/4000 words
Marinka Grondel
To see things different.
Photography is the best way I can express myself. What interests me the most is the combination of art and (fashion) photography, The way I describe my work is that it can take you into a place in which people and everyday objects can sometimes take on a peculiar form. I am always thinking about how I can show another side of something that is already there. I love to create concepts, thinking of poses, locations, materials, combinations and ways of showing clothing. This is something that I do to create possibilities for the viewer's preconceptions about seeing life. Photographic surrealism.
I make sure I create and visualize as many concepts by using photography and styling during the assignments and after school to amplify my portfolio. I love to create a concept and be a part of the process. I live by the quote of John Lennon. “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.” Creating images that continuously try to withdraw you from our world. Playing with distortion and illusion. Let people look twice at something because it is different than they are used to. I am mostly inspired by the shapes that the human body can take and how to combine this with location, clothing and materials. Using old and new technologies. I mainly use digital photography but also analog photography is something that I find really interesting.
Like how I photographed the images digital and than put on old paper and scanned it back in. This shows an analog view on something digital.
I don’t like to see borders. My photography is al about overstepping those borders that people make and creating a world where everything is possible. Where reality changes. Because what is reality in a world where technology is slowly taking over? People can easily make photos with their phone and share it right away. It makes it hard to stand out as a photographer. I went to look for authenticity in technology and materials. I have started this minor digital craft because I want to make my photography more authentic. Create objects or so-called ‘props’ that can be used in my photography. Objects that show something that comes close to reality but actually tells something else. Making strange combinations in materials and ways of manipulating this process. This could bring new inspiration to what the authenticity of the material is and how you can play with that idea. Like I did with my second design for Fantastic Forgeries in witch I relocated body parts because when 3Dprinting of body parts is already possible why wouldn’t we in the future want to have a 3D printed
nose on our shoulder? Or a extra pair of eyes on our back? I think it is strange that in a time where everything is possible to create everyone still wants the same nose? To experiment with this idea really got me inspired. Making a combination between photography and art. Playing with what is and what isn’t. Like in the copy for fantastic forgeries I made a dress inspired by the dress of Lie van der Werff. It gave me a skin like feeling so I recreated skin with latex. I used the body parts that the dress touches if a model would wear it. These body parts I recreated with latex. The dress would look the same as on the image of Lie van der Werff from afar but when you come nearby the dress would show you the shapes of the body the bone structure, goose bumps and veins. I want to use technology to amplify my photography and take me even further than those borders.
One of my big inspirations is the art movement surrealism. Waiting for dreams to take over in live is something they lived by. I do not think that Sigmund Freud’s theories about ‘es’ takes over when I am photographing but I love the idea that reality is something that we can play with. Surrealist movement made this possible.
One of the photographers that really inspire me is Francesca Woodman. Surrealist details are evident throughout her photographs, Woodman continually pushed the boundaries of self-expression, using her body over and over again to question and blur contemporary ideas of sexuality and art. The most wonderful thing of her photographs is that al images are well thought through and composed to be a strong story telling photo.
Viviane Sassen is a photographer from now and days. The models that she choses are mostly people from Africa, the beautiful dark skin in combination with the light of the sun, shadows. I think it is amazing! She also focuses on fashion photography. She uses mirrors, scissors, paint and Photoshop to mess with the viewer's preconceptions about what a fashion photograph is. I would recognize her work out of thousands!
This is some of my inspiration. The list go’s on and on. I really enjoy art and photography that shows a different perspective on human and life. I love to be surprised when I see art or photography. This is something I hope to create in my photography to. I think that I find the beauty in photography when it becomes an artform. This is what inspires me in other artists and this is what I long for myself in my works.
"Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality."- Nikos Kazantzakis philosopher. In my last project I worked with the artwork of Lie van der Werff. She researched when objects lose their function and their shape. What remains is a fragile part of the object itself. How things become a shade of themselves. I think that is a very interesting concept for my tools of the trade concept in witch I wanted to continue this philosophy. In my project for fantastic forgeries I made two dresses in the first dress I played with the idea of moving around body-parts. And my second dress shows how you can use materials and shape to create a suggestion of the body in a whole different kind of way. A different perspective on reality by taking a fragile part of a subject and discover what happens when this part is being rediscovered as a new thing, feeling or subject. For my Tools of the trade project I want to focus on the human-body again as this is one of my biggest inspiration. For this project I mainly concentrated on movements and how a movement could get a different value by putting it in a different perspective. This is something that could make u wonder is it still human is it still real? The definition of reality is what you can see and touch. The unreal tells something that has not happened, imaginary or illusory. The people who played with the idea of unreal becoming reality are the surrealists. I wanted to approach the project Tool of the trade with a surrealistic perspective, as this is one of my big interests. The surrealists tried to not let them lead by the ordinary and the logical but let them lead through random inspirations. To give something ordinary a new meaning by putting it in a different perspective.
