Assignment 4: Themes work is addressing or what it’s attempting to communicate
At the start of this assignment I explored my identity as a theatre nurse, inspired by photographers such as Thomas Ruff, Claudia Angelmaier, Tom Hussey and Brian Griffin. Due to winter pressures and filming from the BBC, exploring my other self at work as planned did not happen. Instead I developed a couple of ideas influenced by Anne Collier’s “Cut” and “Eye” and Jo Spence’s “The picture of health” series.
Figure 1 Cut (2010)
Figure 2 Eye #3 (2014)
My role is different from that of a ward nurse although it still encompasses stereotypes such as “surgeons handmaiden”, “nurse as skilled knower and doer” and “sexual plaything”. Image can be embraced photographers and the media, for example we worked closely with medical photography to film a natural caesarian section operation at the request of a patient as an educational tool (which subsequently went viral on social media 2016).
Contact sheet 1 - work me
Contact sheet 2 - presentation
Contact sheet 3 - identity
Jo Spence and Juana Gomez photograph their bodies; I explored mark making and potential scar formation on my skin to understand how I would feel if I became a patient. Scars affect patients psychologically and physically; some patients embrace them, others don’t; some later covering them with tattoos. Although scars give people identity, the current trend on social media is for body perfection which can lead to people suffering with body dysmorphia. Routine elective surgery incisions and trauma scars can be anything from unsightly to a neat line hidden within skin creases when healed. Peoples’ skin heals differently; some develop keloid (raised red) scars and others may show marks from the closure device. If a patient presents for the same surgery with what they consider to be an unsightly scar, they often discuss concerns over suture material and refashioning.
Contact sheet 4 development of idea
By photographing my body and adding sutures to typical incision sites, texture and colour is added to the image. An in-depth look shows the holes left by the suture needle (Prolene suture - blue dyed polypropylene) knots on the image and trauma from the implements and heavy handedness which is comparable to real surgery. The lifelike colour from printing onto glossy photographic paper represents the skin under the bright operating lights. (Matt paper removed the shine giving the opposite effect) By working with the printed image I can look at parts of my body in more detail than I would normally see. The relationship between the initial printed photograph and holding the image to re-photograph it creates a relationship between me and my body and demonstrates an empathy between nurse and patient. I am privileged to see inside people’s bodies; something patients don’t often get the chance to see without a physical and emotional journey. My role involves altering people’s appearances every day. I have only had a handful of investigations performed on my body and imagining what is under the skin through the study of anatomy, I am photographing the unseen.
Contact sheet 5 - not using
Contact sheet 6
Contact sheet 7
Inspired by the desire to gain a perspective of scars from a patients’ viewpoint, marking my own body created an uncanny feeling as my brain believed I had sutures in my physical skin. Stitches in the analogue print link the pixels from the digital image together. By working in two mediums the captured image recording part of myself changed into a representation of how my role affects my body through understanding of scar formation. In effect, this work becomes a projection of myself rather than a reflection of reality. By holding the printed image and re-photographing, the image moves from being a medical record into something more personal and cognitive.
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Figure 1 Cut (2010)
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Figure 2 Eye #3 (2014)
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| Contact sheet 1 - work me |
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| Contact sheet 2 - presentation |
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| Contact sheet 3 - identity |
Jo Spence and Juana Gomez photograph their bodies; I explored mark making and potential scar formation on my skin to understand how I would feel if I became a patient. Scars affect patients psychologically and physically; some patients embrace them, others don’t; some later covering them with tattoos. Although scars give people identity, the current trend on social media is for body perfection which can lead to people suffering with body dysmorphia. Routine elective surgery incisions and trauma scars can be anything from unsightly to a neat line hidden within skin creases when healed. Peoples’ skin heals differently; some develop keloid (raised red) scars and others may show marks from the closure device. If a patient presents for the same surgery with what they consider to be an unsightly scar, they often discuss concerns over suture material and refashioning.
