Prison Art

Researching different themes and idea's. Searched up "Prison Art" and came across these drawings.

Graphite Stick Triptych (1 of 3 panels). 2006, Anonymous.
This work was actually made by a prisoner within their prison.

The original of this drawing is not available. It was created with a black ink pen on white drawing paper. This is the first drawing in a series.
Adrian Guzman Espinoza is currently incarcerated in a Pennsylvania state prison.

These were two photo's done by the same photographer with the theme of Prison being used.

http://photopostsblog.com/tag/prison-art/

Thomas Silverstein 

Rather illuminating in that I could express this by photographing a students with a pencil going to stab themself with it, but instead of a bulbous head with the title "Control Unit" I'd have engraved on the side of the pencil "Discipline"

It is interesting to note that when looking at this particular theme that it remains colourless, or pencil drawn. Prisoners aren't normally entitled to luxuries like coloured pencils and such as well as they are in an environment that I guess if I was there would make me feel listless. dull, restricted.

This particular image sticks out to me in an idea. Having a student sit in their desk modelled like the person add the box over the head as well and have say a teacher, or minister for education face/head looming over the student. 

Uknown artist. http://www.theguardian.com/society/gallery/2009/nov/16/arts-prisons-rehabilitation

This kind of gives me the idea to take a photo of a student pushing open the doors to the school. Or holding a pen and scrunched up paper in both hands.

Discipline and Punish

DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH
Michel Foucault

Discipline and Punish is a history of the modern penal system. Foucault seeks to analyze punishment in its social context, and to examine how changing power relations affected punishment. He begins by analyzing the situation before the eighteenth century, when public execution and corporal punishment were key punishments, and torture was part of most criminal investigations. Punishment was ceremonial and directed at the prisoner's body. It was a ritual in which the audience was important. Public execution reestablished the authority and power of the King. Popular literature reported the details of executions, and the public was heavily involved in them.


The eighteenth century saw various calls for reform of punishment. The reformers, according to Foucault, were not motivated by a concern for the welfare of prisoners. Rather, they wanted to make power operate more efficiently. They proposed a theater of punishment, in which a complex system of representations and signs was displayed publicly. Punishments related obviously to their crimes, and served as an obstacle to lawbreaking.

Prison is not yet imaginable as a penalty. Three new models of penality helped to overcome resistance to it. Nevertheless, great differences existed between this kind of coercive institution and the early, punitive city. The way is prepared for the prison by the developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of the disciplines. Discipline is a series of techniques by which the body's operations can be controlled. Discipline worked by coercing and arranging the individual's movements and his experience of space and time. This is achieved by devices such as timetables and military drills, and the process of exercise. Through discipline, individuals are created out of a mass. Disciplinary power has three elements: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment and examination. Observation and the gaze are key instruments of power. By these processes, and through the human sciences, the notion of the norm developed.

Disciplinary power is exemplified by Bentham's Panopticon, a building that shows how individuals can be supervised and controlled efficiently. Institutions modeled on the panopticon begin to spread throughout society. Prison develops from this idea of discipline. It aims both to deprive the individual of his freedom and to reform him. The penitentiary is the next development. It combines the prison with the workshop and the hospital. The penitentiary replaces the prisoner with the delinquent. The delinquent is created as a response to changes in popular illegality, in order to marginalize and control popular behavior.

Criticism of the failure of prisons misses the point, because failure is part of its very nature. The process by which failure and operation are combined is the carceral system. The aim of prison, and of the carceral system, is to produce delinquency as a means of structuring and controlling crime. From this perspective, they succeed. The prison is part of a network of power that spreads throughout society, and which is controlled by the rules of strategy alone. Calls for its abolition fail to recognize the depth at which it is embedded in modern society, or its real function.

The highlighted green text is what I believe can relate to education. The school setting, grouping all students together, the delinquent, students who are titled as 'bad' for acting out in their own way. 

A way to incorporate this as a response in my artwork could be to take photo's of school buildings and draw on them with prison bars and smog with wired fences etc.
I could even take a portrait photo of a typical rough 'bad' student and completely twist the image by making him seem angelic or good. Plenty of idea's to apply this information.

Political Art Cartoon

Newspaper art works are an interesting way to display your political opinions if you wish for everyone to see and read. Not to mention people love to see simple artistic work with small amounts of writing that narrow down what the opinion is instead of using a jargon of words that befuddles and confuses everyone. The above image is clearly displaying their opinion. The rich get richer whilst the poor get the poor when it comes to incentives for work.

These are all from Truthdig comics. An interseting display of images from an online newspaper from the states.

Truthdig - interesting web, kind of like a newspaper for people who find certain parts of politics and simplify it for those who don't.


This one particularly stands out, due to their being so many reports of open gunfire in public spaces.

A colourful cartoon interpretation. Cmoics do not have to be just black and white.

