It was extremely exciting to first see Signal and my head instantly boggled with ideas. Having an exhibit outside of university made us work harder in producing something of quality. I knew I wanted to involve bright colours and potentially fabrics from the beginning because those are some things that I really love. When we decided “OBSESSION” would be our title, the work turned into a matter of personal “site specificity.” It turned into something which we defined for ourselves. The way I decided to interpret it initially was the canvas within my footage would be the human body which would activate the area. As I researched, I found that if the place was to be considered “relational” or “concerned with identity” it is deemed a place, rather than non-place (Augé, 1995, p.77-78). Using physical human subjects in my work turned the simple portrait-set area with white backdrop into a place.

I started out by wanting to explore the way which fabrics moved on the body in different environments so this added another element of space as well. As “fabrics may drape in dramatically different ways, depending on the fibre content” and the “fabric structure and type of finish” I wanted to further explore this by testing out a range of textured fabrics in different environments and substances (Kenkare & May‐Plumlee, 2005, p.109). I wanted to see how they moved with a physical body, how the context of typical clothing and fabric could be manipulated. My first sequence in the pool was my favourite as the colour contrasts worked nicely together and the textures and designs of the fabrics would still stand out under water. However, my next shoots strayed away from the concept of movement and drape on the body. I experimented with my orange print fabric in abstracted ways to depict an orange within nature. I was now taking fabrics into situations where they weren’t typically intended, yet held cohesively through the colour schemes and/or positioning of the materials. After the shoots following, my pool sequence was no longer adhering to my altered concept.

Drawing on several different artist models for inspiration, I would say that the work ended with a concept you may consider as “textures in out of place environments.” Although some of them seem quite comical, I also wanted a feeling of uncomfortableness to be present. The use of furry materials on the custard covered bowls, the furry mask whilst trying to eat sticky donuts that were once depicted as eyes, the dribbling of coloured milk down a clean white top, the open-mouthed chewing of a banana, the orange eyes and showing an orange being squeezed and at the same time having a layered effect which shows the juice being drunk. Particularly the banana mastication was an absolute contrasting aspect to my “obsessions” as I cannot stand hearing people eat. I really enjoyed making this peculiar contrast. The fabrics used were all very intentional, I made sure to keep them colour scheme cohesive to keep some readability as the sequences were so short. The use of fur alongside gooey foods was homage to the fact that I love to wear fluffy clothing, but always somehow manage to get them sticky with food – which is really hard to remove and makes me feel uncomfortable.

After finishing my sequences of four images across the windows, it was decided it would work best if repositioned, so I spent some time rearranging my sequences, it looked a lot better on the windows as the crossbars did not hinder the profile shots. However, I did not consider the fact my work may have looked better with white backing to work with the back-drop, rather than black spaces at the exhibits.

My sound clips were extensions of my footage as they were also of an uncomfortable nature, slurping of liquids and biting of items, humming of fridge and scratching of various materials. I did not end up using all of the raw clips in my final as some were lost / not loud enough. They may have worked in an environment which wasn’t as busy, but if played at Signal out in the open, I needed something with more strength. I used a lot of the slurps and “ahh” noises to correlate with the mildly grotesque yet satisfying nature of the drinking and eating within the shots. I warped the noises in Garage Band to create three sequences which became overwhelming or louder at different points so when they were playing at the same time, they fit together and different sections would be emphasised for audience members to focus their attention. Unfortunately, my sound was not as loud as I had hoped, but was still able to be heard when walking along the boardwalk.

List of cited works:

Augé, M. (1995). Non-places. London: Verso.

Kenkare, N. and May‐Plumlee, T. (2005). Evaluation of drape characteristics in fabrics. International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, 17(2), pp.109-123.