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jesse kanda is artist / animator / musician who creates grotesque gory digital sculptures that still reflect beauty and feelings of softness, two things that often juxtapose coexisiting. in relation to my own practise of digital 3d illustration i admire and am inspired my alot of kanda's work.

in relation to my own work, kanda explores thing that are considered repulsive when in truth there is often no reason for us to be disgusted by them, and we move past our own biases we can see the beauty. this rings truthful for the reality of queer bodies and relationship.

queerness is still perceived as disgusting or perverse, while as a queer person so much the beauty and love in my life relates to queerness. this was a major theme i wanted to explore in this project

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jesse kanda - entrañas

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jesse kanda - fawn

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nan goldin is an american photographer who creates work exploring queer bodies, intimacy, the AIDS and opioids crisises. i was lucky enough to get to see memory lost by goldin in south london gallery recently as part of the ongoing acts of resistance exhibition. the photos contain a beautiful ethereal quality especially the candid like shots. accompanying this was music from mica levi one of my favourite composers. this experience kickstarted alot of ideas for my project, relating the experiences surrounding queer bodies

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nan goldin - memory lost

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nan goldin - untitled

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TW; discussions of sexual harassment

initial ideas for this project circled around the concept of softness and horror. the juxtaposition of the two is something that resonated a lot with my practice at the beginning of the unit. upon tutorials, i researched queer horror.

these ideas developed into what would be the focus of the project being queer bodies and the feelings associated with this. the coexisting fetishisation and dehumanisation surrounding them and their relationships. the horror aspect resonates with this theming and the ideas of disgust and repulsion run parallel with the existence of queer bodies.

in my experiences of presenting fem, i feel on edge majority of the time regarding my appearance, being fetishised and objectified as a result of the way i present myself.

i feel as if my feminity has always been sexualised by others without my choice. i feel uncomfortable in my skin, not because i'm uncertain of my identity as i am solid in who i am. but as my presentation is taken to be a fetish. i've felt this first hand by men in relationships who in daylight would spew vile homophobia and then when no one else was around saw me as an object for them.

through my practice i have displayed this through softness and horror, developing into dissected creatures and monsters.

the oddness of creatures resonates with the isolation a lot of queer people experience.

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initial testings for the project i did some large scale gouache paintings of a character i had created for unit 9. i wanted to create a larger scale tapestry of some sort however as the process developed more oriented around 3D modelling and printing this shifted to a smaller scale

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idea sketch of a wolf biting itself in the tail, proposing ideas of circles of violence

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trip to kew gardens

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they create 3d illustration in blender / c4d of intriciate and flowing bodies often wrapped between eachother evoking themes of sexuality and erotisicm

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the idea of dissections represents how queer bodies (especially fem presenting people) are seen as objects. these bodies are picked apart by others and the autonomy of the body is lost, running parallels with the reality of queerness today as conservative enforcements on medication transition and social pressures on presentation harshness.

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model of wolf inspired by celtic myth of cu síthe an irish fairy dog

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rusted wolf with rusted runes

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node set up for the rusted copper texture on uni computers as my laptop couldnt handle the procedural nodes

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model of fish encased in an amber jelly like the dissection jars in the museum

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3D model of a fish skeleton

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3d model of a lungfish wrapped in its fins

i believe that this model represents a lot of the themes of the project well. the bondage-like wrapping of the fins links back to the ideas of eroticism and fetishisation

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3D model of a dissected mouse

i am particularly pleased with this model!!! i am happy with the level of detail i was able to achieve in the model, showing major improvements from even unit 9.

what i am most happy with is the texture, reminiscent of the pale, yellow skin in the containment jars in museums. i believe this is successful

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during this project, i applied for the AR open call run through BA Illustration and was accepted.

my initial 3D models which i cut from my unit 10 final outcomes still remain valuable in a separate context. while upon reflection they didn't fit with my unit 10, i saw potential to further develop them outside in this AR open call, exploring celtic mythology in a 3D digital environment

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3D model of a take on the see angel.

i decided to cut this one from the final outcome. despite alot of the images being somewhat gory, they all retain a softness or mythologic runic feel. while i believe it does have some properties feeling magical, overall the aesthestics of this model as too harsh and loud, which would contrast in a poor way to every other model.

as they would all be displayed in a cohesive diagram book, all of the renders should feel like they exist in the same world

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another sea angel render that was cut

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3D of a spine i created for the wolf head

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alternate view of spine

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wolf head, to be displayed as a counterpart to the full cu síthe model, showing its dissection

