Idea-Introvert

"Often confused with shyness introversion does not imply social reticence or discomfort. Rather than being averse to social engagement, introverts become overwhelmed by too much of it, which explains why the introvert is ready to leave a party after an hour and the extravert gains steam as the night goes on."

"introverts are not driven to seek big hits of positive emotional arousal—they'd rather find meaning than bliss—making them relatively immune to the search for happiness that permeates contemporary American culture. In fact, the cultural emphasis on happiness may actually threaten their mental health. As American life becomes increasingly competitive and aggressive, to say nothing of blindingly fast, the pressures to produce on demand, be a team player, and make snap decisions cut introverts off from their inner power source, leaving them stressed and depleted. Introverts today face one overarching challenge—not to feel like misfits in their own culture."

"Like individuals, cultures have different styles. America is a noisy culture, unlike, say, Finland, which values silence. Individualism, dominant in the U.S. and Germany, promotes the direct, fast-paced style of communication associated with extraversion. Collectivistic societies, such as those in East Asia, value privacy and restraint, qualities more characteristic of introverts"

-all quotes from Revenge of the Introvert, see bibliography below

My project is so heavily based on psychology that I feel I am limiting myself too much by trying to narrow it down to just one emotion or way of thinking. I wanted to branch out a little bit and explore other aspects of psychology that could promote or inhibit self sufficiency and happiness. The first time I read this article I had a classic 'ah-ha' moment. being an introvert has a lot to do with how I react to the world around me and how it reacts to me. I hadn't originally made this connection to my current concept but introversion has a lot to do with the struggle to independently create happiness without validation from others. It looks like I am getting closer to more intensely personal concept than I thought. While I am still dealing with issue most people can relate to, especially at my age, I might be more successful to be more specific on my own feelings about the work. 

Bibliography:

Helgoe, Laurie. "Revenge of the Introvert." Psychology Today. 1 Sept. 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2010.

This article describes the qualities of an introverted personality type. It uses examples from social situations and comparisons with extroverted personality types. It explains why introverts may be misunderstood by extroverts and why it's okay to be either type. 

Thobias Faldt- from the series "After the Disaster"

Artist-Raphael Hefti

I was originally introduced to Raphel Hefti's series "Estheticiennes" by Tom, but found myself relating to the artist's completely different series "Disco" as well. The first series is portraits of several department store beauty clerks made up in their own products and shows the shockingly homogenized result of all of their appearances next to each other. I found this interesting when thinking about my own work dealing with being a twin and making portraits like that in a similar way. The "Disco" series is striking to me. The artist presents landscapes and unusual powerful light in a stunning way. I am creating sort of surreal landscapes myself and am very inspired by the way Hefti transforms land and light in to something beyond. 

"Prompted by the onslaught of digitally crafted photography, Disco attempts to document a magical momentary fiction, created through the culmination of a recipe of weather balloons, electronics, patient volunteers and light bombs." http://legmountain.com/category/raphael-hefti/ 

"On the whole I would say that entropy contradicts the usual notion of a mechanistic world view. In other words it's a condition thats irreversible, it's a condition that's moving towards a glacial equilibrium and it's suggested in many ways" -Robert Smithson in Uber Entropy in Entropy Made Visible

Raphael Hefti now lives and works in Zurich. He was trained and exhibited throughout the world, mostly in Switzerland, and recently in London. He makes art about a continually expanding range of topics, from ballistic test sites to the transition to digital photography. 

All C-Prints from the series "Estheticiennes" 2002

«Disco    No4» 2006, C-Print
Image size 110x85cm

«Disco    No1» 2006, C-Print
Image size 220x180cm

«Disco    No3» 2006, C-Print
Image size 220x180cm

Artist
http://www.raphaelhefti.ch/


Gallery

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/exhibitions.html

Review
http://www.artrepco.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Dateien/PORTFOLIO/Rapahel_Hefti/R_Hefti_Portfolio08_e.pdf

Idea-Happiness

I have realized that my concept may not be as specific as sustaining oneself as an individual 'island', but also about happiness and sadness as a result. I am interested in trying to show the struggle for happiness as an individual visually in my photographs. This project is very heavily influenced in psychology, and through art making I hope to explore whether people can make their own happiness. I am really glad I found this article because it helped me open up and explore other aspects of my concept. I still hope to further refine my concept. 

