15th feb-task 2 feedback

My feedback

 

Text by Kin Woo / Mark Borthwick/ partner help….

 

When receiving feedback and further research I was given a photographer to look at called Mark Borthwick. For London-born, New York based photographer Mark Borthwick; love, art, life, music and even food all seamlessly meld into the other to create work that is like no other. He forgoes digitized perfection and moody nihilism to capture intimate moments in the lives of his models, family and friends, usually in the throes of happiness and love.  By experimenting with overexposing film, he creates an almost otherworldly light that saturates the images. Borthwick was a defining photographer of the 90’s, helping then-fledgling magazines like Purple, Self Service and Another traverse the interstitial territories between art and fashion that’s almost taken for granted today. He celebrated the recent release of his retrospective monograph with Rizzoli, ‘Not In Fashion’ with a weeklong series of performances at the Journal Gallery in New York that mixed poetry readings with live performances in a way that generated a communal intimacy, much like his work does.

 

Questions

 

Dazed Digital: How did you start in fashion?

Mark Borthwick:

As a teenager, from a Punk I became a New Romantic and I was really into make-up. Through wearing make-up and living in squats around London, I met other friends and the opportunity arose to do people’s make-up. I slowly got introduced to bands and people in the fashion industry, and I became a make-up artist.

 

DD: Your work is like no-other but who do you see as contemporaries in photography?

Mark Borthwick: That’s a complicated question! First and foremost I always find it easier to talk about friends. And some of them may be people you’ve never heard of before. I’m happy to respectfully congratulate other photographers whose work I think is fine but outside of that world, I think it’s about relationships. You’re surrounded by friends who have the same feeling. It’s always been important to me to nurture that feeling. For me photography is less about the documentation that it is about a shared experience. Once the experience is shared, then it’s very much the feelings other people get from the image, what the image is trying to say to them.

I don’t find photography right now to be the most exciting medium. It’s become closer to painting. There’s an incredible amount of opportunity but most people are shooting digital.

 

 

DD: Is digital anathema to you? Photos look so airbrushed today but there is a rawness to your work.

Mark Borthwick: As long as I can buy film, I will continue to work with film. I’m interested in the transparency. It’s the luminosity, the nothingness. It’s something that’s quite fragile and doesn’t actually fit. When I work, a lot of things happen by surprise. It’s trying to opportune a little voice in myself where I let go of control of the image and let things happen. I think that’s something that has happened with visual photography, it’s become so controlled. It’s like a mechanism, you look at the computer, you don’t have the time to feel the images. I recognise that a lot of people work like machines and I could never do that. I’ve learnt to find another way of working.

 

DD: The light in your work is ethereal, a whole other presence in the image. Is it a process of carefully controlled chaos or trial and error?

Mark Borthwick: Truthfully it’s still a surprise. It’s different every time. It really does depend on the temperature of the light, the brightness of the light, if I expose the image directly to the sun or directly to the shade or candlelight. It’s a little bit like a mindgame, it gives you the opportunity to lose yourself a little bit and play a little game with yourself where you are losing control. The control itself is not so much that I know what’s going to happen but that there’s different ways to doing it. For sure I get an enormous amount of joy because it does eminently produce these images that are otherworldly and come from another time. They have a vibrational effect and make me go, ‘Wow!’ and make me tickle and feel good. That’s something new.

 

 

DD: You seem to have an ambivalent relationship to fashion. What makes you dip your toes back into fashion every now and then?

Mark Borthwick: I don’t feel like I’ve never been part of it because I still have quietly been doing things but I just didn’t want to participate in the hierarchical side of it. The older I got, I realized I got a lot of joy out of doing what my voice was telling me to do. But I wasn’t given the opportunity to practise it. I’m not really allowed to do the images I like for a magazine like Purple anymore. I’m really interested in fashion and styling but I have no interest in participating in the daily rigmarole of what’s happening right now. That’s really boring and completely unfashionable.

