1. JUNE 2000

Thank you for your PhD project proposal which I found very interesting and well worth developing. If it is of any help and reassurance, we have recently had an application from a potential student in Seoul, Soon-Sun. She proposed a very broad subject - a study of the way in which school children perceive information on screen in multimedia educational packages. The subject is very popular at the moment, and three PhD students in the UK are nearly completing similar subjects. A PhD thesis subject must have, at its heart, a unique proposition, to bring into the world something which has not existed.

This is, of course, a concept which is difficult to achieve, but when I met Soon Sun it was clear, from her own illustrations, she was interested in myth and illustration. She wanted to study with me in the UK - so some component, perhaps a cultural comparison UK/Korea, would be a useful focus. She did not quite realise, as you have, that a PhD in the School of Arts & Communication at Brighton can include a substantial studio based element.

Looking through her portfolio, there was an interest in the representation of animals. So, before interview, we worked on a subject based on the representation of the Tiger in Korean myth and narrative, with a comparison of the ways the Tiger has been represented in Western culture, and particularly in the period 1750 - 1900. She will study the theme and produce over the period of study, a sequence of illustrations on the theme.

Turning to your proposal now, and I will write honestly in order to save us both time, your PhD proposal is too broad, and in various publications of the last ten years, the subject of Surrealism Then and Now is a commonplace one. The problem is compounded by your terminology which makes the concept even more ambiguous and superficial. The word ÒatmosphereÓ is too loose, allowing a vague and impressionistic analysis of the subject. From the central readings of the Surrealist Movement (manifestos, Breton, Dali, Soupault etc) Surrealism as experienced in the 1920Õs promoted a liberation of the spirit. The problem, that intensified in the thirties and beyond was that the various proclamations and theoretical texts tried but could not establish an agreement on what images should be generated - from the automatic markmaking of Masson to the closely focussed trompe lÕoeil paintings of Salvador Dali. Some artists such as Max Ernst were active is a wide spectrum of stylistic modes. Many artists were active in a range of media, from traditional techniques to experimental assemblages, environments, and events. So, concluding one part of my response - I think the word ÒatmospheresÓ is one which, at the beginning of your PhD, is just too imprecise for a start of your project. I add that in your MA title the phrase Òthe Essence of PhotographyÓ is also nebulous.

So what, it is fair to ask, do we mean now by Surrealism.

We can see what on first impression looks like a ÒSurrealistÓ influence in all walks of life, but it is rare for the comparison to make much sense, often a sort of umbrella to protect the artist from rational codes of scrutiny. I note the examples you use, and ask - which Surrealism is it to which they refer - because, in my belief, there were several. I am going to suggest you find one area of subject matter to study critically and to photograph, and then take the opportunity to examine your findings in the light or your analysis of what Surrealism ( or the perception of Surrealism) contributed to an individual (or groupÕs) thinking, practice and communication to others. (see beneath) I do follow what you say about the overwhelming influence of commercial culture on the generation of images - a sort of global market place and the development of interchangeability, the image as commodity. Many PhD projects have been suggested to us here at Brighton, particularly from those who experience at first hand an Asian economy, that seek to analyse the role of the artist/creator in the nation state and the impact on its culture of the world network of information exchange. So, this is an ideal context for making and thinking. I am very impressed by the plans of work, and see that you have an admirable range of sources intended for critical scrutiny. Your plans for an exhibition and for attendance at seminars are also well thought through. But my feeling is that with a general and wide subject in the title, the thesis may be overwhelming and, as a result, become increasingly subjective... that nobody may ultimately share an agreed definition of atmosphere.

RECOMMENDATION

1. That you amend the title to include a more specific element; (see beneath)

2. That the more specific title represents if possible an element that is best treated in Taiwan and the UK;

3. That you try initially to combine these in a project proposal for application to a part-time MPhil with an opportunity to transfer to PhD;

4. That you put a representation of your work on a website if you can (send me the images and I can do it for you if thatÕs easier). I have looked in great detail at your CV and without having seen any of your work I would like to suggest a range of subjects we at Brighton would find it more appropriate to help you with

Subject one - The Empty Room; a critical study of the motives and techniques of artists and photographers who have made a particular study of the depiction of the room without human beings (house, palace, hut etc. - e.g. Van Gogh, Walker Evans, Marvin Kone, Diane Keaton, William Eggleston, etc) - to explore these ideas in the light of rooms that are a commemoration of the previous occupant, rooms that are abandoned for obscure reasons, and assess the study in the light of the Surrealist MovementÕs depiction of the same theme.