"A distinction is made between life satisfaction and happiness; the former is more seen as the outcome of an evaluation process including material and social aspirations and achievements, the latter as an outcome of positive experiences, particularly close personal relationships."

"It is hypothesized that dense and good basic social relations, occupational involvement and success, sociocultural (religious and altruistic) orientations and participation are conducive to happiness and life satisfaction."

bibliography:

Haller, Max, and Marcus Hadler. "How Social Relations and Structures Can Produce Happiness and Unhappiness: An International Comparative Analysis." Social Indicators Research 75.2 (2006): 169-217.

This article investigates the effect of our social relationships on our life satisfaction and happiness. It examines different socio-economic areas and countries to get a more comprehensive study. The authors hypothesize that we need social relationships to influence our happiness. 

(both) Jill Greenberg from "Glass Ceiling" series 

Artist-Sze Tsung Leong

I was first drawn to the work of Sze Tsung Leong because of its visual elements. I am drawn to muted color pallets over and over again, and the prominent horizon line is something I am including in my current series. Conceptually his work makes some distant parallels with my own. I like the idea of the sky meeting the earth, of each horizon line making a connection between two unalike places when put side by side. I am trying to draw similar parallels with the images in my work. 

bio:

'Sze Tsung Leong was born in Mexico City in 1970, spent his childhood between Mexico, Britain, and the United States, and currently lives and works in New York. His work has been exhibited internationally, including “An Atlas of Events” at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the 2006 Havana Biennial, and “New Photography” at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and will be featured in an upcoming show at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the High Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery, among others. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. His book History Images was published by Steidl in 2006.' (source:http://www.yossimilo.com/exhibitions/2008_04-sze_tsun_leon/)

"The horizon is such a basic way of comprehending the space around us, comprehending our basic relationship to the globe"

 -The artist (source: Gefter, Philip. "Keeping His Eye On the Horizon Line)." New York Times 06 Apr. 2008. Print.)

“The distances separating near from far, familiar from foreign, inside from outside, iconic from quotidian, extraordinary from mundane, picturesque from unsettling, are never constant.” The relationships and gradations between these opposites that are suggested by the photographs—and the fact that the images can be rearranged to form different landscapes and visual sequences—are meant to reflect the complex and perpetually transforming relationships between regions, cultures, and nations that give form to the contemporary world and that shape the experiences of each individual viewer."(source:http://www.yossimilo.com/exhibitions/2008_04-sze_tsun_leon/)

Rio Tejo, 2006, C-Print

Dead Sea II, 2007, C-Print

Huangpu River, 2004, C-Print

Yangtze River, Chongqing, 2002

Wangjing Xiyuan Third District, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 2003

gallery

http://www.yossimilo.com/artists/sze_tsun_leon/

interview

http://www.yossimilo.com/artists/sze_tsun_leon/press-sze_tsun_leon.pdf

artist

http://www.szetsungleong.com/

Wafaa Bilal-Lecture Questions/Response

Do you feel as though you have achieved a higher awareness of these unfair issues among the American public as a result of your art, and was that a goal you set out to achieve?

Does making this art help you in grieving for your lost family members, or does it bring up anger or resentment?

