Jean Epstein

Jean Epstein, and his argument that there is ‘no real present… it is an uneasy convention.  In the flow of time there is an exception to time’; ‘cinema’ he continues ‘is the only art capable of depicting this present as it is’(1927:412) Jean Epstein, “art of incidence” in French film theory and criticism.

Plaid in Fashion

Nightmare - Vanessa Edwards

Vivid Festival of Light, Sydney

Morning Shadows - Vanessa Edwards

Inspiration for textile print: I took this photo in the early morning light, I feel that is captures the smokiness of shadows, they leave no trace and they change quickly with the angle of the light.  I was inspired by the combination of texture with tone and pattern.  The rendered wall has a rough sandy texture that absorbs the organic shape of the shadow and captures the light beautifully.  I feel that these images could be incorporated into large scape placement print.

Defining nostalgia: how we find meaning by delimiting it

Before one can ask the questions what counts as nostalgia and what can evoke it we must acknowledge the debate surrounding its status as an emotion, a form of memory and its historical definition as a clinical psychological aliment or whether it escapes classification altogether (Sprengler : ).  The nature of nostalgia is ineffable but interesting it is clearly evoked and identified in visual forms such as fashion photography, film and other related photo media.  Nostalgia is often characterized by sentimental nuances that an audience will recognize.  These sentiments do vary and are shaped by the individuals’ cultural framework, geographical location and personal experience.  This section traces the historical discourse of nostalgia as it helps demonstrate how we have come to witness the continuing appeal of nostalgia and its rise to commodification.  This nostalgia economy determines its current dominant strain in contemporary culture.

When historically locating the definition of nostalgia, earliest records show that it was identified in Johannes Hofer’s dissertation written in 1688. The Swiss physician named a ‘disease’ that he observed in Swiss soldiers serving abroad (1934:381) the origin of his definition references the Greek words nostos – a return home and algos – denoting a painful condition (cited Sprengler: 11) he describes the ‘sad mood’ originating form a ‘desire to return to ones native land’ (1934:381) In other words these men were experiencing homesickness, the sad mood he describes was generated by a feeling of missing.  In hard times one experiences a natural inclination to return to a place or time of normality and comfort.

In retrospect Holfer might have demonstrated a sympathetic attitude toward the soldiers but he failed to see what modern medicine recognizes today as psychological conditions such as depression, not disease.  These mental conditions and general low moral amongst the troops was more likely a symptom of environmental factors; inadequate pay, poor medical facilities and services.  Thus leaving many soldiers feeling abandoned and anxious on the front line where they were subject to injury, disease and death.  These men had a collective experience of nostalgia.  There homesickness, absentmindedness and hysteria was fueled by a longing desire to return home.  Home in this case is the specific place and symbol that becomes embedded with significant meaning for the individual.  The meaning of the object, time or place desired changes profoundly when the soilder conjures in his mind a memory based on personal experience and history.  These memories may be pleasant and in a way escapist but the feeling is short lived as he desires an irretrievable idea, making it ever more desirable.  Casey (1987:372-75) and Starobinski (1966:93) are two theorists who support this claim by discussing fixation and regression, these characteristics share with nostalgia the attempt to return to a place of origin and the inability of recollection alone to facilitate this return.

Changing perceptions of nostalgia have been suggested by Brandt (1978:60). Nostalgia was ‘felt’ in the 19^th century with the occurrence of urbanization.  The movement of people from small rural communities into cities saw a change in the way of life.  This change came with the adoption of new technologies, pace and communication changed forever.  Cities were perceived as more frenetic and impersonal places.  This ascending of time and growth was celebrated by modernists but at the same time it became a significant trigger for nostalgia.  This experience of nostalgia was more than just a response in the form of anxieties caused by a deep dissatisfaction with the time and place occupied in the present.  There was a loss of collective past and way of life due to the changing times, and although it did not cause physical illness it did generated a heavy feeling of ‘loss and longing that could not be purely classified as cerebral’. (cited Sprengler :15)

