MEDI 236: History of Tarot

There are a lot of myths and legends surrounding Tarot. One of the most common myths is that Gypsies invented them, some others still site their place of inception to be Morocco or Egypt. However no one knows for definite where they came from or how they came to be.  The first mentions of the cards are under a slightly different name in the 14th century however these were used in games and as educational tools for the rich and not as the divination tools they are known as today.

Historically its widely believed that the cards first developed in Italy as playing cards based on grand parades and were then adopted as a divination tool in France. This theory was proposed and most prolifically written about by Decker, Dummett et al, 1996, "A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot" There is then no mention of the cards for around three hundred years, until the late 1700's. At this point it is believed that Antoine Court de Gébelin a reported Occultist and Freemason saw the card game of 'Tarocchi' being played, he was said to see great symbolism in the cards that he attributed to the Ancient  Egyptians. 

Very soon the idea of the cards being symbolic and having great meaning spread, hence Tarot as a divination tool is born!  It was also then linked to the Gypsies who absorbed parts from different cultures, which were then amalgamated and the new over-culture then disseminated wherever they went (Like a pre-internet, internet like communication system), furthering the spread of Tarots popularity and also the spread of its myths.

The popularity of Tarot steadily grew into the 19th century when another Occultist by the pseudonym of  Eliphas Levi linked the cards to the Hebrew Mystic faith of Kabalah and the 'Tree of Life'. Earlier De Gébelin had linked the cards to Kabalah since there are 22 major or 'trump' cards and also 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet but it was Eliphas Levi that expanded on this.

The next set of people to champion the Tarot Deck were the 'Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn' in the late 1800's; these along with Aleister Crowley and Arthur Edward Waite are notable for having the most influence on modern Tarot Decks and practices. Crowley is considered an important part in the Neo-Pagan movement.  Thus we are, in modern times left with most Tarot Decks being copies of either Waite's or Crowley's. However nowadays there are so many Decks with such a wide variety of artwork that they seem to have a life of their own and are now being constantly reinvented and linked to new symbols or spiritualism and used by a wider range of people from a wider range of belief.

To summarise, although Tarot has constantly evolved over the ages it is still in a state of flux especially as Paganism is thrust more and more into the public eye and cultures merge through use of the melting pot that is the internet. Therefore Tarot is and will continue to develop and grow as a divination tool for the foreseeable future.

MEDI 236: Change of Plan...

Ok so going with the Pagan idea that I orriginally had is not feasable as all of my models have droped out or not been able to make it or lived to far away. So I have been thwarted in my original idea because of cost and time and the fact that mostly Pagans are a private bunch.

The new idea then is to focus on Tarot. Speciffically one reading between two reliable friends of mine. This is still along the same lines as the Reader is Pagan herself.

I will be photographing the reading and also I will record it for transcription purposes. I would like to include a very brief text with my photos so that a veiwer can understand the general idea of what is happening a lot better.

MEDI 263: Photographic Narratives : Results

Photographic Narratives.  Credits: 20

Mark: 55.6%

This is a pass of an equivelent 2.2 grade.

MEDI 259: Project Proposal

I intend to produce an installation, working in projection, the size and space that they would take up should however be scaled appropriately to the space given.  The basis of the idea is that using the style I have already developed I intend to use both new and cataloged photos of my own and blend them to create a new ‘pocket’ of reality if you will.

The space these projections would inhabit will be a fusion of multiple spaces since you have not only the places or objects in the image being projected but also the objects and landscape that they will be displayed in. Although they may be very personal to me (as the way I view the world would be conveyed in the images) I would hope the audience would be able to identify some part of their lives or even their dreams in each image.

For the purpose of the installation I aim to produce a collection of different reality pockets, my original intention was to have them tightly themed (for example my originals are all about autumn) but I do feel that it does not reflect the true nature of life and indeed how humans perceive reality. This is proven by the fact that instead of one concrete idea of a space, humans often pull in several images for one space to include things like sounds, scents, feelings and memories, this results in many images blurring in the human mind or similar places being recalled at the same time, so one thing is associated with another and so on.

I would therefore like to attempt to illustrate the complex nature of how human beings deal with reality and space. The aim is to produce something that can at once look both familiar and alien to most people.  I like this style in a lot of fantasy, there are many books, photos and films that use the real to create the surreal but particularly I find the ‘Alice in Wonderland’* series particularly inspiring.

On the technical side of things I would want each ‘environment’ to stay for a reasonable length of time before disappearing so I would have to set up specific time delay on each slide.  It would be reasonable to have approximately a minute so that the viewer can see the entire environment before it changes and then react to that change these would be then cycled through continuously until the exhibition ended.  It would be interesting to see not only the viewers’ reaction to one landscape but also the reaction of the viewer as they changed. Therefore as follow up work or indeed part of the documentation of my project I would like to film peoples reactions to the spaces, this I feel would help to see what was effective and what was not and would also become an experience in itself.