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celtic dara model from when the project was still heavily inspired by celtic mythology

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alternate rusted copper model using a procedural texture i created

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3D model of a sword

upon feedback i was made away of the almost runic archaic feel to some of the renders, i leant into this with the designs of swords and monsters. pulling inspiration from celtic and medieval mythologies and art.

there was something very exciting about bringing them into 3D

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3D models of a series of runes

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jesse kanda interview for dazed 100 -

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"I'm more interested in what's perceived to be repulsive when there really is no reason for it," says video artist Jesse Kanda. "The inside of our body is much more beautiful than the skin that coats it, yet we're afraid of it. When you see blood or organs, you sense pain and danger."

For Kanda, the boundaries between interior and exterior worlds are to be viciously torn apart. In fact, it's this unflinching approach towards the nightmarish that saw him film the inside of Björk's mouth for her 2015 track " Mouth Mantra", and capture close-ups of his own genitals for Arca's trippy, synth-infused " Front Load ", one of many collaborations with his close friend and fellow Dazed 100 star.

Far from giving the viewer an easy ride, Kanda's chief aim is to elicit a visceral response to his work. "Part of my goal is to present 'disgusting' things as something beautiful," he says. "To question what is OK to call disgusting or ugly. It's confrontation on a personal level."

Trained in 3D design and animation, the Japanese-born, Canadian-raised artist pairs perfectly with musicians whose fearlessness matches his own. As well as complementing the layered electronic productions of Arca, Kanda helped define FKA twigs' early releases such as " How's That" and " Water Me", with his Grammy-nominated cover art for LP1 depicting a surreal close-up of twigs' face looking dazed, bruised and obscured.

Kanda's art may be creepy, but his otherworldly, freaky aesthetic and anything-goes approach is proving hard to resist.
Text Monique Todd

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Mutant babies and the inside of Björk's mouth - Jesse Kanda is the video artist making us fall in love with the beautifully repulsive

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agnes questionmark - draco piscis

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nan goldin (2019-2021) memory lost

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agnes questionmark - CHM13hTERT

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agnes questionmark is a transgender italian performance / installation / sculpture artist as well as a camberwell graduate. agnes creates work questioning identity urging audiences to reflect on their own selves and bodies. i really resonate with the use of colour and transculent materials agnes incorporates and the marine aesthestic represent the ideas of queerness extremeley well, as lots of deep sea creature can almost look alien to us.

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created by alli coates and signe pierce, american reflexxx is a harsh reminder of the reality for trans people. signe pierce walks around busy streets in an american city with a reflective mask on. despite not being trans herself, the general public assumed signe is transgender and begin taunting her. this insults elevate into harassment and aggression. signe continues to dance and ignore the outlookers. eventually a mob begins to form of people, all taunting. this climaxes when pierce is physically assaulted in the street and knocked out.

neither coates or pierce set out to make the work centering trans experience, as neither as transgender. however, the removal of signe face cause the public to masculinise, demonise and perverse pierce, due to the assumption of her gender.

although not an easy watch, its important for discussion on gender perception and how mob mentality fuels hate and disgust for the things we don't yet understand

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addition of the tongue, ultimately i felt this was to much and i was unhappy with the composition which spurred me to create the updated wolf model

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agnes questionmark (2023) CHM13hTERT

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elaborate celtic typography artist unknown

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image of a lungfish i saw, i took inspiration from the form and shape of the creature.

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final prints

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rune print, this didn't turn out amazing as the contrast wasnt enough. ultimately i didn't feel they added alot to the book on there own so decided to cut them from the final

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test of the magic spiral drawing

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the top is a spiral drawing i had done, it acts as almost a magic symbol in the context of the book. possibly one of my favourite prints and the cyanotypes faded into a really nice gradient

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variation of a printing in a much lighter colour, gives contrast to other pages

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this is the same wolf dissected, show the animals loss of autonomy, a body to be picked apart and examined by others

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this print was created by using one of the resin casts and shining the UV light over it, creating really beautiful refractions of light

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fish dissection diagrams continuing with the marine theming

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dissection of the mouse adorned in a leaf engraving

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sword with a spiral engraving

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make shift printing rig

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failed overexposed prints

i also came to the conclusion that the canvas was not a suitable medium for cyanotype in this scenario. it absorbed larger amounts of the liquid in non uniform ways leaving splotchy patches in the prints. i could also never seem to get the exposure times right on them

i experimented with cotton printing and this was a massive success. the cotton was very easy to print on and gave the crispest result out of any medium.

