drawing with feet

Putting a paper on the floor and using paint and a thick charcoal stick, I drew with my feet. Through this experimentation, I was exploring the figure prints of my feet, the consciousness of them, the limit of their movement. 

When I was trying to make different kinds of marks with my feet, I felt like I’m dancing. It reminds me of figure skating. The skating blade draw lines on the surface of the ice rink in each steps, turns, spins, moves…  

Dance ≒ action/movement of the body -(power/gravity)-> feet -> surface => drawing

• mark
• figure
• dance
• concentration
• consciousness
• extension

Our consciousness goes beyond our body. It is extensive.

I can ‘feel’ the surface where the paper and the charcoal stick are touching. What is our ‘consciousness’? Is it related to our soul or spirit? How long it can be extended (How far it can go beyond our body)? 

colour version

visual distinction between human and animal

abstraction

colour

monotone

photography

figure

skin

surface

texture

narrative

setting

artist research

week 3

workshop 1

barefoot

I went to the beach just 5 minutes away from where I live in Aber. I was sitting on the sand watching the sea, people walking, and dogs running and playing. I observed and sketched the movement of them.

I tried playing with the sand first. I made marks, dug a hole, felt each piece of sand and small stones. My feet started to hurt at this point by wet sand and stones. I was a bit jealous of dogs for their strength. They were truly enjoying playing on the beach. I was suffering from cold air and pain on my feet. Even if it’s during the summer, I will be suffered from the hotness of the sand…

I put my foot into the wave. I felt the movement of the sea. The energy of them. I was scared of them or getting wet.

In the end, I decided to go back to my place with my barefoot. Even just walking was tough action at this point. Each step is a pain. My foot was catching every sharp edge of every sand. Walking on the asphalt road was easier than on the beach. I loved walking on the wet soft grass. It covered the gaps in my fingers.

week 4

workshop 2

imagined animal

Prionailurus bengalensis yaeyamensis

My imagined animal is based on real endangered subspieces by Prionailurus bengalensis iriomotensis (Iriomote Cat). I imagined how Iriomote cat can evolute to survive with the climate change (water shortage) and threats of invasive species.

bibliography:

https://www.iucnredlist.org/ja/species/18151/97215980

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iriomote_cat#Classification_and_genealogy

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jgeography1889/105/3/105_3_354/_pdf/-char/ja

https://www.brh.co.jp/publication/journal/047/research_21.html#3

notes

In the beginning of the workshop we listened the soundtrack ‘Glastonbury Ocean Soundscape’ by Chris Watson. I was listening it putting my hand in the water. The felt the vibration of the water traveled by the sound.

animal and classic music

my playlist “animal”:

These are beautiful playlists on IDAGIO:

“Wild Things” https://app.idagio.com/playlists/wild-things?utm_source=pcl

“Bird Songs” https://app.idagio.com/playlists/bird-songs?utm_source=pcl

territorial

I had been kicking yarn while walking and moving around in the house. The action remains me of cats playing with yarn. Kicking them as walking. it became like yarn is guiding my way; the action of my feet came before the move of my whole body.

The wool strings show the memory of my move. When my housemate saw the condition of the house, she said, “It’s strange that I can feel you, your presence without seeing you there.” It is a kind of marking to identify its own territory as some animals do.

artist research

http://www.mayadunietz.com/new-gallery-12

https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/media/rGra4ez

Thinker (2016), Maya Dunietz, Centre Pompidou

‘On the first floor, the viewer immerses in a cloud made of thousands of headphones. A look from above unveils the cloud origin, on an upper-level balcony. The thicket floods the space with humming white particles. The sounds coming out of the headphones, as well as the sounds emerging from the balcony of the gallery are an invitation to investigate the space, exposing a unique acoustic phenomena that comes to life as the audience moves around the room. while this Thicket is singing its song other sounds are heard in the space, sounds that we can hear but not yet see, low mumbles and groans and birds echoing from the second floor.’

‘Nature is a temple in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. Man approaches it through forests of symbols, which observe him with familiar glances,’ (Baudelaire, ‘Correspondences’, 1857)

relate to my project: tingled, string, white, installation, space,

relate to group proposed project: sound, multiple, installing, digital devices, multiple, listing, ingestion, medium, harmony, space, 

tutorial

What next:

• Practice on the outside (maybe start on the beach or the park?)
• Long string drawing on the beach
• Night time string feet drawing
• (Night time charcoal feet street drawing)
• Lay down on the street and feet drawing/moving only feet

• 20 x 30 second film on just feet (something like week1)
• Moving the camera around feet took by an assistant
• Looking closer to the skin

• looking closer to the skin

artist

John Copland

Douglas Gordon

Play Dead (2003) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gordon-play-dead-real-time-this-way-that-way-the-other-way-al00339

Francis Alys https://francisalys.com/

Reel – Unreel (2011)

The Green Line (2004)

The Leak (2002)

Sometimes Making nothing leads to Something (1997)

Fairly Tales (1992)

Miranda Whall

0.0018926244284047371% (2016)  http://www.mirandawhall.space/?page_id=2367

proposal for group project

the surface

I tried to explore the abstraction of human figure and the skin. I looked closer to my feet, took photographs of them. Some of them still look like feet, but some looks like other part of the body, or something completely different.