For me fashion images has to be about something that’s true, this is the way that we dress. I don’t want to create images that are contrived and sensational. I don’t want to be putting too many images out there otherwise it’d end up all looking the same. I feel like I had my time. There was an extreme luxury to work with a mag like Purple, Another at that time and get 30 pages to do whatever you want. There’s a new generation of kids out there and they should have those pages. Then again I was really happy with my recent story in Another. It gave me great joy to see a magazine that was laid out in such a fresh way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sinnika thought i could explore how you could dress yourself with memories....? or perhaps taking a similar shot as the picture above, and explaining my thoughts as to  how much clothes we consume?....

 

She also suggested exploring Purple fashion magazine?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When reading and researching i learn that Purple is a French fashion, art and culture magazine founded in 1992.
HISTORY

In 1992, Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm started the magazine Purple Prose as a reaction against the superficial glamour of the 1980’s; much as a part of the global counterculture at the time, inspired by magazines like Interview, Ray Gun, Nova, and Helmut Newton’s Illustrated, but with the aesthetics of what usually is referred to as anti-fashion. Based on their personal interests and views; Purple was, and in a sense still is, made much in the same spirit of the fanzine. The magazine quickly became associated with the "realism" of the new fashion photography of the 1990’s, with names like Juergen Teller, Terry Richardson, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Mario Sorrenti.

In the introduction of the Purple Anthology, Zahm writes:

" We launched Purple Prose in the early 1990s without any means, and without any experience, because we wanted to make a magazine that was radically different. We wanted to support the artists around us that noone else supported, much less talked about.  It would be a form of opposition of our own, different from the critical jargon of the generation of ’68.  From a visual standpoint, we represented the break from ’80s imagery (like Richard Avedon’s photography for Versace, for example). From an artistic standpoint, the artists of the early ’90s were rising up against art as capital fetish . In saying that Purple is the portrait of a generation, I mean it’s a portrait of those who embody their times. At the same time, it’s a portrait of myself and Elein Fleiss, our ideas, our lives, and our aesthetics."

Sinnika also suggested researching into the Green living, recycling clothing, benefits …? National geographic website.

<>

“

[...] We launched Purple Prose in the early 1990s without any means, and without any experience, because we wanted to make a magazine that was radically different. We wanted to support the artists around us that noone else supported, much less talked about. [..] It would be a form of opposition of our own, different from the critical jargon of the generation of ’68. [..] From a visual standpoint, we represented the break from ’80s imagery (like Richard Avedon’s photography for Versace, for example). From an artistic standpoint, the artists of the early ’90s were rising up against art as capital fetish [..]. In saying that Purple is the portrait of a generation, I mean it’s a portrait of those who embody their times. At the same time, it’s a portrait of myself and Elein Fleiss, our ideas, our lives, and our aesthetics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thrift shops are a great resource for donating or buying used clothing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whean reading the articles on this website i learnt....

 

Recycling unwanted clothing reduces landfill waste as well as the amount of resources needed to produce new clothing. It also lessens the waste produced by the manufacturing process --- clothing scraps end up in the landfill, too. Used clothing can be donated, sold or disassembled for the fabric.

Discarded Clothing

Americans discard an estimated 68 pounds of clothing a year, while buying 10 pounds of recycled clothes. In 2006, 2.5 billion pounds of fabric were kept from the landfills by used-clothing purchases (see References 4). Yet about 99 percent of what is thrown away can be recycled. Clothing and household textiles, consisting of fabrics such as cotton, polyester, nylon and rayon, make up almost 5 percent of the total garbage in landfills.

Environmental Benefits

There are multiple environmental benefits associated with recycling clothing. It reduces the amount of pesticides used in growing cotton or to make fabrics from petroleum sources and the water needed to dye fabrics, and cuts down on the pollutants, greenhouse gases and volatile organic compounds released into the water and air from manufacturing processes.

