When Photography Serves Film

Gülce Tulçalı is a London-based visual artist whose practice includes moving image, photography, and performance art. She visualises women and authority relationships from a citizen-government point of view. Emphasis is put on technologies and nature. Gülce uses a variety of methods from digital processes to darkroom printing. She writes and edits her own films. Recent shows includes with fists, it kicks, it bites at Webber Gallery, and Hang Ten at ArtLacuna.

The variety of media I use gives me the gaps I need to breathe. Often the work calls for the medium it wants to be in. I just try to generate a set of skills that can succeed in them when the time comes. Recently I have realised the photographs I take serve as a storyboarding/planning phase of the movies I shoot. It took me a while but it made me very happy to finally discover this pattern. I visualise a moving image in my mind. Because the way I shoot is experimental, taking the photographs of the sequence makes the path from inspiration to reality a step closer. I have only done one installation in public. It was accompanied by a piece of writing. I would like to do more if the context is right. I am still forming/learning as an artist; I am trying to enjoy without fear what other mediums have to offer my practice. The process does not work all the time, but I am determined to keep my options open with moving image being a constant.

Representation of women is a tricky subject, and the obsession with getting it right has made me pause for a long time in my art practice. After the first wave of work on the subject, what I created was so charged, it was difficult to imagine another way. My approach towards my own work had to change. I decided to accept that I am never going to get it right. My aim is authenticity. I often keep things abstract to run from stereotypes. One way of dealing with conventional visuals is to leave the image empty, an absent segment like negative space in the darkroom. Now I believe it is time to go deeper and more structured and quit assuming the issues I am dealing with are obvious. The themes I address are not yet part of mainstream conversations.

Photography & Resilience: by Jeremy Alvarez

I was born in a very small city, more like a town, in the Southern Philippines. I grew up on a farm and later moved to the capital, Manila. I work at a digital bank, handling their app. I actually do not know how I got this job three years ago. My degree is in Behavioural Sciences, which focuses on social systems. I’m looking for more creative opportunities, but everything offered me so far leads to yet another bank.

I started doing photography when I was in a very small high school in Manila. There were photography classes offered, and you were required to take them. The first semester was about basics, and we did a lot of shots on jeepneys. Jeepneys are basically vehicles left over from World War II. They are a cultural symbol in the Philippines, open air vans like a bus or truck, painted in all kinds of colours and symbols.

I didn't really get into photography until 2015. I went to the States for a month to see friends. We drove down Highway One in Northern California. It’s along the coast. At one point we stopped at a cliff looking directly into the Pacific Ocean. Everything was in Northern California colours--deep browns and dark greens. Watching the waves crashing to the shore, I realised: ‘I need a camera’. Back home, I immediately bought myself a cheap Pentax. My godfather, a professional photographer for years, took me under his wings for a while. I learnt more about photography from him than I had in my classes.

When I am hired to do a ‘photoshoot’, I use my digital camera because it’s practical. Film photography, though, forces me to be in the moment. As an anxious person, I value this quality. Most of my shots are candid, taken on walks with friends. My personal projects are on film. With analogue photography, you don't see the results right away, so it adds preciousness to the viewing. When you print out the photos, it means more than it does with digital photography.

Overall, the reason I like photography has less to do with the image and more to do with the story of the image. It’s why I like photographing people. As human beings, we’re drawn to one another's stories. I’d rather shoot a portrait of someone I know because their story is familiar, and I can empathise with what they’re feeling. Merging images with writing, putting a face to the words, is what I enjoy. Writing and photography work well together. Lately I’ve been playing around with personal projects that combine the two. I do portraits of people who have helped me through very dark periods of my life, explaining through words what they mean to me and showing their faces in the photographs.

Artwork by Noga Shatz

I usually just start working in my studio, using what’s available in the space. I begin with drawing and painting, experimenting with materials; I like to create monotype prints in my studio, without using a presser. It results in making drumming sounds which I see as part of the process/rituals. The beauty of working inter or multi disciplinary is that the work informs you what medium best serves. I don’t decide in advance.

I have an idea of what I want to explore beforehand. Then I see what arises in the studio. My research is studio based. The work in the studio generates the research itself. From that process, images or experimentation with materials takes place, which I later explore in depth on my computer. I trace and explore the origins, cultural heritage, popular uses of these images, and how they are linked to me. And then I try things out from a more informed perspective. I then experiment further to see what medium is best for that particular work.

It’s a process, and I keep myself open for surprises. Plans are often fragile, dynamic.

I mainly work with printing and painting, but sometimes I think the work needs sound too. I’m also a musician. And sometimes, instead of painting on the walls or canvas, the piece can be a sculpture or an installation. I like to keep those two worlds separate. Sometimes they link naturally, but I don’t set out to do that. My paintings have a lot of rhythms and sounds, a kind of relationship to music without sound.

I’m interested in pieces that are distorted. Distortion is a key word for me in both music and visual art. This translates to studio work using materials which go against one another, manipulating material in an unconventional way. For example: my work “ Handkerchief”xx is a monoprint made of tissue paper. The paper is fragile yet I am sculpting with it. That goes against the nature of the material. This is an example of how I use --and abuse --the materials.