Claudio's Thesis - INTRO/OUTRO: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 11:24, 18 January 2024

GRS2023 Claudio's Thesis - INTRO/OUTRO SteveSuggests

INTRO (first chapter)

This text is titled INTRO.

INTRO is a general outline of the starting point of my graduation research project, BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES. It will present its premises, its pinciples, the thematic fields that the project will cross and address, the questions driving it, the tools I plan to use, the attitudes I will rely on.

INTRO is a self-analyisis of where I am at right now. Now that I have written my Project Proposal and I am starting to grasp what I am making yet I feel much will change and evolve and I still have many doubts to figure out. Also, it will serve me as an exercise to reach a temporary state of clarity over the next month and devise an effective and convincing way to present and frame my intentions at the assessment in January.

I will write another text - OUTRO - just before the final due date for thesis. It will be a complementary, mirror text to INTRO, an attempt at recapping the work made and reflecting on its achievements and failures, its discoveries and future trajectories. Also, a more detailed description of the form that this project will take in the graduation show.

BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES is a visual research project that I will carry on over the coming months, towards the graduation. During the first year I focused on a rather broad yet quite specific field of research, which I would frame as the theory and practice of image-making, and, conversely, of the experience of images, considered in their complex implications - technological/technical, material, semiotic, affective/existential - between their digital and analog nature. In other words, I have been concerned with the conditions of possibility of images by constantly lingering on their limits. This project belongs to the same research path.

BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES will be an elemental exploration of fundamental questions about seeing and being: the way we see, what we see, why we see, and where we stand. It will give form to a critical discourse and practice that weaves together and questions the experience of the world by seeing it, through light, on images and screens, the materiality of these - as physical/analog and virtual/digital objects, and the related quest to find meaning and stand in between these, living the tension between nihilism and the sublime. A personal reflection on the experience of seeing as well as a (self)reflection on the possibilities of the medium of (moving) images.

BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES will take the form of a cumulative, open-ended, expansive work on visual material from different sources and with different qualities. Its subjects will be (???, still defining this)

piercing light leaks and dark black holes, over- and under- exposed shots, webcam shots of empty beaches, blinding flashes and fast flickers, windows, curtains, screens, empty/lost eyes, pixels, digital noise, black and white blank frames [tbc...],

collected and choreographed together in short, stand-alone sketches/fragments. An annotation process will run parallel, unfolding meaning in written form, producing text material that will end up in this thesis work and in the final piece for the graduation show.

BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES will find its outcome at the graduation show as an experimental moving image work, in an installation form. I envision it either as a single-screen compilation or a multi-channel installation comprising of (4?) speculative episodes/parts, mutually interconnected yet self sufficient.

They will be exercises of/attempts at seeing. For me while making, for the viewer watching (DEVELOP THIS hint more)

(will also evolve into a separate part OF THE THESIS? As I often struggle to clearly understand and therefore explain what I'm interested in, what and why I make, I will commit to an exercise of repeatedly writing short paragraphs trying to pinpoint the core concerns of what I make. A series of attempts at defining what I'm making - Write 1 sentence/short paragraph each day (?) in which I try to put down, in simple sentences, what I am interested in, as an artist, define the field in which i am moving.

~~(WHAT) I'M INTERESTED IN (WHAT)~~

Through making BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES,

~~I’m interested in exploring the fundamental elements and conditions of vision, its limits and the notion of blindness in relation to images and image-making.~~

I’m interested in light and its double potential to make things visible and to make blind. Its absence and presence, its double effects on images and vision. To drown in light, or to emerge from it. To appear and conceal. To make the world exist, or vanish.

~~I'm interested in the fine line between visibility and invisibility, between transparency and opacity.~~

I'm interested in those liminal moments when nothing (or everything) is seen as something, or when something that can't be seen becomes nothing. Things becoming nothing, something, everything in and through light, in and trough images.

~~I'm interested in exploring the liminal states between seeing something, everything, nothing.~~

~~I'm interested in the paradoxical link between nihilism and the sublime.~~

I'm interested in explore the tension between pure abstraction and mere materiality of images, between representation of the world and presentation of the medium, between seeing everything and not seeing anything.

