Shubkina_Polina_Insomnia Autob

Transcription

Insomnia: Autobiographical Photography Series
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Photography Department
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Photography
at
Savannah College of Art and Design
Polina Shubkina
Hong Kong
© March 2014
Scott Dietrich
Leon Tan
Dustin Shum
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following for their help, guidance and inspiration.
Professor Yoav Horesh
Professor Scott Dietrich
Professor Leon Tan Ph.D
Professor Steven Aishman
Dustin Shum
Michael Rush
Skene Milne
Dedication
To my parents for their faith and support
Table of Content:
Figures 1 Abstract 3 Introduction 4 1st Chapter: The Notion of Insomnia in Contemporary Culture 7 2nd Chapter: Surrealist Drama "The Goddess: How I fell in love" by Renata Litvinova, as a main visual and conceptual influence of the series 15 3rd Chapter: The ideas of self-‐oriented artwork, performance and the artist’s identity in the work of Sophie Calle 25 4th Chapter: Autobiographical influences 29 Conclusion 34 Bibliography 35 1
Figures:
1.
Jeff Wall, “Insomnia”, 1994
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2. Anita Yau, “Insomnia"#1
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3. Anita Yau, “Insomnia"#2
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4. Anita Yau, “Insomnia” #3, 2013
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5. Michael Rush, “Wontonmeen”, 2012, screenshot #1
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14
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8. Polina Shubkina, “Insomnia”, 2013
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9. Renata Litvinova, “The Goddess: How I Fell in Love”, 2004, Screenshot #2
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23. Sophie Calle, “True Stories”, exposition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Miami
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3
Insomnia: Autobiographical Photography Series
Polina Shubkina
March 2014
This thesis aims to explore the personal and theoretical influences that have shaped the
development of the “Insomnia” series, and analyze its universal meaning into the context of
contemporary art and post capitalist society. Each chapter structured as an individual essay
about the themes that support the development of my artistic research.
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“She enters my home with velvet steps, as usual gets comfortable in
the darkest corner of my bedroom.
Without turning the lights on, without any questions. Insomnia
moved in with my family when I was born.
We went together through every little stage of my existence. Her
face changes every night, I think of it as of my twin sister that I
never had and never wanted. My heart is in her hands.
I hope she will get bored of me one day and finally will move out
from this city, apartment and more importantly, from this head.”
Polina Shubkina, “Insomnia” Artist Statement, 2012
Introduction Before entering the conversation about my "Insomnia" series, I would like to define
the specifics of the artistic research and determine its difference from academic or scientific
research. What do we mean by ‘research’, and what criteria can we formulate to distinguish
art-practice-as-research? Research requires an original contribution – which means that
new research should add unique observations or knowledge to the existing oeuvre; its aim
is to amplify knowledge and understanding.
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“Works of art contribute as a rule to the artistic universe. That universe encompasses
not only the traditional aesthetic sectors; today it also includes areas in which our social,
psychological and moral life is set in motion in other ways – other performative, evocative
and non-discursive ways." (Borgdorff) These ideas demonstrate that art practice qualifies
as research when its intent is to expand our perspective and comprehension through an
original examination. It begins with questions that are relevant to the research context and
the contemporary art world, and employs methods and techniques that are appropriate to
the study.
How does this research differ from more mainstream academic research? "Artistic
practices are at once aesthetic practices, which means that matters such as taste, beauty, the
sublime and other aesthetic categories may be at issue and could form part of the subject
matter for study.” (Strand) Artistic practices always allows for multiple or obscure
interpretations, and even invites them. One important criterion for scientific research is the
essential indifference of the researcher. The investigator’s role is insignificant because
different people can obtain the same results under identical conditions. In artistic research,
the artist is an investigator; the creation and performance are a part of the research process
and are inevitably bound with the creative personality and the individual. This paper aims
to unveil the reasons and influences that stand behind my individual artistic research.