Subject two - The Empty City ; same rationale ¥ Subject three - Night Life - some aspect of the way urban features are depicted in the nighttime experience (probably too broad - but there may be a possibility. Now think through my ideas, and, if necessary, send me some of your own using the same rationale. There are many other possibilities, and I am trying to help you narrow down the subject, focus the language, while still encouraging you to continue your studio practice. I should add that if you are to remain in Taiwan for the period of the part time study and we communicate by email, an adequate standard of understanding written English is required. I find it a very convenient way of finding out what I think about studentsÕ work. But I am holding Summer Classes for all research students, perhaps in late August, which it would be useful for all non-UK resident students to attend. I am encouraging all applicants and those accepted to systematise ways in which we communicate with email and I print a version of this beneath here. I feel very enthusiastic about your application, and I hope this memorandum has helped you in developing it. Chris

2. 17.11.2000 We met on Tuesday 14th for a tutorial. We discussed how your work was received by the party from Kingston and from Penny Hudd in particular. We talked about your second supervisorÕs response.

1. Your main anxiety is about understanding English, spoken and written. You showed me intensive work with a dictionary on an article about art.

2. I understood and sympathised, and encouraged study of smaller easier texts to start.

3. That you will show and discuss one image which I will scan and send to the others.

4. You were exploring ideas about diptychs, polyptychs etc, and I welcomes this attempt at establishing clarity.

PLEASE NOTE I asked you to prepare a list of definitions of terms from a dictionary and I have still not had this. I ended by saying that I found your own work powerful and of a high standard. I remind you that this is a PhD project, your own and self-driven project. Much of what is required comes from self-discipline and self sufficiency. You must organise yourself and establish a clear and communicable working system I urge you strongly to make a work diary in which you record images and texts, what you discover, what you do and where you think you are going. I will repeat this when we next meet. Chris

3. 6.12.2000 We met yesterday to discuss

your notes of the presentation to the group the previous week,

fresh thoughts on your thesis subject.

1. I advised you on memorising the substance of the questions by remembering where individual people sat and thus, what questions they asked. e.g. reading photographs from left to right, balance of dark and light. That you could ask them to write up key words on the board that you transcribe at the end of the session.

2. I asked you to research the words you were using when you described your work.

That the word ÒgridÓ is misleading.

You are more interested in constructing photographic structures in the single horizontal line of diptych, triptych, polyptych. On this basis we will continue discussion and making.

4. 16.01. 2000 We met for a tutorial today.

You sent me an email with suggestions for the tutorial and as agreed we began today by looking at the seven images in your 1997 sequence of self portraits.

1. We noticed that the sequence was from the individual self portraits (1 and 2) to the more public contexts, culminating in 7 with pylons and a dark cloth over the head.

2. That the figure was stiff and allowed little sense of the gestural - arms, legs, turn of the body.

3. You felt that you would best progress by taking the concept of the two conjoined photographs exploring self portraiture. That you might explore the gestural and the public.

4. We talked about your working method. The student group had talked through your need to make clearer your categories. While I agreed with this (Òchance favours the prepared mindÓ) we reflected on your working methods and saw that on several important occasions you were only really clear at the end of the image making of exactly what you had been trying to achieve. That creative work might be a constructive weaving of the intuitional and the organisational.

5. I said you might very well select particular themes in advance of work, anticipating that they might inform the photographic work.

6. You said that in retrospect the self portrait sequence now adopted a greater political resonance - the political situation inside Taiwan - your feelings of national identity - the visual implications of technology and economic system.

7. We agreed that we would arrange a meeting in about a month (giving you a target to aim at) - when you could show some work shot during that period. Photography using Brighton and/or London might be worth thinking about. I said I was interested in how a Taiwanese person felt about Chinatown and the camp/kitsch version of the Oriental. This might be worth exploring further.

I said that I was pleased your spoken English was improving. You were also exploring taking formal English classes.

5. 31 . 01. 2000 You had spent a day going to Chinatown in London and brought the work in for me to see.

1. That the relationship between naming and mapping was interesting. Was a concept invented by a minority to protect themselves - a secret - or was it invented as an marketing proposition - a faking of tradition. We discussed the city divided into clear zones inhabited by specific ethnic minorities - Huguenot weavers, Jews, Bangladeshi people. The contemporary concern about refugees versus the picturesque figures of glitter and glamour. I mentioned Edward Said, Orientalism. And the invention of The PloughmanÕs lunch. I mentioned Chinoiserie and a diluted third hand version of Chinese culture. I asked you to think about Chinatown as an urban phenomenon, and as a space in the mind.

