Space, Time and Deterioration
In this project I will explore the way in which space is used in countries poor and rich to compensate for the worlds population. However not all artists express this idea in the same way. Artists such as Edward Burtynski, Nadav Kander and Gilles Coulon photograph space and surroundings that are uninhibited in an almost ironic way. In my own work i will try and incorporate styles and ideas from the certain artists in order to progress my own work but also come to a Final piece that will be a blend of the themes across my project. Lastly, my ideas will work with the artists and i hope to create work that engages the viewer in critical analysis of their own lifstyle and what these pictures suggest about the world they live.
Nadav Kander
In Nadav Kander's series 'God's Country' illustrates the degree of solidarity and loneliness in vast parts of America. His work also has a sense of irony within it, as he photographs these large open landscapes in the year the worlds population grew by 4% and the need for areas for housing continues to rise. His style of photography effects my own work as he uses strong colours that strike the viewer instantly, which is something i have tried to incoperate into my own work. Kander's work focusses largely on the idea of home. In his work on the River Yangtze he strives to find people and civilisations that are having to deal with the immense change that has occurred in China over the past 100 years, and questions whether they can still call China their home, as they are forced to move, move and move again to compensate for the sudden boom. His work focusses on how space is always changing over time and the deterioration that has on culture and tradition.
Edward Burtynsky
Burtynsky portrays sweeping views of landscapes altered by industry: mine tailings, quarries, scrap piles. The grand beauty of his images is often in tension with the compromised environments they depict. In this set he looks at the towns and villages that are home to coal and oil miners. He looks into the lives of the people who make the world tick and their dissolute lives in these grand open spaces. Burtynski contrast these awe-inspiring landscapes with the idea that these people are ultimately destroying it. This idea, in turn, provokes a certain sense of blame which is not unusual for human beings. However Burtynski idea goes deeper than this a looks at how Mankind look towards a scape goat when it comes to the preservation of the environment. This set of photographs pushes the viewer question themselves and takes them all most on a guilt trip without uttering a single word.
Response
In my responce, I wanted to emphasise these large open landscapes that are largely untouched. I feel there is some form of anxioty within the fact that as hard as we try to combat the growing population, we have very little say on the world and within years something we have created can be absorbed by nature. No matter what we do, the world will always revert back over time. I drew from work by Edward Burtynsky and Nadav Kander their use of vast spaces and simplictic horizons and shapes, to try and express my theme and tried to use the strong blue and green colours to emphasise the feeling of nature and the environment.
Final Response
In my Final response, i chose my favourite four photographs that for me document this idea of untouched land. With work from Burtynski and KAndewr as my foundation and felt i was able to create a piece that allowed for interpretation. For me these photographs suggest a place of tranquillity away from hectic everyday life in the city. However these places also look extremely bleak and empty, one could almost say post-apocalyptic. I tried to portray a state where we have disturb and destroyed the environment to such an extent where areas that used to be filled with life our now empty and glum.
From my earlier work i decided to move in the opposite direction and look and cities in developing countries where they struggle for space to combat the mass increase in population. The work here will focus on building to evolve and the dramatic shift in buildings during the 21st. Whether this be building up or out these areas in Brazil and China become packed to the brim and look for other ways to create housing that can support this growth.
Marcus Lyon
Marcus Lyon focuses on the cities of the developing world, which draw in rural workers with the promise of higher wages and a better quality of life, but the delicate balance between expanding population and limited physical space defines the human condition and the amount of space a country or city has. Lyon also looks into how these countries lose out on mass agriculture as many farmers move to these cities in order to survive. This has dramatic effect on the population of these countries as resources and food become increasingly scarce and therefore expensive. Lyon creates a seamless almost never ending landscape by using photoshop to layer these images of developing housing together to create a jigsaw of growth and expansion. In a way Lyon cleverly plays on the term jigsaw as he links the idea of creating this picture with the way these megacities are growing. They are are progressing with little foundation or stability and are merely being pieced together as it comes. This over time could cause a serious collapse and the people living in these areas in turmoil. |
Recce Shoot
In my reece shots i tired to find areas that would look good put together to create these vast cities landscapes. I focused mainly on buildings and skyscrapers as they would be most effective in photoshop. However i also photographed railways and interesting structures that would show the architectural progress and development I also tried to capture these photographs with as much colour and pattern as possible in order to intrigue the viewer and show this buildings almost as a art form rather than plain buildings.
