I just realized that I never did actually upload in my blog my project proposal after changing my topic from its previous subject.

I was planning to do my project on social media and its influence on the people in my region and culture, but half way through unit 1 I decided to change my project proposal as I stated all my reasons on MPR presentation and below is my current project proposal which I am still updating and working on throughout the unit.

1. WORKING TITLE:

Judgment of others & of self, and the way through to return to love.

2. Aims and Objectives:

Aims:

• To shift the audience energetic vibration from fear and judgment to the vibration of love, since one single person energetic shift has the power to create a ripple effect across the globe.

Objectives:

• Witness & record self-judgment without judgment.
• How does judgment makes me feel?
• Why do I feel that I have the right to judge others?
• What are the previous and past experiences in my life that lead me to be judgmental?
• Collecting & analyzing data through a survey to measure the most repetitive pattern of judgment within the community.
• Create an interactive experiment where the audience will be challenged through different situations and questions in order to investigate the reasons behind judgment.
• Create an experience where the audience live the feeling of love & connection with others and record their reaction.
• Analyze and understand the different findings of people’s behavior about being judgmental.

3. CONTEXT

Honesty and authenticity throughout this project is a main key for me to reach for my ultimate aim of it. We all struggle daily from judgment, either we are judging ourselves or judging others on their political views, sense of style, way of behaviors and many other little things that we might think its minor or silly. No matter how kind, spiritual or compassionate we are we keep judging all the time. At the beginning we might feel good or better than others when we start judging them but at the end of it we feel bad, isolated and we lose the sense of belonging.

Through out this project I would like to observe my own and others judgmental patterns, reasons behind it, and find the way through to return to our true nature which is love.

I will keep a journal of my own judgmental daily moments, practicing interactive spiritual techniques to learn more about its effect on my judgmental behaviors, as well as conducting surveys, interactive experiments & experiences with audience.

I would like to research more as well about the following art movements:

• Glitch Art:

Glitch art is the practice of using digital or analog errors for aesthetic purposes by either corrupting digital data or physically manipulating electronic devices.

• Neo-pop:

is a postmodern art movement of the 1980s. The term refers to artists influenced by pop art.

4. METHODOLOGY:

Photography and mixed media as well as working with popular images and colors using Photoshop will be my main methods in exploring my area of interest. Through capturing different moments and adding my personal feelings, thoughts and touches using mixed media tools I will be creating my form of art and will discuss those social issues that interest me, in a colorful and appealing art pieces. I am curious in exploring new different forms of media in my work, where I can experiment printing my work on diverse range of materials for example plastic, canvas and acrylic.

5. OUTCOMES:

I would like to create Interactive art installations where visitors will not only be observers, instead they can interact and participate in my art work which will create a sense of curiosity and belonging between the visitors and the installation. In order to make art more accessible I want to create pieces that will not only be displayed in galleries and museums, but also can be part of locations that public visits as part of their everyday life such as restaurants, shopping malls, parks and festivals.

6. WORK PLAN:

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY:

BOOKS:

• Judgment Detox: Release the Beliefs That Hold You Back from Living A Better Life by Gabrielle Bernstein.
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
• Glitch Art in Theory and Practice: Critical Failures and Post-Digital Aesthetics by Michael Betancourt.

MOVIES:

• WILD by Jean-Marc Vallée
• The Blind Side by John Lee Hancock

JOURNALS:

• Glitch  Published on Nov 28, 2016  2015 Oxford Brookes University school of architecture, RIBA part 2 dissertation.

https://issuu.com/sukishi/docs/qinshi15098950-rldfinal

• Madness in Method: The Glitch AestheticPublished on Feb 9, 2017

https://issuu.com/jpscotty/docs/madness_in_method_glitch

Frida Kahlo story & art have always have been a source of inspiration for me. In this series I tried to have a take on personal images of Frida after her accident while she was injured and incorporate abstracted illustrations and words on it using photoshop.

As part of me exploring the subject of judgement, this quote from

Cheryl Strayed book “Brave enough” resinated in me in a way that I wanted to create a piece of art that can emphasize this meaning to the viewer. How can we really inhabit the beauty of our beastly body when we can’t see it? how does that makes us feel? and is it true that our bodies are beastly? and who says that beastly bodies aren’t beautiful in the first place?

Transforming my digital work into printed physical form have been always a territory I wanted to experiment on. I always had many different ideas that I always mention while discussing my interest with my friends, so I decided this time to list those ideas in a very early stage. I will research what other artists have created under those ideas. This research main purpose is to help me see what already have been produced and how I can add a new angle to it through my own art practice.

