#1a4003

[seminarblogzac]

Everyday Connections- Pt1

In continuity of recording the everyday life, this Friday session planned to stretched that idea to create a relation of an individual image to create a story when placed alongside other images. Needless to say, it was fairly hard to stay awake.

We were first asked to take roughly 25 pictures and create pairs, then three’s then fives; very exhilarating. Before the adrenaline kicked in, I tried best to create as many pairs as I could, and try my best to understand the purpose of this brief, session. Apparently, it was to help the subsequent tasks ahead such as storyboarding, which was major key point to the activity in the weeks ahead. Thankfully, the brief was up online and I came prepared with extra images to keep myself busy or entertained as we were all given a set amount of time to create as many groups of images we could. With more images, there were combinations which could made, whether they made sense or were just aesthetically pleasing, anything that could keep my mind of the watch would be very beneficial. However, we were suddenly asked to, my hands were sweating, switch images with someone. 

It was not hard to believe many people would take the project wholeheartedly as it felt fairly pointless. So when images were swapped, there was definitely a lower amount of images, which means the limit of combinations was lower as well. This really put imagination to the forefront as trying to create all the possible combinations was the only way to stretch it to the time limit; because if  I just sat there and wondered about them slowly, supervisors would definitely come over and ask to hurry. Thankfully, it was apparent to them it was difficult to create as many combinations possible with the images I had. On the other hand, images taken from someone else’s perspective became intriguing to me. These were images that were new to me and thus new combinations were still created during the process. I dug deep into the activity to take as much as I could in the final few activities of the session. Stories made from another image, as if creating a world from materials belonging to someone, re-arranging their world in a way. I was almost possibly sure, this was just my optimism kicking in to find a purpose for the activity and trying to get something out of it.

Soon, we were underway with the final activity, everyone was quiet, excitement was in the air definitely. This final task was to merge the images we had with the person we swapped with, and create pairs from both piles of images. This opened up a larger room of possibilities but I felt it also decreased the motivation of several others. It felt just like the activities prior, but with more stuff. I am not sure if I took in everything I could because of the attitude I had towards the project, as I tried best to keep an optimistic mindset; but I do feel like the time spent on this project could have been used for the tasks briefed to us recently during the week.

[caseydodd-ku]

22/02

Friday Seminar: Process and Portfolio

Today we discussed three different ways you can present work;

-Archival/Experiential

Organised, Catagoration | Archival Website | Experiential Website

-Diarised/Anecdotal

Blogs | Instagram

-Edited Sequence

Print/PDF Portfolio | Showreel

We went on to figure out how we can present our own work;

-The Content (Presenting what’s in the picture)

Just the image | Crop of the Image

-The Process (Contruction Methods; e.g. ink on surface or paint strokes)

Thumbnails/Sketches | Timelapse/Documentary Photographs | Material (zoomed in picture showing folds, glitter, textures etc.)

-The Context (In the space it was designed to be in)

Captions | How it is displayed | Scale/How it would be used in real life (e.g. poster, billboard, book cover etc)

[seminarblogzac]

Storytelling (I ran out of synonyms) W3

The final session, we were tasked with writing at least a two page story incorporating all the methods we have learned from the past sessions. Our final task for this set of Friday sessions before the Christmas break, the criteria being, something suspenseful, or entertaining at least. From past works, I’ve mostly written descriptive essays, none of which could be classified as a narrative due to the lack of dialogues, this mostly being due to the type of writing I had practiced. I was definitely more keen to try and adapt the atmospheric tone of a descriptive to a dialogue driven narrative, whilst exploring a new setting I was unfamiliar with. Firstly, I sifted through some previous writings from these sessions to explore what I hadn’t done, I noticed that there were particular subjects I tend to stick close to, settings especially. those being train stations and a street night setting. Most of the stories from these derive from what the character was experiencing at the moment only having some instances of outer interferences play a part close to the end, as the story was mostly descriptive, it dealt more with what they were thinking and felt instead of playing of interactions between other characters as I have seen from other people’s work; which was something I wanted to replicate in my work. I began to first draft a story about dancing, definitely a field I was not knowledgeable in the slightest, but it sounded refreshing to do. There were a bunch of dance lingo which I had to pick up on and inevitably a type of dance story I would want to write. An influence on the decision to write such a story also stemmed from a novel I had read about competitive ballroom dancing and decided to have my own take of it, I was ready to embrace this brand new field, 100% I was ready.

