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Mar 25, 201923 min read

FMP Secondary Research

Updated: May 10, 2019

General Plan

For the secondary research, I will further look at some artists and study the concepts of void. Basically, this section will help me to generate a clearer profile of the outcome. In the text study, I will read Frank Close's Nothing and Nan Huai-jing's Zen and Taoist to enrich my knowledge on different cultural context. Meanwhile, I will also search online and read some articles which are written in either Western or Eastern perspective. For the artist study, I selected some artists that I researched for a second look, and looking for the extension on the material and idea. Subsequently, I will organise the inspiring points into two forms and come out with a reflection eventually.


Due to the very limited time, I have to cancel the sketchbook for more time applying on research and experiment. Thus, I will record the whole process on the blog.



Text Study


Article/Journal/Blog/Paper




Nothing: A Very Short Introduction

Close, F. (2009). Nothing: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (English Edition). 1st ed. [eBook] Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005WSNRPK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_image_o03?ie=UTF8&psc=1 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2019]




Timelapse of the Future: A Journey to the End of Time

melodysheep. (2019). TIMELAPSE OF THE FUTURE: A Journey to the End of Time. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA [Accessed 22 Apr. 2019]



Reflection

For the text study, I attempt to get deeper into the element of nothingness in Taoism, Buddhism, and Physics. Several questions are laying in front of me that need to seek for the answers step by step. Firstly, I need to establish a clear idea of the meaning of nothingness in Taoism and Buddhism, and then compare the similarity and difference between them. Apart from the spiritual realm, the scientific explanation of nothing will give me another perspective, which is also the motif of this project, to perceive the divergence of the definition of nothing on various context. Generally, the reflection can be an elaborated summary of my text study.


This is my first time to do such a big text study in English. Therefore, I met several problems while writing the reflection. Firstly, on account of I read both Chinese and English texts, so sometimes it is difficult to either translate the quotation into English or find the Chinese translation of the English one. Secondly, I realised the importance of recording the origin of the citation and making some simple reflection in the research stage because you may forget the where do the references come or pivot points in the articles. Finally, I found that I still missed many informations that were necessary, sometimes due to the limitation of research, I only had a single viewpoint which was not really persuadable.



Artist Research

This is the artist list which I selected 15 most inspiring artist from the primary research.


Video

Eikoh Hosoe

James Richards


Material

Ceal Floyer

James Turrell

Larry Bell

Lucas Samaras

Robert Irwin

Yayoi Kusama


Concept

Aldo Tambellini

Kazimir Malevich

Kohei Nawa

Olafur Eliasson

Peter Sedgley

Susan Philipsz

Yves Klein


However, after digging deeper into the artists and their works, some of them gave me a brand new impression, so I re-arrange them into different sections.


Video

Eikoh Hosoe

James Richards

Aldo Tambellini

Susan Philipsz


Material

Olafur Eliasson

Peter Sedgley

James Turrell

Larry Bell

Lucas Samaras

Robert Irwin

Kohei Nawa


Concept

Ceal Floyer

Kazimir Malevich

Yayoi Kusama

Yves Klein



Artist Analysis


VIDEO

I plan to make a 5-minute video based on the interview of the impression of emptiness or nothingness in different age level. I want to use the video to recur the scenes of where they experienced this feeling, what did they notice at that moment.


Eikoh Hosoe

Ordeal by Roses

  1. Hosoe, E. (1961). Ordeal by Roses #8. [Vintage silver gelatin print]. London: Michael Hoppen Gallery

  2. Hosoe, E. (1961). Ordeal by Roses #19. [Vintage silver gelatin print]. London: Michael Hoppen Gallery

These two pictures inspired me profoundly on what I can put into the video. Especially the second one which Hosoe overlapped the eye with Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. The transparency creates uncertain feeling, which akin to the fading memory. I think this technique is really suitable for making the video about memory.


