Unit 1
Medusa II
This film is my final outcome for Unit 1. Below are screenshots taken from this work. The film work in its entirety can be found on my ‘Body of Work’ page (link is listed further down the page). The work depicts an adaptation of the Classical myth of Medusa, while also featuring mythical motifs taken from the Classical myth of Pygmalion.
The making of the work:
My representation of Medusa is depicted through wearing a papier-mâché headdress I made myself with snake-like shapes attached. The character of Perseus and his sword has been sculpted out of wire and air-dry clay. Galatea is represented through a drawing, my face edited on top of the drawing and a clay body attached to the drawn/performed head. Medusa’s narrative voice is also voiced by me. The footage for the work was all filmed by me and then edited together on Adobe Premier Pro Software. The sound effects within the footage were all performed and recorded by myself, before they were edited on Adobe Audition. The music in the soundtrack of the film was taken from a group sound-artist residency that I was a part of that took place on the island of Evia, in Greece. The collaborators within this residency are listed in the end credits of the film.
A deeper analysis:
Medusa’s narrative voice begins the film in describing an incident of rape, referencing Poseidon’s act of rape against her within various adaptations of the myth. This description is set to imagery of fish, sea creatures and filmed footage of the waves. I found this to be effective visceral visual imagery that might be tied to Poseidon as the Greek God of the sea. The natural imagery woven throughout the film generally creates a colourful visual language, with many of the shots serving as metaphors in connection with the accompanying narrative. One example is with the line I wrote: ‘shaking and shattering, he crashed into my sheath’, at which point in the video, a rose chafer slips into the petals of a rose. The gentle romanticised imagery of the rose contrasts with the violent language and uncomfortable imagery of the insect, establishing a disturbing connection between beauty and horror that continues throughout the whole of the work.
The music used within the work was inspired by the sounds that could be heard on the island of Evia in Greece, including birdsong, goat bells, the sea on the coastline and the wind across the valleys. Not only does the musical sound art contribute to forming magical element to the work, but it also ties the work more deeply to the Classical Greek context, when the context of the soundtrack is taken into account.
‘Medusa II’ is a work that features playful and humorous aspects, something which is emphasised in the presences of the handmade and the exposure of process within the animations of Perseus and the editing of the film. Galatea’s body and Perseus are sculpted with air-dry clay and are naive depictions of the human form. Galatea’s face edited on top of the clay body adds to the surreality and absurdity of the work, as the real head seems to float on top of the unreal body. Perseus’ sexual act is accompanied with a squeaky metallic sound effect, adding a comedic aspect to the action as his pace increases. His eyes are also animated in a comic way as he screams when his fingers are sliced off; with cartoony, flat, bulging red irises. The comedic aspects of this scene especially ridicules Perseus’ predatory gaze, demeaning his act of masturbation and objectification of the feminine body he observes. Perseus, Galatea’s body and Medusa’s headdress of snakes are all clearly hand-crafted, just as the animation of Perseus is made jarring by its lack of transitioning frames. These objects and the naivety of the animation techniques all contribute to a sense of childlike play within the work. I found this to be effective in forming a visual perspective that treats these mythical motifs like aspects of fairytales, perhaps more closely tied to the fairytales of the brothers Grimm, due to the darker subject matter of the narratives. As the only real human face within the work, I like the idea that the Medusa and Galatea characters represent a single person who has regressed to a childlike state of fantasy that encompasses humour, beauty, wonder in order to process the violent sexual acts that are suggested within the work.
‘Medusa II‘, 2023, screenshot taken from video, video length: 00:06:12
The following image is of a pen drawing that has since been edited on Adobe Photoshop and added into the footage of the film ‘Medusa II’, to represent a landscape of people Medusa has turned to stone with her ability to turn others to stone when they meet her eyes.
The following images were used as part of the animation of Perseus accidentally slicing off his fingers after polishing his sword in the film ‘Medusa II’:
These eyes were used as part of the background layering within shots of the film ‘Medusa II’, to emphasise the theme of gazes in the work.