Donation and Resale

Clothes are typically recycled by donating them to charities like the Salvation Army or Goodwill Industries, which will provide tax forms for deductions. You can also sell them at consignment stores for store credit or cash or on the Internet through auction or donation sites. Charities will either sell the used clothing and use the proceeds for their work, or donate the items to the needy. About 20 percent of clothing donations are turned over to thrift shops. The remainder, sold to textile recyclers, can end up as wiping rags, insulation, upholstery stuffing, ingredients in paper products or used clothing exports.

Benefits to the Consumer and the Industry

Customers who buy used clothing also benefit from what are usually substantially lower prices, compared to the price of new clothes. Recycled clothing also creates jobs at charity organizations, consignment stores and businesses that reuse the fabric to make products for sale. Cleaning rags, blankets, new clothes and even the U.S. dollar are examples of products that may contain fabric from recycled clothing. The U.S. textile recycling industry consists of about 2,000 companies, most of which are family-owned. They provide about 17,000 jobs and account for gross sales of $700 million every year.

February 15th task 2

This task was aimed to help me with the progression of my project and was based on working in pairs.

For this task I had to explain my initial idea of my project and had to list

my initial photographers/artists that i have looked into as reference points. I was then asked to research and develop this project for my research partner. We had to arrange a meeting with each other ideally on Monday the 21st February or Tuesday the 22nd February, to present and discuss our research and developed projects.

In the meeting I had to highlight my initial research, interrogating the work of

other photographers/artists that have engaged with similar or identical concepts. I used the computers available in the department and my own to conduct my research, but also used the library and its books and photography magazines to further my research remit.

I had to present a clear plan/structure of how i would aim to achieve the project. I talked about how I would intend to visually translate the concept into a cohesive visual project and how I would organize myself to visualize the

concept. These were some questions that helped structure my research and

give me starting points for my process of interrogation.

Who would you look at and what ideas can you take from those photographers/artists in order to structure the project?

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What would be your visual choices in the images (focus, distance, lighting, camera position What would the visual elements of your image be (composition, objects/subjects within the pictorial frame)? How would you choose to portray the concept

etc)?

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How you will you continue to develop the project?

What practical experimentation would you undertake to visually refine the concept?

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This shows my research i did for my partners commission unit.

How would you evaluate your process and critically appraise the progression of the project?

Her idea for this project is to

How will you structure the project, prepare and plan the visual translation of the concept?

Would you choose a specific photographic technique or process to construct the images?

What visual tools would you use to represent the concept (what would the viewer encounter in your image)?

 Her idea for her project was to recreate jeweleery prodced by Emma Ware. The theme explores a Re:Cycle collection by Emma Ware, sculptural and tactile, unique yet classic. Her pieces take jewelry design into a new realm.

Made by juxtaposing malleable dark rubber with polished metal, these are intricate sculptures that are framed and complimented by the body. Reflecting our curves and angles to emphasize and celebrate the beauty in nature. Soft, tactile and moveable these creations need to be seen and touched to be fully appreciated.

Not only are these pieces unique, they grow from a sustainable, ethical perspective. The design is of primary importance, the fact the materials are reclaimed is fundamental but not obvious. All pieces are made by hand in her London studio, each is a one-off, an art work in itself.

 

http://www.emmaware.co.uk/index.htm

 

As i was on the topic of jewlerry i began exploring different artists that meke and design jewlerry out of recyable material.

 

Kathleen Nowak Tucci, a Gulf Coast eco-designer and artist for 25 years, has turned her creative focus to designing couture accessories constructed from recycled rubber bicycle and motorcycle inner tubes. Her current collections include necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, belts and purses. Appearing in Fashion Market Week in NYC three times a year, Tucci’s designs have landed in some of the most exclusive boutiques across the United States and Europe.