Final Shoot
In my final shoot i felt i was able to incorporate the techniques and themes seen in Marcus Lyon's work. I focused on capturing areas that look bustling with life but at the same time crammed to the point that any further expansion would cause a turmoil and a breakdown of structure. I feel the work exposes these areas as a thing of beauty, but also fear that one has no idea how these areas will expand further and change dramatically. In my generation alone most of these views have changed significantly and i hope to make the viewer wonder if they would be able to recognise these areas in years to come. If i could have done these pictures again however i would have tried to make a panorama photograph that would incorporate these vast areas so that you as the viewer would feel more engaged in the photograph and create a sense of acknowledgement that this is your home, but for how much longer?
I then decided to move towards the areas in these vast areas that have already started to deteriorate over time. I will focus on taking these photographs at night as this to me seems the time when cities are most decollate. I will try to create a image that will show a world that is collapsing from within but also that these places are being desperately rejuvenated to maintain an image of a power city. I will focus on artists such as Steve Ficth and Gilles Coulon who i feel both play with light to contradict man's technological presence with the emptiness and loneliness of these areas .
Steve Fitch
Fitch began took road trips to photograph what he refers to as “the vernacular of the journey,” celebrating the cultural landscape of the two-lane highway. Fitch focuses on the idea of development and the dying out of these once popular motels. He photographs the prefranchise neon motel signs, big rig trucks, truck-stop waitresses as he tries to re-creating his childhood experience of road trips. Though he wasn’t aware of it at the time, Fitch witnessed a aspects of America on the verge of extinction. Overall his work comments on his own shock that these buildings that had once been filled and much used are now derelict and have been replaced by capitalist expansion in the form of chain motels. I will use Fitch's work to experiment the way light can indicate life and death in the same breathe and look into the way areas are unable to keep up with the constant expansion and growth of the big cities.
Gilles Coulon
Gilles Coulon looks into great depth the atmosphere and personality of each city and each place he chooses to photograph. Whether set in a restaurant in Cairo, the lobby of a building on Broadway, or a Niamey market at night, his photographs bear witness to the presence of man and cause our eyes to linger in familiar places. However he shows that these places as alone and lost in the wider world. All these photographs seem lonely and abandoned. The light suggests something that had primarily drawn Mankind in but is nothing less the a ghost of the past. His work suggests a sense of the unkown and whats to come next as the viewer struggles to see how their life and city they know correlates to these pictures.
Response
I feel in this sets you can see the correlation between these shots and the work of Gilles Coulon and Steve Fitch. I tried to work with the configuration of lighting and worked with creating shadow to portray uncertainty for the viewer. The work brings together the ideas of an ever evolving world that is never confound by boundaries but never able to bring the whole population forward with it. This lead to the inspiration to my work as i try to show a city that has been left alone to rot away. However the use of lights show that there was once human contact in these areas. The introduction of a person was more of a natural progression as i looked to create someone whose purpose is open to interpretation by the viewer.
Final Shoot
One of the most complex contemporary problems to be solved by humanity is man in the changing world. Today, Man has become the main factor of development as well as the main risk factor. Therefore in this set of photographs I have worked with aspects and ideas seen in the work of Gilles Coulon and Steve Fitch including lighting and sense of unknown. However, I felt that these photographs needed someone in them to be seen as a 'creator' and to show the extent of growth surrounding them. I had to therefore bring in a figure from another photo i had taken and i feel that this has created an image that fills the viewer with intrigue. The light takes centre stage and the figure is pushed to one side which questions the power balance and one wonders who is really in control. Overall i think these photos create a sense of uncertainty, especially with the buildings in the background and i think that overall this photograph creates a sense of the clash of old and new.
From the portrayal of change within the city i naturally moved more into the work at ground level and chose to look at how these derelict areas have been reinvigorated by art and a new generation of culture. I will look at how although these mega-cities evolve and build bigger there are still people that maintain the old and make it something of beauty rather than a thing of the past that has been left to die. This backlash can be seen in the work of artists such as Mike Miller who has worked to give a face to the streets and return a sense of culture.
Mike Miller
Mike Miller, who has explored both poorer areas of urban France, including Paris and Marseilles, but also in America delving deep into the living conditions of places like Compton and Inglewood. His exploration of life in the ghettos of L.A., between 1993-2000, gave an insight into not only the way in which the music artists lived there's lives but also illustrated a common day for most of these 'slums' inhabitants. Mike Miller the street art and worn down housing to depict a image of what LA has become. This is similar to Graffiti artists such as Steve Powers and Risk, who in creating these artworks try and give back to the city giving it a voice and feeling where before it had none before.
