FINAL PIECE

Today I shot my final piece. I have known for a while that my final piece was going to be my challenge of not touching males.

A lot earlier in the project I began tallying the amount of times I had physical connection with the opposite sex when in a situation which was obviously difficult to avoid. The tallies show that it is almost impossible to not have that physical connection and that it seems to be part of human life. Even in the interviews which I have done with those who keep the law the mention that in some situations it is impossible to avoid, therefore having that physical connection.

My video shows myself walking down a busy street and I avoid any human connection at all cost. Whilst shooting the video and avoiding people it made me feel bad for being so cautious knowing that I am not better then any one else and that human connection is a normal ritual of life. Maybe not having human connection, even the smallest amount can change a persons outlook on others around them.

Everyday life rituals such as getting on a busy tube is something that the majority of the capital does and therefore sort of brings us together. We all get on transport to go somewhere as we all have lives to live, we all have places to be and so we do it together.

I realise that this has gone off the topic of Judaism and I did not mean for that to happen, however it has become an interest and it is an issue which I want to carry on looking into. I want to keep on looking at the importance of physical connection and how it can make a person feel.

Screen shots of some of my journey videos

The videos which I have been shooting on my journeys are to show how difficult it is for a person to avoid the opposite sex. Travelling around London, home to 7,668,304 people is proving difficult to avoid people. It is something that is almost impossible showed my my current tally charts which I have been keeping.

The next video which I want to shoot will be of me avoiding the opposite sex.

IDEA

I have been thinking about the actual, literal meaning of shomar nagiah and from what I have learned, the word shomar means protector or guardian. I therefore have been thinking of ways that people could be protected from others. For example putting a cage around somebody or wrapping somebody up so they can not be recognised or touched.

I have also began to look at how I could show my final outcome which is my own challenge of myself not having physical connection in a certain situation. I am going to begin filming and taking photographs of this challenge to see how it will look.

Ideas and thoughts

I have been thinking a lot about Mara Alper's work. I like the fact that her documentaries involve dance and more performances. Although I don't think I can work a performance into my documentary at this point it is something I will think about for the future.

For now however, I know that for my final piece I want to show the challenge which I have more or less been doing since earlier on in the project. I have been thinking about how I could show it and was thinking about a video of myself or presenting the tally charts which I have been keeping when out in public about how many males I am touched by (by mistake). I will have to experiment with different ideas so I know which way will look the most successful.

Some of my tally charts below:

Screen shots of interview #1

I have interviewed two people who both follow the law of Shomar Nagiah and therefore do not touch the opposite sex. One of the girls was brought up keeping the law and the other took it upon herself at a later age which I think shows in their interviews (but maybe that is because I already know). I wanted to know what Shomar Nagiah actually meant, how it plays a part in their daily lives and if it is difficult to keep.

Sean Gallagher

Sean Gallagher is another documentary artist who I have been looking at. He documents with both video and photography and has therefore inspired me to look also into taking photographs of those people who I interview (alongside their interviews).

Research

video art and film between documentary and fiction

One-day Symposium Wednesday 9 June 2010 10.30-6pm Grimond Lecture Theatre 3 and Aphra Theatre

Speakers: Irit Rogoff (Goldsmith’s) and Jon Dovey (U. of West of England)

Panels with artists and academics: Adam Chodzko, Brian Dillon, Jeremy Millar, Lauren Wright, Sarah Turner, Elizabeth Cowie and Michael Newall.

The symposium addresses video and installation art that engages the social through combining techniques of documentary and fiction. In this context it also examines participation and reflexivity – approaches that are often important to such art. The distinction between fiction and non-fiction is one which emerged primarily in relation to literature and to journalism. However it was with the development of photography and later cinema that a specifically documentary project emerged, and which developed as a film-making practice in the 1920s and 1930s not only of social scientists, such as John Grierson, but also of artist film-makers, Hans Richter, Germaine Dulac, Joris Ivens, Humphrey Jennings, Luis Buñuel. It was a project influenced by both abstract art and surrealism and that reappears within conceptual art. But while many contemporary artists have a moving image practice where works ‘move between reality and fiction’ – indeed it is an oscillation that is now something of a cliché, which we as viewers can easily decode – this symposium addresses the question of why in an art work these transitions occur at a particular point in its temporal organisation. It asks: why, at particular moments in a work, does a document of the real become excessive such that it seeks a correcting truth of fiction as a ‘surreality’, or alternatively, why and when does a fictional work deploy the truth of documentary?