Kamaitachi

  1. Hosoe, E. (1968, printed 2006). Kamaitachi No. 12. [Selenium toned gelatin silver print]. Akron: Akron Art Museum

  2. Hosoe, E. (1968). Kamaitachi No. 31. [Vintage silver gelatin print]. London: Michael Hoppen Gallery

  3. Hosoe, E. (1968, printed 2005). Kamaitachi No. 36. [Archival Digital Print on Hahnemuhle Paper].

  4. Hosoe, E. (1968). Kamaitachi No. 35. [Gelatin silver print].

  5. Hosoe, E. (1968). Kamaitachi. [Gelatin silver print]. New York: Museum of Modern Art

"Hosoe was inspired and began photographing the Butoh dancer, a collaboration which continued for many years and culminated in the series Kamaitachi (1965-1968). This series, shot on various locations in the rural Tohoku region, integrated elements of dance, theatre and documentary into a cinematic work that aimed to recreate and dramatise Hosoe’s childhood memories."


Kamaitachi is the creature in the Japanese myth which appears as a wind. Hosoe used to say that : “The camera is generally assumed to be unable to depict that which is not visible to the eye. And yet the photographer who wields it well can depict what lies unseen in his memory.” In this series, though he did not directly dipects the feature of Kamaitachi, but the gloomy and mysterious feeling in the pictures are somehow telling the existence of Kamaitachi. The odor of the Kamaitachi is filled in the atmosphere. The high contrast, low lightness and monochrome pictures successfully depict the emotion.


Butterfly Dream Series

Hosoe, E. (1994). Kazuo Ohno (Butterfly Dream Series). [Photography].


This is the most impressive picture that I ever seen. After looking at it, the figure in the picture began to dance in my mind vividly and hardly to forget. The character in the scene is the one of the founders of Butoh dance, Kazuo Ohno.

"In honour of Ohno’s long-held conviction in the importance of achieving freedom of body and mind, Hosoe named his photographic exploration of Ohno’s unique art after the famous Taoist allegory in which the philosopher Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, but once awake, wondered if he was a man dreaming to be a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming to be Zhuangzi."


It is surreal, or more like standing in between the boundary of real and unreal. As if a ghost or spirit that crossing the bridge of dream and reality, the colour of umbrella just merging with the sky over the head. Maybe in the first glance you would feel histrionic, but gradually everything in the picture are becoming more and more natural and harmonious.

Art Gallery of NSW. (2011). Photographer Eikoh Hosoe on his work and inspirations. [video] Available at:https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media-office/eikoh-hosoe/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgk98N8N9Ro [Accessed 30 Mar. 2019].


Resources:

  • Wikipedia, (2018). Eikoh Hosoe. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eikoh_Hosoe [Accessed 30 Mar. 2019].

  • Michael Hoppen Gallery, (unknown). Eikoh Hosoe. [online] Available at: https://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/artists/89-eikoh-hosoe/overview/ [Accessed 30 Mar. 2019].

  • Art Gallery of New South Wales. (2011). Eikoh Hosoe: Theatre of Memory. 1st ed. [pdf] Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Page 3. Available at: https://media.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/downloads/files/AGNSW_Hosoe.pdf [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

  • Art Gallery of New South Wales. (2011). Eikoh Hosoe: Theatre of Memory. 1st ed. [pdf] Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Page 8. Available at: https://media.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/downloads/files/AGNSW_Hosoe.pdf [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

  • Art Gallery of New South Wales. (2011). Eikoh Hosoe. [online] Available at: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media-office/eikoh-hosoe/ [Accessed 5 Apr. 2019].



James Richards


Tate. (2014). James Richards | Turner Prize Nominee 2014 | TateShots. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2odvRwp2pY [Accessed 30 Mar. 2019].


Raking Light

Richards, J. (2014). Raking Light. [Digital video with stereo sound]. London: Tate Modern


Rosebud

Richards, J. (2013). Rosebud. [Video (black and white, sound)]. London: Tate


FACADES Lifestyle. (2013). Rose Buds by James Richard 2013. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_lILI5kK1 [Accessed 30 Mar. 2019].



British Council Arts. (2017). James Richards: Music for the gift - Wales in Venice, 2017. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojJNYIYkA5A [Accessed 4 Apr. 2019].


I am attracted by James' editing techniques. The resources in his videos are various, they are coming from "cinema, works by other artists, camcorder footage, late night TV and archival research." The combination of different types of video styles generates abundant visual texture. Not only the image, but also the background sounds and musics are inspiring as well.


"In some ways I’m trying to treat the composition of moving images in a way that has a lot in common with this malleability of sound and have periods of investigating with a given camera or looking for footage to appropriate from a particular source, be that, like, second-hand videos or looking online or recently I’ve been watching a lot of Blue Rays of 70’s, kind of, cinema."


