transformation

I wish I had taken this image /  by Justin Harrison

I found this whilst researching, thinking about submersion, drowning, afterlife, and transformation.

Taken from the website: https://www.fieldandstream.com/photos/gallery/hunting/deer-hunting/2010/12/triple-tragedy-three-bucks-drown-antlers-locked/
Article by BY STEVEN HILL | PUBLISHED DEC 15, 2010 10:18 PM
Image possibly taken by: Jason Good

It’s not my photography but I wish it was. Curiously, I suspect the image was just for documentation rather than a consciously creative endeavour. However it just has so much happening in it.

In a muted palette of olive, amber, brown and blacks. Three bodies have come together in a triste tri-union. The trees appear to sprout out of the cadavers spines, blackened and wirey, as though some mysterious transformation has occurred through the incident. nature has reclaimed the moment. Above and beneath a quiet worlds are entangling. Bleeding through.

 

Transformation and Thought /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own

I’ve been pondering transformations, the working title of my Study Statement. What territories therein might I explore. Historically I’ve looked at death, however this area is a little heavy handed, prone to cliche, it potentially lacks subtlety and therefore limits the capacity of my research…potentially.

In my feedback from the assessment I was encouraged to consider smaller transformations and what they might look like. One that has come into view is that of our ‘thoughts’. Changing our mind. Changing out thoughts - changes us, can transform us and can even manifest physically. Although ‘thought’ also covers such a huge discipline and field of enquiry. However the mind is very interesting, it’s still an uncharted territory, with neurological breakthroughs and discoveries regularly being made, the sphere of our thought also holds its own great mysteries.

I find it interesting as Dr Caroline Leaf talks about how thoughts turn into real estate, chemicals and proteins, in her book ‘Switch On Your Brain’. Which connects to the idea ‘from nothing comes something’. Belief into substance. Similarly in Derridas work touches on the formless space/non space of Khora and differance.

Earlier I asked the question where is the nursery of our beliefs, where do beliefs herald from? Now I begin to wonder if beliefs are born of a seed thought sustained. A choice. We choose our beliefs. Yet such a small essence that can have global implications

So how does this play into my practice based research? What am I trying to say or explore? What is the passage and place of a thought?

Maybe more neurological research? However the fills me with dread - more dense text…

 

Encombre #2 /  by Justin Harrison

I’ve been wanting to add video sketches to my work for a while, and finally found the opportunity. I took an alternative route to work and discovered this delicious spectacle.

The ground had opened up and ushered forth. The tarmac blacked and fractured. Sunken and violent. The street transformed from it’s passive state to a site of unknown menace and promise. I felt that were I to enter the water could be relocated to another space. Transformed. Passage.

 

I am everything you left behind. I am everything you don't want #4 /  by Justin Harrison

Another discovery, at 2am this time. Not quiet what I’m looking for… I like when the subject has undergone some form of transformation. However it has this cinematic feel with the lighting, in addition the arrangement of 3 items has some from of aggregation. So I guess it counts.

The subject has this sense of semi-passive/dysfunctional patience to it. ‘Waiting for Godot’. It sits mutely in it’s incompleteness (Half a sofa), somehow stalwart in the belief that it has purpose. This whole image has a late middle aged feel to it. Or is that just me?

I find the first image works best, the lighting and confrontation perspective.

Less of the dead horse in these - which I find disappointing.

 

Liminal/Threasholds, Threashing Floor and a sneaky Star Wars reference /  by Justin Harrison

I found a curious connection between the films: Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back/Revenant/Man in the wilderness/Rivers of Fundament (Matthew Barney). The visceral and jarring motif of entering and exiting an enviscerated horse/ cow/ tonton for survival and as a metaphor for death, rebirth and transformation. I’m not sure if there is a classical reference that precedes these films - or any myths or stories. .(I’m not sure how ‘Fine Art’ Starwars is but I’m gonna crowbar it in cos… well it’s Star Wars).

However the motif has caught my attention as it also demonstrates the metaphor of a Liminal place a space where a transformation occurs or a threshold crossed - albeit a psychological one perhaps.

In addition in these contexts there is a dual form of sacrifice:
1.The host animal/ mothering agent.
2. The form of a ‘little death’ of the subject ( a passing through) and then a transformation upon exiting.

In Barneys film there is an uncomfortable feel as the Demi God character enters what appears to be a very dead and decaying carcass, which asks the question what kind of transformation would occur in this context?. Much of Barney’s work is unsettling and visual grotesque so it almost suggest something sinister and perhaps rather than a transformation it would be a corruption and deformation////

A place we fear to look ||||||||||||||

The envisceration is profound - a forced space for the incumbent. Perhaps this is what is jarring is the ‘manufacturing’ of a liminal space. I wonder if true transformation can only come through a naturally occurring spiritual liminal space. Fabricated ceremonies lead to a performance of transformation where perhaps the change is only superficial. Which we could say of Revenant, which actually has two moments the first being when Hugh Glass is partially buried being believed to be near death, and then the act of survival where he uses his horses carcass to shelter from a snow storm.

Death and Rebirth///

Tranformation//?

Deformation///

Threshold///

Threashing floor///

This has also had me thinking of the biblical reference fo the threshing floor - a metaphor for separation of the good form the bad - it also has a liminal essence to it for those who are prepared to confront their own short comings and be transformed by a purification process.

More to be extrapolated but I keep loosing my train of thought////

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZy99QDPhpw