Like the “object” Paris 1936 of Meret Oppenheim in witch she put fur on a cup saucer and spoon. The function is changed and discussed because you get mixed perception and feelings by looking at this piece.
The surrealists see things different. The eye is a consisting surrealistic icon. The eye is something that keeps coming back in surrealistic visual and poetic metaphors. It shows a place of confrontation, connection and communication. The eye connects the inner and physical appearance subjective and objective. It is the ‘glace santain’, a mirror that holds the wonders of surrealism. The eye is controlling the first part of the film ‘Un Chien Andalou’ directed by Louis Bunuel. And is a powerful metaphor for the original and surrealistic vision of the movie.
In the movie spellbound Dali was apart of creating the dream scene. The scene got introduced by a realistic eye that changed into a painted eye on a curtain. Hollywood went through the surrealistic mirror and entered the other side. This project I tried to see as the surrealistic mirror showing a different perspective on movements. In 1924 A Bureau of Surrealist Research was formed to gather information on the workings of the unconscious mind. At this time Andre Breton the founder of surrealism, who had a background in medicine, was considering Surrealism as a quasi-scientific activity. They wanted to explore the possibilities. They did experiments themselves like the surrealist Salvador Dali, Salvador Dalí’s practices at the end of the 1920s and during the 1930s, scientific experimentation. In 1928 Dalí took a growing interest in André Breton’s automatism and elaborated his first conception of surrealism which was based on the model of the scientific observation of nature. Dalí’s writings of this period mimicked protocols of botanic or entomological experiments and reformulated in an original way Breton’s surrealist project: they simulated the conditions and practices of scientific observations of nature. Paradoxically, this documentaristic and hyper- objective attitude led to a hyper-subjective and surrealistic description of reality: objects were taken out of their context; they were broken up and no longer recognizable. The object is first of all removed from its context and placed in a neutral space. The object is then observed by a mechanical eye, devoid of any affectivity. One might refer, for instance, to the the micro-photography of the 1920s: the photograph of the image seen under a microscope. like the front view of insect wings against a neutral background, photographs of crystals or the reproduction of a detail of a section of a object- enables one to discover other aspects of the object. The surrealists tried to assemble as much experimental data as possible, without knowing yet what the end result might be. They got inspired by experiments of scientist, who created al kinds of tools to study the human body. I got to think about what is a tool? A tool is an extension of the human body. Technology has always been seen as something that is unhuman. This because it overtakes the working labor and creates a lot more possibility’s, power durablity. But those tools could be used on humans to study there physical and metal ability’s. To learn more about the body and the way it works. Like the scientist Étienne-Jules Marey who was mainly focused on human motion. He created a tool where a frog’s leg muscle is hooked directly to a pointed stylus that rests on a drum. An electrical stimulus causes the muscle to contract, deflecting the stylus and thus producing on the revolving drum a typical white on black curvy trace. Fatigue of the muscle produces an increased duration and diminished amplitude of successive contractions, as shown in the image below.
The proliferation of mechanical inscription devices in the life sciences coincided with the displacement of anatomy, as a static principle of localization, by physiology, which analyzed and studied forces and functions. Étienne-Jules Marey, known today as an inventor of chronophotography, was one of the main exponents of the graphic method in France, and he personally devised a number of instruments whose aid, he wrote, made it possible to ‘penetrate the intimate functions of organs where life seems to translate itself by an incessant mobility’ He invented
Chronophotography that is defined as “a set of photographs of a moving object, taken for the purpose of recording and exhibiting phases of motion. It shows the movements that are not to be seen with the human eye. Chronophotography shows photographs of movement from which measurements could be taken and motion could be studied. Chonophotography is derived from the Greek word "chronos" (time) combined with "photography". This idea inspired a lot of surrealist like Duchamp. Marey's man in black velvet became the inspiration for Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase. (1912)
Man Ray was inspired by Étienne-Jules Marey’s chronophotography. He used it in a sequence in his movie ‘Emak Bakia’ 1926. It shows the various phrases of a man jumping. Like Duchamp, Man Ray was interested In creating a static representation of movement. Static compositions of indications of various positions taken form in movements.
