In this workshop we taught and shown what anti-art and anti-practice is and how using such processes and creating such outcomes can be really beneficial for creating ideas and pushing the you're creative process.
We were shown a few examples of anti-art e.g. Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and were then told to go and make our own anti art by going against our usual practice.
My own anti-practice work:
Photobooth photos:
Photobooth Videos
How are these images anti my usual practice?
- I tend to take portraits and fashion focused images so I thought I'd go against this and take some still life like photos.
- I decided that my subject matter would be the contents of this bin in my bedroom and in my bathroom, both considered pretty disgusting things and not often shown in a positive or aesthetic light. I decided to focus in particular on the contents of the bin in my bathroom, sanitary products. Women and people with vaginas are often made to feel very ashamed and disgusted about having your period so I thought that it would be very along the vain of anti-art to try and make art out of my own used sanitary products which I emptied into a box filled with water to try and elevate the objects from the floor and also to make my photography less controlled, as the objects kept moving around in the water.
- The first set of images were taken on the camera I usually use for my photography, but I decided to question this and embrace the idea of anti-practice even more by using the camera on my laptop instead and playing around with different filters and effects in photobooth. I also have never really worked with video so thought I step outside my comfort zone and film my process of taking the photos and stick them together as seen in the video above.
- My shoots and photography are often very planned and staged but I tried not to think about how or what I was taking photos of too much. I also tried to be on the ground as much as possible as I often work sat down at a desk or stood up with a tripod.
Thoughts:
I found this workshop really useful. Pushing me outside of my comfort zone made me re-think my creative process and how much of a routine I've got into with creating my work without realising. Going forward I will definitely try and keep this workshop in mind, to constantly keep questioning my practice and not allow it to get too comfortable because my best work has often been produced when I've gone outside my comfort zone.
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