Evaluation...

EVALUATION
VISUAL COMMUNICATION
First and foremost, when this project first started out, I decided to look back at the previous Communication Technology brief from last year; a project about Social Networking, and trying to understand peoples fascinations with it. This didn’t work out, and I ended up disliking it more; and so for this project I wanted to do something which captured my attention, and that I would not end up condemning it later on.
I changed my mind a lot with the choice of topic, at first wanting to look in depth at hand crafts and becoming a self-sufficient artist. However then I remembered the interest that I had developed with video in my self-initiated brief before summer, this therefore led me to the video group, and before I knew it, I was somehow in the animation group, of which I am still not sure of how I ended up here, however I am very glad I did.
At the beginning of the summer, I made a conscious decision to make the most of the course, and its facilities and try and do as much that I am interested in, as possible, and animation was one of those interests.
The project has been an eye-opener to me, it is one, which made me realise, that as independent as I am, I am also able to work pretty well as part of a team. I do feel that the partnership that developed between myself and Hayley, is one which was incredibly beneficial, not in just finding someone that has similar interests and that we would work together relatively easily; but in the fact that we where able to really get more of a glimpse than most, as to what it would be like to be a professional animator, because as I have learned extensively, it is not a profession which one would be expected to work alone.
A few of the skills which I have learned about in this project, include, stop-frame, drawn, cut-out and cell animation; I have found developing these skills priceless, and I do hope that my works in the future, I will somehow get to experiment with animation once more. One of the key things that I enjoy about animation, is the magic of being able to give an inanimate object, such as a line, a shoe or a piece of a dough, a life force of its own, it was almost as if the objects where dictating what I did to them, and not the other way around. One of the key things that this has taught me, was whilst doing a claymation, myself and Hayley where working on a live brief, an advert for Blu Tack; and even though the project took its own format and left the brief behind, the final piece took a hell of a lot of work, considering the final outcome is a mere, 1:05 second video. The amount of changes we had to go through with set and figure design was extensive, and the amount of hours allocated to this supposedly easy project, built up, and took over from us having a lot of time to do our own things as well, until quite late into the project; it is because of this, that in the future, I would set aside a lot of time in larger chunks, as I feel that we achieved more, when working this way, rather than doing a couple of hours, and wasting a lot of that time, setting up the camera and scene, to fit with what we had ended on previously.
This project has been of great benefit to me, as it has been one, that has finally convinced me to change my ways, although I have done a fair chunk of self initiated work in this brief, I do feel that I have done too much conventional research, whereby reading into things too much, and not doing them enough, or as much as I could have, and it is because of this, that I have decided that I will for the next project set myself the task of many short briefs, in order to add pressure to myself, to have work completed, and to not spend too much time stuck on reading about them. Also, another problem I had on this, was sticking to keeping a Blog, I have never wanted or sought the need to have one, and so to be told that it was compulsory, made me not want to do it even more, and so I would update it irregularly, and keep a YouTube playlist, and reflective diary instead, however coming to the end of the project, I see the reasoning behind the blog, and will at least attempt to stick to it for the next project, hopefully another lesson well-learned.
I have also learned a great deal, from juggling my work, with my part time job, attending university, volunteering and trying to maintain a social life; I have learned that although this forced me to look at my time and use it more wisely and effectively, the concept was better than what actually happened, I found myself exhausted and getting quite ill, sometimes too much, is too much; and I will take this lesson with me as I progress, I feel that sometime in the near future, it maybe necessary to give up my part time job (and find another means of making money) and also to cut down on a lot of my wasted social time, creating a work/play balance that will be more fitting.
Finally, I do feel that this project has been extremely useful, not so much in the building of a portfolio terms, but in terms of gaining knowledge about the animation, and the many different forms it takes; but principally knowledge about bettering me as an artist, yet encouraging me to keep experimenting.

And here it is again...

Constantly, I'm battling myself, between what I should be doing, and what others expect me to be doing. I'm always putting thing's off, even if it will benefit me, especially to do with education. For years now, I have been leaving things until the last moment, and in the mean-time, relaxing, socializing and generally not doing much.
Sometimes, I validity my actions, by calling it thought time, time for me, time to develop, a time when, I can grow as a person, and this can be used as my inspiration. Truthfully, this does actually pay off, this state that I am in, of just wandering around aimlessly, sometimes it takes me to wonderful places, and I meet some very inspiring people.
The huge F*****G problem; is me. I love doing these things, well, most of them. But the problem with doing them, is that I either forget to record them, which honestly, I have to do, because my memory, well, lets just say that it is of little existence.
I have so many memories inside of me , that maybe subconsciously help me, but honestly, I don't believe that most of them do. And so here is to me, finally, doing something about these memories.

