Initial ideas

Research // Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley, is a British sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the North of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected in February 1998.

Gormley describes his work as "an attempt to materialise the place at the other side of appearance where we all live." Many of his works are based on moulds taken from his own body, or "the closest experience of matter that I will ever have and the only part of the material world that I live inside." His work attempts to treat the body not as an object but a place and in making works that enclose the space of a particular body to identify a condition common to all human beings. The work is not symbolic but indexical – a trace of a real event of a real body in time.

Gormley's Event Horizon, consisting of 31 life-size and anatomically-correct casts of his body, four in cast iron and 27 in fiberglass, was installed on top of prominent buildings along London's South Bank, and installed in locations around New York City's Madison Square in 2010. Gormley said of the New York site that "Within the condensed environment of Manhattan's topography, the level of tension between the palpable, the perceivable and the imaginable is heightened because of the density and scale of the buildings" and that in this context, the project should "activate the skyline in order to encourage people to look around. In this process of looking and finding, or looking and seeking, one perhaps re-assess one's own position in the world and becomes aware of one's status of embedment.

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I admire his work and the messages he's trying to get out through it. I like how he uses the human body and am thinking of incorporating this into my own work in some form of installation. No set ideas yet though. 

RESEARCH // V FOR VENDETTA

“Good evening, London. I would introduce myself, but truth to tell, I do not have a name. You can call me “V”. Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. In anarchy, there is another way. With anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope reinstated. They say anarchy’s dead, but see…reports of my death were…exaggerated. Tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the Head reduced to ruins, an end to what has gone before. Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains. Choose carefully. And so, adieu.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“They say that life's a game, & then they take the board away.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“You were already in a prison. You've been in a prison all your life. Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all. Your lover lived in the penitentiary that we are all born into, and was forced to rake the dregs of that world for his living. He knew affection and tenderness but only briefly. Eventually, one of the other inmates stabbed him with a cutlass and he drowned upon his own blood. Is that it, Evey? Is that the happiness worth more than freedom? It's not an uncommon story, Evey. Many convicts meet with miserable ends. Your mother. Your father. Your lover. One by one, taken out behind the chemical sheds... and shot. All convicts, hunched and deformed by the smallness of their cells, the weight of their chains, the unfairness of their sentences. I didn't put you in a prison, Evey. I just showed you the bars.'
'You're wrong! It's just life, that's all! It's just how life is. It's what we've got to put up with. It's all we've got. What gives you the right to decide it's not good enough?'
'You're in a prison, Evey. You were born in a prison. You've been in a prison so long, you no longer believe there's a world outside. That's because you're afraid, Evey. You're afraid because you can feel freedom closing in upon you. You're afraid because freedom is terrifying. Don't back away from it, Evey. Part of you understands the truth even as part pretends not to. You were in a cell, Evey. They offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body. You said you'd rather die. You faced the fear of your own death and you were calm and still. The door of the cage is open, Evey. All that you feel is the wind from outside.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“I didn't put you in a prison, Evey. I just showed you the bars.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

GO TO WORK. SEND YOUR KIDS TO SCHOOL. VOTE FOR YOUR LEADER, PAY TAX. FOLLOW FASHION. BELIEVE IN A GOD. ACT NORMAL. OBEY TE LAW. SAVE FOR YOUR OLD AGE. SUPPORT THE WAR. WATCH TV. DRINK ALCOHOL. SPEND ALL YOUR MONEY ON THINGS YOU DON'T NEED. DON'T DO DRUGS. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THOSE IN NEED. DON'T FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS. STAY AT HOME. STAY IN FEAR. CONTINUE YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE AS A PUPPET.

YOU ARE NOT FREE.

Research // Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Ann Parker is an English sculptor and installation artist.

Parker is best known for large-scale installations such as Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991), for which she had a garden shed blown up by the British Army and suspended the fragments as if suspending the explosion process in time. In the centre was a light which cast the shadows of the wood dramatically on the walls of the room.

Parker's compelling transformations of familiar, everyday objects investigate the nature of matter, test physical properties and play on private and public meaning and value. Using materials that have a history loaded with association, a feather from Sigmund Freud's pillow for example, Parker has employed numerous methods of exploration- suspending, exploding, crushing, stretching objects and even language through her titles.

I like her work as it's not something you'd expect. She's almost changing your perception on how you see ordinary things (the garden shed). To me it's more of a metaphor of everyday life, of how if we changed our perception on things we saw in everyday life then everything would become art. 

Research // Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum is a video artist and installation artist of Palestinian origin, who lives in London.Mona Hatoum explores a variety of different subject matter via different theoretical frameworks. Her work can be interpreted as a description of the body, as a commentary on politics, and on gender and difference as she explores the dangers and confines of the domestic world. Her work can also be interpreted through the concept of space as her sculpture and installation work depend on the viewer to inhabit the surrounding space to complete the effect. There are always multiple readings to her work. “I wanted it to appeal to your senses first maybe or to somehow affect you in a bodily way and then the sort of connotations and concepts that are behind that work can come out of that original physical experience.” The physical responses that Hatoum desired in order to provoke psychological and emotional responses ensures unique and individual reactions from different viewers.

Hatoum’s early work consisted largely of performance pieces that used a direct physical confrontation with an audience to make a political point. She used this technique as a means of making a direct statement using her own body; the performances often referenced her background and the political situation in Palestine. In her work, she addressed the vulnerability of the individual in relation to the violence inherent in institutional power structures. Her primary point of reference was the human body, sometimes using her own body. She says of her focus on the body: “I wanted to make I wanted it to appeal to your senses first maybe or to somehow affect you in a bodily way and then the sort of connotations and concepts that are behind that work can come out of that original physical experience. This is what I was aiming at in the work. I wanted it to be experienced through the body. In other words I want work to be both experienced sensually and intellectually rather than just one dimensionally if you like.” One of her first major pieces, Measures of Distance, explores the themes topics of her early art. “I made a conscious decision to delve into the personal – however complex, confused, and contradictory the material I was dealing with was… Once I made the work I found that it spoke of the complexities of exile, displacement, the sense of loss and separation caused by war. In other words, it contextualized the image, or this person, “my mother,” within a social-political context.”

Her work consists of confrontational issue-based performance work, fuelled by anger and a sense of urgency.
  

I was told to look at this artist as her work highlights conforming to social politics. I like how the pieces seem to be one thing but when you look into it the meaning becomes clearer. The swings (to me) symbolise that everybody is free to 'swing' as they please, but sooner or later you're going to crash into someone. The doc marten boots tied to the mans leg I believe symbolises that man is controlled and held back by his material possessions. This is all subjects I'm attempting to highlight in my own project.

Research // Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin is a British artist who is part of the group ‘Britartists’ or ‘YBA’s (Young British Artists)’.

Emin’s monoprints are a well-documented part of her creative outlet. These unique drawings represent a diaristic aspect and frequently depict events from the past.

Often they incorporate text as well as image, although some bear only text while others only image. The text appears as the artist’s stream of consciousness voice. Some critics have compared Emin’s text-only monoprints to ransom notes. The rapid, one-off technique involved in making monoprints is perfectly suited to immediate expression as is Emin’s scratchy and informal drawing style.

I've always admired Emins' work and have referred to it a lot thoughout various projects. I like these monoprints and how they obviously express her emotions. I really like the linear/simplistic style of these and would like to do similar monoprints linking to my work. I like how she uses text in her work and her style of drawing. There simplicity almost say 'Anyone can do these', which I think links back to my projects concept well as it's showing humans have the capacity to do anything they want to achieve and shouldn't confine themselves to societies boxes just because they think they have to. People go with the motions whereas Tracey Emin steps out of the box and does her own thing, which I find very inspiring, plus I love the outcomes.