A series of mug shots all of famous male figures, portrayed in a pop art style influenced by Andy Warhol
Ozzy Osborne
Sid Vicious
Mick Jagger
Elvis Presley
David Bowie
Kurt Cobain
Steve McQueen
Frank Sinatra
Al Pacino
Al Capone
Jim Morrison
Johnny Cash
The self portraits I had produced seen in my post 'Face Off'' here, is where i have drawn a visual relation to these images. in realtion to my concept, the contrast of having such idolised figures in popular culture being portrayed as 'mugs' is amusing, yet is asks powerful questions of the viewer and society as a whole, are these star figures which we idolise so much, any more or less human then we are and were is it that there power lies, is it the ability to make people see beyond thier everyday lives, I think so.
This is an excellent example of the caricature like exaggerations which can be drawn from real world figures, again the element of humour is appealing.
Focusing my project on fictional characters I want to look at some which are melodramatic. As a running theme throughout my work, I enjoy using comdey and satire; I believe that it brings a sense of humility while over enforcing my concept through exaggeration, something which is an interesting concept in itself.
Duke Nukem is a fictional character from the origonal video game of the same title, a self proclaimed hero, a good description is provided here 'wise-cracking, hyper-masculine, egotistical, chauvinist, machismo-filled, womanizing tough guy' (Wikipedia). He is the appitamy of the melo drama that I am currently interested in.
His voice, brought to life by Jon st John creates much of the characters depth; a montage of his quotes can be seen here:
From here I intend to create montages of these fictional characters trying to exaggerate them to extremes, I am also considering acting out these or portraying them as elemtns of myself in a more self analytical manner like David Blandys work.
you can find full versions of much of his work here. Im not completly sure why i find his work so attractive, I think it is the reflective way that he looks uponmn the world and popular culture in particular, I myself have always been curious as to why we do the things we do and how much of who we are and what we want is dictated to us. This may come from a need for rebellion or maybe a feeling of not quite fitting into this formation of society; considering the later it would explain my fascination with worlds beyond my own. Contemplating the boundaries of society and what is deemed fitting and not so, the way my concept has now developed to explore the extremes of characters has more solidarity, these exaggerations of real people would certainly not fit into normality. The concept still strongly relates the realtionship between the elements of realism which build the foundations of these characters and the gross extrusions (not neccisarily physical) which identify them.
Here is some work ive done today, looking at transforming my self into different characters. The first is the original image i have been working from:
Some more surreal ideas
This is more plausable yet still largley distorted
Here ive tried to make the image believable as real person
As an excercise here I have cut the origonal image in half and mirror each in on itself, strangly creating two very different looking versions of myself.
Finally i took the original image and decided to try and reform my face to recreate that of a fictional character, or strange proportions, the character i decided to emulate is Voldermort from the Harry Potter films.
These videos are all related to the Video Game StarCraft2, As an introduction to the science fiction based universe here is the Origonal trailer for the game.
The part of this trailer which truley captured me is in its conclusion seen here (below)
For the me the portrayal of the character was very strong and you instantly gain the sense that this man is a very tough character, all complimented by the deep Southern American accent. Really I wanted to show and analyse this footage as an example of how different elements can come together to add personality and depth to a character, in this case voice, visual props (cigar) aswell as aesthetic (scars) and situation (prisoner being preped for war).
Here are further voice clips that accompany the character
I had come across the effect that sound waves can have upon certain liquids before, now i am interested in the movement of the liquid and the forms that it creates; the smalls pillars that emerge seem like figures moving in a strange way
considering the motion of these figure like pillars as dance here is a video on where the figure is both liquid and distorted in what i would best describe as abstract dance
Igonoring the title of the above video as inaccurate, the dance was actually designed by Boris Zolotov who is an master of Tai Chi, and it was his intention to show the ancient traditions of the art through the dancer.
from the previous video i came to this, skip to 1:00
I came to realise that the reason for my interest in these dances is the concept that compels them, it is the use of dance as a form of self expression and expression of an art form which promotes inner strength through fluidity and softeness. In a sense the dances provoke the supernatural beliefs that I am considering, the notions of ritual and a power beyond human physicality.
Further consideration of the use of dance could produce some interesting art in the form of performance. Possibly contacting a dancer to interpret some of the work i produce.
decided that instead of word publish things for my new project i would simply blog it alll :) so let the project commence
For my final super major project which is where all of my marks come from, I have decided to explore the world of supernatural and fanatasy fiction. The roots of the supernatural in the real world, relating to myth and legend such as the mintaur and the bible, also interpreting modern society in a supernatural manner. Fantasy and sicence fiction is hugley popular in the media of today, and I therefore have a huge pool of resources to draw from. I aim to produce a series of character and environment designs ranging in origin; the process of illustrating these design will almost be emulation of my similar roles carried out in game and film designs. I do not want to be too single minded about the project and will therefore keep this as merely an intention
