Subtext
Ambivalence between human’s mental activity through the perspective of photography
This photographic series explores the possibilities of a distorted/transformed moment of mental activity. It questions what is the norms of fact/truth are. What will happen if the conscious mind is in disaccord with the subconscious mind? It aims to visualise and interpret abstract mental activity through the methodology of photography.
As humans, we often express thoughts, ideas, and emotions through spoken language. However, “Human speakers subconsciously produce hidden messages that give insight into their innermost thoughts” (David Oates, the founder of Reverse Speech).
Additionally, according to the Sigmund Freud’s theories, the subconscious is repressed, and experiences server distortion when it enters the conscious mind. The pseudoscientific topics of, Reverse Speech and The Iceberg Theory as well as psychological view of the Human Mind as proposed by Sigmund Freud from the theoretical foundation to develop this series of photographs.
The body could be viewed as a container which accommodates not only the physical organs but unconscious mental activities. It significantly drives our daily behaviour. By viewing movement as a kind of language, this project is aiming to utilise the human body as a primary subject to explore and research the knowledge of how mental activity influences the emotional expression.
I spent much time experimenting with the printing format, printing material and printing layout.
After testing the different levels of transparency of papers such as matt inject paper, duo-matt paper, tracing paper and transparent sheet, I decided to use transparent screen-printing film as the presenting media to create the aesthetics which implicitly responded to the concept of The Iceberg Theory.