Surveilance Footage

Currently I live opposite a nightclub called Sugarcubes. To fit in with my project I decided to film some footage of people outside of the nightclub. After one of my crit sessions this idea was suggested. Humans often show their most animalistic sides when under the influence. People tend to let go, relax more and get into fights.

I filmed the footage from a bedroom window that looks out to onto the street where Sugarcubes is located. The camera was well hidden as I wanted to get footage where people did not know I was filming them. Often when people know they are being filmed or photographed they act up for the camera. They will often play along, do things that they would not normally do. This is the reason why I wanted to keep the footage undercover.

I want to now take the footage further and edit it. I want the footage to have a darker feel to it, and for the sounds to be muffled and more animal like.

Stills from the footage:

Change Of Plan

After my disaster with bleaching bones I decided to have another look around to try and find different animal parts to cast. I went into a local pet store in which I found a pig trotter and a cows ear which are meant as dogs chew toys. The pig trotter especially appealed to me. I was looking for a symbol to represent the Animalisation of humans. Hands are a vital source for communication for humans, they are what we touch with, how we enable ourselves to feel things and others.

I began to cast the trotter in Latex. After a chat with Rob he decided that this would be the best way to go about casting the trotter. My aim was to make wax casts of the trotter. I wanted a material that I would be able to remold and that would be flexiable and easy to use. I also chose to use wax as I thought the trotters would take on a nice effect when cast in wax.


Starting to cover the trotter in latex:

Pig trotter with dried latex, marked with lines for covering with modrock:

Latex Cast of trotter covered with modrock, ready for filling with melted wax:

Melting the wax ready to fill:

After melting the wax I needed to wait for the wax to cool down before pouring it into the mold. I was using the hollow casting technique in which I poured the wax into the mold, swirling it around to cover all of the mold. I would then pour out the wax and then do the same thing over and over again. After a thick enough layer of wax covered all of the mold I was able to leave the wax to cool.

Result Of Bone Bleaching

I left my animal bones to soak in a solution on half hot water half bleach. I changed the solution every 24 hours for three days. I used metal scourers to try scrape off alot of the tissue beforehand on the bones to make it easier for the bleach solution to soften up the tissue. After 24 hours I went back to the bones and tried scrubbing more of the flesh off. The softer red meat flesh was coming off well, however the muscle tissue attached to the bone was not shifting anywhere.

I left the bones to soak again for another 24 hours. After this I went back to the bones, this time taking a sharp knife. I tried using the knife to cut off the muscle tissue from the bone. Some of it I was able to cut into and then peel off the bone. The rest again was too hard to peel off.

Again I changed the water/bleach solution and soaked the bones again for 24 hours. After returning to them again I was still unable to shift the muscle tissue and some of the meat would still not come off. By this point the bones were starting to become very smelly, and stank of rotting. This made it impossible for me to carry on working with them as every time I went near them I would gag! Even when changing the water solution they never lost their smell.

The bones were sadly way to big for me to boil, so I had no other choice but to sadly bin them. However I managed to photograph them before throwing them away.

Collecting Bones..

After my chats with Ang about the small skulls I had to cast I decided to try and cast things that were less precious to me. I didn't want the skulls to break as they are very delicate. I decided to take a look around for bones that would be stronger and easier to find.

My first point of call was to go to a local butchers, they had a range of different bones from different types of animals that are used for meat. The bones that I got belonged to a pig.

Skeleton of a pig:





The Butchers were kind enough to give me a scapula bone (the shoulder blade) and two costal cartilage bones. These bones were still covered in fat and some muscle tissue from where the meat had been removed from the bones. I looked up techniques for cleaning bones. There were many different techniques for cleaning the bones, from a burying technique in which you buried the bones to leave the flesh to rot naturally and then dug up the bones after a period later, to a bleaching technique. I have previously used the bleaching technique on my skulls to get rid of excess flesh, and in the circumstances of time and having no garden to bury bones in I thought this would be the best technique to do with these bones.


