MEDI 259: Critical Evaluation

I have called my piece ‘Dreamscapes’ because I perceived it to be a landscape of my idea of a dream. It is a montage of images, informed by my dreams and the cultural images of dreams and memories that have been fed to me since birth by the media as a whole. I wanted to use Plymouth for the first image because I have a stock of photos that I took of Plymouth and they are personal to me. I believe that photographs are important memories; they are the physical representation of a single point in time that meant or means something to the photographer. As such I felt it important to start in a place that held a lot of memories for me, as I wanted the final image to represent memories and dreams. However I intended the outcome to be something others would recognise as a dream.

Originally, I intended to make an image using much simpler techniques and project it into a space. This would effectively create a ‘pocket of reality’ by having not only a new space made in the image but also using the objects and terrain it would be projected on. The works of Doug Aitken and Christian Boltanski inspired me because they produce such stunning installations using projection. I was also initially going to include music in the installation to create a brand new immersive environment but due to time and space constraints the idea was changed. It did however turn out to be serendipitous as I think the painterly quality of the image actually conveys what I wanted more accurately.

In this experimental work I have drawn very heavily on cultural references that have shaped me both as a person and an artist. In particular the works of great authors such as Edgar Allen Poe and Lewis Carroll, since their fantastical and dream like stories have influenced my notion of dreams, reality and memories. I have naturally drawn heavily from my own personal daydreams and nighttime flights of fancy because this is a very personal project to me. A further layer of inspiration comes from both video games and comic books, which were hugely important to me as a child, and as such highly influential to the way I visualise the imaginary. Artistically I was most influenced by surrealism and in particular Dali, I wanted my image to spark the same curiosity that ‘The persistence of memory’ sparked in me. This I do feel I achieved because people were studying it in great detail.

I was greatly concerned with my image being received the way I wanted it to be. The psychological aspect of the image is a crucial element. However everyone has a different perspective on the image and all of them are true. Art evolves the more it is viewed and gains new layers of meaning.

The actual production of the Plymouth Dreamscape image was time consuming and exhausting.  Although I used a relatively simple process, it took a long time to get the image looking right and achieve the moods and feelings that I wanted to convey. This is due in part to my own perfectionist idea of my work. Also, it is challenging to place the fragments of stock images correctly and find the exact opacity for that fragment. This can become confusing when there are a lot of fragments. I have tried to make the process easier by having folders containing the relevant layers. On the second image, I expanded this further by naming some of the ‘fragments’. Each fragment needed to be on an individual layer for greater control over the image. I used Photoshop.

People that have viewed the Plymouth Dreamscape image have given me very positive feedback. It has been overwhelming to hear that people like it. The most common response is that it seems like a painting at first glance. This draws them in and makes them study the image in more detail.

Although no one has initially said they thought it was about dreams or memories, they have acknowledged that it has dream like qualities. People have picked up on the fact that both the sea and sky are almost cartoon like and these are the parts that most appeal to them. I intended them to be the major draw in the image as personally when I think of Plymouth I think most of the sky and sea. The fact that these are the biggest focus of the image give it a relaxing and calming feel for some people. A few people remarked that the image made them feel unsettled however. I am not sure why but I am very pleased with the fact that everyone has a very different experience when looking at the image.

I really enjoy this process of making images; it feels incredibly natural and comfortable to me allowing for it to be fun even though it is repetitive. I would like to keep making more images like this and expanding on this as I feel these images are very personal and fit in with my creative style. Many people remarked that they had not seen anything like the image that I exhibited.

I have subsequently produced another Dreamscape of a graveyard that has a much darker feel but can still be recognised as part of a set. They are both so radically different in tone that it is hard to compare them with each other. The graveyard is much more focused on the winter; I would hope that it affects an air of repose and quietude. I wanted it to be centered around the notion of transition and liminality. I personally feel that the place in itself could almost be a metaphor for the circularity of life and death because of the huge presence of nature in the graveyard.

In summation I feel that this project has a huge amount of scope and I intend to produce more images and develop the idea of dreamscape further. I have currently no dreamscapes featuring interior locations, which I intend to remedy.