Chapter one will focus on situating the “Insomnia” series in the context of latecapitalist society and contemporary culture, applying concepts from the works by Eluned
Summers-Bremner and Johnathan Crary, together with providing materials from the latest
scientific studies about sleep disorders all over the world. Based on these materials I will
argue that sleep difficulty is a universal issue that became more problematic within the past
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decade and is associated with growing levels of stress, related to the expansion of non-stop
processes of the twenty-first century capitalism. The second part of the first chapter will
study contemporary art works, which deal with the notion of insomnia.
The second chapter will analyze surrealist drama "The Goddess: How I fell in love"
by Renata Litvinova, as a main visual and conceptual influence of the series, it will draw
the similarities between its symbolism and utilization of color. The third chapter will
discuss the ideas of self-oriented artwork and photography as performance. Through
examining the work of French conceptual artist Sophie Calle, I will analyze how artistic
creations based on the private life can alter the public identity of the artist. The final chapter
will examine autobiographical reasons behind the development of the “Insomnia” series by
explaining the ideas from the artist statement. It will determine the notion of hypnogogic
and hypnopompic hallucinations and show its relevance to the work. Also, it will explain
chosen technique, sequencing, and it's conceptual relevance.
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1st Chapter: The Notion of Insomnia in Contemporary Culture “Insomnia is the subjective complaint of insufficient or inadequate sleep. It occurs
with few physical signs, and is defined largely on the basis of the patient's self report.”
(Aldrich) Sleep difficulties are universal and a common complaint among the general
population of western countries. According to the recent population-based study, Hong
Kong adults suffer from insomnia as much as people from the western megalopolises. The
study of 305 middle-aged Hong Kong Chinese women proved that about 26% of the
samples were poor sleepers. (Chung) Using structured questions, an earlier populationbased study observed the extensive prevalence of insomnia among Hong Kong population
at 11.9%, with females being at higher risk for insomnia than males. (Li)
As reported by the group of analytics from the Warwick Medical School at the
University of Warwick, the approximate number of adults suffering from sleep disorders
across the developing world is 150 million. This research includes statistical analyzes of
sleep quality in such counties as Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, India, Bangladesh,
Vietnam and Indonesia, and an urban area in Kenya. “Warwick Medical School researchers
have found a rate of 16.6 per cent of the population reporting insomnia and other severe
sleep disturbances in the countries surveyed – close to the 20 percent found in the general
adult population in the west, according to nationwide surveys in Canada and the US.”
(Strangers)
It is a proven notion that insomnia indicates mood disorders such as anxiety and
depression. Considering how many people are affected by these problems all over the
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world, these might be new standard conditions of modern life. “Our limbs and lower backs
are tense, tired and overworked; our minds stressed by increasing demands by bosses,
friends and lovers to do the impossible: increase our productivity, despite what is produced
being less and less necessary. The demand everywhere is the same: do more, do it quicker!
Never must we act, think or create better!”(J.D.Taylor)
Why do anxiety disorders increase universally? It is my observation that
the
problem is contained in the unstable lifestyle introduced by post-capitalist society. Fear
and anxiety are dominant in all social structures, but a particular anxiety and fear appears in
financial capitalism, through the growing demands and stress-levels of working and living.
It is the time when people began to synchronize with the 24/7 structure for continuous work
and consumption, on the individual level.
“Many institutions in the developed world have been running 24/7
for decades now. It is only recently that the elaboration, the modeling
of one’s personal and social identity, has been reorganized to
conform to the uninterrupted operation of markets, information
networks, and other systems. An illuminated 24/7 world without
shadows is the final capitalist mirage of post-history, of an exorcism
of the otherness that is the motor of historical change”. (Crary)
Indifferent 24/7 system dictates the lifestyle in which sleep has no necessity. Intense
competition among students and professionals is cultivated on purpose; society is pushing us
to be hyper-productive, aggressive and self-critical. This is aggravated by the technological
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progress: internet, laptops, smartphones, social networking sites, all these require the user to
be constantly connected and informed. Of course, staying on-line at night is one’s own fault,
but partially we do it because the world progressively makes no distinction between day and
night.
