REFERENCES:
Ratté, S, (2011) Activated Memory I. Available at: http://sabrinaratte.com/ACTIVATED-MEMORY-I-II-2011 (Accessed: 30 June 2022)
Yassa, M. (2013). Competitive Trace Theory: A role for the Hippocampus in Contextual Interference during Retrieval. (online) Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00107/full (Accessed: 30 June 2022)
My initial exploration of memory, identity, and image-making – through the concept and perceptions of home led me to conclude that central to my practice is the feeling of respite and exploring how by capturing intimate moments, you can find a sliver of relief and solace.
I shared my first dialogue with the Brazilian graphic designer and co-director of Futuress, Nina Paim. We discussed people’s changing relationships with their environments and domestic spaces, especially during the pandemic and how best to document those memories. She questioned my interest in memory and domesticity and how I could incorporate both to form a new narrative. Furthermore, we discussed the importance of domestic spaces and mundane acts of domesticity. She stated that historically acts of domesticity like cleaning, cooking, and just being at home had been gendered; they’ve been attributed to women in most parts of the world, often signs of oppression. For example, you must clean not because you love to but because it is expected of you. Whereas I see these acts of cleaning as peaceful and empowering, providing them with a different association. Paim recommended I investigate representations of femininity and domesticity in connection with interior architecture.
In addition, she also gave advice about finding your way of creating, researching, and processing. I mentioned how I tend to make first and reason second. In response, she stated how we are provided with specific methodologies throughout our education, but somewhere in between, we must find our own way of making and working. So rather than forcing ourselves into something that doesn’t come naturally, we must find what works best—like trying to find ourselves in different places and creating our sense of familiarity. She spoke about what her path was to where she is now and her experience about staying true to yourself and your work. Paim provided me with insights, references, and validating suggestions on how to take my enquiry and practice further.
For my second dialogue, I wanted to interview someone exploring a similar concept or feeling. I reached out to Priyanka Kaul, a Kashmiri multidisciplinary designer. We had a positive conversation and discussed the connections between a creator’s intent and the viewer’s interpretations. We questioned what the external expectations might be from an artwork or publication. Kaul mentioned how we always ask what we want our art to prove or the impact we want it to have, but no one questions the expectations of the artwork. She claims that thinking about what you want is self-centred, but it comes from a place of needing purpose for your voice. However, when you question its expectations, it opens the door to many more possibilities that your work could impact. These expectations amalgamate the viewer’s biases, thoughts, feelings, and past. This conversation was casual and comforting and furthered my understanding of an artist’s thought process.
Reflecting upon my discussions with Paim and Kaul, I asked myself what my focus should be. What is the story I am trying to communicate? Who is my audience? What impact do I want my work to have, and what emotions am I trying to evoke?
Over the last few months, I investigated and mulled over the following questions – What makes a memory? Is it solely a creation of our perceptions or a combined entity of what we’ve been told? Does it have to be recorded to be remembered? What role does memory play in visual perception? Does memory contaminate and influence perception? Do we only see what’s apparent or also what is not there or that goes unnoticed?
REFERENCES:
Berger, J. (1973) Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Book Ltd.
Kaul, P. (2021). If one uses soft words, even plain rice tastes good. Melbourne: Oak Park Studio.
Chowdhary, L. (2021). Code Switch [Ceramic Panels]. Available at: https://jhavericontemporary.com/exhibitions/code-switch (Accessed 23 May 2022).
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Uncorporate Identity
by Metahaven
Metahaven talks about “design’s ability to visualise” (Metahaven, 2010, p. 6) what is apparent and what is not there or that goes unnoticed. I have previously used this text for a different brief, and it’s interesting to see how it continues to affect my current positions. My initial intention behind capturing personal moments and spaces in Bombay was to focus on building a connection with my home city that didn’t feel like home. However, I realised I was so focused on my frustrations that I didn’t notice the moments that brought me peace and comfort and provided me with that sense of belonging I was searching for.
Our brains have an automated baseline of what we have seen before. As a result, when seeing new visuals or re-processing older ones, our mind takes in what we see and connects with our memory for better comprehension and communication. Photographing these moments allowed for a different but familiar interpretation of Bombay – I was creating new realities for myself through these visuals.
Metahaven and Vishmidt, M. (2010) ‘Intro Riff’ in Uncorporate Identity. Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, pp. 2-49.
