BEING HUMAN: Day 1
4/11/19
In class, we were placed in groups on our table and had to discuss 10 issues that we think are most important or pressing to the idea of 'Being Human'. We further had to break it down to 3 different ideas. The three points that my group highlighted was class inequality, sexuality and gender and human emotion/instinct. We realised as well that the 10 issues that we raised all to a degree linked with one another- such as class inequality links to the idea of commercialism and racism, whereby majority of lower classes are minority groups- thus raising a further pressing issue. Other issues were raised by my group such as climate change which was something that I was deeply passionate about anyways. Within that, the idea of being human made me think about the climate change assembly, and how UAL and us as a society are trying to create a more sustainable future- thus the aspect of being human is giving to others and care, which also links with human emotion; a topic that was raised in our 3 most pressing issues. However; I was intrigued in wanting to explore further sexuality, gender and identity- how individuals are told in our society to be a carbon copy of one another- not allowed to have individuality and one must stick to the gender roles of male and female- femininity and masculinity as its considered a societal norm. I want to explore looking at photography- thus I would only need tools on my computer to edit and a printer to print the photo.
Contextual Practice Week 1 [Tate Modern]
6/11/19
The Tate Modern was actually a great experience in me gaining inspiration and further understanding my current project 'Being Humans' and some of my previous projects. Overall, the photos that I took above made me gain inspiration with several previous projects:
- Places
- Collection
- Material News
Within Places, I was inspired by the last photograph, which was exhibited at the Tate Modern by an artist called _________. The idea of her identity being lost and how she continuously lies as to where she is from, what consists of her family, what her name is and what she does as a living. This illustrated to me as well about my Material News project, as I had done a project based on the Palestinian-Israeli war, and how many individuals from both sides have been stripped of their identity and are lost and confused as to where they stand in the world. This further linked with my current project 'Being Human' as I was exploring ones identity as well- and how some of us have to lie and manipulate ourself in order to fit into society, and sometimes confusing ourselves of who we are and what we are by confusing society.
In addition, my Collection project seemed to relate to the first 4 photographs which were done by artists __________. _____ (The first two photographs) seemed to have the same sense of style as my collection photographs, whereby I had isolated certain images of individuals bodies. Also reflective in their work by over exaggerating certain fine details on their photograph and the black and white medium which they displayed and illustrated in their work.
RE-EDIT: Day 2
Contextual Practice Week 2 [ART PROTEST]
13/11/19
Today was an extremely helpful in giving me a broader context and perspective about art in the real world and how it links in with politics and current issues that are surrounding the news and our world. At first, in groups we had to discuss certain issues that we deemed to be important to us. We came up with:
1) Grenfell justice
2) Diversity in mainstream media/representation of LGBTQ+ in childrens media
3) Classicism
4) Climate change
5) Representation of female artists
6) Forced child marriages
7) Mental health stigma
8) Addiction stigma
9) Subtle racism - cultural assumptions and ignorance
10) Media manipulation (facebook, news etc...)
By discussing it in groups it made me think about certain issues in further depth that I wouldn't think of researching further such as class inequality and Grenfell justice. The contextual session and working collaboratively with other people made me take interest in other socio-political issues that I don't think I would have had an interest in it before because it wasn't presented to me in the media or in the news.
From that, we had Japanese artist, ________ who talked about his own practice and how he uses society to be part of the art and interact with his work. It was fascinating to me how he talked about his practice as it inspired me greatly to be more of an open and outgoing person and not be afraid to experiment with different materials or processes within the art field.
We then had to create our own interactive piece with the rest of the class. By doing on the spot art it enabled me to get out of my comfort zone in art, tested my imagination and my ability to create art as quickly as possible. If I had more time to create this piece, I would have obviously filmed it a lot better but also develop the concept further by adding more scenes that illustrated how any object can be created as art and also is interactive with an audience.
DATAFIED: Day 2
19/11/19
At first today we had a presentation done explaining what artists would link in with our work. This gave me a lot of perspective in what and how I wanted to pursue my work as previously I was interested in how sex has been influenced by technology. However, it also gave me perspective on the ethical side of technology and data collection as a topic as a whole. From looking at a presentation David displayed of different artist references, one that really stood out for me was Trevor Pagans Bahamas, Undersea cable in the Atlantic Ocean. He tried to find the undersea cables which connected continents together and broadbands together. He found these two noble points of information and photographed them underwater. These locations were private before, however after 9/11 they were made public and since then, people have been spying more on our personal data and all that information would pass through these wires and points. This illustrates and connects to ethics and legal stances. Cause one may not know exactly how much of our information is being taken and to what degree do we have privacy. It also illustrates how the internet is very much a physical thing, the structure is hidden from us despite the fact that it is a physical body. After the presentation, we had to brainstorm our ideas further. From diving into ones sexuality related towards technology, I gathered two different ideas.