The effects of this misery-generating condition are not limited by the feeling of
tiredness; insomnia decreases cognitive functions it causes significant health issues and as a
result-poor quality of life. Every case is unique, but generally insomnia is problematic; the
majority of sleep medications are highly addictive, and most alternative procedures such as
hypnosis or herbal medicine lack evidence for their effectiveness. Insomnia is a major trouble
of the modern society but at the same time a source of inspiration for contemporary artists.
Jeff Wall’s “Insomnia” (Figure №1) image projects its anxiety straight on to the viewer.
The man’s figure seems less significant than the moody environment he struggles to sleep in.
As an insomniac, I can relate to this image and interpret it relying on my personal experience.
Severe insomnia episodes make me feel the space I am in differently - almost as if a bedroom
or a kitchen would turn into a parallel reality that rejects me. This is the feeling that I sense
from Wall’s picture. Everything in this photograph is angled and is almost physically
uncomfortable; the table cuts men’s figure in parts, translating the irony of insomnia, where
“the body, exhausted, longs for sleep while the mind, frustrated, cannot yield” (SummersBremner); the color pallet of the kitchen is deliberately “unhealthy”, which brings the most
ordinary life scene on the level of an existentialist drama.
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(
(Figure №1) Jeff Wall, “Insomnia”, 1994
(Figure №2) Anita Yau, “Insomnia"#1
(Figure №3) Anita Yau, “Insomnia"#2
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In the “Insomnia” series (Figures №2,3,4) of watercolor sketches and acrylic paintings,
Hon Kong artist Anita Yau depicts the sleeping disorder through the stylized and symbolic
androgynous portraits. Most of the works are monochromatic with faces that are ambiguous
but expressive, they recall the fragments of someone’s interrupted dreams. This series
illustrates a dualism between the image of an insomniac and his or her demons that cause a
problem. A half-sleeping young man dissolving in the darkness, a blindfolded woman’s face, a
few full-figure drawings of exhausted people, almost in agony, and a painting of a demonic
figure whose angulous hand is inviting us into a mysterious green obscurity: all together,
universal symbolism that conveys allegorical and romanticized experience of insomnia.
(Figure №4) Anita Yau, “Insomnia” #3, 2013
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The short fictional film “Wontonmeen” by American artist, videographer my colleague
and friend Michael Rush raises questions about human memory, consciousness and
subjectivity of time. The film includes four short vignettes: each a description of a day-in-thelife experience of four different people who living in the same apartment building in Hong
Kong. The last vignette, “Nadya”, was inspired by my Insomnia series. It is relevant to
analyze the way my story was expressed in a different medium by an artist who knows me
personally. His work is possibly more relevant to my series than any other because the
creation process of both works was simultaneous, they informed and influenced each other.
The text of the narration is based on a page from my personal notes that I wrote originally to
accompany my photographs. Together, “Nadya” and my Insomnia series create an external
persona, whom I view separately from myself, because after both projects were completed I
mentally moved on. For me, these projects served as an extensive visual documentation of a
depression that I am not embarrassed to share with an audience.
(Figure №5) Michael Rush, “Wontonmeen”, 2012, screenshot #1
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“Nadya” covers a very subjective experience of an insomniac in relation to the other
people, lovers in particular. The vignette describes the feelings of loneliness and mental
isolation, when the actual physical situation is the opposite. (Figures №5,6,7) I find it important
to include the actual text from the scene, because of its relevance to the series:
“ I don't think I exist when somebody else is not physically close to
me. Time stops when I am in bed. Not asleep but in bed. I have
longer relationships with my pillows than with anyone who
occasionally is sharing them with me.
Once you know how to get the most beautiful one, you are able to
take them all. The question is-do you want it or not? When they are
asleep, they all are the same. Just like children, that painfully
changed their shapes and became bigger. They sleep, and I stare. I
can listen how they breathe for hours until I get exhausted. Until the
fucking world of dreams will accept me the way I am.”
