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Week 13: Desire and Bringing it into Being (The Process + The Final)

Images taken of the room in effect. Photo taken by Cindy

Concept Statement:

The design idea behind this collective event project moves forward in bridging a reflection of ourselves and the intricacies of our ways into the world of desire and the matters of lengths and paths one might take to encounter that desire. The event investigates the idea of desire making sense to one but not to another. Through the multi-faceted presence of a room, it was witnessed by all that when three opposite perspectives are contained and released in one area that there is no telling in how each side makes its way into its desired place. Where along the way the class has somewhat witnessed the after-effect of the remaining rope bouncing off across different sections of the room. For this project, the class was forced to navigate themselves a place in the room to fit in almost amplifying the case of how one might be able try to forcefully fit themselves in an area amongst the readily made choices by an individual who carves their path to their desire; much like staking a claim for your birthright: it is something that is so instinctively you, no matter how typical that desire is; whether that be in the form of money or happiness. The destruction of the language one has produced that makes sense to them as they move to their desirable. The chain of cause and effect taking place is sometimes not being realised along the way. It made for an intriguing experiment to understand that desire as allowed by the perspective is able to bend over will without complete sense to reach the endpoint.

More excerpts of the room installation focusing on Cindy and Patrick’s walls

Our group put the room together through the process of filming and editing through Adobe Premiere, manipulating imagery through Adobe Photoshop and overall materials acquired from art and craft stores produce the messy room of energy as it reacts in a contained room in its continuous loop to reach the desired. The integration of coloured tape as it surrounds its respective desire with Blue for I, Red for Fiona and Green for Cindy represents the target point for the perspective to make way and achieve with the coloured tape presented in a manner that almost envelops each of the walls’ images to serve as to what is important in the moment. The spaghetti yarn stretched across the negative space going left and right captured in this frenetic energy assumes a physical image of each personas’ path making its way to the desired where emphasised on is the careless nature that we take with us as we become self-obsessed creatures focused on the sole importance of that one fundamental thing in our eyes: home, true love and the past.

The entire visual result of the room ends up being a conspiracy board of some sort that ultimately serves as a way for the class to look back at it from the bigger picture: that we all get caught up in the presence of the desires we yearn for that we truly forget to understand, in one way or another, the indentation of marks that we have left as we turn. Why we got there at that point and why we continue to push through things when we can carefully do so instead? A way of posing as a retrospective on all the triumphs and mistakes you’ve made along the way to succeed in something to get to the point of desire that you wanted to be in all along. And what else after that? Just footprints left along the way? It was also a way of highlighting the idea that steps we make are never retractable; that when one puts their foot in forward then they ultimately can never go back, just moving on and unbothered by the mess that has been left behind.

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Creative and Contextual Research: Part 2

As we enter into the final phase of the project as it becomes realised as a final event, we look into pieces that are standing as pieces of influence for the making of this collective event. A particular series of photographs by Jeongmee Yoon became a certain contemporary fixture in the formation of the rooms central ideas. Yoon designed these photographs in correlation to the notion that colour had and still has an influence in the upbringing of people in reference to gender. The photographs as displayed below elevate the boys and girls and their gender-ness in their respective rooms as assigned by colour; unsurprisingly blue for boys and pink for girls. Regardless of the gender-centric conversation that arises from the photographs. Our group was particularly fascinated by how Yoon has displayed the children in prideful splendour of who they are: their room with their miscellaneous objects that define who they are. Almost mimicking the role of colour to be used in our event to display our paths in the opposite where disarray instead of clarity is being explored.

Jeongmee Yoon’s ‘Pink and Blue’ series of ongoing photography

Our group was enamoured by the look of pride that these children had to display themselves and what defined them and that quality is definitely something we’d like to amplify within our event where that would in turn translate further into the idea that the desirable makes sense to the one that desires and with pride they follow the specificities of the path to that desire in full confidence to take charge into it not realising that every else is confused by the mess that to be made when one is hell-bent on their fixation with that desire and achieving it.

Source: Zuckerman C., ‘Pink and Blue: Coloring Inside the Lines Of Gender’, National Geographic [website], <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/01/pink-blue-project-color-gender/>, accessed 20 October 2018.

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Week 12: Desire Through Our Eyes (Bringing life to the concept)

A particular point from the Week 11 slides on desire went full circle in bringing to our group a refined and a realised idea of what we want to do for the collective event.

“...desire drives and inspires us; pushes us to deconstruct and obsess. Desire forms us as creative entities. The desire of ideas, concepts, materials, and methods can drive projects into unpredictable and profound territories.”

The notion of desire as assimilated with the words drive, push and transport into different points is something that became synonymous with our previous point about the idea that this particular push and path into that desire (or how that desire pushes one to another) might help us arrive at points and ideas that may seem inconclusive, undefined and quite frankly confusing other than to that person and so to put our final concept in one sentence:

Desire makes sense to that one person but maybe not so much for others

So moving on with this concept, we have finally resolved to reaching such ideas with a reflection of ourselves projecting some of the desires that are bubbling up to propel us into different zones that are only in full clarity to our mindset. Fiona, in particular, decided on the desire to find her other half one that is the opposite of her ex-boyfriend while Cindy focused on the lost remnants of her childhood innocence as attached with the spitting image of puzzle boards; something that she used to love as a kid, however, ruined by a sad memory of a family feud while my desire is connected to an ever-broken image of home and how I’ve never really had one to call it due to the nomadic lifestyle of my family and our moving of houses almost every year. The race to reach these three desires were something that we were invested in due to them being something that we have dealt with for long periods of our lives almost seemingly impossible to reach yet continue to aim hard for in the long run. The idea that capturing three of our determined paths to reach that particular desire and map that out through every corner of a room is something that we, from the get-go, understood as something that would resemble people in the middle of a game of Twister: all bending a few backs and some bones to reach the winning point.