1) in relation to 'head bones' by Charles Richardson, I want to create some form of sculpture which would be taken into 3D photographs, like a lifeless 'sex doll' with robotic audio in the background illustrating how we disconnect ourselves from real life intimacy due to the fears or expectations that we want to face in our reality. Also, through technology, we have the power to control what we want to watch sexually, in reality we don't have full control which is what makes us experience fear sometimes.
2) I also wanted to look into sex and privacy. Based on a documentary that I watched over summer 'Christiane Amanpour: Sex and love around the world' she went to Berlin to see what sex life is like there. Two girls that she talked to there recorded their dates and the one night stand they had with them. The people knew however once sex ensued that they were being recorded as the girls would tell them. This made me question that despite us knowing that our data Is being collected and we know we have a lack of privacy, we don't think much of it and where our data is being put and sent to. Furthermore, it also illustrates that with the girls, there is a lack of getting to know the person and gaining real intimacy, instead its about money and sex. Getting through as many people as possible for the profit and revenue.
We then had small group progress sessions with David, where we were able to gain perspective on other peoples projects and even our own. David illustrated to me that I should focus more on the first idea, which is what I wanted to explore anyways. However, possibly in part 3 I might develop further my second point.
From the session, it was mentioned that whilst I am trying to create this lifeless sex doll, I should also look at objects that represent body parts and try and work with the 3D modelling software and experiment with angles as well.
DATAFIED: Day 6
26/11/19
Today was more-so a way for me to organise what materials I will use and how I will even produce this sex doll. Going to casting and talking to the technicians helped tons- as at first I thought I would use silicone, but it doesn't absorb paint at all, I was going to use Murdock instead and possibly create a plaster. Ould and then a vacuum formed plastic mould to put over my model.
As well as the sex doll, the robotic audio in the background was something that needed to be sorted. I wanted to gain inspiration from 'Alan Watts' a philosopher that I referenced back in part 1, however his work truly resonates with me. I wanted to incorporate some of my own writing and Alan Watts work to create something relating to how technology has made us into individuals that are more disconnected with intimacy, physically and emotionally. From creating the script, I will make it into a robotic disconnected with human connection type of pitch to illustrate how the audience can't emotionally connect with it.
We also reviewed the book 24/7 in class, a book that we read beforehand. I found the idea of being disconnected and sleep deprivation to be an interesting viewpoint that the author focused on. The book didn't relate that much to my current project, however it was an interesting viewpoint to go across by.
Contextual Practice Week 4 [Tate Britain]
29/11/19
My friend and I went to the Tate Britain on Friday, as we were both in the workshop on Wednesday for contextual practice - so we decided to go to the Tate on Friday which was what the contextual practice was about.
Aleyna and I went to see Mark Leckey in the Tate Britain - and it was definitely a different experience all together.
The visuals and the presentation of the work was highly immersive. It made me feel as if I was experiencing a whole different emotion each video that was present.
DATAFIED: Day 8
28/11/19
We did a group critique over each others work. This was beneficial getting different viewpoint and ways in which we can improve our work from different people as it made all of us feel more comfortable with our work on a certain level, but also every individual will perceive your work differently, so if one doesn't understand your work, you know that you have to convey the meaning in terms of presentation more better. From my critique we had various positions people were given, and this was the feedback that was handed to me:
- The casted image of aleyna that I took from casting seems to portray a powerful message in itself
- removal of self into a robot - makes us think about relationships
- test out and see what works, removing itself from the space that its in - its referencing aleyna - test out various environments
- combining plaster cast and the augmented reality put together
- make the actual pieces- 3D test
- research pornography and the effects on the brain- project a graph of it behind aleyna
- look into essay wage mans - sex dolls on the brief
- project run around the world - sex and robots - Kate develop, down load all the text
By doing the crit it made me realise how much further I can go into the project even in the future - this made me think about how I can develop my project even further.
