Research & Inspiration
For my initial ideas for this assignment, I was focused on expanding on my ideas of home that I’ve been playing with outside of class.
Initial ideas:
When I lived in Meanjin, particularly just before I left, I was focusing a lot on the feeling of home and what makes home. An excerpt from a previous journal entry reads:
‘The concept of home is very sacred to me. Imagining people who once occupied the spaces around you, especially if those are people you have loved or have lost, makes me feel so peaceful… It makes me feel safe to know their love is around me. In the walls. In the streets and footpaths around here, their ghosts linger.’
Now after moving, I am excited to continue focusing on these feelings within my practice. Obviously I am not in Meanjin and I cannot create work surrounding the exact places that have sentimental value to myself. Instead I am going to create a work about the gentle familiarity that settles and grows when you live somewhere ~ how even the smallest routines root you in a place. I’m also interested in the soft ache of transition from one place to another ~ the subtle, lingering grief of leaving, and the quiet anticipation of arriving somewhere new. This work will trace the in-between space of movement—how home can feel like a rhythm, and how that rhythm shifts when you begin again.
These ideas will be realised through notions of rituals and repetition, focusing on methodical, often unnoticed cyclical tasks that we use to structure our days. Like locking the door, making dinner or tea, doing facial masks or skincare routines, folding laundry ~ these acts become sacred in their constancy. Through creating a ‘day in the life’ shaped by these rituals, I want to reflect on how they become markers of time and belonging, even in temporary places.
This piece will act as a kind of emotional map—one that charts both the comfort of the everyday and the quiet disorientation of change.
Inspirations:
Particularly I am interested in Phillip Brophy, specifically ‘Evaporated Music 1’. I hope to take from this piece, the abstract, distorted noises compared to the tasks being completed. I am also interested in this piece as the editing is fast and sudden, echoing the matching abstract noises. I think it would be interesting experiment within the speed of the piece as well.
Other Visual References:
The photographer Ladyist often depicts soft house scenes, specifically involving women and suburban routines.
In the same vein, routines depicted in film & tv, girlhood depicted within magazines.
Wes Anderson, Greta Gerwig ~ Lady Bird, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Little Miss Sunshine.
Rookie Magazine ~ Tavi Gevieson, Petra Collins.
Juno Calypso, Petrina Hicks, Maisie Cousins, Lilia Li-Mi-Yan, Rania Matar, Molly Soda, Alexandra Marzella.
Another inspo was given to me by the feedback from Clare.
‘Great work Lina, I think the ideas you're exploring are fantastic and really pertinent. You've got heaps of great references already, but you might like to look at Janine Antoni's work, she's done a lot of bodily performance and also investigated the idea of domestic life for women’
Janine Antoni created the piece ‘Inhabit’. The description of the piece is as follows:
In Inhabit, Antoni turns her attention to the complex role of mothering. After years of exploring her relationship to her family and most specifically to her mother, Antoni now focuses on herself in this role. Embracing the necessity of shape–shifting to accommodate this position, the artist renders herself half–spider, half–hermit crab. It is unclear whether her body is suspended or ascending: whether or not she is entrapped or the structure of support. On closer inspection it is clear that she is holding space for a very delicate creation.
This image has heavily inspired my video work. Within my assignment I was already experimenting with the idea of sitting within an actual doll-house ~ to have an physical depiction of my body within the home. It will be a more physical representation of what my work is trying to say.
I have always love the imagery of Alice in Wonderland where she grows into the pink house and she sits within it. So for my work I got my hands on an actual doll house, which I will sit within so I am able to sit within it as well.
Initial Tests
Process of my Work:
My most recent piece from my personal practice is the zine entitled ‘I wonder if you have found a place to watch the sunset’. This zine is about reflecting of moments of home, and how they tend to remain very still when you’re away. Nothing really changes.
‘When I moved away from home for the first time, I was surprised by how nothing ever really changed when I was gone. My parents' house always smelled the same, like the walls had held their breath and waited. The streets radiated the same humid heat, the gate made the same creak when you opened and closed it. And the sky, always the exact same shade of blue, stretched out like nothing had moved. Now moving away again, I am comforted in this constant. Thinking of my friends and family at home and the streets I know by heart. I know that when I go back, everything will be waiting. Familiar, steady, and as left...’
This zine has gotten me to explore not just forms of home in a personal sense (that is, photographs of special places in Brisbane I took before I left, or pictures of my new house here in West Footscray), but also to evaluate the concept of home in a more broader sense.
For my more initial experiments I decided to photograph the suburbia of West Footscray.
This mini project was a really fun exercise for thinking about other people’s definitions of home. Whether it’s the park you went to as a kid, the little wire signs that say the number of the house, the little flower cut outs below windows or the way the sunshines from a specific window at a specific time of day. There are so many different parts of home that are nostalgic for different people.
This made me want to focus on little specific things about my own house. These have become the set up shots within my video although I am still experimenting with the order of things.
Reflections & Tests
Initial tests:
First reflection on my test footage:
Although I think that there will be similar shots within my final work, these are a lot less considered and careful than my finals would be. For example, the auto focus being left on, the camera being visible in one of the mirrors, the pacing of the clips and audio, etc. It is just a lot less intentional than I vision the final being. Although I am interested in the footage that’s been shot here, and the contents, I just think it could be a whole lot better. I am interested now in creating audio on top of similar imagery, and splicing it together with other rituals, to create the final piece. I also based the positioning and posing in these tests, similarly to positioning from images I’ve seen, and artists we have been shown. Pipilotti Rist, an artist shown in class, inspired the middle images
‘After shooting test footage and reviewing artists I’ve sited as inspiration, I realise I am quite interested in these tasks as a feminist meditation within domestic space as well as documenting the soft familiarity of home. It feels that I am unable to make this work, living as a feminine presenting person, with myself completing mundane tasks around the house, previously culturally relegated to being ‘women’s work’, without having commentary about the domestic space and my gender. It feels important to touch on! Maybe I would need more time to iron these ideas slowly into my initial writings, but it could potentially be myself using the domestic space as a quiet space for selfhood. Perhaps reclaiming domesticity as a place of gentle care and ritual? My body is the home?’