Week 6

territorial (02)

I did string drawing on the beach at night instead of in the house. As soon as I took off my shoes, I felt the coldness of the sand. The wet sand caught my feet. All the weight and heaviness. pulled me into the sand. The strings tied me down there. But I ran and resist them. The strings made strange patterns on the sand, and the drawings looks like the web. I can see some geometric patterns in them.

where they always touch

I laid down on the sand, and dance or move ONLY my legs my upper body touching on the land still. In the first and third videos, my face is facing down. In the second one, my face is facing down.

from anima to terra

• I came too far away from you
• I rejected touching you when you always do
• I kicked you to jump higher
• I built a tower to escape from you 
• I dreamed of flying, cutting our connections completely
• but my body wishes fallen into you
• blended with, melted into, soaking in you,
• wishes dreaming the same dream,
• waiting for flowers fallen, 
• creating beautiful trees, 
• yet my soul, it may leave my body
• it will not stay still
• traveling and passing through with air
• but someday it will touch the surface of you
• will be waiting for it

week 7

workshop 4

perspective

I put myself in the cupboard and moved a camera around my feet to see how they look different from usual perspective. In these short videos, my feet look like more of a object rather than the live not only because they are not moving. It can be the ‘gaze’, the movement of camera. We know that we are not able to see something from this angle with this speed by our own eyes.

Some more exploration of feet like I did in week 1. I tried in shorter durations, in 10 seconds to 30 seconds.

• • I
  • DON’t
  • MERELY
  • IMITATE
  • THE
  • ANIMAL
  • WHAT
  • I
  • WANT
    ARE
    THE
    MOVEMENTS
  • AN
  • ANIMAL
  • SHOWS
  • TO
  • A
  • CHILD,
  • NOT
  • THE
  • ONES
  • IT
  • SHOWS
  • TO
  • AN
  • ADULT,
  • TAKE
    A
    DOG,
  • FOR
  • INSTANCE,
  • HOW
  • IT
  • MOVES
  • WHEN
  • PLAYING
  • WITH
  • A
  • CHILD
  • IS
  • TOTALLY
    UNLIKE
  • HOW
  • IT
  • MOVES
  • WHEN
  • PLAYING
  • WITH
  • GROWN-UP
  • LIKE
  • US.
  • TO GET TO THAT POINT YOU’VE GOT TO BECOME A SINGLE PIECE OF BONE
    • Hijikata Tatsumi, In Conversation with Shibusawa Tatsuhiko, 1968

• bone
• flesh
• spirit,
• stone
• water
• air,
• cold
• wet
• soft,

tutorial

• immobility of bone – is like a stone <-> flesh and blood – is constantly moving
• Sometimes I have an urge to move, to do something physical – This might come from inner movement of my body, or from our soul, anima
• The perspective film – in the cupboard with a selfie stick – a new abstract perspective – gain something but loose usual points of view

• when I lay down on the ground facing down, it’s harder to move my legs. -> explore the different range of movements
• What are you trying to do in the first 3 laying down images? 
• Body contact with the sand – a different and new experience of the body contacting the earth
• Transporting my consciousness from your feet to other parts of the body
• Exploring how my body wants to move on the beach at night
• Following the sound of the waves and wind when moving legs
• When you got home and looked at the footage what was the gap between the experience and the representation?
• I didn’t expect anything and so the film footage was new – it was like installing a new image to my mind
• You are not a dancer and so you will make shapes with your body that you do not recognize
• Child and adult – pure new experience
• Somatic – the bodies experience instead of the mind’s experience

• What will you take forward now?
• The legs on the beach are the strongest – why?
• Because its new for you – the experience is the strongest, the body memory is leading, so you are less in control, so you feel the body is making the work, this is exciting you the most because you feel restricted in life, this feels the most cathartic Questioning what has happened to your body and your mind?

week 8

workshop 5

The workshop led by Anna was beautiful. We started by thinking back on our designed animals and had a meditating session with the soundtrack which really helped us to relax. 