~~I’m interested in images and screens as supports for such paradoxical coexistence of showing and hiding.~~

I'm interested in the concept of blind spot. Ocular blind spots in retinal structures; blind(ing) elements in the "structure" of images (over/under exposures, out-of-focus, flickering ...); images and screens as blind objects; also, blind spots in perception of the world.

I'm interested in exploring light as a flash. The flash of light as a concept, an image, and a physical phenomenon. The flash as the basic unit of light; as a (im)pulse for/on vision. As a singular, sudden event of extreme light that paradoxically reveals and blinds. As a device for apparition and concealment, of existence and negation. As a metaphor and image for both nihilism and the sublime. Also, the flash as the fundament of every experience of moving images, and of digital screens too.

I'm interested in the failure of images. The paradox of making fail-ed/-ing images as part of my image-making practice as a visual artist. I'm interested in exploring and working on events of failure of images. Failed images as images that question and subvert their expected representative value. Images that represents nothing-ness, that show themselves as images, that are blind and that blind the viewer, both physically and conceptually.

~~I'm interested in the repetition and variation, in the redundancy, of images.~~

~~I'm interested in the durational experience/effect of watching.~~

Hereafter, I compile an expansive list of keywords that will somehow be called into question by BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES. I will consider translating it into a conceptual diagram/map to give a visual sense of their mutual implications, their relevance and position in the project. Elements from this list will be more specifically elaborated on in this thesis (A CATALOG/COMPENDIUM OF CONCEPTS) in closer relation to the actual development of the project over the coming months.

seeing/not seeing

showing/hiding

seeing/watching/staring/gazing

vision/blindness

visibility/invisibility

transparency/opacity

representation

materiality/abstraction

edges/borders/thresholds/margins/limits/interfaces

errors-glitches-artifacts-failures

flashes, flickers

immateriality-materiality in/of (digital) images

blind spots

gaze/image/screen

phisicality of images and image-making devices

depth/surface

lenses, sensors, screens, human eye structures

software/hardware, digital/analog, virtual/physical

technology/the technical

existentialism, nihilism/sublime

A SET OF TOOLS AND ATTITUDES AKA HOW I WANT TO WORK

In working on BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES I will rely on some tools and attitudes that I want to set myself both as sidelines and prompts to guide my practice.

I want to embrace and develop an approach to images that is both, at the same time, sculptural and open-ended. A DIY, constant sketching, “non-finito” approach. Make rapid, rough, short sketches, yet consistently, as a way to explore possible forms and meanings. To keep eyes and doors open, to open eyes and doors.

I want to work with images in a more dirty, reckless, less polished way. This does not mean I want to work carelessly. But carefree. And rather give more space to a process and a practice rather than to projects. . A practice against - or devoid of - the fear and the fetish of the final result. It is the way of working that I feel more at ease with and I believe it can be the most effective one in exploring and reaching the core topics and interests of my work. This does not mean I am not interested in reaching points in which I can show completed works to an audience. This ongoing practice will produce a body of fragments whose meaning is made by their whole, and whose whole will be the foundation for the making of my final graduation piece.

I want to work and convey meaning mainly with and through images. I want to use text and sound as secondary devices to facilitate this.

While I will still be using found footage, I want to work again also behind the lens, making and working with my own images too. I plan to use different cameras. I will rely on my handy Canon camcorder as a visual note-taking device, to capture images on the go. I am getting familiar with more advanced cameras from WDKA's rental facility to be able to make more high-quality footage. I also plan to try my hand at working partially with 16mm. To do so, I will take the introductory workshop and I will become member of Filmwerkplaats in February 2024. I want to work exclusively in black and white, as a way to reduce the information to the essential elements of images that I am interested in - light and shadows, textures. I might withdraw this choice later on, but color feels superfluous right now.

I want to simplify my editing workflow. Keep my timeline slim, avoid excessive use of editing trickeries and rely more on the simple power of juxtaposing images alone.