                                                                                                                                                                   
^^ The above page break was made by using underline and spacing through and applying a background colour of white (Since my webblog is black primarily) Pretty cool.

Anyway I decided to look at Newspaper articles of education and the photography use. What are they taking pictures of? Is it students? Students work? Education leaders? School settings? etc. These are what I found.


Title :

More children reach expected standard in writing and maths, figures show

Title : 

Confidence, not peer pressure, is key to success at school, say researchers

Title: 

Give every child free school lunches, urges Diane Abbott

It's ironic that when they take pictures of students they have food in their hands or doing schoolwork. Is this supposed to show a positive image of students? 

Title: 

Numbers of new physics and maths teachers fail to meet official targets

Title :

Talking heads: how I got through my first year of headship

When looking at the 'Teachers' column most pictures were of teachers with students around them, sitting, doing their work, looking like exceptionally hardworking happy students.
Are they trying to convey this is what students are? Going back to my previous posts of education (PICKME!) and the related news this seems rather ironic not iconic. 

Title : 

Using games to build citizenship and positive relationships

A secondary school setting. Happy smiling students, studying well, keeping a professional look with clean uniforms dressed well. 

Sir Ken Robinson

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources in education and in business. He is also one of the world’s leading speakers on these topics, with a profound impact on audiences everywhere. The videos of his famous 2006 and 2010 talks to the prestigious TED Conference have been viewed more than 25 million times and seen by an estimated 250 million people in over 150 countries. His 2006 talk is the most viewed in TED’s history. In 2011 he was listed as “one of the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation” by Fast Company magazine, and was ranked among the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top business thought leaders.

Sir Ken works with governments and educations systems in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations. In 1998, he led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK Government. All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education(The Robinson Report) was published to wide acclaim in 1999. He was the central figure in developing a strategy for creative and economic development as part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, working with the ministers for training, education enterprise and culture. The resulting blueprint for change, Unlocking Creativity, was adopted by politicians of all parties and by business, education and cultural leaders across the Province. He was one of four international advisors to the Singapore Government for its strategy to become the creative hub of South East Asia.

For twelve years, he was professor of education at the University of Warwick in the UK and is now professor emeritus. He has received honorary degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design, the Open University and the Central School of Speech and Drama; Birmingham City University, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and Oklahoma State University. He was been honored with the Athena Award of the Rhode Island School of Design for services to the arts and education; the Peabody Medal for contributions to the arts and culture in the United States, the Arthur C. Clarke Imagination Award, the Gordon Parks Award for achievements in education and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for outstanding contributions to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005, he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s ‘Principal Voices’. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts.

Everybody has an interest in education. Education takes us into this future we can't grasp. Creativity is as important as literacy. Kids will take a chance, they're not afraid to be wrong.
I find myself especially in my art direction am fearful of creating a wrong piece of art, it's what's been holding me back from doing what I most importantly want to do. What if I portray this wrong?...

The education department has this irrational fear of being wrong - Therefore unacceptable and is reflecting on students, a continuing downward spiral. There is nothing wrong with being wrong as it allows us to realize and reflect thus learning. As we grow older we grow out of creativity. Educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso: All children are born artists. The problem is remaining an artist as an adult.
Education came into being to meet the needs of revolution (During industrialization) The hierarchical system emphasis Math and Languages as important and arts and music not as such. You couldn't succeed with the latter two. The most useful subjects for work placed at the top of the pyramid. It steered students away from things you wanted to do because you like them.
Academic ability has come to dominate our intelligence  Universities designed the education system in their image.

Intelligence is Diverse

Intelligence is Dynamic

Intelligence is Distinct

Rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our students. Celebrate the gift of human imagination.

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

It's all relative.

"Important that arts are explicitly linked to politics"

I feel as if I should look more at political influences happening today right now and see if it is affecting my work. Or If I could instill this influence. "These are examples of refusal to resort, in the name of a leftwing ideal, to the simplification of means of expression, and the will to educate the public’s aesthetic judgment." "when an artist fulfils his or her proper role, that role is to be a saboteur of the prevailing representations, and a creator of desires for new horizons."
The above two sentences strike me, the first in the fundamental role of educating students about Art and the second a statement on an Artists direction. 

So what is my direction? I know my techniques, I know my mediums. In response to this I have been looking News (Nationally and globally) In Australia recently we had our elections for the new prime minister. Tony Abott leader for the Liberal party won. Liberal's plans include :

Tony Abbott and the Coalition will get Australia back on track by:
Restoring hope, reward and opportunity for all Australians.
Reducing cost of living pressures on families.
Growing a bigger, stronger economy.
Strengthening the nation.
Delivering a stable and accountable government.

Ironically instead of focusing on what Liberal has achieved through their government they instead focused on the negatives of their opposing party the Labor.

