Critical Evaluation

When I first started this course I had no preconceived conception of what the course would be like – or how my personal connection with my art practice would permanently change, in an unimaginably positive way.

Coming out of my BA course, in all honesty, I was disappointed with myself, disenchanted regarding my place in the art world and mentally in an extremely poor place. Although that course helped me get to where I am today, I really graduating fearing for my future and lacking in any sort of self belief and cofidence.

Then I received confirmation that I had been given a place on the MA Fine Art Digital course. I had no idea what would happen in these two years, only that the course was spread out over two years and provided me the ability to work and study at the same time – which was a blessing.

I knew that I wanted to continue to push myself and I knew that I could prove to myself that I can do more – and that I am, at least in some sense, competent. I knew that I wanted to focus on developing my video work, primarily using my video editing program of choice – Vegas Pro.

I knew that I wanted to draw upon the inspiration that made me want to pursue art, which included, mental health – and it’s connection to art and science-fiction/speculative fiction, philosophy, among many other things.

I had also been fascinated by the concept of escapism, which is something that connects with art on a very deep level. The ability to turn the issues I’ve had with my own mental health into something expressive, something artistic, something that could provide a release and a cathartic response.

Landscapes have always allured me and I am grateful that I was able to explore landscapes in a modern context during this course. Landscape art is seen as dated, not so popular as it once was, but it’s such a beautiful transportive tool, so I knew that was what I wanted to work with a lot.

The experimentation and freedom the course gave me was unbelievably positive – and the reassurance and guidance we as a class received from our meetings and talks did nothing but open my mind to the possibilities and really force me to talk a long hard look at who I am, and what my art practice represents. Something I never even considered possible when studying for my BA.

Although I still struggle consistently with my mental health, I never thought that this course could help in any sort of way with that. But it undoubtedly has, the emphasis on reflection has changed me as a person and changed how I understand and react to art and artists themselves. Being with such a fantastic group of other students, from all walks of life, of different ages and life experience has given me a grounding and given me hope that there is a future for me and that art can be part of that future.

Although initially I was focused on creating immersive, escapist pieces of work, I never really questioned my interest in these things, I just accepted it. However, as the course progressed I have found myself asking better questions, deeper questions, that in turn have made me discover what I am really searching for in my art practice. Not only have I developed my technical abilities – in particular, with video-editing and photo-manipulation software, but I’ve developed as a person and come to appreciated my work. Something that I never, ever had ever felt before. There was always a disconnect between me and my work.

So where do I go from here? One thing is for certain, and that is I will keep making work, whether I can make a living from it, that is yet to be decided, but I am in the best position I have ever been in and I feel like the course has really pushed me in a positive direction, something I honestly could not have imagined before joining the course.

As I move forward I am determined to understand mental health and it’s relationship with art and would love to work with people who have suffered much greater problems than I and try to understand what role art may have to play in helping society as a whole. Instead of solely looking inward, I am no longer afraid to look outward.

I don’t see the end of this cause as an ending, it feels more like a beginning. I will continue to explore my connection with my practice, on an emotional level in particular – and I am keen to continue to develop the technical skills I have learnt on this course – I will continue to work with Vegas Pro and GIMP, but I do not intend to limit myself to these programs and I will continue to search for other methods of creating art. I also intend to put myself out there a lot more and I look forward to working with other people – something that before this course I was slightly uncomfortable with, but having to work with other people and watching other people around me grow with their own artistic practice has been so very rewarding.

The emphasis on reflection, on technical skills, on interacting with others, on fostering a relationship with my own practice and everything else are things that I have taken from the course and I intend to build upon all of these things that I have learnt.

The way that reflection and critical thinking were not only taught on this cause – but in the way that they were so strongly encouraged were such an integral part of my experience and have truly changed how I create, understand and perceive work as a creator and as a viewer.

Final Exhibition Video

Final Exhibition Sketches

• 

• 

Above are a couple of sketches I have made demonstrating my ideas for the final show.

The initial idea was that I will present a video (between 7-15 minutes in length roughly – as to incorporate as many videos as possible) in a virtual space, so my video would play in the center of the screen on a virtual wall, surrounded by the other walls in the room. The idea was to enhance immersion by making it appear as though you were looking through a window, viewing the digital landscapes – however, this may not be possible – and it may not even be necessary anymore.

Although it would have been interesting to place the video in a virtual space, the quality of the video is very important and the video is the focal point. So due to technical issues with the space and considering which part of the work I want emphasised, it is likely that I will just present the video alone.

The video itself will feature multiple videos within it, each occupying their own digital space – so having a 3D room framing the video may not even add anything to the video itself.

Newer videos

Below are a collection of newer videos which will likely become part of my final video. Many of these videos use footage from a recordings I’ve taken from the game Cities: Skylines. In this game you build a city – but the game features the ability to create the world that you build the city in, so I’ve been building some landscapes in the editor which I can record and use as part of my practice. I will be blending them into the videos to give a hint of the landscape – as I don’t want the videos to resemble the game too much.

Some of the videos also feature actual landscapes that I have taken videos of from scenic areas that I have visited. I find it quite relaxing – and productive to incorporate real landscapes that I am familiar with.

It will be interesting to see how I can combine these real landscapes with the digital landscapes from Cities: Skylines.

Between Spaces – RAUM Gallery

https://theraumgallery.wordpress.com/betweenspaces/

As a class we were presented with the opportunity to show some work for the RAUM Gallery – a pop-up gallery run by artist and curator Don TakGuy.