Response:
Wafaa Bilal was so much more light-hearted and funny than I thought he would be, considering the serious subject matter of the work. I wish he would have told us more of his background, I am still curious to know how he was trained as an artist and more about his personal family life and how it relates to his art making. I was interested in his idea of connecting with people in their own comfort zones while putting himself out of his, because that mimicked the guilt he felt from being comfortable and helpless in America while his family suffered in Iraq. The videos from the "Shoot an Iraqi" project were the most revealing conceptually to me. He showed us a time when he seemed most vulnerable and run down from the stress of being constantly shot at, I felt myself connecting with the project more personally after that. I became more interested in the artist when he explained the day the paint ball gun malfunctioned and he was alone for the first time in a whole month, just with himself and his thoughts. He talked about how painful those several hours were when he didn't have the distraction of protecting himself anymore and he had to really mentally deal with the death of his father and brother. Even though I didn't initially think I would have much in common with his art, that story deeply related to ideas that I am thinking about now.
My first question was answered through his explanations of protesters and cancellations, of course he raised awareness. It was interesting to hear the Wafaa say he thought of all the reactions to his art as positive when they seemed like such a head ache. My second question wasn't discussed directly but he did talk about dealing with the pain in the last project I discussed.

Idea-Society

I am interested in learning more about how people are influenced by their surroundings and their individual roles within a group. Social psychology is obviously an important field for me to study when researching this topic. I want to understand the emotions behind peoples actions to promote themselves in society and our individualistic tendencies. 

"Are we not in danger of being swayed by extremes, by that which we fear most, by that which dominates our attention rather than that which dominates the field?"

"The uniqueness of the human species lies in the capacities that allows us to create worlds that suit us, rather than simply adapt to the world as it is. Hence, the condition of human creativity lies in the capacity for symbolic representation and manipulation."

Bibliography

Reicher, Stephen. "The Context of Social Identity: Domination, Resistance, and Change." Political Psychology 25.6 (2004): 921-45. JSTOR. Web. 15 Sept. 2010.

This essay explores how humans interact with and create their social worlds. It examines social identity and how humans identities are influenced by their surrounding cultures. It discusses self-categories that we belong to and the comparisons and variability between them. 

Shannon McGill, The Pack, 11x17 in. 2009

Artist-Pablo Zuleta Zahr

Pablo Zuleta Zahr's photography reminds me of my own work conceptually and aesthetically. He uses repetition, a theme which I can't seem to get away from, and a minimal amount of visual information. Zahr makes observations about society by photographing individuals and compiling their similarities afterwards to discover patterns. I too reference my relationship to society and its individual role in most of my work. His work in this series is beneficial in my recent research.

Zahr was born in Vina del Mar and now lives and works in Berlin. he studied at the Düsseldorf Academy where he studied under Thomas Ruff. To make these images he set up a video camera in a subway for ten hours and records all the passers by. later he finds  commonalities between people (like shirt color and hats) and compiles a photograph. "Some, like the secretaries, appear to purposefully tailor themselves, others in contrast are blatantly anxious to protect their individuality at any price, which has even more grotesque effect the more frequently it pops up" 

(source: http://www.studiolacitta.it/English/Artists/PabloZuletaZahr.php)

"I want to tell everything. And above all, I want to show the inconspicuous."

-the artist (source: see interview link)

“I don’t know anything about these people,“ Zuleta Zahr says looking at the fleeing passers-by that have occupied him for months, “I only look for the coincidences.” That again sounds very unassuming. Because doesn’t a panorama of our society hide within these accumulated coincidences? The deeper we go into them, the more we find out about questionable individuality, about brand consciousness and about similarities and differences between two metropolises on two continents in a globalized world."

(source: Dr. Boris von Brauchitsch at http://www.lumas.com/?id=721&artist=63&wid=100&doc=info&ed= )

Chilean Women In Blue- 2005, C-print, 140x240 cm

Chilean Men In Blue- 2008, C-Print, 140x240 cm

Chilean Men In Black-2008, C-Print, 140x240 cm

Baqadano 07 - 2010, C-print, 105x108 cm

Pablo Zuleta Zahr

Artist 
http://www.zuletazahr.com/


Gallery 

http://www.levygallery.com/

http://www.studiolacitta.it/English/Artists/PabloZuletaZahr.php

Interview

http://www.lumas.com/?id=721&artist=63&wid=100&doc=info&ed=

Idea-Individual

"We can help one another find out the meaning of life, no doubt. But in the last analysis the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting the responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence" 

"We cannot find ourselves within ourselves, but only in others, yet at the same time before we can go out to others we must first find ourselves. We must forget ourselves in order to become truly conscious of who we are. The best way to love ourselves is to love others, yet we cannot love others unless we love ourselves..."