Responses for my Work in Progress ~ Week 8
New title: She Moves Through The House
What am I investigating?
Within my video, I hope to continue my exploration of home that has been echoing through both my photographic practice, and the rest of my art, before and whilst I’ve been in the process of moving. My final video will be a feminist meditation, focusing on daily menial tasks. The subject will be my house and myself, and the rituals of cleaning, cooking, dwelling in a domestic space. The piece will reflect these mundane tasks previously culturally relegated to being “women’s work”, but transform them into rituals of quietness and care. I will transform the body into the home, and the work completed will be acts of consideration, like I am just doing these tasks to take care.
A big part of the reason I wanted to do this subject is because of one night in my Brisbane home. I came home after a gig, I was a little tipsy and my ears were ringing. It was the odd occasion where no one in my 4 person house wasn’t home. I came into the kitchen-living room and I saw all of our things. Old flowers my housemates partner had gotten her, the pita bread we had bought and shared earlier, the dishes in the sink, the empty wine glasses, all lit by a buzzing old lamp that had been kept on. I thought to myself, how beautiful our stuff is! The combination of our lives in this messy still life display made me feel so happy.
Stills of some initial shots: evoking stillness in the house, someone has been here or is here but there isn’t any evidence of them yet.
A main thing that will make the piece feel more grand is the amount of clips of different parts of the home. I think it will really make the “rhythm” of the house be more full.
Still experimenting with framing, lighting, clothing. Initially I wanted all the clothes I wear to be hand-me-downs from family members because I do have a lot of them! But it’s become quite difficult because I tend to wear a lot of the same things.
And moving onto ritual’s within the home, featuring myself and my partner
Clare’s response to this WIP:
Keep working on the videos, it would be interesting to present small vignettes captured around the house? The discussion we had about the fourth wall was fruitful, and I look forward to seeing how you'll deal with this in the work. :)
My reflection from feedback
When I decided to compile the work into the edit, I had been previously really unsure about when to introduce myself as the lead character in the video (as briefly mentioned in the response to my WIP). I decided to therefore experiment with putting little bits of myself into the intro - me opening the blinds, spooning sugar into my tea, parts of my body. Only several shots into the piece you see me fully. I begin the shot by pondering to myself brushing my teeth, before making eye contact with the camera. I decided to experiment with this because I found it interesting to play with the fourth wall. I wanted the piece to seem like the camera is still and watching me. I found having this shot at the beginning a good way to introduce myself fully as the main character, instead of myself just appearing.
Said beginning shot where I interact with the camera
You can also see in this still that I decided to add text over portions of the video. This is the first text I’ve placed in the video, followed by several others.
“She Wipes The Slate Clean”
“She Finds Comfort In The Noise”
“She Washes All Away”
“She Remakes Herself By Habit”
“She Knows The Floorboards By Name”
“She Is The House”
“She Was Always Here”
These phrases were specifically chosen to echo the videos and to have layered meaning. For example, She Wipes The Slate Clean, shows me brushing my teeth, followed by cleaning the kitchen. An equal of care for myself and the house. As well as a sense of the actual phrase ‘wiping the slate clean’ meaning to restart or start anew.
Something else I experimented after the WIP was portraying physical symbols within the work. The most obvious one was the spiral I drew in the steam of the bathroom in the shower.
‘Spirals are rich in symbolism, often representing concepts like growth, evolution, and the cyclical nature of life.’
Therefore this scene is meant to be a physical representation of the piece, and therefore the daily life of care being cyclical.
This scene was accompanied by the phrase ‘She Washes All Away’. Something that needs to be completed daily, something that also represents renewal and transformation.
Audio Reflections
Within the final piece of my work, I have added the song ‘Opus 17’ by Dustin O’Halloran, from the Marie Antoinette Soundtrack. This piece originally is only 2 minutes long, but I have looped it and cut it so the song continues for the entire of the 5 minutes that my video goes for. This piece I think is so beautiful! It reminds me of such royalty and regal-ness due to the associations with the Marie Antoinette movie. But I think in combination with the piece it works rather well as well - emphasising the feeling of the dollhouse throughout the piece. Originally I had recorded A LOT of foley sounds of natural sounds from around the house. But it felt like it didn’t really suit the final video to have heaps of dramatic - potentially uncanny noises. I’d love to work with foley noises in the future, especially with the ones I’ve already recorded! I don’t want them to just sit on a hard-drive forever.
The main event from the video is the shots that depict myself in drag as the house. For these scenes I decided to start the filming from a bit further away, and then move to a closer up shot. In this scene I interact with the camera several times again, showing seriousness, and then happiness towards being the house. I wanted to show the duel feelings of care for yourself. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it’s really difficult. I love this shot but as I wanted it to be one of the scenes before the wrap up of the video, the lighting is pretty desaturated. In real life, my hands were bright pink as well as my face. But the lighting in these shots make it too soft.
I realised post edit that I actually had shots that I completed with a light as well, that look a whole lot better! But you live and you learn in terms of editing. I think I struggled with the sheer amount of shots I had. So it was difficult to sort through them and see which ones were the best. Especially because I struggled a fair bit with focus in terms of filming myself!