Drake also draws on Uyghur storytelling, music and literature, especially an allegory called Wild Pigeon, to infuse her work with cultural meaning. The final images are neither purely documentary nor purely fantasy—they form a shared world between artist and community.

In Wild Pigeon, Drake builds a world where landscape, identity, history and transformation coexist. It’s a strong example of “creating world”—not just capturing what is, but co-creating what could be.

• Creating worlds through optical photographic means  

• Creating worlds in the gully 

• Construction of virtual worlds 

• Creating worlds through temporality 

• Ideas rendered in medium of reality 

• Reality rendered as an idea 

• Uncanny (valley) 

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Film Loading

• White/Silver side → Unexposed film, faces the lens.

• Black side → Exposed film, faces out after shooting.

-------------Never!!!! Pull out the films at any time-----------

Step-by-Step Shooting Workflow

1. Mount the camera on a tripod, level it.

2. Attach the lens board and open the shutter for composing.

3. Use a dark cloth to view and compose on ground glass.

4. Adjust tilt/swing/rise/fall as needed.

5. Focus precisely with a magnifying loupe.

6. Close the shutter.

7. Meter the light → set aperture and shutter speed.

8. Insert film holder (white side out).

9. Remove dark slide.

10. Expose.

11. Re-insert dark slide (black side out).

💡 Mount lens and open the shutter to T or Open.

Drape dark cloth and compose on the ground glass.

Large format photography allows independent front and rear movements.
Each movement changes focus plane, perspective, or composition.

Useful for keeping both foreground and background in focus, or for creating selective “miniature” blur.

Used for side-to-side focus or creative distortion.

Also useful for reframing without changing camera angle.

Adjusts horizontal framing; useful for panoramas or avoiding unwanted objects.

上课 实践：large format on location

我们组遇到的问题：实操相机 聚焦、胶片不小心抽出（导致直接曝光）、胶片拍反（导致n重曝光）。

• The selfie? 

• Camera as confessor 

• Re-fetishisation/palatability 

• Agency and ownership 

• Negotiation of power in image making 

• Camera as therapist 

• Male/Female gaze 

• Body politics 

• Identity politics 

--------------------------------------------------------------

• gazing (looking directly)

I am interested in exploring how a single moment can contain multiple layers of movement and emotion. Instead of showing time as a single long exposure, I plan to photograph the same person in different positions within the same frame, performing various gestures or expressions.

This idea visualises how time fragments can coexist, how one body can represent several moments, thoughts, or identities at once. Through this process, I want to create a world where time, movement and identity overlap, echoing Sugimoto’s idea that temporality itself can construct new realities.

In his Theatres series, he exposes film for the whole duration of a movie, so the screen becomes pure white light. This shows something we can never see: time made visible, people erased, reality transformed.

Time itself becomes the artist, and photography becomes a way to create worlds beyond human sight.

For me, this is where 'creating world' begins: in those fragile, in-between moments when reality feels like a dream.

But when I see them next to rainbows and dreams, they start to look empty, like reflections of something we keep chasing but never reach.

For me, this tension between what shines and what feels true is where Graham’s world and my own begin to unfold.

In this series, the rainbow represents a dream world, the sleeping woman stands for an imagined or inner world, and the gold stores symbolise the real, material world.
As I move through these images, my feelings constantly shift between dream, imagination and reality, just like the transitions we experience in everyday life.
That sense of drifting between worlds is, to me, the world Graham creates.

What also inspires me deeply is the way he uses the exhibition space to strengthen these ideas.
He places the rainbow photographs high on the wall, symbolising fantasy and lightness; the gold stores low down, symbolising reality and weight; and the sleeping woman in between, linking both states.

This arrangement made me think about how I could apply a similar method in my own work, to let viewers physically move and emotionally travel between different worlds as they walk through my photographs.

In addition, I wanna try some new technical methods that I didn't try before, so collage is the one I want to do.