(source: Merton, Thomas. No Man Is an Island. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955. Print.)

"...Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

(source: Doone, John. No Man Is An Island. 1600)


Annotated bibliography:
Merton, Thomas. No Man Is an Island. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955. Print. 

Thomas Merton provides his reflections on finding our own spiritual selves. He focuses on

finding meaning within oneself through mental awareness and connections with others. Merton

guides readers on how to live a more spiritually full  life and addresses concepts like love, identity, and inward solitude.

Hiroshi Sugimoto, 'Ionian Sea Santa Cesarea, 1990

Hiroshi Sugimoto, 'Agean Sea, Pilion' 1990, 1194x1492 cm Gelatin Silver Print

       This book, and the idea of living as an individual, have greatly influenced my concept. "no man is an island" is a concept that I am mentally struggling to find truth in and it helps to hear things that apply to my own life. Being an individual is something I have little experience in because I feel permanently mentally connected to my identical twin, and feel as though it would be impossible for me to see myself as a single being, independent of my surroundings and her influence. This is exactly what I intend to explore with my next body of work.

Artist-Celine Clanet

My work this year will deal with the 400 year old idea that "no man is an island" (John Doone), but man still tries to be his own island. I want to explore emotional, psychological, and physical self-sufficiency. Celine Clanet is important to my investigations because she  journeys to the Arctic tundra to observe a remote and independent Sami tribe. She documents loneliness and solitude as a way of living and the importance of mans relationship to his territory. I am also interested in the aesthetics of Clanet"s photos. She uses vast landscapes, precise specific focal points and a carefully considered color palette-all of which I hope to achieve in my own photographs. 

Celine Clanet is a French born Photographer and graphic designer. She studied photography at three institutions in France and one in Belgium. She has exhibited in Europe, China, Argentina, Norway, and several other countries but had her first exhibit in the US this year. Her Humble Arts Foundation bio says:

"Her work deals with human territory, memory and identity issues. For her, making each series is an excuse to experience the world differently, to question it, or to record the parts of it that are threatening to fade away for ever. She regularly drives to Northern Europe in her beloved «Fearless Reindeer» Peugeot, up to the Sami village of Máze, where she lives for several weeks or months, among her Sami friends, in the tundra."

(source - http://humbleartsfoundation.org/soloshow/pastshows/celineclanet/index.html)

The following Images are from her series "Máze"

Spring Lights Caressing Maze Tundra (2009)

Simun-Ailo Watching His Heard (2005)

Bloody End (2005)

Jon's Heard (2005)

Simon-Ailo's Heard (2005)

The Hutte (2005

In an interview, the artist says this about one of her Sami subjects:

"When I think about her, I think of loneliness, a serene one"

(source: http://vervephoto.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/celine-clanet/)

This quote is how I would like people to feel about my own images, a conflict or dichotomy of emotions, between what should be and what is.

"Photography fascinated me. It could make things last forever and make dead people talk again. It made me understand that your life only exists because you remember it."

"The relationship between photography, identity, death and memory is something that never left my thoughts since then. It tints all my works, even if it's in a very light color sometimes."

(source:http://nymphoto.blogspot.com/2009/07/conversation-with-celine-clanet.html)

- Celine Clanet, on her relationship with photographyGallery 

Gallery

http://www.blueskygallery.org/

Interview 1

http://humbleartsfoundation.org/soloshow/pastshows/celineclanet/q&a.html

Interview 2

http://nymphoto.blogspot.com/2009/07/conversation-with-celine-clanet.html

Artist

http://www.celinette.com/ENG-index.htm

Morning Sun Over Tundra (2009)