This isn't photography related but I'm happy!
♥ Two more full uni days left till the Christmas break!
♥ Possible TKU night, if not, London for a friend's birthday!
♥ One of my best friends 22nd birthday house party in Chatham!
♥ Seeing a rather special boy in my life, staying a couple of nights and he's taking me to a German Christmas Market which I adore... SO EXCITED!
♥ Pub night back home to see my lovely home lovelies and JO-FACE!
♥ Christmas!!!
Hells yeah. Happy!
Monday 6 December 2010
Thursday 2 December 2010
Playful.
I have fallen in love with a short experimental art film that I discovered on DeviantART and it made me think about my project of extremes again...
You can read about my own project here, if you haven’t already...
My Extremes...
It started with these three images on the idea of metaphorical drowning... which oddly enough, came out of a breakup I had last year.
My idea of experimenting with and photographing my extremes came out of two things; the desire to be able to create work that might make people grasp, even for a minute, why some people might be interested in more unconventional sexual practises (and for it to become not such a scary thing...) and the desire to explore myself and the world, as I do with all my work.
If there’s one thing I learnt through my idea is that I am not a freak. There is no such thing as normal, but I am not weird like I remember being scared that I might be about the age of ten. I found the things I do and experience though my body are really universal; everyone does these things, and the weird part? Not many people speak about it, and this is what I wanted to focus on the most. I found myself in discussions with people about habits we had as kids, and I loved finding out people used to do similar as me!
It seems as children we’re allowed to be more inquisitive about our body and our world, so when we do strange and experimental things no one really notices, it’s supposed to be part of learning... and maybe that’s why people talk about it less when we grow up? For me, that’s how I relate it to the world of kink... to me a lot of kink is about being playful with yourself and other people, exploring boundaries and sensations... and if you think about it in this way, it is possibly the most human and normal thing we can do. How can we learn if we don't explore?
I think as we grow up it seems less and less acceptable to be able to experiment and have fun with the world, and for me, it almost seems like the world of kink/unconventional sexual practice is the adult version. It shouldn’t be viewed as unclean. I found that I never liked much fetish photography, it always seemed so cold and unfeeling to me. It felt disconnected, and so I didn’t feel for it. My idea was to create work that could be relatable to... if people were to see my ‘weird’ habits and ‘extremes’ they could realise they do the same things as I do... and they can be such simple things! I went to Centre Parks for a family holiday when I was twelve, and I made a game in the swimming pool of going straight to the hot swimming pool to the freezing cold ‘plunge’ pool. It was simply experimenting with temperature, which isn’t weird at all, but the same thing can be said for a lot of the kink world (well, at least, for me)... it’s about experimenting with sensations your body and mind can go through... and it’s such a human thing to do!
As I went further into my project it became far less about making people grasp the idea of unconventional sexual experimentation and became more about simply the experience of being human.
I found I need to feel certain extremes in my life, which is why I fell in love with the film I posted. From what I can gather, it’s mostly about losing a pregnancy, but to me it seems the woman is experimenting with sensations to clear her mind and make her feel okay again... which is largely what I do too... it seems to be the way we, as humans, try to connect to the world around us, to make us feel alive, or free, or to help us forget. I think it's a universal need, we just experience it in different ways.
e m b r i o - jsmonzani.com from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.
You can read about my own project here, if you haven’t already...
My Extremes...
It started with these three images on the idea of metaphorical drowning... which oddly enough, came out of a breakup I had last year.
My idea of experimenting with and photographing my extremes came out of two things; the desire to be able to create work that might make people grasp, even for a minute, why some people might be interested in more unconventional sexual practises (and for it to become not such a scary thing...) and the desire to explore myself and the world, as I do with all my work.
If there’s one thing I learnt through my idea is that I am not a freak. There is no such thing as normal, but I am not weird like I remember being scared that I might be about the age of ten. I found the things I do and experience though my body are really universal; everyone does these things, and the weird part? Not many people speak about it, and this is what I wanted to focus on the most. I found myself in discussions with people about habits we had as kids, and I loved finding out people used to do similar as me!
It seems as children we’re allowed to be more inquisitive about our body and our world, so when we do strange and experimental things no one really notices, it’s supposed to be part of learning... and maybe that’s why people talk about it less when we grow up? For me, that’s how I relate it to the world of kink... to me a lot of kink is about being playful with yourself and other people, exploring boundaries and sensations... and if you think about it in this way, it is possibly the most human and normal thing we can do. How can we learn if we don't explore?
I think as we grow up it seems less and less acceptable to be able to experiment and have fun with the world, and for me, it almost seems like the world of kink/unconventional sexual practice is the adult version. It shouldn’t be viewed as unclean. I found that I never liked much fetish photography, it always seemed so cold and unfeeling to me. It felt disconnected, and so I didn’t feel for it. My idea was to create work that could be relatable to... if people were to see my ‘weird’ habits and ‘extremes’ they could realise they do the same things as I do... and they can be such simple things! I went to Centre Parks for a family holiday when I was twelve, and I made a game in the swimming pool of going straight to the hot swimming pool to the freezing cold ‘plunge’ pool. It was simply experimenting with temperature, which isn’t weird at all, but the same thing can be said for a lot of the kink world (well, at least, for me)... it’s about experimenting with sensations your body and mind can go through... and it’s such a human thing to do!
As I went further into my project it became far less about making people grasp the idea of unconventional sexual experimentation and became more about simply the experience of being human.
I found I need to feel certain extremes in my life, which is why I fell in love with the film I posted. From what I can gather, it’s mostly about losing a pregnancy, but to me it seems the woman is experimenting with sensations to clear her mind and make her feel okay again... which is largely what I do too... it seems to be the way we, as humans, try to connect to the world around us, to make us feel alive, or free, or to help us forget. I think it's a universal need, we just experience it in different ways.
Friday 12 November 2010
I lovelovelove having a tumblr. Constantly throwing my inspirations at it! I've joined all the cool kids and made myself an account... simply for inspiration posts and sharing of awesome things and the like! Hehehe.
Thursday 30 September 2010
Ningyo.
This leaves me feeling so warm inside! To think someone would want to draw me! Her drawing is beautiful... this is the real link and the artist... Ningyo.
Which is drawn from my photograph... Misadventure.
I feel like October may be a good month ♥
Saturday 18 September 2010
Music is the lamb that made a lion out of me...
This post is surely going to come across as insane to some people...
I’ve been listening to this video tape of music I taped off the music channels when I was 12/13...
And InMe – firefly came on!
Now I’m a little embarrassed of liking this song now (even though that guilty pleasure part of me must admit I still actually love the damn song) but it reminded me oddly of how much music means to me. I remember I used to listen to this song on repeat about five times before I walked to school, because I felt that people there couldn’t hurt me if I had a song stuck in my head, because I was in my own music bubble which protected me. The people at school who bullied me and teased me couldn’t hurt me because I was inside my own music bubble. Anyone who says music can’t change the world is wrong.
I’ve been listening to this video tape of music I taped off the music channels when I was 12/13...
And InMe – firefly came on!
Now I’m a little embarrassed of liking this song now (even though that guilty pleasure part of me must admit I still actually love the damn song) but it reminded me oddly of how much music means to me. I remember I used to listen to this song on repeat about five times before I walked to school, because I felt that people there couldn’t hurt me if I had a song stuck in my head, because I was in my own music bubble which protected me. The people at school who bullied me and teased me couldn’t hurt me because I was inside my own music bubble. Anyone who says music can’t change the world is wrong.
Monday 13 September 2010
Obsessions... beauty, horror, anatomy, metal, car crashes, guns and JJ72!
I just stumbled upon a very interesting blog!
It’s all about, in the writers own words “An academic view of how fashion intersects politics, economics, gender, race, & pop culture” which is something I’ve always been interested in (and will debate with people when they say that fashion is meaningless) and indeed I wrote a paper on fashion and identity in my second year, as it’s something that’s always been fascinating to me.(I think fascinating is my favourite word, I use it far too much!)
I stumbled upon this blog because of one very interesting entry... Here...
which I adore as it accumulates everything which I have an obsession for! Anatomy, fashion, metal armor, Helmut Newton and Lady Gaga! I’ve always had an obsession with the anatomical, which always somewhat puzzled me... I’d love to be as something as noble as a Doctor and I find it all very interesting, but I lack a logical or scientific mind yet I have a fair few books now on biology and the human body! I have no idea where this attraction comes from (I suppose it’s like my obsession with low flying planes... why they interest me so much, I have no idea, but I scream like a teenager whenever I see a low flying plane!) but I suppose it’s something to do with what the writer in this blog suggests. The structure of the human body is incredibly captivating... I wrote in my dissertation how “Most, whether religious/spiritual or with no religious beliefs at all, believe the skin to be important - pain is one of the fundamental human sensations, and for the skin that houses our ‘souls’ – In the Cartesian philosophy of mind-body dualism – or, biologically, the skin protects the body interior. For this to be damaged is something to be feared or amazed by” and I believe this is where my very fascination comes from. Maybe I am just one of those people always in awe and wonderment about the world and life and people... the beauty and the horrors of all.... who wouldn’t find that intriguing?
To be a bit silly and to reference Peep Show here.. “Anything that can kill a man is fascinating” and I think this is where my many more morbid obsessions come from (Serial killers, car crashes, weaponry (guns!) biology)!
As most of the things I would have put references to you can now read in the entry I just referenced, I’ll leave you with another (not quite so weird) obsession of mine... the band that was JJ72. I was head over heels (still am) in love with this band from the age of thirteen... oddly enough they disbanded when I was eighteen so they are very much my teen year’s band. I have never loved a band as intensely as I loved their music... I can’t even describe it... (But my friends who knew me then can vouch for my utter fan girl fixation) but I was thinking about it and maybe it all ties in because a lot of the singers (Mark Greaney) imagery is quite primal and philosophical.
I’ll leave you with this video... (Which I love as I remember watching it on TOTP!)
It’s all about, in the writers own words “An academic view of how fashion intersects politics, economics, gender, race, & pop culture” which is something I’ve always been interested in (and will debate with people when they say that fashion is meaningless) and indeed I wrote a paper on fashion and identity in my second year, as it’s something that’s always been fascinating to me.(I think fascinating is my favourite word, I use it far too much!)
