Category: Visual Communication IV

House of Leaves

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Mark Z. Danielewski’s House Of Leaves is going to form the backbone of my dictionary, which will go in a more typographical direction (I’ve been experiencing some ennui where my illustration is concerned). I liked how the structure of House Of Leaves lends itself particularly well to multiple narratives and how the citations and appendices in the book make the fiction of the story feel real.

The dichotomy between fact and fiction is a sub-theme I was thinking of exploring in my dictionary project, which I’ve carried forward from the mystery kit that I did in the first project.

Like House Of Leaves my dictionary will have two non-chronological narrative threads (for now) – the first one will be my own personal perspectives on the work as well as my own sense of ennui that I’m trying to shake off at the moment. The second one will be the narrative of the surviving Gemini twin, so I’ll essentially be writing in two voices. My experimentations here will be more type-based so that I can use the subjectivity of each ‘definition’ (more of a series of themed anecdotes and snapshots) to flesh out the content of the project.

To cement the accuracy of my homage to Danielewski’s novel I will also include my research, OSS entries, illustrations, song lyrics and chat logs with friends whom I’ve discussed my project with as part of the set of appendices I’ll have at the end of the dictionary. I’m going as experimental as I can with this since it’s my last chance to make something really different and crazy before FYP.

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Another one of my references is the series of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, which I used to collect in my childhood. The narrative has one set of ‘correct’ choices that the reader is supposed to make to reach the desired ending and avoid their character dying prematurely. I was thinking of incorporating a similar kind of choice element in the narrative underpinning the dictionary with references from particular entries to other entries (i.e. under the term optical illusions, I’ll have an instruction to refer to hypnosis –  a similar thing could be done in particular entries that ask the reader to refer to the appendix, which is also what House Of Leaves does to enrich the narrative). I may or may not have time to do a lot of this but I like the idea of the two voices in the dictionary interweaving with more objective, factual sources in the appendix.

The project is essentially just an exploration of feeling and voice within a format that is usually considered objective. Basically I just want to play with the fact-fiction divide and see if I can craft something believable.

The Shadow

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected.” – Carl Jung

Musings related to something I’m writing as text for my book. I’m going to do a kind of fictional account of the aftermath of Pollux’s death with my illustrations interspersed within. Still processing, though.

Dotwork Documentation #1

My experiment with documentation derived from that Facebook video I shared a while back. While I didn’t add in the number of dots or anything fancy, I found it quite interesting to see my own stippling process at 300% of its normal speed. Reminds me a lot of the motion of tattoo guns. I know it’s not very HD (I draw at night) but I’ll probably try again soon and see if I can do something about the quality of the video.

Emma Kisiel’s ‘At Rest’ Series

Emma Kisiel’s At Rest Series

“At Rest is a photographic series depicting roadkill on American highways and addressing our human fear of confronting death and viewing the dead. My images draw attention to the fact that, while man has a vast impact on animal and natural life, generally in American society, people are separate from wildlife and the souls of animals have little value. To cause the viewer to feel struck by this notion, I photograph memorials I have built surrounding roadkill at the location at which its life was taken. At Rest expresses the sacredness to the bodies of animals hit by vehicles while crossing the road. Statement revised 2014.”

Fox, from the series At Rest

Deer 1, from the series At Rest

Deer 3, from the series At Rest

Possum, from the series At Rest

Pheasant, from the series At Rest

I find this series oddly beautiful and macabre. In the same vein as my explorations on mortality, I’d say it isn’t necessary to do what I’ve been doing at the moment and make death all about skulls, etcetera (thanks, Vishaka, for the feedback). I could go with something macabre but this photo series is rather inspirational in that it makes death something more restful and memorializes the oft-ignored roadkill.

 

The Sick Rose

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From The Sick Rose: Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration by Richard Barnett.

I love how the book cover and contents marry a more vintage illustrative style with modern sensibilities (use of the grid and sans-serif type). I’m interested to do something like this on a smaller scale for my project, perhaps to produce a book/booklet/magazine in this kind of vein.

Siamese twins

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Drew this as part of an exploration on the Gemini twins/mortality and time. I enjoy doing quite a bit of macabre-looking illustrations in my free time and I’m carrying that aesthetic over in my explorations just to see how it works out. I liked the idea of using Siamese twins to see how else Gemini could be represented.

What is my project all about?

Castor and Pollux, in classical mythology, twin heroes called the Dioscuri; Castor was the son of Leda and Tyndareus, Pollux the son of Leda and Zeus. They were brothers to Helen and Clytemnestra. Castor excelled as a horseman and Pollux as a boxer. They were great warriors and were noted for their devotion to each other. In one version of the legend, after Castor was killed by Lynceus, Pollux, in accordance with the classical tradition that one of every set of twins is the son of a god and thus immortal, begged Zeus to allow his brother to share his immortality with him. Zeus arranged for the twins to divide their time evenly between Hades and Heaven, and in their honor he created the constellation Gemini. According to another legend, Castor was killed by Idas. The Dioscuri were widely regarded as patrons of mariners and were responsible for Saint Elmo’s fire. They were especially honored by the Romans, on whose side they were said to have appeared miraculously during the battle of Lake Regillus.

Read more here.

The myth of Castor and Pollux forms the basis of my project in that there are several interesting points to do with time in that one story about the twins of the Gemini constellation. Firstly the dichotomy between mortality and immortality, with one twin having a vastly different perception of the passage of time from the other. The potential of death for one versus the enduring existence of the other, when both twins are physically (and presumably biologically) identical, where the second dichotomy lies – undeniably similar, yet vastly different. It seems almost paradoxical to me that two people devoted to one another should be so divided by relative lifespan. The division of time between Hades and Heaven may also be an interesting thing to explore, though my primary concern is the differing lifespans of the twins themselves.

This is just the conceptual basis. I haven’t yet decided what direction to move in beyond that of an illustration-based project with possible video documentation being one of the outcomes.

Other sources of inspiration that I will draw on to conceptualize the final outcome will be astrology and the zodiac (star charts, birth charts, the Zodiac Man) as well as the traditional tarot deck. I like the illustration style used in all these esoteric things and the depth of meaning that these objects can have. Nautical illustration may also be relevant since the twins are patrons of mariners (as above), which is a lovely twist for me because I rather like nautical illustration and marine cryptids (the kraken, etc.).