Quarterly , vol. 50, No. 1 (Autumn 1996), pp. 18–26, University of California Press

Kenneth Anger:
Doyle White, E. (2016), Lucifer Over Luxor: Archeology, Egyptology, and Occultism in Kenneth Anger's Magick Lantern Cycle, Presents pasts, 7(1), 2, p. 1-10

LGBTQI++:
Gayoso, M. G. T.;Tan, J.;Mazumdar, S.;Liu, Q. (2009), Homosexuality in Films: Trends of Portrayal in Hollywood and Asia, Media Asia;36, 1; Business Premium Collection

Stevenson, J. (1997) From the Bedroom to the Bijou, A secret History of American Gay Sex Cinema, Film Quarterly, Vol.51, University of California Press

Still have to read or order or find these books:
Bronski, M. (2012), Queer History of the United States, Beacon Press (still waiting for delivery)
Ruby Rich, B. (2013), New Queer Cinema, Duke University Press (still waiting for delivery)
Schoonover, K.; Galt, R. (2015) Queer Cinema in the World, Duke University Press Durham and London (still have to read)
Eaklor, V.L., (2011), Queer America: A GLBT History of the 20th Century, The New Press (waiting for delivery)
Going here on nov. 18.:


Photography:

Silverman, K. (2015), The miracle of analogy, Stanford University press
Discussion @ MoMa about exhibition "Ocean of Images" about the major changes in image culture in the past 30 years:



Wolfgang Tillmans:

Dercon, C, Sainsbury, H, & Tillmans, H. (2017), Wolfgang Tillmans 2017, Tate publishing (catalogue of the tate exhibition)

Le Feuvre, L. (2007), Searching for Doubt, Foam magazine #13 searching, winter 2007
Shimizu, M. (2005), Wolfgang Tillmans: The Art of Equivalence (from the book, Wolfgang Tillmans truth study center), Taschen
Tillmans, W. (2012), Neue Welt, Taschen 



Film references:


Other:
Olly Alexander, growing up gay: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p057nfy7

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-obsessive-photographer-behind-americas-first-gay-magazine
http://www.stedelijk.nl/tentoonstellingen/carlos-motta-the-crossing