I stumbled upon this blog because of one very interesting entry... Here...
which I adore as it accumulates everything which I have an obsession for! Anatomy, fashion, metal armor, Helmut Newton and Lady Gaga! I’ve always had an obsession with the anatomical, which always somewhat puzzled me... I’d love to be as something as noble as a Doctor and I find it all very interesting, but I lack a logical or scientific mind yet I have a fair few books now on biology and the human body! I have no idea where this attraction comes from (I suppose it’s like my obsession with low flying planes... why they interest me so much, I have no idea, but I scream like a teenager whenever I see a low flying plane!) but I suppose it’s something to do with what the writer in this blog suggests. The structure of the human body is incredibly captivating... I wrote in my dissertation how “Most, whether religious/spiritual or with no religious beliefs at all, believe the skin to be important - pain is one of the fundamental human sensations, and for the skin that houses our ‘souls’ – In the Cartesian philosophy of mind-body dualism – or, biologically, the skin protects the body interior. For this to be damaged is something to be feared or amazed by” and I believe this is where my very fascination comes from. Maybe I am just one of those people always in awe and wonderment about the world and life and people... the beauty and the horrors of all.... who wouldn’t find that intriguing?
To be a bit silly and to reference Peep Show here.. “Anything that can kill a man is fascinating” and I think this is where my many more morbid obsessions come from (Serial killers, car crashes, weaponry (guns!) biology)!
As most of the things I would have put references to you can now read in the entry I just referenced, I’ll leave you with another (not quite so weird) obsession of mine... the band that was JJ72. I was head over heels (still am) in love with this band from the age of thirteen... oddly enough they disbanded when I was eighteen so they are very much my teen year’s band. I have never loved a band as intensely as I loved their music... I can’t even describe it... (But my friends who knew me then can vouch for my utter fan girl fixation) but I was thinking about it and maybe it all ties in because a lot of the singers (Mark Greaney) imagery is quite primal and philosophical.
I’ll leave you with this video... (Which I love as I remember watching it on TOTP!)
Sunday 12 September 2010
Where I end and you begin.
I have a love/hate relationship with being nocturnal.
There are times I wish to change my sleeping patterns, as I often miss out on most of the morning, and sometimes when I’m awake too long at night I get depressed or lonely... and when I manage to get myself a job (and obviously for my new university course) I’m going to need to be awake at normal human hours...
But sometimes I just don’t want to give it up.
There’s something amazing about night. It’s almost 3am and I was just sat on my window ledge by my open window... and I adore this time. It’s so silent, there’s just an odd almost rumbling in the background which you’re never sure whether is the sound of distant trains or traffic far away, or the sounds of the earth moving. The air is so crisp and refreshing and everything looks incredibly beautiful. I feel like I can breathe more clearly at night... my thoughts are more vivid, my creativity is awake and I feel more alive. I feel so connected and disconnected from the earth at the same time... which is a hard thing to describe. No one is awake but right now, I am not lonely. I feel connected in a spiritual way which is... well, too hard to explain. Maybe the beauty of the earth just astounds me. At this hour I feel I can do anything.
And I just don’t want to give that up.
There are times I wish to change my sleeping patterns, as I often miss out on most of the morning, and sometimes when I’m awake too long at night I get depressed or lonely... and when I manage to get myself a job (and obviously for my new university course) I’m going to need to be awake at normal human hours...
But sometimes I just don’t want to give it up.
There’s something amazing about night. It’s almost 3am and I was just sat on my window ledge by my open window... and I adore this time. It’s so silent, there’s just an odd almost rumbling in the background which you’re never sure whether is the sound of distant trains or traffic far away, or the sounds of the earth moving. The air is so crisp and refreshing and everything looks incredibly beautiful. I feel like I can breathe more clearly at night... my thoughts are more vivid, my creativity is awake and I feel more alive. I feel so connected and disconnected from the earth at the same time... which is a hard thing to describe. No one is awake but right now, I am not lonely. I feel connected in a spiritual way which is... well, too hard to explain. Maybe the beauty of the earth just astounds me. At this hour I feel I can do anything.
And I just don’t want to give that up.
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Three nights, non-stop nightmares.
I can't stop staring at this image.
If anyone has any ways to inspire me, I'd love to hear them.
I feel like I'm itching to make something, but I have no idea what.
If anyone has any ways to inspire me, I'd love to hear them.
I feel like I'm itching to make something, but I have no idea what.
Monday 23 August 2010
Saying Your Names.
Here is my hand, my heart,
my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated
cities at the center of me, and here is the center
of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we
can drink from, but I can't go through with it.
I just don't want to die anymore.
- My favourite part from Saying Your Names by Richard Siken.
my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated
cities at the center of me, and here is the center
of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we
can drink from, but I can't go through with it.
I just don't want to die anymore.
- My favourite part from Saying Your Names by Richard Siken.
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Smells like danger; even better.
I’m addicted to this song. The video is really beautiful... I love the mix of dance, fighting and sex; it’s cleverly done and so fitting. It manages to sum up so much about some kinds of relationships... all over a bed. Oh, the power of creative dance!
Shakira does inspire me... her passion always shines out.
Shakira does inspire me... her passion always shines out.
Wednesday 11 August 2010
I hold a force I can't contain.
I’ve found myself in a low place this past week. I think I've managed to pull myself out of the ditch somewhat.
I seem to have a habit of doing this... when I’m bored of my surroundings I tear things apart in my mind instead. I can’t stand the restlessness and the boredom of everyday life. It’s so mundane. I need something more to make me feel alive.
I don’t know why I feel so confined by this world. The word is an extraordinary place, filled with so much beauty. I want to explore it and travel and live and feel passionate and find myself in new situations... and love and fight and make love everywhere damn well possible. Yet more often than not I find myself uneasy and without these things I crave. I feel so... attached in the wrong ways. I feel confined by the house, confined by technology, restricted by my surroundings. I want to run into the open, sleep in the grass. I quite often prefer my dreams to reality; even the really fucked up ones... just because I get to feel somewhere different, I can escape the boundaries of this world. This is why I will never try drugs... I know I’d get addicted to the feeling of being somewhere else. I have this addictive indulgent personality, and as much as it’s my worst enemy in a lot of ways... I wouldn’t change it because it’s who I am. I just wish I was easier to please! I’ve been told so often that I’m mysterious... but really I wear my heart on my sleeve; it’s just that only people who know me well can tell.
I like making my natural instincts scream. I like being hungry. I like scratching. I like pulling. When I was drunk once I asked people to punch me, the bruise was incredible. I HOLD A FORCE I CAN’T CONTAIN.
I seem to have a habit of doing this... when I’m bored of my surroundings I tear things apart in my mind instead. I can’t stand the restlessness and the boredom of everyday life. It’s so mundane. I need something more to make me feel alive.
I don’t know why I feel so confined by this world. The word is an extraordinary place, filled with so much beauty. I want to explore it and travel and live and feel passionate and find myself in new situations... and love and fight and make love everywhere damn well possible. Yet more often than not I find myself uneasy and without these things I crave. I feel so... attached in the wrong ways. I feel confined by the house, confined by technology, restricted by my surroundings. I want to run into the open, sleep in the grass. I quite often prefer my dreams to reality; even the really fucked up ones... just because I get to feel somewhere different, I can escape the boundaries of this world. This is why I will never try drugs... I know I’d get addicted to the feeling of being somewhere else. I have this addictive indulgent personality, and as much as it’s my worst enemy in a lot of ways... I wouldn’t change it because it’s who I am. I just wish I was easier to please! I’ve been told so often that I’m mysterious... but really I wear my heart on my sleeve; it’s just that only people who know me well can tell.
I like making my natural instincts scream. I like being hungry. I like scratching. I like pulling. When I was drunk once I asked people to punch me, the bruise was incredible. I HOLD A FORCE I CAN’T CONTAIN.
Tuesday 10 August 2010
Thursday 29 July 2010
Gag.
This image is so.freaking.stunning. I have no words it's just... so BEAUTIFUL!
ext.gag by haswb...
haswb.deviantart.com
Sunday 25 July 2010
The Fetish of the Wound...
Some people have expressed interest in reading my Dissertation, so I thought I would post it here!
I'm still utterly in love with my disseration oddly. It gained me a first class grade and I don't care how odd this makes me sound... I LOVED writing this. It allowed me to explore many of my interests and things I've been facinated with for years.
My paper explores psychological theories of the fetish of wounding particularly relating to the three films (Crash, Secretary and Fight Club) which explore wounding in very different ways. I find that reasons for wounding go beneath the skin metaphorically, and can be attached to childhood traumas, painful events mid-life, emotional and sexual releases, transformation, spirituality, freedom and denial. They can take the form of harm or of liberty; they can give rise to a freedom fighter or a slave. I end up relating wounding to Roland Barthes’ idea of Punctum, as although there are many theories as to why people enjoy wounding sexually – no one theory fits all people, it has meaning for some and not others, symbolic importance to some but not all. The fusion of the erotic and life threatening is always being explored and is always intriguing.
You can click to view it full screen or you can download it... Enjoy! :)
The Fetish of the Wound: An exploration of the psychological disturbances in ‘Crash’, ‘Secretary’ and ‘Fight Club’
I'm still utterly in love with my disseration oddly. It gained me a first class grade and I don't care how odd this makes me sound... I LOVED writing this. It allowed me to explore many of my interests and things I've been facinated with for years.
My paper explores psychological theories of the fetish of wounding particularly relating to the three films (Crash, Secretary and Fight Club) which explore wounding in very different ways. I find that reasons for wounding go beneath the skin metaphorically, and can be attached to childhood traumas, painful events mid-life, emotional and sexual releases, transformation, spirituality, freedom and denial. They can take the form of harm or of liberty; they can give rise to a freedom fighter or a slave. I end up relating wounding to Roland Barthes’ idea of Punctum, as although there are many theories as to why people enjoy wounding sexually – no one theory fits all people, it has meaning for some and not others, symbolic importance to some but not all. The fusion of the erotic and life threatening is always being explored and is always intriguing.
You can click to view it full screen or you can download it... Enjoy! :)
The Fetish of the Wound: An exploration of the psychological disturbances in ‘Crash’, ‘Secretary’ and ‘Fight Club’
Last Tango in Paris.
