First feedback from a new tutor is always for me a bit of a nerve-wracking prospect. Whilst the first assignment is an opportunity for the tutor to get to know something of me and my work, this is also an important opportunity to get more of a feel for the tutor. Fortunately all has gone well this time and the feedback has been very positive and supportive. Needless to say I am pleased. For the sake of ease I have cut and pasted the main text below:

“Overall Comments

This is an impressive submission, well-conceived and developed through rigorous and focused research evidenced in both the assignment notes and the exercises for Part 1.

All work uploaded to the online log.  

Feedback on assignment 

Aligning the idea of the ‘sublime’ with Buddhist ideas and principles such as Sunyata, a meditative state, works well as an approach for this assignment.  Your reference to Morley’s article about contemporary interpretations dealing with transformative and transcendent states really does bring a contemporary feel to the concept and a framework for the images you produced.  As does your note in Exercise (1.6),  ‘The Buddhist view is that phenomena are impermanent, interconnected, and in continuous flux. …’, 

The images as presented in the Blog don’t, perhaps, do justice to the concept and as you observe later, would better be displayed in an immersive situation (similar to Rothko’s works in the Tate or a dedicated space such as the chapel in Houston).

Alternatively, thinking about Turrell’s installation work – both the site specific and the gallery works – another option would be to use an audio-visual installation to produce a similar effect.  

But it’s the idea here that is important, and certainly gazing into space, the shifting patterns of cloud, light and colour, can certainly induce a meditative state.

You quote Mark Godfrey’s take on Richter to qualify your own ideas:  

 “these are not just paintings of skies – they are paintings that show Richter’s attraction to the ‘unknowable and unrepresentable’…” This fits exactly with the interpretation that I have sought to place upon the Sublime. 

Your set of images, from overcast to ranges of cloud textures, to an almost clear sky, do, in terms of a sequence, offer what might be moments from a single experience and viewpoint.  A range of colours – temporal and meteorological – would be interesting for their variation, but wouldn’t offer the same sense of continuity.  

In his seascapes, Sugimoto, I recall, was looking for vistas that had remained unchanged for millennia, the same our ancestors would have seen, producing a sense of continuity – certainly the sublime: his aesthetic serves to enhance this. Interesting what he says in the introduction to the series on his website, ‘Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing.’

Your note:

‘How paradoxical though that Burke was of the view that art was not really capable of communicating a sense of the Sublime and that this was better done through poetry. ‘

Is this about imagination, where visualisation is a more personal first-hand experience through literature, rather than gazing at the work (interpretation) of an artist?  But then one role of an artist has always been to visualize and to provide a (communal) representation of the unknown. 

I thought the work of Gary Miller was very interesting; a man of many ideas with a truly prolific output, some of it reminiscent of Turrell.

I agree with your Postscript about the images from the Blue Skies Project (terrifying indeed). The lack of a frame for your images does reduce the context and emphasizes perhaps, that this is more of a representation of the idea, ‘a bit like thoughts drifting across one’s consciousness while meditating.’  An additional challenge might be to find a way of converting this into an alternative and immersive experience for the viewer.

Coursework

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity 

Excellent work here.  A detailed response to 1.9 ‘Social Contrasts’ with a range of examples and lucid commentary.  Strong practical application in 1.8 The Zone System.

Highly focused research and observations providing a framework for the assignment (Contemporary Abyss and Beauty and the Sublime) – a short literary review that I would be pleased to see from my Masters students at an institution elsewhere.

Research

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

Mentioned elsewhere, the critical thinking around this assignment is of the highest quality, supported by a broad range of research from historians, theorists and practitioners.

Learning Log

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

Strong concept, initial notes and images for Assignment 6. It will be interesting to see how your take on this idea progresses.  Would you consider any interaction from people/traffic/ animals – also weather conditions as well as the shifting seasons?”

The final comment about interaction from people and traffic is something that I have already addressed in my updated post on Exercise 1.5 (https://markrobinsonocalandscape.photo.blog/2019/11/26/exercise-1-5-visualising-assignment-six-transitions-update/).

The question of how best to present this work is something I have also been thinking about. Although as matters presently stand it is not practical or feasible for me to do so I still very much like the idea of an immerse space containing just big prints of the photos. I have though also played around a bit with the idea of some sort of slideshow. My present resources for creating one area fairly limited. There is a facility to do so with the Apple propriety Photos programme on my iMac. This is fairly basic and, again for present purposes, I do not have the possibility of making and running a proper slideshow in a public space. Nevertheless it has provided a vehicle with which to experiment and see how a dynamic presentation might look. What I have achieved is a slow resolve of each image into the next, starting from the fully occluded sky to the almost clear one. Even in this family basic form the result is still quite immersive, and meditative. There are though a couple of points that I get from it. One is that the sequence would probably need to be expanded with a few more “intermediate” images to make the progression a bit smoother. The other is that the direction of the resolve means that a couple of images would need to be reversed so that the clearer patches of sky are all on, and so emerge from, the right hand side. As it is, with some clearer patches on the left, a couple of the transitions are a bit abrupt. With a bit more work, and a more sophisticated program or app I am sure this could turn out quite well.

My tutor has helpfully suggested some further research and I will write about this separately.