University Year 2 - Major Projects and Shows
For our second year major projects we were give an open brief, to embark on any theme we wished. For mine I decided to further explore an idea I had earlier on the representation of the digital world. The following is an exert from my project description, I thought I'd knock it down to that rather than dumping all 4500 words from my development file haha.
"The conceptual base of this project is to explore the ideas between the virtual world and the real, to highlight the ever-blurring lines between video games and war. As technology advances, the realism in videogames becomes ever more true to life and at the same time real life conflicts are resolved using more video game like processes. Along with this, I am exploring ideas of propaganda and the possible deceit in photography initiated by the artist. I hope to have accomplished this by forming a project around these ideas on war journalism and more specifically war photography and video games as simulacrums for war.
The work consists of a series of virtual images transformed via analogue techniques with the intention to showcase a fictional conflict that has been brought into reality via its presentation. My images are born from fictitious origins and presented in a way that takes them from that and into reality."
More information can be found about my current and future projects over on my website at www.tomsimmonds.com!
After my initial presentation I had to reconsider my method of display for our upcoming exhibitions. The image below is how I originally envisioned the process of viewing the project. For the exhibitions however I created a wall mounted light box to display a small number of the negatives.
The above image is from the installation in our group show titled NINE, we showed our work at the wonderful Gallery 40 for a few days before moving on to our year group show.
My contribution to the second year show was design related and along with the posters I made this animation to represent everyone involved. Our title '55 Ways of Seeing' was a reference to John Berger’s book - Ways of Seeing.
With our designs and plans complete it was just a matter of repainting the walls, installing the work in the space and arranging our opening night!
During the opening we had a pop up photo booth for everyone who visited to get a visual memory from the night! Along with some props and a little alcohol it became a wonderfully fun success!
A huge thank you to everyone who came to both our group and year group shows! 55 Ways of Seeing runs until the 15th of February, if you're in Brighton please come and visit! For more information you can check out the event page here!