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| Contact sheet 4 development of idea |
By photographing my body and adding sutures to typical incision sites, texture and colour is added to the image. An in-depth look shows the holes left by the suture needle (Prolene suture - blue dyed polypropylene) knots on the image and trauma from the implements and heavy handedness which is comparable to real surgery. The lifelike colour from printing onto glossy photographic paper represents the skin under the bright operating lights. (Matt paper removed the shine giving the opposite effect) By working with the printed image I can look at parts of my body in more detail than I would normally see. The relationship between the initial printed photograph and holding the image to re-photograph it creates a relationship between me and my body and demonstrates an empathy between nurse and patient. I am privileged to see inside people’s bodies; something patients don’t often get the chance to see without a physical and emotional journey. My role involves altering people’s appearances every day. I have only had a handful of investigations performed on my body and imagining what is under the skin through the study of anatomy, I am photographing the unseen.
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| Contact sheet 5 - not using |
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| Contact sheet 6 |
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| Contact sheet 7 |
Brief self-evaluation
I thought I would feel more inspired when stood in front of Thomas Ruff’s photographs at Whitechapel Gallery which led me to develop ideas around presenting the work so that it was different. I found it quite hard to act in front of the camera and was uncomfortable looking at the images in the beginning because it wasn’t what I thought I looked like! Time was the biggest factor required to develop ideas. I prefer keeping my body under clothes so deliberately chose areas which are on display although I could use drapes to protect my modesty. My set-up started as self-portrait but when I could not reach the remote-control camera lead I tried directing someone else to take the shots I envisaged. However, I re-photographed all the areas again myself; the longest time spent trying to photograph my eye from the surgeon’s perspective. Dressing up to take the images became the performance.
I think the idea works; I was unsure and thought I might have an issue with putting sutures in my eye. However, because I have assisted with cataract surgery it was OK. My biggest fear is knee surgery and so this is what I found most difficult. I changed the suture material to a commonly used absorbable suture but couldn’t get the knots to stay in, so reverted back to Prolene. Perhaps the eye needs to be larger as I struggled with the placement of the sutures? A surgeon would use a needle holder and threads smaller than an eyelash for closing some incisions – I don’t have the skill so worked with a 3” long needle attached to quite a thick thread designed for being handheld. The sutures are therefore a representation of surgery because some stitch techniques and materials didn’t work on photopaper.
Ideas for development: gloved hand holding photo, shadow in photo representing hand (inflated glove on stick to create shadow), change thread (tried another thread), staples, blurred image, photograph some images without the hand (use some diptych or triptych images) different sized images for punctuation, AV presentation with muffled talking as soundtrack, typology, iron drape!
Audience journal or web viewers. Book – small text intro at the beginning and captions. Limited interest because of the subject – not a wide appeal whereas images of nurses may be more appealing. Medical interest self-portraiture
I researched scar photography after developing my idea and found Emily Goddard’s work in the BJP who documents patients with impressive scars.
List of practitioners looked at in relation to this assignment
Claudia Angelmaier http://www.claudiaangelmaier.de/works/portrait/
Irving Penn https://www.irvingpenn.org/
Richard Prince: http://www.richardprince.com/paintings/nurses/
Gerhard Richter https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/paintings/photo-paintings/death-9/eight-student-nurses-5770?&categoryid=9&p=1&sp=32&tab=notes-tabs
Juana Gomez https://www.juanagomez.com/constructal
Jacqueline Donachie: https://galleryofmodernart.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/deep-in-the-heart-of-your-brain-jacqueline-donachie-20-may-13-november-2015/
Tutor report Assignment 4 Digital Identities 1
I was pleased to receive helpful feedback from my tutor, as I realised that I needed to find a narrative for it the assignment to link it to assignment 5. We discussed lots and I felt more positive after the skype session.
"Very good piece of preparatory work for this assignment exploring the representation of nurses and nursing through popular image and culture."
