Inspiring Artists: Duane Hanson

Duane Hanson is famous for his sculptures which portray ordinary people usually going about their everyday tasks- such as shopping, jogging etc. This really fits into our project as the ordinary public play a large part of our research and final piece. The people in our videos could easily be compared to the subjects of Hanson's works.

Below are Duane Hanson's

• 'Young Shopper', 1973, polyester and fibreglass, polychromed in oil, with accessories.
• 'Man on a Bench', 1997, vinyl, polychromed in oil, with accessories.
• 'Jogger', 1983, acetate and mixed media.

Development

The video we are producing for our final piece is well on the way to completion. Using Serif MoviePlus X3, still images of the public are put together and edited to create both the effect that somebody has filmed these people for a voyeuristic hobby, with slight movement of the camera and head on angles creating a sort of home video effect; and at the same time creating the effect of CCTV footage. Intrusive shots of females also enhance the theme of surveillance, women and voyeurism. This will be a piece which takes themes from 'The Umbrellas' and turns it around completely- taking Renoir's people watching/female watching to sinister heights with a modern twist. Here are some screen shots from the creation of the video:

Shot 1: Making the video quality deteriorate slightly by adding a blur effect, to start to give the video a CCTV-like quality.
Shot 2: Placing still images one after another, making each still appear for 1 second, to give the video the delayed action seen on CCTV footage.
Shot 3: Shows the greyscale effect being added; again to create the effect of CCTC footage.
Shot 4: Testing that the video exports successfully to check the quality of the footage post rendering.
Shot 5: Adding the text (time and date) to each still, as seen on surveillance footage.

Some New Findings

Further research has taught us that the main woman featured in Renoir's 'The Umbrellas' (the woman on the left of the composition painted with great clarity) featured in other works by Renoir, although she was altered slightly in each piece. One piece she featured in explicitly is Renoir's 'Standing Woman With Basket'- Renoir drew her in charcoal in a similar stance to how she appears in 'The Umbrellas'. This shows that he had a particular interest in her and when combined with the clarity she was painted in compared to the other figures in the piece, it gives the impression that he had a mild obsession with her. This ties in well with our themes of surveillance and the expoitation of women; perhaps even voyeurism. It also adds further relevance to the possible use of intrusive footage of a beautiful female tied into our final piece video. I think this would help to communicate these new themes alongside our original surveillance theme to the audience.

Inspiring Artists

Sophie Calle is one of the most interesting artists we found and extremely relevant to the themes within our project. She is known for her intrusive works with strangers, such as following one person around for around 6 months and documenting their lives. She also worked as a chambermaid and during this time documented the contents of the rooms whilst people were staying in them; taking photographs and notes of their possessions. Using these, she made up explanations and stories as to what the strangers might be like and what might be going on in their lives. Linking perfectly to intrusion, voyeurism and surveillance!

Moving Forward: CCTV Footage and New Possible Themes

After taking our experimental photos (see earlier post) we got thinking some more. In a group meeting we agreed that the final piece will probably be a video projection in CCTV style to portray our theme of surveillance. To create this and make it really resemble CCTV footage, experimenting taught us that putting together a series of photographs taken in the same place over a few seconds could give the sort of jumpy effect seen on CCTV footage. Effects could then be added to create the noise in the images and loss of some of the colour to create realistic impressions of security footage. Here is an example that Becky experimented with:

This is the sort of thing we would like our final piece to look like. However, looking further into 'The Umbrellas' piece has provided us with another theme to tie in with the surveillance too- women. We believe that within the painting, Renoir focused mainly on making the female in the foreground appear quite beautiful and almost flawless. He appeared to do this with other women in many of his paintings that we briefly looked at. We thought that incorporating an aspect of this into our final video could be really interesting- cutting to intrusive close shots of a beautiful girl in between the CCTV footage. This would hopefully communicate quite a sinister theme, linking in the intrusion of privacy (linking well with surveillance) with the exploitation of women and the changing appearance of the female form since the time 'The Umbrellas' was painted. This would be supported by research of make-up and fashion of women in the 1880s and also research into the treatment and rights of women from this time.

In terms of the presentation of our proposed video, we are thinking it should be quite uniform and simple, in a way which might make the audience feel uncomfortable whilst they are watching it. This is because we think that this will further emphasize the negative aspects of filming people who are unaware they are being watched, voyeurism and with the footage of the beautiful girl, themes of female exploitation and possibly perversion. We would like to position some fake cameras looking into the audience to further emphasize these themes and make the piece quite experiential- as though they are being watched, forcing them to watch the video which may in itself be an uncomfortable experience.

We are very excited to get going with putting the video together- we feel this is the next step for us, whilst researching further context along the side.

People Watching

After much group discussion, we all agreed that the component of 'The Umbrellas' that we thought would be most interesting to take further in a modern reproduction of the piece was the whole snapshot/people watching air to the piece. We established that Renoir did this often and captured moments in the lives of many people in social situations- sometimes the subjects noticed and were painted looking directly out of the paintings, others were painted looking away leading us to believe they didn't know they were being watched. We thought that this really links to CCTV and surveillance in modern society and wanted to take this further within our project. The first step was to go out into the public, outside in Huddersfield centre. We discovered that it was legal to take photos of the public in open public places. Here are some of our experimental shots:

Initial Group Ideas

Well, we've met together as a group a few times now and already the ideas are flowing fast as to how we go about deconstructing our painting, 'The Umbrellas'. We're all in agreement that Renoir was a people-watcher, enjoying capturing snapshot moments in everyday life through his paintings. This is particularly evident within 'The Umbrellas'. Research has taught us that Renoir began the painting around 1881 but altered it and completed it around 1886. Around the year 1881, Renoir is quoted to have said that he had 'travelled as far an impressionism could take him' and after a visit to Italy around 1882, he was inspired to seek a greater sense of solidarity within his work. It is after this enlightening trip that he finished the painting, making the figures toward the left hand side of the painting much more crisp and clear and much less of an impressionist style. The differences between the softer impressionist figures to the right of the painting and the more recently altered figures are plain to see. We think this makes the painting even more interesting, as it marked a real turning point in Renoir's attitude toward his work and was the start of a new era in his painting career.

Key Components Within The Painting:

• Women
• Children
• Umbrellas
• Rain
• Empty Basket
• Dull Colours
• 1880's Fashion
• Wooden Toy
• Hats
• Tree
• Facial Hair
• Content Expressions
• Busy Street
• Winter Clothing
• Boots
• Hands
• Some people looking directly at the viewer, others aren't.
• Everyday life.

Some Possible Symbolism:

• Dark Colours- Emphasise dull Paris day/mundane everyday life
• Umbrellas- Shield against nature. Even then we fought against nature even when it is something that should be without question.
• Empty Basket Lady- Featured in a couple of Renoir's works. Links to Renoir's sometimes obsessive behaviour toward women. Empty basket- black hole- dullness of everyday life.
• When figures look straight at the viewer, it invites in the audience.
• More focus on women than men- Admiration? Obsession?
• Composition- Umbrellas act like a frame or protective layer for the rest of the painting. Round toy and round faces complimented by curves of the umbrellas. Lots going on beneath the frame of umbrellas.
• People Watching- something Renoir must have done to create this painting.

Hierarchy:

•   People--->Objects (toys and baskets)--->Framed by umbrellas.

'The Umbrellas'by Auguste Renoir

Pierre Auguste Renoir, 'The Umbrellas', 1881-6, Oil on canvas, The National Gallery.