Contextual Practice Week 5 + DATAFIED
4/12/19
Contextual practice was looking at the concept of failure. That one should not be afraid to deal with failure, and one should not create art for the consumer, but rather for themselves and produce work without the fear of it being bad, or not looking as good as it should. To me I found this pretty interesting, I've always tried to follow that concept, but sometimes you do fall into a hole of your work seemingly not being good enough, and constantly just seeing ways in which you can improve it and not appreciating the amount of time and effort it takes to create the work one did. Therefore the contextual practice to me was an eye opener. We did group discussions in class about this and I did find It fascinating on how different individuals interpreted the text.
Afterwards it was filming time for myself. The concept of my idea changed drastically - I was going to have the model lifelessly floating on a screen, but then I decided creating a green screen video may be something more interesting with value to it as well. The reason I thought of this changing idea was actually from Shana Moulton, her work really inspired me even in Part 1, to which I loved the aesthetic and concept of her works that I wanted to create something in relation to her practice.
Even during the editing process, I found it intriguing to test out different techniques in Premier which I also learned from the workshop back in the re-edit project. However, I consciously made the decision to place techniques that had relation towards the theme and meaning of my work.
LUX: DAY 9
6/01/20
Today was the day that I showed my video from over the winter break. The critique was valuable because it enabled me to find further meaning within the work that I already created, such s realising that I demonstrated a sarcastic video that illustrated irony, but also the message of the work developed whilst having my crit. Doing the silent crit as well was very insightful, it allowed us to be able to let our ideas flow better on the page and give constructive feedback without the pressure of speaking in public. In comparison to the crits that I've done before, I preferred to a degree doing the silent crit cause I found that I gave better advice overall.
FEEDBACK I RECEIVED:
- reminds me of Shana Moulton, definitely a feminist element to it, 'i have to go continue denying now', takes the mick out of the idea of the 'ideal' domsticated woman.
- what is your opinion on being 'connected with nature'?, the video says it's a load of rubbish, is that accurate? - yes and no, I looked at mental health being connected with gardening - however the aspect that we are constantly bombarded with different techniques to try and better our mental health made me want to. take the mick out of this option. Also, relating to a sexist undertone. Do you think women are 'more conected to nature' than men?- or seen to be this way
- made me think of Mary Daly's concept of 'Quintessence' - good thing to research if you haven't already?
- Yeah I thought of Shana moulton too her piece called ‘whispering pines”
- i like how it’s about connection with nature but it’s a highly edited video like I like the irony of that
- also reminded me of how people sometimes patronise mental illness by saying ‘just go outside’
- Could be cool if you post it to YouTube and then screen record it from there so you continue that aesthetic when it’s presented cause it will have the YouTube logo ect as a border around the vid
- I like how the image coincides with the text a bit like those silent movies where they show the "dialogue" and then the actor reacts in a way that relates to whatever it says......like the passion of joan of arc??? Also like how the video of you is pretty much a continuous piece of footage, so you are a constant in front of a backdrop of scenes of nature and the environment that is constantly changing around you while you are seperate to this space
- I think it's a good satirical piece but I'm not exactly sure why or what it is satirizing. It certainly is quite humorous. Almost like a mix between 50s housewife and 60s hippie culture. The imagery and the music in the background all have a peaceful vibe as well as the attitude of the person, but something about it still makes fun of the culture it represents, perhaps in the overdone word choice and the aforementioned elements. I really like the written message you're giving but paired with the classic 50s style, it does invoke sarcasm and satire because that era and culture is so often satirized.
- It feels like its taking the micky out of 'youtube entertainment' but it also feels like it belongs in the 50s by the way shes dressed and the music. give me the toughts around womens roles and what they were considered able to do. a woman at home may take a lot of pride in her garden. also the font of the writing links to that and the make up and your facial expresssions. it just feels very sarcastic like its taking the piss. reminds me of an old advert in the 50s / 60s that presented women as house wives.
- I like the 'homemade' feel to it, it makes the piece accessible to a large audience ie the people in waterlow park, also i think it largely ties into the climate crisis and could possibly be a critique on those who have the money to help in terms of the climate but make it seem like it is collectivly everyone elses problem ie the ban on plastic straws when most greenhouse gasses are produced by large corporations
- is it a representation of our disconnect with nature or an insult on the idea of being connected to nature itself
- I doe feel Sarcasitic' it feels like a critique of youtube selfhelp vids. The fact htat people search for help with mmindfullness and anxiety etc online one of the main cause of Mental Health.
- 1950's 'Housewife' interesting considering the issemination of american culture post WW2 - the anxiety, depressession from ppost war opulence of the american dream masking economic issues within houuseholds, boreum of the 'houusewife' at homme all day.
- Have tyou ever heard of The Hours? based on the book by Virginia Wolf Mr Dalloway. havent heard of it - jade check it out also a room of ones own by virginia woolf !