We went for walk after the meditation. My animal didn’t like the brightness of the outside first but decided to go hunting anyway. She went to the harbour to catch some fishes, but she decided not to swim because the water in Aberystwyth was too cold for her who grew up on the tropical island. She walked down to the beach and found some birds there. After playing with waves and birds, she got her breakfast and decided to go back to her nest.

After sharing drawing from the walk, we moved to the creative response to the collaborative drawing and characteristics. I decided to do drawing and dancing. I first wrote a score for dancing before stared to move. However, I did not want to record my dance. I really liked the idea of drawing out our walk, our animals, as just line drawing. The dance is only shown by the drawing made by the movement of my feet. I feel like it’s connected to the emptiness of the vile. The score also reminds me of the list we wrote to describe our designed animals.

“Festival of Ideas: Laura Jean McKay and Esther Woolfson”.

The story told by Laura Jean McKay made me to think about encouraging wild animals or the communication between a human being and an animal. It also reminds me of my experience communicating with someone who doesn’t share the same languages as mine.

artist research

Sophie Calle (b.1953), Suite Vénitienne (1980)

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/calle-venetian-suite-t13640

55 Photographs, gelatos silver print on paper, 23 text panels on paper and 3 colour maps on paper

How it relates to my project: chance/ a stranger/ meet/ encounter/ nothingness/ play/ real lives/ psychological projection/ emotion/ consciousness/ cyberspace/ uncertainty/ imprecision/ performance without ‘spectator’

‘Venetian Suite records Calle’s attempts to track her subject over the course of his thirteen-day stay in Venice. She investigates and stalks him, enlisting the help of friends and acquaintances she makes in the city. Eventually Henri B. recognises Calle, and they share a silent walk. Even after this encounter Calle continues her project, shadowing Henri B. from a distance until his arrival back in Paris.’ (Taylor)

Hijikata Tatsumi (1928-1986), Hosotan (1972)

object, animal,child, and human

an solitary animal

week 9

proposal

I made a video from some footages of my performance. Only the first part is uncut, and the directions of my body changes in transition.

After having feedbacks, I decided to make a series series of three videos, and each of them only contain one shot each.

Another aspect I need to think about is the sound. There is bugging noise of winds, and it might disturb the atmosphere. I wanted to keep the raw energy of environment where I performed, but the aesthetic of work needs to be considered as well. I will watch, listen, and reflect footages again and choose ‘better quality’ ones or perhaps edit the volume.

part 1

part 2

part 3

week 10

In the workshop, I was suggested to try playing the video without audio. I liked them and many of my classmates also agreed that it enhances the video.

Feedbacks;

• The sound of wave suggests the image of sea animals.
• More imagination and interpretation in silence.
• With sound, I am sticking the earth and ground.
• Without the audio, I’m in the dark space.
• infinity
• earth, air
• Sudden end fits to the concept.
• Showing the silenced video to who haven’t seen the video before.

Connected to the concept;

• Where my soul is?
• – I feel like it’s around me, in the air rather than inside of my body when I was dancing.
• Relationship between air, land, and the me?
• – The practice came from the idea that my feet is usually touching on the ground.
• – My feet and legs were moving freely during the performance.
• – My body was grounded and still.
• – Divided: body (flesh and bone) and soul
• – Divided: air, land, and sea
• – Whole
• – I do not existed only as body nor soul.
• – I am not existed only on the land. I am in the air. I listened the sea.
• – The darkness and the silence can contain everything and any possible environment, time, etc.

week 11

online exhibition: spring show 30.04-01.05.2021

Transitions of each projects are a lot smoother than winter show especially with the showreel of pre-recorded video.

Dan’s performance was one of my favorite. Where he was performing was the same beach I performed. It was strange encounter with an animal. I was watching this with my housemates, and she got shocked what’s going on and it is happening on the nearest beach.

In the very first showreel, it started with my short video. It was interesting transition from my silent video focusing on footage to Tim’s video focusing on the sound. I like how Paulina and Farrah’s work has relations to their 1st semester projects.

Watching Nidhi’s drawing was fun and entertaining. I was amazed how quick she draw the lion. I’m sure the audience also kept engaged with this live stream.

From May-Ling’s project, me and my friend had a discussion about how clothes can be a metaphor of ‘animal in the cage’ but also human being can switch our minds by just unclothing like in sexual context.

Ellie was quite decisive when she put paints on her face. As an painter, the good consistency of paint interests me as well. They works well with her feelings and instinct.

Richard’s was so fun to watch. Imitating animals is shown several times in the exhibition, but each of them has different atmosphere and effects. The classical music makes the film cinematic, dramatic, and putting different animals together.

Amy’s drawings were pretty. I was so glad to see the drawings from my work as well! She said that there is something disturbing about my work. Seems like it managed to convey the concept…