The color range of the vignette is highly saturated with the prominent blocks of
complimentary colors, emphasizing the conditions that Nadya is going through in the
scene. She appears awake, asleep and in a hypnagogic “in-between” state. The piece ends
on an ambiguous shot with an after effect, it is not certain whether she finally falls asleep
or if the entire vignette was a dream-like condition. Rush’s work partially affected my
decisions on sequencing. My installation ends with a photograph of the bedroom (Figure
№8) in the early morning light, but the bed is empty. Both of the works are raising
questions without giving the answers. The reason for the insomnia remains unknown.
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(Figure №8) Polina Shubkina, “Insomnia”, 2013
2nd Chapter: Surrealist Drama "The Goddess: How I fell in love" by Renata Litvinova, as a main visual and conceptual influence of the series Renata Litvinova's surrealist drama film "The Goddess: How I Fell In Love” became
the main visual and conceptual influence for my body of work. In “The Goddess”, the
actress plays a Moscow police investigator, Faina, "…who has an uncanny hit-and-miss
style of inspection, lives in a moodily dilapidated apartment with red high heels for houseslippers, and is haunted by dreams that exhort her toward death." (Thorsen)
During the film, Faina states multiple definitions of love: "it is a river one cannot
climb out of"; "it is something not quite fleshy, but still bloody"; "it is viscerally fleshy as
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well as bloody"; "it is the meaning of life"; “I do not understand anything about love".
These definitions, however, fail to resolve within Faina’s loveless soul through the course
of the film. In her film, Litvinova incorporates highly symbolic elements, which help to
communicate the absence of love in the life of Faina. An annoying raven, dead fish, flies,
cigarette butts, sodden books, dampness of the old apartments – all these blend into a deep
impression of lifelessness. Death is the second main theme of the movie - after love, or
loves’ absence. (Figures №9,10)
(Figure №9) Renata Litvinova, “The Goddess: How I Fell in Love”, 2004, Screenshot #2
The presence of death is very prominent in Faina’s life. During her investigation, she faces
three cases of suicide, and in her dreams the ghost of her dead mother does not leave the
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heroine alone. Faina’s mother appears in a red evening gown. Sometimes, her presence
seems more real than Faina’s. (Figure №11)
The design of the characters implies the aesthetics of film noir — neurotic devaluation of
the family structure, social alienation, and the strangely deadly force of female sexuality.
The glass-walled cafeteria (Figure №12) where customers pick over the remains of
liquid meals—cold soup and cognac - represents the site between life and death and sets the
tone for the entire movie. The city in all its manifestations (in its physical space, its
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temporal cycles, its climate, and in the character and behavior of its inhabitants) is, to an
extent, the realm of the surreal and the demonic.
The way I structured my series was much informed by "The Goddess: How I Fell in
Love” in the way I utilize the descriptive shots of my personal space and items (for
example, bras hanging on the door, or occasional after-midnight yogurt in the yellow light
of the empty kitchen), the over-saturated color palette, the general ambiguity, the
symbolism of mother-daughter relationships, mirrors, and alcohol bottles, the ghostly selfportraits and the strong feeling of loneliness over all.
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Another strong symbol that takes part in Litvinova's movie is a mirror (Figure №13) that
serves as a portal into the world of the dead. The mirror constitutes the threshold of
manifold oppositions, including life and death, life and art, reality and dream. It is a realm
of alternative reality: magical and seductive. "The discourse around mirrors in Russia was
shaped by a preoccupation with border-crossing and identity that is distinctive to
My "Insomnia" project would not exist without photographs of the different kinds of
mirror reflections: from personal mirrors in private spaces that convey the features of
solitary beholder to street mirrors and glass skyscrapers of Hong Kong. These are seen by
multitudes and generate countless reflections in both the literal and the figurative sense.