Previous studies of nostalgia of the 1940s - 1950s continued to situate its definition within the clinical landscape of psychiatry and military medicine (McCann 1943: Ruml 1946; Foden 1950).  Fred Davies also claimed that ‘nostalgia did not enter popular speech outside of a military realm until the 1950s, this suggests the nostalgic concept today is a relatively young and has generated new perspectives and discourse in the last half of the century.  For example nostalgias political usefulness was instrumental in triggering several key perceptual shifts.  Ideology not geography now determines its force, which in turn generated a shift. The view of nostalgia changed from viewing nostalgia as a mental aliment to thinking about nostalgia as an appropriate response where there was an absence of the ideal, commonly associated with the esteemed homeland. (Starobinski 1966:99). This shift has also seen nostalgia utilized in advertising and propaganda whereby tradition is upheld.  It also has been used strategically by politicians to capture an audience who looks to the past as ‘better times’, this shows a weak argument suggesting ways to attain stability, whereby there is ‘proof’ of positive policy that previously existed in a different time.  This ideological view of the past is a traditionalist approach and retrospectively been criticized for being repressive, manipulative and in turn prohibits the normal succession of progress, exploration and debate.

Editorial Vogue Italia - Paolo Roversi

Case Study #2

A second editorial by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia (November 2008) titled Cottage in Riva al Mare recreate scenes from Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona.  His filmic story is self evident, yet he goes further than to merely reference stills from the film.  The 34 page editorial is composed mostly of black and white images with the occasional accent of colour.  These more muted tones emphasize the natural light, soft focus and a relationship between the environment, models and garments.  This effect creates a merging of fur and hair, sand and skin, textured knits and straw weaves suggesting the melding of person and landscape in the rock escarpment and turbulent ocean.  Interestingly this is most probably the motif that represents the melding of the women’s personalities within the film.  The weather too has a role in shaping an atmosphere, and reflects the nature of the women – placid verses turbulent.  The overall tone of the shoot is foreshadowed by the weather and explores themes of love, loathing, secrecy, drama, beauty, confusion.  These themes are also relevant to the troublesome melodrama. 

Meisel uses strategies such as doubling, mirroring and repetition.  Reflection and repetition are important features of this editorial and are recurring motifs within Meisel’s work more broadly.  These motifs are specific to this work and its narrative as the film explores the relationship between carer and patient.  Viewing the editorial without foresight of the film generates a sense of ambiguity regarding the women’s relationship. Are these women twins, sisters, friends, lovers or is it the imagined experience of a schizophrenic.  Thus this longing to know and solve the riddle is a point of mystery and curiosity, a key component of tension and desire in narrative that both Laura Mulvey and Margaret Maynard discuss in their essays.

The role of the spectator is also important in this example as the images are presented as frames from a film.  At times the perspective is obscured, fragmented and repeated evoking a sense of the voyeuristic.  Like the cameras ability to steal and track private or intimate moments, this is the effect of cinema, the method creates such characteristics for the purpose of this editorial in shaping and driving the narratives ambiguity and creates a desire to watch and know what unfolds between these women.

Vogue Italia november 2008 by Steven Meisel

Retrospective

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLiTnKdXhak&NR=1

Tartan and Tweed

Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 1999

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh8NI8TlVkQ&feature=fvwrel

Andrew Elliot LTD

http://elliot-weave.co.uk/index.php?page=heritage

Maison Martin Margiela Interview

http://hypebeast.com/2010/07/nouveau-ideal-maison-martin-margiela-interview/

Collage - Vanessa Edwards

collage of magazine, newspaper clippings

idea for digital textile print... still needs work

Italian Marble, Brooklyn Museum

Successful Drapes - Vanessa Edwards

Colour Pallet Ideas

Dissertation Topic

The aesthetic of ‘pastness’, remembering the cinematic: An examination of narrative, fantasy and memory and its continuing appeal within contemporary fashion photography, photo media and film.

This essay explores the idea of nostalgia and informs through a focused look at discussions surrounding the relationship between past and present, memory and history and the varied forms of its representation in fashion photography, film and related photo media.  There is a significant amount of writing on nostalgia but there are still areas that remain under theorized.  Much of this essay has been informed by key works of Pam Cook, Christina Sprengler and Laura Mulvey, these women begin to bridge these gaps and have inspired further investigation.

This essay examines the aesthetic appeal of; and in Sprenglers’words ‘pastness’, which is different to nostalgia.  The first area of study in this essay traces the historical discourse of nostalgia, supporting its context in society today.  Since the early 1990s nostalgia has been a phenomenon within fashion photography, film, and photo media, both commercially and independently oriented.  Having noticed a growing trend remake and appropriate history to the extent whereby retro and vintage objects have become objects of commodity and capital.  The question begged, why is there a preoccupation with this form of representation and why does is continue to resonate with and appeal to such a wide audience today? 