[... add/expand/remove something?]

WHERE I'M AT RIGHT NOW AKA WHAT I'M MAKING WHILE WRITING THIS TEXT

Working to present some more concrete plans for the assessment.

MANY DOUBTS, THE BIGGEST ONE:

IS THIS TOO FORMALISTIC, TOO SELF REFERENTIAL, NOT INTEREESTING, NOT SAYING ANYTHING ON THE EXTERNAL WORLD OUT THERE? IS IT JUST FORM WITHOUT CONTENT? IS THIS TOO SIMPLE? - THIS IS WHAT DAVID IS WARNING ME ABOUT - i am not really engaging with the topics i seem to be interested in.

HOW CAN I MAKE IT MORE MORE RELATABLE FOR AN AUDIENCE, HOW CAN I FIND ENTRY POINTS in my work FOR THE WORLD AND FOR OTHERS?

1) opening up my practice, considering using more images "of the world" - less abstract

2) considering the place that text and sound will have, the necessity to find a narrative of some sort, how and to what extent give information to audience.

(END OF INTRO)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-=== First draft of ''INTRO'' (first chapter of the thesis) ===
+[[cldtlGRS2023|<span style="color:black; background-color:white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px;"><u>GRS2023
-(as I wrote in the Thesis outline, INTRO will be the first chapter/part of my written thesis, and will be in correlation with OUTRO, which will be the fourth and last chapter/part.
+</u>]]
+[[Claudio's Thesis - INTRO/OUTRO SteveSuggests]]
-INTRO will be a general outline of the starting point of the project. Its premises, principles, protocols. The thematic fields it will address, the questions driving it, the devices it will use. OUTRO will be written at the very end of the process, just before the final due date, and will be an attempt at recapping the work made and reflecting on its achievements and failures, discoveries and future trajectories. A possible outcome for INTRO/OUTRO could be a plain, dense text printed on one A4 sheet of paper, recto/verso (recto: INTRO, verso: OUTRO)
-To write INTRO I will: rework parts of my project proposal and thesis outline while adding some new material. The mode of address will be a personal, diaristic, fragmented presentation of the current state of my practice NOW - before the christmas break and january assessment.
 ----
-=== OUTLINE of ''INTRO'' (+/- 1500 words) ===
+==== '''<big>''INTRO'' (first chapter)</big>''' ====
+This text is titled ''INTRO''.
-. A brief presentation of the project - title, topics, tools (from PP)
-. A reading of an epiphanic moment in my practice last year that I recognize as a significant starting point of this project (new text)
-. What i'm interested in exploring now. A manifesto (for myself) of interests and intentions. Written as a loose, expansive list of things I'm interested in dealing with. (already in PP + expand with new text)
-. Relation to previous practice (from PP mainly)
+''INTRO'' is a general outline of the starting point of my graduation research project, ''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES''. It will present its premises, its pinciples, the thematic fields that the project will cross and address, the questions driving it, the tools I plan to use, the attitudes I will rely on.
-. Where I'm at now / What I'm doing right now (from PP mainly but expand with new text)
+''INTRO'' is a self-analyisis of where I am at right now. Now that I have written my Project Proposal and I am starting to grasp what I am making yet I feel much will change and evolve and I still have many doubts to figure out. Also, it will serve me as an exercise to reach a temporary state of clarity over the next month and devise an effective and convincing way to present and frame my intentions at the assessment in January.
-. How I want to work. A set of tools and attitudes (from PP mainly but expand with new text).
+I will write another text - ''OUTRO'' - just before the final due date for thesis. It will be a complementary, mirror text to ''INTRO'', an attempt at recapping the work made and reflecting on its achievements and failures, its discoveries and future trajectories. Also, a more detailed description of the form that this project will take in the graduation show.
 ----
-==== 1. A brief presentation of the project - title, topics, tools (from PP) ====
+''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES''  is a visual research project that I will carry on over the coming months, towards the graduation. During the first year I focused on a rather broad yet quite specific field of research, which I would frame as the theory and practice of image-making, and, conversely, of the experience of images, considered in their complex implications - technological/technical, material, semiotic, affective/existential - between their digital and analog nature. In other words, I have been concerned with the conditions of possibility of images by constantly lingering on their limits. This project belongs to the same research path.
-==== 2. A reading of an epiphanic moment in my practice last year that I recognize as a significant starting point of this project (new text) ====