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testing on sunlight

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addition of sword

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extremely overexposed print

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failed canvas prints

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this was an exposed cotton print before washing out the dye. post unit 10 i would like to experiment with toning cyanotypes to this sepia colour

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initially coming from unit 9 i wanted to further continue with the themes of celtic and irish culture. upon feedback my main efforts in the transition from unit 9 to 10 was expanding my research to strengthen my practical enquiries. a main focus of improvement from unit 9 to 10 i wanted to focus on was contextualising my ideas and communicating them to audiences more thoroughly. i aim to fully realise these ideas in unit 10 with a more refined focus and polish in the IPS.

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upon unit 9 evaluations time management was something i want to improve about in unit 10. although i was consistent with producing work everyday, i placed to much effort into experimentations rather than my realisation of the final outcome. i aim to have a more balanced experimentation process and realisation process in unit 10

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although initially i planning on directly expanding my unit 9 works, i decided to take a different path of reference for unit 10. however symbolism of creatures and softness carry through. in some regards i would consider them sister projects and i believe without the research and development of unit 9, my work in unit 10 would not have been as fully realised.

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artist unknown

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first resin attempt used red ink and pea dipped string to resemble guts

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tattoo paper experimentations, in efforts to relate the imagery to the sexual aspect of the project, i created temporary tattoo to place on the skin. although a fun experimentation, i didn't believe it to be relevant to the practice so focuses time on developing the cyanotypes

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artist unknown

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still from film where i overlay myself into the coral

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testing the acetate on different backgrounds

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initial sketches of 3d model ideas with notes

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fish with fin rot, i felt horrible for its conditions

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i created digital mockups of the prints to estimate how they would look after exposure. this gave me foresight to edit for better outcomes

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as part of my primary research for this project, i visited the horniman's aquarium, due to my interest in relating marine life to queer bodies. while there i recorded some footage to splice into a quick montage as a way to kickstart inspiration for the project. in my editing experimentations while using the tint effect i created this cyanotype-like effect. i found this to be really effective in conveying melancholy emotions. this laid as the foundation for both the visual development of sea angels and fish as well as the cyanotype printing,

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unit 9 3d printing i reflected on for unit 10

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digital print mockup

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digital print mockup

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this was the very first model i created for the project

although i ended up cutting it for the cu síthe model as i felt it encompassed the latter aesthestics of the project, this model represents the early stages of the visuals and shows how they developed throughout

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rumfitt a (2021) tell me i'm worthless

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torrey p (2021) detransition baby

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alli coats = signe pierce (2015) american reflexxx

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danielle brathwaithe shirley (2021) she keeps me damn alive

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lord a (1978) uses of the erotic: the erotic as power

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madonna (1992) erotica

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ideas culminated into the symbol of a sea angel.

the sea angel are a group of sea slugs found mostly in artic waters.

as their name suggests they possess an angel-like appearance. however, they also have sprawling tentacles used to hunt sea butterflies, their prey.

i felt like this serves as a really good symbol for the project.

the amorphous form of the creature resonates with the view of queer people existing outside of a cishet binary.

their translucent bodies reveal their organs inside of there ethereal white yellow and blue skin.

they could be viewed as both grotesque or beautiful depending on the viewer, much like queerness!

learning from unit 9, i did not want to overdevelop symbolism for it to be lost in the final realisation of the project.

i was very wary of focusing heavily on symbolism again as i felt it hindered me last project. this time i developed the ideas of the sea angel to a point while also focusing on the realisation of my final outcome, the book

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BBC One - Planet Earth III, Series 1, Coasts, The devilish side of the sea angel

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Extraordinary newcomers appear from the depths into nutrient rich glacial meltwater.

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Planet Earth 3 - BBC One - 2023

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BBC One - Planet Earth III, Series 1, Coasts, The devilish side of the sea angel

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Extraordinary newcomers appear from the depths into nutrient rich glacial meltwater.

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this project i really wanted to further my skills in 3D modelling and design. after graduation, i would like to work in a role in with some relation to using a 3D software such as blender or C4D.

therefore, it is vital that throughout unit 10 i develop my skills adequately to a more professional standard.

i feel as if i have been moderately successful in this. i can definitely see a major improvement in my skill level in the software, particularly 3D modelling and texturing.

however, there is still a ways to go before my skills are industry-ready, improvement in topology, using software such as substance painter or after effects is still new to me as well as mastering UVs and procedural nodes.