I already have a range of images that I have made whilst practicing and I have expanded on some greatly.  I like the quirks of some of my expanded images and would not need to do a lot with them. I am however toying with the idea of making the colors brighter to reflect the fact that some memories are super clear in your brain. The stock images I have all vary greatly in quality and sharpness as they were taken with different cameras and at different times in different places and this I feel is important as it further reflects memories and how some memories may be clearer or blurry or more colorful than others. The act of blending these further represents how memories work.

I find my inspiration is drawn from the clever installations of Doug Aitken** since he cleverly employs photography and projection into his works to make them truly immersive I am also tempted to like him include sound in my work to make it more well rounded.  I have also drawn inspiration from of the more projection-based works of Christian Boltanski*** since they are very evocative and thought provoking.

I would like if I could to use 360 degrees projection so that each environment would take up the entire room or as much of it as possible. My intended audience is the student body and the general public; I would ideally like everyone to find things they identify with in my landscapes so the target audience in essence is the human psyche.

I am intending to expand on the Photoshop techniques I have already used for my preliminary work but I would still like keep the manipulation as simple as possible so that the images still have a very natural feel to them.  For instance I associate a bright yellow flower with the sun, so in that particular environment the flower would be the sun, this links real to dream and memories to feelings. From a technical standpoint the only programs that I do need to use would be photo manipulation software since I already have the images in back catalog. If I did need to do more shoots I would probably use a Nikon D80 although any camera will do and occasionally you get nice results from using a camera on a mobile phone even though mine is currently three mega-pixels I feel that given I am trying to capture the notion of something like memory and reality that the quality of picture could still be compelling.  In terms of workload I intend to produce the work solo, as it is a personal project so I am the main driving force of its creation. 

Technically I think I am capable of handling setup myself, however given the fact I have not used 360 projection before I am not ruling out the possibility of needing a slight amount of technical assistance.

As an end result I would ideally like to have three environments being: Dartmoor, Plymouth and a Graveyard in London. These are all fairly personal places to me and I would like to showcase them as I see them with all my memories, thoughts and feelings to truly showcase what they are like in my head and create a thought provoking environment for its audience.

*Alice in Wonderland – 1865 – Lewis Carroll

**Doug Aitken  - Born in 1969 - http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/_2/

***Christian Boltanski - Born in Paris in 1944 -http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/boltanski_christian.html

MEDI 259 Experiment: Expanded Images

MEDI 263: Critical Evaluation

For my final narrative I decided to focus on the story of me learning how to make sushi. My initial idea was originally focused around autumn in the city and the initial shoot for this had some good images but nothing that was very eye popping so I decided to go for the sushi idea. My first sushi shoot was full of fuzzy, ill focused pictures so I had to do a re-shoot. I think the blurriness of the photos may have been due to a few important yet un-obvious settings on the camera I was using. I have since developed a greater understanding of the more intricate settings on the camera being a Nikon D80. I have gained valuable knowledge into how important the very small details on the camera can be and how dramatic a hidden setting can affect a photos quality so much. I set the camera to a large image and on fine detail so that I could capture far more detail and thus have better images. Also on the off chance that the blur may have been due to camera shake I used a tripod for my reshoot thus minimising the risk of having images blurred. I wanted to show a step by step almost comic style story of me making sushi and then I wanted to show an Onigiri being eaten an have a kind of cartoon face on it at various stages of being eaten to show emotion. Both the comic strip theme and the cute personifications of the Onigiri (Rice Ball) reflect the Japanese culture and especially the ‘Manga’ or ‘Anime’ that inspired me to want to learn to make sushi and indeed started my love for the food. Id like to think that it is fairly light-hearted and fun also I do think food is a narrative all in its own. The final images I have taken very great care for them to be in focus and very clear and sharp. I have decided to exhibit them in a series with the comical three pictures in the centre at the bottom as an aside. I really like the warm colours and did not want to normalise the lighting level as yellow light makes people hungry and I feel that the images being food should achieve this. It’s a tactic used in supermarkets to make us buy things and it does also say something about consumerism and the two different cultures merging together.  

I had a lot of problems initially with my project and getting it off the ground, however I feel that I have developed a much stronger technical knowledge and also a much more critical eye in photography. Overall I feel myself that I have dramatically improved. I am overall fairly pleased with the images although I do feel they could be perfect if I did a few more shoots. I am very pleased that all of my final images are in focus as I made every effort to ensure this. I have in myself however made dramatic improvements in my skills.  

To sum it up I would like to think my project is well structured with clean crisp and nicely framed images I wanted to include a lot of influences in my images and I do think that they carry the narrative fairly well.

MEDI 263: Final Images