Eva Petrič Transart Institute
Project Plan Outline 09 Summer Residency 09
Art Project:
Working Title: Skin un-done re-done (shadow-skin-body separation)
Description:
For my last year's project I made a photo book of monochrome shadow photos, called
Gr@y Matter, the language of shadows where I paired shadows with emotions and put everything into the periodic table of shadow emotions, displaying building blocks of the language of shadows. This year I want to go further from this. Starting from the position of being Eva as Eve, the first gender identity on Earth, I want to express shadows as extensions of my skin, shadow representing my skin without the flesh and define with this the skin as the means of separation of shadow and the body - the flesh. With the help of shadow I want to investigate how the skin determines my gender identity, and as well how shadow enables me to migrate from my place and from my gender and from my body and from flesh yet I can at the same time retain my gender identity, remain in my place and feel at home in my body and flesh. Shadow thus offers me the freedom of moving in all directions and into all spheres yet return to my body, fusing my body and my shadow into a new quality. Within my art project I want to explore how much veiling with the shadow it is necessary for the body and flesh to loose its profanity and become sacral and how much of the fleshiness to give to the shadow to loose its abstractness and become bodily, to fuse with my skin, to actually become my skin, my new skin that enables my body to remain flesh and be sacral at the same time. In my new project I will fuse my photos of shadows with my photos of body. That is, I will join my color photos with my monochrome photos and possibly get a new quality that will enrich my identity.
Media: monochrome analog photography, color analog photography, digital color photography, video
Expected outcome: cycles of color and monochrome photography, cycle of analog photography manipulated in the dark room, a series of multilayered photography composites, video
Production schedule: September - December: making photos, monochrome analog photography of shadows, color analog photography and digital photography of body;
January : making selection out of the pool of photography:
February - March manipulation of some of the monochrome photography in the dark room, digitalizing manipulated photos
April -May: making multilayered photo composites, making video
Mentor: Dr. Martina Corgnati
Research Project:
Working Title: Monochrome film degraded upgraded
Working Hypothesis or Topic of Inquiry:
In my research project I want to investigate the topic of color in connection to monochrome full feature films in the view of the present controversy about the colorizations of monochrome films. My premise is that in certain cases color inclusions in monochrome films are sensible and can even enhance the films and vice versa, and yet the complete colorization of monochrome films is appropriate depending on specific films.
Description:
The focus of my research will be the use of colors in monochrome full feature films and vice versa, the use of monochrome scenes and sequences of scenes in color films. Up to my knowledge no thorough study done exclusively on the color and monochrome inclusions into films exists. I would like to find out the role and the meaning of such inclusions as well as their effects on the film itself. To describe and analyze their role I will research color inclusions into monochrome films as well as monochrome inclusions into color films as they are used in different genres of films. I will analyze them from different aspects: from the technical, visual, cinematic point of view and from the point of view of their meaning, as being conveyed through the means of its themes and metaphors. On the basis of my research I will try to classify different types of inclusions. As to the question of whether to use color or monochrome stocks in full feature films, I will focus also on the recent debate about the justification of the colorization of some old monochrome films. This debate has been raised as the technology became available for relatively easy digital coloring of originally monochrome films. In this regard I will review some of the films that were colorized, yet their authors strongly opposed to the colorization and the color versions were not allowed to be distributed. I will try to see what were the reasons in favor of these films to remain monochrome and find out if color would really be detrimental to these films and if maybe a combination of color and monochrome parts would be sensible there. With this I want to find out if a fusion of color and monochrome aspects is possible in a film and if yes, in what cases. To gain additional explanation of the relationship between color and monochrome scenes and films I will analyze also so called neo noir films, films that were done in monochrome versiona after the technology for color films became broadly available - that is, they were done monochrome on purpose and not out of existing necessity.
Research schedule:
September – November: searching for the literature and studying it, making a selection of films to be analyzed. Initial watching of films. Writing first draft of Introduction.
December – February: watching and analyzing of different films, classifying different types of color or monochrome inclusions and different ways of using them; writing first draft of the paper.
March – April: analyzing monochrome films that were planned but were not allowed to be colorized; checking if maybe only parts of it being colorized would be acceptable and beneficial to a certain film. Analyzing and sorting the findings, redrafting the paper
May- final editing of the paper
Mentor: Dr. Carolyn Guertin
Bibliography:
- Arnheim, Rudolf. Film as Art. University of California Press, 1957.