During insomnia, I spend a significant amount of time staring at mirrors, sometimes with
the hope that reflections of reality will give me answers to the questions that keep me up at
night. Unlike the heroine of Litvinova’s film however, I cannot enter them in order to
discover the truth.
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Additionally it is important to mention that the film’s color range inspired some of
my artistic decisions during the shooting process. It motivated me to experiment with
saturation within the series. It was my deliberate decision not to color correct photographs
after scanning the negatives, to keep the sometimes-unpredictable intensity of the color the
way it has been captured. This helps to translate the surreal feeling of the subjective
psychological experience. My color palette goes through the intensity of the spectrum
because colors seem flashier at night, especially when you look at things with a pair of
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exhausted eyes. The intense yellow of artificial light translates the uncomfortable moment
when eyes adjust from darkness. This also breaks up a sequence built on the nuances of
deep blue and gray shadows, with occasional turquoise in reflective glass surfaces. An
aggressive red color is prevalent in the photographs that open the sequence, and appear
later in the series as a rhythmical accent, whether it is a plastic cup of yogurt, a Chinese
magnet on the fridge or nail polish on the hand of a person, peeking out behind the jalousie.
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(Figure №20) Polina Shubkina, “Insomnia”, 2013 24
(Figure №21) Polina Shubkina, “Insomnia”, 2013 (Figure №22) Polina Shubkina, “Insomnia”, 2013
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3rd Chapter: The ideas of self-‐oriented artwork, performance and the artist’s identity in the work of Sophie Calle In this chapter, I want to discuss the notions of the self-oriented art practice,
photography as performance, the artist’s persona as an inseparable part of the artwork, the
relevance of these ideas in the context of contemporary art, and their relation to my work
and the work of a French conceptual artist, Sophie Calle.
Sophie Calle is a keenly self-aware artist. She creates a complicated artistic persona
which is regularly explored within her various bodies of work. Her work reveals intimate
secrets of both herself and others. She challenges the boundaries of privacy, brings intimate
relationships to the judgment of the viewer at the gallery space, and generally brings
attention to the importance of subjective, personal experiences that escape an underlying
routine.
She is a famous and outstanding figure in the world of contemporary art. Sometimes
it seems that her work has no personal barriers; for example, work such as No Sex Last
Night (1992) shows the artist exhibiting highly personal details of private romantic affairs
for the viewers’ consumption. Because of the self-oriented nature of most of Calle's works,
any analysis of it is connected with an examination of the artist’s projected private life. The
original ideas of Calle’s art production are mainly based on the stories from her life, but it
is impossible to identify which ones are true and which are fictional (which is not a matter
of high importance, considering how believable and thorough of a psychological portrait
she creates).
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The questioning of society’s predetermined notions (such as identity and truth)
became an outline for most of Calle’s artworks. It is impossible to fit her art into one
category, partially because Calle is not using the same working method from project to
project. She often prefers to focus on the ideas of subjective, possible realities instead of
straightforwardly projecting the truth.
Typical of postmodernism, the artist’s
development of multiple identities ties together the medium and the subject matter. Each
of Calle’s bodies of work incorporates autobiographical moments and her subjective
vision of it. Sophie Calle’s art practice and her body of work “True Stories” in particular
became one of the strongest conceptual influences for the “Insomnia” series. What
impresses
me
is
the
ability
of
the
artist
to
see
her
life
as
art.
“The True Stories project blurs the boundaries between truth and the
made-up in a series of autobiographical text-image pairings,
depicting such events as Calle’s disturbing turn as a life model whose
drawn image is slashed with razor blades; her various weddings and
almost-weddings; and her progress from privileged adolescence to
heavily-documented adulthood with the accompanying threats of
plastic surgery, negotiating sexuality and meeting fans. Perhaps, then,
it is for her extensions of the photographic away from objectivity and
into
the
subjective
and
fictive
realms.”(Hunter)
“True Stories” is a body of work that changes the viewers’ opinion about the
contemporary meaning of photography. It stretches the boundaries of purely
documentary, traditional, medium-specific practice. Additionally, playing the role of an
emotionally charged storyteller, she extends the available language, both visual and
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textual - through which viewers might process difficult events and their own intimate
identities.