I do not have a clue, why I have just wrote this.
It's not exactly what I need to concentrate one right now.

Dan Flynn...

'Facebook Friend' Is Another Way of Saying 'Stranger'
I don't own an iPod, XBox, or a Blackberry. I avoid Facebook and MySpace. I like technology when it saves time or makes life easier. I try to steer clear when it wastes time or complicates life. I proudly never learned to program a VCR, with its displacement by the DVD vindicating my ignorance. I wear your "atavist" charge as a badge of honor! Despite repeated entreaties that I start a Facebook page, I have stayed away. Matt Labash articulates my aversion to anti-social social networking sites in a must-read Weekly Standard cover story. For my mouthpiece Labash, Facebook is a cyber cesspool of superficiality, exhibitionism, and voyeurism, where "there is the crushing anticlimax of people re-entering your life who might've fallen away into your past, because in each other's past is where you mutually belong."

Artist Research...

Simon Starling...
http://www.viewoncanadianart.com/2007/11/23/what-is-art/

Sam Taylor Woods...
http://www.balticmill.com/whatsOn/past/ExhibitionDetail.php?exhibID=48
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/nov/28/sam-taylor-wood-interview

Stockton Riverside...

So yesterday I got up early, and went into town, I had the intention of buying all of the Christmas presents that I needed for people in one day, and so I was up and out by 8.30, making my way into town, I went into my town, nothing much there, and so decided to go into Stockton, where i knew there would be enough choice, but it wouldn't be as busy as Middlesbrough, so I walked down, and around and round for hours, and I spent the day literally going through town and walking to different industrial estates and what-not, and just when I was finished, I started walking back, and I saw a road which I had never seen before, and decided to walk down it.

It was on a side of the river which I didn't have too much knowledge of, but I thought I'll give it a go, as I could see Stockton's brand new infinity bridge looming over the industrial units. So as I'm walking down this snowy road, i decide to walk up a path which was on a hill, dredging through the 6 inches of snow, I made it too the top, and very quickly it became apparent that it was sunset, well whilst on the top of this hill, I could see a tree lines path, leading the to bridge, and the most amazing sunset through the curves of the bridge, i felt around for my phone to capture the sight but stupidly I'd forgotten it.

I sat down and enjoyed the sight for the short period that it lasted.

It sounds really really silly, even to me, but just seeing that made me really happy, and made me think about how beautiful the world is, how beautiful stockton is, even though most who live here wouldn't agree. It has made me think about this, and I would really like to create a collection, maybe of photographs, maybe of something else to do with Stockton, however I just want people to notice the things that they take for granted, can be very beautiful to others...

The Globe...

The Globe, the building that I am currently researching and have been trying to get permission to enter. It lies on my high street on Stockton-On-Tees, and is a beautiful Art Deco building which has been left in a state of disrepair, since the closure of it as a bingo hall, happened in 2000.

I've searched high and low for the owners, and even stockton council where unsure about the tenture.

However yesterday, I asked my mum for help, with finding out this, as it would be easier to do this, living in the town, not far from the location, she agreed, and said that she would speak to some people she knew in the council.

Well that was yesterday, and 20 minutes ago she phonecalled me, spooked out, as she arrived home from a trip, to find the local newspaper on the doormat, with a picture of the buidling on the front; telling all that the Grade II listed building, is due a new lease of life, going back to it's original purpose, of being a live music venue. The planning permission is in, and awaiting response from Stockton Borough Council, which i'm sure will not refuse, as the building has been waiting for this, for quite a while.

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-teesside-news/stockton-billingham-news/2009/12/17/plans-to-restore-stockton-globe-theatre-to-former-glory-84229-25413562/

I'm going to have to move fast, and get in touch with the vendors, Jomaft, before they start; and hopefully the company will understand my request, and I can maybe be of some use, promoting the buidling in some way...

Busy as a Beeee...

Today we had group tutorials with Nick, and I discussed the broad areas of interest for me, within this brief;

Mini-Briefs
Looking at peopls collections.
Looking at own collections (Childhood & New).
Staged photography (Drag/Rachael).
Mark & Rachaels Abode.
Technologicial coillections (Blogs, Social Networking ect).
Quote collections.