2. We reflected on your methods of work, and I encouraged you to organise as much as you could before the shoot but to pursue intuitions and back hunches. That you do take photographs and then discover after the particular significance for you - e.g. the political layers of the self-portraits.

3. The images you showed me explored a compressed and uneasy atmosphere in Chinatown. I mentioned that they reminded me of HogarthÕs sequences of prints where the sky is only briefly glimpsed before the walls press in on the characters. I suggested that you make a series of graded spectrums where you plot the passage from one mood to the other e.g. frantic to calm, and tense to relaxed. In this way you can develop a wider range of words to describe the effects you have recorded - ominous, uneasy, nervous etc Look at your copy of RogetÕs Thesaurus and check with me. We talked about the relationship of black and white photography to memory - I mentioned Walker EvansÕ work in the Thirties (b and w) and his work for FORTUNE in colour. I mentioned his photo essay The Pitch Direct which I have in room 254 on slide.

4. There were interesting correspondences within the photographs - poster faces looking at each other, and an interesting Point of View throughout - looking down at the walls and pavements without bending the knees. I talked about film and POV - Rear Window was viewed later. Thanks for bringing the work in - it showed great promise. Next week we will look at Narrative, and the reading of pictures in group session.

6 We had a brief meeting to explore planning of your work when you returned for a six month stay in Taiwan. You described for me and the group the proposition of the two panels with self portait and two buildings. The location work in Chinatown and the possibility of working in Taiwan sooon made sense. You will explore new possibilites of gestures and poses in your self portraiture. You mentioned the role of dreams in your work, almost casually. I urged you to be more systematic in recording the subject matter and the incidence of various themes - that you dream of Taiwan when in the UK and not when there.

I will read the group through ideas of the Uncanny next week in the context of The Shining. Before you leave we will set up a means of constant communication over email.

7.02 10 2001 You returned to the group and talked about intervening work. You described the impact of being a father for the first time, and images taken in Taiwan along the thematic lines e had decided e.g. the ÒPavilionÓ. You showed some contact strips of work. We discussed your images - the lighting of the face, the contrast of the background, the project of split landscapes and self portraits.

1. I think you need to be much more systematic about the codification of visual possibilities even though you may never use them. A good example is the language of gesture you are content to leave generalised. I mentioned the language of arrangements of fingers in a gesture, from renaissance preaching to the language of the erotic greeting. Similarly, the expression on the face, the turn of the face, are a set of possibilities to be explored both with the camera and in the library.

2. You need to plan more what you are going to say, putting yourself in the mind of people who have not seen your work before. e.g. you are happy to display the work but need to draw attention to the status of the images you showing. It is possible to think your work was in a state of chaos, that you were happy with contact strips of variable quality, that a photostat was a fixed image.

3. This all converges on your spoken English which has deteriorated while you are away to the point that you have to think twice about the simplest sentences. You need to remedy this as quickly as possible for your ability to communicate with the group. As I say above, this is not entirely a matter of language but also of your imaginative projection into the mind of the person who is looking at your work. You are too content to arrive and hope for the best. You must prepare more - even to the extent of reading from a prepared text. I would like to see a plan of how you intend to proceed and improve your communications.

As part of this I recommend a diary with substantial sections in English.

As another exercise I recommend more reading of appropriate texts. Since you have been away I have been collecting books exploring the relationship between the UK and China. I will get some stats to you, re cultural interchange and Chinoiserie, imperialism, heritage etc.

8.18.10.2001 I sent you a long critique trying to consolidate your work and how you describe it having returned from Taiwan.

1. I recommended you get a dictionary that is an improvement on the little computer dictionary, and have found you a single volume that might have the word, ÒthematicÓ.

2. I copied an article by Victor Burgin, the base for future discussions. Although I am happy to do this, the complexity of the prose style and indeed the rather old fashioned nature of the ideas do not make it ideal. To improve your understanding and clarity of speech, we may eventually chose a more direct text on photography, perhaps one connected with surrealism and portraiture. I attach here a reference list sent to Yung Hsien on the subject of Heads.

3. You prefer tutorials one to one and I will set up these on the Wednesdays when I am teaching the MA course. Nevertheless I want you to contribute to group discussion and thus improving your spoken English.

4. I advise you to arrange a Thesis Outline Approval meeting in January when you are back to speed with spoken English. I advise you to prepare written statements and emphasise the showing of the work, in a room you will have booked.

5. I have advised you keep a systematic diary of the development of your project to make the written element appropriate and detailed enough. `I emphasised again that a PhD award cannot be achieved just by inspirational imagery but must be underpinned by personal and philosophical critical writing.