I cannot describe how much I adore this film! I first watched it a few years ago after my mum told me about it and knew I had to see it as soon as she mentioned how much controversy it caused in the 70’s, (so much so the director, Bernardo Bertolucci was jailed for a while and the film was banned) and that there was an anal sex butter scene and mention of pig fucking. Oddly enough it completely let me down because by today’s standards; it’s not very shocking! Nothing that explicit was ever shown and I oddly found it rather sweet. However I do still think it’s amazing.
If you don’t know the film, it centres on the anonymous sexual affair of two people who meet by chance at an apartment viewing. She’s a 20 year old French woman just about to get married and he’s a 45 year old widower after his wife killed herself (played by Marlon Brando who I think it incredibly sexy old hehe) and they have the most bizarre sexual relationship... it’s completely anonymous, they meet in the apartment he rents and he stresses he doesn’t want to know her name or anything about her but they are still both very truthful in a sense, “In their cloistered world, the two are able to explore and reveal themselves to each other in a way that is simply impossible to do in the outside world”. My favourite line in the film is where she expresses how feels like a child again when she’s there.
I suppose it’s fitting that I would love this film so much considering my personal extremes, coupled with finding the freedom they seem to find with each other, escaping the realities of their lives and testing each others boundaries sexually to be fascinating. The film now has more meaning for me because of something I went through recently that wasn’t too different; however that’s not for this blog. Simply put, if you haven’t already; SEE THIS FILM! It’s beautiful, captivating, raw and moving.
If you don’t know the film, it centres on the anonymous sexual affair of two people who meet by chance at an apartment viewing. She’s a 20 year old French woman just about to get married and he’s a 45 year old widower after his wife killed herself (played by Marlon Brando who I think it incredibly sexy old hehe) and they have the most bizarre sexual relationship... it’s completely anonymous, they meet in the apartment he rents and he stresses he doesn’t want to know her name or anything about her but they are still both very truthful in a sense, “In their cloistered world, the two are able to explore and reveal themselves to each other in a way that is simply impossible to do in the outside world”. My favourite line in the film is where she expresses how feels like a child again when she’s there.
I suppose it’s fitting that I would love this film so much considering my personal extremes, coupled with finding the freedom they seem to find with each other, escaping the realities of their lives and testing each others boundaries sexually to be fascinating. The film now has more meaning for me because of something I went through recently that wasn’t too different; however that’s not for this blog. Simply put, if you haven’t already; SEE THIS FILM! It’s beautiful, captivating, raw and moving.
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Grad-yoo-ate!
...is what I am now!
Here is a photo where I look like a total plank to prove it! (pics or it didn't happen!)
I love how myself and Briony discussed at the actual ceremony how we should have done model making instead, hehe.
Here is a photo where I look like a total plank to prove it! (pics or it didn't happen!)
I love how myself and Briony discussed at the actual ceremony how we should have done model making instead, hehe.
Jamie rocks my socks!
Jamie just made my evening!
Jamie - The contact lens is in the eye of the beholder. says:
future plans for life and all?
.Aimée Claire. says:
I would love to be a counsellor
or a clinical psychologist
Jamie - The contact lens is in the eye of the beholder. says:
no way!
youd be so excellent!
.Aimée Claire. says:
or... something in the area. I'm not entirely sure
awwwh, do you think so??
Jamie - The contact lens is in the eye of the beholder. says:
that really is a career with which you can make a world of different
.Aimée Claire. says:
Awwwh, really?
<3 you hehe
Jamie - The contact lens is in the eye of the beholder. says:
future plans for life and all?
.Aimée Claire. says:
I would love to be a counsellor
or a clinical psychologist
Jamie - The contact lens is in the eye of the beholder. says:
no way!
youd be so excellent!
.Aimée Claire. says:
or... something in the area. I'm not entirely sure
awwwh, do you think so??
Jamie - The contact lens is in the eye of the beholder. says:
that really is a career with which you can make a world of different
.Aimée Claire. says:
Awwwh, really?
<3 you hehe
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Light on the feet, loose in the mouth.
Soft like a rose cloaked in daggers
Your grin a guise for all the anger
I'm sorry you felt you needed to hide
the dirt from inside you
You know I'm filthy.
Shut up.
And listen.
Why don't you give up this mission?
Shut up and look at me...
I'm just a stranger, who let you think you knew me.
I've fallen in love with a new band. Johnny Hollow. They describe themselves as a band "whose dark blend of electronic and orchestral sounds has been described as Gothic chamber music for the 21st century." Beaaaaaaaaautiful.
Monday 19 July 2010
Honest Flesh.
I have always been someone who has been interested in art, emotions, psychology, the body, sex and human relationships. My fascination with people and the world around me is what powers my art and my life.
When I was much younger, it shocked me when I realised how judgemental people can be. I guess this is part of the reason I’ve never had many girl friends... at school the girls would tease each other and bully each other over the most ridiculous of things (I, of course, being a bit strange was one of the people that in earlier school life got bullied) but I think it most shook me when at about the age of fourteen I realised how judgemental were. Before you’re old enough to know better, you assume that others see the world the same way you do... and when I realised they didn’t it really shook me up. I became quite scared of people. It was only in later in life that I decided to stop being scared of this... and decided fuck it, if people were going to judge me, I didn’t want to know them.
For this reason I’ve decided to write a little bit more about myself here, something I used to tell only very close friends... but as I’ve grown I find myself telling people openly and thinking that if people were to judge, then I wouldn’t want them as my friend anyway. It explains a lot about who I am.
I’ve grown up in a very liberal, open minded family that I love, but one that has not been without its drama and it affects my life quite a lot still and my photography.
My sister left home when I was 15. She was, at this point (I can’t speak for how she is now) a transsexual schizophrenic. She got herself moved out by a company who pride themselves on helping teenagers in distressing situations. We were treated as the enemy. I was very close to her when I was younger (she was my brother) but as she grew older, it was so much harder to live with her. She’d have hallucinations, had to see countless counsellors and psychiatrists, went to support groups... but she gradually became unbearable to live with. She locked herself in her room, talked about suicide frequently, suffered depression, became a very different, quite often angry person, would smash things up in her room and blame everything wrong on my dad, quite often ending up in vicious attacks. We ended up with social services round our house, and with my dad attempting an overdose. Mental illness is something that seems to run in my family, with my Nan also suffering in earlier life, and my dad having been through depression, anger problems and drinking problems when I was younger. My sister is four years older than me and went to the same secondary school I did, but left before I started there. However because there’s not a huge age difference between us, people in my classes at school found out about her (although people often referred to her as ‘it’) and so people that weren’t my friends ended up knowing. I remember quite vividly still the most awful thing anyone has ever said to me... “If my kid turned out like that, I’d kill it.”
There is a lot more to the story that obviously without knowing exactly who my audience are, I won’t go into. Needless to say I have seen some very strange things, talked to my sister about conversations she remembers that never took place, heard about the most insane hallucinations she’d describe to me, supported both my parents and had to build them back up after my sister left our family home in turmoil, in the past fallen in love with one my best friends who overdosed too. We have no idea where my sister is now, and have only seen her once in the past seven years when she turned up on our door step one day, not in a good way... and then she disappeared again. Around this time ever year I try and make my mum happier and distract her from my sisters’ birthday but inevitably my family home becomes a sad place to be for a week or so.
I think growing up in this atmosphere and with very liberal parents is what has made me such an open minded person today, and is what has made me want to help people. This year I discovered I am more open minded than I even realised myself. I am a Photography Graduate now, but in September I will be starting a Psychology Diploma. Photography and Psychology have always been my biggest passions, and I quite often mix them. It occurred to me half way through my degree that even though I adore my photography, it is a very selfish thing for me. I use it as a form of therapy and to get my creativity out of my veins and down onto something real; but I only ever do it for myself.
This all ties in with my photography because I still explore this world with my camera. My photography is very honest to who I am because I’m a naturally honest person. I’d rather let people see me for who I am than hide behind something... and so my art is my thoughts in some of their purist forms, and myself laid bare. My third year work has been about breaking boundaries and opening up my mind. I have always been someone who didn’t believe in mistakes or regrets, I don’t regret... I learn.
I can’t explain this photograph. Sometimes I find my body fitting forms to fit my moods, I move like an animal. I explore.
When I was much younger, it shocked me when I realised how judgemental people can be. I guess this is part of the reason I’ve never had many girl friends... at school the girls would tease each other and bully each other over the most ridiculous of things (I, of course, being a bit strange was one of the people that in earlier school life got bullied) but I think it most shook me when at about the age of fourteen I realised how judgemental were. Before you’re old enough to know better, you assume that others see the world the same way you do... and when I realised they didn’t it really shook me up. I became quite scared of people. It was only in later in life that I decided to stop being scared of this... and decided fuck it, if people were going to judge me, I didn’t want to know them.
For this reason I’ve decided to write a little bit more about myself here, something I used to tell only very close friends... but as I’ve grown I find myself telling people openly and thinking that if people were to judge, then I wouldn’t want them as my friend anyway. It explains a lot about who I am.
I’ve grown up in a very liberal, open minded family that I love, but one that has not been without its drama and it affects my life quite a lot still and my photography.
My sister left home when I was 15. She was, at this point (I can’t speak for how she is now) a transsexual schizophrenic. She got herself moved out by a company who pride themselves on helping teenagers in distressing situations. We were treated as the enemy. I was very close to her when I was younger (she was my brother) but as she grew older, it was so much harder to live with her. She’d have hallucinations, had to see countless counsellors and psychiatrists, went to support groups... but she gradually became unbearable to live with. She locked herself in her room, talked about suicide frequently, suffered depression, became a very different, quite often angry person, would smash things up in her room and blame everything wrong on my dad, quite often ending up in vicious attacks. We ended up with social services round our house, and with my dad attempting an overdose. Mental illness is something that seems to run in my family, with my Nan also suffering in earlier life, and my dad having been through depression, anger problems and drinking problems when I was younger. My sister is four years older than me and went to the same secondary school I did, but left before I started there. However because there’s not a huge age difference between us, people in my classes at school found out about her (although people often referred to her as ‘it’) and so people that weren’t my friends ended up knowing. I remember quite vividly still the most awful thing anyone has ever said to me... “If my kid turned out like that, I’d kill it.”
