For my final piece I have made a moving image work from colourised found footage of TV chef Fanny Cradock, taken from an episode of a cooking series, the original video is cut and tinted to alter its tone and narrative. It is to be ideally displayed on a colour TV set of the period (circa 1970) in a neutral gallery space, removed from the context of the living room/ home television. My piece has fulfilled the exploration of era and legacy, particularly the questioning and interrogation of visual cues of the past though a systematic and “obsessive” process of film colourisation. The focus of the project, originally intended to revolve closely around Fanny Cradock, eventually evolved to encompass a broader perspective of our recollection of the past. Research into Fanny Cradock herself proved to be too biographical, something I eventually found I wasn’t particularly interested in and that shifted the project towards an explanation of what my relationship to Cradock is. One of my main reference points however was an existing biography of Fanny Cradock’s life, which gave insight into her artificiality of self and memory that I came to be interested in. I also researched through her written works, archival footage, newspaper articles etc. Through the referencing of film colourisation, I also learnt about colour theory and its history in cinema and television which ultimately influenced my final outcome. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic I was however unable to pursue avenues of first-hand research I had planned including travelling to places of significance such as Cradock’s former home, or museum exhibits on period style and aesthetics. As a result, the psychogeography element I was keen to include was no longer viable. Instead I feel the medium of television on which my work is presented represents the significance of place in ones legacy, albeit indirectly, representing Fanny Cradock’s glowing, non-physical presence in living rooms from the 1950’s-70’s.
I experimented with a range of physical and digital processes such as the creation of photographic slide wheels, the use of AI text generation and testing of colourisation techniques. I found my physical testing to be mostly unsuccessful, partly due to lack of facilities or materials in the Covid-19 Pandemic, this included the slide wheel which I did not have resources to make practical or functional. The project was also possibly better suited to a digital medium. My digital experimentations included the use of transcript software and AI tools, as well as comparing analog and digital colourising methods in photoshop. The use of digital mediums to inflate and distort colour and image is suitable for this piece as it synthesises the content of fragments analog archival media from a contemporary perspective. The dated process of film tinting is made synthetic and artificial by the use of photoshop, just as memory and legacy force images of the past through a modern lens.
I managed my time to the best of my ability, but found myself struggling to keep up workflow at certain points when self isolation prevented me from staying motivated. In the first few weeks of the project for example I did not get as much research or experimentation done as I would have liked. In retrospect I think my understanding of the core themes of the project could have been established earlier, and possibly been made easier to perceive by objective audiences. I think I also could have experimented more rigorously with other mediums I am less familiar with. I’ve used my blog to document and evaluate my progress and upload/ update my notes on crits or tutorials with tutors and peers, as well as art related discussions with peers outside of an academic context. Other than a written notebook, almost all of this documentation has been digital/ on my blog.
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