What Do Pictures Want?
by W. J. T. Mitchell
What do we expect from pictures? – We want to identify its greater value or meaning and seek to analyse its various formal elements. What do pictures expect from us? – Pictures want to be seen or not be seen, sometimes all at once and sometimes in pieces or fragments. Maybe they want to be interacted with in other forms than just being perceived through vision. The photographs I’ve captured share a mutually beneficial relationship with their viewers. They have desires and demands like their viewers, and both actively influence one another. Mitchell explores this realm of visual culture and argues that there has been a “pictorial turn” in the contemporary civilisation that indicates a rise in the power and importance of pictures and images and encourages us to be perceptive and mindful of the visual culture.
Mitchell, W. (2005) “What Do Pictures Want?”, What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Ways of Seeing
by John Berger
The way we see is determined by what we know. The way we see is a conscious and subconscious act. It is not just about looking; it is about critically examining the relationship between yourself and the subject of observation. The way we see not only reflects our culture and identity but also our perspective on the subject. Photography allows us to use our sensibility to communicate something about ourselves and the world around us. All images offer a meaningful account of how their creator sees the world. Further, when we look at someone else’s image, our understanding of it depends on our way of seeing it. Images have a deeper meaning beyond what they show on the surface. You need to see past the initial observations, observe them in new ways, and elevate their essence into something special.
Berger, J. (1973) Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Book Ltd.
The Common Tongue of Twenty-First-Century London
by Rebecca Mead
Mead reflects on the complicated nature of home and insightfully investigates the “sense of displacement”, and heartache one feels leaving an adopted country to return to your homeland. She moved from Brooklyn to London, where she was born. However, since she had not lived in England for more than 30 years, the experience was a mix of reconciliation and estrangement. Her homeland no longer felt like home. My experience of living in New York and Bombay revealed an emotional limbo state; I never fully arrived and never fully left. I’m always searching for a connection to Bombay, the city I grew up in and comparing it to my connection with New York. Through this photo series, I investigate the idea of home and how it extends beyond its physical manifestation. Home can be a location, a person, a moment, a state of mind, or an emotion that provides you with a sense of belonging.
Mead, R. (2022) ‘The Common Tongue of Twenty-First-Century London’, The New Yorker, February 6. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/the-common-tongue-of-twenty-first-century-london (Accessed 18 May 2022).
Code Switch
by Lubna Chowdhary
Chowdhary’s graphic ceramic collection Code Switch merges her mixed heritage and cultural identities. Her artworks enhance the viewer’s sensory experience by igniting beautiful and natural cognitive responses to its emotionally relatable concept. It builds an initial connection between the viewer and the artwork. Chowdhary’s work pushes you to acknowledge and appreciate the extent of the qualitative relationship that physical objects can establish with their users. Like Chowdhary, my concept and object is of sentimental value; it is meant to evoke comfort, positive nostalgia and emotion and remind you of your own home. Thus, maintaining its interactivity and connection with the viewer and ensuring its value is not limited to that of the strictly visual but also of emotional importance.
Chowdhary, L. (2021). Code Switch [Ceramic Panels]. Available at: https://jhavericontemporary.com/exhibitions/code-switch (Accessed 23 May 2022).
If one uses soft words, even plain rice tastes good
by Priyanka Kaul
Living between cultures, Kashmiri Australian designer Priyanka Kaul reimagines her homeland – Kashmir – in provincial Japan through this reflective photobook. The book poetically centres around a series of Kashmiri proverbs and stories set and shot in Nagano, Japan. The proverbs come to life through a narration of contemporary photographs paired with snippets of conversations had with Kaul’s friends and family, creating a more personal study of home and heritage. She uses this book to connect to the birthplace she’s never gotten to visit but yearns to build a connection with. Similarly, through this zine and mini photo series, I have captured brief flashes of connection that I experienced with Bombay – the city I grew up in but struggled and desired to connect with. I explore moments of silence and pause, filled with comfort, vulnerability, and peace. These moments capture a piece of my identity and the dwindling love I have for the city I once called home.
Kaul, P. (2021). If one uses soft words, even plain rice tastes good. Melbourne: Oak Park Studio.
EXTENDED CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Ways of Seeing
by John Berger
Through the unusually striking design and layout, Berger puts across the notion that words are inadequate when it comes to communicating what we perceive and how we perceive the world. Seeing is a necessary practice that elevates the subject and fills the gap between words and sight. The way we see is determined by what we know. The way we see – it is a conscious and subconscious act. It is not just about looking; it is about critically examining the relationship between yourself and the subject of observation. The way we see not only reflects our culture and identity but also our perspective on the subject. Every form of art offers a meaningful account of how its creator sees the world. Further, when we look at someone else’s art, our understanding of it depends on our way of seeing it.