- Ijn terms of production values - the join of the wallin the background is distracting.Unless this is intended then if so perhaps exagerate that eevven more
- Is this the ASMR piece you mentioned? no im thinking of encorporating ASMR sounds such as the 'watering' and 'digging' in order to make the audience feel more 'intimate' with the actions of connecting with nature
- Also did you checck out Tom Woolner? - no i havent checked that out , will do
- You shoud becaause there is a simillity in the low fi aesthetic of your drawins and previous work.Also Maichael Craig Martin
- - How do you feel about the potential interpretation of floweerrs as rrepresentativve of female genttiaia - is this intended? Arre you aware of this connnotation?
- ^^The imagery of the flowers and the foreground is a little bit distracting, i agree with david on that point. A suggestion: perhaps the shirt that you have on could be a solid contrasting color? Even a small visual detail like that can make the biggest difference.
- - I like the concept but I think the footages can be re-taken, just to fix the perspective maybe. - yes I'm redoing it completely when filming hehe
- - But I was really able to relate myself lol great concept. Reminds me of youtubers.
- - Liked the song on the background as well.
- - I like the use of that font, but when its in all caps it's quite hard to read. The props you made are really cute!
- - look at 1960s propaganda for a reference + research
- - Might be interesting to us real pops? or edit them in? might hammer home the undertone of the video --> saracstic, ironic, satirical.
- - I think th font you use could be expoored more possibly related to 50's aesthetic to make it mmore readibe.Also your BRACLET! get rid unless intended because or me it rrreferences today - dose that make sense.
- - I would also suggest that you watcch some post WW2 puublic information films to furthher infor how you shot this and develop it further in terms of the messagge you are imparting
- - Potential text needs to be on the screen for longer?!
- - You could change your posiotion in the frame. standing up, chop up shots of you standing then close up. maybe standing demomnsttrations useing the props??
- - Laura provost did a really cool video with upclose shots of flowers which u could look at - thank you will do! Just ggoogled it it’s called “thisistomorrow” :))
- - What about includiing analogue water or digital water soil etc - yeah I was thinking about animating them in
- - The lighting could be improved
- - Take the braclets off and your nail polish. Commit to the character and what they would be wearing as well as their characteristics and expressions.
- - Layered elements in Mona Hatoum's Measures of Distance too.
- - Maybe be more rehearsed in terms of gesticulations and looking down less at prompts
BEING HUMAN: Day 2
5/11/19
I was able to refine my idea to something workable today- looking and exploring and the idea of gender, sexuality and identity. I refined my idea by exploring what type of medium I first wanted to work with which was doing photography. I thought that having a still image would best suit the portrayal of my work as I believe photography would have a powerful stance in portraying my theme. In the future I could get more studio time by not experimenting too much in the studio and instead maybe doing it outside of school hours, so that in the studio I can work on my final piece. From now and Thursday, I will manage my time by just getting on with actual experimentation and making my piece- such as working with Photoshop as quick as possible, hopefully tonight, to get my work done. This will help me compare all my experimentation and be able to quickly develop a final piece by Thursday. For one of my ideas for my piece, it was to incorporate line drawing, so I was using the method of testing out different line works and layering techniques with line. Then, I am going to try and morph faces together which will be done through photoshop.
BEING HUMAN: Day 4
7/11/19
Today was the final day for presenting our work and having a group crit. The most important issue that I defined as being human was one expressing their own identity and their own individuality, sexuality and gender. I wanted to relate this to how one should defy and subvert societal norms on how one lives their life through stages and how all of us as a society should dress similar, speak similar and live their life the same. To explore my ideas, the research that I took was to reference a variety of sources. Books, videos, artists and galleries. In terms of exploring the theme and the context of my ideas, I read a book based on gender, sexuality and fluidity which helped me understand the context and theme of my issues that I wanted to express in my art. Context I believe is the key in producing good artwork, it enables one to create something that is more succinct and developed and has a purpose.
I think I could've definitely improved my artwork. I had another vision which failed drastically, however I would love to test this idea out in future projects. From my personal point of view I think that instead of layering my photographs on one sheet, I could have layered my images with different types of paper to illustrate different identities. I wanted to have one solid not distorted photograph be the base, then on top print another distorted (like how I presented my work originally) on tracing paper and layer that on top of the base, and then get acetate and do a rough, distorted messy line drawing of a face on top or even test out printing on acetate.
