2W26 Discussion Paper

MADA 2 DISCUSSION PAPER • University of the Arts London
• Camberwell College of Arts • © 2008 Nikolaos Almpanis

pic.1 visual creation, n. almpanis ‘08

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The aims of this essay are to explain my work, its development, and challenges that have arisen during the evolution of my project by investigating two specific works, Portrait and VLM1_Prison.

Introduction

Today, digital technology is giving us a new opportunity to re-examine lots of issues of the past in many subjects and areas. In particular, portraiture can nowadays be processed with the development of a new digital aesthetic. Initially, my project proposal was focused on human subjects and creating fully developed identity portraits by using new digital and hybrid techniques. During the development of the project however, it evolved and become more specific. Still, redefining portraiture and it’s meaning in our contemporary society is relevant to my goal.

Project Development

The volume of information that consists about an individual is infinite. Depicting all the information visually or not would be technically impossible and visually wrong as the final result would be something overly informative and time-consuming. My intentions are not to create a project similar to web based avatar sites like Myspace or Facebook, which provide lot of information about their users and their everyday life, but they lack real individual aesthetic and emotions, elements that I believe are fundamental to art.

Instead of my initial plan to address all the components of one’s identity in a digital portrait, the idea of focusing on something more specific like capturing human emotions is more feasible. Therefore, setting parameters and rules with something now less broad allows me to focus on specific views of my portraiture and simplify the process of its creation.

Personal Development

Starting my career as a painter I realized that my work had to do with an intense level of producing and compositing forms. I had experienced that in a professional level by working with my father as a Byzantine artist. The technique of Byzantine frescos (inside Greek orthodox churches) can be easily described as a big chromatic composition of layers, colors and images which all are processed and positioned in a way to look aesthetically right. As a result, my work now often draws upon classical rules when using modern digital techniques and styles such as the video compositing methods. Video compositing is very similar to what I did as a painter, first sketching my theme, positioning it in my mind, putting it on my frame and finally coloring it. The canvas is another factor that these two worlds have in common. In drawing, sometimes it feels like the portions of your canvas restrict you. The same thing happens with video and resolution on screen.

pic.2 still image from portrait, n. almpanis ‘03

Portrait

Portrait is a video self-portrait that has all the elements found in much classical painting portraiture: color, composition, and realism (pic.2). In addition, it also adds two more elements that distinguish it from normal portraiture, motion and time. In Portrait, film was used instead of a traditional canvas. The camera moved around me slowly showing my facial details and personal expressions. To mimic a painting, a grainy effect was used. In addition, zoom effects helped magnify details of my face and emotions and audio was added to intensify and represent my sentimental state at the exact time of the shoot.

pic.3 still images from VLM1_Prison, n. almpanis ‘07

VLM1_Prison

This video is a part of a study for digital portraiture focusing on facial expressions to translate human emotion (pic.3). Prison Mary consists of 2 layers, the first depicting the face of the subject and the second represents her inner thoughts and intense psychological state. I physically connect the girl with her inner thoughts by cutting, recreating and mixing these two layers. To achieve this, I used various video compositing methods. The whole aesthetic looks heavy and dark which was accomplished by digital colorization. In the end, there is suggested a feeling of imprisonment that draws the viewer to focus on the girl’s figure and her sense of isolation and pain.

The distorted and industrialized audio also follows the rabid change of the image and emphasizes important manipulations and movements of the video layers. The spasmodic movements of her face and stressful expression seem to be squeezed by the industrial deformed ambient. With this piece of work I tried to show a feeling of discomfort and agony, much like in Bacon’s portrait work.

Bacon repeatedly painted the human body or parts of the body in discomfort or agony or want. Sometimes the pain involved looks as if it has been inflicted; more often it seems to originate from within from the guts of the body itself, from the misfortune of being physical. (Bacon. p8)

Creating the Digital Portrait

pic.4 editing process, n. almpanis ‘07

In my work, I apply traditional techniques that integrate essential elements of traditional portraiture, such as color, composition and realism. Most of the portraits I do are of people I know for a long time, which as Francis Bacon once stated give me ‘the possibility of a deeper penetration of an individual’s singular mode of being’ (Bacon. p8)

In painting an individual, you are trying to get near not only to their appearance but also to the way they affected you, because every shape has an implication (Bacon. p8)

In my work now I “paint” and “draw” through digital mediums portraying one’s likeness as well as convey their emotion caught at that particular time.

pic.5 still images from studies of abstraction, n. almpanis ‘08

Music has also always been an important factor in my life and my work as an artist. This game of visual narration between sound and image is the element that often develops my work. Listening to sound always fills my mind with still or moving images and oppositely while watching images musical compositions also come to my mind. Like with my classical training in art, the technology today like soft studios, sequencers, audio recording hardware, midi-controllers, real-time music synthesis programs, non-linear video editors, and plug-ins provide a user-friendly interface. Much like the tools of a painter, they give me endless ways to create expression and make a visual and audible reality of every idea and thought I have.

The audio itself is also a medium that that can be manipulated or created visually. Instead of traditionally representing it as waves, sound can be re-designed or expressed through visual imagery, color, and movement. As another means to depict human emotion, this visualization can be used to portray feelings like anger, frustration, happiness and love. When applied here, sound stops being a graphical depiction of technical information, but changes visually and expresses the portrait of a sound.

pic.6 still image from abstraction, n. almpanis ‘08

Now by fusing the audio and visual imagery together, the portrait can be further enhanced to convey the emotion being expressed by the subject. In life, there are instances when one isn’t able to exactly recall or describe a specific feeling. Taking it one step further, I thought it would be interesting to create a digital depiction or portrait of one of those particular instances, a mind frame (as I call it), which encapsulates that state of mind.

Conclusion

The development of my proposal to re-define portraiture in a digital sense has been challenging and has greatly evolved over time. Initially, my intent was to examine how digital technology can aid in the creation of a portrait where it can provide a thorough glimpse into the identity of the subject. After much research and technical experimentation however, the feasibility to include all facets of one’s identity seemed too daunting. As a result, the project shifted to focus more so solely on the emotion being captured and conveyed through portraiture both visually and audibly.

Bibliography

(2005), Francis Bacon : portraits and heads
Borel, F. (1996) Bacon : Portraits and self – portraits, London : Thames and Hudson
Comini, A. (1986), Egon Schiele, London: Thames and Hudson
Francis Bacon : The violence of the real, London : Thames and Hudson
Viola, B. (1995)- Reasons for knocking at an empty house : writings 1973-1994 / edited by Robert Violette in collaboration with the author, London: Thames and Hudson
Whitford, F. (1981), Egon Schiele, London: Thames and Hudson

DVDs

Black Light, white noise [videorecording DVD] : sound and light in contemporary art
Viola, B. [videorecording DVD] : The eye of the heart