The image below was a screenshot of the dramatic monologue that acts as the narrative voice of ‘Medusa II’ and my other Medusa video works. It was written by myself on Google Docs. My poem was written in the narrative voice of Medusa as she describes her story: from when she was raped by Poseidon, the Greek God of the seas, to her being transformed into a gorgon, to observing Perseus’ intrusion into her home. I found the sibilance within this poem to be especially effective in capturing Medusa’s voice as a woman with snakes for hair. The final line of the work: ‘To look means death. By all means, meet my eyes,’ was influenced by the final line of Duffy’s poem which states: ‘Look at me now’. (Duffy, 1999) Both lines invite the viewer or reader to meet Medusa’s eyes; referring to her ability to turn those who meet her eyes to stone. I enjoyed creating the puns hidden within the poem. ‘Per say, is’ is a pun on the name: ‘Perseus’, who beheads Medusa in most versions of the Classical Myth. ‘Posed side-on’ is also a pun on ‘Poseidon’. Perseus is described as holding an ‘eye phone six’, a play on the name of the iPhone. This imagery also updates the myth; Perseus is depicted as someone who might exist today, trespassing and seeking to capture images of Medusa on his phone as an employment of the ‘male gaze’. The violent language of the work helps us to sympathise with Medusa as a character who survived violence, while the patronising tone in describing Perseus as a ‘youth’ helps to highlight the power of the character and her ability; something which is emphasised by her demand for him to meet her eyes. The incorporation of this line at the end of the poem suggests that Medusa is victorious over Perseus, as opposed to the ending of the original myth in which he beheads her. I believe this poem to be one successful step towards empowering the character of Medusa within my artistic practice.
Carol Ann Duffy’s poem: ‘Medusa’ can be found here: https://genius.com/Carol-ann-duffy-medusa-annotated [Accessed 25th January 2023]
‘Medusa II’ is a film work shown on my ‘Body of Work’ page that can be found here:
For more information on the artistic influences that inspired this work, as well as further analysis on the work please visit the ‘Critical Reflection’ page of my website, here:
Open Studio Exhibition Event (Featuring ‘Medusa I’)
More information on ‘Medusa I’ can be found on page 2 of this ‘Supporting Work’ page.
On Thursday 15th December 2022, UAL Camberwell’s Fine Art MA held a pop-up open studio exhibition event, featuring both finished works and works in progress. In installing my work, I had decided to present my film work: ‘Medusa I’ as part of my progress in preparation for creating ‘Medusa II’. I felt very pleased to have received the entire projection space of the back wall of room A217, where the computational arts students were displaying their works. I felt that this large space helped to contribute to the cinematic connotations of my work, as a work that explores such broad and melodramatic mythical themes with a fairytale-like style. I learned how to set up the video and the projection, thanks to help from the computational arts technician James Stringer. I also edited the sound speaker system, for a good level of sound that might be heard without interfering with the sounds of the other works in the room. This helped indicate to me some of the discrepancies within my sound editing of ‘Medusa I’, something which I later improved upon in my editing of ‘Medusa II’. I found that some layering of the sound within ‘Medusa I’ was too quiet to hear in comparison to some of the later sound effects were too loud. Nevertheless, I enjoyed seeing the imagery of the work displayed in large scale, as I felt this helped to successfully immerse viewers into the work. The work became more confrontational when viewers were faced with a giant pair of eyes and a screen larger than their own physical presence. I felt that this helped to highlight their own perspectives in relation to the work as both those who are watching and are watched by the film in turn.
‘Medusa I’ experiments with having the dramatic monologue I wrote for Medusa written in captions instead of being spoken. I felt in ‘Medusa WIP’ that my speaking the dramatic monologue lines linked Medusa’s story too directly with my own personal voice, instead of embodying a broader universal experience. (‘Medusa WIP’ can be found on page 3 of ‘Supporting Work’). This inspired me to experiment with the use of captions in ‘Medusa I’. While the captions added a level of omnipresent power to Medusa’s narrative perspective, viewer’s feedback revealed that the captions were too detached from Medusa’s presence in the film for them to realise that it was directly her voice. As a result, I settled on speaking the dramatic monologue for ‘Medusa II’, though I edited my voice to sound a little deeper, to create a more epic-sounding tone to the narration. I also didn’t directly speak when visually performing Medusa herself in ‘Medusa II’, but rather had the narration interwoven throughout the entirety of the film whilst Medusa posed separately from the voice. I felt this was more effective in allowing the power and meaning of the words to reach the viewers in a more accessible way, whilst simultaneously keeping Medusa as a watching figure of power, who’s thoughts are allowed to be heard, but doesn’t need to speak directly in order to establish her subjectivity.
I found the scene at the end of the film where Medusa looked directly into the camera was especially successful during the open studio event, due to the dynamic editing and colourful visual imagery onscreen. This was something I tried to expand upon in ‘Medusa II’. There had also been positive comments from viewers regarding the multi-media approach of the making of the film. One viewer compared the style to the film: ‘Coraline’; a film which centres around animated dolls and horror. This emphasised to me Perseus’ uncanny impact on the viewer as a puppet-like form when compared with my performative and bodily presence in the film. The Freudian ‘Uncanny’ is the concept of the familiar made unfamiliar, something which I feel this contrast of footage of a real body and a roughly-shaped body made of clay successfully added to. I felt the natural landscape backdrops of the scenes including trees and flowers added a fairytale-like element to the work, which I found to be relevant to the work’s mythical context.