Within our criteria we had other people crit our work and see what we can improve on- one person had to analyse one piece of work. Within mine, it was mentioned that the successes of my work was that it looked like an oil painting and that individually it looks great. Also, as artist references, Andy Denzler was mentioned to me by the individual. In order to improve my work and make it even better, it was stated that it can be regarded as a series but there should be some essential differences in the work and therefore, it will be more brilliant.
RE-EDIT: Day 1
11/11/19
This week for our project 'Re-edit' we are learning about how we can further enhance our skills or even start from scratch with Premier Pro. Personally I had no experience with learning about Premier Pro, so it was highly beneficial for me especially when being in the 4D pathway and only really using iMovie to edit my videos. David at the beginning showed us some skills and techniques on how to work our way round Premier Pro. We had to gather found footage for this project. To me, found footage meant pre-recorded work gained from secondary sources that one could manipulate and illustrate in their own work- sometimes taking those clips and putting them in a scenario which is out of its context. Definitely, I think one can subvert the meaning of found footage as it enables us to create different perspectives from the same source- even if that's by changing the audio to be completely different or even the video itself. Through being in 4D and through the course of foundation, my definition of what can be considered Art has altered drastically. Art is expressive through films, photography, sculpture and painting. From a Fine Art point of view, all the pathways link together, so my perspective even of what 4D is has changed drastically as I've managed to realise that one can still create sculpture, collage and painting and incorporate some fundamental 4D practices within it. For this project, I gathered my found footage through archive.org. The artists that I gathered my clips from made me realise the idea of ownership. How one can easily gather other individuals footage and sometimes the viewer may forget that it's not their own footage- but rather another individuals work. Furthermore, with ownership one can argue that Art cannot be considered art because one has used material from other individuals. However, I believe that ownership can also be argued if one took found footage and manipulated it, and another individual copied that artwork entirely without changing it. For tomorrow, I am going to continue researching various artists and gathering different found footage and material by trying to make my video more substantial. I am going to also keep trying out new techniques that we discussed in our Premier class.
DATAFIED: Day 1
18/11/19
Everyday data is being collected all over the world in different forms. Data can be collected through physical contact with someone, collecting and recognising what their facial or bodily features are. The aim of this is to probably get an understanding of the world when its us as a society or us humans collecting data physically with the world around us. However, on the internet there is a different motive. Data is collected based off our social media, what we search online and even sometimes what we speak. One could say that the aim of this form of data collecting is to provide us with helpful adverts and stuff for future references and to provide us with products that would benefit us. We were also given a question to discuss in groups:
1) How has data and technology affects your perception of the reality in terms of identity, truth, ambition, dreams and working life?
The ideas that were brainstormed were:
- The internet is a platform of opinions
- Work: technology has changed work- artists
- Relation to sex: disconnecment, fear of rejection, no mystery - but its funny because we are meant to be the most connected generation
- Disconnected from reality
- Good - the idea that its possible now to meet people whenever, you can search them up yourself however too much research makes you sometimes walk into the thing with high expectaitions or a certain perception.
- Less people having sex - we are able to now experience sexual stuff through the internet
- Recording your sexual experiences
- Dreams - sleepy time, no phone
- Technology reflects how we are as humans: there is good stuff about humans and bad stuff about humans.
- Is technology better for the imagination? - yes and no. when we are on the phone we pace bc we are subconsciously looking for that person-
- If technology didn’t exist would you still be an artist?
The bold piece of text above was something that I was highly fascinated in, and definitely want to explore further in the project as I was immediately drawn to it.
Currently at this point I don't have many ideas on what I want to delve into for the project. However, tomorrow I am going to research further and take some time off today- then look into it tomorrow when given more artist references.
DATAFIED: Day 4
21/11/19
Today, we had a workshop induction for the programme premier for our previous project re-edit and we had to adjust and alter the audio so that all of our videos would match in a succinct form. This I found to be quite useful regardless. It enabled me to understand premier more than just from a video editing perspective. As this would be useful in transcribing towards future projects where I would need to use the software.
Afterwards, we were able to work on our own projects by ourselves. I am still looking into how I would make this lifeless sex doll... testing out with different materials. Going down to the casting helped a lot, getting different perspectives on how I should make it really benefitted me. I am still going to research and see however how I can change that.
I also gathered 2 items of food that related with sexual connotations of the body - a pepper and a grapefruit. This would enable me to further explore the concept of 'photogrammetry' as well with creating a 3D model.
