Guy Sherwin
In Guy Sherwin's 'Man in the mirror' the artist projects a video of his earlier self holding a mirror back onto himself. Trying to mimic his earlier actions a surreal fracturing occurs as the action drifts in and out of sync. Using mirrors as a way of fragmenting an image is something I had begun experimenting with, I will look to continue this as I develop potential ideas for my final exhibition in August. I was also interested in ideas discussed in the interview below where he talks of projection as performance. Using various techniques sherwin has created works which only exist in their own performance, the live element stripping film of its permanence. While not a performer in the traditional sense Guys presence in the works is necessary to facilitate their creation. In 'Paper Landscape' Sherwin projects a video of himself in the landscape onto a translucent screen, the image is not visible until he slowly paints the back of this screen white. Eventually the whole picture plain is covered and his filmed self walks away into the landscape. At this point the scene starts to degrade, I'm unsure what substance was used for this i.e. paint thinners etc.. but paint starts to running down the surface of the picture. After a minute of this Sherwin cuts though the centre of the canvas, finally destroying the artifice of the picture plain. I was really drawn to the way the image is built and then destroyed, existing only in the short period of performance. Illusionary techniques were both used and exposed, giving the viewer questions which to try and resolve as the work unfolds. Live performance was an idea me and colleague mark Aaron discussed at length earlier in this module and ultimately that was the direction were were heading in. However on reflection our plans to the nature and technologies involved in the work were unrealistic in the time frame of the MA. In the work of Guy Sherwin I see a demonstration of how performance can work on a much smaller scale. The 'human' scale of his work makes for a intimate experience, the unrefined or polished nature of each performance allows for variation and fracturing. Indeed 'Man in the Mirror' almost relies on his mistakes of timing to reveal indefinable pictorial interest, the fracturing of both pictorial space and time.
Links For Guy Sherwin:
Paper landscape
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6RZi_Nzyho
Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLsUhFawsZ8
Man in the mirror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1-xuCNIeg
Lis Rhodes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts5uT0Pdj4c
Light Music is formed from two projections facing one another, creating an immersive environment of sound and light. The work is Rhodes’s response to what she perceived as the lack of attention paid to women composers in European music.
A ‘score’ comprisng of drawings that form abstract patterns of black and white lines on screen, the drawings are printed onto the optical edge of the filmstrip. As the bands of light and dark pass through the projector they are ‘read’ as audio, creating an intense soundtrack and a direct relationship between the sonic and the visual. What one hears is the aural equivalent to the flickering patterns on the screens.
Light Music is projected into a hazy room, the beams which traverse one another in the space between the two projections become ethereal sculptural forms comprised of light, shadow and smoke, reminiscent of Anthony MaCall's 'Light Describing a Cone'. This format is designed to encourage viewers to move between the screens, directly engaging with the projection beams.
The relationship between sound and visuals in my work is far from resolved, A future development may be the direct translation of visuals into auditory response. At present I feel the 'quiet' of my visuals is often overpowered by music. By creating tonal ambient responses to the work I hope to complement the visuals to develop more of an encompassing experience, well thats the idea!
Further to this I have applied to be part of 'Sonification', this is a live performance event organised by Pop My Mind at Ipswich Arts Centre. The event will see visual artwork translated into sound and performance. I hope to use this opportunity to conduct some primary research, seeing how visual work can be translated, and meeting others who are interested in this field of exploration.
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