To make this image, I started with a passport-style portrait of myself as the base. Then I digitally collaged together different materials that represent parts of my identity. The main layer on my face is made up of scans from my passport and visa page, as well as a timetable that includes my name. These elements symbolise the official and bureaucratic ways that identity is defined and controlled. On the right side of my face, I added a fragment from a childhood photograph, which represents my past self – the innocent and more emotional version of who I used to be. By combining these different fragments, I wanted to create a sense of tension between memory and documentation, between who I was and who I am supposed to be.

This process reflects the tension between authenticity and mediation, questioning whether 'the real self' can still exist when a system has already produced every version of us. The work also connects to the idea of the camera as confessor, as the act of photographing becomes a process of self-reflection and emotional honesty.

I used digital collage to simulate a selection interface, arranging each photo with slightly different tones to distinguish the sources: cooler tones for external perspectives and warmer tones for the authentic self. In this sense, authenticity here is not simply the absence of filters, but an active decision to reclaim agency over my own image — to say, this is the version of myself I choose to be.

For example, if two people photograph the same scene: one with a digital camera and one with a large-format camera, the results will be completely different. The difference comes not only from the machines’ technical settings but also from the photographers’ ideas and framing choices. This shows that photography doesn’t mirror the world; it communicates information about how the world is interpreted. The photograph carries a set of meanings, codes, and viewpoints, rather than simply recording what is there.

Combing this saying with the projects that we did so far...

In the Creating Worlds project, we used the large-format camera to explore how photography can construct meaning rather than record it. By adjusting the rise and tilt, we changed the perspective and depth to highlight these relationships. This process reflects Flusser’s idea perfectly; we weren’t reflecting the real world, but programming a visual message. The final image becomes an information carrier that questions how globalisation and human desire are visually encoded.

As we discussed in our Body & Identity project, many of us employed post-production techniques to reshape how the body is perceived. The lighting, framing, and colour treatment transformed the body into a symbolic surface of identity and emotion. The photograph does not show the body as it 'is', but as it means: expressing tension, vulnerability, or resistance.

In both projects, photography becomes a means of creating meaning rather than merely mirroring the world. Just as Flusser said, the image is a programmed carrier of information, shaped by technology, intention, and imagination.

Through this composition, I wanted to explore the relationship between control and compassion, between the real and the imagined self. The light functions almost like a divine or psychological metaphor — it’s not religious, but it symbolises awareness, self-healing, and transformation. The image is built through digital compositing and double exposure, merging two photographs: one of my calm portrait and one of a series of motion shots where I fell backwards into light. By layering and blending them, I aimed to construct a surreal yet emotionally honest self-portrait that turns fantasy into an expression of inner growth.

This connects to the theme of Body, Identity, and Therapy, as the act of 'holding myself' becomes a metaphor for care, acceptance, and the process of becoming whole. The ideal self I imagine is not someone perfect or distant, but the version of me who has learned to face herself with strength and empathy.

Create 3 ‘self-portraits’ that deal with or respond in some way to the ideas brought up in the lecture ‘Body, Identity, Therapy’, following your own interpretation. These should consider how the skills learned in your technical workshops might help you engage in the ways in which body, identity and therapy can be explored photographically.

Image 1
Make a ‘self-portrait’ (in whatever way you want to interpret it) that presents yourself to the world in a way that feels authentic to you.

Image 2
Make a ‘self-portrait’ (in whatever way you want to interpret it) that explores a duality within yourself.

Image 3
Make a ‘self-portrait’ (in whatever way you want to interpret it)that constructs a purely fantastical or idealised version of who you are or how you wish to present yourself to the world.

For me, it demonstrates that photography can construct emotional truths rather than document facts, revealing how 'reality' can be manipulated to serve an idea or a feeling.

Part 1 -- Group work

  Create an image using the 5:4 camera that responds in some way to the ideas/concepts in the creating worlds lecture. Try and make use of the unique aspects of large format photography, such as 

• Camera movements (tilt/shift rise/fall) and the radical affects these can have on perspective and focus. 

