Bellmer and the Polaroid 403R

I recently revisited the work of an artist by the name of Hans Bellmer. Bellmer's work deals with adolescence and deformity, as with the previous post I suppose the more general heading is 'Deformation of Beauty' (which can also be linked to Bill Henson, see later post for more of this). Bellmer took shop mannequins and began to reconfigure them using the simple ball and socket joints so as to create figures which had a kind of 'ruined innocence' about them, as can be seen in the images below, the moving around of the body parts into new arrangements deforms the typical concept of the beautiful and healthy body into something more resembling the work of Francis Bacon or H R Giger. The expressions and the way in which the pieces were photographed originally suggests a particularly sinister theme, perhaps more like rape victims, which give as unsettling an heir as the maquettes of the Brothers Quay (still from the film, The Street of Crocodiles, furthest below).

Taking into consideration Bellmer's work and combining it with my initial concept of dividing the body using the framing of the image I took out my Polaroid passport camera and began to do just that. The first image is my first attempt as it appeared on the original polaroid image. Though it illustrates my point I felt that by lining up the edges of the limbs etc. in the image I could more clearly express my intentions and influences, which is why the lower image has been doctored in Photoshop. Lighting when using this camera for this kind of work becomes more important and, as the flash provided with the camera only lights for the passport-portrait style image I intend to experiment with off-camera slaveflashes so as to use the light more expressively. If this is successful I also plan to shoot some shots with Polaroid chocolate film, which has a large grain and gives brown-sepia toned images which would further resemble early Bellmer photographs. I also left the edges of the polaroid image on rather than peeling them off so as to further the idea of the rotting or decayed texture, particularly when compared to the smooth and even skin tones within the image.

Franken-fashion, Masks, Van Veluw and Hundertwasser

A few months ago an article in the magazine Dazed and Confused caught my interest. They had set up a project, working with various fashion designers, in which they challenged them each to make a mask out of scraps from around their studios. The project raised several particularly interesting themes, such as concerns with the recycling of materials and the use of everyday detritus to create art. Particularly interesting was the image below, a mask made of discarded rubber gloves in which various hand-signals are carefully intertwined and written with the fingers. In the image further down the mask is made of glass by Walter Van Beirendonck, in the article he says 'the glass creates a deformation of beauty'. I think the anonymity and trasnformative nature of the masks is a concept I would particularly like to explore in this project. Indeed, anonymity is directly linked to the mask, from renaissance masquerade balls to those worn by costumed comic-book heroes. The mask is also linked to the history of medicine, plague masks can be likened to the modern day surgeon's mask.

I began to experiment with the idea of the make-up as mask, I have several ways I wish to explore this which I haven't gotten around to as yet, however, I did start to think about the works of two particular artists recently, Levi Van Veluw and Friedrich Hundertwasser. The photographs below are my first attempt at exploring the use of make-up as mask, drawing lines in eye-liner across my face and photographing them using the previously mentioned Polaroid 403R. The first image is the stages of this and the second is used more as documentation. The photographs become documents of an event, like the images left after 60s performance art. That the camera is used to create photographs for documentation is also an applicable and interesting facet.

Levi Van Veluw's work involves covering his own face and head in various materials, including leather, felt and human hair. His work contains a dual attraction, curiosity and repulsion create feelings of ambivalence in the viewer. These works also follow the vein of performance art in that the photographs are all that is left as documentation of the works. I intend to further expand on his work in a later post.

Friedrich Hundertwasser was part inspiration for my face-contours photographs mostly because of their aesthetic similarities. When first starting these photographs he was not a direct influence, the lines were more a way of exploring the contours of the face through a simple pattern, however, after having studied the photographs more closely, the works of Hundertwasser and the likeness to the painting below became very apparent.

Passport Photos and the Polaroid Miniportrait 403R

I've finally managed to buy a Polaroid 403R from eBay. These cameras were used up until fairly recently to take passport-photos manually, but have now been phased out by machines or digital cameras. I think when trying to study identity and anonymity the passport image is key. The passport image is the identity on paper, it is recognised in bureaucracy as the proof that the person who owns the document exists and that their image and the information printed in the passport match. That there is no directly interposing negative, that the image is exposed directly onto the polaroid film is also linked in with validity, there can be no tampering with the image after it is made, the light reacts chemically with the film and the image is created.The camera comes with a built in angled flash and two fixed focussing distances, 1.2m and 1.92m, this means that every image taken with the camera will look fairly consistent with the preceding and following images, particularly when photographing the face. Though there are more complex lighting set-ups for the passport photograph, as in the diagram below, I have found that taking the images with the flash pointing directly at the subject on a white background is similar enough to the passport style for my purposes.

The image below is a grid of six 3.25" x 4.25" polaroid images. The camera has three settings for taking photographs, you can set it to take four separate images, two and two the same or all four the same. Though these photographs are only my playing and experimenting with the camera I have some more specific intentions for the next set which should be more relevant to my project.