There is a lot more to the story that obviously without knowing exactly who my audience are, I won’t go into. Needless to say I have seen some very strange things, talked to my sister about conversations she remembers that never took place, heard about the most insane hallucinations she’d describe to me, supported both my parents and had to build them back up after my sister left our family home in turmoil, in the past fallen in love with one my best friends who overdosed too. We have no idea where my sister is now, and have only seen her once in the past seven years when she turned up on our door step one day, not in a good way... and then she disappeared again. Around this time ever year I try and make my mum happier and distract her from my sisters’ birthday but inevitably my family home becomes a sad place to be for a week or so.
I think growing up in this atmosphere and with very liberal parents is what has made me such an open minded person today, and is what has made me want to help people. This year I discovered I am more open minded than I even realised myself. I am a Photography Graduate now, but in September I will be starting a Psychology Diploma. Photography and Psychology have always been my biggest passions, and I quite often mix them. It occurred to me half way through my degree that even though I adore my photography, it is a very selfish thing for me. I use it as a form of therapy and to get my creativity out of my veins and down onto something real; but I only ever do it for myself.
This all ties in with my photography because I still explore this world with my camera. My photography is very honest to who I am because I’m a naturally honest person. I’d rather let people see me for who I am than hide behind something... and so my art is my thoughts in some of their purist forms, and myself laid bare. My third year work has been about breaking boundaries and opening up my mind. I have always been someone who didn’t believe in mistakes or regrets, I don’t regret... I learn.
I can’t explain this photograph. Sometimes I find my body fitting forms to fit my moods, I move like an animal. I explore.
Sunday 18 July 2010
Cosmic Love.
I was always confused why I didn't particularly like Florence and the Machine, because it seemed she got compared to quite a few female singers who I adore (Kate Bush, P J Harvey, Laura Marling) and then I discovered this song the other day... and I'm beyond in love with the song and the incredibly beautiful video.
Taboo.
I’ve been thinking about being naked quite a lot recently. Why is it such a taboo? It’s such a shocking thing to be naked. I guess it’s all connected to how fascinated I am with the human body itself... we have all these bones and muscles and blood pumping through us... sometimes I’m just in awe of that. Skin we tattoo or scar or bruise, life stories written all over us and in how we move in our body language, how we make love, how we cry, how we react. How we find ourselves, explore ourselves and each other. I’m fascinated with nature.
Yesterday I spent a good few hours on the floor, in a room, naked, with my camera. It’s something I’ve had a habit of doing since I was about fifteen... and it’s a quite hard habit to explain, but it’s quite a big part of who I am in an odd way.
When I’m alone with just my camera and my body, it’s one of the few times in life I feel beautiful and free. I used to be very insecure about my body; in my early teens there was nothing I wanted more than to be skinny. I’d do things like pin my very thick black opaque tights to my bra in an attempt to make my stomach flat... I’d do this even when wearing jeans. I’d starve myself for about three days before each party. One time my friends confronted me about it while on the tube of all places, and I started crying. There are still days where I don’t want to go outside and confront the world because of how I look. I had a mini-break down on Friday because of this... sometimes I just want to hide away and never been seen again.
I think the first time I started to experiment with my own skin was when I finally felt contentment. It lets me explore myself and my flesh in a way I can’t usually. I am still not happy with my body (is anyone?) and I have a gym membership I can’t afford in an attempt to one day be, but I somehow manage to feel beautiful anyway when I’m just alone with my camera; which is how this photo came to be. It’s about my hobby. I am recently graduated from my photography degree, but for a large part of my degree I didn’t feel connected to my camera anymore. I lost my passion for just shooting for hours in the way I had before... but yesterday I had a damn good day with just me, this room and my camera. While in an attempt to get a different shot, I quickly shot this in the mirror. Its amateur which is why I like it... it’s how I started. It’s about how I connect to myself through my camera. It’s about experimentation and simply... being alone with yourself.
Yesterday I spent a good few hours on the floor, in a room, naked, with my camera. It’s something I’ve had a habit of doing since I was about fifteen... and it’s a quite hard habit to explain, but it’s quite a big part of who I am in an odd way.
When I’m alone with just my camera and my body, it’s one of the few times in life I feel beautiful and free. I used to be very insecure about my body; in my early teens there was nothing I wanted more than to be skinny. I’d do things like pin my very thick black opaque tights to my bra in an attempt to make my stomach flat... I’d do this even when wearing jeans. I’d starve myself for about three days before each party. One time my friends confronted me about it while on the tube of all places, and I started crying. There are still days where I don’t want to go outside and confront the world because of how I look. I had a mini-break down on Friday because of this... sometimes I just want to hide away and never been seen again.
I think the first time I started to experiment with my own skin was when I finally felt contentment. It lets me explore myself and my flesh in a way I can’t usually. I am still not happy with my body (is anyone?) and I have a gym membership I can’t afford in an attempt to one day be, but I somehow manage to feel beautiful anyway when I’m just alone with my camera; which is how this photo came to be. It’s about my hobby. I am recently graduated from my photography degree, but for a large part of my degree I didn’t feel connected to my camera anymore. I lost my passion for just shooting for hours in the way I had before... but yesterday I had a damn good day with just me, this room and my camera. While in an attempt to get a different shot, I quickly shot this in the mirror. Its amateur which is why I like it... it’s how I started. It’s about how I connect to myself through my camera. It’s about experimentation and simply... being alone with yourself.
Friday 16 July 2010
Kicking some tits and ass
“The 'Tits and Ass campaign' was a response to the attitudes inherent in the very language, 'tits and ass'. Most female self-portrait artists who use their body in their artwork and who share their work with a wide audience will inevitably encounter accusations from certain viewers, who, confined to the thinking within the phraseology of 'tits and ass', do not see beyond male representations of the female body as they have become accustomed to it in magazines, porn, and striptease. Cynical of what they dub as body parts that somewhat innately seek attention, they leer at the woman's body and jeer at possibility of the image being 'art'.
Regardless of the sex of the viewer, it is a 'masculine' positioning which is adopted when these attitudes are thrown at female artists, so it is not to say that only men undermine the work of a female self portraitist, but both genders, whose freedom to recognise the woman's body as her own, is stifled by societal attitudes.”
I met the photographer Miss Aniela with my friend Marinda just before Christmas at her exhibition in London, we were lucky enough to be able to interview the lady herself and have since kept in contact. She is a source of inspiration for me, from her way of shooting to how far she's come just through Flickr fame. I've decided to post this shot 'A better exploration of the tits and ass issue' due to the negativity which can quite often come through female photographers using their own body in their art, and from the negativity I also received recently about this.
I think it says all that needs to be said ;)
Regardless of the sex of the viewer, it is a 'masculine' positioning which is adopted when these attitudes are thrown at female artists, so it is not to say that only men undermine the work of a female self portraitist, but both genders, whose freedom to recognise the woman's body as her own, is stifled by societal attitudes.”
I met the photographer Miss Aniela with my friend Marinda just before Christmas at her exhibition in London, we were lucky enough to be able to interview the lady herself and have since kept in contact. She is a source of inspiration for me, from her way of shooting to how far she's come just through Flickr fame. I've decided to post this shot 'A better exploration of the tits and ass issue' due to the negativity which can quite often come through female photographers using their own body in their art, and from the negativity I also received recently about this.
I think it says all that needs to be said ;)
Thursday 15 July 2010
Conservatives.
I am so glad I am going to be in Rochester, graduating on the 20th July... because Boris Johnson is going to be in my home town... eurghhhh.
Wednesday 14 July 2010
Sunday 11 July 2010
"A liberated, sexually adventurous urban woman!!!"
I was just asked this on formspring, and felt like I wanted to post my answer here too! I knew I was setting myself up for that kinda question with my recent work and having a site like formspring... but people like that just need to open up their minds.
I'm not narcissistic for a start, and I don't use my body so people can go ZOMG BOOBS!!! It takes a lot for me to use my body in my art and it's really quite nerve wrecking putting the work up there, knowing people will be looking at it and judging! I've never been body confident but I find confidence through my camera because I feel so alive in the taking of the image, and putting myself out there in such a way that is *so* open. I use my body as a canvas, because I believe the body is beautiful and it's the best way I can find to express myself, using my own flesh. Maybe it comes from wanting to be a dancer when I was younger. A lot of the ideas I come up with come from a very raw part inside me, and the naked body is fitting with the naked ideas. It's a bit like the use of black and white photography when people decide to use it instead of colour; some things are better suited to the simplicity. I also don't string together song lyrics for a title, but mostly use my own words that I write at about 3am usually. Quite often the words come before the photography does.
Maybe re-evaluate why you think using your body in art is narcissistic? I've always been in love with the naked body so I don't view it like this at all... we are all naked underneath are clothes after all. :)
Also, you really could have asked me this in a direct message ;) I wouldn't have minded.
I think whoever asked this has a pretty close minded view. Why assume to be naked in your own art work is narcissistic? I don’t use myself because I love myself, it simply comes naturally to use my own body because my art is always very personal to me, and my body is expressing my feelings. A few years ago my work was nowhere near quite as naked as it is now, because I was too frightened to do it... so a lot of ideas went un-done. This year my final major project for my degree has been ALL about breaking my own personal boundaries in life and my art work, and one of those boundaries is using my body in my work. A lot of my ideas simply wouldn’t have the same vulnerability or power if they were clothed shots. I remember when I photographed the cling film photographs, I said to my friend that I was conflicted, because I was scared of lots of people seeing me in that way. He said if I didn’t feel comfortable then I shouldn’t do it... and that kind of hit me, and I thought, what, I’m not going to express myself because I’m too scared?
There is no more emotive word in the human language than love, and I believe there is nothing quite as vulnerable or powerful as a naked body.
I’m reminded of a quote from Peep Show oddly enough... Mark – “I thought she was a frightened little suburban mouse, but no, she's my nightmare: a liberated, sexually adventurous urban woman” hehe.
What REALLY makes you different from every other narcissistic naked person on Deviantart, who can string a few song lyrics together to use as a title?