The point that I am deeply agreeing is that "unfolding ways in which fragments of the present can connect with those of the past, the hidden with the visible, and the sentient with the body." Perhaps the "fragments of the present"is the key point for me to take the shots of "emptiness." The feeling of lost or empty usually not come when you subjectively aware of your consciousness. However, the blanks and fragments in the life could be more triggering the resonance.


Resources:



Susan Philipsz



Philipsz, S. (2008/2010). Lowlands. [Three-channel sound installation]. Glasgow: Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts


47 Film. (2010). 'Lowlands' - Susan Philipsz Turner Art Prize Winner 2010. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWeKzTDi-OA [Accessed 3 Apr. 2019].


Philipsz, S. (2012). Study for Strings. [7-channel sound installation]. Kassel: dOCUMENTA (13)

Madramor09. (2014). Susan Philipsz Study for Strings dOCUMENTA 13. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_yMZJkzbcw [Accessed 3 Apr. 2019].


"Susan Philipsz’s work represents a subtle and poetic approach to the use of sound, whose intention is to make us aware of our physical environment and of the sometimes invisible history attached to it, indeed very much like sculptures do."


The similar environment that we sense may can bring us back to the emotional state that we used to feel in the past. As Philipsz said: “Sound is materially invisible but very visceral and emotive. It can define a space at the same time as it triggers a memory.” Her untrained voice is resembling to Richards James' fragmented videos, both of them are common that we could hear or see at somewhere in our daily life, and that creates the possibility. It is more possible to trigger the audiences, because the sound and the image are common. Another distinct point in her work is the song matches the environment. Where it plays primarily sets the premise of culture background and the tone.


Resources:



Aldo Tambellini




















  1. Tambellini, A. (1965-8, digitised 2018). Cell Series. [Digitised glass slides shown as projections]. London: Tate Modern

  2. Tambellini, A. (1969, re-edited 2016). Black Spiral. [Digitised 16mm transferred to video, black and white, silent]. London: Tate Modern

  3. Aldo Tambellini. (1965–68). Lumagrams. [Hand-painted glass slides]. Salem: The Aldo Tambellini Art Foundation

  4. Tambellini, A. (1965). Black Is. [16mm, black and white, sound]. London: Tate Modern

  5. Tambellini, A. (1965). Painted Poem. [Nitrocellulose enamel paint on cardboard]. London Tate Modern

  6. Tambellini, A. (1968-9). Videogram. [Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper]. London: Tate Modern


Tambellini, A. (1969, re-edited 2016). Black Spiral. [Digitised 16mm transferred to video, black and white, silent]. London: Tate Modern


ZMK I Karlsruhe. (2017). Aldo Tambellini. Black Matters. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc4L1vBSspM [Accessed 2 Apr. 2019].


TiBOR Nagy. (2015). Aldo Tambellini - Cathodic works - 1966-1976 - Disc 1. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXn4T7fGu14 [Accessed 4 Apr. 2019].


“Film is the main object of this exchange, drawing on diverse elements that mix his classical artistic training with the influences of kinetic sculpture, camera-less film, hypnotic cinema, and direct animation.“


Tambellini is the master of using black and white. I love how he use the film or electronic devices to make the black abstraction. The most inspiring work that I saw is the Black Spiral, which uses the television to show the variation of the white patterns in the black background. Maybe I can do something electronical like this to represent the feelings and emotions.


Resources:


MATERIAL

For the material part, the focus point is the materials that the artists used in their works. What effects do these materials create? How can I further develop them? Is it possible to purchase and use right now? With these questions, I began to research these artists' works.


Peter Sedgley















Sedgley, P. (1970). Colour Cycle III. [Acrylic paint on canvas, with 3 dichromic lamps and programmed control gear]. London: Tate Modern


"The paint I use is primarily PVA; in some paintings, I introduce fluorescent colour. Some control gear is assembled according to my requirements from Electro-sonic Ltd, some is ‘off” the rack’ from Lightomation Ltd."


I saw Sedgley's Colour Cycle III in the Tate Modern, the colour combinations in the circle was illusory, and that was amazing. Based on the research, the key point of this work is the reaction of light and paint. Therefore, mixing the colours in different media could be a method applying in the project.