-==== 3. What i'm interested in exploring now. A manifesto (for myself) of interests and intentions. Written as a loose, expansive list of things I'm interested in dealing with. (already in PP + expand with new text) ====
-==== 4. Relation to previous practice (from PP mainly) ====
-==== 5. Where I'm at now / What I'm doing right now (from PP mainly but expand with new text) ====
-==== 6. How I want to work. A set of tools and attitudes (from PP mainly but expand with new text). ====
+''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES''  will be an elemental exploration of fundamental questions about seeing and being: the way we see, what we see, why we see, and where we stand. It will give form to a critical discourse and practice that weaves together and questions the experience of the world by seeing it, through light, on images and screens, the materiality of these - as physical/analog and virtual/digital objects, and the related quest to find meaning and stand in between these, living the tension between nihilism and the sublime. A personal reflection on the experience of seeing as well as a (self)reflection on the possibilities of the medium of (moving) images.
+''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES'' will take the form of a cumulative, open-ended, expansive work on visual material from different sources and with different qualities. Its subjects will be  (???, still defining this)
+piercing light leaks and dark black holes, over- and under- exposed shots, webcam shots of empty beaches, blinding flashes and fast flickers, windows, curtains, screens, empty/lost eyes, pixels, digital noise, black and white blank frames [tbc...],
+collected and choreographed together in short, stand-alone sketches/fragments. An annotation process will run parallel, unfolding meaning in written form, producing text material that will end up in this thesis work and in the final piece for the graduation show.
+''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES'' will find its outcome at the graduation show as an experimental moving image work, in an installation form. I envision it either as a single-screen compilation or a multi-channel installation comprising of (4?) speculative episodes/parts, mutually interconnected yet self sufficient.
+They will be exercises of/attempts at seeing. For me while making, for the viewer watching (DEVELOP THIS hint more)
 ----
+ <s>(will also evolve into a separate part OF THE THESIS? As I often struggle to clearly understand and therefore explain what I'm interested in, what and why I make, I will commit to an exercise of repeatedly writing short paragraphs trying to pinpoint the core concerns of what I make. A series of attempts at defining what I'm making - Write 1 sentence/short paragraph each day (?) in which I try to put down, in simple sentences, what I am interested in, as an artist, define the field in which i am moving.</s>
+''<s>(WHAT) I'M INTERESTED IN (WHAT)</s>''
-previous practice, last year / pivotal moment / reading of it
+<s><br />
+Through making ''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES,''</s>
-if i have to find a pivotal moment THAT connects them together - eyes burning in FILMING WATCHING BURNING
+<s>I’m interested in exploring the fundamental elements and conditions of vision, its limits and the notion of blindness in relation to images and image-making.</s>
+<s>I’m interested in light and its double potential to make things visible and to make blind. Its absence and presence, its double effects on images and vision. To drown in light, or to emerge from it. To appear and conceal. To make the world exist, or vanish.</s>
-https://youtu.be/l_7_ol6iXIo
+<s>I'm interested in the fine line between visibility and invisibility, between transparency and opacity.</s>
+<s>I'm interested in those liminal moments when nothing (or everything) is seen as something, or when something that can't be seen becomes nothing. Things becoming nothing, something, everything in and through light, in and trough images.</s>
+<s>I'm interested in exploring the liminal states between seeing something, everything, nothing.</s>
-If I think about it, I can pinpoint a specific moment in my practice last year that I recognize as an early, intuitive yet strikingly clear turning point for this project. A turning point that brought up and matched, suddenly, unexpectedly, topics and tools. An epiphanic encounter that marked my practice and whose resonance I can clearly  see in this project I am about to engage with.
+<s>I'm interested in the paradoxical link between nihilism and the sublime.</s>
-For the "Writing through editing" workshop - that was held in the second semester of the first year of the course, we were asked to make a short 5 minute video using footage from the Open Beelden online archive.
+<s>I'm interested in  explore the tension between pure abstraction and mere materiality of images, between representation of the world and presentation of the medium, between seeing everything and not seeing anything.</s>