It did not take long before I gave up. Some draft sentences in order to create the adrenaline and haste of the writing caused some, what I felt to be, inconsistencies with the pace of the story, mostly because I wanted to capture the rhythmic pace of the type of dance the protagonist would be going through. However, this would have caused the story to be twice or even thrice the amount that would be written for a two page story task; definitely not a thing I would want people to sit through as there are other people who would be writing stories as well. I was afraid of not being able to create something impactful within the two page limit and reclined into my comfort zone. However, I had never written a fantastical setting before, I finally came upon the decision of a dystopian story based on a train, at night; wow what a surprise. The story was something I could easily write up due to the tone being very similar to what I’ve written in the past, though I knew I wouldn’t be learning anything knew from this experience. As I wrote the story, dialogue became secondary and then even non-existent, only the voice of the protagonist in his head. I felt the story became extremely draggy even when I managed to contain it within two pages as it was very dense, full of detail. Events were even unclear as to what was happening as I believe the issue lied in me trying to build a world around the character when what I should’ve done is allowed the character to interact with the world to build it.

As I presented the story on the day itself, the response was fairly what I expected. The character was to flushed out at all, the world was detailed at the same time felt dead because there was almost nothing to interact with it, just stray descriptions that mentioned their existence for the moment that was required. The direction I should have taken is to strip down the details and replace them with dialogue, something I wanted desperately to try. The setting was very much inspired by other dystopian films and novels such as Blade Runner, which could be another reason as to why there were unnecessary descriptions because it was just extra fluff for the story, and aesthetics choice without any reason.

In conclusion, I would need to better commit myself to an idea and follow through. Be more experimental in the field that I want to explore instead of continuously going back to a comfort zone.

[seminarblogzac]

Storytelling (peppery) W2

As I'm running out of synonyms for spicy, the session here is a continuation on dissecting what a writing is about, into their core subjects. On this episode, we explored more on the hook of a story rather than the emotive language of the last session. Creating scenes that are intricately written in a manner of words. Basically less words, bigger impact. In a way, writing detailed scenes would drag on the reader and there would be no catch, this factor varies as to what tone of story you are trying to set but the general consensus is an opening scene that is digestible and impactful allowing the readers to sink their teeth into easily. Easier said than done, I suck at cooking.

The activity for today was in only 3 sentences, introduce the world and the character/ create an intro that is a good hook. Rules for the sentences were general but the use of complex sentences or semi colons was not recommended, ie: story would drag. This and the fact that there was a number of people to read their spin on an intro. Once placed into groups, we began to from sentences. We first set the scene we wanted to create then each of us individually created linking sentences ie: one person does the first sentence then the other the second etc. The sentence seemed to flow fairly well and I was surprised and tried to edit them but there was a disconnect to my sentence  than to both of the others. I tried to arrange them accordingly to fit mine but it did not work flashbacks to the first research recording project. Again I approached the work not as a group but as an individual task. When the work was being checked on I found my sentence was not required and was better off with the editing done prior to me doing it. This mistake helped me realise the requirements/ necessity of a sentence and the understanding of editing out. Sometimes maybe, the best work would be not having everything. I was quite shocked because I was quite prideful in the sentence but this made me take a step back to think first about how to approach something and if it really is worth it to adjust a work just to have mine fit in. After some time pondering, the answer was no. The work would not have been mine had I worked more with the group, it would have became the group’s work. This cheesy story helped me learn more to working in a group than alone, not to mention some peppery opening scenes.

[caseydodd-ku]

18/01

Friday Seminar

Briefing: Everyday Connections

-We will create visual journeys, narratives and puzzles through series of 5 photographs

-It could connect through colour, texture, emotion, location or purpose, among others

-We’ll be trying to find how pictures work next to each other in interesting and unexpected ways

-Keeping in mind composition, content and textures etc

The brief will end with an exhibition presentation with our final selected sequence of 5 pictures

This brief will be especially helpful with being more precise in images and helping me to choose pictures that are the best for what I’m try to convey in the future

[seminarblogzac]

Storytelling (extra spicy) W1

After my trainwreck of Urban Tribes, I was ready to start recording a different variant for this module, this time it was in the form of stories, words, something I could not read for several years of my life. Fantastic.

The session was extremely charismatic thanks to the speaker whose name I forgot just like the other 4 students I was sitting amongst. Discussions for this week was based solely on introductory methods and getting the feel of writing, how do we hook the reader? This was perfect because my attention span of a fly made it perfect for me to test if my writing were any good. It was not. At least what I felt it was. Various examples from several students were thought provoking, using onomatopoeia to draw in the readers immediately, starting with dialogue, setting the scene, or just jumping into a character introduction, these methods I gathered from listening to the stories that were read aloud.