PRINTED FLAGES

MAZE INSTALLATION

NEONXIMAGE INSTALLATION

Another Exhibition I visited in the past few week is BLACK MIRROR: ART AS SOCIAL SATIRE at Saatchi Gallery. The exhibition explore art’s role in social satire, and how political uncertainty has influenced art of recent years.

Featuring the work of 26 contemporary artists, using a range of media including collage, caricatures, photography and installation, the exhibition shows how satire can provide both light relief as well as unsettling commentary on the tumultuous, divisive climate of modern-day politics.

Bedwyr Williams “Walk A Mile in My Shoes”

In Walk A Mile In My Shoes, Williams presents a display case boasting 45 pairs of used shoes. Not just any old footwear however – each bootie is Williams’s own whopping size 13.

Inviting the audience to share in his own problematics of podiatry, viewers are encouraged to try the gear on: an act that invariably relays the humour and embarrassment of floppy footed clowns and sasquatch clumsiness. The importance that each pair of shoes was purchased second hand underlies the key themes of Williams’s piece – with the knowledge that there are at least over 40 other Hobbit-pawed souls in the world – Walk A Mile In My Shoes celebrates diversity, inclusion, and community; through the simple practicalities of footwear, Williams extols the values of tolerance and individual difference.

2006 Installation with size 13 shoes, written notes, poster, shelving and foot-rests

SELECTED WORKS BY JOHN STEZAKER

John Stezaker’s work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. In his collages, Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as ‘readymades’. Through his elegant juxtapositions, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of the original images to convey his own witty and poignant meanings.

JAMES HOWARD “Untitled”

“The ‘schizo-core’ mechanic is my process of manipulating digital material to open up new ways of thinking. When you realign disparate things, and allow them to be multiple, it makes a very fertile ground. Social norms are turned inside-out, leading to a tangle of surreal juxtapositions which expose all the energy of what it means to be living right now in the universe.” –

REFELCTION

Between all the 25 artists works in the exhibition William, Stezaker and Howard’s works were the most inspiring for me in terms of how they can help me explore more ideas with my practice.

I loved that each artist has an element that I can connect with my practice, like in William’s work the art installation and inviting the audience to be part of the experience through stepping in his shoes before judging him, and the shared stories is something am so keen about. I always keep mentioning the idea of having my work transformed to an interactive experience with the audience and seeing William’s work and earlier before that at Charlie’s brown exhibition I started to feel that a clearer picture of what I want to experiment is coming up.

Stezaker’s use of photographic images is another thing I always have been fascinated with in art and have been trying to experiment. His choices of images and the way he jusxtaposition is so unique. Finally the work of Stezaker in terms of multipling is something I keep on experimenting in my practice.

I can say the work of these three artists and seeing it in real life, gave me a sort of direction and idea on where and how I wanna go next with my project art work expermientations.

Couple of weeks ago I visited GOOD GRIEF, CHARLIE BROWN exhibition at Somerset House. The exhibition brings together Charles M. Schulz original Peanuts cartoons with work from a wide range of acclaimed contemporary artists and designers who have been inspired by this highly influential and much-loved cartoon. Unique in its enduring appeal, this exhibition explores Peanuts’ renewed agency in contemporary culture and society.

I loved the exhibition as a whole, but what really grasped my attention was the last part of it where the audience got a chance to be part of the exhibition experience through different interactive activities. A light box station was available with different ready illustrations projected on it, and the visitors get to grab a piece of paper and a pen and start illustrating on it. Later the visitor can write his own big life question just like Charlie Brown way of asking big life questions. All those questions later to be shared on the wall of questions. This installation done by artist Marcus Coates.

Inspiration

This interactive art work made me think of experimenting a smilier experince but with a different approach. I am thinking of having copies of my digital art work that evolves around my subject of judgment, where the viewers can write their own take about judgment/or their way back to love  on it then share on an installation piece or a wall or another idea that I need to come up with.

In this series I collected different images from fashion ads, in an attempt to experiment on creating abstracted shapes to hide the details of the human figure on those images.

By creating those outlined abstracted shapes & color block technique while keeping the original background environment of the image visible to the viewer, I am trying to shed the light on the emotions behinds those figures from their body language and how it would the viewer feel about it without having a judgment on it looks or style.

I am thinking to experiment the same technique on my own images, as well as am planning to try applying it to urban landscape images.

Kalila wa Demna is a collection of didactic animal fables, with the jackals Kalila and Demna as two of the principal characters. The story cycle originated in India between 500 and 100 BCE, and circulated widely in the Near East. The fables were translated into many languages, undergoing significant changes in both form and content. The Sanskrit original and several significant early translations have not survived. In Sanskrit literature the story cycle is known as Pañcatantra, while it was often called Fables of Bidpai in early modern Europe.

The earliest illustrated Arabic manuscripts that have survived date from the beginning of the 13th century, while the earliest illustrated Persian example (Istanbul, Topkapi Saray Library, MS H. 363) is from the last quarter of that century. The Arabic version is second only to the Maqāmāt by Ḥariri (d. 1122) in terms of surviving medieval illustrated texts.

After Researching the  illustrations of Kalila wa Demna, I tried to have my own take on it using my usual technique of creating illustrations using photoshop. I tried to create from each image a series of 3 to 4 images where I abstract the most intersteing characteristics of those historical illustrations. I applied color blocking and the repetition of some elements of the illustration to give it a contemprary feel. In this work I depended only on illustrations without adding another elements like I used to do before.

Kalila Wa Demna Talking

in the below illustration we can see Kalila and Demna Talking. The arabic text in the original illustration reflects on the idea of foolish and silly matters can grow bigger wither fed by good or bad ideas.

The Lion & The Rabbit

in this set of illustrations, we can see the lion “symbolizing the king in the book” and the rabbit by the river where their reflection can be seen on the water. The reflection embodies the true inner soul of each character where people should not be decevied by images, as we can see the rabbit being angry and the lion looks sad.

What really interests me in those illustrations of Kalila Wa Demna is how they address the subject of Judgment, which falls perfectly with my research for my proposed project. This is an ongoing experiment my plan is to create many of these illustrations to incorporate them in a bigger piece.

I have been trying to experiment different illustration techniques as part of my research and trials. Here I tried to create a new series where I used more than one photographic image and turned it into one set of illustrations using the color blocking technique. Removing a lot of the details depending on the shape of the element only and the idea that these detail free shapes convey.

You Are The Sun & The Moon

in this set of illustrations I combined different elements, where the sun and the moon represents the full potential each and everyone of us carry within since we were born. its just a matter of remembering and elevating our consciousness to a higher vibration where we can remember who we truly are.

Break The Judgement

In the following set of illustrations, I used the ancient Romanian court pillars to represent judgment. This set is a shout out to all human beings to break their inner judge on themselves and on others and break all the ideas that have been imprinted in us for generations and doesn’t serve the true purpose of our existence on earth. We all are love beings who deserve to dance all our judgment away and live in peace and love.

For the past couple of months we have been working on our research paper. I had 3 tutorial sessions 1 with Jonathan and 2 with Gareth and I must admit that specially the first two tutorials helped me a lot on deciding which direction I will be going with my paper and most importantly which Question I will be discussing.

I had different ideas in mind and wasn’t sure which direction to take some of the ideas I was interested in researching were :

• Photography as art
• Digital art and fashion
• Social media as platform for showcasing digital art
• Digital art biography
• The shift from fine art to conceptual art looking at John Baldessari work
• How powerful is the use of words/Language in Art, looking at BARBARA KRUGE

So after taking my first tutorial with Jonathan he helped me to decide which topic I will go as well as reshaping the question and giving it more depth and clarity which really helped so far making my research easier and more fun. So I decided to discuss and compare the use of word and abstract painting over photographic images in art. Barbra Kruger’s and Gerhard Richter practices were selected as the case study for this paper in order to find out which method is more effective on the viewer perception in reading the image.

What really interests me about this question that in someway it really reflects on my digital art practice as I always have been fascinated in using words and shapes over my photographic images and researching on this will really help to find more on which direction I will be interested to focus more in my practice in a way that is related to the massage that I am trying to convey to my audience.

In my 2nd and 3rd tutorials with Gareth he really helped me with my resources for this paper which to be honest have been talking the majority of my time in writing this paper, looking for references and reading related books and articles have been mind opening for me through this experience.

Now almost 2 weeks away from the research paper submission deadline I am hoping that the overall result would be as interesting as the process of researching it and writing it was.

Barbra Kruger

Barbra Kruger

Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter

Egypt always held a special place in my mom’s heart. Despite the blockade and Egypt’s political mess these days, her love for anything egyptian is still strong!

Those are some photos from my mom’s archive during one of her visits to Cairo back in the 80’s. The original photos are insanely beautiful and artistic, i couldn’t resist not trying to play around with them!

Inspired by Gerhard Richter’s, I am experimenting with acrylic paint over the photographs where the faces of my mother and other family members are hidden,nonetheless you can still get glimpses of the amount of love and joy my mom held for Egypt there! specially in the one where she was having tea with some Saidi’s “people who reside in the country side of Egypt”.

Process