My tutor suggested that the research could form a piece of work in itself using the archive to create a visual database which is what my resulting Assignment 5 became. I had looked at the work of Anne Collier, and my tutor suggested "Christian Marclay, who uses not only found image (here; https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/feb/14/popandrock)but latterly film (most famously in his 2010 tour de Force The Clock: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/christian-marclay-clock)."
"You’ve identified a wide range images form a variety of sources which explore the representations of the nurse and nursing in an interesting and critical way. You’ve researched thoroughly and found images from the archive, including popular film, advertising and media."
"NOTE: I wonder if you’ve considered juxtaposing some of these found images of nurses (especially ones in popular culture with photographs of you) or another in the theatre? The juxtaposition might be an interesting one – a coming together of the reality and the myth"
"very interesting things going on in the contact sheets – particularly the shot of the back of your head with the circular mirror so there’s plenty of material to play with there. I also like the snapshots of (you?) as a young nurse in the garden and think there’s something very interesting that you could put together working with a narrative – either a series of frames together, an animation or a book.
In the research, you’re looking at the multiple identities that nurses (women) are expected to absorb (you mention some: Naughty nurse, nymphomaniac, battle axe, doctor’s handmaiden, etc.) and this is expressed in images but also, as you note in your list of names, in language."
"I think to fully do justice to your interesting research, you’re probably going to working with series of images and with juxtaposition. In other words, you might be thinking of bringing one image together with one that on the surface is very different but when paired with another begins to communicated the ideas you’re interested in exploring (multiple identities, etc.)."
"This leads me on to your photographs taken of yourself in the theatre. These images remind me of some of the early work of performance artist Marina Abramovic (especially in relation to pain and performance: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/inside-mind-marina-abramovic/ . Like her, you are producing still images that are highly performative. Your still images - like Abramovic’s – begin to explore the boundaries between subject and object. By putting yourself in the place of the other (in your case, the patient) you are acting out the patient’s necessarily passive role. This is an interesting thing to do and begins to explore the relationship between empathy and the institution, etc. You might also be interested in looking at the work of these two artists who work directly with patients and with the medical profession, exploring the issues regarding ethics and empathy in a clinical setting:
Suggested relevant reading
Christine Borland: http://belowanothersky.org/artists/christine-borland/
Feedback to Tutor report
I found this skype session really helpful as I had taken several of images according to my plan and was not sure how to link them together. I had come to the conclusion that none of them were enough for a series of stand alone images and perhaps a narrative would work but I couldn’t find a direction with them.
We discussed Christian Marclay’s clock as using clips of film based around a given time shown on the clock. The clock becomes the referent. Following the skype session I watched some clips and found it an interesting concept. I am not sure whether something like this would work with my work but it is certainly something to consider My sutured images could work as a referent if using online video clips.
Wendy suggested I consider fantasy and reality with images working in binary opposition creating tension and include words. A series of images would probably work well (narrative) looking at my identity as a nurse.
We discussed that I had looked at the work of Anne Collier. Wendy suggested looking at the work of Marian Abramovic. This was based on her experiences of pain and she uses performance to tell her story. Also Christine Borland and Jacqueline Donachie were another two artists to look. Their work was fascinating and so I have started to look their work in more detail and see how I can link it in with other artists and my own work. I need to look at the Wellcome Institute too.
It is acceptable for some images to just be words. These could work in binary opposition or be the stereotype words. Another option is looking at magazine covers and seeing how nurses are represented and possible remaking something. This would bring the research up to date. Perhaps a couple of opposite images or words and image could be combined together? Richard Prince uses image and words. This would work well as a book or prints.
I need to think about what I want to say.
Following this, I looked at magazine covers for the Nursing Standard and National Association of Theatre Nurses to study juxtaposition. Exploring the Wellcome collection and with the NHS 70 years and release of some old photographs, experimented using the code of conduct as a narrative. I also looked at plant based drugs used in anaesthesia and whether I could juxtapose these with images of nurses and operating theatres. This series wasn't large enough though.