DATAFIED: Day 5 [Slough]
25/11/19
During this day we went to Slough, to see the company 'Virtus' data centre. Throughout the tour of the place itself, it was definitely one one level an enlightening experience, as it made methinking into perspective how all our data is stored in a physical model. When thinking in your head that our data is stored in certain places, it is sometimes hard to put into perspective what that would look like in a physical model- it was definitely an eye-opener and the layout was something that I wasn't expecting. However, there was also an environmentalist point of view when it came to looking at this data centre. Through the tour and presentation it was mentioned that all the energy, heat and air is produced is all recycled so that they are never wasting or producing energy- however, there were certain concerns that I found with that. With the media it's told that a lot of companies and individuals are changing their way of producing energy, and that one is generating 'clean air' however, a lot of it is not true, and instead is means to make us a society feel like as if the world is progressing towards a more sustainable society. I had a lot of doubts listening to the presentation that it was a clean company. Moreover, it made me think about how much one needs in order to store their data. A good example of this that I found in the companies database was Imperial college. A whole floor was used just for them to have a place where they can store their data. Thus, this again posed the environmental question. With companies wanting to have a place to store their data, there is an increasing demand, thus more space is going to be needed and more buildings and space will have to be provided for the database company- therefore more materials needed, destroying environments and possibly some ecosystems - damaging the environment. Furthermore, I wanted to know whether there was any further ways that they were going to look at our data. They claimed that they can't see what we do on our laptops, however, I have a feeling that they do. Sounds weird. This made me think about my second idea that I had. We consciously know that our data is being collected and stored but we don't do or think about it further - like where it will end up. Even I can say for myself that after the trip I didn't think about my data being stores further- it was something that just didn't cross my mind.
DATAFIED: Day 7
27/11/19
Today was a matter of getting physical work done. I began on wanting to cast all the areas that are part of ones intimate self. The breasts, lower region and face. The moulding images that I did are shown above.
Using Mudrock and talking to the technician made me gain insight on how I would further this project - afterwards creating a plaster mould and then possibly to create the plastic non-human aesthetic vacuum plastic over. However, I talked through with this with the technician, and my original idea of making out of plastic wouldn't have been something that would go through as one cannot paint well onto of plastic. So that was one problem that I encountered - that I had to change my original concept into something different - Jesmonite. I looked into the material of Jesmonite due to Jocelyn McGregors work on it - which highly intrigued me. It was a material stronger than plaster but could be painted on. So the change of plan was something that held me back but a solution to fight this was to just get on with making and try and get it sorted all soon and quickly. Another solution I did to help me with my time management was to create a to do list and plan for next week - in order to get my headspace right as well and to help organise exactly what kind of materials I need.
DATAFIED: Day 9
2/12/19
Today was me casting my mud rock moulds with plaster. This was a new experience for me considering it was my first time casting. It made me also consider as to what 4D is. A concept which isn't something constricted to digital media. One can encorporate so much more. Even being in the casting studio and talking to the technician, it made me consider how I can incorporate different mediums into one final piece. The only problem that I encountered in my work was the amount of time it took for me to cast and plaster my stuff as it took a relatively long time due to the process of trying and preparing the plaster and there was a lot of big sections that needed to be done. A good solution for this issue would be to maybe start making the plaster model a few days ago, leaving me time to deal with any other potential issues with the casts if it ever does arrive. Basically its me having to deal with time management and organising my time a lot better. My research has impacted my decisions in regards to the model through the fact at looking at Jocelyn McGregor, she had a lot of casted things which were made out of plaster and Jesmonite - this made me consider the decisions that I would have to go through in order to create my model and paint her. So it has impacted me through how I can design make and create my sex doll.
DATAFIED: Day 10
3/12/19
I was in casting all day. From the plaster casts I did yesterday, I put Jesmonite onto so that it was able to be painted on and that my model could wear them. My work developed today in the sense that I casted on the correct material that I needed for my model to wear the garments. Then, when I got home my work developed further by all the Jesmonite castings being painted on with the desired aesthetic I wanted. I then also created a vague story board in order to make it easier for myself to create the video. The problems I encountered were very similar to when I was casting with plaster - time management. I underestimated the amount of time it would take in order to create just the garments of the work and not really thinking about the editing. However, I kept reminding myself that it was the first time that I ever casted before- and I shouldn't put myself down as I didn't even know how long it was going to take in order to create the pieces. However, in order to make this a solution, next time I am going into casting I should give myself plenty of time and start casting as soon as I have the idea down- as this will be able to give me time to work with certain issues that may arise with the final product itself. I even went into research for the makeup and was looking at on youtube various videos of individuals that have emotional attachment to their sex doll and seeing how the sex doll looked - to see if there was a correlation with the appearance and the emotional attachment. But I decided for the makeup and look of the sex doll to be fake. Over exaggerated makeup and adding bumps and ridges on the sex doll itself to make it not very appealing.
