Figure 1 Murray, J. (2018-2020) Various Candids in Covent Garden (Slideshow)
This week’s forum activity was to chose a selection of your previously made images that relate to your project or subject matter of interest, and using the inspiration from the lecture and presentations, revisit the location of the images and re-photograph. As my prior module work has largely mostly revolved around imagery shot in studio (in the case of the last module I also shot backgrounds on location in London, which ended up being more restricted than anticipated due to the lockdown), I’ve ended up using images I had taken in the past for research, as observations on how people utilise and immerse themselves into tech.
Figure 2 Murray, J. (2020) Layered Time (Slideshow)
As most of these images have been taken in London, particularly around the Covent Garden area at this current point in time this wouldn’t be easy for me to visit, and as I have asthma is probably a rather unnecessary journey, so instead I have gone back through my archive as I knew in at least one instance I had taken a very similar image previously, luckily in most cases the differences between the images significantly showed the case in time, in terms of seasonal clothing, but also in shop displays and lighting. I subsequently layered my images in Photoshop placing the overlaid image at 50% opacity, leaving a ghostly presence.
Reflection
Figure 3 Murray, J. (2020) WIP
For this module (see 3 images above) my produced outcomes thus far, stem from the following query of: “If I am obscuring my face in self-portraiture to elude identification and confuse facial recognition, is it still narcissism?” The images in Figure 3 are very much in the earlier stages of process, in that the obscuration of self is only achieved via the use of wigs and makeup, and my current intentions are to incorporate and explore this further, by cutting the image, layering it, re-scanning and adding texture in the form of netting, however it is unclear whether this intention may destract from the message I am wanting to convey. As I’m very much stepping outside of my comfort zone with self-portraiture as an aspect of my practice, which I’ve not really explored since doing my HND some 5+ years ago, it’s very unclear what the final outcome will be, and how this will tie into my ongoing theme of the uncanny at this point in time.
The feedback I received this week encouraged me to explore back into self-portraiture as a vehicle for expression, especially the feedback given for the Ed Ruscha book task – the fact the messages I’m commenting on don’t have to be literal interpretations and could be more metaphorical, that a sense of uncanny drives through even without dolls, and that sometimes you don’t need to provide words alongside your images to imply your narrative. Sometimes title alone is enough.
References
Figures
Figure 1 Murray, J. (2018-2020) Various Candids in Covent Garden (Slideshow)
Figure 2 Murray, J. (2020) Layered Time (Slideshow)
Figure 3 Murray, J. (2020) WIP
Jasmine Murray Photography 