I'm not narcissistic for a start, and I don't use my body so people can go ZOMG BOOBS!!! It takes a lot for me to use my body in my art and it's really quite nerve wrecking putting the work up there, knowing people will be looking at it and judging! I've never been body confident but I find confidence through my camera because I feel so alive in the taking of the image, and putting myself out there in such a way that is *so* open. I use my body as a canvas, because I believe the body is beautiful and it's the best way I can find to express myself, using my own flesh. Maybe it comes from wanting to be a dancer when I was younger. A lot of the ideas I come up with come from a very raw part inside me, and the naked body is fitting with the naked ideas. It's a bit like the use of black and white photography when people decide to use it instead of colour; some things are better suited to the simplicity. I also don't string together song lyrics for a title, but mostly use my own words that I write at about 3am usually. Quite often the words come before the photography does.
Maybe re-evaluate why you think using your body in art is narcissistic? I've always been in love with the naked body so I don't view it like this at all... we are all naked underneath are clothes after all. :)
Also, you really could have asked me this in a direct message ;) I wouldn't have minded.
I think whoever asked this has a pretty close minded view. Why assume to be naked in your own art work is narcissistic? I don’t use myself because I love myself, it simply comes naturally to use my own body because my art is always very personal to me, and my body is expressing my feelings. A few years ago my work was nowhere near quite as naked as it is now, because I was too frightened to do it... so a lot of ideas went un-done. This year my final major project for my degree has been ALL about breaking my own personal boundaries in life and my art work, and one of those boundaries is using my body in my work. A lot of my ideas simply wouldn’t have the same vulnerability or power if they were clothed shots. I remember when I photographed the cling film photographs, I said to my friend that I was conflicted, because I was scared of lots of people seeing me in that way. He said if I didn’t feel comfortable then I shouldn’t do it... and that kind of hit me, and I thought, what, I’m not going to express myself because I’m too scared?
There is no more emotive word in the human language than love, and I believe there is nothing quite as vulnerable or powerful as a naked body.
I’m reminded of a quote from Peep Show oddly enough... Mark – “I thought she was a frightened little suburban mouse, but no, she's my nightmare: a liberated, sexually adventurous urban woman” hehe.
What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy
"The feeling of self-denial and submission to fate or God portrayed in a drama, the raptures of lovers described in a novel, a feeling of sensuousness depicted in a painting, the briskness conveyed by a triumphal march in music, the gaiety evoked by a dance, the comicality caused by a funny anecdote, the feeling of peace conveyed by an evening landscape or a lulling song—all this is art.
Once the spectators or listeners are infected by the same feeling the author has experienced, this is art."
Inhale. Exhale.
My friend asked me a question on formspring (anonymous questions website, can be quite fun – ask me something if you wish! formspring.me/AimeeClaire) which I thought I’d post the answer to here too.
Complex question Sir! Right so... I haven't so much studied these extremes, as much as I live them. It occurred to me while I was in the middle of writing my Dissertation on Secretary, and how in that film the character replaces her self harming with an S&M relationship, and I read a theory on it about how she's replicated the same extreme just in a different manner... and it occurred to me that I too live in these weird extremes! I find anything extreme so to speak makes me feel more alive and connected with the universe, and when I don't have extremes in my life (when my life is being mundane and routine) I feel incredibly low... I need something extreme to keep me excited and to make me feel happy. I couldn't exactly explain why, I guess it's been with me for life and I only this year labelled it by calling it extreme... but I've always been this way, always loved bruises, always loved breath play (which I discovered I was interested in before I even knew what asphyxiation was!) and always been fascinated with blood! I guess it's a masochistic thing largely, but it can also be sadistic in its nature too... but mainly it's about being open minded, open to new ideas and open to furthering yourself as a person by trying new things. I've realised I'm more open minded than I even thought I was, and by putting myself through these extremes I'm a happy and inspired person! It's almost like I need them to exist and that fascinates me just on its own... it's quite often a mystery even to myself :)
I’ll post this photo up which I’d previously been very nervous about posting anywhere on the internet, but using my body in my art (as I put in a previous post) is another boundary I am trying to overcome.
When I was very young, after I woke up or before I went to sleep I would quite often make myself a cocoon out of my duvet, trying to seal myself inside my duvet as much as I could so that I couldn’t really breathe very well, or was at least very hot inside. I was an incredibly imaginative kid and I’d imagine that I was in the process of being born. However I wasn’t being born from a womb, I’d imagine I was being born from a kind of weird white shell in a white lab where lots of others were being born at the same time as me. I’d very slowly start to escape from my “womb” opening my duvet up tiny bits at time, allowing a tiny bit of air in and making myself really gasp for the air. It’s odd because as a kid I wasn’t really thinking about the idea of asphyxiation and indeed I’d doubt at that age I even knew the word, but I was definitely experimenting with breath play and making myself deliberately have not as much oxygen as I needed and I liked doing this. I’d do it very slowly and gap by gap till I was fully “born” out of my duvet. It never really occurred to me when I was younger how odd this habit was and I hadn’t actually thought about it for years till I remembered it the other day.
What fascinates you about the extremes you have studied? Like why the breathing thing, why the bruises and blood thing?
Complex question Sir! Right so... I haven't so much studied these extremes, as much as I live them. It occurred to me while I was in the middle of writing my Dissertation on Secretary, and how in that film the character replaces her self harming with an S&M relationship, and I read a theory on it about how she's replicated the same extreme just in a different manner... and it occurred to me that I too live in these weird extremes! I find anything extreme so to speak makes me feel more alive and connected with the universe, and when I don't have extremes in my life (when my life is being mundane and routine) I feel incredibly low... I need something extreme to keep me excited and to make me feel happy. I couldn't exactly explain why, I guess it's been with me for life and I only this year labelled it by calling it extreme... but I've always been this way, always loved bruises, always loved breath play (which I discovered I was interested in before I even knew what asphyxiation was!) and always been fascinated with blood! I guess it's a masochistic thing largely, but it can also be sadistic in its nature too... but mainly it's about being open minded, open to new ideas and open to furthering yourself as a person by trying new things. I've realised I'm more open minded than I even thought I was, and by putting myself through these extremes I'm a happy and inspired person! It's almost like I need them to exist and that fascinates me just on its own... it's quite often a mystery even to myself :)
I’ll post this photo up which I’d previously been very nervous about posting anywhere on the internet, but using my body in my art (as I put in a previous post) is another boundary I am trying to overcome.
When I was very young, after I woke up or before I went to sleep I would quite often make myself a cocoon out of my duvet, trying to seal myself inside my duvet as much as I could so that I couldn’t really breathe very well, or was at least very hot inside. I was an incredibly imaginative kid and I’d imagine that I was in the process of being born. However I wasn’t being born from a womb, I’d imagine I was being born from a kind of weird white shell in a white lab where lots of others were being born at the same time as me. I’d very slowly start to escape from my “womb” opening my duvet up tiny bits at time, allowing a tiny bit of air in and making myself really gasp for the air. It’s odd because as a kid I wasn’t really thinking about the idea of asphyxiation and indeed I’d doubt at that age I even knew the word, but I was definitely experimenting with breath play and making myself deliberately have not as much oxygen as I needed and I liked doing this. I’d do it very slowly and gap by gap till I was fully “born” out of my duvet. It never really occurred to me when I was younger how odd this habit was and I hadn’t actually thought about it for years till I remembered it the other day.
Saturday 10 July 2010
Friday 9 July 2010
The Dykes and The Model Makers!
These are the people that made the last half year of my degree and living in Chatham completely awesome and I love them for that! All the nocturnal nights, park times at 2am, film nights, hanging out down in model making (this year I discovered how insanely awesome model making is and how I wish I’d done my degree in that instead... seriously they make awesome stuff and get to breathe in a lot of toxic chemicals, yum!) trips to get too much junk foods and TKU events! I already miss being away from them.
From left to right; Grant, Marinda, Briony, Andy, Hanh and moi infront! (I am small but particularly here as I'm crouching!) These people are pretty damn awesome people, and collectively we are the dykes and the model makers, hehe. Apart from usually there’s Guy too! But he was back home sadly when this was taken! The name for us all is an in joke ;)
This was taken at the Jigsaw Graduate Show just off Brick Lane in London which Marinda, Briony and I were a part of as we’re now BA Hons Contemporary Photographic Practice graduates!
Third year would have been very different without my dykes and model makers ♥ they’ve made this year what it was; one hell of an adventure!
From left to right; Grant, Marinda, Briony, Andy, Hanh and moi infront! (I am small but particularly here as I'm crouching!) These people are pretty damn awesome people, and collectively we are the dykes and the model makers, hehe. Apart from usually there’s Guy too! But he was back home sadly when this was taken! The name for us all is an in joke ;)
This was taken at the Jigsaw Graduate Show just off Brick Lane in London which Marinda, Briony and I were a part of as we’re now BA Hons Contemporary Photographic Practice graduates!
Third year would have been very different without my dykes and model makers ♥ they’ve made this year what it was; one hell of an adventure!
Monday 5 July 2010
The Human Form.
I’ve always loved the human form and admired its beauty and function since as far back as I can remember. I used to want to be a dancer when I was younger (until I realised I was too curvy really and completely lacked any competitive gene it seems) and I still watch a lot of dance and am in awe of the way they us their bodies as expression and art. I find myself using my own body more and more in my art because I feel it’s sometimes the only way to truly express some things, and I feel like my skin is my personal canvas to mould and use within my art, as an extension of the ideas within my work. I’ve always found I’m *very* nervous showing the work I make that uses my own body though, so I’m trying to break down my boundaries and feel less inhibited about this because I believe the human body is a beautiful and natural thing that shouldn’t be hidden in shame, or seen as taboo, even though I’m sure it always will be. I use it to help express myself.
I’m trying to push myself to use my body as my art and feel less nervous about how people will view it. It is my art and it is my expression, and what better way to express yourself than to use your own flesh? My entire work the past year of my degree has been about breaking personal boundaries and so this is one I’m always trying to further myself with, so I don’t cringe everytime I upload a photograph!
Animal Instinct.
I’ve always had an interest in the animal world but when it comes to ideas within psychology, I’ve always favoured the idea of nurture over nature... but when I read something that sparks my interest about how much biology still effects us (fight or flight being a prime example) I find myself completely intrigued. I’ve been reading too much Desmond Morris (He’s a zoologist, see ‘The Naked Woman’) lately.