DATAFIED: Day 12
5/12/19
Today it was a group critique, we did a 1 to 1 crit with each other, which was a lot better in my opinion than doing a group critique. having a one to one crit, to me personally, meant that I could give specific and good feedback towards one individual. We had to answer some questions based off our projects - which enabled us to be in a specific mindset when answering.
Feedback that was given to me:
- The male voice in the video makes it clear about the disassociation that we have with the sex doll presented to us. The voice makes the meaning being put across way more. Able to make more connections, technology affects our intimate lives.
- Vibrant backgrounds and saturation: shows the contrast that's this amazing new product that has been revolutionised and will better us and the world. When in reality its not, its making us more disconnected from society to a degree. It has set us back so much, people don't have social skills anymore. Background makes it seem something like Disney channel, something very fake.
- The data that was used is pornography, sex.
- Made a sex doll- impressive, researched on individuals that are emotionally attached to sex dolls. Sad concept, and individuals are scared of rejection in real life, have full control over the situation, but with two individuals in a relationship you don't have full control.
- Possibly rape, intimate object which can't consent. The idea that they have sex with the sex doll and don't ask. Whats the impact of their friendships/relationships in the future.
- The various words: 'touch you' 'kiss you' - only physical stuff
- track in the background- the only issue relating to legal issue
- Presented on a TV - everybody watches TV, having it on a large screen - overwhelming and overwhelms you. Porn ads that come and flash up - you feel like you have the need to watch this and seem so invested with it and they don't have emotional bonds with others.
- Font - wanted something attractive to the eye, curvaceous - sensual. The aspect of the font being flirtatious and demanding to buy it at the end of the day.
- Improvements: get rid of little string hanging down from the face of the sex doll - little bits that need to be redone.
LUX: Day 10
7/01/20
From the crit feedback that I got yesterday, I wanted to test out various visuals to see how it would look. Thus I began to incorporate various animations into it such as flowers blooming, the earth, different styles on how the flowers would bloom and even some audio effects to make the video more over the top. Originally I was considering to use ASMR into my video - doing ASMR would enable my audience to connect with the meaning further and further. It would allow there to be some form of connection with the 'YouTube' and the 'audience' no matter how fake, sarcastic or ironic it is.
Subsequently, I got advice that I should refilm my piece. Which is what I wanted to do. I also decided to refilm parts today. However I would use the previous video that I made as a brief on how to add more animations to the next video that I am currently re-filming.
LUX: Day 12
9/01/20
Throughout class today, more crits were being taken place - to which I was able to develop my project more. I began to look at doing ASMR testing - I wanted to see how I could incorporate more intimate sounds within my work in order to illustrate more intimacy with the audience in how I use various means of 'digging' 'cutting' and 'watering'. Today I was concerned with my work because I was wondering as to whether ASMR was even going to work well with my piece as I thought there would be too much going on. On one hand you can have an overstimulation of visuals - but in this instance, it was more-so that having too much could have made the video seem messy. Just a matter of experimentation. Today, it was mainly getting the recordings of the ASMR sorted. I encountered only one problem today that was physical - which was trying to get a good microphone and sound quality for the ASMR sounds - I ended up using my iPhone headphone microphone as I wanted that slightly muffled and distorted feel towards the video as a whole. My research has impacted my ideas positively as for the ASMR I was looking at various you tubers that deal with ASMR and seeing how they record - to what degree do they use the objects they are trying to create sound from in any particular way. Thus, this research has helped me immensely. From this time and the critique on Thursday I am going to test out ASMR within my piece and see if it will fit.
LUX: Day 14
14/01/20
Today in class we had to first have a meeting with ourselves, reflect on what we did previously and how we are going to plan our day. My plan was to incorporate ASMR and see if it word work. A concern of my work that I had was that when I was incorporating ASMR I did realise that it seemed like too much having it be part of my video - although it added texture and a new medium and volume for my work, I understood that it was too much to handle as it clashed with the video. Thus, in order to resolve this issue I had cut it out of my video. Subsequently, we then had evil cinema whereby our workflow was critiqued. Although mine wasn't part of the critique, it was still helpful looking at other people's workflow and seeing how they presented it, what they needed to improve on as there were key points that they had which I hadn't put in my workflow at all. Moreover, I decided to add animations within my work instead, as it created a more dimensional video - and didn't clash with the video - instead it added to it without seeming 'cringe' whatsoever. My research for this project has definitely helped me figure out that I wanted to cut out ASMR and add animations instead. This was highly evident from Shana Moulton 'Lyrica' video and Thu Trans unboxing human hands from 'amazang' video. This made me realise how I wanted to incorporate animations without making it seem like too much is going on in the video.
