I was really struggling with what to use as visuals for this project, and originally I was looking at going down the route of visualising my memories quite literally, which I think could work in many ways, but it comes down again to the same issue I had in my minor project. If I predominately use my own experience, it become more autobiographical and therefore it is hard for the viewer and the audience to put themselves in the shoes of others, and the work no longer becomes a mirror. Therefore I was looking at symbols I saw repeatedly in my memories, and how you senses are involved. For me that was touch. I am to this day still triggered by unwanted touch, touch I don’t give direct permission for, and touch of people I don’t know or I don’t trust. And there was something which had a spark and something I wanted to develop in the hand holding the red ball of wool.
I decided to use my favourite tool at the moment, the photocopier, and I scanned my hand, leaving the lid of the photocopier open, and sometimes keeping my hand still and others moving it, and the results were incredibly interesting and personally I feel quite emotive. I thought and still agree the photocopier works as it is shows clearly where pressure is put but being lighter and less textures, and that stimulates the feeling of touch. I tried to place my hands in positions that resemble scratching and grabbing, I think this was a really successful experiment, and I want to edit these images more, as I did bitmap them and then print to see how they would look on a metal etching plate and they were still way too dark in places, especially as I think these would be incredibly sucessful on steel, and the images need to be a lot lighter for steel. However as I still have over a week before I return to the workshops this is something I can ask advice from the technicians, by dropping an email.
The reasons I am thinking steel, and photoetching in general because the plate is editable. And I think it would be interesting to add markmaking to these images, such as lines indicating path of travel, and the emotions behind them. Either can be done with hard/soft ground etching, or I could use stop out (as the images are dark) and create negative space versions of the same affect. With photopolymer plates, even though quicker, I couldn’t add details like this directly to the plate and instead it is only on the image itself, digitally can I add these details, and I think that could make the images look stiff and I am really wanting to explore photographic printing techniques with more drawing and mark making based ones.
Currently my idea and path of exploration is to keep hands as the visual image, but how mark making and different materials can give different emotions behind each image. Keeping the subject matter the same then reflects the triggers which is a large symptom of PTSD and then focusing on emotion demonstrates how trauma affects the memory, and how one may not be able to remember what happened by the strong emotions felt at that time.
I am really excited by the images I have created above, and to me I feel like there is something special here, and makes me want to follow this path more.