Day 2 pt. 2: V&A Museum

THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

MAKING IT UP: PHOTOGRAPHIC FICTIONS

Whilst visiting the V&A Museum, our tutors recommended three different exhibitions to go to before our alloted time for the exhibition called 'Sky Arts Ignition: Memory Palace'. I found one of the exhibitions called 'Making It Up: Photographic Fictions' and this exhibition is about using the media of photography and how each hold truthness yet tells stories and evoke imagination. This display includes photographs by some of the most influential contemporary artists working in this vein, such as Gregory Crewdson, Duane Michals and Cindy Sherman, alongside examples by 19th-century practitioners including Julia Margaret Cameron, Clementina Lady Hawarden and Oscar Gustav Rejlander.

Bastler IX (Tinkerer IX)

Jan Wenzel (born 1972)
2000

This tableau is made up of four photo booth strips, Wenzel works almost solely with photobooths, a form of photography in which the camera itself dictates the framing and timing of each exposure, Here he set up the scene inside a photo booth in this studio and rearranged each frame at 28-second intervals. The figure of the 'tinkerer', surrounded with wires and mechanical fragments, reflect Wenzel's inventive and experimental technique.

I was so amazed by the accuracy and how well the photo booth fit perfectly, it must of been challenging to achieve this successfully. The way how the artist uses photo booths to show an overall images make it seem like a well put memory behind positioning the camera, the tinkerer and the background and colours. It's my favourite piece because of how off sided it is, how the tinkerer isn't the main focus (not in centre portion of photo booth) but at the bottom left, he shows a piece of almost everything in the room which perhaps he want to remember in the future. By using multiple photographs, it's refreshing to see and it shows a lot of meaning.

Here is my response to the work of Jan Wenzel's work by using a photograph and cutting sections and placing them with places in between to mimic the photo strips.

Chance Meeting

Duane Michals (born 1932
1972

Michals uses sequences of photogrpahs to suggest a narrative. The stories are often open-ended and sometimes even surreal. In this sequence, two men pass in an alleyway without incident, but the encounter seems loaded with significance. The photographs are framed consistently, and the figures move in and out of the shot, as in a film.

  
These particular photographs really made me think where examining each photographs carefully. What kind of stories does it tell? Is there a past between the two men? Or just random curiosity? It's so powerful to think of the idea of the two men sharing a past together based on the photohgraphy, the way the man looks at the other's face and as he passes by, the man turns back to check. I love how there is so many interpertations created based on six consistent photographs.

From the photos I took of Michal's work, I tried to re-created the individual shots with basic shapes and markers, it made me want to do a sequences of movements so I did a stick person laying down.

THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

SKY ARTS IGNITION: MEMORY PALACE

Sky Arts Ignition: Memory Palace brings together a new work of fiction by the author Hari Kunzru with 20 original commissions from leading graphic designers, illustrators and typographers to create a multidimensional story.

Here is a summary of what Sky Arts Ignition: Memory Palace is about; -

• Narrator is in Prison
• He is accused of being a member of banned sect
• He revived ancient ' art of remembering'
• He tries to remember the past and in the future where forgetting has been official policy for generations
• Narrator uses Prison cells as a 'Memory Palace'
• Where he shares details of location, things, corrupted fragments and misunderstood details

With the help of graphic designers, illustrators and typographers they help make the story come alive using their artistic skills. All ofthe  artworks is completely different to one another but regardless it help me visualise the story and in a way I never done before. The walls had some sentences from the book and quotes from the narrator in the story, by looking at each artwork, it tells part of the story simply by looking at it. There was many styles to illustrate the story, e.g. comic strips, traditional drawings (pen and ink), 3D sculptures, using letter etc. It shows there is no limit to art when telling a story from a past.