-The piece I made was titled ''A cameraman filming aka FILMINGWATCHINGBURNING'' and was built around a rather intriguing clip I found in the archive that showing two cameramen filming each other on top of a skyscraper being built in New York in the 1920s. That short clip held a unique self-reflexive nature which attracted me: its subject was not New York's fast vertical growth - which remained, literally - in the background, yet the very act of filmmaking, of making images of the world, by means of cameras and film. The subjects were the two filmmakers, filming each other while filming the world  in front of them. I built my piece around that clip, editing it together with other footage - this time intentionally looked for, not found - that could bring out and develop that self-reflective nature even further. A film projector, a film strip burning, as well as various images of eyes. I wanted to weave together the act of seeing/watching, the act of making images through film, and a more intuitive notion of burning - light burns the chemicals to impress the celluloid, eyes burn when they stay open for too long or, a burning desire and need to see things. Along the whole piece, with varying intensity,  I used a flickering effect, as a device to make the moving image apparatus visible and sensible the viewer; as a metaphor to recall the blinking of the eye, as well as the projector's presence; also, to trigger the physical perception of moving images and further play with the provoking idea of burning eyes.
+<s>I’m interested in images and screens as supports for such paradoxical coexistence of showing and hiding.</s>
-In the first half of the piece, an intense sequence features a fast edit of footage of the two cameramen, images of eyes and text-on-screen playing with variations of the phrases EYES WATCHING / WATCHING EYES, all layered with a flickering effect. All of a sudden, the screens goes black, abruptly. The viewer's eyes - until then hit and overstimulated by the mass of fast edited images - are caught imprepared. On that unexpected pitch black screen, afterimages appear, the flickering effect seems to continue. Yet, it's only the effect of images seen before, their backlash on the viewer's retinas.
+<s>I'm interested in the concept of ''blind spot''. Ocular blind spots in retinal structures; blind(ing) elements in the "structure" of images (over/under exposures, out-of-focus, flickering ...); images and screens as blind objects; also, blind spots in perception of the world.</s>
-After a few seconds, a new text-on-screen appears, in white letters slightly flickering on black: EYES BURNING.
+<s>I'm interested in exploring light as a ''flash''. The flash of light as a concept, an image, and a physical phenomenon. The flash as the basic unit of light; as a (im)pulse for/on vision. As a singular, sudden event of extreme light that paradoxically reveals and blinds. As a device for apparition and concealment, of existence and negation. As a metaphor and image for both nihilism and the sublime. Also, the flash as the fundament of every experience of moving images, and of digital screens too.</s>
-A subtle yet precise description of some of the images seen before -  eyes shedding tears - as well as of the actual, physical sensation built and triggered by the piece and felt by the viewer in that specific moment. A coincidence of images seen, physical perception and conceptual meaning.
+<s>I'm interested in the f''ailure'' of images. The paradox of making fail-ed/-ing images as part of my image-making practice as a visual artist. I'm interested in exploring and working on events of failure of images. Failed images as images that question and subvert their expected representative value. Images that represents nothing-ness, that show themselves as images, that are blind and that blind the viewer, both physically and conceptually.</s>
-Abstract, minimal imagery, self reflection on the medium, embodied, physical, haptic (?) experience of images.
+<s>I'm interested in the repetition and variation, in the redundancy, of images.</s>
-A hard flickering sequence - white and black frames only - follows, emphasizing even more the sensation of burning eyes. The same text stays on screen, floating thrpugh the flickering frames. A countershot image of an unfocused projector beaming light towards the camera is edited just after - as if it was the source of that flickering sequence, and brings back the piece to figurative imagery. The piece goes on.
+<s>I'm interested in the durational experience/effect of watching.</s>
+Hereafter, I compile an expansive list of keywords that will somehow be called into question by ''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES''. I will consider translating it into a conceptual diagram/map to give a visual sense of their mutual implications, their relevance and position in the project. Elements from this list will be more specifically elaborated on in this thesis (''A CATALOG/COMPENDIUM OF CONCEPTS)'' in closer relation to the actual development of the project over the coming months.
