Text on methods

[STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

Abstract: This text functions as an insight into my artistic practice and my way of working. 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.

Intro:
Currently I am working and researching in three distinct areas: firstly the occult and the mystical, secondly photography as a medium and thirdly which still has to be translated practically, LGBTQI issues and queer cinema.

On the one hand I am interested in the photographic medium itself, the materiality of it but also what they communicate and how. In my practice I collect images, these can be taken digitally or analogue, but can also be found footage, collage, scientific images or digital collages. By curating the images from my archive carefully I want to create new analogies between these images. 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. So photography for me is always personal and objective. The objects that are depicted in my photograph 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.

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). Here I looked at how the use of rituals occured in their films and what it actually means. It is also interesting how magic and rituals are trending again in art (witchcraft, ritual performances, also for example the italian pavilion at the Venice Biennale).
(analysing films of: kenneth anger, derek jarman, ursala mayer, brucelabruce, Alejandro jodorovski, Sergei Parajanov)

And finally I feel an urgency to react to LGBTQI discrimantion 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.

Past:

Present:

The first part is about seeing, photography, collecting, making analogies, visual thinking, coming closer to objects, and desire. 

The second part is about magic, rituals, fantasy, desire but also a research into cinematography. 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.

Observing the world around me is essential in my process. By taking a photo and sharing this I show my gaze, my interests and my desires. It’s about seeing. But it's also about obscuring. In that sense there is is always a sort of duality. Questions like, why do I photograph a certain subject? What do I leave in and what do I leave out? arise. This is not necessarily based on any argumentation, the realisation of what belongs or might be interesting is mostly intuitive.

Image making for me used to be collecting images and making analogies between them. I like playing the artist and the curator, and I don't think my images should stand on their own but should always have a converstation with eachother. This could entail images taken in daily life, staged imaged, found footage, collage and digital manipulated images. My process is to collect and then select certain images, the idea of an archive plays a role as I sometimes come back to images previously taken years before. The images can be autobiographical, but can also just be a means to get closer to the object photographed. I depict persons I find interesting, images of myself that are tempered with, daily life situations, but I also use found footages of galaxies, scientific imagery, and photo’s found on flee markets.

Future: