Sky Apple

It was a sleepy Saturday, and I had nothing to do, until my friend Leia suggested we meet up and go to a cafe. Because she is vegan our choices were limited, but she introduced me to this adorable cafe called Sky Apple, in Heaton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I couldn’t see much in the way of apples, but the walls were painted with clouds, and from the ceiling hung sparkly stars, delicate corsages, and a fancy chandelier.

We were losing daylight, and the cafe was quite busy, so I didn’t get many good photographs. I would like to go back in the future. Maybe we shouldn’t have spent so long taking coord photos! I went for a casual sweet lolita outfit, with lots of knitwear because it’s quite chilly (though not for Newcastle!)

Dress is from Bodyline (I’m not usually a fan, but I have this in both pink and blue!)
Cardigan is borrowed from my housemate
Teaparty shoes are from Angelic Pretty

My hat and sailor collar both have little angel wings, to contribute to the celestial theme of the day.

Oh, and I brought Reginald the Usakumya!

I hope I can find more cute and curious places in Newcastle, for when I run out of travel entries. Though, I am already planning a trip to Parma, Italy!

Semblance and Synergy

Although I consider myself a conceptual artist, I still feel the need to prove my ability as a traditional artist. I actually enjoy drawing as an indulgent activity, but find it less interesting to view. I think the best art contains both craftmanship and cognitive processes. Drawing is frequently used in preparation for traditional media, particularly painting and printmaking, as well as being a discipline of itself. Drawing is the making of marks on a 2 dimensional surface, and in figurative work, tries to create the illusion of a 3 dimensional subject. I have realised retrospectively, that objects resembling other objects are a staple in my practice. Yet there are many more possibilities than traditional media (for example pencil on paper) that resembles another object (for example in a portrait).

We All Fall Down, coloured chalk pastel, crepe bandages, white chalk, blackboard paint, on 4×5 ft board.

In We All Fall Down I used chalk pastels to create an illusion interpretable as the black eyes of a Panda or Periorbital Haematoma. The drawing combines two seperate yet visually-similar subjects, adding interest and making for multiple interpretations. It was part of my Final Major Project for my BTEC Foundation Diploma in Art.

Subconjunctival Haemorrhage, digital print from 35mm colour negative, dimensions variable.

My obsession with eyes continued into the first year of University, when I compared ocular and camera lenses, using photography for the tautological elements. Unlike drawing, photography requires a referrent, which can be manipulated to appear as another. The lack of focus makes the subject obscure and open to interpretation, while also relating to the eye injury. Instead of using tone to create an illusion of shadow, as in drawing, I used the shadows under my hands to create an illusion of tone, or of blood.

MarshmalloWool, readymades in an installation.

My medical theme climaxed in second year, when I installed a toy hospital in an actual medical centre, and made video performances within it. MarshmalloWool is a comparison between cotton wool and marshmallows, because they are so similar in colour, size and shape. The actual objects were more appropriate than a 2 dimensional representation, because the contrasting texture, and the interactive opportunity to take an object from either jar, were central to the concept.

Claire Lavender my housemate/studio partner/fellow blogger has suggested that “when recognisable objects are being used, it is worth the artist considering their conceptual value.” This is true but unfair, as draftsmen and other traditional artists are seldom expected to justify their medium.

I am fascinated by the play between semblance and synergy, and the ability to polarise similarities and differences, questioning our perception of the world. Over the first Semester of my third year, I want to continue making comparisons, become a better draftsman, and master the print facilities at University. My other inspirations will be semantics, as I study two foreign languages and prepare to study abroad; and gender identity, as I (hopefully) undergo upper surgery.

Anna Gaskell

Because today (yesterday now) was a Bank Holiday, I had little to do besides visiting the Laing for research. I was interested in their 18th and 19th Century painting gallery, not for the paintings themselves, but as a performance site incorporating them. The Laing is quite traditional, but always includes some important contemporary pieces in their temporary exhibitions, providing a postmodern juxtaposition to the historical overview. However, upon arrival I was distracted by the Family Matters exhibition, and because I am the Puer Aeternus, the Childhood section. There, my interest was captured by a single photograph, by Anna Gaskell.