(Figure №23) Sophie Calle, “True Stories”, exposition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Miami
The postmodern evocation is obvious within Calle’s work, however, it is a lot
more complex because she often mixes it with particular elements of modernism in
photography, such as straight compositions, rejection of artistic manipulations and
emphasis on formal qualities of the image. Personally, I find interesting how her work
creates a tension between subjective postmodern realities and basic modernist universals.
This tension becomes a product of all Calle’s works, which deal with notions of
subjectivity and universality at the same time.
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Similar to her work, my artistic research deals with autobiographical subject
matter, problematic psychology and sexuality. However, stylistically and technically it is
very different.
As an artist, I have to be well aware of the fact that my creation invades my own
privacy and adds some new levels to my public identity; that fictional, purely artistic
elements blend in with the reality and create an alternative persona, that exists only within
the frames of the series. Through addressing a theme of a very personal psychological
problem - insomnia, I photographically capture, sometimes construct, or perform private
moments and make an artwork out of it, in order to provide social commentary on a
contemporary issue. Originally there was hope that an art therapy based project would
cure the problem, by providing an ability to look at the issue from the other perspective,
unfortunately in this case it was not successful.
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4th Chapter: Autobiographical influences Insomnia forces me to stay awake at least three nights a week. Once, instead of
killing time without a particular purpose, I decided to use it as an opportunity to explore
and express my sleepless night experience. My artistic practice is highly performative, in
the sense that the artwork and creative process are oriented to affect the viewer, to set him
or her in motion, and to alter the understanding and view of the subject. It is mimetic and
expressive because it represents, reflects, articulates and communicates situations and
events in a personal, purely subjective way. It speaks to our psychological and emotional
life. The photographs from the series do not only represent or document things but also
convey feelings and emotional experiences; they contribute to the artistic knowledge by
providing idiosyncratic blocks of sensations.
“Insomnia moved in with my family when I was born.” Every time when my
parents recall memories from my childhood, they mention that every night it was a
struggle to put me asleep. During the first two years of my life, I was not sleeping during
the day like children are supposed to. It was a challenge for my mother and grandmother
(back in 1989 USSR, hiring a nanny to take care of the baby was uncommon). “We went
together through every little stage of my existence.” Unable to join a kindergarten;
constant troubles with morning classes at the elementary, middle and high school; eight
months recovery in a hospital after a car accident at the age of seventeen (that was the
time when from being an inconvenience, insomnia turned into a serious problem); then
five years in Europe, (with it calming down a little, and visiting me periodically); finally
Hong Kong, the city where insomnia, went from being a psychological disorder and was
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transformed into a body of work, that explores the sleepless night cycle the following
attacks of hunger, lingering around the apartment, anger, anxiety; attempts to escape this
condition with the help of drugs or alcohol which leads to unpleasant hallucinations, fear,
long international Skype conversations; second, sometimes third showers; annoying bird
songs and neighbors’ children's early morning screams; crazy heart rhythms and eventual
coma-like dreamless afternoon sleep.
A significant part of my artistic research is dedicated to the exploration of
hypnagogic
and
hypnopompic
hallucinations.
Hypnagogic
and
hypnopompic
hallucinations are visual, tactile, and auditory, usually brief but sometimes prolonged, that
occur during the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnagogic) or from sleep to
wakefulness (hypnopompic). “Most often, there is pervasive fear, sometimes so strong
that people are sure they are about to die and are afraid to go to sleep again. Other parts of
their hallucination, which may include people, animals, parts of objects, or just shapes,
have a nightmarish quality. People visualize intruders, demons, spirits, animals or
vampires in their bedroom; they see someone or something coming through the window.
