The word 'photography' means literally 'drawing with light', and I have referred to this connection with drawing several times before. But sometimes a photographer seems to make the connection so clear that it is useful to unpick why a little more. Hiroshi Sugimoto came to the attention of the art world in the 1980s because of his photographs of cinema interiors. The images were made while films were showing, but in order for the details of a cinema's interior to register on the film, the camera's shutter was held open for very long exposures. This resulted in a series of images whereby the films being shown were all whited out, their over exposure erasing them and yet in some way also 'recording' the time of their passing, condensing the durations of various films into the frozen moment of a still photograph. These photographs are for me very close to a drawing practice, because they are photographs that can be both read as images that belong to the 'simultaneous now' and as images that can be used to unfold time.
Movie Theatre, Canton Palace, Ohio, 1980: Hiroshi Sugimoto
The fact that these images also highlight the older relationship between film and theatre is also important. The older use of cinemas was as theatres, hence several conventions of the theatre continued as the use was changed, in particular the continuing use of the stage curtain and of decorative interiors that often echoed the forms that the architect Inigo Jones (1573–1652) had devised as sets for royal masques, and which he later used to design 17th century theatre interiors. Jones was in many ways referring back to the work of Vitruvius and in response to his reflections on Vitruvius he also introduced the first proscenium arch into theatres in England; the decorative architectural frame that presided over the stage. Echoes of all of these things can be seen in the cinema photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto. The drama of the theatre interior has always interested film makers and the type of compositions that result in framing composites of close and far views was something storyboard artists such as Mentor Huebner, have often used very powerfully. It is as if the history of film becomes embedded into the ideas of how 'dramatic' viewpoints are arrived at, in particular those views we have of the stage from high up in the gods or upper balconies.
Mentor Huebner
I think the rectangular 'crop marks' in the shape of a film frame that Huebner draws on top of his image, forms a beautiful moment of connection between the edges of the two disciplines of film and drawing. The drawn frame sitting astride both disciplines as the image beneath moves from the world of drawn thinking into the world of lens selection. This 'framing' of things being an aspect of language that opens out into a set of related ways of thinking that 'frames' ideas and presents them as if they can be cut out from the world. Essentially the frame of the lens, gives us the idea or reinforces the idea that certain things can be selected and plucked out of the wholeness that is the world. But in reality this isn't the case, all things are in fact interconnected and any one action will impact on everything else. Sometimes I think it is the framing of lens based media that lies behind the fact that we cannot see how consumerism is destroying the world. A photograph of plastic islands floating in the sea is not connected to me, it is cut out of the world by the sharp edges of the image's frame. These edges are old ones and they belong to the world of the theatre and the perspective frame. The events that take place on the stage have edges, the front edge of the stage is a dividing line between the audience and what occurs, and the audience understands that this edge is a line between what is real and what is an enactment. A theatrical production can unfold through time, with a beginning and an end and in doing so is designed to help the audience understand or become aware of some aspect of what we often call the human condition. This 'human condition' is itself a sort of framing device. In cutting our experiences and life away from the rest of the world, we have come up with a way of presenting situations as if the world itself is simply a stage for humans to act out their various lives. Early perspective drawings, the layout of the theatre and the invention of camera obscuras, are very closely linked in this conception. As lens based images become ubiquitous, we find our society experiencing the real world as if it is theatre.
During the Renaissance there were several
attempts to create stage perspectives, including those
drawn by Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554), and published in his book 'Architettura'. Serlio's drawings show stadium seating set out around an orchestra, in the centre of which only the duke or
prince would sit. The stage is set at the eye level of the duke, who therefore is the only one with a perfect
view of the spectacle. The space is also raked, to increase the illusion of depth via perspective. This control of the eye point essentially gives the viewer power. A power that we forget is still there when a viewpoint for a photograph is selected. Serlio
designed three all purpose settings to
place in this 'picture frame', one for tragedy, one for comedy, and one for
pastorals. These needed rapid changes of scene and this was initially achieved by the use of a periaktos, an ancient theatrical device consisting of a revolving triangular form made of wood. While one scene was presented to the audience, the other two could be changed. Not only was the eye point controlled but the 'mood' or content of the play was suggested by the set design. Together these controls simplify and clarify the fictive world of the theatre, so that audiences can experience a fable like view of life. It is the frame that allows this to happen, but the things framed by cameras are not fables they are slices of reality and this is I would suggest a big problem.
In the image below a slice of the world is captured inside a camera obscura and is being contemplated upon by a human being, who in effect turns his back on the world in order to contemplate it. In many ways the interior of the camera obscura resembles a theatre, a box like space within which an isolated set of events can be explored.
The world of microscopes and telescopes takes the concept of separation and moves it on into an even further dimension of literal distancing.
Galileo in his studio
A 148 feet long focal length Keplerian astronomical refracting telescope 1673
As more and more optical devices were invented, you could argue that human beings became more and more distanced from reality. Humans were no longer 'believing their own eyes' and were beginning to rely on enhanced optical instruments to reveal what had previously not been apparent. The craters on the moon shown by this drawing by Galileo below, are evidence of a new reality born of a fusion between humans and technology.
Galileo: drawing of the moon:1611
If we no longer believe our own eyes everything becomes fictional and if it is, it is very hard to respond in ways that reflect the actual reality of a situation. This is why we find it so hard to respond to global warming or other threats to our environment revealed to us via technology. Like Sugimoto's photographs the central content is wiped away, whited out due to overexposure, which is perhaps why a return to old fashioned looking and drawing might help us take situations for real.
Cornelia Hesse-Honegger a Swiss scientific draughtswoman, draws images of mutant insects that she finds around nuclear power plants, she finds them by collecting insect samples from contaminated areas, first of all spotting them by eye, but then she does use a microscope to ensure precision, as she makes her very precise renderings. Her work reminds us that we can still use hand made imagery to question the status quo and that it is possible to work outside of the lens based imagery frame.
I’m travelling back from Glasgow after a few days visiting family, and as always if possible I went to see some artwork while I was up there. One piece on exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art struck me as being of particular interest, especially because it brought into play several of the issues I have looked at over the course of the existence of this blog. A question I have asked several times is, “What is the relationship between an artwork and the world?” In relation to this overarching question are several others such as, does an artwork ‘model’ the world? If so how does it do so? But when we model the world are there models within models? How do moving image works relate to an expanded idea of drawing? What is the status of the storyboard within film-making, should it be regarded as being rather like a script for a play or as stage directions? Can computer generated art be looked at as a special type of drawing? When building a model, are the plans for the models an example of ‘disegno’ in operation? The movement from 2D to 3D that is proposed by making flat plans for 3D objects and working from them, can suggest a movement between dimensions, but can it also suggest a movement through time? How do we present work in such a way that the presentation itself fully realises the ideas behind the work and anchors the work into the world? If an artwork needs to be wired into the mains, what do we do with the cables and is this similar to plugging a work into reality? If an exhibition space is going to be a difficult one or one unsympathetic to the work, how do you as an artist reconcile this without compromising the work? The work of Cécile B Evans, ‘Something tactical is coming’ 2017, has allowed me to think about all of these issues and more. So perhaps I need to begin with what the work’s title had to say on the gallery wall.
The description of materials goes like so: Scale production model with chroma key paint, makibes screens, raspberry pi players, Real Game FX miniature fog machine, 3D prints, paper, wood, 3D printed mask dummy. 271cm x 138cm x 122cm. I am already asking myself a few questions just from this description, so a little research is needed. Chroma key paint is usually an acrylic based paint formulated to provide high luminance values and colour saturation for keying effects. Usually green but also blue, as it is in this case, it is a matte paint that does not reflect light, so it is much easier to ‘key’ out. If you want to make objects invisible when filming you can paint them all in the same chroma key paint, (this is often called green screen technology), so I’m already aware that this artwork has been used to create a background that was probably ‘keyed’ out in order to allow for some sort of substitution. Green screen filming is often used in fantasy or science fiction films, so I’m ready for some ‘special effects’. Makibes screens are touch screen interfaces often used for Raspberry Pis, the average size is 7in so we are talking small scale screen technology. A Raspberry Pi player is a video player specifically made to work with Raspberry Pi devices, which are manufactured as easy to access processing devices that support non Microsoft software such as Linux. Raspberry Pi devices were initially designed to help children and the everyday non tech computer user get into coding. A Real Game FX miniature fog machine is often used by gamers to add special effects to their model landscapes, such as mist to heighten atmosphere, as in the image below. Therefore I'm again presuming that at some point this fog machine was used to give a sense of enigma or mystery to any filming that was done using the set.
From Real Game FX website advertising the miniature fog machine
3D prints and the 3D printed mask dummy are both using a 3D printing technology that has seen a whole raft of start-up businesses involved in creating models, replicas, and miniatures. An aspect of current society I find very interesting and one that I have been thinking about now that I have begun my own investigation into 3D printing. Several items that are office furniture look as if have been made this way.
Detail of the office model
Most of the wood I recognise as 2 x 1 pine timber and sheets of plywood, which have been used to build what is partly a miniature stage set and partly a surface to which has been attached several small scale computer screens that are running a variety of shorts/animations both as real time footage and computer generated imagery.
Details of the wooden supports with embedded technology
This surface is also heavily annotated in order to make the viewer aware that each screen is hosting part of a complex narrative. Like scenes from a play, or episodes in a serial, the small screens are operating from the top left to the bottom right of the plywood and pine supported surface, the wires that connect all the devices are clear to see and the wooden surface facilitates their easy attachment. Nothing is hidden on this side of the object, which is the reverse of what we see on the other side.
Overall view of the back of the miniature stage set
The reverse side or front, depending on which side you approach this object, is a miniature stage set, partly a highly detailed model of an office and partly a blue chroma key painted area.
The miniature stage set and blue chroma key painted area are adjacent to each other
As you walk around the art work you get to see both sides
(a classical column blocks the full view)
On a small model chair in front of a desk rests a grey 3D printed head. Tiny books are on bookshelves and miniature files some of which are labelled RIBA, are part of what appears to be a miniature architect’s office.
Model chair on which sits a 3D printed head
This text accompanies the work and is attached to the gallery wall, and it is quite complicated. “The question of the creation of new worlds, and specifically worlds created for networked living, is at the centre of Cécile B Evans’s work, ‘Something tactical is coming’; a sculptural installation developed from a scale model used in the filming of Episode two in her series called ‘Amos’ World’. The series, a fictional television show about a socially progressive housing estate, features Amos – an architect who has designed what he believes is a perfect individual–communal living structure. Throughout the three episodes and their installations (which will be shown in a major exhibition at Tramway, Glasgow in November 2018) the tenants of Amos’ “building” question their relationship to the structure that has been created for them. The architect’s office becomes a working site as his carefully constructed world, its nature and culture, begins to shift.”
We now know that the object we are looking at was developed from a scale model used for the filming of one part of an episode of a fictional television show. So what we are looking at is a model, which has then been added to and the model represents a fictional idea of an architect’s office. In the Gallery of Modern Art the model film set is raised up onto a 'plinth' for display as an object in the gallery. The plinth effectively 'makes it art' by removing it from the floor and raising the what was a working model up into a new status as metaphoric object.
The set in use
The additions would appear to be the area designed to carry the various screens and raspberry pi technology as well as a base or plinth. The blue chroma painted area is to facilitate the editing out of puppet manipulation.
The set in operation, the architect doll is being manipulated
We can see from the snippets of information on the small screens fixed to the back of the miniature stage set that special effects have been used and that the hands and arms manipulating the architect are used as part of the idea.
We also know that a major exhibition of the work being done by the artist will be held at Tramway, Glasgow in November 2018. This is therefore a spin-off from this work, perhaps a way of raising awareness that it is being constructed. Could it be that this work is being made to operate as a model for the forthcoming exhibition? Synecdoche is a rhetorical term, whereby a part can represent the whole, and I’m beginning to think that this is what is happening here. If you have ever seen the film ‘Synecdoche New York’ you will know what I mean.
Fictional ‘episodes’ are a way to hold a viewer’s attention over a long span of time. An epic adventure is usually broken down into episodes so that it can be told as a series of stories that the narrator can link together gradually over time. When my children were small I used to tell them a long on-going story, each evening you could remind them of where we had got to and then add on a next bit, it keeps attention and builds complexity because you can always be referring to things that have happened in past episodes; thus the success of soap operas.
Architects are real-life professionals; they are often concerned with creating buildings that will enhance the living conditions of ordinary people. Le Corbusier’s idea that a house is a machine for living in, suggests an idea of the architect as impersonal control freak, Ayn Rand’s architect hero of her novel the Fountainhead, foregrounds the idea of the architect as visionary, and I suspect that Cécile B Evans has these models at the back of her mind. The models (stereotypes) this time are of the way people behave, rather than imagined stories, but perhaps we are all imagined stories and that is the point.
A model stage set is very like a doll’s house. When taken out of the context of the film studio its tiny scale becomes almost fetish like. We as observers are now on a God-like scale, able to imagine ourselves moving things and people about. (Hence the blue arms manipulating the model of the architect) But this work is also real size, a support structure for a range of technologically sophisticated devices that have to be wired up and plugged in. We can however slip from one level of reality into another very quickly. We turn our TVs on, push a few buttons on our remote control devices, with an awareness that these things are part of the furniture of our room, but within moments of a film starting or a soap opera beginning, we are lost in a fictional reality and are happily suspending our disbelief. As a creature we seem to have developed a very powerful ability to respond to fiction as well as reality, something probably honed in play when we were very young. The miniature battlefields I remember building as a child were ‘real’ to myself and my friends, the stone throwing ‘explosions’ that knocked out our soldiers, created bursts of real palpable exhilaration in ourselves as we jumped with excitement if our stone throwing had resulted in a direct hit and the knocking over of a rival’s men. These muddy model battlefields were part of my learning curve and as an artist perhaps I have never outgrown them, which is perhaps why I have taken Cécile B Evans’ work so seriously.
The model film set is raised up onto a 'plinth' for display as an object in the gallery. The plinth effectively 'makes it art' by removing it from the floor and raising the what was a working model up into a new status as metaphoric object.
Evans' s work has been reviewed in several major media outlets such as the Guardian
"AMOS’ WORLD is a three-part television series that takes place in a socially progressive housing estate inspired by famous Brutalist housing complexes such as Le Corbusier’s Unités d’Habitation in Marseille, Berlin, and Nantes-Rezé (1952—57), Alison and Peter Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens in London (1972), and Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 in Montreal (1967). The aim was to encourage perfect individual-communal living communes for the capitalist age—yet they nearly always failed, as people did not conform to the behaviors envisioned by the architects.
The first episode of AMOS’ WORLD introduces the title character Amos, who represents the stereotype of the frustrated, angry white man. He exudes an arrogance that belies his true, slightly pathetic nature, and he almost enjoys wallowing in the grotesqueness of his own actions. He additionally resembles a cross between Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s fallen-to-earth Little Prince, and architects Le Corbusier and Peter Smithson, who co-designed the famous London social housing estate Robin Hood Gardens, only to later describe the tenants disparagingly as contributors to the building’s decline.
Amos is played by a three-dimensional puppet with a digitally rendered face, and the other characters—inhabitants of the estate, and the Weather, a narrative voice as well as a kind of benevolent foil to Amos—are a mixture of real and animated performers. As in all good television, the subject of the title, Amos, is never the actual subject. As the drama unfolds, what was presented as a utopian living situation becomes ever more psychologically challenging—the characters’ emotional and physical needs are revealed to be in conflict with what those who constructed this society believe to be “good.” Fissures in this carefully constructed network reveal a breakdown of person-to-person and person-to-infrastructure power dynamics, as the audience themselves look on from units nested within an architectural construction built to echo that on screen."
The architect puppet, with 3D printed face
Evans opens her work out by using all the formats available to her. The clips from Amos' world below could be seen as a trailer for the series or as another stand alone work.
A trailer for Amos' world
Media conventions overlap with artists techniques such as montage and collage in Evans' work. She mixes conventions in very interesting ways and has a lot to say about current issues of technology and the way that human feelings and emotions are changed or moulded by contact with it.
She cites 'collage' as being the technique that underlies her current approach to making art. Collage can be used to create storyboards and is an excellent medium with which to create ideas, especially ideas that reflect on our media soaked world. (See)
Collage occupies a fascinating position between reality and mimesis. Collage materials are taken from the world but can then used to create commentary on that world. Models are made with different degrees of reality in relation to the world and are then used to create ideas whereby we can play out thoughts about real world situations. The office in Amos' World is a constructed environment, certain elements of which are made and others simply collected and reused in a different situation. The small screens playing out various episodes of Amos' World are so small they appear a models themselves, models of TV screens that it is imagined on which the soap, Amos' World is screened.
Evans's work has helped me to think about how very different aspects of my own work could be brought together, as well as this particular piece helping me to think about recycling work and creating ways of presenting work so that a difficult environment can be dealt with. The classical columns of the Gallery of Modern Art are hard to work with but by having a totally contained world with its own plinth and space for video monitors, Evans has been able to still engage and intrigue her audience.
Tacita Dean is showing at the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy. This is a rarity for an artist to be given so much exposure. A fact that is especially interesting I would have thought to followers of this drawing blog because Dean has often demonstrated how drawing is central to her thinking.
From: A Bag of Air
'A Bag of Air' is a poetic three minute black and white film. It opens with the shadow of a hot air balloon moving over a landscape to the sound of a gas burner and birdsong. As the film unfolds Tacita Dean's voice-over begins narrating instructions for collecting a bag of air ‘so intoxicated with the essence of spring that when it is distilled and prepared, it will produce an oil of gold, remedy enough to heal all ailments’. The film's closing shot is of a filled bag of air held up to the sky. This is visual poetry.
From: The Roaring 40s
Her earlier drawings of chalk on blackboard were of seascapes and ghost ships; she then moved into film, but in an age of digital technology she decided to use old 16mm and 35mm film stock. Like chalk drawings on blackboards, this very particular technique has because of its analogue nature, lots of possibilities for accident and discovery and it is often in the material of film itself that her ideas arise. The 'bag of air' film could be read as a comment on this, as Yates stated when asked about where his poetry came from, "I made it out of a mouthful of air".
