Safia Benaouda

I took pictures of messages written anonymously on various bathroom stalls in the Goldsmiths library. It is an unconventional form of self-disclosure which occurs quite frequently, suggesting an inherent need to connect with others that is not necessarily motivated by the concern for attention or recognition.

Roman Knipping-Sorokin

Following our course discussion about the body, media, cyborgs and the work of Stelarc and Orlan, I asked myself what kinds of other "body modifications” there are which may perhaps be more common and more accepted in our society. Then I had an opportunity to accompany a friend of mine as he was getting a new tattoo, and to document it.

For me tattoos are fascinating art objects, which have a strong power of expression. In different cultures tattoos are used for diverse purposes, for instance as religious or cultural signs to affiliate one with a specific group or culture. Tattoos are also used as body decoration and fashion statements, as it can be seen in different subcultures.

The shoot was the first time I saw the process of tattooing. When the tattooist started working, using a modern tattoo-machine, and I saw how the skin was being injured by this artificial machine, I felt strange. The mixture of this artificial liquid - an impurity with the blood of my friend's mixed in - evoked in me an urgent wish to wipe off the ink from the skin and stop any further mixing. However, this injection of the ink, which was an introduction of an impurity into the body, was purposeful. The realization that the alteration of the human appearance occurring in front of my eyes was permanent made the whole situation and atmosphere feel somewhat occult.

Furthermore, in relation to our last lecture about the archive of images, a connection to tattoos can be made here. The tatooed person becomes an image carrier as well as a story-telling medium. He or she thus functions as a moving archive, a unique visual media narrator. Of course the visibility of these signs and stories depends on the particular tattooed part of the body. The signs can either be shown to everyone or just to a selected group of people.

All in all, for me a tattoo is a symbol of the eternal wish of humankind to change and modify the body by using the technology of its time.

Laura Lotti

personal synesthetic urban journal AKA: light and music feed me (and on a trip they're even more nutritious).

these are some shots 'stolen' from my reportage on the road among music festivals in mty, mexico and austin, texas.

the pictures play on the relationship and interconnection between sounds and visions (like the david bowie song, just to keep the theme..)

hope the force of the light and strength of the contrasts manage to convey the energy of music, or at least what it means to me.

soundtracks:
cumbia
The Death Set
Yppah
Yacht
Lazaro Valiente
Crystal Fighters
Cloud Nothings
Pearl Harbor

art (real one):
Equipo Plastico

Natalia Urazmetova

Driftless

I chose the 'freeze frame' as a method for producing this series of images. Its source of inspiration lies in the debate on photography and cinema. The images are stills from the video I recently shot. The idea of transience/disappearance versus the impulse against stability/stasis becomes central to them. Taking into the account the 'Performing Philosophy' framework, I attempted to visualize Deleuze's idea of the void, or interstice, that emerges in the context of his Time-Image conception: a suspended position of intellectual opportunity and potential, a position within a spatial gap where the interval offers us the ‘insight of blindness’, where thought becomes the exteriorization of expression. The idea of stillness becomes a starting point for the consideration of the multiple temporalities that arise at the intersection of still and moving image. The aim here is to create a pause for thought about suspended moments of transition. Taking into account the fact that visuals operate rather indirectly and metaphorically, this series is nevertheless an invitation on my part to reflect on the generative and irresolvable encounter between stasis and motion.

Viviana Miliaressi

Seeking a trace of the human

Jihyun Lee

The Anish Kapoor exhibition
11 December 2009

A scrap from a magazine
22 December 2009

The first snow in London
6 January 2010

A toilet bowl in the street
7 February 2010

The world's sweetest flatmate
28 February 2010

One boring afternoon at the library
4 March 2010

Remediation!
20 March 2010

My Supermundane Diary

Every day, I almost instinctively check whether my iPhone is with me. I do not have a fancy DSLR camera or a professional film camera. Although I have an 'ordinary' digital camera, I usually take pictures of my daily life with my iPhone. It is good enough for me, especially for capturing my quiet mundane daily life. Paradoxically, it is in fact encouraging me to focus on myself. A low-quality quality photographic device makes me feel free to take images of whatever I want: something I ate, a place I visited, unexpected moments or scenes which I faced in the street, etc. It does not need to be good, fancy, artistic, just whatever is on my mind. Can I call it 'a technology of the self'?

Yuan Yuan

Stereotype

First stop

The road to the city

La vie est auilleurs

Southbank

Lovely side

London Impressions

For me, the six photos reflect six different sides of London as a cosmopolitan city. The first is meant to capture London as the stereotype portrayed in movies and fictions. The second is my first stop in London. The third is taken on the way to the city, where the imagined London exists. The fourth is London seen from the southern side of the Thames and the French poem I used for the title just jumped into my mind when I clicked on the shutter, for the scene provides such a sharp contrast to the previous one. The fifth is the tourist part of London. I guess the last one should belong to those who feel at home in London.