Marcel Duchamp was the first artist in modern times to use actual movement to explore the mechanics of seeing. The above image is Rotary Glass Plates (Precision Optics), propellerlike pieces of glass painted with black and white lines and mounted on a sturdy metal rotating axle, made in 1920 with the help of Man Ray. As the motor-driven axle turns, the lines on the separate pieces of glass appear to join up and form complete circles.
The sphygmograph is also an invention of Étienne-Jules Marey. It is used to measure the pulse. One end of a lever rested on the veins in the wrist, while a stylus on the other end inscribed the fluctuations of the heart onto a carbon-blacked strip of paper.
Added a heel and separate forefoot chambers to Marey's pressure recording shoes, obtaining more measurements of the onset and duration of weight-bearing, and the vertical reaction force. The subjects were connected to a rotating arm which moved in a 20m circle. The vertical and horizontal oscillation of the trunk and pelvis were also recorded.
These are some very interesting examples of the works of Étienne-Jules Marey. He really changed the view on movement as he found different tools that show how to bring motion into image.
Jasper Johns' stage set for Merce Cunningham, based on Marcel Duchamp's The Large Glass.
Duchamp was a big inspiration to a lot of people who where very interested in movement. Collaborations between ballet and art is something that became a must in the world of ballet. Merce Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was very important for the American modern dance for about 50 years. He is also notable for his frequent collaborations with artists of other disciplines, including musicians John Cage and David Tudor, artists Robert Rauschenberg and Bruce Nauman. Works that he produced with these artists had a profound impact on avant-garde art beyond the world of dance. Cunningham believed that as an artist one should know a little about all the art forms and not just one’s own. His friendship with visual artists and composers formed and informed the path he took, as did his own work impact on theirs. The union and collaboration of Cunningham, Cage and Rauschenberg radicalized three art forms, but in the early days only made sense to visual artists. Their first audiences included Joan Miró, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp. Cunningham would later use computer technologies to develop sound and movement. Cunningham identified these experimentations with computer technology, along with possibilities afforded by working with film and camera.
When I looked at the history of ballet I found that the The Ballets Russes was a ballet company established in 1909 by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev. It presented exciting new possibilities for the realization of an illusory world and, unsurprisingly, attracted some of the most leading artists of the early phase of Surrealism like Max Ernst, Joan Miró and André Masson. Around 1920 the ballet Russes was one of the first to reveal the wider influence of Surrealism. Through décor, costumes and storyline.
”le Ball”
The representation of the body, and particularly the female body, provides a common thread through the public displays, exhibitions and commercial activities of the Surrealists. They play with the construction of the body, what a body is and what it can shape to. Dance is like al human expression, the philosopher Martin Heidegger said-“ A dance is a presentation and a representation of the real and the unreal. Dance presents movement, real in its measurable dimensions of energy, time and special properties. However, the real, as quantifiable movement, does not sufficiently explain dance, because dance draws us beyond its movement manifestation and stimulates associations. A dance may reflect human qualities like friendliness, agitation, desperation or graciousness. Moreover as they are intentionally embodied in the dance, these movements take on a esthetic form.” Many dance movements make strenuous and unnatural demands on the joints, muscles, and tendons. Dancers play with shapes of the body and how you they can create a new shape. As a balletdancer you have to be really aware of your body. Every movement is controlled. I was realy inspired by ballet dancers and just didn’t know why I had to use a ballet dancer in my project. I was obsessed with the movements of the dancers that seemd so unhuman, dreamlike and it gave a new, different, interesting perspective on the human body. I could’t wait to do study, come closer and realy connect with those movements.
As a balletdancer you have to be really aware of your body. Every movement is controlled. In this project I zoom in on some of the movements of the dancer and litterly take them apart. My question was “How things become a shade of themselves.”. And I focused on the human body. I wanted the viewer to connect with the movements of the ballet dancer through my tool on a different way than they are used to during a ballet dance. The viewer gets the opporunity to move movements by moving them selves. The distance of the viewer and the projection gets measured this makes when the viewer walks towards the projection a new film starts. A film that shows a different perspective on movement. It welcomes the viewer to the “glace santain” Showing movements of a dancer in four different but collaborating films. Kinect is the technology I use to separate the room in 4 parts and to make this interactive installation. To watch a ballet dance is always a kind of onhuman experience like Heidegger said. This is what I think makes the connection of ballet dancing and surrealism that strong. It is not strange that they collaborated a lot!
“Dance is an art in space and time. The object of the dancer is to obliterate that.” ― Merce Cunningham
“the glace santain” My project with kinect.
My project welcomes you to the ‘glace santain’, a mirror that holds the wonders of surrealism.
I will later put in the images. (I email you the pdf with al the images included.)
