Interesting Idea

I was sat on Facebook and happened to come across a post by one of my friends about artwork. The idea was to spread the joy of painting through facebook by posting an old image of your choice, I can't remember the image he chose to post but after seeing it I tried to think of old paintings that I like and I could not stop thinking about the 1964 painting 'The Son Of Man' by Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte.

I never knew the reasoning behind the painting, why does the guy have an apple over his face? I don't know, but it's this unknowing that has always interested me. Magritte stated: "My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean?' It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable." 

The man in the painting is smartly dressed, he might be a business man, he's stood in front of a small wall with the sea behind him. His arms are stern in place and his back straight, this suggests he's well postured ans therefore assumptions are made to his education and upbringing being high end. 

Magritte quoted: At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.

From this quote I gathered that we're always reaching out for more even in the simplest term of trying to see what is behind the view we are currently looking at. 

This painting has been interpreted in many different ways by lots of different people such as Norman Rockwell's playful homage to Magritte's painting as an oil painting entitled 'Mr. Apple' in which a man's head is replaced by a red apple rather than hidden by the green on in 'The Son Of Man'. Another differently interpreted version was the performance by Danny O'Donoghue in the semi-final of the UK talent show 'The Voice' in 2012 when he reenacted the scene depicted in the painting, wearing the distinctive hat and clothing, with a model of the apple suspended in front of his face. 

I had the idea of asking strangers if I could take a photo of them standing in the same position as the man in the painting, I would then ask them the question 'What objects do you feel have the most germs on them? Or 'What objects pose the biggest threat to germ contamination to you?' I would have already explained my project so the questions wouldn't seem random. I would them photograph that object for example if someone picked a door handle in a home, I'd go home and photograph my door handle. I'm then going to overlap the object over the person's face. The whole idea is to show how people with a fear of germs hide away or in cases of OCD, it's always on their mind and contamination thoughts are part of that persons life to the extent that they're no longer seen with a personality other than OCD. The objects over the face symbolise not being able to see something further than what you're looking at according to Magritte, so my photos would suggest the things I've mentioned above as well as someone with OCD can't see past the germs themselves they;re always there no matter how much cleaning or running away they do. I would like to do this series with OCD sufferers but since I have non available to photograph I'll have to use members of the public and either hope that I come across someone with OCD or use the members of the public as 'step in's' for the OCD sufferers yet gather the answers from OCD sufferers so that objects I use to overlap the faces of the public will be the true answers that a person suffering from OCD would say. 

Before going to Manchester City center to take this short project to the busy streets I'll quickly go outside onto campus and ask someone if I can photograph them, I will then ask them the question and create my image, after this I wil decide whether or not the project is worth taking further.

I went outside and there was only a couple of people around so I approached the nearest one and he agreed to let me photograph him. I then asked him, in a slightly unprofessional manner 'What objects do you find the grossest to touch, like what do you think has germs on it?', even though I phrased it in an unprofessional way he understood the question and answered with 'light switches'. I came back inside and got a image of a light switch off google and created the image.

Despite the poor lighting conditions and the rushed attempt I actually really like this photo. The blank stare from the light switch creates a creepy vibe, that might be because the light switch itself looks almost human but not as opposed to the fact that it's just an object over his face. I can appreciate the sense of unknown in this photograph. I will venture further and ask more people to pose for me so I can  create a series of these images, once I've put them together I think it could be a strong body of work.