'Body Horror' (short film): Developed from multiple digitally edited photography/film photography trials by experimenting with video media, editing and audio (and is still a work in progress). This short film explores discomforting imagery through video collage, expressing abstracted and distorted body forms and creating a dream-like surrealist atmosphere. The audio explores bodily sounds, along with distorted voices. This is to convey bodily repulsiveness, causing the video to become frantic and restless. Inspiration from Pipilotti Rist's video art, Mark Leckey's use of video collage (as seen recently at Tate Britain) and David Lynch's films such as 'Eraserhead’.
Black and white photography from ‘Shoot 2’, edited using photoshop to digitally modify images, experimenting with the process of overlaying and distorting imagery - achieved by adding gelatine (made from animal body parts) onto the figure conveying abstracted, surrealistic figurative forms. Inspiration from David lynch’s work, particularly the body horror film ‘Eraserhead’ and Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’.
Photography with gelatine and jelly
‘Distortion- LIQUIFY’ images created in Adobe Photoshop. Digital Photography
The two most influential artists for me with this project have been Pipilotti Rist and David Lynch. I have used Rist’s compositions, colour pallets and distorted perspective photographically and in my cinematography. Lynch’s experimental body horror black and white film heavily influenced me in the visual language I adopted for this project, creating abstracted body forms by using organic or manufactured material (which later became jellies, fruits and latex).
‘Distortion- LIQUIFY’ images created in Adobe Photoshop. Digital Photography
There have been many limitations on what I could produce during COVID-19 isolation. I had already completed two shoots (using digital cameras, video cameras and 35mm film photography) and one with fruit (completed in quarantine), but I had planned and organised to do a fourth and final shoot with two bodies rather than just one, which was no longer possible. I aimed to create more abstraction in my photography by intertwining the forms of the female nude to distort recognisable structure, so to still achieve this effect I decided to overlay my images to create the effect of more than one body. This ended up being more successful than I’d originally anticipated and I continued to develop this throughout my project.
‘Distortion- LIQUIFY’ images created in Adobe Photoshop. Digital Photography
The fine balance between people finding beauty in or being disgusted by my images created a shift in focus for me. I began to play with colours more when I was editing my videos and layered photography, experimenting with saturation, hue and luminosity levels. I had been focusing on using different mixes of jellies and gelatine to achieve wet, fleshy forms to put onto the body, but I started to use more organic materials such as blood oranges to give beauty with colour to the ‘flesh’ compositions I was creating.
It's been challenging learning new digitalskills to create what I had envisioned in my head. I have acquired a more open-minded approach to my projects and confidenceto be more adventurous in their concepts and content. I plan to continue learning and creating digital art, taking this forward in the future on my art BA.
'Body Horror' (short film): Developed from multiple digitally edited photography/film photography trials by experimenting with video media, editing and audio (and is still a work in progress). This short film explores discomforting imagery through video collage, expressing abstracted and distorted body forms and creating a dream-like surrealist atmosphere. The audio explores bodily sounds, along with distorted voices. This is to convey bodily repulsiveness, causing the video to become frantic and restless. Inspiration from Pipilotti Rist's video art, Mark Leckey's use of video collage (as seen recently at Tate Britain) and David Lynch's films such as 'Eraserhead’.
Black and white photography from ‘Shoot 2’, edited using photoshop to digitally modify images, experimenting with the process of overlaying and distorting imagery - achieved by adding gelatine (made from animal body parts) onto the figure conveying abstracted, surrealistic figurative forms. Inspiration from David lynch’s work, particularly the body horror film ‘Eraserhead’ and Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’.
Photography with gelatine and jelly
‘Distortion- LIQUIFY’ images created in Adobe Photoshop. Digital Photography
The two most influential artists for me with this project have been Pipilotti Rist and David Lynch. I have used Rist’s compositions, colour pallets and distorted perspective photographically and in my cinematography. Lynch’s experimental body horror black and white film heavily influenced me in the visual language I adopted for this project, creating abstracted body forms by using organic or manufactured material (which later became jellies, fruits and latex).
‘Distortion- LIQUIFY’ images created in Adobe Photoshop. Digital Photography
There have been many limitations on what I could produce during COVID-19 isolation. I had already completed two shoots (using digital cameras, video cameras and 35mm film photography) and one with fruit (completed in quarantine), but I had planned and organised to do a fourth and final shoot with two bodies rather than just one, which was no longer possible. I aimed to create more abstraction in my photography by intertwining the forms of the female nude to distort recognisable structure, so to still achieve this effect I decided to overlay my images to create the effect of more than one body. This ended up being more successful than I’d originally anticipated and I continued to develop this throughout my project.
‘Distortion- LIQUIFY’ images created in Adobe Photoshop. Digital Photography
The fine balance between people finding beauty in or being disgusted by my images created a shift in focus for me. I began to play with colours more when I was editing my videos and layered photography, experimenting with saturation, hue and luminosity levels. I had been focusing on using different mixes of jellies and gelatine to achieve wet, fleshy forms to put onto the body, but I started to use more organic materials such as blood oranges to give beauty with colour to the ‘flesh’ compositions I was creating.
It's been challenging learning new digitalskills to create what I had envisioned in my head. I have acquired a more open-minded approach to my projects and confidenceto be more adventurous in their concepts and content. I plan to continue learning and creating digital art, taking this forward in the future on my art BA.