I’m trying to push myself to use my body as my art and feel less nervous about how people will view it. It is my art and it is my expression, and what better way to express yourself than to use your own flesh? My entire work the past year of my degree has been about breaking personal boundaries and so this is one I’m always trying to further myself with, so I don’t cringe everytime I upload a photograph!
Animal Instinct.
I’ve always had an interest in the animal world but when it comes to ideas within psychology, I’ve always favoured the idea of nurture over nature... but when I read something that sparks my interest about how much biology still effects us (fight or flight being a prime example) I find myself completely intrigued. I’ve been reading too much Desmond Morris (He’s a zoologist, see ‘The Naked Woman’) lately.
Sunday 4 July 2010
Surround me as the rush comes.
The head space I'm in when I'm awake all night; the extremes of being awake at an hour when the world is asleep. The loneliness and the creativity that pumps through my veins. The extremes of an hour when there is only myself, my body and my thoughts. I don't want to sleep and I don't want to be awake, I want to surrender. I come alive at night.
I've always been one of those completely nocturnal people; from as far back as I remember really. I have a love/hate relationship with it... sometimes I get lonely being awake when no one else is, and I find the world isolating. Sometimes I adore it, I feel at peace with myself, my thoughts become let loose and I find a freedom in the silent world. I have always felt more creative at night, so it's when most of my writing or photography gets done.
This year I've thought myself very lucky, because I have found friends who are also completely nocturnal, and lived near me (hurray for Chatham being so small hehe)! When we all couldn't sleep we'd set off to the park at 2am... and it sounds childish but it's so much fun in a park at night! There's also just a certain peacefulness being on top of a hill at that hour and watching the clouds. The rest of the world seems so far away! I've found people get into deeper discussions in the dark, there's almost a certain air of honesty and people letting their guard down. You also tend to get freezing and when you finally return home, it takes a good half an hour to warm back up again!
This past week I've had to move away from Chatham, and as crazy as it is because for ages I couldn't wait to leave, I felt really sad leaving. The photograph above was taken in my bedroom there, on one of the nights before I realised my beautiful friends were nocturnal too. I love that room and it holds so many memories, most of which are at night (or in the mornings after parties when everyone got into my bed haha)! I will of course be visiting my friends who have more of their degrees left, but it'll never be quite the same as living there!
I will always like being a night owl, even if sometimes I complain about it. I get to watch the foxes out of windows at night, and this makes me happy.
I've always been one of those completely nocturnal people; from as far back as I remember really. I have a love/hate relationship with it... sometimes I get lonely being awake when no one else is, and I find the world isolating. Sometimes I adore it, I feel at peace with myself, my thoughts become let loose and I find a freedom in the silent world. I have always felt more creative at night, so it's when most of my writing or photography gets done.
This year I've thought myself very lucky, because I have found friends who are also completely nocturnal, and lived near me (hurray for Chatham being so small hehe)! When we all couldn't sleep we'd set off to the park at 2am... and it sounds childish but it's so much fun in a park at night! There's also just a certain peacefulness being on top of a hill at that hour and watching the clouds. The rest of the world seems so far away! I've found people get into deeper discussions in the dark, there's almost a certain air of honesty and people letting their guard down. You also tend to get freezing and when you finally return home, it takes a good half an hour to warm back up again!
This past week I've had to move away from Chatham, and as crazy as it is because for ages I couldn't wait to leave, I felt really sad leaving. The photograph above was taken in my bedroom there, on one of the nights before I realised my beautiful friends were nocturnal too. I love that room and it holds so many memories, most of which are at night (or in the mornings after parties when everyone got into my bed haha)! I will of course be visiting my friends who have more of their degrees left, but it'll never be quite the same as living there!
I will always like being a night owl, even if sometimes I complain about it. I get to watch the foxes out of windows at night, and this makes me happy.
Thursday 1 July 2010
I hold a force I can't contain.
I don't need an education
I learnt all I need from you
They've got me on some medication
My point of balance was askew
It keeps my temperature from rising
My blood is pumping through my veins
Somebody get me out of here
I'm tearing at myself.
I learnt all I need from you
They've got me on some medication
My point of balance was askew
It keeps my temperature from rising
My blood is pumping through my veins
Somebody get me out of here
I'm tearing at myself.
Monday 28 June 2010
A pause, a road, the taste of gravel in the mouth. The rocks dig into my skin like arrowheads.
I am spiritual. I like to get my hands dirty with the soil of the earth much in the same way that I want my sex to be messy and filthy. I stand outside till my feet go numb because it makes me feel calm; at one with the earth.
It's strangely freeing to cover yourself in mud. It's so theraputic to wash it off.
Friday 25 June 2010
I wait all my life just for the rush... the passing of fire into my blood.
I have finished my Degree now! Come 20th July I will be a BA Hons Contemporary Photographic Practice Graduate... how crazy.
The past few months have been intense. I feel my life became the art I was creating, and my work in essence was my life. It was the act. I found myself exploring themes of escapism, restriction, freedom, transcendence, physicality, spirituality, releases, transformation and breaking my personal boundaries. My project became so much a part of my life that it became a living breathing entity in itself, the act of experimentation, learning, finding and exploring. The project became my life and I was really living inside it.
You’ll notice I’m writing in past tense, but that doesn’t mean the project is over. It’s far from over, but I’ve come to the end of the first part of the journey. My whole life I’ve had these odd habits, eccentricities perhaps... simply things that make me who I am. I haven’t so much discovered things about myself this year as much as things clicked in my mind, and I feel like I can understand myself on a different level, thanks to my project. Really the project wasn’t even photography anymore... it was something else entirely. I started an odd kind of relationship in the middle of my project; one I felt complimented my journey. One that made me question myself, others around me and made me feel free and open to explore things in a way I hadn’t before. We became Art. That is over now but I still consider it a part of the journey I had to go through this year. My friends in recent months have also been a part of my venture... how much I’m going to miss wondering off to Chatham Park at 2am and staying there till gone 5am I can’t even describe! They are such amazing wonderful people... and are the only reason I’ll ever miss Chatham! Having nocturnal friends like me rocks my socks. ♥
I will of course still be updating this blog. I’m carrying on my adventure into my extremes (as well as other projects) and will keep updating here with thoughts and musings and photographs, so look forward to more weird ramblings ;)
I’ll leave you today with another extreme I adore... live music.
I love it when the beat drums inside me, vibrates through my veins. I’m crushed, I can’t breathe, can hardly move, hair soaked in sweat... but I couldn’t care less... I adore it. The music gets inside me... there is nothing else in that moment apart from the music surging through my entire body and making everything seem so much more alive. The atmosphere has energy and every single person there feels the music like a real force within them. Everyone in that moment is free.
So here’s a photograph I took while seeing Bon Jovi the other night! Sadly it was a seated gig, which I never love in quite the same way. I loved that the gig atmosphere was still apparent in the crowd though, even miles away from the stage.
The past few months have been intense. I feel my life became the art I was creating, and my work in essence was my life. It was the act. I found myself exploring themes of escapism, restriction, freedom, transcendence, physicality, spirituality, releases, transformation and breaking my personal boundaries. My project became so much a part of my life that it became a living breathing entity in itself, the act of experimentation, learning, finding and exploring. The project became my life and I was really living inside it.
You’ll notice I’m writing in past tense, but that doesn’t mean the project is over. It’s far from over, but I’ve come to the end of the first part of the journey. My whole life I’ve had these odd habits, eccentricities perhaps... simply things that make me who I am. I haven’t so much discovered things about myself this year as much as things clicked in my mind, and I feel like I can understand myself on a different level, thanks to my project. Really the project wasn’t even photography anymore... it was something else entirely. I started an odd kind of relationship in the middle of my project; one I felt complimented my journey. One that made me question myself, others around me and made me feel free and open to explore things in a way I hadn’t before. We became Art. That is over now but I still consider it a part of the journey I had to go through this year. My friends in recent months have also been a part of my venture... how much I’m going to miss wondering off to Chatham Park at 2am and staying there till gone 5am I can’t even describe! They are such amazing wonderful people... and are the only reason I’ll ever miss Chatham! Having nocturnal friends like me rocks my socks. ♥
I will of course still be updating this blog. I’m carrying on my adventure into my extremes (as well as other projects) and will keep updating here with thoughts and musings and photographs, so look forward to more weird ramblings ;)
I’ll leave you today with another extreme I adore... live music.
I love it when the beat drums inside me, vibrates through my veins. I’m crushed, I can’t breathe, can hardly move, hair soaked in sweat... but I couldn’t care less... I adore it. The music gets inside me... there is nothing else in that moment apart from the music surging through my entire body and making everything seem so much more alive. The atmosphere has energy and every single person there feels the music like a real force within them. Everyone in that moment is free.
So here’s a photograph I took while seeing Bon Jovi the other night! Sadly it was a seated gig, which I never love in quite the same way. I loved that the gig atmosphere was still apparent in the crowd though, even miles away from the stage.
Monday 31 May 2010
Sunday 23 May 2010
I am very scared of posting this.
You do the math you expect the trouble. The drums beat like they’re trying to tell me something. I relish the damage it might do to me. I relish the damage it will do to me. I’ve been wearing these bruises for a week now. I’ve never felt more at one with myself until recently. I won’t label it. I look in the mirror and I look at my face. I look at my body and at least I like it because it is mine. It's mine. I do not share it with many. He looks at me with an intense obsession and I only started to notice the flecks of green. His eyes are not completely brown. A lot of people breathe smoke but don’t feel the fire. I’ve always wanted to feel the fire. If I told you, you wouldn’t understand. He told me I know myself well.
