Final Outcome - SELF REFLECTION

After taking into consideration the 'dim' lights worked a lot better and made the room much darker, I situated the latex parts closer to the wall, displaying this as my final outcome.

 

 

What the Installation piece looked like from outside

 

Description for Installation

 

Final Outcome - Inside Room

 

Overall I am very pleased with the final outcome and I feel this Installation Piece – [Self Reflection] portrays my idea of the whole process of seeing oneself very effectively.
By taking my subjects through a full process from them describing how they felt about their bodies to studying photographs of themselves and having their body parts cast, as well as the latex moulds then taken from the cast, I was then able to form my piece by suspending the latex body parts which could be distorted out of shape, depending on how I suspend the piece.

The lighting has only been used to show my subjects that however they see themselves; they can still feel an inner glow and feel good about themselves.

This installation is the final part of the process for the individuals to view oneself in a different situation and hopefully perceive themselves very differently to how they originally did at the beginning of the project.

Experimenting with lighting

As I wanted to develop my idea of suspending the latex body parts within a dark room, only highlighting the body parts which would allow the subject and the audience to view the 'inner glow' that the subjects still have, no matter how they see themselves and feel towards their dissatisfied bodies.

 

With suspending the latex body parts around 60cm away from the wall, the LED lights were on show which I thought could be a distraction to the viewer, with most of the room now being lit which wasn't my initial idea.

 

 

Because of this I pushed the body parts closer to the wall, making the room even darker and the pieces more enhanced revealing details of ones body.

 

With the room being dark and only the body parts lit up, with a sense of distortion, it almost made the pieces look somewhat grotesque with some of  them even moving and wobbling when people walked in the room.  

 

LED lights on show, latex sculptures suspended away from the wall  

 

 

Torso - Subject unhappy with Stomach area

LED - Dim lights

 Bright LED lights

 

 

 

Feet covering Dim Led light - Subject Dislikes Toe

 

 

 

The feet worked extremely well, being stuck on to the LED lights and attached to the wall themselves. This was my favourite piece out of each of the body parts and one which I did not have any trouble with the lights.

The strip lights used within each of the legs were too heavy for the magnets and fell from the wall a few times, resulting in some of them to break.
If I were to use lighting within my work again, I would definitely consider using electrical lights as I feel this has been the main problem for this piece, having to check on the lights daily and changing batteries.

 

 

Torso - Dim light - subject dislikes Breast Area

 

Torso - Dim light - subject dislikes Stomach

 

 

 

Two pairs of legs, one lit fully the other slightly dimmer

 

 

 

 

 All photographs have come out a lot darker compared to what they were like in person.

 

 

 

Cast Development

Taking into consideration the body casts worked extremely well, I wanted to incorporate them within my final outcome.

As I wanted to work with latex, representing 'skin' which I thought would fit very well with the current project, I decided to paint latex into each of the casts which would leave a thin rubbery sculpture of the individuals body.

I had the idea to light these latex body parts up in a dark room, suspended from the ceiling, creating shadows, portraying them in a 'true light' as  the individuals perceive themselves differently to how others see them.  

4 litres of latex ( 4 layers coated on ) was applied to the modrock casts which took 2 days to do, leaving each individual layer to dry for a couple of  hours.
Below: Latex drying inside the modrock plaster casts.

 

Latex out of casts

Washed and drying outside -

 

 

Sculpture Experimentation

As well as working with the girls, I wanted to explore other areas and create some genereal stomach sculpture experiments too.

I started by doing this by creating a clay stomach, attached to a mannequin. This was then covered in plaster to make a mould.

When dry I poured plaster, wax and chocolate into the mould to create casts which worked surprisingly well.

Even though I was happy with the outcome, I felt the modrock casts worked alot better displaying the individuals exact unique body parts.

Body Distortion

As many of the individuals I have been working with see themselves completely differently to how others perceive them, I decided to create a distorted photoshoot to portray this idea.

Each of the subjects stood infront of a distorted cardboard mirror, displaying the part of their body they do not like.
The majority of body part sincreased in size, resulting in an 'oversized' illusion, looking rather big and wobbly in specific places.

The photoshoot was quite comical as the subjects could see how emphasised their shapes were, even though they knew they didn't look that particular way, however they do see themselves a lot larger than what they actually are.

The subjects were laughing as they could see the strange even 'grotesque' images from a different angle to where I was photographing them.

 

Dissatisfied with thighs

Subject does not like her stomach area

Unhappy with Stomach and Backside/Back of legs

 

 

 

Dissatisfied with Feet and Breast Area

 

Body Image Continued

This body of work is a continuation from my previous project, interacting with the individuals who took part and allowed me to understand and discuss why they felt unhappy with their body shape and size.

As I wanted to explore other materials throughout this module, I decided to use photography only as development work and experiment with body casting to create my final outcome.

Three out of the seven girls were comfortable taking part in a body casting process, having modrock plaster bandage cast the area they did not like.

A close relative also offered to take part, in total casting 6 different body parts from the individuals altogether.

The process took place at my home, being a comfortable environment and each cast took around an hour and a half to create as well as drying time.

Many of the girls explained it was a soothing and relaxing process and were happy to come back if they were needed again, some said it was therapeutic.

Whilst the casts were drying, myself and the subjects had another conversation of why they felt the way they did, each of them explaining reasons which were displayed in their previous survey.

After the casting process had finished, I allowed each of them to view their previous photographs oft their bodies, seeing themselves in a different perspective compared to looking in the mirror.

I asked them to write down what they thought of their bodies and how they saw themselves, wondering if they would think differently.

They were also asked the same question after looking at their own body cast, some of them explaining they looked 'smaller' and 'thinner' to what they initially thought.

I was very pleased with these comments as I wanted the girls to see themselves in a positive light. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Outcome

 

As I was very interested in the results as a whole from the responses collected, I became interested in displaying my outcome in a table that portrayed this, considering a pie chart plinth, representing the parts of the body each person was dissatisfied with, out of the 100 who took part.

I wanted to display the results alongside something else which would display the 'ideal' body, so I decided to fix a mannequin in the centre of the pie char plinth as many women explained during the project they felt as though they needed to be that size as that is the only representation of the female body that surrounds us within our everyday lives.

The mannequin was spray painted to inform the viewer of this 'airbrushed perfection' displayed within the media, making the average person feel Inadequate.

Each section of the pie chart was painted individually with acrylic paint, using masking tape to separate each of the percentage sections without the paint bleeding.

 

 

Computerised result of what the Pie chart Plinth would look like

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experimentation

As well as working with the individuals, I wanted to create some other art work alongside the photographs, including sculpture and painting.

These pieces were based on the survey results and the areas the majority of people were unhappy with, creating different size casts based on the number percentage of how many people did not like this certain body part.

To create the mixed media paintings, I layered up survey responses, magazine images and articles, acrylic paint, permanent marker and bold text.

I enjoyed exploring these materials, however I felt the previous photographs were a lot stronger and represented my initial idea in an effective way.

 

Sculpture Experiments

 

Mixed Media Experiments