Jewellery designed, conceived and created by Kathleen Nowak Tucci (at the time marketed by her sister Margaret Nowak Dobos’ company, My Sister’s Art) was featured on the cover of the August 2010 issue of Italian Vogue magazine. The issue, called “The Latest Wave,” featured the theme of water and oil, and was styled by Karl Templer, photographed by internationally acclaimed photographer Steven Meisel, and modelled by Kristen McMenamy. The concept interpreted the environmental crisis that has been affecting the Gulf Coast. This is the first time that an eco artist’s work has been featured on the cover of a mainstream fashion magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I have always made my work in components — smaller parts of a whole work. With my rubber jewellery, it may be long triangular pieces, that I call shreds, that eventually are assembled to create to become a necklace. Strips of inner tubes wait to be connected together along with other shapes, circles triangles or flowers. I like to have many parts pre-cut out ready for whatever combination strikes my fancy.”

“I have always liked C and S curves juxtaposed against geometric shapes such as squares, circles and triangles. I feel a strongly influenced by art-deco furniture, architecture and fashion. Working with the raw material of recycled rubber allows me to make dramatic pieces with very little weight.”

However as her designs progressed and began to acquire a cohesion of her vision, her beloved Gulf Coast was hammered with the Gulf Oil Spill. She was struck with the devastation of the event, its numbing anguish, and our own human interaction with Nature, for good or ill. Tucci came to see the relevance of her work as that of an eco-artist and eco-designer. She now proudly calls herself an eco-designer, finding it fulfilling in of itself along with the simple joy of being an artist who has achieved her vision and sees the many possibilities open before her.
In 2011 Kathleen’s jewellery has been in many publications including Marie Claire, Metal Clay Artist Magazine (cover), The Linen Magazine, Coastal Lifestyle Magazine five page feature), Po10tial Magazine( cover, exocover and nine page feature).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also explored `Recycled Jewellery by Wired`

 

'One man's trash is another woman's treasure -especially when that trash is made into jewellery. Recycled jewellery is popping up everywhere, and the materials used to create it is just as amazing as the jewellery itself. From Industrial trash thrown away in Chicago to bicycle inner tubes in Holland, recycled jewellery is eco-chic, handmade, and planet-friendly.‘

'The light-sensitive properties of silver compounds are the key to most photographic processes, and the basis of most of the waste produced. Like the compounds of many other heavy metals, they are highly toxic, and classified as special wastes. The high value of silver has for many years provided an economic base for recycling.'

 

'Bold. Strong. Beautiful. Aware. (wired) jewellery and couture makes a statement. Marrying aesthetics and environment, the results empower and inspire. Founder Melissa Kolbusz designs handmade wearable artwork entirely from reclaimed and surplus industrial material. Salvaging components, such as colourful alternator wire, tubing and transistors, (wired) fashions one-of-a-kind and limited edition works with designs on the future. The colour, texture, and malleability of the found materials guide the design of each piece and foster different compositional challenges than traditional materials.

The medium in which (wired) works is crucial in this era; recycling is not simply a buzz word, it’s essential to sustainability. (wired)’s wearable accessories and fashions are a creative design solution to counteract the waste caused by industry. By partnering with local industries, (wired) repurposes and reinvents the surplus produced by these businesses that would otherwise end up in a landfill. As individual as the wearer, each sustainable (wired) piece is a work of art, crafted locally and by hand. Purveyors can wear these works for a lifetime, knowing that they, too, are part of the solution.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sinnika also began exploring Futurism, and how it was launched by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909 with the publication of the Manifesto of Futurism on the front page of Paris newspaper Le Figaro. Drawing upon elements of Divisionism and Cubism, the Futurists created a new style that broke with old traditions and expressed the dynamism, energy and movement of their modern life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From this knowledge I explored into Futurist painters for her. As I when researching found out that a few years later the brothers came into contact with the Italian Futurist painters (Giacomo Balla, Boccioni and Russolo) who were experimenting with how to represent movement in painting at the same time. In 1913, Anton published Fotodinamismo Futurista which captured the dynamism of movement rather than a single moment.

 

Giacomo Balla, 

Boccioni, 

Russolo

 

 

 

 

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I did look into several double exposed photogrphers, but think she liked this artist the most.

from this researchi then wanted to explore more into  surrealism. A photographer i researched was :

Salvador Dali : Bejewelled Surrealism

 

Jewellery designed by Salvador Dali is the hot ticket these days at auction and museums. Three major exhibits are spotlighting the jewelled versions of his  surrealism this year.

