Deciding on Final Images

I have made the decition already that I want to display my final work as 4 A1 images printed on matte photo paper. I now need to decide which images I want to use for this.

I terms of the gender of the subject behind the mask, I do want a mixture of the 'dual-genders' but I don't want 2 of each; that would be too equal and equality is not what my work is about. So I think, therefore, I will have one male subject and 3 female subjects.

The 4 images I choose need to aptly display a mix of gendered faces within the masks and mesh will with the faces of the subjects' faces behind the masks. They need parts of the face to line up but other parts to obviously not, making the face look whole yet disfigured at the same time.

I think I have decided on the four images below. And I want them displayed in the order they are shown.

I also now need to decide on how they will be displayed on the wall they will be on; whether I want the wall black or white.
A black background contrasts the whiteness of the image background against both the subject and the background of the wall. The images are contained within the photograph borders.
A white background would allow the background of the image to 'bleed' through to the wall. The images would become one giant piece with no borders.
I think a black background would be better suited to my work as I want the boxed, contained images to be contrasted with the background.

More photographs

These are some more of the more successful images I took with the coloured masks. I discarded some of the other images taken, with some of the same subjects as often there were no correlations between any of the features of the mask and of the subjects face underneath which I found meant that the mask didn't merge at all with the face underneath and was more distinguishable from it which wasn't the effect I was after. I now need to decide which images I want to use in my final work.

Coloured Photos

Having finally taken the first lot of photos with the coloured masks these are some of the more successful images.

I find the very top image and very bottom image the most successful. The way parts of the mask have lined up with parts of the face underneath has meant that it is very difficult to decipher which arts belong to the mask and which parts belong to the subject's face underneath. I find the outcome of this really interesting, and something that could not have been achieved with the black and white masks. I will now take more of these photographs with different subjects to find more that I am pleased with.

Gender - My Own Views.

I think, although it is important to have researched pre-existing sociological and psychological theories on gender to increase my background knowledge, it is also very important that I have my own opinion on gender, as I am the person producing my work.
I believe that, biologically, in generic humans, there are two possible sexes that one could be, male and female. A man has a penis and testes and a woman has breasts a uterus and ovaries.However, when it comes to talking about gender, most people are actually referring to society's idea of gender stereotypes and gender roles. Masculinities and femininities are traits that we have come to think of as attributed to either sex, when actually they are referring to traits that could apply to anyone, that society decided applies to either gender.

In reference to transgender people, I believe they are simply people who wish to have sexual organs of the opposite sex or just wish to act in the sociological role of the opposite gender stereotype. I don't think there is anything wrong with this. It should just be seen in the same way as someone who wants to act according to how their own gender stereotype should act. Personalities, identities and traits should be down to the individual, not stereotyped by gender.

BUT, this is the problem; most people, including transgender people, are still subject to sociologically created gender stereotypes. Take drag queens for example, they generally dress up in what is seen as the most 'feminine' outfit and act in what they think is the most 'feminine' way. In fact they are simply behaving in a way that society states women should behave, not the way women necessarily wish to.

Can we, as a society, ever break free of gender stereotypes? Ok, so we have progressed from say 50 years ago, but the foundation of so much of everyday life is based around them. How can a person be beyond these gender stereotypes?

This is a huge part of what my work is truly about. By fragmenting and meshing parts of faces that, when considered, do adhere in some way to these gender stereotypes, I have managed to create a new 'face' that, when ignoring the hair and clothes alongside it, is genderless, or gender ambiguous.

More paper masks

  I have created 3 more layered, coloured masks to use in photographs. 

These are the outcomes of these masks.  

   

 

I will now take photos using all 6 masks I have created and decide how these work.

Coloured Masks

Going by the idea of needing a coloured mask to see if this would add to my work, I created these masks. I used Photoshop to slice and merge parts of some of the photos I've already taken. These are the resulting masks.

I will now print and cut these masks to use over subjects face and see how these work and photographs.

