Own Work: Elements As Tools Photography January 2014

Based on El Lissizsky's photographic work of his tools as an architect I decided to experiment in the remaking of this but with the concept of nature as an architects tools. This is based on the elements of entropy derived earlier in the concrete block experiments. 

  Water

Plant

 Pioneer

 Wind

 Heat

 Soil

Force

Own Work - Site Visit: Dungeness November 2013

Dungeness is one of the largest expanses of shingle in the Europe, and is classified as Britain's only desert by the Met office; Dungeness is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of acuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh and has a nuclear power station, 2 lighthouses and seemingly endless of amounts of deserted crumbling fisherman shacks. There are however still a few holiday homes nearby the road that have been well maintained, a small pub and gift shop/cafe by a light railway station.

Dungeness lies on the south east peninsula of kent

It really does feel like one of the UK's only wildernesses and despite receiving a few visitors each day it really does give an intense feeling of isolation. I attended on a cloudy autumn day and one can't help but be reminded from a scene of Hitchcock's 'The Birds' and a sense of otherworldliness.

A fishing boat marker, used to line up boats when going ashore, is begging to degrade with coils of steel rope unravelling at its base.

 

The shacks, mostly deserted have almost all lost their doors and protection from the elements. In some tools are laid out seemingly carefully on workbenches as if they were about to be used, but are now covered in dirt and rust. I couldn't help picturing some sort of horror movie where the town's people disappear over night leaving only traces of the tasks they were doing at the time. 

Whilst moving through the shacks you could see distant solitary shadows moving along the horizon now and then. I was warned that some people may still live within these spaces.

The site is littered with rusting pieces of machinery which alone seem out of place to what this place has become

The decaying fisherman equipment has started to foster life allowing moss and grass a surface to adhere to

 

 

A decaying boat, pulled in from a catch and never used again, the rotting machinery are still attached to its stern that pulled it in

Train tracks, no longer going anywhere. Rotten carriages with there wheels collapsed inside of them are not far away

The power station and nearby string of houses, cafe, garden and pub are the only source activity in the area

Sunset on the nearby beach

Own Work - Photography: Emulsion Lifts Gone Wrong

 For a previous project I worked on Polaroid emulsion lifts to convey a chaotic natural element (water) to something man made. I decided due to the success of this to manipulate the process by layering 2 images, one over another to show the juxtaposition between controlled environment and uncontrolled. I choose to do this in the setting of Barbican in London (A popular modernist development). Unfortunately the effect didn't make the message clear and so in large respects was a failure, however I did get some interesting distorted negatives from the back of the Polaroid film, which have proven much more interesting (below emulsion lifts).

Photography - El Lissitzsky: Runner In The City

El Lissizsky's Runner In The City was one of the first examples of effects and distortions being applied purposely to a photographic image. The image, a runner in a race has been layered on top of an image of a city (New York) to create contrast of ideals. The artists goal was to allow the viewer perspective upon the way we live our lives, and suggest what we should aspire for. The runner represents the utopian idealistic, whilst the city with it's neon lights and capitalist nature represents the what should be repelled. My main focus on this art is the way it creates it's message, once again using juxtaposing elements to create a thought process regarding our culture.