- The phrase 'make do and mend' suggests that we need to take what we have and use it to our advantage considering what we have.
There is a lot more to making do and mending than you might originally think. Instructions play a big part in the concept of making do and mending. Instructions are a way for artists to narrow down and create pictures with more creativity in mind: if you think about it, having a certain set of instructions means that you'll be limited to what you can do, also meaning you'll be forced to be creative in order to take an interesting photograph.
This has been used by artists in the past in order to make sure that their artwork could be kept concise and interesting. An example of this is John Baldessari; he is one of the main artists that have used instructions for their artwork. In Baldessari's case, he was previously a teacher, so having these instructions were very useful, and example of his instructions shown on the right. |
Walk to your closest park, pick up and leafs you find on the floor, throw them into the air and take a picture of them in the sky at anytime of the day you want.
‘Mona Lisa’ is a famous painting for multiple reasons. It was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci towards the end of his career but no one really expected it to become a big thing. The picture stuck around royal places for roughly 300 years until Napolean took notice of it, as well as more and more people. It was gaining attraction until 1911 when it was stolen from the Louvre for two years; this is when the world was shook. The painting had been missing for two years until it was found in Italy in 1913. The painting, ever since then, has still been getting attraction and has influenced the way people do art as a whole, including people like Marcel Duchamp who ‘created’ the art of the ‘readymade’.
L.H.O.O.Q is a readymade because it uses an already made photo, being a postcard template of the ‘Mona Lisa’, while Duchamp adds his own modification onto the drawing to make it his own art piece, essentially taking one idea and making it your own by adding something, which is how I think of ‘readymade’ art. Duchamp added a moustache and beard using a pencil. L.H.O.O.Q means “Elle a chaud au cul” which is a vulgar expression implying a woman has sexual restlessness. Duchamp added the moustache and beard onto the painting as a way to explore different ways of making art, which in this case was the concept of ‘readymade’ art, taking something premade and modifying it to make it your own. He did this to get away from the additional seriousness from general paintings and ‘spice them up’ a bit by adding silly things or anything like that to create a weird looking photo, but whether it is just a drawing or genuinely means something to someone/thing, I don’t know. Readymade art is using a picture and changing or modifying the original composition of the photo the artist has chosen. Duchamp has been one of the first people recognised to actually create a piece of work like this, as a ‘readymade’ as a protest against the excessive importance attached to the works of art, almost as if he wanted to change and/or create a new ‘genre’ of art to compliment the seriousness of art with some less serious and more joke based art. Lots of people have taken ideas from this and nowadays the idea of using readymade photos is quite common, so Duchamp’s idea of ‘readymade’ art has definitely changed the way we think about art. |
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After a bit more research into the census of people partaking in the genre of this cyberpunk and blade runner 'aesthetic', I ran into a guy called Steve Roe; he is just like Noe Alonzo, based in Seoul, South Korea taking similar photos to him. His Instagram handle is @steveroe_ and on his portfolio could you find a wide variety of pictures encompassing this visual aesthetic of neon and cyberpunk. Picture examples shown on the left.
You can tell with these pictures that Steve Roe has used more editing to acheive this aesthetic than Noe Alonzo does, his photos include more effects and filters which do look really nice in this sort of "low life, high tech" theme that surfaces this genre. Using tutorials online, I have managed to also figure out how to work with the presets and color settings to bring out the neon/cyberpunk in the photos in which I will start experimenting with once I get to take some photos of similar looks.
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Normally, I'm not one to use anything like Lightroom or Photoshop to enhance my photos but for this then I think it is necessary for a city neon look. As I want to implement the theme of being away from Covid-19 restrictions, I have had to use some more logical thinking about where and when I take my photos so I can theme my photos based on it. I want my final collage to look like something you wouldn't have ever remembered happening or being able to happen.
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With the photo above, I used this as a reference to document how I did all of my basic Lightroom usage to achieve such a neon-y look. It is a nice, fairly narrow alleyway in central London and I chose this photo to use to show what kind of difference editing the color scheme can make. This is the same process I will use during the actual making day.
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The phrase 'make do and mend' suggests that we need to take what we have and use it to our advantage considering what we have.