• Resolution and detail (how much detail you can show in the image) 

• Slower production (planning every aspect of the image before you shoot) 

  
  

✅ 2 pieces of film per student

✅ one final image per group

✅ one physical print in the dark room per group

Part 2 -- Individual work

Create your own photographic response to the ideas and concepts brought up in the lecture. Produce either a: 

• Single image 

• Diptych 

• Tryptic 

✅ use whatever cameras, techniques or processes for this part of the project

This also connects to what we learned this term with the large-format camera. Compared with the Mamiya 645 and RB67 I used last year, the 5×4 camera allows me to change the plane of focus much more dramatically through movements like tilt, swing, rise and fall. I’m excited to explore these techniques in my future shoots, it feels new, technical, and surprisingly creative, and I want to see how they can reshape the worlds I photograph.

She makes us question how we see and what vision means.

In this sense, her “created world” is not made from materials or staging, but from how seeing transforms reality into perception, a purely visual act of world-building.

一种光学上的虚构（fictional world created optically）

📷 概念：

现代人身份的确认往往依赖于系统：护照、签证、学生卡、面部识别、二维码……
你可以创造一张“多重验证叠加”的肖像，让相机看起来像一个数据库在扫描你。

💭 视觉设定：

• 你的肖像在底层（清晰）；

• 上面叠加各种扫描、指纹、二维码、条形码、官方印章的半透明图层；

• 每一层都像一种“社会标签”，遮盖了真实的面孔。

🎞️ 技术实现：

• 拍摄自己清晰正面肖像；

• 收集各类文件、二维码、签证章、票据扫描件；

• 用 Photoshop 叠加，设为不同不透明度（40–70%）；

• 模仿扫描仪冷光的蓝绿色调。

🧠 概念关键词：

• Re-fetishisation（身份被美化成数字物件）

• Negotiation of power（权力通过影像认证）

• Camera as confessor（我被要求“说出真实”）

💬 作品语气：

“越被验证，我似乎越模糊。”

• 一方面，它呈现了制度化、被身份系统定义的“你”——护照、签证、姓名、学号；

• 另一方面，它显露出个人、情感、记忆中的“你”——童年的半张脸、柔和的姿态、模糊的身体。

两种“我”被拼贴、叠合、冲突在同一张图像中，构成一种身份的张力（tension of identity）。

当你在摄影展、作品标题、或策展文本里看到 “Provvisora / Provvisorio” 这样的词，它通常并不是指字面意义的“临时展览”，而是在表达一种哲学态度或摄影观念：

🔹 “Provvisora” 暗示图像的非永久性（impermanence）、
🔹 摄影作为一种暂时存在的记录（temporary record）、
🔹 或创作者对不确定、流动、未完成状态的有意识呈现。

🌫 举例理解：

1. 摄影作为暂时性的见证

   • 作品强调“此刻的存在”而非“永恒的图像”；

   • 例如展览可能探讨记忆、变化、消逝、过渡这些主题。

   • “Provvisora” 在标题中就会意味着：

     “这是关于暂时之物的影像；
     摄影只是此刻的证词，而非最终的真相。”

2. 作品本身是“未完成的”或“可变的”