+seeing/not seeing
+showing/hiding
+seeing/watching/staring/gazing
+vision/blindness
+visibility/invisibility
+transparency/opacity
+representation
+materiality/abstraction
+edges/borders/thresholds/margins/limits/interfaces
+errors-glitches-artifacts-failures
+flashes, flickers
+immateriality-materiality in/of (digital) images
+blind spots
-intentions / interests - a first intro to concepts and interests and fields of exploration - a list? a manifesto for myself?
+gaze/image/screen
+phisicality of images and image-making devices
-where i am at right now, what images I akready have, i am already working on?
+depth/surface
+lenses, sensors, screens, human eye structures
+software/hardware, digital/analog, virtual/physical
+technology/the technical
-what tools will i use, what practice
+existentialism, nihilism/sublime
+----
+''A SET OF TOOLS AND ATTITUDES AKA HOW I WANT TO WORK''
+In working on ''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES'' I will rely on some tools and attitudes that I want to set myself both as sidelines and prompts to guide my practice.
+I want to embrace and develop an approach to images that is both, at the same time, sculptural and open-ended. A DIY, constant sketching, “non-finito” approach. Make rapid, rough, short sketches, yet consistently, as a way to explore possible forms and meanings. To keep eyes and doors open, to open eyes and doors.
-''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES''
+I want to work with images in a more dirty, reckless, less polished way. This does not mean I want to work carelessly. But carefree. And rather give more space to a process and a practice rather than to projects. . A practice against - or devoid of - the fear and the fetish of the final result. It is the way of working that I feel more at ease with and I believe it can be the most effective one in exploring and reaching the core topics and interests of my work. This does not mean I am not interested in reaching points in which I can show completed works to an audience. This ongoing practice will produce a body of fragments whose meaning is made by their whole, and whose whole will be the foundation for the making of my final graduation piece.
-explore and give form to fundamental questions about seeing and being: the way we see, what we see, why we see, and where we stand.
+I want to work and convey meaning mainly with and through images. I want to use text and sound as secondary devices to facilitate this.
-I’m interested in exploring the conditions of vision, their limits and the possibilities of blindness.
+While I will still be using found footage, I want to work again also behind the lens, making and working with my own images too. I plan to use different cameras. I will rely on my handy Canon camcorder as a visual note-taking device, to capture images on the go. I am getting familiar with more advanced cameras from WDKA's rental facility to be able to make more high-quality footage. I also plan to try my hand at working partially with 16mm. To do so, I will take the introductory workshop and I will become member of Filmwerkplaats in February 2024.
+I want to work exclusively in black and white, as a way to reduce the information to the essential elements of images that I am interested in - light and shadows, textures. I might withdraw this choice later on, but color feels superfluous right now.
-I’m interested in light and its double potential to make things visible and to make blind. Its absence and presence, its double effects on images and vision. To drown in light, or to emerge from it. To appear and conceal. To make the world exist, or vanish. I want to move along the fine lines between visibility and invisibility, between transparency and opacity.
+I want to simplify my editing workflow. Keep my timeline slim, avoid excessive use of editing trickeries and rely more on the simple power of juxtaposing images alone.
-I'm interested in those liminal moments when nothing (or everything) is seen as something, or when something that can't be seen becomes nothing. Things becoming nothing, something, everything in and through light, in and trough images.
+[... add/expand/remove something?]
-I'm interested in the paradoxical link between nihilism and the sublime.
+----
-I want to explore the tension between pure abstraction and mere materiality of images, between representation of the world and presentation of the medium, between seeing everything and not seeing anything.
-I’m interested in the images and screens as supports for such paradoxical coexistence of showing and hiding.
+''WHERE I'M AT RIGHT NOW AKA WHAT I'M MAKING WHILE WRITING THIS TEXT''
-The experience of seeing - something, everything, nothing - will be the main subject for the project. Light will be its raw material.
+Working to present some more concrete plans for the assessment.