“My art encompasses physics, mathematics, architecture, nuclear science – the psycho-nuclear, the mystico-nuclear – and jewellery – not paint alone,” Dali wrote in the 1959 catalogue Dalí: A Study of his Art-in-Jewels. “My jewels are a protest against emphasis upon the cost of the materials of jewellery.

“My object is to show the jeweller's art in true perspective – where the design and craftsmanship are to be valued above the material worth of the gems, as in Renaissance times.”

Dali had everything to do with the design but little to do with the craftsmanship of his jewels. Like most Modern artists who experimented with jewellery, he relied on others for that – specifically, New York goldsmith Carlos Alemany. (, making all his jewellery by hand.)But Dali personally selected the stones: rubies to represent energy, sapphires tranquillity and lapis lazuli the subconscious mind. His early attempts produced striking, bejewelled translations of his surrealist paintings: hearts bursting open and dripping blood, eyes weeping and melting, sensuous lips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments I  Suggested!

- In the background, could include recyclable items to add colour creating a similar style to futuristic paintings

- Perhaps make a sculpture out of tyres ?

- Consider a portrait including jewellery ?

 

 

She also explained she had began researching into the Bragaglia Brothers, which led me to believe that the Bragaglia brothers were at the root of  photodynamic, sought to capture and illustrate the life force. Fro this knowledge I researched further into  double exposure imagery. I found this picture on Flickr and thought the images were great for Sinnika as they captured  double exposure imagery, produced by British photographer student Dan. He plays with reflection and double exposure and a little with Photoshop. I thought she could explore his work further and perhaps develop some ideas.

my idea...?

For my idea, i really want to try and be creative as i can.  the photo above shows one of Gary Harveys collections from the Green Show.

 

Each of Harvey's of 22 show stopping gowns was expertly constructed from repurposed goods, with a focus on iconic vintage garments and materials, including Levi's 501s, '70s floral print maxi dresses, logo tees, and the pages of the Financial Times, to name a few. Inspired by "refined elegance, drama, and proportion," Harvey makes a statement about second-hand clothing by re-contextualizing classic garments into new dramatic silhouettes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eco-beauty company Weleda, a sponsor of the GreenShows, got a sartorial shout-out with this dress made from 350 packages of its "skin food."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This gown is composed of 20 organic-cotton slogan T-shirts donated by activist-designer Katharine Hamnett.

 

A true artist, designer Gary Harvey brings humour and wit to his upcycled couture gowns, constructed from dumpster-bound materials such as copies of the Financial Times, old baseball jackets, and empty skincare packaging. Although more theatrical than practical, Harvey’s innovative, show-stopping numbers sear themselves into your memory. Truly, an unforgettable way to kick off New York Fashion Week at the Green Shows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The skirts of these gowns were fashioned with vintage scarves, including knotted souvenir scarves from around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The University Scarves dress shows its school spirit with 12 English collegiate wool scarves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Wear the News™” by Elena Gregusova is an artistic reflection of contemporary environmental issues in multicultural context. The shape of every object is artistic transformation inspired by a unique historical event, personality or culture. Purposely arranged type of different world languages together with the color of used paper further enhances the visual information. The collection is a prime example of what can be done with everyday materials on hand and how discarded items can be transformed into beautiful works of art. 

The extensive process involved in bringing a single Wear The News™ piece to life requires hundreds of hours of handwork using classic textile, sculpting and craft techniques. Some of the shapes are formed from over 100,000 hand made pieces assembled together. Current collection features about 30 unique newspaper sculptures, which are the base for the future “Wear the News™” World Collection.

 

 

 

After all my research, i am really interested in making an outfit out of recyclable products. I have decided to create this, because I'm intrigued on how recyclable materials can be used to make a profitable business. I also like the idea of how designers eco-conscious or not, are picking up on this eco-trend, taking a risk and taking vintage couture design to a higher level.

For my project i am going to design and make an outfit out of recyable products.