Article on cleaning bones I looked at:

http://www.jakes-bones.com/p/how-to-clean-animal-bones.html

Louise Bourgeois

Pink Days and Blue Days
Louise Bourgeois piece Pink Days and Blue Days is made from found objects that hang from a ten-foot-tall steel armature. The piece features a collection of items of clothing and other pieces that are hanging from the bones of dead animals. Every piece that hangs on the steel is said to of had a different meaning to Bourgeois, some items of clothing being saved from her childhood. Included in the objects is a silk coat from her childhood embroidered with nicknames that she was given as a child. Included amongst the clothing also hangs a silk handkerchief and an empty perfume bottle.






The piece has a strong feminine feel to it. With the use of silk materials coloured in white, pale blue and baby pink. The objects hang in a very delicate way, they look to be almost flowing in the ways in which they hang. These items of clothing are strongly contrasted by the use of animal bones. Bones are a representation of death. Once a person dies their bones no longer have a use for clothes. These items are a representation of Bourgeois' childhood. By the mixing of this clothing with dead animal bones perhaps she is suggesting a link between the death of her childhood. These items of clothing also contrast highly with the steel armature that they have been hung onto. The armature appears ugly and building trade like amongst the silk clothing. It is a reminder of cheap modern clothing rails that are often seen hanging displays in cheaply manufactured clothing stores. Again very different to the beautiful clothing items seen hanging here.

The Chapman Brothers- Mannequins

The Chapman Brothers are English visual artists who work as a sibling duo to create works. They have a reputation for presenting grotesque and visually shocking works, often viewed as inapporpriate and pornographic.
Their trademark mannequins of children morphed together are some of their most controversial and well known works. The mannequins feature children stuck together, often missing body parts such as arms and legs. Some children are also flipped upside down and stuck to others on their head, or alternatively one body is presented with two heads coming off it.
One particular set of The Chapman Brothers mannequins are very controversial. Where the original facial body parts such as noses and mouths would usually be have been replaced with adult genetalia. Some of the child mannequins are facing others looking puzzled by the replacement facial parts on the other children. For the society we live in children that look to be this young (around 6 or 7) would not usually have seen fully grown adult genetalia. This type of thing is not presented or shown to children of this age. Due to society we automatically use this link of adult genetalia and children to being something inappropriate and criminal. It is strongly linked to cases of abuse and phedophilia.

 

 

 

Another set of The Chapman Brothers mannequins however are what attracted me to study further into the artists. In this set of mannequins the childrens facial parts have again been replaced, this time with body parts of animals. These children insead stand alone and are not morphed together, all wearing black tracksuits and trainers. These mannequins belonged to the exhibition based on Hitler germany and the Nazi's. All of the children wear the Nazi badge on their tracksuit. When looking at these mannequins I automatically related the english youth culture of chavs (the tracksuits and cheap trainers) and Hitler's Nazi youth army (Nazi Badge). It is almost as if The Chapman brothers are implying the Chavvy youth of England are as bad as the Nazi Youth. A very bold and controversial statement.

 

The childrens facial parts have been swapped with those of unattractive and quite scary animal body parts. The Chapman Brothers have clearly tried to chose animal body parts that provide a grotesque look when placed onto a human. The parts include pig snouts, elephant trunks, and dogs snarling jaws. They have been chosen to make the children look disgusting, for example cute little whiskers and cat ears could have placed on the children but it would have a totally opposite effect. The childrens positions themselves do not imply that they have taken on the animalistic qualities of the animal parts that are on them. Instead the animal parts serve a purpose of providing a message of the childrens personalities relating to the animal and the current and historical situation.

 

 



Annalising my behaviour in a 'pack'

Through looking at modern examples of how humans can take on animalistic qualities through 'pack' like structures I became interested in how I behave. When I put thought into it I behave in a very different way with my friends that how I would act in a situation with other groups of people such as tutors, parents, and even siblings. Particularly when going out and when alcohol is involved my own pack like structure evolves within my friendship group.