I have been researching information on documentaries, especially within art, to guide me through this medium which is new to me. I found the short text above from 2010 which was a talk at Kent University about video art and film between documentary and fiction. Although the passage has not given too much away it has made me think about vital points such as, at what point does a documentary become a documentary and not fiction?

I feel as if I need to create all relevant and truthful information and facts to create my documentary and to justify it as a true documentary and I need to use real sources, for example people who know what they are talking about.

Mara Alper

Mara Alper is an award-winning media artist and documentary maker. Mara's affinities with dance, animation, film and video as expressive media have shaped her life. Her themes focus on social issues, older traditions and questions about people's similarities, differences and motivations.

In Mexico, she has interviewed shaman and tribal leaders in the native Huichol tribe, descendants of the Aztecs. They discussed forgiveness and attitudes toward aging and death. Images include traditional music, scenes from daily lives and sacred arts. In Bali, she studied the art of shadow puppets and dance, intrinsic elements in the Balinese Hindu religion. On the Greek island of Crete, she wrote and painted for several months in a mountain cave facing the Mediterranean Sea, influenced by their ancient Minoan culture. These experiences have helped her learn to recognize and respect the many values humans share, and to focus on our similarities rather than our differences.

http://www.maraalper.com/index.html

I have been really inspired by Alper's work. Her documentaries have opened so many eyes to different cultures and how people live their lives. I want to eventually create a documentary so that I can also open people's eyes.

I feel that talking to people is so important and that every opinion can create a difference to somebody else's life. I feel that by catching emotions of people can affect and change someones thoughts and therefore I set out to speak to people and to understand why they do something. I no longer feel that I should speak to somebody before judging them or their ways.

Documentation and recent thoughts

I have been meaning to catch up on my blog by writing down my gallery notes in it:

When i went to the Whitechapel Gallery I viewed a piece by Giorgio Andreotta Calo, Jalal Toufic, Huang Xiaopeng. They created a video to document urban history and change.

The performance of the Shiite ritual Ashura is captured by Lebanese writer and artist Jalal Toufic, while Chinese artist Huang Xiaopeng analyses the politics in the relationship between language and technology. The exhibition is part of the international touring programme Art in the Auditorium, which showcases some of the most exciting artists working with film, video and animation.

Documentation is something that is interesting to me at the moment. I find it fascinating how a documentary can inform and create new meanings in life. Documentaries are there to inform and teach, therefore I feel like this piece relates to my work.

Recently I have been thinking that maybe my project has been going away from how I originally began it. It has become more specific about one certain law rather then exploring more of the laws and Judaism as a whole. I also think it has become more about the physical connection between human beings rather then the literal Jewish law. I do not think this matters however as it just shows how my starting point has inspired me to look at something which it relates to.

IDEAS and thoughts

My most recent idea is to create a studio space to start filming scenes in to help create my documentary.

-Two people facing each other up close, not touching

-Elbows almost touching

-Stills of the body almost touching

My project seems to have slightly changed from my starting point of Judaism. It has become more about the physical connection between human beings rather then the actual Jewish law. I am still interested in the thought of Shomar Nagiah and the way a relationship is built up on complete mental thoughts. For somebody who does not keep to that law it is almost impossible to imagine as the average person has a complete physical connection with their partner from early on whether it is holding hands or just a tap on the shoulder.

Performance

As part of my project will be involving performance pieces I have began researching through books, magazines and the internet which hopefully will help me to understand qualities of creating performance art.

'The Performance Studies Reader' Edited by Henry Bial. Published 2004 by Routledge. Taylor and Francis Group. London and New York. Part V, Performativity- 'In order for Austin's performative to be effective, it must have certain performance-like qualities: namely, there must be an audience (listener), and the speech act must conform to a pre-established pattern.'

Part V1, Performing- 'For every kind of performance there is a different kind (and often many kinds of performing.' Performing happens in everyday life, in the home, in the workplace, in sports and games, in the arts, and in scared and secular ritual. Any time you take on a role, tell a story, or simply enact a bit of restored behaviour, you are performing.'

'If we recognise that virtually all human behaviour involves performing, then we can think of the theater as a kind of laboratory where actors and directors stage experiments to help us better understand ourselves. '

Videos

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As part of my research work I have began taking videos of the everyday life connections between the opposite sex. The 2 videos here show how close two of the opposite sex can get without even realising. The video to the left shows the two people almost touching revealing tension which I would have never thought about before between two strangers on a train journey.

