Final Project "Gestalt"

 

Photos

Dimmness

Closer Yet

Initializing myself Soon

Bring Foward the Person

Layering the matrix self

Twist and move forward we dive

Inner is Outer, Now, Outer is Inner

Phantasm of futures yet known or been written 

Explanation

    This final project is an attempted summarisation of who I am as a person throughout my life in the form of 8 pictures. The project went through a couple of ideas of how I would conceptualize it. Many of these ideas were the idea of moving some object such as a paper figure or some clockwork mechanism. These were dropped due to a lack of practicability, time, and overall artistic skill. For the digital portion of the project, I began with a simple photo and tried to think of what I could do with it. The idea of time came to mind and how we associate the past as this blurry and at times black and white place far from our more colorful present. I took this conceptualization and merged it with my own understanding of who I thought I was early in my life.  

    The meaning of the project titled "Gestalt" (a German word) is a variety of things organized into one being and to be seen as more than the parts that make me up this being. In more simpler terms each part that makes me up can be looked at and viewed differently but once combined with others I am more than these parts. I am something new and unique with a new part adding to this greater whole. 

Project Description/process explained

    From this starting photo, I sought to bring forward towards the present I live in. I would desaturate the photo more for the past and add more color to it for the present. From there it was about stylizing the photos. What could I do to present myself in this moment of time? I experimented a lot with the photos to get the right feel. Each photo besides increasing in saturation also becomes less blurry and more in focus. I tried to incorporate this increased focus with each of the designs of the photos. Once past the halfway point in the photos I switched toward the metaphysical meaning of the unseen. I took a more unorthodox way of manipulating the photos to get across this point. 

    The physical project went through some designs. Until I decided upon the look of a place set you see in any house. Some corners are out in the open where a person leaves a scrapbook or photo album out amongst their collections of books. The photo book may be looked at at times but is never really paid attention to. The objects surrounding it are everyday objects you would see by a doorway entrance. Some books, keys, bits of paper. 

    Most interesting is how nearly everything in this spot of a house is never really touched or moved. It is displayed there proudly a thing to look at and glance at. Just as the way we experience who we are is this outward core of ourselves. All laid out there never really disturbed and yet if we just look and move some things around we can dive deeper into who we are. Each of the objects are bits of ourselves and the photo album is a catalog of who we are. Separately they are unique in their own way but together they are more. 

Some Insights

  Each photo acts as a step toward my understanding of myself. For most of the first 10-14 years of my life, I did not have a core understanding of myself. There was a personality, various interests, and a being. But no deep thoughts regarding who I am, what I am, and as to where I could go. There was a barrier, a barrier of shyness, introvertedness, fear, deep seated anxiety. I was on autopilot. Not until I went to high school did I begin to think of who I am. Gradually with the introduction of new people separate from my Grammer School where I spent many years with the same people did I begin to open. Slowly I came into my own the process most people do to become Adults a process that is always ongoing. High school helped to open this door of exploration. With college now nearing its end for me this place helped to further foster and encourage my growth as a person. Who I was 10 years ago is completely different and yet the same. For we never truly let go of our past selves but instead merge and grow with it adding to but almost never destroying these parts of ourselves. This quote from Bells Hook Patrichy encapsulates some of my life experiences. "Patriarchy as a system has denied males full access to full emotional well-being... To truly address male pain and male crisis we must as a nation be willing to expose the harsh reality that patriarchy has damaged men in the past and continues to damage them in the present." (Bell Hooks, pg 31).

This quote from Mirzoeff really connects with the ideas I talked about above regarding how I perceive myself and in general how others in turn perceive themselves percieving others. "Schechner claimed that all forms of human activity are a performance, assembled from other actions we have taken in the past to create a new whole. A performance might be an artwork, it might be a chef cooking a dish or a barber cutting hair. Or then again it might be anyone whatever giving a performance of their gender, race, and sexuality in everyday life." (How to See the World, pg 9)

Another quote that I feel semi-relates to my own personal experience in life and general journey "In the present moment of transformation, these categories of identity are being remade and reshaped. Today, claims queer theorist Jack Halberstam, “the building blocks of human identity imagined and cemented in the last century—what we call gender, sex, race and class—have changed so radically that new life can be glimpsed ahead.” How to See the World(p. 62). 

Artistic Inspriration

    An artist I was inspired by was Frida Kahlo. For Frida Kahlo, self-portraits came to mind when I created mine. The most famous thing people think of when thinking of Frida is her self-portraits and her distinct face. Each portrait is a presentation of herself with all her flaws presented. Although my pictures are edited to look different they still all have the same base face in each of them. This is the same as Frida as no matter her work there is this core image of herself in her work that never changes no matter the drawing. As well each image I made tried to represent something about my stage in life just as Frida had to try to present some of her work with her own personal life story.

Physical Project at Different Angles

Sources

Bell Hooks Understanding Patriarchy (Pg.9)

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. How to See the World:  (p. 56, 62). Kindle Edition.