'The Kiss'

this image encapsulate a mood for my collection

here are some key words that come to mind...

elegant, beauty, youth, sumptuous, romantic, glamourous, luxurious  

'Silos' Cape Cod, Massachusetts - Vanessa Edwards

'Christina's World' 1948 - Andrew Wyeth

I find this painting captivating. I have always had an emotional response to her solitude and isolation. It is a beautiful and haunting image that became even more moving when I learned that the subject had polio. I finally visited it in person at MOMA in New York last year.

This image will probably be translated into my colour pallet for the collection. I am interested in developing a collection that somehow captures the essence of Wyeth's use of texture. He finely depicts surfaces, and warm tones. It is an image that demonstrates precise realism and is obviously influenced by photography, suggested by the unusual viewpoints and composition. 

Scary Women

collage of Gregory Crewdsons photographs and Hollywood portrait photography

I feel that the combination on imagery demonstrates a strong narrative. There is a darker more sinister undercurrent to these images. Although the female model/actress is beautiful and presents perfected the film noir-esk lighting translates a different story and motive. Crewdsons photographs are also very obviously staged, in contrast his images project a bizarre and damaged representation of the urban American dream. I feel that these images evoke a sense of beauty and melancholy and at the same time we are reminded of our own mortality. These images capture the protagonist of a melodrama and we are very aware of a mood brewing.

Untitled Photo - Vanessa Edwards

Storm Clouds, Erskinville

My interest in this composition concerns the obvious contrast of dark and light, nature verses urban. I find these binary opposites facinating and it is a common point of interest that reaccures in my work. This image is  atmospherically charged due to the dynamic conversation between polar opposites. It also presents drama and a cinematic quality as the storm clouds appear forbodding and this is emphasised by the serene calm that comes before.

influential artist Bill Henson

'El Morocco' 1955 - Garry Winogrand

Sarah Hermanson Meister (2007) Picturing New York: Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art

Is she a femme fetal? I am interested in the dichotomy of this composition because the action is seemingly hideous in a formal setting. What is supposedly a civil and glamorous bourgeois ball is subverted by the simplicity of letting go and exposing oneself. In this context the woman is experiencing extreme elation though she appears vicious and monster-like, gnashing teeth and sharp nails, she looks dangerous her expression could be hiss or a laugh? 

'The Edge' - Sylvia Plath

http://5000photographs.blogspot.com/2010/11/photograph-31.html

the woman is perfected 

her dead

body wears the smile of accomplishment

the illusion of Greek necessity

flows in the scrolls of her toga

her bare

feet seem to be saying

we have come so far, it is over 

each dead child coiled, a white serpent

one at each little

pitcher of milk, now empty

she has folded

them back into her body as petals

of a rose close when the garden

stiffens and odours bleed

from the sweet deep throats of the night flowers

the moon has nothing to be sad about

staring from her hood of bone

she is used to this sort of thing

her blacks crackle and drag

Ratan

Poster!

Here is the link to my poster:


https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B_9k9dF4fVmnODUzYjIyMjQtY2Y3Yi00Y2YxLWJmNWQtN2VkYTU1ZWZlZGY4&hl=en

Central Park Photo

I thought this photo would make an appropriate first post.  I took it one afternoon whilst walking in the upper part of Central Park, New York in winter 2011.  I spent five weeks living in a little studio on west 25th and would ride the subway up to the park to explore a new field or path most days, I love the way that such a densely inhabited city shares a giant back yard that is Central Park. You really come to appreciate a quiet open space and fresh air.  

New York is an amazing city, it is frenetic and changing at such a fast pace but even being a stranger to the city is is not hard to feel familiar with the place, probably because we are constantly looking at film and photography that reference the city. My time away in january and february was very inspiring and I like the fact that this image reminds me of my time in New York but the catalyst is not an obvious cityscape. 

I feel that this photo appears more like a set and I remember taking this shot because I was moved by the low afternoon light on the recent snow fall, untrodden - an unusual sight in such a walked upon city. I like everything about this shot, its composition the colours and overall atmosphere.