I am getting very interested in physical connection between people, especially those who do not know each other. I find it amazing how much connection we have with each other and I am curious to find out if that makes a difference to our life. I guess I could only find that out if I start avoiding the opposite sex. I would have to avoid them in most situations for example bus journeys, tube journeys, walking down the street, at college, at work, in a shop and every other situation I am in which involves a male.

I do realise that this will be going away from my original starting point of Judaism as a whole. However it was inspired by a Jewish law which it still can relate back to.

Diane Borsato

One of Borsato's piece of work is a collection of photographs and text called 'Touching 1000 people.'

'Performance intervention and photographs

Montreal/Vancouver, 2003

DESCRIPTION

I read a study that suggested that when people are subtly touched, it can affect their behaviour and well being. For a month I went out of my way to delicately bump, rub past, and tap 1000 strangers in the city. I touched commuters, shoppers, cashiers and taxi cab drivers on the street, on the metro, in shops and in museums. The exercise was like a minimalist performance. I was exploring the smallest possible gesture, and how it could create an effect in public.

The action was performed for one month in various locations in Montreal in 2001, and repeated for ten days across the city of Vancouver in 2003.'

This performance piece has inspired me to create my own performance piece by using my knowledge of Shomar Nagia to not touch or talk to any males for a certain period of time. I will document it using photography and video and text. I want to try and feel the significance of Shomar Nagia by doing this. However before I begin this I want to understand the importance of the law and understand why people who follow this law do it.

Borsato's work seems to have an underlying message to it about how human connection makes you feel and the importance of it therefore contrasting to my work. However our intentions to challenge ourselves are both similar which is why her work inspires me.

IDEAS

I have been thinking of ways in which I can challenge the law of Shomar Nagia:

1. Interviewing those who follow the Jewish Law and those who do not (both Jewish and not) in a video.

2. Challenging myself to follow the law by not touching males for a certain period of time to the extent where I will avoid males at all cost including talking to them.

3. Looking at both still and moving images of body parts/people almost touching. For example two hands close together, almost touching and looking at the tension between them.

I also thought about trying to touch males who I knew kept the Jewish law without them knowing. However out of respect of those who keep the law I have decided to not go ahead with that option.

I have started to observe myself in certain situations when surrounded by males. I think it would be interesting to keep some sort of diary or recordings of my challenges. It would be interesting to see how many times I touch a male (by mistake) when on a tube or bus or walking down a street. I could start to keep a tally of that for every time I am in a certain situation.

Marina Abramovic

I have been looking at the work of Marina Abramovic. Her work are performance pieces which challenge the tension and complications within a human relationship with the opposite sex.

Frieze Magazine Blog:

'These formal layouts, and the content of some of the works themselves, speak of ritual and highly stylized types of interaction. I’m not sure how I feel about this, since it seems to me like religious affect. Of course, you can extrapolate religious or spiritual themes from her interest in the limits of consciousness as perceived through the body when it is pushed to extreme limits through pain or duration. So too her interest in the singularity of the self in relation to another individual or to a group. But I can’t help thinking of flagellantism and various extreme penitent Catholic orders when I see some of Abramović’s work, which for me gives it an uncomfortably pious aspect. This sense of piousness is an effect of the solemn register in which the work exists, its demonstrative gravitas. (This register admits little levity, which seems sad to me, since our bodies and how people interact can be pretty funny – a key part of being human.) There’s also a studied austerity in the work, a kind of quasi-monastic aesthetic: the simple wooden table and chairs in The Artist is Present, for instance, or the hard wooden block that the performer lies on in Nude with Skeleton. It makes me think that this is art made by someone who at some level still believes in the sacred aura of the secular white cube art space.'

Her work makes me think about the complications within a relationship. The law Shomar Nagiah is about removing the complications within a relationship by channeling them in the right direction. Her work has therefore made me think about ways which I can show tension in a relationship without touching, i.e body parts almost touching on two people.

I am also interested in the performance side to art. I like the reality factor within in as well which is something I want to look more into for my final piece.

Interview idea

I have thought about it and decided that a good way to look at the importance or non-importance view on physical connection is to speak to people about it. Speak to human beings who have had or haven't had connections to other human beings. Therefore I will interview those who keep the Jewish law where they have had no connection to the opposite sex and those who have probably not even known that a law as such existed. It will be great to see the different reactions and opinions.

Inspired by human connection

The picture above is a painting I did of the outlines of two bodies joint at the side. This is just an idea of physical connection between two human beings as an aesthetic which I want to look more into.

basic sketches of human connection