   • 摄影师可能在展览中不断更换照片、拼贴、档案材料，
     让展览具有一种“持续变化 / 无法固定”的特性。

   • 这种方式拒绝“固定作者意图”，强调摄影的开放性与偶然性。

3. 心理与身份的暂时性

   • 如果你的作品（比如《Stitched Identity》）探讨“自我不断被建构与修复”，
     那“provvisora”就完全贴合：

     它表示身份是暂时的，摄影是自我在时间中一次性的证词。

背景以柔粉与白的渐变模糊展开，象征“私密、内在的心理空间”。

人物的身体半透明、叠影，暗示“流动身份”与“自我记忆的重叠”。

这使画面既具梦境感（fantasy）又具档案感（documentation）——正是身份被夹在现实与心理之间的视觉隐喻。

2️⃣ 面部拼贴结构

面部中央由护照页与签证页组成，形成一个“被制度验证”的外壳；

右脸保留了童年照片的一部分，那是“未经社会塑造的自我”；

拼贴之间的缝合边缘呈现数字化“断裂”与“过渡色带”，象征技术与身份的纠缠。

这一组合产生三层视觉逻辑：

童年记忆 → 被制度化的当下 → 数字媒介化的再现

形成时间的纵深结构，也让这张作品超越单纯的拼贴成为时间性的肖像（temporal portrait）。

3️⃣ 图像语言与色调

粉白基调：柔和、梦幻、带有心理疗愈的氛围；

面部拼贴区域：冷色、杂乱、带文字与印章，形成冷硬的现实对比；

这种冷暖冲突强化了内在的情绪二元（anxiety vs nostalgia）。

4️⃣ 下方五张引用图像

你明确展示了图像来源与构成逻辑，使作品更具透明性与方法论的清晰度。

这与“camera as confessor”概念一致——

你不仅展示结果，还展示“我是如何被构成的”。

序号 来源 视觉角色

① 课表（含姓名） 社会制度中的身份标签（学生、学业）

② 童年照片 原始、私密、自发的自我

③ 护照 官方身份认证

④ 底图肖像 当下、媒介化的外貌

⑤ 英国签证页 迁移与流动身份的象征

这些素材形成一个“身份档案的视觉档案（visual archive of identity）”，让你的拼贴不仅是视觉组合，更是一份自我档案的“再书写”。

在这个“选择人设的界面”里，我终于选了真实的我，而不是社交滤镜/标签下的我

• 社交媒体 = 像 character selection

• 身份是被“滑动 / 切换 / 筛选”的

• 真实自我永远在菜单里被隐藏

• 要“选中真实”其实需要勇气

但是没有租借广角镜头 导致拍摄的没有第一视角的感觉

所以放弃了从肩膀后面拍摄 改成了直接从胸口拍摄 完全是第一人称视角 更有互动和真实感

我不是镜子中的人、也不是被观看的角色，
我是那个在“身份界面”中点击自己的手。

这张图把数字界面、游戏选择逻辑和自我认同结合起来，
表达“真实的我”是我自己按下确认键的结果，
而不是外界给我一个角色让我扮演。

1. 父母眼中的我 —— 由他们拍摄，代表家庭视角下被期待、被定义的我；

2. 滤镜美化的我 —— 被社交媒体算法塑造的虚假、完美化形象；

3. 中间的我 —— 用手机原生相机拍摄、无滤镜、无修饰的真实我；

4. AI生成的我 —— 完全虚构、由人工智能构造的理想化他者；

5. 朋友镜头下的我 —— 外界社会关系中、在他人凝视下形成的社交身份

整个画面像一个虚拟“identity selection screen”，我用光标/框线高亮中间那张，象征我在众多版本中主动选择“真实自我”的那一刻

在今天被影像、算法和社交塑造的时代，“自我”从来不是单一的，而是被不同系统共同制造出来的——家庭、社交媒体、人工智能、朋友的镜头都在不断地定义我是谁

这张照片的核心想法是：

“我在被多重影像定义的世界中，试图主动选择属于自己的那一个版本“

这既是对自我身份的反思，也是一种自我疗愈（therapy）与重建的行为
“选择真实”本身就是一个心理上的重构动作

• Re-appropriation

• Fetish

• Magic

• Redundancy

• The Image

• Functionary

• Hallucination

• Imagination

• Photographic programme

---------------------------------------------------------------

Take an image you have made as part of Creating Worlds or Body/Identity/Therapy and using one of the key words or themes from The Apparatus lecture and the book Towards a Philosophy of Photography listed below and re-work or reimagine your original photograph into something completely new.

This could be in how it is produced and presented (think about the things you have learned from your Modes of Presentation lecture), a digital or physical intervention in the image (re-photographing or collaging), or fed into commercially available AI image generation platforms to generate a new image or video.

When I added smoke and directional lighting, the setup began to resemble a world affected by pollution or industrial damage. I wasn’t trying to make a realistic tree, I wanted to create something that looks like a new type of organism that might exist after environmental collapse.

