Even if the idea with the audience did not work out as I expected I still wanted to produce a body of work which would somehow be related to the theme. I find the entire process which takes place in our brain when being absorbed extremely fascinating. That is the reason I did not want to give up on the idea of absorption. There was a point where I had no clue whatsoever on how my major practical project was going to look like. I returned to Romania on 27th march 2013. There were 2 concerts I was going to attend in Bucharest. Yet again, I tried to photograph the audience like bill Henson did in his paris opera house series. I had no success in doing so.
On Monday 1st of april I returned to Brasov aiming to go back to the opera theater where I took my first test shoots back in December 2012. Instead of going there, I ended up going to the GP. She told me that I had chicken pox and that I was not allowed to leave the house for 10 days because this disease is contagious. In addition to that interacting with other people was forbidden as well so that I wouldn't expose them to the virus. That brought tears to my eyes because I lost all hope. There were less than 3 weeks to the deadline and I had nothing but failed attempts to produce a consistent body of work. There were a couple of days when I re-read the information I had already gathered for the project with the audience. The theory of flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi proved to be the starting point of my series. The moment I clicked on the link to view information about this process on wikipedia, I came across an interesting diagram which reflected the different mental states one can encounter. Flow was included in that list along with apathy, anxiety, worry, relaxation, boredom, arousal and control. That triggered my interest and I began to browse each page which explained every mental state mentioned above. I still had no clue how to capture them but it was better than nothing.
Another idea I had was to photograph different mediums of absorption such as tv, laptops, mobile phones, tablets and any other sources of information which would make people become absorbed. With that idea I was running the risk of photographing objects which would not be related to one another and wouldn't create a strong body of work.
At that point I though of perhaps combining these two ideas in some way. It was then when I started to ask questions such as: what makes me bored? What makes me apathetic? I tried to answer these 8 questions in order to determine what factors and activities provoke these feelings and mental states.
Q1: what makes me apathetic? Waiting for time to pass when I have to get somewhere or when I have to meet someone and there is a set period of time when I cannot do anything but wait for time to go by. I am neither worried about waiting, nor anxious.
Q2: what makes me anxious? The future, because it is full of uncertainties. I also believe that I am the write of my own novel and that I only write using ink, therefore erasing the mistakes I did and the wrong decisions I made is impossible.
Q3: what makes me flow? Photography because when I have the camera in front of my eye there is nothing else I focus on. My entire motivation is directed towards this activity and that is why I become unresponsive to any other factors or activities happening around me.
Q4: what makes me worry? Thinking I know a person, trusting him/her and afterwards realizing that the person has been wearing a mask the entire time and that his true personality is nothing like the facade displayed in the first place.
Q5: what makes you bored? In all honesty, football makes me bored because I am not interested in this sport. The moment I begin to watch a football game my mind takes of and wonders in an entirely different place.
Q6: what makes me aroused? Japanese lilies, because of their mesmerizing scent and their appearance. They provide both visual and olfactory stimuli to which my mind responds in a positive manner. They are by far my favorite type of flower. On the other hand, some people cannot stand the perfume they produce and therefore, avoid lilies.
Q7: what makes me feel in control? Being informed and having the necessary knowledge to express myself properly. That can be achieved by studying and gaining knowledge. When it comes to learning, I am a visual learned and that is why I use highlighters and different colored post it notes when studying. These factors help me retain the information successfully.
Q8: what makes me relaxed? This is probably the easiest to answer. Music makes me relaxed because of the properties it has. When one listens to the music he/she likes the substances released in the brain help him relax. Listening to our favorite type of music has the same effect with eating our favorite dish.
The next step after finding suitable answers to these questions was figuring out what objects I associate with that certain activity. That is how I decided to photograph the following items: a clock, a mask with a bottle of ink and a writing feather, a Polaroid camera and a smena camera, two masks, a football, japanese lilies, markers and post-it notes, a vinyl record. On their own, these images would not represent anything and would make no sense. I wanted the final photos to reflect the dialogue I had with myself regarding the 8 mental states. There had to be an image reflecting the question and one reflecting the answer which turns out to be personal.
Creating a diptych for each mental state seemed to be the best option. With regards to the image reflecting the question, it took me a while to get to a decent idea. I had no one to work with but myself as a model and there was no way I was going to show my face in the photographs because of the chicken pox which took over my appearance. Most of the time, I think of my brain as a screen on which information appears. This information is then transmitted to the rest of the body which acts as a result of the command given by the mind. How could I reflect that in a way which would match my project? The only explanation I could think of was taking an old screen I had at home, belonging to a desktop computer and placing it in front of my face.
I placed the camera on a tripod, set the timer and then sat on the armchair in the living room whilst holding the screen to cover my face. The first test shots weren't as successful as I hoped they would be. There was something missing. I wanted the final image to be a self portrait with something which would catch the viewer's attention. Movement proved to be the answer to my quest. I shot the image using a longer exposure (1,5 seconds) and during that time, instead of just holding the screen, I moved it in a tilt and shift manner. The result I got was a picture of a ghostly figure, whose hands were moving, and the head looked like a moving screen.
My next concern was how I was going to reflect the mental state so that it matches each object. How would the viewer know that I am referring to relaxation for example? I did consider printing the word reaxation\flow\boredom etc on a piece of white A4 paper and sticking it on the monitor but that meant at when moving it, the text would not be readable. That lead me to thinking about adding the text in post production. In the original image, the screen is not completely blacked out due to the amount of available light and considerably long exposure. Using Lightroom, I painted over the screen making it completely black and then added the words using the font American Typewriter in white. I used this particular font because it is easy to read, straight forward and visually appealing. When it comes to photographing the objects, I faced a real challenge because the effect I was aiming to get was as if the photos had been taken in the studio when really, they were taken in my study room, on my desk using a flash gun. Opting for black and white was determined by the fact that the background was visible and would have distracted the viewer's attention. It had to be removed and the emphasis had to be placed on the object/objects alone. I tried to keep the editing and contrast consistent through the entire series. This body of work tends to be quite conceptual and focuses on my own views and perspectives. Had it involved other people, then maybe it would have been in color. These images are a result of my creative process which was influenced by the illness. Even if at first, chicken pox seems like a disease which does not affect one's well being, it certainly did in my case. Those 10 days in which I did not leave the house were not pleasant. I couldn't have produced a body of work which reflects joy, optimism by means of color because all I wanted to do the entire time was sleep and do nothing at all.
Black and white matches the mental states I had when producing the images. Looking back on the entire process, I am slightly amazed by the ideas I had. The final outcome was something I never thought I would produce, especially for my major practical project. I sincerely believe that fever had something to say about the way my mind worked in that period of time. The reason why I have produced 2 more images using the photos of the objects and the self portrait with 8 words was to create a summary of the 8 diptychs. It's like having a puzzle in front of you, with words and then with objects. As you move along, the puzzle begins to unfold, revealing my personality bit by bit. Even if the viewer might not understand the first diptychs, by the time he/she gets to the end of the series, there has to be a moment of realization that these photos are inter-related, even if that means going back to the first two collages of the series to review them. This final set of photographs relates to my original idea of absorption because this subject is included in the 8 mental states I have tried to represent. As opposed to changing my idea completely, I aimed to include it in the broader subject matter. I am aware that the project would have been stronger had I though about it sooner but the flow of ideas only occurred when I realized that I was not allowed to leave the house, get in contact with other people or photograph them. All I had to work with was myself and the answers I provided to the 8 questions. The context contributed to the creation of these photographs.
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