You go out as a group, you stick together as a group. If one of the group goes missing you do everything in your will power to find where they have gone to, essentially 'hunting them down'. My own personal behaviour changes considerably when with my friends. I become very different to how I would be on my own. There is a sense of reliance within the group that you will all equal protect each other from harm, a bond as such. When another who doesn't belong to your 'pack' tries to unwantedly intrude the bond becomes apparent. Whether your 'pack' consists of males and females or just females or just males will vary how the 'pack' will react.

I would describe the group of friends I go out with as a 'female pack'. We mainly consist of just females (occasionally having the odd boyfriend dragged out with us). We stick together as a group, and are very protective of each other from people that don't 'belong' with us. If someone (especially strange males) approaches one member of the 'pack' and give the member unwanted attention the other members will do their best to get rid of the intruder. The 'pack' becomes a protective boundary for anybody that doesn't belong.

However, this 'pack' situation also becomes clear when other females become trouble to members. Some females from other 'packs' can occasionally cause problems to members, often fights are started and caused from different 'pack' members that do not see eye to eye. The 'pack' will often become involved with its individual members fights, again reinforcing the sense of trust amongst the 'pack'.

Through analysing my own group of friends and how we behave I can begin to believe that humans can clearly show animalistic traits. It is usually more apparent after the use of a substance such as alcohol that can relax the human traits, and cause us to forget how we are taught to act as humans.

There is a clear safety in being part of a 'pack'. It is hard to gain entry to a pack, and also hard to take out a 'pack' member when they have others looking out for them.


Examples of 'pack's' I belong to:


Home 'Pack'

University 'Pack'

Studio Work Research Influences- Modern popular culture can display animalistic characteristics

Mean Girls

• Demonstration of how humans display pack like animal qualities when together
• Specific girls group together to 'prey' on other groups
• Pack leaders in this aspect are the popular girls. They are at the top of the pack and everyone respects/obeys them
• Everyone must obey the pack leader (the popular girls) or will be cast outside the pack (not be popular)

Lord Of The Flies

• A group of young boys adapting to living on their own on a deserted island after a crash
• Going from the normal world of a child living carefree and depending on parents to living independantly
• Male packs- fighting to become the leader of the pack
• The boys turn to killing each other, hunting down the weaker less popular members
• Hunt other animals such as pigs whilst on the island- animals that are seen to be weaker and easier to target for food
• Gradually lose their clothes the longer they spend on the island. The more time they spend away from human civilisation the more anamalistic traits they seem to take on
• Beat and torture one another- again fighting to show dominance as the strongest male

True Blood

• T.V. series which follows the 'werewolf' pack
• Leaders fight to the death to become leaders of the pack
• The winner of the fight is given a sacrifice of a young virgin girl to have sex with and then slit her throat
• Here the human takes on a clear animal characteristic that is genetic which cannot change, the animal characteristic can take control at any time
• Realistic, the pack leader has first pickings on food, what happens to the pack etc

Starting to create work

To begin my project I wanted to this time experiment with working with a new medium. I chose this time to take the casting elective with Ang as I haven't had much opportunity to learn much so far about casting. Sculpture is a medium that I feel I can really get my teeth into and get involved with.

Using my sewn skeleton design that I created during first term as a template I decided to go on to create a clay sculpture replica of the skeleton head. My original aim was to cast the clay skull after creating it, and make plaster replicas of the original, decorated with symbols of youth culture, such as fake eyelashes, lipstick, big eyebrows etc.

After a group tutorial session we reviewed this idea. Due to my aim being to demonstrate the animalistic qualities in people the feedback was that using a human skull was the wrong way to go about the representation. Feedback tended to take the view that I should be using an animal representation instead.

I found this feedback to be really useful for me, and steered me in the right direction to think about my work and the fact I was being too literal.

I now want to move on by instead casting animal body parts and experimenting with those.


Clay sculpture skeleton head: