Brinnington Edits 2

Here's some more images from Brinnington, again using a tilt shift effect for model like appearances.

This image has been duplicated and flipped to make a super home/set of flats, it doesnt exist.

 

This image is a re-edit, the focus wasn't in the right place.

Brinnington Edits

Here are a few of the edits so far from the Brinnington shoot. I have used a sort of tilt shift effect with the focussing, which in turn makes the images seem almost toy model like.

I would like to pay particular attention to this image in my book, as it has a large emphasis on the state of 'class' in society. The identical buildings on the left seem as if they would be on a higher level in status as the ones in the background, it is interesting though, hoe the flats in the background have similar features such as being identical, symetrical.

As with earlier images, aspects have been shifted/removed i.e no top window. A tilt shift has been applied, and interestingly focused on the 'layers' of buildings, from left to right - different class? reflections in windows of an even higher status building also interesting.

Brinnington

After having a mid-project crisis with the idea, visualisation and the whole confidence in it, I decided to stand back from it a bit. I've been looking at houses as a status symbol, and I think because I have tied myself to one way of visualisation, it has hindered the process of experimentation in the project.

Yesterday I had a meeting with Rick, and we started talking about the areas around Stockport, and how they would differ in terms of this project. We talked about self expectation and how as harsh as it may be, there is a stance about certain areas that may have less of a self expectation than other areas. This may not be true in terms of reality, however I think that these such areas are preconcieved by many, including me, to have a poverty of expectation. 

Say how would we compare Marple, or Cheadle with somewhere like Brinnington? Our conceptions are preconceived and we consider the type of area as being either 'posh' and 'snobby' or 'poor' and 'rough'.

We then start to think about these areas of classes, believing that the area that we live in defines our class and status in society.

I took a trip to Brinnington, for some further shooting. However I did not hinder my experiments by only shooting houses, I started to think about streets, areas, layouts etc. 

Here is a link to the contact sheets:

Brinnington.pdf

Meeting an ex-estate agent

I've just come back from an interesting meeting with a woman who used to work as an estate agent, who dealt with a variety of clients and properties.

It was strange at first, a little intimidating possibly - but after the unease had settled, I felt more comfortable in the situation, which, was almost therapeutic.

We talked about the worry in society, the ego building in sales and the snobbery often involved. I also got the chance to discuss my own worries and what the project meant to me. 

I mentioned the idea of walking into an estate agent with no budget in mind to produce some more fictional imagery, but as we talked, she made me realise something which made me feel very uneasy.

She raised the issue of the homeowner selling their house, and how traumatic a case like this would be - if I were to say have a viewing and bring false hope to said person. An issue which I should have thought about, but it hadn't come to mind until we spoke about it. I think that pulling off such a stunt would make me feel more anxious about the homeowner and the false hope I am raising, rather than the fictional character I would be imitating. For me, this would ruin the concept and I would definitely not feel comfortable in this situation.

It was a useful meeting, as I said - she raised this issue and it is completely valid. We also talked about how rooms are made to look bigger, or made to 'reach their potential' by the way they are pictured. It was interesting how she explained that as an estate agent, she felt more like she was in the middle, of angry clients and customers. It seems strange that I felt so intimidated by the thought of meeting this woman, as if she were to judge me - even if she doesn't sell properties anymore. It made me feel sad, the fact that I had pre judged the situation on my own experience and pre conceptions, when in reality it was a lovely experience, with a sociable open woman.

findaproperty.com

 Theres something interesting about the images that estate agents will use, especially on the online market. It's strange how it's become so 'easy' to shop, websites like rightmove and findaproperty advertise houses as if they were just another product in an online sale. It's fascinating how society has changed the experience of hosueviewing, somehow making it more convenient?

 These are some images from findaproperty.com, showing off each room in the 'best possible angle'. Even the images used online are augmented for our viewing, strange.





Images from:
http://img.findaproperty.com/prestigepropertyinte/Sales-&-Lettings/dp58261806.jpg?v=4
http://img.findaproperty.com/your-move/Swinton/dp99858184.jpg?v=12
http://img.findaproperty.com/your-move/Swinton/dp59858184.jpg?v=12
http://img.findaproperty.com/your-move/Walkden/dp68460270.jpg?v=10
http://img.findaproperty.com/your-move/Walkden/dp18460270.jpg?v=10

Tests 4

Here the door has been removed and the windows lengthened.

Draft Task

This afternoon I will be meetin up with a woman who used to be an Estate Agent, I have a couple of questions for her but I won't be taking any photographs at this point. It should be an interesting experience tackling the subject this way and I will post up later on how it goes.