Dean is interested in stories and time; in particular what could be called 'narrative time'. The blackboard drawings often develop as sequences, rather like the storyboarding for a film. They are also easy to wipe out, or erase, the rubbing out of a drawing suggesting a changing of mind, as well as another time, one that records events one on top of another, a layering that can be read as a type of uncovering. She also writes on these drawings and puts arrows into the images to suggest direction. I have referred to these drawings before in a post on drawing and film, and Dean has continued to use the blackboard format; however as she has developed her practice she has sometimes worked on these drawings on a monumental scale.
In her more recent blackboard drawings from 2012, 'Fatigues', she draws images of the mountain peaks of the Hindu Kush and the glacial sources that feed the Kabul River. Her original idea was to make a film but then the drawings emerged, their much larger scale suggesting the cinema screen but her notes perhaps still suggesting her fondness for film storyboards.
'Fatigues'
Storyboards are central to the the concept of narrative in film. They are still used extensively and good storyboard artists are getting harder to find as the skills are hard to come by. A good storyboard artist has to be able to draw, have excellent listening skills in order to interpret what a director wants, a clear knowledge of how cameras and lighting rigs work, so that their drawings reflect what a cinematographer can actually do, and above all a good sense of how narrative can unfold through sequential imagery, which is why I'm very interested in the new course we have starting at the university, in comic and concept art; one of the strands that students will be able to specialise in will be storyboarding for film.
Saul Bass: Storyboard for 'Psycho'
Joe Alves: Storyboard for Jaws
It's interested to compare Robert Longo's large charcoal drawings of Jaws, to Joe Alves original storyboard images.
Robert Longo: 'Jaws' 2008
In the art world we have all heard of Robert Longo, but very few people have heard of Joe Alves, but without Alves storyboard ideas the iconic images of the shark would not exist and therefore it could be argued that Longo ought to acknowledge this. The interesting issue for me is though how much creativity is something spread out amongst people. Ideas can spill out between people and grow as each person contributes something new to an idea. A little like the Chinese whispers principle. What of course Longo is doing is highlighting the sublime aspects of Jaws, his dense charcoal blacks, and huge scale of the drawings allowing an audience to visually sink into the depths of the paper surface, the shark's interior a void as much as the surrounding dark that the shark emerges from.
Storyboard from 'Aliens'
The wind indicated in the mountain top storyboard above, echoes the 'rain' as indicated in Tacita Dean's image from her 'Fatigues' series of drawings. The way storyboards are annotated being something she has either consciously or intuitively responded to as she has constructed her blackboard drawings.
Ideas are fascinating things and I am constantly surprised at how variants of similar thoughts keep cropping up. The 'Bag of Air' idea of Dean's was something I only found out about recently, and as an idea it is very close to the work that I did after having to have an asthma check up and also having to do some first aid training whereby we were advised that we should get someone to breath into a paper bag if they were hyper-ventilating.
The form of the inflated paper bag was I thought something very special as it contained a lungful of air, so I began to solidify this by making ceramic versions with lips, so that these objects could be read as either models of inside or outside the body breathing events.
This awareness of how other artists have treated similar ideas is important as it helps to re-affirm that an idea is significant. It also helps if you can let go the idea that all artists have to be dealing with unique ideas. As human beings we are all similar and that is what makes communication possible. If you came up with something truly original no-one else would be able to understand it. Dean's new film, is called 'Antigone', a response to a Greek myth that thousands of writers, musicians and artists have returned to over the last millennium, a story of family drama and the tragic consequences of making decisions as to who we are loyal to. Once more the idea moves along, often as much by serendipity as by design. Dean was to have made the work in the Greek city of Thebes, but after that didn't work, she found out that Thebes was also a place in Illinois, and so the film was made there. Old ideas returned to in new guises are wonderful because they carry with them all of the layers of meanings that have accrued around them over their passage through time, and this rich loam and be a wonderful fertile soil for a new seed to germinate, and like a seed that has come from nearby a tree, what might grow could be very similar to the tree the seed came from, but it will never be exactly the same, because the climate of its time as a seedling will have changed, its location will be different and the events of its young life will unfold in new ways. So it is with ideas. As Dean says herself, “Sometimes when you are working hard and open to things you start to see patterns".
From: 'Antigone'
Tacita Dean: Still Life is at the National Gallery, London, and Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery, both from 15 March to 28 May. Landscape is at the Royal Academy, London, from 19 May to 12 August