These pop-up exhibitions are usually presented physically, in an actual space – but due to the current situation we collectively find ourselves in – there was no possibility of this being exhibited in a real space.

So it was decided that it would be exhibited online. Hence the name “Between Spaces”.

I am grateful to have been allowed to participate and there was such an interesting collection of artworks, covering a variety of subjects.

Initially I intended to show some videos – but I decided that I would just show four digital prints. The videos are more reflective of my current work, but I still have a such an interest in working with 2D digital work, and haven’t really had the chance to show much of it, so I decided to show some of the ‘abstract-landscapes’ that I had been making.

If you would like to see the exhibition it can be found here, where you will be able to see my work and the work of my fellow students of which I cannot recommend enough.

Lockdown

Such strange times affect us collectively.

So how has the pandemic affected my ability to create artwork?

During my time on this course I spend a lot of time at home. Although I would travel to London for the course lectures and what not, before the pandemic, and the lock down, I tend to spend quite a lot of time at home.

My mental health has always been a significant influence for my artistic practice and I’m not sure how much the pandemic has personally changed my day to day life.

In some ways – for the purpose of creating art – the lockdown isn’t the worst thing in the world. The ability to reflect upon my work, reflect upon my place in society, is invaluable. Life is effectively on pause. So this has definitely allowed me to take a step back from my work and contemplate the reasons that I make artwork.

A lot of my work revolved around themes of solitude, of a chaotic yet in some way calm nature. Most of this came from within, from a place outside of conventional society, my art, trying to exist in a separate existence from reality. Which shows why I have an interest in pseudo-abstract styles, in work that is reminiscent of something, in a dream like manner, that only half exists.

So the pandemic in many ways enhances the themes behind my work – it is no longer just me by myself, so many people are now in this situation, stuck inside, left to ponder their lives, and their purpose.

I try to create work as an escape, as something that takes you away, to somewhere else. In our current climate, it seems like my work is accidentally mirroring the nature of life, in lockdown.

Although – despite these ‘positives’ (I use the word positive cautiously, as there are so, so many negatives from this pandemic, and this lockdown) it is not any easier to motivate myself, to create work. It has merely changed the way we experience life, from day to day, so maybe in the future, when we return to some sort of normality, I will look back at this time, and draw inspiration from it.

Manipulation and Breaking Vegas Pro

A large part of my practice revolves around the use of Vegas Pro, a video-editing software. I have used it it for many years now and as such have grown very comfortable with using it. However – it is not in using it correctly that I find it most useful.

My original intention in using the software for art was because I was comfortable with it – and it was cheap! (relatively speaking).

Although I could use much more popular programs, such as After Effects, I have become so accustomed to Vegas that not only do I know how to use it -I know how to break it.

A large part of my artistic practice revolves around the idea of using and manipulating programs in a way that isn’t necessarily the programs functions. There are many effects within Vegas that allow me to create artifacts within the videos – that initially created quite unexpected results. However, the more I bend and break and overload the program – the more I become comfortable with the results and the unexpected becomes something that I can manipulate intentionally.

A large part of ‘breaking’ the program for me is about the visual artifacts and effects that are created that emulate a glitch or an imperfection in the video. These characteristics can give each video a sense of individuality – because although I demonstrate in many posts the different stages that the videos go through – I need to emphasise that each iteration of each video exists in a universe of it’s own. Each video contains it’s own amount of noise and ‘glitching’, something that can not be replicated exactly – I guess it’s the element of allowing the some of the videos to escape my control. To let them evolve on their own, with my guiding hand.

Not all videos need to be like this, but this is just one element of what I am interested in when I create my digital landscapes.

Final Exhibition Ideas

Potential technical ideas for my final exhibition video:

1. Displacement map, transp backg. Combining videos using displacement filter.
2. Convolution Kernel
3. 3D HOLOGRAM, MAKE A 3D HOLOGRAM PYRAMID, PRESENT A LANDSCAPE IN A BOX.

The Influence of Video Games

Cities: Skylines.

Final Exhibition Sound Plan

I will not be explaining my final exhibition visual plans here – only how I intend to develop the sound that accompanies the visuals.

I have experimented a lot with many different types of sounds and different effects and qualities, and for my final collection of videos, I intend to compose a soundtrack. I intend to finalise the order of videos before I begin to work too much on the sound – which means that I can tailor the sound to what is happening in the video. There needs to be a great deal of sychronisity between the audio and the video – I will be doing this by making use of stereo panning, to give the sound some sort of spacial area to correlate with what is on screen and where. This is why I will be recommending my final video to be watched whilst wearing headphones as this will allow for much greater immersion than speakers would provide – although I will be focusing on making it immersive regardless of whether you will be wearing headphones as I don’t want to be too reliant on sound alone to draw the viewer into the digital space.

I have worked a lot with highly distorted sounds and various levels of ‘ambient’ noise – which will definitely feature in my final video as I believe it creates the unsettling mood that a lot of my videos visually already show.

However, not all of the videos are of this unsettling nature – so there will also be a large element of instrumentation, which is something I have incorporated into my past videos with positive results. Recordings of guitars (both electric and acoustic) and keyboards (both midi and actual keyboards) will feature as I believe in the ability of these instruments to construct a very emotional and thought provoking atmosphere, something that the distorted static noise may not quite emanate.

Below are examples of what the soundtrack may sound like.

ADD SOUNDCLOUD