Five long years of Labor.

The hope that many Australians felt on 24 November 2007 has been replaced with disillusionment in a government too focused on its own survival and not enough on the everyday concerns of Australians - their cost of living pressures, their jobs and their future.

The Rudd/Gillard Government has been marked by too much spin, too much in-fighting and too many broken promises. Like their state counterparts, Labor’s record only worsens with time.

In just five years, Labor has:
presided over increases in people’s living costs, including electricity price increases of 89%;
misled the Australian people by introducing the world’s biggest carbon tax;
run up the four biggest deficits in Australia’s history and turned $70 billion in net assets into over $150 billion in net debt;
overseen unprecedented waste from overpriced school halls, dangerous roof insulation, and an overpriced and undelivered NBN;
weakened our borders, resulting in over 500 boats arriving carrying a total of over 30,000 illegal arrivals;
overseen a marked fall in Australia’s productivity performance and crippled small business with excessive regulation and cost increases;
compromised Australia’s interests by entering into a formal alliance with the Greens; and
stood by Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper and been mired in scandal.

Liberal Party Facebook (Facevalue)

I want to focus my direction toward my field of interest which is education. There has been an increased focused on teachers due to the recent elections. Actually when relating to the elections I felt like because my vote wasn't for Liberal Abbot I felt imprisoned, sentenced. And this inspired me to use as a way of expressing what I felt about education recently. There are teachers cutbacks and slashes to resources as well as putting the blame on them for the decreasing number of students results. I want to respond to this through my art project.

Teachers slam Education Minister

Education minister barred from school

Northern Territory Community group on Education cutbacks

The NT Government is cutting 250 million from NT education in the next three years. This means: less teachers, less specialist support for students!

Description

Every middle and senior school in the NT is losing teachers and admin staff. Specialist support and courses for students are being cut. Five teachers in each school this year, next year and the year after are being cut. Some schools are losing 25% of their teachers over three years. This situation is appalling and cuts are happening now, with many schools requiring teachers to apply for the remaining positions for 2014. Specialist staff will be hit especially hard. This will affect all students, particularly those who do not neatly slot into mainstream classes. ALL NTl students will be affected by larger class sizes and much less teacher time and support.

I want to do a photoshoot with teachers as mugshots and the title of the series will be "Sentenced for life" Teachers are in it for the outcome not the income. We don't blame dentists when we don't brush our teeth properly and we get a cavity. So why do we blame teachers when students fail because they didn't study?

When getting a mugshot taken prisoners generally have this board held in front of them with a description. Im going to use this but change it's description.

Name:
School:

Subjects:

Teaching Philosophy (A sentence or small paragraph)

Photographers

Well I looked up a few photographers, to gain an even broader perspective and what I can do as a photographer. Im self taught and so this is all read, note, understand, attempt, reflect type process.

Trey Ratcliffe is a contemporary photographer who focuses on the theme of 'Travel'. He sees the world as Rich, vibrant, romantic — like a movie! His genereal technique is HDR (High Dynamic Range) Which is a set of methods used to capture grater dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image. Trey himself states HDR as "you can see all the light in the final photo that you can see when you are standing on the scene." Mostly it is created using HDR software, Trey uses the Photomatix Pro. Despite this he has recommended Photoshop as another software program to use which is great as this is the software I use.


I've decided to follow his tutoria and try to create my own HDR photo for research purposes as I have not taken HDR images before and I am all about exploring and learning new ideas.
When looking at his tutorial and how to set the camera I realized one major flaw. I don't have a top range camera. I have a decent digital camera that when I went to look through the settings found a HDR setting. So I decided to go with it and went out into my yard and began shooting.

Eric Cheng Is an underwater photographer. Through Wetpixel Expeditions, Eric leads regular photography expeditions and workshops around the world. He has given seminars and lectures internationally at events such as TEDx, Boston Sea Rovers Clinic, DEMA, Digital Shootouts, Kona Classic, Scuba Diving Magazine events, and others. Eric is also involved in ocean conservation, and is a Director at Shark Savers, an organization dedicated to the preservation of shark populations around the world. Wetpixel is the premiere community website dedicated to underwater photography and videography.

Macro

My general photographic interest I am beginning to realise is to use the technique of Macro. How it closes up on a particular spot or subject giving it a larger than actual size scale. In my photo's when I do a close up on a particular thing I want it's background to lose focus as it helps to highlight that small detail.
Combine that with my influence of Vatsky and how she takes still images of memories her style features space, unusual perspectives and lots of shallow depth of field, creating photos that are interesting and a little quirky at times.
My instagram account is another connection of my photographic exploration. I have experimented different subjects, applied different filters based of the application etc. tailz_x
Today I tried to capture some still images in a macro setting. I gathered various inanimate objects around my room and began shooting. These are the results of today's photographic expedition.