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Response
In this final set i tried to incorporate the backlash from the new generation to render the old and create something with aesthetic value where there had been none before. By exploring graffiti artist, seen in the two videos above, i understood that there aim is to make something special that they didnt have in there own lives. I feel that this work allows the viewer to see the transformation that people create where they allow the areas that have been left to survive and sometimes thrive where it would be impossible to do so otherwise.
In decided then to move towards areas that have been hit so badly by man's impact that their is no route to return. Artists such as Guillaume Herbaut and Edward Burtynski show a worn out societies that have been forced to leave the place they call home. In addition their use of cold brown's and greys highlights the bleak and cold situation in these areas. This ties in with my title as it shows the how over time these areas become less and less inhabitable as we evolve and build bigger and bigger. One gets the sense that these areas do not even have a sole and unlike my work above they are so far gone that nothing can bring them back to life.
Guillaume Herbaut, works to reveal the unseen tragedies. He visited to Chernobyl to photograph the the dire state of the town that used to be filled with life and prospect before the nuclear explosion in 1986 which caused the evacuation of thousands of people and families around the area. His work is a gritty reminder how fragile humans state and how at any second our world could be devastated at our own hands. His work delves deep into not only the area but also the few that remain in the area and how they have forced to alter their lives to compensate for Mankind's evolution of power. Overall the work shows that with minimal foundations and without a strong backbone the population are likely to suffer at our own hands and this comes as a shocking remind to the viewer who is from the offset flung into the deep end.
Edward Burtynsky
Edward Burtynsky work on Detroit and the fall of the car industry is an interesting one. He photographs the abandoned factories that had attracted so many from across America to secure a job that never looked under threat. These pictures tell a story of the rise and fall of Mankind's own succes and glory above all else. One gets an impression from the rich colours a textures of the buildings that Burtynski want to show these buildings as signs of the past, but also things of great accomplishment providing so much for so many. However he also highlights that these buildings caused significant grief as many were made redundant who worked here as early as the mid 80s. Overall these pictures some up Humas instinct very well. They expose peoples eagerness for succes with little thought of the situation and how everything must come to an end because we as race always look to improve and restructure. Those who are left behind are destined for failure.
Steve Fitch
Steven Fitch's work explores the people and families that were encouraged to settle and farm the semi-arid high plains by the Homestead Act, these new inhabitants began to abandon the plains from the very moment then began to settle them. This abandonment was accelerated by the Great Depression of the thirties and in most areas of the Great Plains has continued unabated. During World War II and the following Cold War, people left the open plains for jobs on the coasts and in the cities and the exodus continues today. Left behind are the shells of their former lives: houses on farms and in towns, schools, churches, bars, honky tonks and dance halls. Steven Fitch's work are made inside these shells and represent a moment in time at the junction of three histories on the Great Plains: natural, cultural, and personal. He says that "During the fifties and the sixties I was raised in spaces like these and taught from similar blackboards. I also recognize the nightmarish, spooky look these pictures have because it resembles how I imagined the remains of our world might look if the Cold War ever did produce its nuclear war."
Responce
In my Heygate trip I focused on techniques deploid by both Edward Burtynski and Steve Fitch. I tried to capture vast detailed structues which had been distorted by the environment and its overwhelming power over any of mans creations. I wanted to show that no matter what humans build or created, no matter how big or how small, the the world and the environment would always win over. You can see this in my photos as, this once solid concrete structure is now overcome by trees and grass. I watched a interview with Nadav Kander (seen below) where he says that he will never go on a photo shoot with a clear idea of what he wants to photograph, instead he will use his emotions and try and make the photograph describe how he is feeling at a period in time. In my Heygate trip i tried to adopt this style and tried to take photos that would describe my feelings during the process. When editing my best eight, I therefore decreased the saturation to try and emphasize how depressing and cold this place actually was.
Final Piece
I feel my final piece incorporates the idea of the growth of humanity but also the decline. By contrasting the images like i have done i feel there is almost a sense of before and after as the viewer looks for correlations between the two. I used, most notably, the work of Nadav Kander, Burtynksi and Gilles Coulon to create a combination of techniques that suited my theme. Overall this project shows how Mankind builds and then forgets largely down to the lack of foundations. This is most obviously seen in developing countries but can be seen in places like London council estates (once prosperous) are left to rot and become replaced by another high rise. I would like to think i have also incorporated my own style to my work as i tired to maintain colour and pattern as much as possible in order to get a well rounded photograph that would draw the viewer in.