Once the activity for a short story started, I was assigned with a word that would be based on what the story would be about alongside those around me, forming a group. The word was, tomato sauce sachet. This is when I knew the course kicked into full gear. I was reluctant to create a story that personified the sachet as I thought that was what many others would do. So I took that thought pattern an stretched it as far as I could think, make it unexpected. With this in mine, I created a thief scene, that would hopefully subvert the attention of those listening, needless to say I could do that just by simply talking. This exercise managed to get us warmed up on what we should be describing, what should we as the readers be aware of if this were written; background, surroundings, sensations, we had to set the scene. Needless to say my work was flawless, and then proceeded to be burned down by my own questioning as to whether it was plausible for the scene to happen.

Much to my understanding, other groups did personify their works but they managed to create an emotive language for each of the selected objects. They gaged the readers in an empathetic fashion with rhetorical questions and further pushed the listeners to question as to what objects they could be before finally revealing themselves at the end. This came across as a surprise to me as I was invested in those characters, they felt alive and had a voice, I was more than expecting to be bored by similar ideas being pasted across several works just redesigned to fit the specific item assigned to them. Moreover, I would say the impression and depth of field of a character was something I will take in mine when tackling a similar task like this again as it would create a sense of immersion, creating questions for the listener to ask themselves as to the situation, location and even the stakes at hand of not knowing beyond the limiting field of vision.

All in all, the activity gave me a grasp of what is to be expected for the tasks ahead and to continue focusing on the structure and composition of the works to make it digestible for the reader.

[seminarblogzac]

Urban Tribes (actual brief)

The transition to the actual task of Urban Tribes was, before actually getting the brief, pretty smooth, we managed to get an idea of what youth cultures that had existed and I was pretty confident about which group I would focus on. Sadly my relationships with the task briefs have been a string of error and this was no exception to the current one. 

The brief had asked us to focus on current tribes that we could observer and record, actual people we could see and touch, definitely not the strongest area of my life. Conversational skills may be important, however, mine end showing a thumbs up to a driver at a zebra crossing. We would have to immerse ourselves in the groups; not so much as joining but to gain an understanding and mannerisms of the groups. There were several examples shown on how to do such recordings from previous students who appeared to show some extensive examples on how to do so. Images, text, and even just a recording were used in such situations, almost like a reportage. Sadly, the brief was said there was a requirement of a minimum 4-5 drawn images of the Urban Tribe  we had selected; that meant my plan to just use photography was out the window. On the other hand, most of the recordings that were shown as an example did not display a close interaction of the group so from my understanding, as long as a reasoning is displayed as to why the tribes is in each location or their mannerisms are answered in the recording, this should be sufficient.

Other more contemporary examples were shown from professionals, examples of what existing tribes was what I was more concerned of. These contained cyclists, smokers and even shoppers, I was surprised to find the spectrum was fairly broad. I noticed many of the recordings were sketchy and just quick observational marks which gave me the impression that a lot of time would be required to record at least a desired quantity of work not even the quality. From previous works I was interested in creating images that were more on the fly, rather than some still images, capturing the gist as to what they were doing, movements, habits. The more I thought about it, the more difficult I found it to narrow it down to a specific group that would be ideal for this. Cyclists may be too quick, Market-goers may be too common and the list would go on. I would then try to distinguish more groups apart from others from understanding my definition of urban tribes in hopes that I actually understood the task.

definition: - A collective group of people undergoing similar activities, more commonly together or are part of a movement with distinguishable mannerisms and or attire.

With that one sole definition I was ready to fail.

[seminarblogzac]

Materialise Research: W1

The first task for Materialise was to look for relations to the word each group was given. Our word was ‘Reveal’. Having read the brief once I was confident, I had no clue as to what we were supposed to do in this project. Thankfully, we were given slight clarification as to what we should do in preparation for the next week. We were to only research ideas as to what would evoke the word ‘Reveal’ in an interesting manner.

The brief stated that, we as a group, are to create a presentation of workshops available at the school, using the word as the main theme throughout. Still clueless, I decided to research the definition of the word first in order to have a clearer idea as to what could be done with it, be it physically or conceptually.

Reveal

definition:- make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others. 

a. (in a film or television programme) a final revelation of information that has previously been kept from the characters or viewers.

A quick Google search on images helped to contextualise the words into images to be able to gain a grasp as to what we could do, or what the general consensus on the definition would evoke in people’s heads. 

Almost instantly, we as a group knew these images, were almost completely helpless to us. In that understanding we decided to look for the synonyms or words relating to it, one word being brought up commonly was ‘hidden’. Through this we decided on a more physical approach as to how we could show the action of reveal by having a hidden text ie: scratching away at a surface. One idea I had was to use wax and ink as a form of mask, writing the words in wax then splashing ink on to a piece of paper to ‘Reveal’ the words ‘Hidden’. I’m very good at puns. Concluding this discussion was to come back the week after with various methods as to ‘how’ we could reveal a hidden object/ subject.