-As of now, I'm particularly interested in approaching and working with light as a ''flash''. The flash of light as a concept, an image, and a physical phenomenon. The flash as the basic unit of light; as a (im)pulse for/on vision. As a singular, sudden event of extreme light that paradoxically reveals and blinds. As a device for apparition and concealment, of existence and negation. As a metaphor and image for both nihilism and the sublime. Also, the flash as the fundament of every experience of moving images, and of digital screens too.
+MANY DOUBTS, THE BIGGEST ONE:
-Another key concept for this research is the notion of ''blind spot''. Ocular blind spots in retinal structures; blind(ing) elements in the "structure" of images (over/under exposures, out-of-focus, flickering ...); images and screens as blind objects; also, blind spots in perception of the world.
+IS THIS TOO FORMALISTIC, TOO SELF REFERENTIAL, NOT INTEREESTING, NOT SAYING ANYTHING ON THE EXTERNAL WORLD OUT THERE? IS IT JUST FORM WITHOUT CONTENT? IS THIS TOO SIMPLE? - THIS IS WHAT DAVID IS WARNING ME ABOUT - i am not really engaging with the topics i seem to be interested in.
-A third starting point is the idea of ''failure'' of images. I'm interested in the paradox of making fail-ed/-ing images as part of my image-making practice as a visual artist. I'm interested in exploring and working on events of failure of images. Failed images as images that question and subvert their expected representative value. Images that represents nothing-ness, that show themselves as images, that are blind and what blind the viewer, both physically and conceptually.
+HOW CAN I  MAKE IT MORE MORE RELATABLE FOR AN AUDIENCE, HOW CAN I FIND ENTRY POINTS in my work FOR THE WORLD AND FOR OTHERS?
-Ultimately, with this project I want to establish a critical discourse and practice that weaves together and questions the experience of the world by seeing it through light on images and screens, the materiality of these - as physical/analog and virtual/digital objects, and the related struggle to find meaning and stand in between these, living the tension between nihilism and the sublime. A personal reflection on the experience of seeing as well as a (self)reflection on the possibilities of the medium of (moving) images. Also, a way to confront myself with the influences that make up my artistic background.
+) opening up my practice, considering using more images "of the world" - less abstract
-I will work with a sculptural approach to images as raw materials to mould and manipulate, as well as with a conceptual/minimalist attitude and language. I want to challenge the viewer’s way of seeing - and being - conceptually, physically and affectively.
+) considering the place that text and sound will have, the necessity to find a narrative of some sort,  how and to what extent give information to audience.
-''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES'' will then take the form of a cumulative, open-ended, expansive constellation/compilation of rather abstract visual material from different sources and with different qualities, such as appropriated imagery - both still and moving, original footage, DIY animation techniques. An annotation process will run parallel, unfolding meaning in written form, and producing text material that will end up in the thesis work and - maybe - in the final piece for the graduation show.
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-Its subjects will be piercing light leaks and dark black holes, over- and under- exposed shots, blinding flashes and fast flickers, windows, curtains, screens, eyes, pixels, digital noise, black and white blank frames [tbc...], collected and choreographed together as an open series of short, stand-alone sketches/fragments.
+(END OF INTRO)
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-''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES'' will find its outcome at the graduation show as an experimental moving image work, between 8 and 15 minutes in length, in an expanded installation form. It will probably have a fragmented, open - yet structured - form as a result of the non-linear process of its making.
-''BLIND SPOTS, LIGHT TRICKS/TRACES, FLASHES AND FAILURES'' will be carried out as an on-going, recursive practice. It will unfold as a fragmented yet structured production of a short sketches that give form and explore the core topics of this research. I will work with a mix of imagery from different sources and qualities. My own figure could also be involved - as a way to physically situate myself in and embody that experience of images that the project is specifically concerned with. As I am interested in working with light as a raw material, I am also considering the possibility of experimenting with some of the techniques that I learnt during the analogue film workshop that was held last year.