I always wanted to be here and I always wanted to be in education. I always wanted to drown myself in my work and I have finally succeeded. It’s not all so amazing... for the past week I have felt like I was dying. Last night the pain in my chest was so bad it felt like someone was squeezing my internal organs with their fist. I curled up on the bathroom floor and hugged it like it was my friend and thought how this pain was worth it. The nights became days and I wasn’t sure whether I was awake or asleep anymore. I’ve been trying to rebuild, but next week I plan to wreck myself again. There’s something inside my bones that screams for it, and as much as I say I won’t do this I won’t do this I won’t do this... I will do this. He saves me in a way I can’t put into words. I am his freedom and he is mine. I am in my truest form a masochist. It’s not a dirty word but a pattern of behaviour. I am testing my body to its limits, I am finding escapism. Fuck me till I can’t breathe anymore. This is who I am and I understand myself now. I want to be free and I want to run wild with the wind. I want to reach that higher level. I want to see how far I can go. My nails are painted blood red. I am escaping the boundaries of this world and I am running with it till I don’t feel like I am human anymore. He is making this into an art form. He is making me into an art form. He thanked me for the freedom I gave him. I told him I couldn’t deal anymore. Am I stronger than I thought? My nails etch into his back and it feels like I transcended somewhere beyond. When I was quite young I visited Chartres Cathedral in France. We walked in and there were organs playing. I remember feeling complete awe and beauty. My mother tells me I am more musical than she as she cannot remember organs even playing but it’s something I remember like it was yesterday. I found all my old art work. I have always been this way but now I understand better. Now I can share it. Now I can explain it. Fuck me till I can’t breathe. Starve till I feel completely empty. Cut until it makes a pretty mark. Sick till I find that relief. These are not problems. I’ve always been completely comfortable with who I am.
I always wanted to be here and I always wanted to be in education. I always wanted to drown myself in my work and I have finally succeeded. It’s not all so amazing... for the past week I have felt like I was dying. Last night the pain in my chest was so bad it felt like someone was squeezing my internal organs with their fist. I curled up on the bathroom floor and hugged it like it was my friend and thought how this pain was worth it. The nights became days and I wasn’t sure whether I was awake or asleep anymore. I’ve been trying to rebuild, but next week I plan to wreck myself again. There’s something inside my bones that screams for it, and as much as I say I won’t do this I won’t do this I won’t do this... I will do this. He saves me in a way I can’t put into words. I am his freedom and he is mine. I am in my truest form a masochist. It’s not a dirty word but a pattern of behaviour. I am testing my body to its limits, I am finding escapism. Fuck me till I can’t breathe anymore. This is who I am and I understand myself now. I want to be free and I want to run wild with the wind. I want to reach that higher level. I want to see how far I can go. My nails are painted blood red. I am escaping the boundaries of this world and I am running with it till I don’t feel like I am human anymore. He is making this into an art form. He is making me into an art form. He thanked me for the freedom I gave him. I told him I couldn’t deal anymore. Am I stronger than I thought? My nails etch into his back and it feels like I transcended somewhere beyond. When I was quite young I visited Chartres Cathedral in France. We walked in and there were organs playing. I remember feeling complete awe and beauty. My mother tells me I am more musical than she as she cannot remember organs even playing but it’s something I remember like it was yesterday. I found all my old art work. I have always been this way but now I understand better. Now I can share it. Now I can explain it. Fuck me till I can’t breathe. Starve till I feel completely empty. Cut until it makes a pretty mark. Sick till I find that relief. These are not problems. I’ve always been completely comfortable with who I am.
Sunday 21 February 2010
My Major Project.
My current project explores the ways in which I thrive off ‘extremes’ in my personal life as well as my creative work. I found anything extreme makes me feel more connected to the world, more intense, more sexual, spiritual and more creative. These extremes can be as simple as turning the water in the shower to freezing cold and seeing how long I can stand it even when my instincts scream, to staying awake all night so that I get in a kind of creative strange head space... And they go on and on until they reach more “significant extremes” of sexual experimentation and opening your mind and body up to new experiences.
My idea works on the surrealist idea that by exploring my personal extremes, I could perhaps let others have a glimpse of a world they hadn’t understood before (that of sexual experimentation and opening your mind and body up to new experiences). The photographs themselves will be a test... they won’t necessarily make sense to everyone, like a punctum in a photograph from Camera Lucida is piercing to some but not others. I’m working on the idea that the surrealists used... “Surrealism emphasised artistic processes whereby the imaginary can be recorded through automatic writing or drawing which would thus offer insights into the world of ‘thought’ and therefore disrupt taken-for-granted perceptions and frames of reference.”
My work is also autobiographical as I am working through my extremes and intensities, something I’ve taken for granted in my life for years, odd private habits that I want to explore through my camera so that a transformation can take place... “Transformation of turning an uneventful private, perhaps secretive event in one’s life into something with intimate significant that affected others when looked upon”. I’ve also looked into how we become “readers” and “users” of photographs, but how through personal photographs users can become readers of their own photographs, and self psycho-analysis can take place by having to read our own photograph. This idea really excites me, as I’m exploring my own personal boundaries, learning things about myself and hoping to also make people understand a world they haven’t before. My extremes connects to many parts of me, and the camera comes into the photograph almost like a prosthetic limb, simply becoming an extension of myself and thus the photograph still contains “truth” (I’m not going to start on the massive philosophical debate of the idea of truth right now!) as the camera is part of the process of my extremes. I aim to use the camera as a part of myself to take the work outside my boundaries and make it universal. The camera will act as a mechanical eye... “My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you.”
I took a photograph a few months ago that started this idea. I originally took the photograph as I use my photography as a form of therapy and I had a bad breakup that crushed me at the time and a line from my favourite poet really helped me get through it; “If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water” - Richard Siken... and so I created work that helped me and I also became really interested in drowning and asphyxiation, realising part of why I loved making the photograph so much was how connected I felt through it and the physical intensity I had to go through to create it.
Then it suddenly dawned on me the other day that this fascination and experimentation with extremes that my project is based on has been with me for years and I suddenly remembered a really weird habit that I had when I was much much younger... I can’t really remember my exact age but it was an odd habit that I had for years probably during junior school and much before when I was very young.
After I woke up or before I went to sleep I would quite often make myself a cocoon out of my duvet, trying to seal myself inside my duvet as much as I could so that I couldn’t really breathe very well, or was at least very hot inside. I was an incredibly imaginative kid and I’d imagine that I was in the process of being born. However I wasn’t being born from a womb, I’d imagine I was being born from a kind of weird white shell in a white lab where lots of others were being born at the same time as me. I’d very slowly start to escape from my “womb” opening my duvet up tiny bits at time, allowing a tiny bit of air in and making myself really gasp for the air. It’s odd because as a kid I wasn’t really thinking about the idea of asphyxiation and indeed I’d doubt at that age I even knew the word, but I was definitely experimenting with breath play and making myself deliberately have not as much oxygen as I needed and I liked doing this. I’d do it very slowly and gap by gap till I was fully “born” out of my duvet. It never really occurred to me when I was younger how odd this habit was and I hadn’t actually thought about it for years till I remembered it the other day and thought “Fuck, have I been obsessed with asphyxiation since THEN?!” haha.
I was then further weirded out when I realised the white shell type thing I was being born out of was very reminiscent of the Lady Gaga Bad Romance video!
So yesterday I spent a lazy Saturday looking through some of my old books. I’ve had the Taschen book ‘1000 record covers’ for years since my early teens, and seeing as my project is going into a surrealist area I remembered that there were three album covers I’d always been fascinated by within the book that I remembered as being surreal... not really remembering what the record covers looked like (I haven’t opened the book in a couple of years before yesterday) I decided to find them again. I was rather weirded out by myself when I realised all three of the album covers featured drowning or water!!!
It seems the further I go into this project the more I realise I’ve been reading and interested in these topics for years; without even really realising!
And I’m also discovering what a freak I am along the way, yay!
My idea works on the surrealist idea that by exploring my personal extremes, I could perhaps let others have a glimpse of a world they hadn’t understood before (that of sexual experimentation and opening your mind and body up to new experiences). The photographs themselves will be a test... they won’t necessarily make sense to everyone, like a punctum in a photograph from Camera Lucida is piercing to some but not others. I’m working on the idea that the surrealists used... “Surrealism emphasised artistic processes whereby the imaginary can be recorded through automatic writing or drawing which would thus offer insights into the world of ‘thought’ and therefore disrupt taken-for-granted perceptions and frames of reference.”
My work is also autobiographical as I am working through my extremes and intensities, something I’ve taken for granted in my life for years, odd private habits that I want to explore through my camera so that a transformation can take place... “Transformation of turning an uneventful private, perhaps secretive event in one’s life into something with intimate significant that affected others when looked upon”. I’ve also looked into how we become “readers” and “users” of photographs, but how through personal photographs users can become readers of their own photographs, and self psycho-analysis can take place by having to read our own photograph. This idea really excites me, as I’m exploring my own personal boundaries, learning things about myself and hoping to also make people understand a world they haven’t before. My extremes connects to many parts of me, and the camera comes into the photograph almost like a prosthetic limb, simply becoming an extension of myself and thus the photograph still contains “truth” (I’m not going to start on the massive philosophical debate of the idea of truth right now!) as the camera is part of the process of my extremes. I aim to use the camera as a part of myself to take the work outside my boundaries and make it universal. The camera will act as a mechanical eye... “My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you.”
I took a photograph a few months ago that started this idea. I originally took the photograph as I use my photography as a form of therapy and I had a bad breakup that crushed me at the time and a line from my favourite poet really helped me get through it; “If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water” - Richard Siken... and so I created work that helped me and I also became really interested in drowning and asphyxiation, realising part of why I loved making the photograph so much was how connected I felt through it and the physical intensity I had to go through to create it.
Then it suddenly dawned on me the other day that this fascination and experimentation with extremes that my project is based on has been with me for years and I suddenly remembered a really weird habit that I had when I was much much younger... I can’t really remember my exact age but it was an odd habit that I had for years probably during junior school and much before when I was very young.
After I woke up or before I went to sleep I would quite often make myself a cocoon out of my duvet, trying to seal myself inside my duvet as much as I could so that I couldn’t really breathe very well, or was at least very hot inside. I was an incredibly imaginative kid and I’d imagine that I was in the process of being born. However I wasn’t being born from a womb, I’d imagine I was being born from a kind of weird white shell in a white lab where lots of others were being born at the same time as me. I’d very slowly start to escape from my “womb” opening my duvet up tiny bits at time, allowing a tiny bit of air in and making myself really gasp for the air. It’s odd because as a kid I wasn’t really thinking about the idea of asphyxiation and indeed I’d doubt at that age I even knew the word, but I was definitely experimenting with breath play and making myself deliberately have not as much oxygen as I needed and I liked doing this. I’d do it very slowly and gap by gap till I was fully “born” out of my duvet. It never really occurred to me when I was younger how odd this habit was and I hadn’t actually thought about it for years till I remembered it the other day and thought “Fuck, have I been obsessed with asphyxiation since THEN?!” haha.