The first chapter states that our perceptions of art are manipulated by and reliant on several factors – our lived experiences, knowledge of artistic styles and techniques, assumptions and awareness of art history and the social, political, cultural, and economic conventions of its time. Art forms motivate and challenge our critical and analytical thinking capabilities, sense of fantasy, and originality. They inform us about themselves, their culture, and their creator. They encourage us to interpret them in unlimited ways, and they form a dialogue between the past and present, helping us translate the world we live in.
Berger goes on to argue about how the invention of the camera has challenged traditional ways of seeing and how factors like photographic reproduction, academic studies, and financial worth have changed the way we perceive art. Art has now become a commodity. Berger discusses oil paintings as an example and links the eminence of oil paintings from the Renaissance to capitalism and an inclination to showcase personal wealth and status. He writes, “The art of any period tends to serve the ideological interests of the ruling class. Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects. Everything became interchangeable because everything became a commodity. All reality was mechanically measured by its materiality.” The medium of oil on canvas was the ideal representation of power and prestige. Berger challenged these elitist perceptions of art and transformed it into a new radical way of thinking where art is an accessible and a genuine tangible interest. He states that art constantly changes, and he questions everything in relation as no concept is ever definitive.
Berger’s theorising reflects prejudices and makes us question how art could be created, interpreted, and appreciated in a classless and independent society. What would we see, and would we see it differently? How would we ensure deeper seeing so as to observe and explore the subject effectively? Art and other visuals have a more complex meaning beyond what they show on the surface. Ways of Seeing encourages us to be mindful of the profound emotional effects any form of art can have on its viewer.
Berger, J. (1973) Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Book Ltd.
Code Switch
by Lubna Chowdhary
Today’s contemporary visual culture and media landscape are saturated by the dominance and influence of naturally interactive digital technologies. With their ability to continuously modify, these digital graphics allow a connection with their users that extends in time. As these digital processes improve, physical and printed objects risk being replaced. Lubna Chowdhary’s culturally hybrid collection Code Switch challenges these current digitally biased presumptions and encourages a rethinking of the value of engagement with physical artworks in the graphic world.
Born in Tanzania to Indian, then post-partition, Pakistani Muslim parents who migrated to the north of England in the 1970s, Chowdhary brings in her transcultural heritage as the primary inspiration for her work. She merges her cultural identities – the relationship between East and West, their differences, and styles to create layered graphic ceramic patterns. Her family comes from a textile industry background, and you can see how that served as an inspiration to create bright-coloured minimal geometric formations. Through her work, she creates a nostalgic visual language that represents the multiple diverse fragments of her identity.
Drawn on Adobe Illustrator, then cut using precise waterjet technology, and glazed by hand in her studio – Chowdhary uses a unique combination of industrial and handmade techniques. The pieces are then grouped in small ceramic compositions and displayed leaned against the wall, giving the work a new perspective and an interesting sense of horizon. Each work creates a synergy between its bold colour, shape, and pattern. The glazed graphics offer infinite opportunities for engagement with the viewer by allowing their eye to explore its natural path, pausing on individual pieces or larger groups.
The artworks enhance the viewer’s sensory experience by igniting beautiful and natural cognitive responses to its emotionally relatable concept. Chowdhary’s work pushes you to acknowledge and appreciate the extent of the qualitative relationship that physical objects can establish with their users. It builds an initial connection between the viewer and the artwork, maintaining its interactivity and ensuring its value is not limited to that of the strictly visual but also transcends into the distinctively instinctual.
Chowdhary, L. (2021). Code Switch [Ceramic Panels]. Available at: https://jhavericontemporary.com/exhibitions/code-switch (Accessed 23 May 2022).
CRITICAL ENQUIRY
Through my iterations, I explore how everyone perceives visuals differently based on what they know, seek, and see. I created two-dimensional geometric abstractions that appear three-dimensional by manipulating points, lines, and vantage points to create varying suggestive perspectives of depth, tension, and movement. Our brains have an automated baseline of what we have seen before. As a result, when seeing new visuals, our mind takes in what we see and connects with our memory of shapes for better comprehension and communication. This project considers how one’s perception of visuals is based on individual subjectivity and situated knowledge and how much is based on memory. What effect does biased visual perception have on us? What role does memory play in the perception of visual structures and identification?
