8th February 2010

The last three weeks i have been very pro active for my first tutorial with Paul on friday. This thursday i am doing my first test shoot, we have the studio for only two hours, it's really hard to book it for longer. I have been doing plenty of artist research, and been visiting galleries in London. I visited the National Gallery to view the Hoerengracht exhibition. I really enjoyed the exhibition which is a 3 dimensional tableaux about the red light district in Amsterdam. The life size model of part of the red light district invites you in to become a voyeur over the provocative situations of the 17th century town. The project was about the trading of sex whether for power or social position, a subject long present in the history of art. There is little hint that the girls are human, nothing about love. The wax works of the prostitutes have cooky boxes around there heads to give a sense of mind over body seperation.....it also made me feel that they new they were being watched. I found it all quite disturbing, it definitely evoked a feeling inside me. The dolls, were also overly made-up, lashes thick with mascara.....it was really quite surreal but also real.

This week i have also walked down Cork Street and found some artists that are getting my thoughts flowing.

I am still deconstructing Nancy Fridays book...i find it very interesting how women in the 60's at the hight of the sexual revolution were still playing the inhibited role in their fantasies. Nacncy friday explains this as women's historical sexual role as the desireless virgin.

Fantasies in the book mainly lie around the dreams of being doped, raped, subjected they're are all about overwhelming domination inflicted on the female. Freud and Friday agree on one thing that all sexual fantasies are dominated around frustration and anxieties that we deal with daily in reality. Fantasies are also repeated to satisfy...monologic. An awakening of senses and closing of senses, a progression and transgression of a thought. So taking the above into consideration....womens anxieties of playing the inhibited role in daily life, Friday explains were probably a way of dealing with the idea of females being the submissive sex through-out society at the time.

So im thinking i will play around with this idea in my first test!