Resources:



Kohei Nawa






















Nawa, K. (2015). Foam. [video] Available at: https://vimeo.com/121485455 [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].


  1. Nawa, K. (2008). Pixcell (Flamingo). [Mixed media]. Tokyo: SCAI The Bathhouse

  2. Nawa, K. (2011). Pixcell-Deer #24. [Mixed media]. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art

  3. Nawa, K. (2011). Scum -Apotosis. [Mixed media]. Tokyo: SCAI The Bathhouse

  4. Nawa, K. (2013). Foam. [Mixed media]. Aichi: Aichi Triennale

  5. Nawa, K. (2018). Biomatrix. [Mixed media]. Tokyo: SCAI The Bathhouse

  6. Nawa, K. (2016). Kohtel. [Mixed media]. Hiroshima: Shinshoji Zen temple


“To our senses of vision and touch, the world is a continuum of surfaces, and all things are covered with some sort of skin. Because we sense and become aware of objects through their skin, it is the quality of the skin that determines whether or not we feel something to be real. The skin becomes an interface that links sensibility with matter, and images are produced through this interplay of sensibility and matter.“


Kohei Nawa is extraordinary creative in the material. He is very bold to experiment the materials. At first, I was inspired by his Foam, the long-lasting bubbles that he spent weeks of experiments ('he spent weeks mixing up various concoctions of detergent, glycerin and water'). Later, I found that he applied silicone oil in the Biomatrix was a good material of simulating the ripples of the water, which was thicker and waves slower. Nawa was influenced by the Buddhism and Japan’s native Shintoism in his early period. Hence, his works contains the subconscious attitude that derives from his culture background. For instance, the interior view of his architecture, Kohtel, was also illuminating because the slight beam on the water surface in a dark space creates the atmosphere of Zen. It gave me another idea of using the water reflection in the work. The water can be easily triggered by any subtle oscillation, as if the state of our emotion, thus the reflections of the outside world eventually become as the our own feelings, they are unreal and changeable.


Resources:



Olafur Eliasson



  1. Eliasson, O. (2003).The Weather Project. [Monofrequency lights, projection foil, haze machines, mirror foil, aluminium, and scaffolding]. London: Tate ModernThe weather project, 2003, Monofrequency lights, projection foil, haze machines, mirror foil, aluminium, scaffolding, Tate Modern, London, 2003

  2. Eliasson, O. (2010). Feelings are facts. [Fluorescent lights (red, green, blue), aluminium, steel, wood, ballasts, haze machines]. Beijing: Ullens Center for Contemporary Art

  3. Eliasson, O. (2018). Wavelength lamp. [Glass lens, brass, colour-effect filter glass (blue), LED light, convex mirror, stainless steel wire]. Berlin: neugerriemschneider

  4. Eliasson, O. (1993). Beauty. [Spotlight, water, nozzles, wood, hose, pump]. Montréal: Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal

  5. Eliasson, O. (2018). Day and night lava. [Concave mirror, stainless steel, lava stone, LED, motor, paint (black, white), wire]. Berlin: neugerriemschneider


Olafur Eliasson is an artist who usually uses light as the material. His works commonly relate to the environment and globalisation. The most impressive works that I have seen is The Weather Project and Day and Night Lava. For the previous one, he created a large sun in the hall of Tate Modern.


"Olafur used humidifiers to create a fine mist in the air via a mixture of sugar and water, as well as a semicircular disc (reflected by the ceiling mirror to appear circular)made up of hundreds of monochromatic lamps which radiated yellow light. The ceiling of the hall was covered with a huge mirror, in which visitors could see themselves as tiny black shadows against a mass of orange light symbolizing the sun."


There are several points worth to highlight in this work. Firstly, the humidifier had been used in his early work, Beauty, which created gorgeous rainbow effect under the spotlight. Secondly, the lights he used are the monochromatic lamps that he also applied in the other works. Thirdly, the mirror is the common feature as well. However, I think the most striking material he used is the concave mirror in the Day and Night Lava, because it can magnify a small thing in a certain extent.


Resources:


James Turrell


Guggenheim Museum. (2016). James Turrell. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=MVoMJHSNyI0 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2019].


S. L. Sterling. (2013). James Turrell's Aten Reign at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. [video] available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk6gyQxkS-k [Accessed 5 Apr. 2019].