I was then further weirded out when I realised the white shell type thing I was being born out of was very reminiscent of the Lady Gaga Bad Romance video!
So yesterday I spent a lazy Saturday looking through some of my old books. I’ve had the Taschen book ‘1000 record covers’ for years since my early teens, and seeing as my project is going into a surrealist area I remembered that there were three album covers I’d always been fascinated by within the book that I remembered as being surreal... not really remembering what the record covers looked like (I haven’t opened the book in a couple of years before yesterday) I decided to find them again. I was rather weirded out by myself when I realised all three of the album covers featured drowning or water!!!
It seems the further I go into this project the more I realise I’ve been reading and interested in these topics for years; without even really realising!
And I’m also discovering what a freak I am along the way, yay!
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Le Dissertation.
I handed in my dissertation this morning! 10,800 words ♥
I had to write a page summary of it for the visual examiner to look over during summer, so here it is :)
“The Fetish of the Wound: An exploration of the psychological disturbances in ‘Crash’, ‘Secretary’ and ‘Fight Club’.
My paper explores psychological theories of the fetish of wounding particularly relating to the three films (Crash, Secretary and Fight Club) which explore wounding in very different ways.
Wounding brings many images to mind (the physical breaking of skin, torn flesh, damaged bodies) and most, whether religious/spiritual or with no religious beliefs at all, believe the skin to be important - pain is one of the fundamental human sensations, and for the skin that houses our ‘souls’ – In the Cartesian philosophy of mind-body dualism – or, biologically, the skin protects the body interior... for this to be damaged is something to be feared or amazed by. For this reason the physical damage of skin or any form of violence upon the body brings questions of mortality, life, and consciousness of our human form and existence. The fact that that the wound can constitute a site of sexual pleasure is not a typical, ‘normative’ response and is rather paradoxical, which is why the subject interests me so much and why I wanted to write this paper. I find that Crash employs the Death Drive and fetishises death and immortality as heroes within the context of the wound and car crashes. Secretary employs largely the idea of intensity and the high and thrill of S&M acts (which closely replicate an extreme of self-harm but in a happier healthier light) to explain wounding and a sexually unconventional relationship, and Fight Club employs the idea of spirituality and masochism and freedom from a corporate life to explain wounding within the context of male fighting. In the end I tie all three films together and find links between the three on many levels. I find the feeling of intensity is a theme that runs through-out all and the idea of extremes closely links to all.
I find that reasons for wounding go beneath the skin metaphorically, and can be attached to childhood traumas, painful events mid-life, emotional and sexual releases, transformation, spirituality, freedom and denial. They can take the form of harm or of liberty; they can give rise to a freedom fighter or a slave. The idea of sexual fetishism has been discussed throughout history, and within Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy the ideas of such are always being explored, renewed and mused upon and I try to explore many areas of these while talking through the films.
I end up relating wounding to Roland Barthes’ idea of Punctum, as although there are many theories as to why people enjoy wounding sexually – no one theory fits all people, it has meaning for some and not others, symbolic importance to some but not all. The fusion of the erotic and life threatening is always being explored and is always intriguing.”
I can’t believe it’s over! I’ve had my head stuck in these beautiful books for so long...
I had to write a page summary of it for the visual examiner to look over during summer, so here it is :)
“The Fetish of the Wound: An exploration of the psychological disturbances in ‘Crash’, ‘Secretary’ and ‘Fight Club’.
My paper explores psychological theories of the fetish of wounding particularly relating to the three films (Crash, Secretary and Fight Club) which explore wounding in very different ways.
Wounding brings many images to mind (the physical breaking of skin, torn flesh, damaged bodies) and most, whether religious/spiritual or with no religious beliefs at all, believe the skin to be important - pain is one of the fundamental human sensations, and for the skin that houses our ‘souls’ – In the Cartesian philosophy of mind-body dualism – or, biologically, the skin protects the body interior... for this to be damaged is something to be feared or amazed by. For this reason the physical damage of skin or any form of violence upon the body brings questions of mortality, life, and consciousness of our human form and existence. The fact that that the wound can constitute a site of sexual pleasure is not a typical, ‘normative’ response and is rather paradoxical, which is why the subject interests me so much and why I wanted to write this paper. I find that Crash employs the Death Drive and fetishises death and immortality as heroes within the context of the wound and car crashes. Secretary employs largely the idea of intensity and the high and thrill of S&M acts (which closely replicate an extreme of self-harm but in a happier healthier light) to explain wounding and a sexually unconventional relationship, and Fight Club employs the idea of spirituality and masochism and freedom from a corporate life to explain wounding within the context of male fighting. In the end I tie all three films together and find links between the three on many levels. I find the feeling of intensity is a theme that runs through-out all and the idea of extremes closely links to all.
I find that reasons for wounding go beneath the skin metaphorically, and can be attached to childhood traumas, painful events mid-life, emotional and sexual releases, transformation, spirituality, freedom and denial. They can take the form of harm or of liberty; they can give rise to a freedom fighter or a slave. The idea of sexual fetishism has been discussed throughout history, and within Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy the ideas of such are always being explored, renewed and mused upon and I try to explore many areas of these while talking through the films.
I end up relating wounding to Roland Barthes’ idea of Punctum, as although there are many theories as to why people enjoy wounding sexually – no one theory fits all people, it has meaning for some and not others, symbolic importance to some but not all. The fusion of the erotic and life threatening is always being explored and is always intriguing.”
Sunday 24 January 2010
An Introduction!
I’m Aimée.
I’m 21 and I’m currently in the final year of my degree, BA Hons Contemporary Photographic Practice. After I graduate I’m going on to study a Psychology Diploma in London!
I’ve had an online friends-only journal (a livejournal) since I was 16, but decided to take a leap into the world of photography blogs on here, so hellooo!
I want to use this as a space to talk about my current work and any future projects, as well as musings on life and the world. I want to fill it with ideas and inspirations, a place I can visit whenever I feel creative.
Currently I’m procrastinating from writing my dissertation! My recent work is about the fetish of wounding and sexual violence. My dissertation is analysing films using psychological theories, while my photographic work is much more personal... exploring the ways in which I thrive off ‘extremes’ in my personal life as well as my creative work. You’ll see what I mean when I’m finished :) it’s slightly hard to explain... but I’m hoping by exploring my personal boundaries and extremes to be able to give others a glance of a world they may not have understood before. All will become clear in time! It will all be a test and it will ‘pierce’ some and not others. Well, that’s the hope anyway!
I decided in my first year what I’d be writing my dissertation on, as it’s something I’ve always been fascinated by. I have some odd interests and tend to be fascinated by the weird and wonderful. I’m very open minded and my two biggest passions in life are photography and psychology. Music is my third, it’s just a shame I have no musical talent at all! Though yes, I do dance around my room singing quite often. You will rarely find me without music on! Things that inspire me tend to come from my life, my relationships with people and the world itself. I’ve studied Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy in the past and these still have quite a big impact on my life. I asked for my first real camera when I was 14 and loved it from the word go, and I find it’s the best way to get the creativity out of my veins and onto something that can show my world to others.
Besides the arty farty stuff... I’m a bit of a geek, obsessed with Catwoman, serial killers, documentaries and the gadget show <3 and I love anyone with a truly bizarre sense of humour. I have an obsession with the colour ‘gun metal’ and I aspire to one day buy a Yellow Lotus Elise that I will share with my mum! Hells yeah. My dream jobs include being a criminal profiler for MI5, a psychiatrist, being a jazz singer on the side, and owning my own lingerie shop with a gig/art space and bar underneath. I can also be kinda hyper sometimes, and I tend to switch between moods of either being quite inside my own head or running around the house screaming about Pikachu, as you do.
Pleased to meet you :)
I’m 21 and I’m currently in the final year of my degree, BA Hons Contemporary Photographic Practice. After I graduate I’m going on to study a Psychology Diploma in London!
I’ve had an online friends-only journal (a livejournal) since I was 16, but decided to take a leap into the world of photography blogs on here, so hellooo!
I want to use this as a space to talk about my current work and any future projects, as well as musings on life and the world. I want to fill it with ideas and inspirations, a place I can visit whenever I feel creative.
Currently I’m procrastinating from writing my dissertation! My recent work is about the fetish of wounding and sexual violence. My dissertation is analysing films using psychological theories, while my photographic work is much more personal... exploring the ways in which I thrive off ‘extremes’ in my personal life as well as my creative work. You’ll see what I mean when I’m finished :) it’s slightly hard to explain... but I’m hoping by exploring my personal boundaries and extremes to be able to give others a glance of a world they may not have understood before. All will become clear in time! It will all be a test and it will ‘pierce’ some and not others. Well, that’s the hope anyway!
I decided in my first year what I’d be writing my dissertation on, as it’s something I’ve always been fascinated by. I have some odd interests and tend to be fascinated by the weird and wonderful. I’m very open minded and my two biggest passions in life are photography and psychology. Music is my third, it’s just a shame I have no musical talent at all! Though yes, I do dance around my room singing quite often. You will rarely find me without music on! Things that inspire me tend to come from my life, my relationships with people and the world itself. I’ve studied Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy in the past and these still have quite a big impact on my life. I asked for my first real camera when I was 14 and loved it from the word go, and I find it’s the best way to get the creativity out of my veins and onto something that can show my world to others.
Besides the arty farty stuff... I’m a bit of a geek, obsessed with Catwoman, serial killers, documentaries and the gadget show <3 and I love anyone with a truly bizarre sense of humour. I have an obsession with the colour ‘gun metal’ and I aspire to one day buy a Yellow Lotus Elise that I will share with my mum! Hells yeah. My dream jobs include being a criminal profiler for MI5, a psychiatrist, being a jazz singer on the side, and owning my own lingerie shop with a gig/art space and bar underneath. I can also be kinda hyper sometimes, and I tend to switch between moods of either being quite inside my own head or running around the house screaming about Pikachu, as you do.
Pleased to meet you :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