In relation to the Creating Worlds theme, I think this image shows how photography can construct a fictional world using real materials. I’m not documenting something that exists; I’m using lighting, smoke and composition to make it look like part of a different reality.

It relates to ideas like reality rendered as an idea and the uncanny, because the object feels familiar but still artificial. So for me, this project is about using photography to imagine and build an alternative world, rather than simply observing the existing one.

My intention was to explore the theme of Hallucination from the Apparatus lecture and Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Flusser describes how the photographic apparatus produces images that appear to be 'natural' representations of the world, yet are in fact programmed abstractions. By drawing the puppet strings directly onto the photograph, I highlight how easily meaning can be projected onto an image, almost like a hallucination produced by the device and the viewer’s imagination.

The added red lines transform the light into a controlled figure, and at the same time position my own hands as both the operator and the operated. This connects to the idea of the photographer as a functionary, someone who works inside the rules and limitations of the apparatus. Although I appear to control the puppet, the photograph reveals that I am equally controlled by the system of representation, lighting, framing and post-production.

I realised that these expectations shape my sense of identity and create a constant feeling of anxiety and uncertainty. I don’t fully know whether my decisions are actually my own choices, or simply responses to cultural and family expectations about what someone 'should' be doing at a certain age.

For the interim show, I want to visualise this tension by treating the body as a site where these expectations are projected. I plan to explore how the body carries labels, deadlines, and age-based milestones, and how these pressures can feel like timelines written on the skin.

I plan to work with a digital camera in a controlled studio space at Goldsmiths. The studio environment will allow me to use lighting deliberately to create a psychological atmosphere, either harsh and clinical or soft and diffused, depending on the emotion I want to convey. I also want the space to feel neutral so that the focus remains on the body and the symbolic marks I create.

In terms of imagery, I am currently developing several ideas:

1. Age markers on the body – using tape, projected text or hand-written numbers such as “23”, “25”, “30”, to represent expected life milestones. These labels might appear on the face, arms or neck, suggesting how external timelines become internalised.

2. The body inside a “timeline structure” – creating a physical line or grid using thread, rope, or projected graphics, with my body positioned inside or against it, as if being measured, evaluated, or confined by a schedule.

3. Shadow or projection of deadlines – projecting phrases like “When are you going to…?” “Next step?” or “Deadline?” onto the body, showing how uncertainty and pressure occupy mental space.

I am also thinking about artists who visualise psychological states through the body.

Some key references include:
– Pixy Liao, for the use of relational tension and East Asian identity.

wired picture; comedy type? redicules: guaduation picture but all the stuff inside are wrong -- sin wai kin

grotesque -- ugly in pretty way

camp aesthetic -- over the top

iiu susiraja

china -- just in the process

between -- is the complicatively part

UK -- funny british photo

In these recent images, I’ve shifted towards observing how time becomes visible in external spaces, through traces, pauses, and things left behind.

Rather than photographing people, I’m interested in how environments quietly register time passing.

“Unchosen Paths" examines the ways an East Asian woman’s life is often directed long before she can choose it. Growing up, I was surrounded by the belief that every age comes with a correct task: excel as a student, become productive as an adult, then marry and start a family at the “right time”. These expectations appear caring on the surface, yet they quietly shape our identities, values and sense of worth. 

The three works reflect this progression across education, work and marriage—stages where performance, productivity and obligation gradually replace personal desire. Rather than offering literal narratives, each image distils the emotional weight of these social scripts, revealing how they guide women into roles that feel inevitable, even natural. 

After moving to the UK, I realised that life does not have to unfold according to a predetermined timeline. Being “late”, changing direction, or choosing differently should not be seen as failures. Through this project, I hope to question inherited expectations and suggest a gentler idea: that our paths can be rewritten, and that any age can be the right age to live for ourselves. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Using the three previous projects on the Apparatus, creating worlds and body/identity/therapy and existing ideas from your ongoing practice as a starting point, make a small body of work to be exhibited as part of an interim show.

