Grand Masters - Ryan Trecartin and Poor Image

An artist I have had in mind right from deciding I wanted to focus on Poor Image is Ryan Trecartin. 

https://vimeo.com/trecartin

Trecartin also uses video to depict modern day scenes and poor image. Filmed on mobile phones, shaky images and rubbish computer editing - his videos are bizarre and fascinating. Although the characters in the films are exaggerated, they are remarkably relatable therefore making the films funny. 

As I wanted to recreate The King Drinks through video and photography - I kept Trecartin's work in mind. I want the recreation to be hazy and confusing, told from each of the character in the painting's perspective - almost through "selfies". 

I have began to gather footage of drunken nights out, poor camera quality and people at their worst. I have also edited these to almost recreate the feeling of being drunk. I really like the finished videos but I want to put noise to them again and then I need to edit them all together in order to recreate the whole scene. 

Drunken Hue

Tea Party

Grand Masters - The King Drinks

Jacob Jordaens - The King Drinks

I have related back to this image a lot in my collages and videos, I think mainly because it show similar characters that I see on a daily basis. I have been interested with showing the similarities between the past and the present (particularly the boisterous, beastial side) and this image reflects how out of hand drunken gatherings could get in the past as well. 

With my work I want to recreate this scene in modern day terms - using poor image, computer editing and recreating the characters also. 

Grand Masters - After Effects

After looking at Bennett and Richardson's work, I wanted to have a go at creating my own animation. This was my first attempt at using After Effects and it took a lot of figuring out. Now I have managed to do this I feel like I could possibly produce something of a much higher quality. The movement of the characters in the film is very choppy as I found it difficult to move all the limbs at the same time, but I think I have got to grips with the technique now. 

Club Scene

I wanted to combine characters from a modern day version of the feasts that are depicted in the The King Drinks - these images were taken in clubs. By doing this I wanted to show how, despite the change in quality of the images, nothing has really changed. This relates back to my use of The Company of Wolves - we were always as beastly.

Grand Masters - Matthew Richardson

Website

Matthew Richardson caught my eye because he combines old black and white images with the modern style bright collaging. In particular this video interested me because it is like what I want to achieve with my animations, simple yet humorous. Also it takes the photograph out of context and puts it into modern technology, in this case, an aeroplane. 

His work is quite similar to Vicki Bennett's yet it has a more homemade feel rather than computer edited. I would like to try out both of these styles, creating some physical collages like Richardson's. 

Grand Masters - Clubbing Wolf

After visiting the Tate 1840's GIF party, I found out how to make a GIF on photoshop. It was much simpler than I imagined, it simply used layers. This is my first attempt at creating a GIF.

Clubbing Wolf

As it was my first attempt I didn't attempt any movement, just changing the opacity of the wolf in each layer. I wanted again to address the ideas in The Company of Wolves, showing that humans are like beasts too - particularly when we go out and binge drink.

I now want to attempt making a moving animation with multiple characters that interact in some way.

Grand Masters - The Tate 1840's GIF Party

 By chance I stumbled upon this GIF on tumblr which I thought was hilarious and also linked to the kind of thing I wanted to achieve. They have transformed an old piece of art by using modern day technology. Whilst this doesn't use poor image, it does express the obsession with images off the internet as GIFs are moving images that circulate the internet.

Beneath the image it said that there was going to be an exhibition at Tate Britain called 1840's GIF party, that showed how modern technology is used in art today. I decided to go along and it was brilliant. There were some hilarious twists on old work that were really clever - I knew I needed to find out how to make GIFs and to use them in my work.

GIF examples

Grand Masters - Selfie Wolf

 As I had done some collaging up to this point but the artists that were inspiring me mainly used video - I wanted to have a go at creating a video for myself. As I have never used any form of video maker before other than Windows Movie Maker, it took me a long time to find my way around Premiere Pro software.

I wanted to make a glitchy image that highlighted the use of poor image so I used effects in photoshop first to achieve the pixelated look. I then used effects in Premiere Pro that made the image "break" during the video. 

I liked the combination of the pixelated gaudy image infront of high quality, dreamlike "The Company of Wolves" scenes in my collages, so I decided to use this in the video too. I also wanted to focus on the meaning of the people turning into wolves in The Company Wolves so I created my own choppy transformation.

Selfie Wolf

I would like to make the image interact more with the background and go on to make animations like Vicki Bennett. Also I need to think about sound a lot more in my films to create more of a computer effect to back up the poor image.

Grand Masters - Vicki Bennett

After creating collages physically, I would like to move onto creating them on the computer with moving image. Vicki was suggested to me by my tutor and after watching her stuff, it seemed just like the kind of thing I want to achieve.
By taking old images and animating them with modern technology, she is combining the two main elements I am looking at in my project. I also want to create humorous animations or GIFs.
We Are Not Amused.