-Over the coming months, I will consistently commit to this practice of sketching as a way to give forms to thoughts and intuitions revolving around the topics that the project deals with. Ideally, each fragment will open the path to others, and so forth. A necessary process of selection and editing will take place along the way - something will be put aside, something kept untouched, most will be repeatedly reworked.
-Specific formal choices will be made, in close relation with the field of research I am exploring. For example, I intend to use a rather gritty black-and-white and recurring flicker effects. Contemplative, slow paces and hectic, fast ones will coexist. Another device that I intend to employ is the repetition of and variation on the same images, its hypnotic, generative, epiphanic potential.
-Text could be featured too, giving the work an essayistic and speculative undertone which however will not be a dominant mode of address. I want to rely more on the power of images alone to convey meaning.
-Sound will not have a dominant role. At this stage of the process I am working with no sound at all, but I will consider if and how to use it to enhance - and not outweigh - the experience of images alone.
-In terms of the final display of this project, I envision it as an expanded installation made of multiple elements. This will be better defined in a later stage of the process. As I understand the critical importance of display to make such a project accessible to an audience, I will thoroughly think of and test various presentation possibilities along the way. Display devices, proportions, scales, dimensions, relations between elements will be specifically devised as an integral part of the project. My architectural background might influence this phase of the work.
-'''3. Why do you want to make it?'''
-I applied to this course to devote my practice to moving images. During the first year I challenged this intention, questioned my position and understood that my attitude is that of a visual artist working with images as materials rather than a filmmaker who tells stories.This project reflects this stance, and aims at further defining my field of practice and sharpening my visual language. I feel this is necessary to prepare me for the world outside of this course.
-During the first year I focused on a rather broad yet quite specific field of research, which I would frame as the theory and practice of image-making, and, conversely, of the experience of images, considered in their complex implications - technological/technical, material, semiotic, affective/existential - with particular regard to the digital realm - but not exclusively. In other words, my work has been concerned with the conditions of possibility of images by constantly lingering on their limits. This project belongs to the same research path. It's an attempt at reaching its core and making it more radical both in content and form.
-'''5. Relation to previous practice'''
-I feel this project belongs to the same thematic trajectory that I developed during the first year. I am now trying to bring it further to its extreme consequences.
-In the past year, I worked mainly making short essayistic pieces as outputs of a rather structured, research- and text- based workflow, but I realized it is a way of working that I do not feel fully mine. In making this project I want to embrace an approach to images that is more sculptural and open-ended - a DIY, constant sketching, “non-finito” approach. Produce rapid, rough, short sketches, yet consistently, as a body of short fragments whose meaning is made by their whole. It is the way of working that I feel more at ease with and I believe it can be the most effective one in exploring and reaching the core topics and interests of my artistic work. I want to work with images  in a more dirty, reckless, less polished way. Also, while I’m still interested in using found footage, I would like to work more substantially behind the lens, making and working with my own images too.
-However, as a starting point, I will refer to two main fields of theory. On one side, media theory, visual studies, semiotics, aesthetics, theories of images, screens, of vision/visual perception/gaze. On the other side, I will reflect on influences from minimal and conceptual art tradition, structural filmmaking from the 60s/70s, as well as more contemporary moving image artists.
-My way of working is relatively loose and non-linear, based on a daily practice of research, sketching, experimentation, selection, led by intention as much as by chances and encounters along the way. I can’t - and don’t want to - follow a scripted workflow. For these reasons, it would be hardly useful - and truthful - to plan a strict timetable for the project.
-from STEVE
-Send me an intro (which is already written in your thesis outline) and first chapter draft (which you can experiment and play with) on the 20th, and I will send written feedback on that text ahead of our meeting on the 23rd.
-'''DEADLINE FOR THIS: 4TH OF DECEMBER????'''