15th September
In Praise of Laziness
In today’s society and economy, it is so hard to be lazy because we have been instilled with this notion that we need to constantly be working towards our next goal and if we aren’t we should feel guilty about that. These are 3 individual pieces of work. I was trying to show different aspects of perspective on laziness which I believe I achieved.
The first image intends to portray perspective. The image is distorted and vibrant in some areas whilst other times dark and grim. It shows that people don’t always have the same reasons for rest. Sometimes they just need a break, other times you get so dragged into it it’s hard to start work again. Maybe due to regret, dread or depression.
The second talks about being stuck in routine barely ever breaking out of that cycle. To be frank I strongly dislike the word lazy or laziness as often they are used by people who scrutinize every move others make. Instead, I use the term rest as it is a kinder term to those who have had people use laziness as a weapon against them. This is relevant to the images and being in a routine/cycle as when we get in that cycle rest is often the first thing to be thrown out the window. The image talks about this as life is very dreary without it but it is always needed, we just need to break off that cycle to get to it.
The third image shows the workload and expectations looming over us. As I said before in today’s society we are expected to constantly be working. A park is a place that a lot of people go to relax however, there is the ghost of the clock tower in the background to display the passing of time that could be spent working
If I was to install this back in the studio I would print out the A2 or A1 size. It would be a matte print and I would consider having a black background. Maybe a piece of cloth draped over the whole wall.
Something that I would consider doing differently would be to create more images to give a clearer view of different perspectives on rest/laziness.
When I moved from film to digital halfway through I still wanted to work in the same kind of developing process. Pasteurising the image, inverting, adjusting the curves, layer a copy of the background on top and turning the opacity back so that you could still see some of the detail of the image whilst getting the effects of the development.
The pasteurising of the image happened by chance, a miss-click of the hand however I decided to follow through with developing the image the way I did to other film clips before. I was satisfied with the results of a few other pieces of film and when I had to switch over to digital I brought those developing techniques with me. The results were different in some areas as the digital camera was able to pick up details that the film was not. However, I liked the results of these processed images even more and decided to continue developing and testing the digital images in different ways until I arrived at my final body of work
I think the way these images were processed adds something other than colour to the image such as the work that was endured to get to those final results. The work that was required to allow me to rest. The work that was expected of me.
Congratulations on a successful start to the semester, Sarah! Exploration of lens media is evident through your range of methods: 35mm film negatives, image editing, sequences, animations, and moving image. Your sensitive and careful treatment of both labour and leisure results in a great body of work. Well done, Sarah!