Last week we were set a task to create a sort of 5 page spread draft of our books using the software Indesign. Thinking about use of space, layout, size of pages and order. I've been playing around with a couple of pages and currently the paper size is sitting comfortably at A5, landscape.

For the crescendos that I am looking for, I have utilized the image size and orientation to create a path in which the eye will take.

Here is a quick overall view of what I am considering:

This is a screen grab from Indesign, showing the pager layouts in the context of the rest of the pages.

These are some larger representations from Indesign exluding the first page which is blank.

 This image is purpusefully accross the spread like this, a sort of exaggeration of the idea. The house is augmented and this is accentuated accross the two pages.

 This is currently the top of the crescendo - the point to which a person has this high status symbol but chooses to hide it from the world.

 Then we descend back into a reality, where society looks through these windows at thedse symbols and feelings of sadness and anxiety follow.

And finally to my own reality, the worlds view of my status symbol, somehow relating the size of my window to the amount of status I have achieved.

Book design

Whilst slightly off the subject of the project, the layout and design of the book will be considered just as important than the images inside. 

I've been thinking about the style I wish the book to inherit, and the use of this blog has been very useful. I have been able to try out different text type for which I am currently using Courier, and is working well as a typeface.

I want the book to be an experience, and I believe the layout, placement and order of the images will be key in creating this experience. I was flicking through a photo book by Paul Graham the other day, and his use of layout and repetition drew me to the monotonousness and often dullness in life, a sort of cycle through his images which in turn was the experience of the book.

My book will be a fiction, using composite images of houses, and depending on what images I have collected otherwise, some more personal images, which relate to my own reality - but also to the vast majority of society. For my book, I would like to create a sort of crescendo with these images, using the fictional sections of houses etc to build up towards some hints and realisations of reality. With the use of blank pages, and possibly different coloured/textured paper to separate/stop, to signify these realisations of reality. 

I would really like to add a personal element to my book, I think not only to reimburse the mutual condition that I share with society, but also to produce a variety of images within the book, possibly to create a more aesthetically pleasing experience.

I've been looking at different book covers also, I love the use of fabric covers and embossed text - however I'm currently unsure of what I will use for my own.

Next steps for book design will be layout testing in InDesign, I will also need to find a suitable cover type. I am relating the size/ shape of the book directly to the styles of various brochures. This may change later on in the stages, but I believe a landscape A5 layout relates well to what I have been looking at so far - and fits well with the landscape orientated images I have currently taken.

Contemplation

So i've been contemplating over the situation of this project and it seems, I believe, that delivering a body of work from said houses will not be sufficient enough for a book. 
I believe the theme that has been introduced will be strong, and relatable to a variety of people however I need a better way to represent this in a visual form.


This idea of complete anxiety and worry that a person cannot be a somebody in the eyes of the world without said houses, is fiction - it is all one big fiction that this capitalist society is now facing. 


I have set up a meeting with an ex-estate agent next tuesday, just to have a chat about what she thinks about the situation from her perspective. Just a little insight from someone familiar with the role of selling in a consumerist world.


I've also been looking at the works from Cindy Sherman, because they seem to relate greatly to fictional characters and events, which I believe is where I will head for this book.


Sherman's sense of role play and challenge to society, inspires me and seems to relate well as a research opportunity for this project.

Tests 3

Another edit, with enlarged window and extended features. Not quite sure this is the way I'd like to go with the book.I'm having difficulty taking my idea into a visual form, and far from a body of work at the moment. I'd say next steps will be contacting an estate agent and I have some photographers in mind to research into.

Tests 2

Another augmentation/composite test with one of the images from this morning:

Original

Again, I used content aware scaling and duplicated some of the windows. A pretty raw test, and still early in the developement of the ideas!

First Tests

I went out to take some images this morning, it was pretty difficult because even having the idea in my head of the composite images, I couldn't really work out how I was going need to produce them.

Nevertheless, I was looking out for houses that I could really see myself being a 'somebody' in. Generally good sized, clean and big gardens - with the idea of changing aspects of these houses, augmenting them somehow, like the fiction I am thinking of.

Selecting images to change was also pretty difficult, but above is one of the tests that I tried with augmentation. Here you see the original on the left, and the augmented window on the right. Eerily 'fish bowl' like, the point of scale here is unfamiliar and wrong. Again, this test is early in the development stage. As stated in an earlier post, I plan to take some appointments with an estate agents, even just to gather information and the experience of being so close to this situation that I dream of.