- Conrad, Mark T. The Philosophy of Neo Noir. University Press of Kentucky 2006.
- Hyward, Susan. Cinema studies:.The key concepts. 2000.
- Klarer, Mario. An Introduction to literary studies. Routledge, 2004
- Rabiger, Michael. Directing. Film, Techniques and Aesthetics. Focal Press, 2003.
- Sitney, Adams, P. Visionary film: the American avant-garde, 1943-2000. 2002.
Hudson, 1997.
.
Films to be studied:
- The Wizard of Oz, 1939, Victor Fleming
- She's Gotta Have It, 1986, Spike Ice
- The Maltese Falcon, John Huston
- The Asphalt Jungle, John Huston
- The Seventh Cross, 1944, Fred Zinnerman
- This Sporting Life, 1963, Lindsay Anderson
- The Terminal Man, 1984
- Distant Voices Still Live,
- Saving Private Ryan
- The State of Things, 1982, Wenders Wim
- The Man who wasn't there, Coens
- Somers Town, 2008, Shane Meadows
- The Mist, 2007, Frank Darabont
- Persepolis, 2007, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
- Ten Canoes, 2006, Rolf De Herr and Peter Djigirr
- Brand upon the Brain! 2006, Guy Maddin
- The Bridge, 2006, Brett Hanover
- Renaissance, 2006, Christian Volckman
- Frozen Days, 2005
- The Notorious Bettie Page, 2005, Mary, Harron
- Sin City, 2005,Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez
- People who die mysteriously in their sleep, 2004
- September 11, 2002
- Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary, 2002, Guy Maddin
- Memento, 2001, Christopher Nolan
- In Praise of Love, 2001, Jean-Luc Godard
- Return to Innocence, 2001, Rocky Costanzo
- Eureka, 2000, Shinji Ayoama
- American History X, 1998, Tony Kaye
- Pleasantville, 1998, Gary Ross
- The Tango Lesson, 1997, Sally Potter
- A Trick of the Light, 1995
- Eclipse, 1994, Jeremy Podeswa
- Schindler's List, 1993, Steven Spielberg
- Kafka, 1991, Steven Soderbergh
- Europa, 1990, Lars von Trier
- Wings of Desire, 1987, Wim Wenders
- Mala Noche, 1985, Gus Van Sant
- The Angelic Conversation, 1985, Derek Jarman
- Zelig, 1981, Woody Allen
- Raging Bull, 1980, Martin Scorsese
- We all love each other so much, 1974, Ettore Scola
- Awakening of the Beast, 1970, Jose Mojica Marin
Connecting my art and research projects:
I choose my research project because I wanted to see if color and monochrome images can co-exist, how color and monochrome images can be combined or even fused in a film. I hope that my research project will, through the research of the relationship between the use of color and monochrome insertions into color or monochrome films provide me with a valuable pool of information and experiences on the possible combinations of the use of color and monochrome images in one work. This, I suppose, will have informational as well as instructional value for my art project in which I will try to combine color and monochrome photographs in one work
Criteria to evaluate the success of the art project:
In my art project I want to restore the balance to the gender identity of Eve, this by reestablishing her skin, which spans in its role from being the point of separation between the mind and the flesh, the point of separation of the body and the shadow, to becoming the point of joining the flesh and the mind , the body and the shadow, the profanity and the sacral , to form actually a new skin. If my multilayered photo composites will be able to convey the idea of this new skin, I will consider my art project to be successful.
The historic, political and social context of my art project:
With my art project I want to enter the topic of gender identity (by tackling the relationship with our skin as the point of both, the separation and the fusion of our bodies with the environment), yet convey through it the imminence of our awareness of the present day environmental situation. This latter is and will be even more soaked into the problems of global climate change with repercussions on all levels and spheres of our life. Global warming poses us a threat to loose the present paradise of whose existence we are largely unaware of. The redefinition of the skin conveyed and exposed through my art project points to the need of protecting the planet and the human race in the post-paradise environment created after the loss of balance in the present environment.
The Project in one or two sentences:
Within my research and art projects I want to research the skin as the place where lack of color (monochrome) and presence of color coexist, where the body is separated from its shadow as well as fused with it, where the flesh coexists with the mind and where the profanity meets the sacral and vice versa.
Examples of cliches images:
Eva Petrič: Good Witch
Eva Petrič: Madame Butterfly