Untitled #35 from Hide (the same series) by Anna Gaskell

Gaskell stages whimsical yet unnerving photo series, loosely inspired by fiction, and exclusively employing young female models. According to the Guggenheim, which owns the same print, her Hide series “derives from a Brothers Grimm tale of a young woman who disguises herself under an animal pelt so that she might escape her own father’s proposal of marriage.” Of course, I have the complete Grimm fairytales, and have identified this story as Allerleirauh, which translates as “all the furs”. It describes her coat, made using the pelt of one of each animal species in the Kingdom. Gaskell’s title is doubly appropriate in referring to the animal hides and the Princess’s disguise. (The Guggenheim have neglected to mention more than one pelt, and the fact that she is royalty).

Untitled #47 from Hide by Anna Gaskell

Untitled #47 appears to have been influenced more by archetypes than by Allerleirauh. The models both wear white gowns, obviously symbolising innocence, even though the Princess’s lavish dresses, fur coat, and sooty hands and face are central to the plot. The heroine has a doppelganger, a recurring theme in Gaskell’s tableaux, and one sits atop they other. It is unclear whether she is trying to help, play, seduce or fight. The voyeuristically high point of view might suggest the other was pushed by a third party. I particularly like Gaskell’s ambiguity, in narrative and obscure composition.

Untitled #36 from Hide (the same series) by Anna Gaskell

When I move to Munich to study art in April, I plan to research German fairytales and to make work about their corruption. Besides this parallel, I found Hide so enchanting because it was so subtly inappropriate. In an exhibition titled Family Matters: the Family in British Art, my favourite artwork was by an American artist, inspired by a German fairytale, about forced marriage, incest and paedophilia.

Family Matters exhibition at the Laing gallery

Intravenous video

I recently received a tetanus shot, for numerous reasons:

1. I do a lot of urban exploration, as evidenced in my photography, and regularly return with minor inexplicable injuries. Rust is particularly appealing to me.
2. I found a sign about immunisations in my ex-medical centre studio, and moved it into my own installation. Unlike my other video topics, I haven’t much experience or any anecdotes relating to injections.
3. I really like the sensation of needles sliding under my skin. This is evidenced in my piercings, though I try to de-emphasise them in my art.

Because it is exhausting to play the patient, and impossible to simultaneously play the Nurse, I created a patient out of a tailor’s mannequin with my measurements, dressed in my clothes, and with balloons for limbs. The head is a standard spherical balloon, which sadly couldn’t support the weight of my wig. The arms and legs are modelling balloons, which have been twisted to resemble a doll’s ball joints, at the elbows and knees. The hands are latex gloves stuck on with plasters.

Relating to my respiratory video, my lungs were not strong enough to inflate the balloons, and I had to purchase a pump. This strongly resembled the toy syringes I had collected and modified. The balloons emphasise the dangers of intravenous injection, not because they burst when touched by sharp objects, but because they’re filled with air, and an air bubble accidentally introduced into the bloodstream can be fatal.

Following the procedure from my tetanus injection, I rubbed the balloon arm with an antiseptic wipe, which caused a delightful squeaking sound. I initially skipped the piercing part, because the balloon burst so quickly it was impossible to photograph. My patient was able to hold her own cotton wool over the imaginary wound, using static.

When I shot the videos, I did burst the balloons, and afterwards photographed the repair process. The last image shows my set up for the immunisation installation. The modelling balloon could be interpreted as phallic, and the pumping action as masturbatory, which relate to my gender themes which have now taken a back seat.

Playing Dead

I saw Siobhan Hapaska’s St. Christopher in the Wonders of the Invisible World exhibition at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, about which I have another unfinished entry. This sculpture clearly took a lot of time, effort and skill, but I have to wonder whether it was worthwhile. In the same way as I doubt the purpose of drawing after the invention of the camera, I doubt the purpose of sculpture. Figurative art is all about elaborate illusion, which is visually and technically impressive, but conceptually lacking.

St. Christopher by Siobhan Hapaska

In semester 1 I focused on identity, and what parts I could play. I have since become interested in what vessels I can force to play me. I have moved from Asian ball joint dolls to balloons, mannequins, scarecrows, and other humans. At the last open studio event, I gave a 2-hour performance in which I pretended to be a sculpture, doll or corpse. I dressed in lolita, put elastic bands around my joints, propped myself awkwardly in a corner, and stayed as still as I could until no one was looking. Visitors behaved nervously, examining me and and whispering to one another. I later heard rumours about an almost-convincing doll.

Until recently, I had documented my performances only in text and photographs, which diminish or even deny the duration. Although I struggled and stayed still for 2 hours, I had no proof. I wanted to recreate that performance for video, in my new hospital installation. The camera I borrowed could only shoot upto 10 minutes of footage, but at N frames per second, that was still much more than a single photograph. Below is one of my test shots, taken while trying to find the right pose.

My perspective has changed a lot since I started filming two weeks ago. Video was initially liberating, as it meant I could focus on actually performing rather than pretending to, while really running back and forth to check the last shot and set the self-timer. I had a wide variety of frames to chose from, for a final photograph. Video then became daunting, as I was faced with several hours of similar footage to edit down.

Relying on a self-timer and tripod leads to very fixed camera angles, which have their advantages. Similar to my performance in Semester 1, where people questioned whether I was a sculpture, I could display my first video on a monitor, and make people wonder whether it is a photograph. However, as I shot more and more videos, I developed an interest in editing them together.

Two stills from Un Chien Andalou by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel

I have always been interested in Surrealist cinema, the most obvious example being Un Chien Andalou by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel. In the iconic scene, a man opens a woman’s eye with one hand, while holding a knife in the other. The shot then switches to a calf’s eye, which is sliced open. The viewer cannot help but imagine it is the woman’s eye, being sliced. In this way video can establish a synergy between two objects, demonstrate an action upon one, and imply the same action upon the other. If I had time, I would like shoot more up-close footage, and use the same technique to draw parallels between my collected objects (arm and balloon, syringe and pump) before acting on them (inflation or pricking).

Respiratory video

I have had breathing problems since I was a small child. Although I remember nothing before my tonsillectomy, I had chronic tonsillitis with swelling severe enough to obstruct my airways, and could not be left unattended. On the day of my operation I was given ‘magic cream’ through plasters on the backs of my hands, along with a comic about an owl who had a PhD in medicine and the capacity to hold a clipboard. I’m very interested in animal symbolism and anthromorphism although I wouldn’t quite call myself a furry.

Although the procedure went smoothly and prevented recurrence, I was later diagnosed with asthma. After visiting a family friend with a puppy, it became apparent that I was allergic to animals. (As if that wasn’t enough, this entry does not contain an exhaustive list of my ailments; only those relevant to the video). I vividly remember time spent in hospital on a respirator, inhaling what was described to me as ‘magic smoke’. I was given my first inhaler along with a book about an asthmatic dragon. I recall the protagonist’s friends calling him “bad” but the narrator insisting he was just “ill”. I found this colloquialism confusing, because I had been taught how to talk, and the book patronising, because I had been taught how to read.

I stripped my installation down to its bare bones; the irremovable radiator which resembles a spine, the walls I have painted mint green, the white floor tiles I have laid, and the bench I have reupholstered with marshmallow pink pleather. I gathered breathing-related props, including a genuine inhaler, and toy oxygen masks. I used Io as my nurse again, but fascinated by her long natural hair, did not put her in the pink wig. I suggested that she use it to strangle me, which she did. Again, we limited the video to one shot, for 5 minutes.

In the two videos with Io, I tried to remain passive and unreactive, like Marina Abramović, or the doll I dressed up as, or the corpse Epictetus claimed I am. I surprised myself with my success. Toward the end of the respiratory video, I was genuinely panicking and losing consciousness, yet all I did was lightly stamp my foot. In the photograph taken after the performance I look composed, even happy, and my hand at my throat looks contrived. I feel that this adds to the piece, provided the spectator has read the context.

Video stills and transcripts will be available in the near future.

Dental video

A friend gave me two glass jars, which had contained lollipops, instructing me to fill one with cotton wool balls, and the other with orange sticks. I had none of the latter, but had stockpiled cotton wool with which to clean my piercings.

As a child, I was troubled by the similarities between cotton wool and candy floss, and worried that I might mistake one for the other. Wet candy floss dissolves into sugar, and cotton wool is most unpleasant to bite. Because my mouth is so small I have had many teeth extracted, and my mouth packed with cotton wool to stem the bleeding, which was truly nauseating.

The cotton wool balls I collected looked more like marshmallows than candy floss, another confection I have had traumatic experiences with. I volunteered for a game in which players had to fit as many marshmallows into their mouths as possible, without chewing or swallowing. As mentioned, I have a very small mouth, and as I have yet to mention, I get very competitive. I realised too late that my competitors all had huge mouths, and the chosen brand of marshmallows tasted disgusting, yet I refused to back down. The marshmallows were melting, the resultant liquid running down my throat, and I wanted to throw up. I was offered the bucket into which the other losers had spat their melted marshmallows. After retching several times, I involuntarily spat my own out. I came in third place.

Sugar is a staple of my diet, which we all know leads to tooth decay. I recently received my first filling, and two days later, developed my first tooth infection, which took 3 courses of antibiotics to cure. I refuse to believe this was a coincidence. It is similarly counter-productive to offer sweets, as a bribe before or a reward after, visiting the dentist, yet it is an archetype of children’s fiction.

So, for these reasons, I included a jar of cotton wool and a jar of white marshmallows, in my toy dental hospital. I added other props one might find at the dentist, including a genuine oral speculum, and toy mirror, forceps, pliers, and oxygen tank.

Inspired by Marina Abramović, I wanted to lay out the props I had collected, and put myself at the mercy of my audience. However, I did not have an audience. There was not room for a large audience in my installation. I am not able to give a live performance at the open studio event this time, because it coincides with the exam for my Japanese evening class. Nor am I able to give a live performance during my assessment, because I am not allowed to be present.

Instead, I passed the role of Nurse to my dear friend/lolita twin/fellow art student/favourite manga ka Io. I still find it unheimlich to see her face between my pink wig and nurse costume, after spending so much time playing the character myself. I explained my inspiration and ideas to her, but ultimately allowed her to do whatever she felt like. This kind of performance is frightening and physically draining, so we were only able to shoot once, for 5 minutes.

What do you think we did?

Nameless Nurse

The ‘Medical Record’ was one of my favourite items in the playsets. Visitors to my studio/hospital invariably wanted to write or draw on it. It was trying so hard; with a functional clipboard, pencil, and single page with an ‘official’ header:

I was intrigued by the illustration of the nurse, with her big eyes and pink hair, attempting to emulate manga. Visitors to my studio/hospital, who were less familiar with Pokémon than I was, thought she was Nurse Joy:

I needed a new character to play in my performances, so I chose this nameless nurse. I started using make up to enlarge my eyes, and ordered a pink curly wig:

In the 2nd semester of my 1st year, I invented, wrote about and dressed as a character called Doctor Foster. Doctor Foster had neither medical expertise nor a PhD; Doctor was merely his given name. He crossdressed in an inappropriate nurse costume, and attempted home remedies (mostly involving sarsaparilla tablets) on his teddy bear roommate. If you want to hear the full story, you can search my name in the Baltic archive website. Alternatively, if you want to pretend you’re in bed and Doctor Foster is reading the story to you personally, you can borrow the dvd from the physical Baltic archive.

Doctor Foster’s outfit is a slutty nurse costume, under an expensive white lolita coordinate:

Due to money difficulties, I recycled Doctor Foster’s outfit, to become my Nameless Nurse’s uniform. I added the pink wig, and switched to pink socks to balance the colours out, as well as wearing stompier shoes to add an audio element:

Can you think of a name, for my Nameless Nurse?

Urban Exploration

Because technically I was trespassing, and it is too dangerous to recommend (the floor is subsiding, the ceiling collapsing; the electricity is still on; there are asbestos and multiple strains of mould), I won’t reveal the location until it has been rennovated, or more likely demolished. It’s not my best photography, but it was more of a research trip.

Medical toy sets II

The contents of 2 medical toy sets, purchased at the £ shop. Own photography.