David Cotterrell at the John Hansard gallery.

An immersive experience here, as David Cotterrell swaps Sheffield Hallam University (where he is a Fine Art professor) for Southampton’s academic quarter, bringing with him a cinematic portrayal of his journeys to Afghanistan in a series of works galvanising complex technology.

David Cotterrell.

Review:

After two years of studying and resourcing the Afghanistan landscape, Cotterrell has created an exhibition on the reflection on war and the man destroyed horizons.

Its hard to beleive that this landscape has seen so much more than we choose to think or believe. The photography does it justice in the sense that it is peaceful and controlled, although the death and blood loss has been retrieved and extracted through the imagery.

David Cotterrell

David Cotterrell

David Cotterrell

Gallery one had a curvature set up, with a projected image of the Afghanistan horizon. There stood three men and one i the background. To me could only show the distance, loneliness and death of the soldiers who fought.

Cotterrell used small connect cameras around the room. The amount of people, impacted the second piece in gallery two.

The close up of the hand sculpted landscape has projected people walking around.
As the quantity in Gallery one increases, the increase of projected people on the chalk made landscape.

Gallery two had an offset, into a tiny gap hallway, either side sat two hand made dome's, projected with a live fed view from above of the nothingness that the desert now holds. 
A panoramic display creating an atmosphere to only be described as beauty.

Semiotics:

The importance of signs and signification has been recognized throughout much of the history of philosophy and in psychology as well.

The use of signs that are understood and viewed the same through people's cultures and experiences helps to evolve and understand symbols, signs and objects.

Artist's can also use semiotics to lure their audience into viewing the work, having a second look, try and work out and understand rather than a glance.

This advert of pasta. what is seen, what makes you feel comfortable and draws you in. would you buy the food ? yes. why ? because of the rich luscious colours.

The artist's have used factors that humans are familiar with, the red background has been used, as most people would see it as love and warmth. The pasta has been set in this string bag with other vegetables, which subliminally tells you that the pasta is fresh, tasteful and good for you.

The use of Semiotics can be very powerful if applied correctly.

'Semiotics has changed over time, since semioticians have sought the weaknesses in early semiotic approaches. Even with the most basic semiotic terms there are multiple definitions. Anyone attempting semiotic analysis would be wise to make clear which definitions are being applied and, if a particular semiotician's approach is being adopted, what its source is'

http://jawhiriaahmed.blogspot.com/2010/04/semiotics.html.

Charlotte Cotton - The Photograph as Contemporary Art

This week we were each given a section of a reading for Cottons book The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Along with this we were each given the same set of questions to answer about the section of text. 

The narratives that are explored in this chapter of Cottons book range form the idea of paranoia with in society as well as the use of twisted plots on what would be seen as innocent fairy tale stories. 

Charlotte Cotton

Charlotte Cotton

Charlotte Cotton

Off topic wow factor - Lieko Shiga

Not at all L.A. related, but I came across the work of Leiko Shiga, who's won the ICP's Infinity Award for best young photographer (28 years old). I like work that confuses me a bit. Lieko's work feels like a bit of a mix between Ryan McGinley and Bill Henson with some mysticism thrown in. She definitely has something unique, dreamlike going on.

This is my forerunner for favorite find of 2009 thus far. A taste of her work below but I highly recommend a visit to her site.

I find this work exhilarating ! the images being controlled somehow, even though the lights, subject and atmosphere is beyond emotion across the images.

Contemporary art has no limit's, it can be progressed and evolve for our life time as we know the art.

Visual Exploration

We started off the week and the new project as a whole group talk on what we are going to be doing and the things we will need to do.
1000 words photography:

Chris Shaw began working in London hotels in 1993 and over a ten year period he created what would become life as a night porter which was published in 2006 by Twin Palms. 


     'Born in 1967, Shaw studied photography at the West Surrey College of Art and Design at Farnham, graduating in 1989, and has had solo exhibitions at the open eye gallery in Liverpool, GUP gallery in Amsterdam and 779 gallery in Paris. Shaw has also been shown as part of Paris Photo and arles photography festival in 2005.  He lives in Paris.'


There are few things that are subtle in Juliana beasley’s photography. But then, the fact that you don’t get to see stuff like that too often in our somewhat sanitized culture doesn’t mean that you’re looking at the fringes (as much as many people would like to believe that). 

'One night, I came into one of the clubs on my night off, out in New Jersey, and asked the manager if I could photograph a dancer on stage. I knew this could be a wonderful ploy to begin getting the expressions of the customers’ faces in the shots. Over the eight years of dancing, I went from photographing the dancers in the dressing room to finally, getting the chutzpah to ask customers in the club if I could get them in the shots at the stage.'

The formal impact of her imagery, she deconstructs the men lusting over the female strippers and involves the emotion and excitement of the drunk horny men.


http://1000wordsphotographymagazine.blogspot.com/
http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/a_conversation_with_juliana_beasley/