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung  was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of Analytical Psychology. His theory regarding the 'persona' is very relevant to my work.
The persona is the outward personality that an individual presents to the world. This is a mask; it is the compromise between the true individual and what is expected by society.
  In terms of gender, the persona is the reaction to gender roles and gender stereotypes created by society. Therefore, the gendered personality that an individual presents to the outside world may not be their true gender identity, it is simply a reaction to how society dictates their gender should act.

In my work, and my use of masks, I wish to present how a person's true identity, in particular their true gender identity, is hidden by this persona. The masks are made up of an indecipherable number of faces as it is created in reaction to society's views, a society made up of a huge number of people. These people's views distort an individual's true identity by covering it with the 'persona'.

Layered Masks- other subjects

I have used two different subjects with the masks that I used on myself.

I find these images interesting in the same way as the previous ones, and also the way that each mask, when used on a different subject underneath, creates a completely new character each time, even though the majority of what is seen in the image is the mask which stays the same.
I do think I need to experiment with coloured masks to see if this is more effective than black and white ones.

Layered Masks

Using the 'layered papers' I created, I have made masks by cutting parts away. I held these in front of my face in the same manner used in my previous works. These masks show less of the subjects face underneath than in my other works.

I do find these interesting. They change my face into a deformed, fragmented character, my own face barely visible underneath. One very prominent thing about these images, is that the mask is in black and white which means that it is very separate from the face underneath. I am going to use these masks on other subjects to see how it works and then experiment with creating masks that are coloured and see what impact this has for how the face underneath is seen.

Layered papers

As using the cut images I already had, layered over a subject's face didn't work too well, I wanted to take the person away completely for a bit and just work with the images. I layered these on top of each other and photographed them, trying different combinations.

I find these pieces really interesting, a new face if definitely created but because the features are fragmented and broken it is not a whole face. Although I do find these images strong in their own right, I want to try cutting parts away from them and then using them in front of a subject's face to create a new gendered persona for the subject.

Layered Faces

In these works I have used some of my previous, more fragmented, photographs cut diagonally in front of my subjects' face. I have also experimented with layering a few of these images together.

I find these less successful than had thought they would be. It is a lot more difficult to line up the facial features closely at all. This means that I don't get the same new face created- the image is so broken that it almost doesn't look like a face anymore. I think I should experiment with layering the images more but in different, more effective way.

Fragmented Faces

After looking at John Stezaker's work, and how his work affects part of facial features, rather than always changing the features as a whole, I decided to experiment with this idea in my own work. I used some of my own photos I had taken previously as images to use in front of the face and one photo of the female to male transgender pornstar Buck Angel. I wanted, in that one image, to explore the idea of using a person whose gender identity is already outside of the sociological norm. I think this could be an interesting idea but one I need to consider more thoroughly at a different time.

The other images, that I had created myself, I cut so that they sat either vertically or diagonally across the subject's face, fragmenting their face. I find the photo in which the subject's eyes are distorted and fragmented by the image in front, so that half the eyes showing belong to the subject and half to the image in front, the most interesting in terms of how the viewer would look at it. 

As the eyes are 'broken' and fragmented, and the eyes are what the viewer initially focuses on, it makes the photo actually quite difficult to look at. This is interesting as people who physically deviate from the norm, according to society, are often avoided by the public, who sometimes don't want to look at them. This also links to Garland-Thomson's idea of the 'stare' that disabled people ore often subject to. 
 I want to further fragment the faces of my subjects by using the already very fragmented images in front of them. I want to keep doing this until the image becomes almost like shattered glass.
 The images over the subjects, the 'masks' don't have to be linear, I could marge a few of them crossed over so fragmented sections of the subject's face shows underneath.

Victorian Theatre Masks

I found some reproduction Victorian masks in a flea market in Brighton. They immediately reminded me of one of Joel-Peter Witkin's photographs that I had been considering for my work.

Joel-Peter Witkin, Arms Broken By Windows, 1980

I thought these masks would be very relevant to my work, they are very definitely gendered masks, particularly the ones I bought.  They, like the mask in Witkin's photo, only cover the eyes of the person wearing them. I have taken a few experimental photos of them, using the notion of the person underneath having expressions that match society's impressions of traits of the opposite gender.