I was also looking for houses that have been hidden from the worlds view and are just barely visible over the tops, because it seemed that there wasn't many. Hiding from society and the judgements that follow. Mostly I came accross walls, hedges and gates so here are a few:

 Again, these have been changed slightly, using content aware scaling to widen the images up a little.

Ideas

I've been talking about a fiction, of a perfect life with perfect material goods, perfect families, friends and lifestyles. The anxiety of the population, who are uncertain of their claim on being a somebody. I've been talking about my own worries about status, and the effects of situations that make me anxious about my position in society. 

So how will this be translated into a book?

Well I've been thinking about the whole fiction of it all, the perfection and the expectation and need for respect from others to believe in oneself as a member of status with value in the eyes of the world. 

Some of the first thoughts from this were to grab my own situation and anxieties by the throat and create my own fiction - where money was no object, and affordability did not matter. In which I could get some appointments with these estate agents, and by viewing the expensive 'high class' houses, I would be able to touch this existance for which I most likely will never have.

This idea excited me, however it worried me - how will this translate into a book? so I have been gathering the brochures and images from the web, reading about society, identity, self image and public image and have an idea that I will be able to translate well into a book experience.

Using this idea of fiction will be a big part of the project, the fiction of a 'perfect reality'. The images in the brochures in the sunshine, with glowing gardens and footpaths are part of this fiction, but I intend to produce a composite fiction. Whether it be houses, families, gardens, rooms etc, I would like to create composite images of the 'perfect' or 'idealistic' views of these situations. I believe this would be a good collection of images, and will produce the body of work that will become the book. 

I also believe that the experience of this book should be very much like a brochure, so the style, fonts, colours and layouts of these brochures should be noted and researched, I will also gather some more information from different estate agents for the best possible results.

Using this idea of fiction in reality and the template of a brochure, will, hopefully produce a strong experience that tackles the expectations and anxieties of todays society.

An Experience

Well I'm sat here looking through the brochures from the Estate Agents in Marple, and they, like the visit, are like experiences of their own.

Which is what a book should be, not just a read, or a glance at images - it should be an experience. The touch, the size, the images, layout, colours and patterns, and the content.

I've been experimenting with this blog - the text formatting, the font, colours and the layout. It's been useful, because using an online experience can be changed by a click and I'm sure the blog will lie closely with the format of the book.

There is a reason for this formatting, and that is the idea formulating in my head - which I have not posted about purposefully yet, since I haven't really understood my intentions with this whole project, but I feel now is the time to delve into my ideas for creating a book! 
(to follow in next post!)

Estate Agent Visit

There's two Estate Agents local to me, a Reeds Rains and Bridgfords - just off the main street in the centre of Marple. I decided to take a look inside, have a quick look round and ask to take some brochures/leaflets home with me, and they very nicely obliged and both shops gave me a handful of single house brochures.

Both shops pristine, 2- 3 desks and a door into the back area, probably the staff area. The walls filled with hung advertisements like the ones in the windows, and members of staff busy bargaining with customers on phones. Glancing at these advertisements whilst waiting for brochures, made me equally as anxious as the outside windows. Only this time I was so much closer to it all. An eery experience, and quite uncomfortable in fact. I can only imagine what it will actually be like once I reach this step to buying a property, which seems so far away, along with my 'place'in society.

I've scanned these brochures and they will be up with the resources in the right hand panel.

The Estate Agent

After looking at the mass amounts of advertisements that pressurise and manipulate society into thinking it needs said material goods for a proper claim on existence, I started to think, well since I know this affects me personally - what makes me anxious in the world today? What brings up feelings of unworthiness and need, to become a 'Somebody'?

It's views like these (below), that get me really anxious and worked up, my mind goes through this state of imagination and fiction of what my world needs to be for me to have my claim on status in society. I feel that unless I reach a certain state in living, on the property ladder maybe - will make my existence be more 'real', and this makes me very anxious. My failure to do so should  be my failure to be a somebody in the eyes of the world?

I suppose this ties in closely to the whole 'Keeping up with the Joneses' idea. My situation is currently so far away from these ideal situations, societies perfect view of a four bed house with lavish gardens front and back, family of four, a dog, and a fish. I'm living in a fiction, it's like I'm working myself up to becoming part of this view of society, ensuring my part in the world as a somebody. 

The number of these Estate Agents in the surroundings of Manchester alone is phenomenal, it's like a mass organisation to prepare society for their perfect lives, but really I bet there is only a small part of the population that actually see themselves in their situations and think that actually this is perfect, for I believe even all the riches in the world cannot buy the happiness and fulfilment of life for this perfection.

 

This is the google maps street view of my situation, one room, for where all my belongings lie, my partner occasionally stays, and where I am currently writing this post. 

I guess I am pretty happy about it all, but when I look into these Estate Agents windows my whole sense of reality and fiction seem to go into overdrive and I become anxious, for I know that I am so far from this reality perceived in the window, therefore I believe that I am so far away from having a position of value in society.

I suppose even the way I have used google maps to view these windows, and my window, is interesting in that in a way it really is the worlds view....

Images: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=estate+agents&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=estate+agents&hnear=0x487a3515ca33c427:0xf418f67b823efe48,Stockport&ei=9NwvT8mrGaWf0QWB4qmtCA&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=image&ved=0CCsQtgM&iwloc=cids:5888026970577455730

Advertisements

I've been thinking about things from the outside world, mainly advertisements that seem to conveniently pressure and push people into thinking they are not good enough without said advertised object or possession.  I know this is happening, because it happens to me too. This 'Status Anxiety', can not be confined to such things, but they are provoking it, none the less.

  

 Perhaps an ideal phrase to describe this would be:

" "Keeping up with the Joneses" is an idiom in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one's neighbour as a benchmark for social caste or the accumulation of material goods. To fail to "keep up with the Joneses" is perceived as demonstrating socio-economic or cultural inferiority.

 Everywhere I look, finance options; make yourself more sociably acceptable with these items, become like the people perceived in the advert. Pressure, consumerism from this capitalistic society in which we now live. Somehow eased by the idea of paying for this delight monthly, or even weekly.

 "Keeping up with the Joneses" : A lie, a fiction in which we live to satisfy our claim to be a somebody.

Screen Grabs/Quotes taken from: 

http://www.littlewoods.com/web/en/bnpl.page?aff=google&affsrc=acquisition&cm_mmc=google-_-Generic-_-On+Finance+Generic-_-on+finance_haZ6cAwP_5634019346

http://www2.mercedes-benz.co.uk/content/unitedkingdom/mpc/mpc_unitedkingdom_website/en/home_mpc/passengercars/home/new_cars/offers/b-class.html#

http://www.jaguar.com/gb/en/owner_support/currentpromotions/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=the+joneses&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=vYo&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&biw=1366&bih=639&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=rCjIWdw82SFgbM:&imgrefurl=http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-joneses/images/12826617/title/joneses-photo&docid=RHfDAHF4lhthFM&imgurl=http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/12800000/The-Joneses-the-joneses-12826617-1280-1024.jpg&w=1280&h=1024&ei=nactT-eqFMKq0QXJuKmtCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=547&vpy=186&dur=524&hovh=126&hovw=158&tx=109&ty=112&sig=110330312474714038909&page=1&tbnh=126&tbnw=158&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0

Why

The concept of using 'Status Anxiety' as the main theme in my project grounded itself through the considerations of past works and general interests. My work has often surrounded the surreal and subjects that relate to myself personally. I find working with ideas of human psychology interests me greatly, along with work that would provoke reactions and raise questions.

The concept basically narrowed down to two areas of investigation

1. The pressures from within to succeed and become a 'somebody' in the eyes of modern society. What it means to an individual to conform and depend on the love and respect of others for a claim on existance.
2. The pressure from the outside world to succeed, billboards, advertisements, messages, posh cars and houses, parents, colleages etc.....

When it came down to it, I decided to concentrate on the pressures from the outside world, I saw it as a possibility for a broader project with more resources.

Defining Status Anxiety

Status:

• One's position in society.
• Often refers to one's legal or proffesional standing.
• One's value and importance in the eyes of the world.
• "The consequences of high status are pleasant. they include resources, freedom, space, comfort, time and, as importantly perhaps, a sense of bieng cared for and thought valuable - conveyed through invitations, flattery, laughter (even when the joke lacks bite), deference and attention."

 Status Anxiety:

•  A worry, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society.
• provoked by recession, redundancy, promotions, retirement,others achievements, housing, respect from others etc.
• The feeling that we have been unable to convince the world of our value. 

Through the course of this module, I will be watching a most insightful series of programmes from Alain De Botton, on his views and analysis of this human condition in todays society. I have included this playlist on the right hand side panel for reference.

To What Purpose

"To what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? What is the end of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power and pre-eminence? Is it to supply the necessities of nature? The wages of the meanest labourer can supply them. What then are the advantages of that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition?"

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Edinburgh, 1759)

Welcome

Hello, welcome to what will essentially be an online work file, containing both primary and secondary research for the second year book project.

The main reasons for using an online resource for this project is accessibility and feedback.

Please do not hesitate to comment on any of the posts or images on here!