Some victims see strangers walk in and out of their bedroom”(Cheyne). I experienced
many episodes of these types of hallucinations. Most of them happen on the nights of
insomnia, when exhaustion literally tricks my mind. My interest to describe these
hallucinations, using the medium of photography, is based on the fact that I only have
visual hallucinations, of a brief but powerful nature. Sometimes it scares me awfully that I
am not able to fall asleep for the rest of the night. I have been writing down the most
ridiculous hallucinations for a few years already, even though I have a tendency to
remember most, just like I remember the dreams.
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Right after the episode of a hallucination, it is hard to believe that a combination
of regular objects and shadows could form a human face or body, completely out of scale,
but with distinct features. Sometimes I see (or at least think that I see) a stranger, fully
undressed, leaning against the wall. I never see his face, but his body structure always
seems familiar, as if he is the accumulation of the features of my previous lovers.
Sometimes hallucinations are based on regular objects (elements of furniture, personal
belongings), they suddenly start to distort their shapes, or slightly move towards me.
These kinds of illusions are the most brief; they disappear immediately after I blink or
move my eyes. The most frequent and frightening one reminds me of my mother. It did
not start visiting me until I moved out from my parents’ house seven years ago.
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When the work on the “Insomnia” series started, it was clear that it was a matter of
greatest importance to be able to return and photograph in the apartment, where it all
began. Photographing my environment and myself was not enough. Surprisingly, my
mother was willing to collaborate and become a part of my documentary project. My
expectations of her being unaware of the camera (in a private situation, in the middle of
the night, with no make up on) were really low. The photographing process was
unplanned and irrational.
After finalizing the first sequence for the exhibition I understood that it is irrelevant for
the viewer who the subjects of my photographs are. However this does not undervalue the
meaning of the work. The sequence merged the images of my grandmother, mother and
me into one anthropomorphic creature – Insomnia, which is referred in the artist statement
as “my twin sister that I never had and never wanted.”
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Working with film rather than a digital camera can be justified by necessity not to
see a photo immediately after I photographed, it brings the whole process closer to an
actual experience. Within the frames of this project, my photographs play the role of my
memories; whether they are more or less significant, all together these pictures create an
emotional narrative.
The snapshot technique allows me to capture images as soon as I see them; this
technique emphasizes my desire to create most of the images from the unconscious. The
sequencing structure of the photographs follows two parameters: color range and general
storyline. The story stayed close to its original flow [expressing the insomnia experience,
starting from the more straightforward pictures (in terms of subject and technique), and
transiting into the ambiguous images, reaching the climax and then slipping into the
images of the early morning] after I organized the photographs according to the color
scheme. That kind of arrangement provides the most engaging visual experience. Color
blocks create a dynamic rhythm and become metaphorical blocks of time.
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Conclusion The “Insomnia” series became a non-traditional staged family portrait; it
combined the elements that I unconsciously miss about home together with the aspects of
my life in Hong Kong. It deals with the idea of psychological disorder as a part of the
artist’s identity, through showing the intimate and private moments in the public sphere.
The peculiarity of the “Insomnia” project is in the fact that it may not have an end.
I decided to continue collecting images, as long as the issue exists, and as long as the
photographs I am producing do not become redundant and repetitive. That will allow me
to modify the actual photo-installation and exhibit the new images within the frames of
the established concept; every sequence can tell a unique story and provide a different
visual experience depending on the additional material that will be accumulated with
time. I find the mystery of not knowing how the project will change and the path it might
take exciting.
Anyone who has spent a sleepless night and experienced subjective discomfort
associated with lying in bed awake, unable to sleep can relate to my photographic series.
My photography that communicates unconscious demands the viewer to go beyond the
surface to face its profound intensity. Through the detailed record of my night experience,
“Insomnia” reveals personal exploration as well as a more universal understanding of the
struggle within your own mind. This project is a story of urban life in the late-capitalist
era, which captures an important element of humanity, the lack of tranquility.
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Bibliography
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Michigan Medical Center, 1993.
2. Borgdorff, Henk. The Debate on Research in the Arts. Amsterdam School of the
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