This work should be an extension of the conceptual and technical developments you have made so far this term and will form the foundation of your thinking towards your degree show later this year. This is an opportunity to take risks and be experimental in your approach to your work and to what a photograph can be. Think the potential that an exhibition space can offer you and consider how framing, presentation and curation can elevate your work and take full advantage of your ideas.  

Developing from my interim work, which focused on time as an internal and emotional experience related to age and life stages, I have shifted my attention away from the body and towards public environments. Rather than asking how time feels, I am now interested in how time is registered by spaces and objects once their original function is interrupted or paused.

Using observational photography as a starting point, the project focuses on overlooked moments where functional structures appear temporarily displaced, abandoned, or waiting. These in-between states allow time to surface through stillness, residue, and delay rather than action or narrative.

Methodologically, the work moves between documentation and construction. Alongside photographing found situations, I experiment with framing, viewpoint, and colour manipulation to disrupt natural temporal cues. By removing clear markers such as seasonal colour or specific moments, the images become less tied to realism and more focused on how time can be perceived, processed, and suspended.

Through this approach, the project aims to develop a visual language for slow time, where duration is suggested through absence and interruption rather than movement or progression.

With this image, I’ve shifted my approach away from the body and towards observing how time appears in public space.

Rather than focusing on what the object is, I’m interested in its suspended state. It looks functional, but its purpose is temporarily unclear, which allows it to register time through stillness and waiting.
Method-wise, I also moved away from pure documentation. By altering the colour, I removed natural seasonal cues so the image feels less tied to a specific moment and more like a paused condition.

This shift helps me think about time as something constructed and perceived, not just emotionally felt.

Instead of using text only as information, she transforms words into a powerful visual statement that critiques social systems.

Instead of placing text separately, the words become a physical structure that the figure climbs. This transforms language into a form of pressure or control.

By manipulating scale and context, collage can transform ordinary images into symbolic narratives.

For example, the tongue is enlarged and placed above the figure to exaggerate the power of social language.

His works often present familiar elements in absurd situations to challenge social norms.

This helps the image critique social pressure while still remaining visually engaging.

In contemporary society, we constantly hear phrases such as “try harder”, “do better”, or “be successful”. These words are usually presented as encouragement. However, I started to question whether these motivational phrases might also function as a subtle form of pressure.

So the main question behind this work is:
Why do people become so obedient to social expectations, and how do these expectations shape the way we behave and see ourselves?

In the image, a large tongue appears at the top of the composition. This represents social voices or authority that constantly produce motivational discourse.

The phrase “TRY HARDER” flows out of the tongue and becomes a rope-like structure.

A small figure climbs this phrase, suggesting how individuals internalise these social commands and continuously strive to meet expectations.

At the top is the tongue as the source of social language.

In the middle, the phrase “TRY HARDER” becomes a physical structure.

At the bottom, there are reaching hands which represent collective pressure and competition.

The figure is suspended between moving upward and falling downward. This creates a tension between aspiration and social pressure.

I photographed the different elements separately and then used Photoshop to cut and combine them into a surreal composition.

This collage approach allows me to exaggerate scale and construct a scene that would not be possible in reality.

By transforming words into a physical structure, the image visualises how individuals internalise social expectations and continue striving within these invisible systems of pressure.

ANS

I chose this phrase because it is a very common motivational phrase in education and work environments, but it can also create pressure by implying that we are never doing enough.

The images focused on the relationship between the body and social pressure. I used visual metaphors to show how individuals can feel constrained or influenced by external expectations.

Through these works, I started thinking about how people often try to adjust themselves in order to fit social norms and ideals.

Why do people feel the need to improve themselves or meet certain standards constantly?

This led me to question the role of social language and motivational discourse in shaping behaviour.

Instead of showing pressure physically on the body, I wanted to visualise how words themselves can become a form of power.

In the image, the phrase “TRY HARDER” becomes a structure that the figure climbs, suggesting how individuals internalise social expectations and continue striving to meet them.

This shift helped me move from representing pressure visually to questioning the systems that produce this pressure.