During a typical Wednesday ADAD class, we moved forward by filming some scenes of us walking across places around Paddington campus walking to an undisclosed destination which we thought would strongly capture the notion of our endless endeavours with our particular desirables. As a group, we discussed the particular usefulness of colour coding throughout all the imagery to be plastered across the corners of the room’s walls. This became our way adding simplicity in displaying each persona’s way of movement within the room and also amplifying the concept of our desires being contained in a room seen as making its own way almost as if the path being made is

Excerpts of the film taken of each of us walking around Paddington to be repurposed into separate colour coded films of us to add onto the visual imagery of the three different paths

Throughout more discussions during class, we went further into tightening aspects of our concepts with the room, in particular, the handling of each wall as imagery to be plastered across the walls to depict each desirable. For Fiona’s wall, we discussed ideas of toying with images of her ex-boyfriend and defiling the face by emptying it and filling it scribbles to allude to the confusion surrounding the wanting and the need for something beyond him. A man she’s always wanted but can not be sure of. With my wall, we considered the meshing of maps of places I used to live in and manipulating them together through Photoshop to produce another world of homes I’ve yet to call one. The idea for Cindy’s wall is very much revolving a childhood image of her quite literally in the way that it will be surrounded by puzzle piece symbols crumbling to form as a whole desiring the shell of what she once was. These are all in the moment of development and will hopefully be realised by the end of the week ready for action as a whole installation for Week 13.

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Pre-Week 12 Endeavours

Following some of the self-initiated group meetings during our free time, as previously discussed we have decided to concentrate on emphasising and also celebrating the differences of perspective when it went down to the notion of our desires. We felt it best that our portrayal of desire as a topic should not be singularised by one affair yet rather follow the promotion of desire being split into the different paths that adhere to the mould of an individual’s unique specificities. And so begins an endeavour into a more streamlined exploration of Desire as a topic, we also liked how it was also not so streamlined in the way that we wanted to explore the topic and its different contexts amongst three different point of views (Cindy, Fiona and Patrick). As discussed amongst each other we decided that we were interested in bringing the concept to life in the form of an exhibition in a single room. To which we thought it would powerfully toy with the multilayered perspectives of our own sets of desires as it bounces off across one another onto the different sides of the walls. We gravitated towards a multi-media exhibition that played with both the audience’s capacity to be engaged in visual and auditory platforms. The idea of an exhibition almost instantly became charged with several ideas of portraying different ways we might depict different facades of people who are focused on their path to achieve the desirable.

Quick brainstorm of erratic ideas of how this wall might be effectively put together as the noisy confusing mess of visuals

As depicted above from the brainstorm illustration of our group’s ideas, we are at a drafted blueprint pace in regards to the idea of our room installation. We were really ecstatic with the prospect of exploring an event that showed an exposé of three faces, three sides, three desires, three paths and portraying that in the splitting image of a small room. It completely made sense to us that the room would be something that would be charged in the way that we wanted to capture a particular frenetic energy that was fueled from the determinedness of each sides to take on the desire and that particular energy was portrayed in a way that it did not care who was in the way, they’d run it over and continue its process into that path.

The ultimate hardships that our group truly faced was a lack of leader who would charge on in telling who’s position and role is what and so we were put into a charge energy of coming up with ideas and concepts to add on to the already developed idea and we all thought that led to nowhere as hundreds of the ideas were either not ideal in the existing conception of the room or was not at all possible to achieve in the sensitive timeframe to put it together. One fundamental step is that we’ve confidently decided on recorded film, manipulated photo imagery and sound to go hand in hand for the portrayal of such a concept.

So far we knew that we wanted to capture desire as something that always had mess tied to it as we understood that each and every one of us has developed or is beginning to develop a specific vernacular that maybe only makes sense to us in way of reaching that particular desire, whatever it is and however absurd it is to others, it is important to us. We left it at that for the week and hoped for the best that we’d be able to contain a fire of creative energy that was beginning to lose control. I was visibly scared as we really got nowhere for 5 hours of discussion. It is an important note, though, that we are aware of our concept and what we want ending result to come out of it.

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Creative and Contextual Research

During our group meeting, we kept bouncing back and forth from the topics of desire and value. And the similarities that we have somewhat likened to both - the reciprocal energy between finding value with what we desire and the desiring for what we value. It was quite difficult as we followed a motion of different ideas relaying to one another to the point where in the end the essence of our ultimate idea went lost in translation. We went ahead into researching different points that did very well in exploring the sometimes interchangeable nature of value and desire when exposed to one another. An example of this was the recent Sotheby’s auctioning of a Banksy piece ‘The Girl with Balloon’ that spontaneously self-destructed by shredding as soon as the painting was sold to the highest bidder of AUD 1.93 million dollars mysteriously shredded upon the shock of onlookers. Later hailed as a genius Banksy prank to which almost instantly the profitability of the piece raised due to the unique story behind the work. As a group, we saw this as a case study that followed an interesting interplay between desire and value as we witness that both have been toyed with as destroying it would normally void all aspect of its worth as a compelling piece of contemporary creative work yet the heightened enthrallment of its actual shredding that has seemingly ingrained the enigmatic Banksy spirit that the spectators go crazy for has left us pondering upon the validity in our desire for something and the real perspective behind various ephemera as in this case we watch something that has been completely destroyed become more valued than ever. We were completely fascinated in how such phenomenon blurred the lines of perspective and what really should be found important and unimportant. Thus, leading us to an interest in exploring the multilayered perspectives that come into the play of desire.

Photo taken in the moments of a Banksy piece toyed with in typical Banksy nature. Image acquired from https://www.dezeen.com/2018/10/16/banksy-authenticates-painting-self-destructed-auction-sothebys/

Source: Kazanika K., ‘Banksy painting destroyed in artist's prank at Sotheby's auction’, The Sydney Morning Herald [website], 6 October 2018, <https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/banksy-painting-destroyed-in-artist-s-prank-at-sotheby-s-auction-20181006-p5086a.html/>, accessed 16 October 2018.

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Week 11 (In class activity + 1st group meeting): Procession into the Collective Event

Later this week, unfortunately (due to mismanaged time), is the first time the group has initiated face-to-face to finally commence our delve into Assessment 3 and the idea of putting together a collective event. Our group was almost instantly attracted to the topic of desire and the different avenues of perspective that we were able to take on with such a topic. A stump that we immediately encountered, however, is just that: the vastness of such a concept that we got lost in the tracks and started to delve into different ideas of desire and what we ourselves really desired. A point that my group made earlier in class (which conveniently Desire was the main topic of the week) based off into the negative repercussions that come with it when one does not hit the expectations that we bring into being. An activity that was required for us to turn the concept of desire and the production of it into a physical wearable. We explored that very point, not exactly in how it is being produced but in a way that encapsulated the stifling pressures that come into being when one is forced to relay into a cat and mouse game with desire.

An up-close picture of Cindy wearing a choker that animated how we produce desire and its asphyxiating seduction (Photo Taken by Fiona Ren)

As depicted above, for the ‘desire as a wearable’ in-class activity, Cindy and I decided to head into the library and the scanners to play with surreal imagery of our hands in swirls. We saw the scanners as a perfect tool to bring to life the effect that desire had on us and how we might use physical entities such as our bodies to depict so. The scanning of our hands and twirling it across the scanner made for an interesting almost swirly effect paired with the black and white colour it somewhat emphasised the horrors of being entrapped with the expectation of exceeding the maximum to become of what we truly desire. The hands formed into a choker necklace also animated quite dramatically how we reach so hard for something that we are almost forced to extend ourselves with an extra pair of limbs just to attain the sometimes unattainable. I like how the choker, in a way, resembled the visuals of Roman Polanski’s 1965 film ‘Repulsion’ with Catherine Deneuve navigating herself across a wall of arms seemingly reaching for her.

Excerpt grabbed from the 1965 Polanski film ‘Repulsion’ showing Deneuve in the iconic aforementioned scene with the wall of hands, a visual that we might later focus on as an area of inspiration for the collective event. Image acquired from: http://basementrejects.com/review/repulsion-1965/

Another image of Cindy wearing the choking effect of Desire in a literal choker (Photo by Fiona Ren)

As we finally meet as a group, we were also attracted to the idea of further developing the choker idea into an event where a focus on a negative portrayal of desire is something that we really wanted to bring into emphasis. We delved further into possible interpretations of particular ideas of the topic such as:

Desire as a hereditary chain and effect falling into place as a particular object or idea of desire is passed down generation by generation and how the mould of this particular mentality is being remoulded into a timeline recycled to be shared across familial experience

The notion of making the desirable into an undesirable and the undesirable into a desirable

How desire can become a social apparatus amongst groups where reverberated is a shared need for one particular desire, thus is desire simply a construct based on raising that desire as the ‘desired’?

Delving into singularised portions of desire: money, beauty, power, relationships

For now, we are at a current roadblock in the way that we need to get a hold of the topic that, we as a group, wholly agree on to take into another dimension. One particular dilemma we are facing is how we are able to put together the participatory nature of an event with which persons in our class are able to engage themselves with our burgeoning perspective of desire. Does the class need to directly participate? Or is simply observing a form of participation for this collective event?

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The Final: Book (pdf)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q_HwE9PfEE9b6_dQr2DcFPCzd1eNlU5W/view?usp=sharing

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A further detailed look into the book.

The concept statement is posted separately below.

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The Final: Major Project + Statement

Concept Statement:

The design idea behind this project goes on to bridge a pronounced relationship between the whole' Impress me' narrative, as investigated from the previous poster where I deconstructed the idea of what a contemporary creative rebellion would look like: with which I ended up portraying it as this frenetic underworld full of undistinguished creatures to emphasise on my final response that the contemporary creative rebel is undistinguished themselves as they struggle to rebel in a world where rebellion is canonised and shock value is repeated and recycled culture. For this project, that very notion is made synonymous with the journey of the university student, more specifically, an A&D student entering their creative practice. Where this time, I am interested in pulling out a narrative that tethers the complete absurdity that dwells in the mind of the A&D student onto the containing pages of the book. A mind teeming with creative anguish as it coexists in a world where everything seems to have been done and recycled and repeatedly so across time in art and design. I attempt to make a reality of the atmosphere behind that through the display of previous works from prominent artists and designers appropriated as a perverted manifestation of grotesque and nightmarish creatures existing in a hallucinatory black and white world of handmade and digital collage as well as illustration.

The process of doing so required a playful handling with the visual elements of layer, orientation and dimensionality where I manipulated the illustrations through Adobe Photoshop with which I altogether I altered it through a continual approach through obscuration, distortion as well as abstraction to the point where the viewer is immersed into an otherworldly dimension where the A&D students anxieties are brought to life as figures and shadowy remnants of past works that exist by feeding on the very fear of the students' never finding their creative footprint in a muddy path that has been obstructed by amazing, groundbreaking work to the point where these iconic artworks appropriated as insidious demons are almost taunting the A&D students head with “Don't fail me”, “Perplex me”, “Give me your best”, “Strike me as bored”, etc. Almost like a incessant blubbering to remind that the student will never create something as memorable that will contest these amazing works later propelling them to a place in their hierarchies as equals.

In the process of creating the book, with myself, knowing what I wanted to do with the project from the get-go during the creation of Assessment 1, it was kind of challenging to inject the varying steps of experimentation as stated from the course outline which I would have relied on to get from A to B but I found that it did help to counteract this negative and cynical approach of making it in art and design as I have depicted through the project. Researching into the grounded basis of originality and how it has been contested since the very conception of art itself has shone light through my own expectations of finding it difficult to create something in a world that has seemingly lost itself as many artists and designers run their work by the basis of influence, I found that the simple notion that everyone is going through what I am feeling makes it seem a little less alone yet this somewhat feeds into the fire of my anxieties, because we are all in this mess and we are all, at the same time, finding a place where spots are almost gone. This project, as a whole, is my way of projecting my own anxieties as a design student; where reflected are the conflicted corners of my mind as I deal with trying to make it when I constantly compare my work not only to prominent artists and designers but as well to the amazing creative offspring that colleagues at UNSW A&D have and continue to make before my eyes. The project, all in all, is a step further to a realisation of myself, as a designer, where through the process I get to self-actualise how I work and apply my concepts from pen and paper. Hopefully, the world that I have created with this book serves as an omen reminding other designers to kickstart their journey through waters that thousands and thousands of other hopefuls have swam in; where some have managed to cross and others have unfortunately drowned as depicted from the front cover where I manipulated an image to show a person seemingly falling into a hole with a smaller figure at the front watching in triumphant awe to see that they’ve made it. As a future creative practitioner, I hope in 10 years I read this in laughter and have moved on from such a conflicted mindset as very clearly depicted within the borders of this book.

Bibliography:

Coates, S Unknown, Bike Racing Mini Book, Galatic Echo, accessed 14 September 2018, <http://www.galactic-echo.com/bike%20racing%20mini.html>.

Emerson, A 2013, Graffik Research (2): Low-fi Hand-Drawn Typography, Punk Graphics. Instant Design, And Visit to Sarah Records Exhibition, Weebly, accessed 8 September2018, <https://deletedformat.weebly.com/graffik-history/research-low-fi-hand-drawn-typography-instant-design/>.

Jones, J 2014, Contemporary art isn’t original – even copying has been done before, The Guardian, accessed 23 August 2018, <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/contemporary-art-isnt-original-marina-abramovic-row>.

Lee, B 2013, Design Heroes: Saul Bass & David Carson, Wordpress, accessed 13 September2018, <https://brykhlee.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/design-heroes-saul-bass-david-carson/>.

Nataly 2018, MINIATURE book, ALICE in WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll, readable 1:6 scale books, dollhouse miniatures, Etsy, accessed 14 September 2018, <https://www.etsy.com/MiniBooksWithLoveArt/listing/582821704/miniature-book-alice-in-wonderland-by?utm_campaign=Share&utm_medium=social_organic&utm_source=DSMT2&utm_term=so.smt&share_time=1520696157000>.

Parikh, S Unknown, Is Originality a Compulsory Principle for Art? A (Not-so) Original Investigation, Distinguished Magazine, accessed 23 August 2018, <https://www.distinguished-mag.com/originality-compulsory-principle-for-art/>.

Todorova, N 2013, DAVID CARSON – ‘THE FATHER OF GRUNGE’, Wordpress, accessed 13 September 2018, <https://nvtodorova.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/david-carson-the-father-of-grunge/>.

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The Procession to the Final

The visual works I referenced for appropriation are as listed below:

Abram Games poster design Night & Day / Brush The Cobwebs Away

Armin Hofmann 1962 poster design for Stadt Theatre Basel

Bradbury Thompson works for Percussive Maintenance and Mademoiselle Magazine

Brice Marden ‘Event’ painting (2004-07)

Damien Hirst sculpture ’For the love of God’ 2007

Erik Nitsche poster for General Dynamics

George Condo painting ‘Orgy Composition’ (2008)

Glenn Brown’s painting ’The Hinterland’ (2006)

Josef Müller-Brockmann ‘Moins de bruit’ Poster and ‘Beethoven’ designs

Lucian Bernhard design for Novelta Cigaretten

Marcel Duchamp’s readymade sculpture Fountain 1917

Maria Lassnig painting ‘Krankenhaus (Hospital) 2005

Massimo Vignelli map design for NYC Subway

Muriel Cooper design for Noise Reduction

Paul Rand cover work for the childrens book ‘Listen Listen’

Peter Doig painting ‘100 Years Ago’ (2000)

Peter Saville album art cover for New Order’s Technique (1989)

Saul Bass ‘Bonjour tristesse’ film title sequence (1958)

Seymour Chwast fork for Currently Misplaced: Issue N. 56, 1971. The Dark Side of Good People

Stefan Sagmeister and ‘Things I have learned so far’

All six of the final appropriated compositions blended together to mask a circus of imagery -- about to head into Adobe Photoshop for some heavy manipulation work

For this book, I will try to emulate the atmosphere inside an A&D student's mind and their experience with that struggle. Where through the pages, I will portray many of these previous works from prominent artists and designers as surreal, nightmarish apparitions and otherworldly hallucinations. I want to amplify this effect because I wanted these iconic pieces to almost represent as recurring villains of some sort that A&D students come across. Similar to the saying of the elephant in the room constantly reminding and taunting the student to come up with a work that contests what these artists have provided and if so, is it enough to push these students as equals of these prominent creatives?

Translating work through to Photoshop:

Transformation of all six previous drawings as reimagined through Photoshop. I see that it has strongly simulated the hallucinatory landscape that A&D students undergo in the process of finding creativity through the regurgitated process of recycled ideas across the culture of the creativie world.

With the power of Adobe Photoshop, I went ahead with scanning and amplifying the same circus that I presented with the poster. Where I wanted to emphasise on a nonsensical nature; almost like a meaningless vomit of imagery that A&D students have to swallow along with other students across the world of creative practice. I decided to pair the nightmarish imagery with visuals of a common thread from the A&D student's eye: Pinterest, google images, the ADAD course outline, photoshop as well as Moodle and Turnitin to run as a way of bringing some reality into the edges of the book where on photoshop I manipulated and twisted these images as well to turn them as unrecognisable as possible; blending into the glitched nightmare of the A&D student in creative block. Through Photoshop, I used Threshold and several options as provided by the multifaceted Filter options to capture the carnage.

From the real to the unreal. Altering repetitive remnants of the A&D students’ eye of sight such as Pinterest, Moodle, Turnitin, the iPhone home screen, etc. Bringing that piece of reality and also twisting it to add into the already twisted world I’ve brought to life further amplifies the state of mind in strife with creative block

One last element to finally integrate within the pages of the final book are the textual elements and I’ve handwritten some big blocks of texts with a similar tone to the “Impress me” text that was found from the previous poster. I, then, transferred it to Photoshop to convert it as clearer black and white texts.

As shown from above are the texts I will attach to the visuals

The problem with the texts are that the white text blends too well with the already black and white compositions that it is plastered on so I’ve decided to convert them in colour. I was not too excited by that move as I really want it to solely be a b&w piece. But sometimes one has to make some unplanned decisions. As depicted below the final composition of the book was processed with Adobe inDesign. The final technical aspect of it is that it is in A5, with bleeds, 16 pages and saddle stitched to be taken to print store ready for collection.

The books’ pages with compositions finalised and textual elements converted to a light green being tweaked as a final to be processed for print production

As shown from above the inDesign file shows the visual composition in its final form with the text plus front cover/back cover in a light sort of slimy/vomit green to strengthen the sickly and nauseating atmosphere of the book. The book is finally ready to be printed.

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Creative and Contextual Research: More

Excerpts from previous work of American graphic designer David Carson for the art direction of the Alt. rock based Ray Gun Magazine. Images obtained from: <https://brykhlee.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/design-heroes-saul-bass-david-carson/>.

As I plan to incorporate typographic and textual elements as fixtures within the pages of the mini book where taunting statements similar to ‘Impress me!’ will be superimposed, I am particularly interested in American graphic design David Carson and his anomalous approach with layout, imagery and text as a unified relationship that goes beyond the ease of accessibility through usability and legibility. Often hailed as the ‘Father of Grunge Typography’, Carson has pioneered a movement of chaotic and messy design where a particular attention for texture and background and how it disintegrates with text is an interplay that he often amplifies through his layouts. I like that he is able to approach text not as banal paragraphs of ‘Lorem ipsum’ words nicely put together by a grid but rather as visual elements that are able to contest photographic elements as strong aesthetic contenders that can take command of a canvas just as much as pictorials. The examples depicted above shows Carson’s keen relationship with cropping, distorting and overall blurring of the lines between text and image to form layouts that challenge how a reader may digest content. His way of treating the layout as art canvas looks deceivingly easy to accomplish but I feel that the hard work really comes from his particular approach to curation of imagery and text where finding the balance between both to properly coexist with one another. Each layout he designs are so unique from each other but so distinctively Carson-esque; as a budding graphic designer, this is a quality that I most sincerely hope to achieve through my way of handling a piece.

More excerpts from previous work of American graphic designer David Carson for the art direction of Ray Gun Magazine. Images acquired from Carson’s own website of archived works <http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/t/tag/raygun/>

Texts and or statements that I plan to incorporate into my mini A5 book are: “Impress me”, “Perplex me”, “Don’t fail me”, “New career choice?”, “So original!”, “That’s never been done before” etc are examples of short and concise words amongst the pages, I want the text to echo across the pages almost as if like a repetitive or incessant call ringing like an apparition of voices in the uni student’s head to taunt them away from a world of challenging pain that is to find their creative voice in a world that is been there and done that and originality is seemingly not there anymore. More excerpts from above of Carson’s graphics work with Ray Gun magazine is shown with the iconic Bryan Ferry layout in which Carson was asked to design the layout with a paragraph of an interview with Ferry. He disliked the interview for its dull nature so Carson translated the paragraph in Zaph Dingbats font -- which I thought was a loud yet somewhat subtle brilliance that gave us a strong insight on the nuances of his take on the relationship (or its, sometimes, lack of) between textual content and visual aid.

References:

Todorova, N 2013, DAVID CARSON – ‘THE FATHER OF GRUNGE’, Wordpress, accessed 13 September 2018, <https://nvtodorova.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/david-carson-the-father-of-grunge/>.

#adad1002 #assessment2 #ass2

Week 8 (Value) + Pretend Experimentation

Although I missed this class and consequently missed the interesting class activity involved, I have made steps to follow a self-directed approach of the week’s class topic through the aid of the provided Week 8 slides.

This week enters the idea of ‘value’ and how a creative practitioner may delve into finding the essence of that value within their work. I found that that separating of one’s creative offspring as both of value in creative integrity and monetary means was a whole other chapter that I was yet to be ready for in the context of the creative world as a future business enterprise. Where the latter, in regards to your art being equalised as a money-making vessel is something that is quite confusing for a future designer such as myself. Generally, when one thinks highly of their work it can be somewhat difficult to translate that into the business of having to sell it; as you pull blood, sweat and tears onto something it can be quite disheartening when someone might pull a price on it that one can’t put o a price on, however, that is a fact that one must come to terms with if their aim is to utilise their A&D experience as a self-built business, as an unimpressed parent might say “artistic integrity doesn’t pay for the bills”. It can be somewhat of an eye opener for one to see their art piece being brought about as a commodity ready to be sold for the interested eye. Of course, one can find ways to counteract this challenging effort by paying through labour, hours spent on it and the expense of material used for it. However, the multi-layered perspective of value is altogether an affair that I think makes for an interesting discourse amongst creative practitioners. As the slides put it together, value can be constructed in the perception of economical, cultural, environmental, educational as well as self-means.

In comparison (theoretical terms), the left - the book with discernable details & the right - the same expensive gold version but you can’t read it. Which one is worth more?

The topic of capitalism where notions of supply, demand, market, currency and investment make for an interesting contrast with the A&D world; although I did not actually do this activity (as it would cost me); I have applied the concept of material illusionism as discussed with the idea of my mini book. To bring into visual terms: think of two versions of the book I am about to make: one is printed in A5 bleeds with contents in high resolution through costly thick matted paper stock while another similar looking book containing indistinguishable sentences with pictures is taskfully engraved on 3D printed marble or gilded gold (if even at all possible); one would obviously pay more for the latter due to the expense of creating such with such material. While the former, printed with contents that were poured with hard work is left into a pile of ditch; this interesting contrast of finding value is a fascinating allegory of value being open to interpretation where one could find high value of something and another may very well equate it with the price of dirt. Altogether, I found that this topic pulled a strong yet somewhat not very relevant endeavour to move forward into the mammoth that has been this project so far. Through the coming days, I will explore how pen + paper translate through Adobe Photoshop and Indesign as I finally bring to life the finalised stages of this mini book.

Image References:

Coates, S Unknown, Bike Racing Mini Book, Galatic Echo, accessed 14 September 2018, <http://www.galactic-echo.com/bike%20racing%20mini.html>.

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Week 7 (Non-Teaching Week Creative and Contextual Research)

Excerpts from Bryan Ray Turcotte’s Punk Rock-era graphic book ‘Fucked Up + Photocopied’; where embedded are staple styles of flyers and posters designed for Punk bands. Images obtained from: <https://deletedformat.weebly.com/graffik-history/research-low-fi-hand-drawn-typography-instant-design/>

Approaching the aesthetic output of the book I make, I am heavily influenced by the visuals of photocopied art and appropriation of previously made work as a common element within posters of the Punk Rock era of music. As seen from the flyers and posters plastered above and below, the tongue-in-cheek manner that they have appropriated and altered iconography and imagery to adhere to the typical ‘punk’ attitude; the gritty finish and seemingly unfiltered aftertaste of the design on it where embraced is this almost effortless and carefree demeanor that the Punk Rockers are known for. The design of several works of this era somewhat resembles disintegrating posters on brick walls fading in due time. The raw qualities of this era’s designs are something I would like to translate in my mini book where I feel it would do well in communicating the frenetic energy of the uni student’s mind. The conflict in the mind of creating something original in a wave of works that has seemingly done all. This method of defiling and appropriating work is an approach I will take forward as well as I fuse in the presence of staple works from the catalogue of art and design. I am still indecisive about which works I am to incorporate and ‘defile’ in the process of representing it as an intimidating creature for the contemporary creative rebel to outdo; as previously achieved in the poster assessment with Louise Bourgeois 1999 Maman, Mattise’ 1910 Dance where I managed to bring life into these artworks as tormenting symbols of "Ugh! I should have done that! What do I do to impress?!”.

Excerpts from another Bryan Ray Turcotte’s Punk Rock-era graphic book ‘PUNK IS DEAD PUNK IS EVERYTHING’; Posters for The Cramps. obtained from: <https://www.thesedaysla.com/products/punk-is-dead-punk-is-everything/>

Pieces from above showing some archived work for The Cramps. I love the intentional stylistic choices behind these designs. The oversaturation of colours, the repetitive cycle of photocopying an image until it comes out as highly contrasted and grainy. Again, qualities that I feel would help in bringing to life the anxieties of being a university student trying to propel into unchartered waters of finding authenticity in an art and design world that has already been born out of as well as gave birth to a culture of influence, duplicity and imitation. Punk rock art and design clearly has a place in that culture with their Xerox art and love for appropriation where recycling accessible material and manipulating those elements to achieve that effortlessly cool attitude with the sex appeal. For bands and designers of this era, recycling art was important to get the message out: that they are in town for the days with a couple of gigs.

Designing this book, I know I will find the use for images acquired from the scanning of graphic books as well as the internet to achieve the Punk-rock way of appropriating aesthetic infused with illustrations of my own. I believe it’s finally time to hit the desk to lay the groundwork for the foundation of this mini book’s visuals.

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Week 6 (Context and Time) + a bit of Experimentation

This week, in particular, was especially revolved around acknowledging the importance of time and context and how both are at an interplay in the process of the ongoing work with the major project which now we are slowly pronouncing in the form of a mini book. The conception of this major project, in particular, is strongly attached to time and context at work -- as the book will be intending to simulate the overwhelming presence of previous creative work that spans across various generational timelines of era and context; with that I intend to also fuse with present time and the environment (both physical and virtual) that creatives are subjected within as they get into the process of creating.

During class, it was made clear through the slides that it was not just about realising your own influences but rather understanding that ‘multiple narratives’ are co-existing ‘simultaneously’ which was a clear and present theme within my own project in particular. The past, present, future and how they are intricately interlinked with one another is a fascinating and subtle undertone that I have recognised within my project as the anxieties of being an A&D student today is an experience that was born from the ramifications of the past and will later pour itself over into the future as it affects how incoming creative pieces are put together. When one thinks about it, the idea that ‘everything has been done already’ is somewhat of a specific mindset that is occurring in this generation as other timelines of the past had an ongoing wave of the new, exciting and innovative where something as simple as a design of a helpful kitchen utensil could be found as groundbreaking and fresh. The renaissance era of art, the invention of the car, the computer, the rise of the iPhone are particular moments in history that reflect on the idea that only from time to time are products deemed revolutionary and pioneering where even later as today there are rare occurrences of pieces that are truly head-turning(ly) interesting. This recollection mimics the constant wave of shock value across creative industries and verifies that rebellion has been rampantly canonised within the art and design world; where with this feeds into the need to always be presenting works that are ‘original’ and ‘worthy’ of attention. The fear of being cast into the bin pile of the boring, derivative and uninspired is a phenomenon that any A&D student can be quite sympathetic with. This, as continuously emphasised, is what this book of mine aims to amplify. To produce a mirrored object of all these anxieties and the very distraction that comes from it that ultimately obstructs our process into creating; many may very well be fortunate enough to always stay true to their artistic perspective and not be shy of this fear but there are many (myself, included) who are in constant rotation of needing to outdo themselves every time they are to push out final works.

Arising from all the manic confusion that has been my posts and way of process, I want to make clear that I will never have a full answer to the original question:

2. Can creative acts be rebellious when rebellion has become canonised in art, design and media histories? What would a contemporary creative rebellion look like?

As the book I am about to produce is nothing but somewhat a mere representation of the question itself. Where across this frantic circus of prominent A&D eras from the past fused with the frantic that is the overwhelming sea of present time where phenomenal and thought-provoking creative work are constantly being put out as each one tries to speak what they are trying to say on top of one another. A contemporary creative rebellion and how it looks like may very well be out of the question; as we exist in a society embroiled in a culture of the everchanging ‘problematic’, the ‘cancelled’ and ‘exposing’ -- current affairs of the millennial generation are almost on the go and how one should bring across their message is hard to disseminate as one topic could mean the most important to one individual while it could mean nothing at all to the next.

A visual representation of all our creative input and messages all running at once, almost like confetti of everyone having a say at the same time. How it unravels is also interesting because it gets even messier

As shown above, this time around I decided to play with experimentation where involved was an easy activity using variously coloured paper cut into shreds and mixed together later blown by an electric fan from time to time. I saw that something as simple as that participated in portraying a visual analogy that accommodated strongly with good ideas coalescing with great ideas as well as terrible ones. Although, this activity did not altogether bring a sense of clarity on how the final pages of my book would look like it still served an interesting symbolic effigy of how one traverses across a frantic environment full of so many original perspectives and trying to find their own creative footprint amongst that very mess.

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Week 5 (PROCESS WORK)

This week also required of us (as an additional activity) to do is to locate the politics of ideas that surround our work for Assessment One. For the poster, the politics surrounding my ideas are bordering on the concepts of rebellion, creativity, recycling of ideas, originality, obscurity, obstacles, intimidation and finding a creative’s own place within their respective field(s). In way of locating these ‘politics’ of ideas, I admit that experimentation this week was more based on planning, brainstorming and research as I felt that I could not get anywhere to creating even a simple object if I did not get a full grasp of this project’s depth and overall resolve in dissecting the topic. As a lot of the time, planning and brainstorming is just as important as getting your hands interlocked with the nitty gritty forms of creating; ultimately I went about in reading some articles on the idea of originality within art and design as well as finally heading into the process of forming a more realised version of the drafts I have formed in my head.

Jones (2014) relays a particular quote that provided an interesting focal point for this project: ‘originality does not burst from an artist’s head like an alien entity, but is a subtle game of variations and transformations of which, once in a while, comes the shudder of true artistic surprise’ which I ultimately saw as a fascinating counterpoint that should reach a creative practitioners’ mindset as they feel overwhelmed by the presence of original work. Jones (2014) also pulls the fact that art and design are largely built on the readily ‘accepted omnipresence of influence’ as a factor in the creation of a piece being exchanged into the discourse of art. The debate behind authenticity of originality is something that has been synonymously fused with the creation of art itself where Parikh mentions that artists such as Picasso, Monet, Dali and Sturtevant ‘engaged, consciously or subconsciously, in producing imitative versions of artworks seen before’ with Picasso himself professing that “good artists copy, great artists steal”; this viewpoint, for me, elevated a perspective that this experience has always been a part of the process in creating. That the concept of exchanging ideas through creation are all stemmed from borrowing and influence at some point.

All in all, I am truly inspired to form a work that does not deny that the culture of borrowing and copying should not be practised but rather bring forward a self-portrait of the anxieties of creating rebellious and provocative works that contest works that have already gone through the same process of copying, duplicating and being influenced by. To simply put, I am bringing forward the notion of “If they’ve already done amazing work by copying, do I copy those who copy? And so what else do I copy from if everything else has been copied? Do I copy the copied works of those who have copied from the copied?” These befuddling statements alone already strongly display the overwhelming stance of what it is like for a university A&D student to find their place in a creative world that has seemingly done what has already been done. That seemingly original work is devoided in turn by prior original work that was influenced by even earlier original work. I am excited to create a physical representation of the manic environment that is: trying to create something that is authentically ‘them’ in a world that has obviously created everything else for ‘them’. (My apologies to readers of this post, it is challenging to find clarity in a complex web that even, I myself, is stifled and continued to be confused and intimidated by).

Moving on, it brought about this idea of mine to bring to life this non-existent alien entity as Jones (2014) mentions; with which I would like to depict this entity trying to find itself in the surrounding static noise that it is being enveloped in. I am thinking of depicting this static noise as the glitchy apparitions of original work (already been provided by creatives) that has managed to provoke and stand as a rebellious piece that has ignited interesting conversation across art and design. So far as illustrated below, I have pulled out a brainstorming process for this experimentation where laid out as well are included plans to create this project. Hopefully, proper experimentation is processed by the coming week as I am clearly ‘affected’ by the ‘micropolitics’ (get it?) surrounding the complexities of the research topic I have chosen.

A copy of the brainstorming sheet I put together to propel my intial process with the book I am thinking of making

Later in the week as depicted above, it is clear that I am slowly heading into my interest of creating a mini book or zine that would go ahead in bridging the prior ‘Impress me!’ narrative as explored with the poster, where this time I would like to mirror that that with the university student entering the creative industries/workplace. Through this book I am interested in simulating, through the mixed media process of collage and illustration work, the conflicted mind of the student in the stages of creation with which they are struggling with the overwhelming presence of creative work across both virtual and physical platforms as provided by the Internet, books, etc down to places such as museums, galleries, etc. I am, again, interested in bringing it to life through the process of pencil/pen work and Adobe Photoshop to create a fully realised final product.

References:

Jones, J 2014, Contemporary art isn't original – even copying has been done before, The Guardian, accessed 23 August 2018, <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/contemporary-art-isnt-original-marina-abramovic-row>.

#adad1002 #assessment2 #ass2

Week 5 (Affect and Body Politics)

This week followed the notion that the blueprint of everything conceptual can be understood as ‘political’ and or ideological. It was made clear to us that manners in which we carry out and bring to fruition such concepts have an ignition to form and set a chain of reactions across all sections that may readily involve surrounding parties both related and non-related almost interlinking with the previous topic of ‘ecologies’ as explored a few weeks back in class. Week 5 was directed to the notion of ‘affect’ and ‘body politics’ wherein an aim was to make us expand upon our preexisting knowledge of the ‘political’ as we got to acquaint with this concentrated idea of micropolitics which can been defined us how we, us, individuals perform within our situated environments and how we both knowingly and unknowingly conform to the regulated systemised norms and mores that revolve around a specific sociopolitical landscape.

Body politics, in particular, aims to challenge the axis of this ongoing phenomenon where the politicised runs skin-deep where our bodies are also performatively affected by the promoted ideologies of a particular area. The notion of body politics is a narrative that has often been threaded within the realm of art and design where much interest rhetoric has been disseminated amongst creatives. The idea of being able to proclaim the human body as a vessel to confront powers across hierarchies that centrally govern how we must employ it is something that definitely interests me as a designer that readily has the means to join and continue the discourse, however around this time, it is a conversation that does not concern the topic that revolves the narrative of my own project for this course. Interestingly, though, is my somewhat of a reluctance to really engage with the discourse of body politics as, again, it really feels like so much has been brought to the table already that not much, in my own case, can be said that is distinctly new or helpful.

This realisation very much reflects the saga of my own project where the narrative follows up on the question existing of ‘what could the contemporary rebellious creative look like?’; I aim to depict this individual as an unknown to richly bring to life the idea of never recognising who this particular creative could be due to he/she/they being swallowed up by this culture of repetitive shock value where the need to constantly be ahead of one another to bring an ‘original’ message that will turn heads. Wherein, ultimately, this particular rebellious creative is hidden amass a wave of other rebellious creatives. Again to emphasise the taunting question ‘Impress me!’; elevating the struggle of surviving in a world of constant deliverance to stoke the fire of conversation within the industries of art and design: where one will listen yet will move on to the next in seconds. An evergrowing world always on the move to see which one is more interesting than the other. I, recognise, that this view of art and design is quite cynical and sees this world as not accommodating to the dissemination of all creative ideas and concepts, which for the record, is not what is being promoted but rather to put emphasis on the influx of all these creative ideas being in a wave of competition against one another that it somehow makes it difficult for the viewer to focus on the important ideas.

This week also delved into the world of affect theory and the idea of experience and its synonymous connection with art and design. Exploring the distinction between affect and effect where the former is assosciated with the impression and influence of something while the latter exploring the subsequent results and ramifications of something that has been applied into existence. Ultimately, these ideas are interconnected with the prior mention of micropolitics and the concentrated ideologies that are applied withh the concepts we form altogether to which all in all they are able to bring about a cause and effect chain of reaction. As mentioned within the Week 5 slides, the world of art and design is ‘interested in affect’ due to the creative practitioners’ commitment to the ‘embodied responses that become aesthetic experience’ (2018). For example, the concept I have applied for the poster were interested in bringing about a mutual understanding for the viewers (people in my class) to sympathise with the contemporary rebellious creative being stifled with the pressures of coming up with something new among the wave of original work that have managed to change the axis of art and design as a whole; I was interested in the struggle of the contemporary creative rebel in finding their own place amongst the collective of past creatives that have offered something new and distinct to the table.

To conclude, my overall idea for this new project so far is ultimately stemmed with the core ideas of the poster where this time I’d like to mirror the original concept with the university student experience; more specifically the university student entering the creative workforces within art and design. I’d like to amplity the anxieties of creative output and the constant worry of original content where we, as students, are surrounded not only by the influx of content that’s already been made outside of university but also the work that is coming out amongst other students and colleagues. The whole experience of being stifled with the idea that everything has been done already and the struggle of coming to terms with the notion that design from here on out is born out of this culture of recycling ideas where everything every day is seeming more like a copy of a copy of a copy. So far ideas are at a basic early stage where I am leaning towards different ideas to form the concept as an applied physical. I am interested in creating it into either a book/zine, a sculpted bust, artwork, digital video or even a triptych of posters again.

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The Final: Poster + Statement

The Final Poster

Statement:

The poster designed is schemed in correlation to the mythos of the contemporary creative rebellion. It is intentionally portrayed in full kinetic and erratic atmosphere to depict the concept of rebellion and its rampant presence in the art and design industry. It portrays the contemporary creative rebellion in the form of lurish creatures presented in a manner of a circus; alluding to the idea that everything has been done already and so what can an individual do to “impress”. Where in a way it is almost taunting the viewer to produce something original in this chorus of loud energy. Based on research, the influence behind the poster stems from the designs of Stefan Sagmeister and Soviet Union posters where clearly the interplay of surreal imagery and layering to create an otherworldly atmosphere is attempted here.

Excerpts of the final poster

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