LUX: CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE
15/01/20
Here we were looking at how one should photograph their portfolio so for next week we understand how one should mount their work. The contextual lesson was highly productive and very informative. As there were many things present as to not include in your work such as discolourations within your work if they are not intentional, or even having different coloured backgrounds for each sculptural work etc. Luckily, my work was completely fine when it came to that area of concern as my work is video stills and photography. However, it was highly informative as it was also looking at how one should keep quality check of their work. Thus, this made me think about my own work. Immediately when I went home I began to organise what I was printing for my portfolio.
LUX: Day 16
16/01/20
Today was the final day of Lux to which we had a critique done. Watching through everyones videos was enlightening. It was interesting at looking at other peoples work in complete finished production rather than a development which we saw before. This helped me understand in some instances their own thought processes and ways of working in comparison to mine and also let me understand my own ways of working and thought processing. The critique was good. It was mentioned that the fact that I didn't use ASMR within my work it was highly effective due to the fact that it helped my work not clash as I had added animation as well. I think overall if I were to improve my work, I would maybe say that if this were in a very professional setting/exhibition, I would re-record my work as better quality and a better green screen instead of my makeshift one. Subsequently, I would possibly just re-do the colouring of the text possibly when it would be recorded in a more professional way - or even with the more rustic and distorted look it was noted that maybe I make the text seem more blurry as well - as the professionalism and clearness of the text contrasts the low quality recording itself.
SPACE - TIME
Today was the first day of the space time project. We were organised into groups and then told to introduce each other - as we were a mix of 4D and sculpture students - and then look at each others portfolios and illustrate our strengths, what we have and what we can improve on with our portfolio. It was highly useful. This made me think about my university portfolio and how I can improve it- thus it was making me think about two things at once. Furthermore, we were then given a lecture on different artists that we can look at in order to develop our space time project. From that I wanted to look at psychedelics - perception of time is highly distorted throughout. Creating a wormhole and time capsule dmt light tunnel was something I was considering, but in order to work on a project I am going to research various ways in which our time is distorted.
SPACE - TIME
Within this new project that we are doing I spent the day developing my project ideas - at the time I had nothing but I Was thinking of developing my work into a psychedelic route - looking at the relation of drugs in consideration to physics -how it changes certain laws and you have different perceptions to how you would think sober. Such as the concept of time. We also had portfolio crates - to which it was a group session to which we all evaluated each others work. I found that looking at other peoples work gave me inspiration for my own portfolio - such as layout and what to include. I got good feedback and critical feedback in relation to my work. Subsequently, after the crits a group of people that were mixed with sculpture and 4D students experimented with light during that day with a projector and different types of paper and acetate colours - to see how it would combine together. Moreover, this had made me think as to what I wanted to do for my project in relation to psychedelics - focus on light and visuals as a medium to do so and incorporate various sculptural aspects to see how different mediums would work together.
SPACE TIME: Contextual Practice
In today's contextual practice, we had done some work on portfolio - seeing how to mount and looking at various portfolios and examine which portfolios seemed to have better mounting skills than others.
This was highly useful to me, as I was able to showcase my own opinions, and having to express how you feel about each portfolio is useful in a group setting as individuals agree, disagree or even provide as to why it was not good.
Subsequently, looking at various portfolios made me understand about layout and mounting. I wanted to make sure that I understood it fully and having different portfolios really set that standard out well for me.
SPACE - TIME
I had done further experimentations with light, and using various objects in order to showcase that. I had used various objects from the sculpture studio, different lenses and various papers ranging from colour, texture and thickness. This was able to create different layers and dimensions on the wall.
This made me think about how space can be altered. Space on a wall can be altered using various objects - ranging from 3 dimensional to 2 dimensional, thus presented on a digital medium - a photograph.
I was surprised at all of these. Light was able to be manipulated as merely we are able to control it do a degree, but also not. We have the ability to control it from a certain standpoint such as using various forces and interferences - however, we cannot control to a degree the way in which light moves, how long the light will last for (such as a power cut off or a light bulb fuses and stops working).