6. That the variations of gesture you seek to experiment with need codifying. It is worth establishing a catalogue of available possibilities, and then pushing it to the back of your mind when on location. ÒChance favours the prepared mind.Ó I think you still have a conservative idea of the relationship of research to work. Sometimes the exact relationship can be kept distant or even mysterious. Recent photographic work has been excellent. I am trying to establish clear structures of work and thought now rather than later.

9.27.10.2001 I believed you had chosen too complex a ÔreaderÕ and undertook to make suggestions what we could jointly read for tutorials. I have made this list with reading in mind, but also applicability to your own project. Initially I think we should read and discuss shorter articles as you build confidence.

Alfred Doblin, About Faces, Portraits and their Reality, Introduction to August Sander, Anlitz der Zeit, 1929 from D.Mellor, Germany The New Photography 1927 -33, Arts Council London 1978 (photocopy provided) then

1. John MacKenzie, Orientalism History, theory and the arts,Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995

2. Edward Said, Orientalism, Western Conception of the Orient, Penguin London 1978

3. Ching and Oxtoby, Discovering China, European Interpretations in the Enlightenment, University of Rochester Press, Rochester 1992

4. Walter Benjamin, article to be decided.

9.Nov 1st 2001 You sent me a list of questions before the tutorial. This was very effective.

1. That the Burgin was just too difficult as a study text at the moment and that I had given you the German text on portraiture. I suggested other texts such as the boy who could suddenly see after an operation, and personal accounts in diaries.

2. You have determined to keep a diary, and that the visual components of the diary will be important. You are thinking of taking a sort of sketchbook camera around with you to help in this.

3. Hence your written sections that you were going to reflect on your childhood experiences and your memories. That much of the project could centre on memory, photography and nostalgia (to include the fake or feigned memory). I showed you the website sections listing my books on memory, and a lecture I once gave on memory.

4. You showed me a range of imagery of the right hand sides of potential future images with buildings in Taiwan. You showed me a family portrait project.

5. We talked of the concept of Melancholy. We agreed that this was a useful theme for you to explore. I have the following books. E.P.Vicari, The View from MinervaÕs Tower, Learning and Imagination in [Robert BurtonÕs] The Anatomie of Melancholy, Univ of Toronto Press Toronto 1989

Guinn Batten, The Orphaned Imagination Melancholy and Commodity Culture in English Romanticism, Duke Univ.Press Durham 1998

Wolf Lelpenies, Melancholy and Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London 1992. trans Gaines and Jones. The key is Robert BurtonÕs The Anatomie of Melancholy, but I have a handlist of self-portraits in the melancholic Mode.

Keep this thought going and I will add further details for you. Barbara Loftus will talk to the group next week on Memory and History.

10.1 influence of Chinese art, applied particularly to the more fanciful and extravagant manifestations.

from an encyclopaedia on the WWW - not much recommended Intimations of Eastern art reached Europe in the Middle Ages in the porcelains brought by returning travelers. Eastern trade was maintained during the intervening centuries, and the East India trading companies of the 17th and 18th cent. imported Chinese lacquers and porcelains. Dutch ceramics quickly showed the influence of Chinese blue-and-white porcelains. In the middle of the 18th cent. the enthusiasm for Chinese objects affected practically every decorative art applied to interiors, furniture, tapestries, and bibelots and supplied artisans with fanciful motifs of scenery, human figures, pagodas, intricate lattices, and exotic birds and flowers.

In France the Louis XV style gave especial opportunities to chinoiserie, as it blended well with the established rococo. Whole rooms, such as those at Chantilly, were painted with compositions in chinoiserie, and Watteau and other artists brought consummate craftsmanship to the style. Thomas Chippendale, the chief exponent in England, produced a unique and decorative type of furniture. The craze early reached the American colonies. Chinese objects, particularly fine wallpapers, played an important role in the adornment of rooms, and especially in Philadelphia the style had a pronounced effect upon design. See study by H. Honour (1961).

2 poem Chinoiserie After Theophile Gautier (1811-1872)

It is not you, madame, whom I love,

Nor you, Ophelia, nor you, Juliette,

Nor even you, Laura, with ash-blonde hair

And large soft eyes, gentle as a dove's.

The one I love just now is in China.

She dwells with her aged parents far

Away in a blue porcelain tower,

By the river where the cormorants are.

Her almond eyes accent her beauty.

Her foot is small enough to hold in your hand.

Her skin reflects the copper of the lamps,

And her tapered nails are carmine red.

Her face looks out from her lattice screen.