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective
by Donna Haraway
Haraway assumes that all knowledge is fundamentally conditional and argues for a fresh understanding of objectivity. She questions traditional scientific approaches and wonders to what extent are these constructed truths subjectively positioned. She does this through the metaphor of vision – “Vision can be good for avoiding binary oppositions.” Situated knowledge allows us to make connections amongst varying points of view and recognise that all visions are partial because all knowledge comes from singular biased positions. Through my iterations, I explore how everyone perceives visuals differently based on what they seek and what they want to see. Our framed and biased perception will exist unless we decide to question it. The act of questioning and interpreting is the first step in placing ourselves in new positions. However, this does not guarantee a new perspective or vision. To create a new position, we must combine varying perceptions into one.
Haraway, D. (2014) ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies. Maryland: Feminist Studies Inc., pp. 575-599.
Visualisation and Cognition: Drawing Things Together
by Bruno Latour
Everything can be re-created and re-visualised. Latour takes an anthropological and psychological approach to explore how visualisations help people comprehend otherwise complex experiences. He claims that visualisations are most effective when they contain specific characteristics, like perspective. Through this context, I created two-dimensional visuals that appear three-dimensional by manipulating points, lines, angles, and vantage points to create varying perspectives. Our brains have an automated baseline of what we have seen and processed before. As a result, when seeing new visuals, our mind takes in what we see and compares it to another object we’ve observed before for greater comprehension and communication.
Latour, B. (1986) ‘Visualisation and Cognition: Drawing Things Together”, Knowledge and Society Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present, Vol. 6. Greenwich: Jai Press, pp 1-40.
Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye
by Rudolf Arnheim
“Vision is not a mechanical recording of elements but the grasping of significant structural patterns.” Through this book, Arnheim argues that vision is more than what strikes the eye. He claims that what we observe connects with our “memory traces of shapes” that we merge with what we see. He applies a scientific perspective to art in connection with how we perceive the world and create art. Arnheim suggests that everyone responds to art differently based on what they have learnt through education, insights, and observations. My illustrated iterations explore how two-dimensional static patterns can be observed as three-dimensional constructs. Every individual’s perception differs based on their own “memory of shapes” and experiences each illustration with varying tensions and movements of the patterns.
Arnheim, R. (1974) Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective
by Hito Steyerl
Hito Steyerl analyses linear and vertical perspectives connected with contemporary culture, art, and politics. She challenges the scientific objectivity of linear perspective in Western art, opposing its ‘universal claim for representation’ with the viewpoint of a freefalling body. Our current groundlessness puts us in a free-falling and chaotic state. That disturbs the traditional visualisation methods and allows us to produce multiple viewpoints and manufactured environments. The positioning of my iterations in connection with its perspectives resonates with a collection of constructed three-dimensional visuals.
Steyerl, Hito. (2011) ‘In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective’, E-Flux Journal, April.
Available at: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/24/67860/in-free-fall-a-thought-experiment-on-vertical-perspective/ (Accessed 26 April 2022).
Blind (Self Portrait Collection)
by Gregg Louis
Louis offers a unique take on self-portraiture, as he purposefully distorts images of himself with drawings made from memory and further “deforms” them with overlays. Some pieces are easily recognisable as human faces, while others are not as vivid; they would differ individually. He explores the boundaries between likeness and speculation and how the human brain responds to complex images that are familiar but disorienting. In this context, my iterations explore how much of one’s perception is based on existing ideas and how much is based on memory. What role does memory play in the perception of visual structures and identification?
Louis, G. (2015-18). Blind [Ink on Canvas]. Available at: https://gregglouis.com/Blinds (Accessed 3 May 2022).
Album Meta: Seven Plates 2
by Victor Vasarely
Vasarely creates a vibrant composition using rigid and fluid geometric shapes and colourful graphics. This composition produces a compelling hypnotic optical illusion of spatial depth when combined with a diverse monochromatic colour palette. The surface of the painting appears to be warping inward and outward, disappearing into space towards the edges. There are direct visual and conceptual parallels between my iterations and Vasarely’s artwork. I experimented with geometric abstraction and altered two-dimensional space to create a body of three-dimensional work through effects of depth, perspective, and movement. The three-dimensional quality of my iterations creates shape-shifting illusory forms that resemble Vasarely’s artforms.
Vasarely, V. (1976). Album Meta: Seven Plates 2 [Screenprint in colours]. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/victor-vasarely-album-meta-seven-plates-2 (Accessed 5 May 2022).