IMAGE ACTIVATED- LYDIA CZOLACZ

Today guest lecture Lydia Czolacz joined us to discuss her PhD Research on surrealism, women and graphic design. The lecture began by Lydia explaining a little history on Surrealism, which was a 20th century art and literature movement founded by Andre Breton (1966) based on Sigmund Freud iceberg theory of the unconscious mind. Surrealism was in fact born out of Dada. Dada was developed in reaction to world war 1, its followers were artist that ignored the reason or logic of modern society. Dada fell apart from disagreement from the artist direction within the movement in 1922, this is when surrealism was born.

The Iceberg Theory

Figure 1 Figure 2

Figure 1 is an illustration of the iceberg theory Freud (1915) uses the describe the three levels of the mind. The conscious mind is shown by the tip of the iceberg such as emotions and needs. For an example of a conscious mind thought would be to know when you need to eat. Below is the preconscious contains thoughts and feeling that we are not aware of having, but with ease can be brought forward to the conscious. An example would be you home address although it’s not something you’re consciously thinking about you can bring it forward and recall you address. The preconscious also contains memories. The preconscious can sometime be referred to as available memory as we are not actively thinking about the thought but they can be accessed easily.

succeed in attracting the eye of the conscious

(Freud, 1924, p. 306)

The unconsciousness level is where surrealism falls, this is the level the unconsciousness mind comprises mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgments, feelings, or behaviour (Wilson, 2002).

Freud (1915) describes the unconscious mind the stem of our behaviour thoughts and feeling and the moist important part of our mind much like the bottom of the iceberg being the structure and foundations for the iceberg.

Surrealism techniques

There are several techniques used in surrealism such collage, cubomania, Decalcomania, outagraphy and automatism.

Technique 1- Collage allows artist to experiment with mixed media utilising everyday objects such as newspapers and magazine. Collage was invented in the 20th century by Pablo Picasso (1973)

and Georges Braque (1963).

Technique 2- Cubomania is an invention extension from college, by cutting the image into sections and putting back together with no consideration to the original image

Technique 3- Decalcomania is used a symmetric technique often used by psychologists. Decalcomania is created by using liquid mediums such as ink to press between a piece of paper to create a symmetrical image.

Technique 4- Outagraphy is using photographic images but cutting out the focal point such as a person’s face and replacing it with another image such as a landscape.

Figure 3- John Stezaker

Out of these techniques of surrealism technique 2 and 4 related to me and my practice. Technique 4 reminds me of an appropriation artist John Stezaker born in 1949. Stezaker work primarily used portraits and landscapes appropriated from other artist work to create a new image by folding and cutting the images and building a new image by merging two of them together.

Cubomnia and Outagraphy is something that stood out to me in Lydia's presentation to try in experiment for my practice. each techniques distorted what the viewer is seeking engaging them to look harder and naturally want to untangle the Cubomania image and figure out what the person looked like in the Outagraphy technique.

My other interest from the lecture around Lydia's PhD research was Leonora Carrington (2011) British born Mexican artist, novelist and surrealist painter, it wasn't her art that spoke to me as such but more her using animals to represent herself within her work. Carrington used traditional surrealist myth animals within her painting to give several representations of her. My practice i have been experimenting with representing myself and my emotions on not growing up with my dad and only gaining a relationship when I was 15 years old. The way Carrington has stripped back her representation was something that got me rethinking how I’m using photography and my own experience to photograph my practice.

Task 1 and 2

Lydia set us a task using her magazine cut outs to create our own college image related to our practice, initially intimidated as I haven't though out collaging my ideas in a surrealist style before. However, upon looking at the cut outs provided i instantly began selecting images and began adding them to a blank canvas in Photoshop.

Figure 4 Figure 5

Figure 4 is my collage surrealism inspired around my current practice on family, memory, loss and photography. As you can see in fig 4 , I have created a version of a women which represents myself, then a man’s head with bacteria over discarding his face, the bacteria to me resembled DNA. I then placed my own photograph of a tree within the polaroid cut out as family photography and photography as a tool is a key factor within my practice. This college has me putting the key elements within my project into a visual form.

Figure 2 was task 2 Lydia set which was to create a Sigil.

A sigil refers to a symbolic representation of the practitioner's desired outcome, a way of manifesting one’s desires.

To create a Sigil you need to select a few key words from your current work, then using each letter remove any repeated letters. For example, my key words were family photography, after removing duplicated letters I ended up with Family photgr, leaving 13 letters.

Next create a circle with smaller circles around the edge the number of letters remaining, then allow your hand to freely join the dots. This creates a Sigel.

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Reference

McLeod, S. A. (2015). Unconscious mind. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html

Wilson, T. D. (2004). Strangers to ourselves. Harvard University Press.

Freud, S. (1924).A general introduction to psychoanalysis, trans. Joan Riviere.

Freud, S. (1915). The unconscious. SE, 14: 159-204.

Artnet. (2021). John Stezaker. Artnet. http://www.artnet.com/artists/john-stezaker/

Figure List

Figure 1 Pinterest, . (2020). iceberg Theory . [Illustration ]. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/294211788139112011/.

Figure 2 , . (1932). Sigmund Freud. [Photograph]. https://www.freud.org.uk/photo-library/freud-portraits/.

Figure 3 Stezaker, J. (2007). Untitled XXVI, 2007. [photography]. http://www.artnet.com/artists/john-stezaker/untitled-xxvi-a-5Snk44ahGiCpkuf5K7KRcA2.

Figure 4 Boothroyd, H. (2021). College. [College]. Practice Experiment , Huddersfield.

Figure 5 Boothroyd, H. (2021). Sigil- Family. [illustration]. Practice Experiment , Huddersfield.