Touched by the swallow as it flies each

Evening, she writes her verses, and like a poet,

She sings of the willow and flowering peach.

© Alice Park 1993

Published in Blue Unicorn Vol. XVI, Number 3, June 1993

11. 28.11.2001 We met for a tutorial this afternoon and you showed me six sets of divided pictures. As always I was impressed by the imagery and the thought behind it. But I still have to interrogate you to discover intention and process. I lent you SchamaÕs book Landscape and Memory. We discussed selection of images and composition.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. That you make clear lists of the rules of the game, e.g. a divided landscape, Taiwan on the right, UK on the left. Self portraiture , etc etc

2. That despite a clear system you are still being surprised by the narrative elements generated when the images come together with the self portrait.

3. that my reference list had helped you to define key words and concepts - Exile and Memory.

4. I need you to write clearly to me your future plans. I keep discovering things rather than being told in advance. The root cause of problems lies in your absence of written notes about what you do and what you intend to do. We have agreed you will work in a sort of visual diary. This means you must also at times write sentences, or at least phrases where you are mapping activity. It must not solely be in your own memory and intuitions. If you donÕt explain vital material in advance of my questions, I always have a suspicion that there is much more I need to work at before I achieve understanding.

5. We talked about how much of the content and intention you wish to reveal. You intend a system of captions. We need to look closely at how much is available to the viewer, and keep it constantly under review. The spectrum from total availability to utter obscurity. You automatically gravitate to the latter but need to keep your supervisor informed well in advance. For instance 48 before the tutorial, you should have detailed exactly what you were going to bring - hat you intend to talk about, and what you want out of the tutorial.

12. 11 12 2001 I had brought in some Hogarth material for you but forgot to tell you I had. You had sent me an agenda for the tutorial, and the description of the project for Thesis Outline Approval was getting clearer and almost ready for submission. I explained that the concept ÔmelancholiaÕ was not passive and inert but a deliberate identification of a creative state with recognisable gestures and iconography. e.g. Munch, self portraits by Fuseli and Flaxman. I recommended you list it as a possibility in the form. You were using the word Nostalgia, and I drew to your attention the warm and unthreatening associations for the English speaker. We discussed Homesickness as a better word, and again I recommended you use a dictionary and thesaurus to ensure we share understanding. I recommend you include some key words at the beginning of your form. We reflected on the particular attitudes of feeling isolated but contemplating it while being bound around by the coast of an island (UK and Taiwan). Generally we agreed how far you had come in defining the constituent elements of your thesis. Combined with a thorough collation of texts on exile, together with a critical scrutiny of the formal possibilities of the diptych form, would be a useful preparation for the Meeting.

13 GROUP PRESENTATION

05 03 2002 re group presentation

You had prepared a room for the exhibition of your work - a small room into which the viewer stands and shuts the door, looking at the work with a red torch. There were caption attached to the wall and the group, having listened to your verbal presentation in the period 10.00 - to 12.00, filed in one by one. I began the day tracing the factors that made people nervous to present their work - the possible ways of helping the understanding of the work, the need to be precise in terminology.

session 01 - that the photographs were on the theme of exile and memory. You told three stories as evidence of exile - your own experiences (house place to work place) , your fatherÕs experiences exile from mainland China (from mainland to island - split families) , and your travels (capital to capital, island to island). The prevailing mood of the work is sad, reflective, melancholic, and with a sense of loss. I asked you to explain one or two issues then we viewed the work.

QUESTIONS

1. display image and text - the role and placing of captions - the possibilities of the scale from no captions, through to distant captions, near captions, exhibition handouts, catalogues, text on walls to be discovered.

2. meaning to judge how much information you want to release - being precise rather than woolly.

3. the compositional aspects the split landscape

4. alternative strategies back projection use of sound computer manipulation of images - possibilities to de-saturate - move layers around - that computer space wasnÕt real. colour photography versus black and white

5. meaning and variants - EXILE - that you were happy not to tell viewers the summary of your three narratives, Exile in the dictionary - voluntary exile - exile within the self - forced exile. The case of James Joyce. The role of the family and partner. CM defends the right to be sad and melancholic.

MY CONCLUSION

1. speaking in English - take the words slowly - be sure as to the terms you want to use - perhaps a plan in a handout may help you - I may be there with a blackboard making notes for the others.

2. To be able to refer to a decision taken , not to do things, this helps define what you are doing.

3. That you explore more constructively the process of the image as mnemonic - that an image causes you to remember something

4. That photography is a medium for communicating Reality - several of the group were surprised of your choice of words here - that the event really happened - be prepared to define this work more closely and its implications.