But when I took images of these masks in the same setting I had been photographing my other work in I realized that they didn't work as well as I had hoped.

 

The subject, when wearing the masks in my previous works, have their eyes covered. This wasn't an issue in these works as their eyes were covered with other images of eyes but the eyes on the Victorian masks have holes over where the pupils and part of the iris should be. This makes the images I am creating look hollow and empty, as the eyes aren't really there, thus making the images less powerful as artworks. I have, therefore, for the moment, decided not to use these masks in my work, although I may come back to them at a later time.

Olafur Eliasson- Mirrors

Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic contemporary installation artist. "Eliasson regularly incorporates elements appropriated from nature in his work. By introducing such phenomena into an unexpected setting, such as a gallery, the artist encourages the viewer to pause and reflect upon their understanding and perception of the physical world around them. Whether he installs a new gallery floor made of volcanic lava or a delicate rainbow into a museum as he has in previous work, Eliasson questions the familiar, the everyday and the divide between nature and culture.
Throughout his career, Eliasson’s installations and interventions have consciously made the viewer central to the work. This is evident in The Weather Project in which a mirror running the length and breadth of the Turbine Hall ceiling allows visitors to see themselves and the immense space around them reflected overhead. At the far end of the Turbine Hall a large yellow arc of light is suspended and reflected in the mirrored ceiling, linking the real space and replicated expanse to create a ‘sun’. Illuminated with mono-frequency lamps the Turbine Hall is transformed into a monochrome landscape. A fine mist permeates the space in different densities and forms patterns throughout the day." (Tate Press Release)
Eliasson's work explores ideas about perception, expirience and representation. One material that he uses often in his work, and is most relevant to my own work, is the mirror. It "...functions as a device to layer spatial dimensions and expand upon the parameters of fixed rooms." (http://www.suite101.com/content/exhibition-by-olafur-eliasson-at-berlins-martin-gropius-bau-a253863)

Eliasson's use of mirror's questions the preconceived spatial perceptions of the viewer by changing what they are able to see. The mirrors, such as in the images of works above, change how big the room looks by reflecting it in a mirror on the ceiling, and thus forces the viewer to consider if what they are seeing is real.
My use of mirrors in my work is not so much about spacial perceptions but about personal ones. I want the use of mirrors in my work to force the viewer to question their preconceived ideas about themselves, by reflecting their own face, and altering it with a layered image, I wish for the viewer to think about their gender identity.

John Stezaker - Collaged Faces

Whitechapel Gallery -  29 January - 18 March 2011    Gallery 1

John Stezaker is a British artist working with "...classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustrations, Stezaker makes collages to give old images a new meaning.By adjusting, inverting and slicing separate pictures together to create unique new works of art, Stezaker explores the subversive force of found images. Stezaker’s famous Mask series fuses the profiles of glamorous sitters with caves, hamlets, or waterfalls, making for images of eerie beauty.

His ‘Dark Star’ series turns publicity portraits into cut-out silhouettes, creating an ambiguous presence in the place of the absent celebrity. Stezaker’s way of giving old images a new context reaches its height in the found images of his Third Person Archive: the artist has removed delicate, haunting figures from the margins of obsolete travel illustrations. Presented as images on their own, they now take the centre stage of our attention

This first major exhibition of John Stezaker offers a chance to see work by an artist whose subject is the power in the act of looking itself. With over 90 works from the 1970s to today, the artist reveals the subversive force of images, reflecting on how visual language can create new meaning."  (Whitechapel Gallery Press Release)

Stezaker's facial collages are similar to my 'photographic collages' as they are combining facial identities from at least two people to create a new face and a new identity. The difference to my works is that my images aren't traditional collages, they are 'photographic collages', they haven't been physically altered after the photo has been taken. They other difference is that in my work I change either the eyes, nose or mouth but as a whole; Stezaker changes parts of these features, like one eye, part of the mouth, half the nose etc. This makes the face less recognizable as a whole entity, it is more disjointed and fragmented than the faces in my work.I could perhaps experiment with maybe using parts of a face vertically rather than horizontally and see how this works for creating a new gendered identity.