today's diary

• tried screen printing for the first time at Camberwell
• was printing photos taken from last project onto translucent materials; tracing paper and white chiffon, to see if layering them would look good... It didn't really work very well!
• but will see how it turns out tomorrow when it's dry.
• think I used too much ink but main thing was that converting photos into black and white took away too much detail
  

Emmet Gowin
Edith and Moth Flight 2002

Nicholas Hughs
In Darkness Visible (Verse) #17 2007

Sarah Pickering
White Goods 2007/2008

Just a few photos from the photographers gallry at the V&A which I thought could be relevant for my project. I like what was said about Sarah Pickering's photograph which was that at first glance you would think it was a charcoal drawing and not a photo, which is what I found when I saw it.

Fashion standing still

I visited the Fashion section at the Victoria and Albert Museum; another example of making fashion static. It was set out as a timeline, taking pieces of clothing from each era and displaying them chronologically around the room. To be honest, I don't think garments, especially those as beautiful as the collection in the V&A, should be kept on a still mannequin, behind a glass panel. The dim lighting and the grey walls in the gallery seemed to me to take the grandeur out of most of the clothes, especially Vivienne Westwood's 'Watteau' evening gown. I don't think the clothes can be enjoyed for what they are when they are displayed in a gallery; you can't feel the material, you can't see how it moves and fits on a living model and you can't examine the way it is made. I do agree that a lot of these garments are works of art and pieces of fashion history but it seemed somewhat unnatural to see them so still. However, i guess that in another way, this sort of display does mean that the garments are really standing on their own, and can be appreciated for the works of art they are, rather than being styled to look good with the right model, or in a styled photoshoot.

fashion fades...

“Fashion fades, only style remains the same.” Coco Chanel

New direction

After talking to Susan, my tutor, about the trouble I am having with solidifying my concept, I now have decided to go in a slightly different direction. The main problem I was having was that although I knew that I still wanted to investigate ghosts, shadows and specters, I wasn't entirely of my reasons for doing this. However, after researching a little into what these terms actually mean, particularly 'specter' I found that they convey something that is fleeting, like a glimpse of something from past, present or future and then it is gone, but it doesn't die - it can return. And this is something that can definitely be related to fashion, because fashion is ephemeral.

Therefore, in having my concept based around the idea of ghosts, I am going to relate it to the speed of the fashion industry and one of the main things I am going to look at is the way a magazine locates fashion trends in time; how it solidifies fashion and seems to stop it in its tracks - at least until the next month or whenever the next issue is out. But at the same time as being completely solid and giving all the current information on fashion, a magazine is still ephemeral and throw away, as soon as you have finished reading it, it's out of date; its last seasons trends.

I am thinking of creating a mock magazine, still incorporating photography, but explaining the ephemeral quality of fashion and quoting Caroline Evans and Jacques Derrida. Obviously much more research and thinking is needed for this idea and this is what I will do next.

Specters of Marx

relevant quotes from Specters of Marx by Jacques Derrida:

"a ghost never dies, it remains always to come and to come back." p. 99
"The specter, as its name indicates, is the frequency of a certain visibility. But the visibility of something invisible. And visibility, by its essence, is not seen, which is why it remains epekeina tes ousias, beyond the phenomenon or beyond being." p.100

Crit No. 1

Today was the first day back at Camberwell after the easter holidays, and so was the first crit of our Final Major Projects. The main thing that came out of this for me was that although there are lots of ideas and a there's a lot I can experiment with, my research has been too broad and has strayed from the original idea which means that I do not have a solid concept. This is something I want to work on as soon as possible because using this first week to create a rich research file is essential to moving on with my project.
I need to focus on giving more depth to my concept, which started off with the idea of 'ghost' clothes. I want to research more into the idea of what the terms 'ghost', 'specter' and 'shadow' mean in different contexts and need to experiment more with making clothing from translucent material and black and white photography. I have started reading The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International by Jaques Derrida. Derrida explains and interprets the many ghostly metaphors in Marx's writings and establishes what Marx means by 'the specter of communism'. Although Derrida delves deeper into the meaning of the terms 'ghost' and 'specter' than I plan to do, his thoughts are useful and could lend something to my project, however I will write more about him once I have read and understood more of the book.

Also, another fashion photographer I have found who works in black and white is Paolo Roversi. There is something different about his photographs compared to other black and white pictures, I think its to do with a lower contrast in shade and a softer edge, yet he still manages to create a stiking image: