RHI

Rowan Hanson-Iles' fabulously artsy and oh so fartsy ILLUSTRATION AND ANIMATION BLOG, about all things illustrated and animated and beyond. Kingston University. 

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SOMNAI

Somnai is an immersive experience that combines the use of actors, props, and VR to create a surreal spectacle. After the interactive media workshop that i attended I was really intrigued as to how one could actually apply what we learnt to an ‘experience’. This is a prime example of merging different interactive aspects together to create a convincing environment and story. Actors guide the punters through the experience whilst they see high end VR animations through their head sets. 

In a world where we have everything at our fingertips old arts are dying out. It is estimated that audiences going to theaters is decreasing by 10% per year. TV is suffering too because of streaming platforms. People want things they can really loose themselves in, like Black Mirror’s interactive episode ‘Bandersnatch’. Interactive media is in high demand, and there is money for these kind of exciting projects. 

I’ve been inspired to try and come up with my own concept for an interactive experience. It wouldn't have to be as high end as Somnai. An interactive experience could be anything from a themed bar to a themed festival like Boomtown. Boomtown festival has a strong story line that they play on every year, they employ actors to make this more convincing during the festival. 

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INTERACTIVE MEDIA GAME CONCEPT

Our group idea for an interactive experience from the two day Interactive Media workshop. We were tasked with coming up with an interactive experience that made use of modern concepts like;

TRANSMEDIA - using and encouraging multi platform story lines to make experience more immersive and real feeling. 

VR and AUGMENTED REALITY - using the latest in technology to transport people to new locations or worlds. Allowing for our concepts to have few boundaries

PERFORMANCE ART - making use of actors within experiences to blur the experience with reality, making a definite beginning or end ambiguous. 

SPECULATIVE DESIGN - using driving questions to maintain momentum. Keeping space for unbiased decision making so people can make moral decisions anonymously. 

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Photographing work for my portfolio. Here i went to the animation studio to use the rotoscope lighting to capture my booklets from Cabinates of Curiosity. I wanted to shoot these booklets together standing up to show the physicality and tactility of them. The black background will make a nice contrast to the majority of white backgrounds throughout my portfolio.

My portfolio is nearly ready for show on Thursday 28th.

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Picture Books

Above are illustrations by Nicola Bayley from one of my favorite story books from my childhood - The Patchwork Cat. everyone has a place in their heart for their childhood picture books. But people don’t often acknowledge the impact that the illustrator behind the images has on us. Many childrens classics are impossible to think about without picturing these illustrations, like Winnie Pooh for example. 

It occurred to me in Mondays seminar about children's media that illustrations are not widely used in adults storybooks. And if they are it is often a novelty. I can appreciate the idea that you imagine characters for yourself. However, the notion that picture books are childish i think is hypocritical seeing as most people would be sparked with delight when they reminisce over their old picture books. 

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PORTFOLIO IDEAS

Some initial photos, edited, for my portfolio. I have thought about different types of photo to show variation and best showcase my work.

The top image is a crop of a much larger A1 painting. I thought this detail of CONTENT was particually nice.

The second image shows off some of my life drawing. It also shows how i am using boxes to work out proportion and composition, demonstrating PROCESS.

The bottom image shows the CONTEXT of the size of the artwork. By holding it up the viewer can see just how big it is. 

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SPATIAL DESIGN

The images above are from Bristol’s ‘UPFEST’ graffiti festival which i have attended loyally. It is located in South Bristol in an area called Bedminster. Not so long ago some areas of Bedminster were considered unsafe by many and house prices were generally on the cheaper side. I believe that UPFEST has significantly contributed to the popularisation and subsequently the gentrification of the area...

Today's seminar caught my attention around the idea of ‘Art-washing’. Here’s a snip-it from my essay so far on the subject.

Legally organised graffiti and street art is becoming more popular with city councils and businesses. It attracts tourism and creates an edgy yet approachable, populist environment. It contests the control of public space by creating a hierarchy of artwork within it. Work that is deemed appropriate for these purposes becomes commissioned, paid and protected. Work that doesn’t fit with these principles is not considered to be art and is removed by councils. This challenges ideas of freedom of expression that people associate with graffiti and street art. It contests the use of public space by adopting grass root talent for advertisement and promotion of businesses.

Legally organised graffiti and street art encourages different phenomenological experiences, contesting the use of urban spaces. By using the vibrant art form in specific situ, it can give a sort of bohemian lively atmosphere, attracting certain crowds and businesses. Areas that were once unappealing to investors and businesses are spruced up with a lick of paint creating a false authenticity in what is termed ‘art washing’.

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Process and Portfolio

This Friday got us to start thinking about how to present work in different ways and with different purpose.

CONTENT - work edited for optimal viewing experience, often on websites/instagram. These may be cropped to show finer detail.

PROCESS - demonstrating how work was produced, showing materials used or roughs and developments.

CONTEXT - demonstrating scale, purpose and intended environment.

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Comics and Visual Narrative 

In Mondays seminar i was particually interested in the idea that different panel shapes and structures within comics can create different reading experiences. A frame with wavy lines could indicate a dream sequence, a horizontally long frame could indicate a long time, a vertically long frame could indicate height.

Above is my redrawn page from Lackadaisy, by Tracy Butler. The story line didn't make much sense without the context of the rest of the comic so I considered the composition mostly. I have drawn the reaction shots shooting out of the central frame to make the conversation look snappy and fast passed. This also draws attention centrally to the main revelation of the characters. 

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Till-roll drawings of people on public transport, from travelling around London for Cabinets of Curiosity.

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EVERYDAY CONNECTIONS - In Review

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15 Surprising Benefits of Playing Video Games

Evidence is mounting that the benefits of play go well beyond entertainment and improved hand-eye coordination.

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10 Big Ethical Issues In Video Games That #GamerGate Won’t Touch

This article is not about harassing indie developers or anyone’s sex life.

DESIGN PLAY DISRUPT 

Mondays trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum was an eye opener to the ethical issues within gaming. This article covers more points than i could even think of. Video games may come under a lot of scrutiny for being overly violent and sexualised, which is true in many cases. However video games can have a lot of benefits according

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DESIGN PLAY DISRUPT

‘Exploring the unique medium of video games, crediting it as a design medium and an important discipline’

I am not a gamer myself but I was drawn to the indie adventure game, Journey, by Thatgamecompany. Its focus on empathy and compassion within a video game appealed to me because it encourages team work in a non violent way. It seems many action games might encourage teamwork but with sinister motives. Even the characters are neutral hooded figures with no implication of gender. It has a soft visual style and calming evocative soundtrack, the colour pallet is selective and appropriate for each environment. 

Journey came across as a really well thought through game, with every consideration taken. They even went to the desert to look at movement in the sand dunes and how materials behaved in the wind and in different states of day for reference. This has clearly paid off with good reviews and high praise all over the internet.

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Systems of Editing

This Friday we made sequences of our new images according to Typology, Chronology and Continuity. Last week i reflected that i wanted to make more narrative based compositions. I was lucky enough to be in Brighton over the weekend so the variety of photos I took was greater than the first lot.

I enjoyed editing by Continuity best. I find it the most visually satisfying to extend a space or theme along 5 photos. My best narratives came out of this too I think. One with balls being thrown across the 5 images. The other with a journey of sorts, travelling across horizons.

When editing by Typologies I focused on aesthetics, trying to group together similar textures, colours and themes. Narrative did not come naturally to this typology.

Chronology should in theory make the most obvious narratives because the process of taking the pictures is a narrative itself. Perhaps my memory failed me and i couldn't remember the correct order in which i took the photographs but no interesting narratives emerged.

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Why plagiarism is not necessarily deceitful or deserving of censure (essay)

While most believe the contrary, some people understand that plagiarism is not necessarily deceitful or deserving censure, writes Jennifer A. Mott-Smith.

Monday - Choose your own lecture - ‘Free writing’

This Monday I attended a ‘free writing’ workshop. We addressed areas of writing that people struggle with in relation to essay writing.

The main idea that caught my attention was around plagiarism. We debated if plagiarism is as bad as it is made out to be by institutions like our own university. 

If we assume the following... It is okay to take ideas in the form of quotations from other people. We take these ideas because people have already written about a subject that we are attempting to write about ourselves. These ideas are well formed, researched and argued. So whats to be said for writing an entire essay with none of your own original words. Is that plagiarism at its most destructive or its finest? Whats the point in repeating what other people have already said and trying to alter it to make it ‘original’. I believe most students are guilty of re-wording other peoples work outside of quotations to make it sound like an original idea. 

So provided all sources were correctly acknowledged I believe a skillfully executed essay written  entirely using other peoples words would be dignified.

“I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you put in your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I take it, you don’t have it. But what am I taking when I take the good idea you had to put a picnic table in the backyard -- by, for example, going to Sears, buying a table, and putting it in my backyard? What is the thing that I am taking then?” -  Lawrence Lessig

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If your photograph is boring no amount of editing will make it better.

When is editing too much?

If a piece of writing is edited to fit the purpose of assessment, a lot of creative freedom and voice might be lost. If a vibrant photograph is edited to stand out against other vibrant photographs it might become over saturated, garish and unconvincing.

Sometimes raw unedited creation, experimentation and failings can be the most arresting outcomes.

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Editing

What is editing? Editing is being selective, its is condensing, revising and improving. Editing can be the reduction of elements as well as the addition. 

Why edit? To appeal to or effectively communicate to an audience. to bridge connections.

Fridays task: using 2, 3, and 5 images together in compositions of sequence, texture, narrative, colour. 

It was great to see my photographs in a new light, you notice different elements of each when placed next to a different photograph. I found myself going for aesthetic compositions to do with texture and colour mostly. When trying to make a narrative you might have one photo that just didn't fit aesthetically and this really put me off.

However I composed the bottom edit because i saw instructional symbols in all of them. So there are a lot of different ways to sequence pictures.

I think to make more narrative based compositions I will try an photograph more people and the things people use in every day life. Like vehicles of transport, doors that might lead somewhere, clothing, food.