"Tell me something that will change me.
I'm gonna love you with my hands tied."
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 :)
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