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Week 5 - Critique (feedback notes)

Updated: Apr 2, 2022

Notes taken from feedback (Yolunda, Charles, Fern)

  • contrast between the two works - in colour, objects captured, technology; both have slower motion; immersion (mustard) vs. isolation (bark); opposite approaches to similar subjects; connected by strangeness; a project rather than an exhibition series

  • what is the anchor point for the viewer? i.e. Yolunda mistaking the mustard plants for baby cucumbers, disconnect and brain trying to reconcile gap; opens up contemplation, ambiguity, tension in that uncertainty

  • not an installation but in thinking about the two works they seem to work together as a project but not as dual exhibition pieces; a little too confusing - needs something to connect the distance between them

  • pace - encouraged to look; peaceful; shows things otherwise unnoticed before

  • "real nature" - what does that mean? Artificial approach still captures some of that "realness"/"authenticity" and tranquillity of being in a natural space

  • what does it contribute and how does it make meaning

  • exploring nature and ecology

  • projector noise - no soundtrack to go with the works, so the machine provides the soundtrack; machine noise behind plant subject heightens the sense of the artificial

  • bark LIDAR - digital/videogame quality, though slower than a videogame item; the scale of projection disrupts the usual relationship to the source object (bark)

  • bark - more "laboured", more polished; higher-end production look compared to the other; a sense of editing and process after recording; perhaps this is due to the universality of the technology - conventions associated with it; anyone can make a video, but not as many people can use 3D software; more of a novelty... is it gimmicky? more impressiveness, mysteriousness...

  • bark - a detail of a detail; a bark texture, which is the texture of the tree... layered; 50/50 artificial; real but not real; how much is real?

  • LIDAR - natural parts but projected/presented in an unnatural way

  • turning like an NFT or animation; scaled up - more icon-like, put out for display; encouraged to look at it

  • scale - surreal, organic texture but doesn't go straight to bark in the mind's eye; scale adds ambiguity

  • natural texture, artificial edges - not something that would fall off the tree

  • "artificiality of something so natural"

  • mustard - directness, simple to shoot and make; doesn't adhere to film qualities or expectations though (blurry, odd view; not something someone usually would shoot on a camera phone perhaps); immediacy in the shooting of content; realness in the world

  • contrast between the two works - one is colourful, slower motion; jerky, unfocused, a little uncomfortable; inner immersion into something unseen usually

  • embodied camera; being in another body; unsure of whose body thought; maybe the camera

  • scale of mustard - feels more movie-screen like; more immersion would be interesting, but would increasing immersion more add anything thought? at some time, flickering in and out already? Does install add anything or is it doubling up?

  • corporality of camera view - what else would be seen through this view?

  • the idea of series was raised - could be iterative; or each work could have a job within the series; Yolunda's idea of how to navigate intention behind one (i.e. which came first, mustard plant or colour? other plants with a similar name-colour relationships? etymology? the idea of nature affecting language? etc...

On the statements

  • for title: process > material suggested in the work; adding devices used doesn't really add anything; not useful to the viewer, doesn't add meaning or content, makes the work feel more universal (could be shot by anyone); could add in a statement instead of as in title it disrupts viewer's internal narrative in viewing the work

  • .obj and combined words very computerlike; a sense of a file being saved, a quick save, being in a hurry; feels rushed, immediate

  • the statement doesn't open discussion as much as titles do; some terms like "micro-ecology" are curious thoughts and could be pushed further conceptually (the idea of nature as a tiny local process rather than a big grand thing); needs more of a lean into the conceptual rather than description


 

Photos of installation:






 

Text accompanying works (folded to hide statements for cold reading)


Left: oakbarkspiderweb.obj (iPhone 12)

Single-channel moving image of LIDAR scan

2 minute loop

Right: mustard (Xiaomi Mi 9)

Single-channel moving image

50 second loop


Artist statement

These works are investigations of mediation, nature, ecology, and perception. Both videos explore the slippages and developments that occur when trying to accurately capture something via a digital device and examine both the perception of nature and the ability of technology to capture, mediate, and speculate.

oakbarkspiderweb.obj This work explores the slippages between digital representation, perception and reality. The work features a LIDAR scan taken on an iPhone 12 of a spiderweb over the knot of an oak tree in Auckland Domain. In the process of the capture, minute details of the oak bark and spiderwebs are preserved, while at the same time abstract shapes emerge in the gaps of information that the camera was unable to process. In doing so, the camera's own imagination comes into play, envisioning what the inside of a tree and gaps between fragments could look like and filling these spaces with visual noise. Both elements of the bark's micro-ecology and the fallibility of the digital device are visualised, and the possible parallels between human and digital speculation are illustrated.

mustard This video work explores an envisioning of the world through a digital device and the perception of the natural world beyond everyday human capability. In investigating the mustard growing in my flat's backyard, the camera is taken through the plants at a level and distance difficult for the human eye to achieve. In the process, the camera struggles to focus on the subjects, dipping in and out of clarity - the tiny details of the plants are made visible while the scene becomes abstracted and overwhelming. It is my hope that by presenting the work on a large scale the viewer’s awareness of their body in relation to the work will be heightened.



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© 2023 Anna Bensky

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