I got some positive feedback for my ideas, and also some useful ideas and stories, mostly to do with collections from childhood, such as stories, which then lead to ghost stories being told; a few about Temple Newsham.

Another idea was about the Idea about being possessed by one's collection, needing to add to it or complete it, or by people becoming obsessed with certain aspects.
This came up with the saying, we have a growing inability to forget, as most things are becoming digital, therefore we cannot escape them, or they are much harder to forget because of the constant presence in the digital world, such as facebook.

Pop-up Museum...

Today our typography lesson was rescheduled, and we where asked to attend a new pop-up museum, created by the group STRETCH; which has appeared in the Merrion Centre Leeds, the museum is located inside an old women's clothing store which is near the end of the centre, and if I'm honest, is in a pretty decent place, for a good passing trade, even though it's in possibly the worst shopping centre in Leeds.

The opening was about 10 minutes prior to when I arrived, hence why there was a large interest in the venue. At first I thought that it looked very cramped, and that there was not enough content, but as I walked around, there turned out to be a little more than meets the eye, granted, not that much more.

The store seemed to be more in a planning stage rather than a final project, I and others where actually quite disappointed with the layout and the content, as there really is not very much there, and most of the contents of the glass cases, appeared to be things that you would find on a Christmas market stall, or Hawkins Bizarre.

However there was at least one good activity in the venue, the fact that visitors where actively encouraged to decorate the home made letters which made up the sign, this was a fun and interacting activity, and I found it very playful, and just altogether fun, however it did not seem to have much to do with the theme or concept at hand, and that is the one flaw I would say about this activity.

To conclude, I would say that the museum needs to have more original content, It seemed to be showing things that most of us had seen before, or objects which would be found on a tacky stall; The signs that where labelling and describing the contents, also seemed very amateur, printed onto plain A4 paper and simply placed in the cabinets, I feel that this could have easily been made to look more professional, simply by mounting the information onto the glass, or maybe small stands; instead of being something which simply filled a blank space, which it obviously was there just to do.

Overall this has given me, and others lessons, in mostly what not to do during our own up-and-coming exhibition; However has also taught me, to add encouragement, by getting people involved in the work, as I felt I had actually achieved something by attending the exhibition because of the activity. The pop-up museum is a fantastic concept, which could be a thriving place, with just a little tweaking, here and there. I wish them good luck with the next exhibitions...

Erwin Olaf-esque...

So yesterday, I was thinking about projects that could be achieved within this brief, many little ideas came to me. One idea that stood out, was that for a while, i have been pondering on the idea of doing some staged photography, much like the artists; Erwin Olaf. I really like the style of his photographs, how they are simple, almost colorless atmosphere, and he way that they intrigue one to observe them for long periods, even though they are very simple. I feel that the reason that I probably like this style, is because they feel much like a Painting, carefully crafted, eye-catching and incredibly beautifully edited.

I was looking at a magazine which held some of his images, and this there then got me thinking, I started to think about how i could if this concept into visual language, and collections, carefully thinking about all of the people i know and their collections. I am now arranging to photograph different people collections for inspiration into this, and to see how these collections and my own knowledge of these people will change in looking into this.

One major idea that i am in he process of maybe arranging, is working with someone I know, who is in a drag act, and is constantly buying new makeup, wigs and clothing, his collection of drag act costumes is constantly growing, and I really want to photograph this collection and look at it's place in society; as it is defiantly something controversial, but in my eyes, I want to unpick the idea that people should live their lives how they want to live it, and now how society says; and so hopefully want to connote this through the work I produce...

Mark & Rachael's Palace...

So in July, my friends moved in together. They're my age, and have been together for 4 years, I've known them both prior to and throughout their relationship, as our friendship developed from sixth form. They're two very different people, and they differ in opinions immensely. However it somehow manages to work. For a while, they've been asking me to help design and decorate their new rented place, which in size is vast, but is very much to a required taste.

To put it simply, the house hasn't much appeal in it's current state; The smell of cheese & onion pasties from the bakery downstairs, is constantly present, matched with the distasteful carpets, woodchip walls and a vast array of one-off pieces of furniture, the place does not seem to collaborate together very well.

I decided that now was the time in which I could help them, as mby doing so, I could gather a few different varieties in collections. And this could therefore be a very good learning expereice, as it would involve myself researching, then discussing and giving examples to customer, finding out their requirements, and using this information to further develop examples and discuss intial designs with them, before making needed alterations and then progressing with the project. I feel that this would be good practice, and could easily be one of the few projects which i will hopefully carry-out during this project.

The first example of this happened today. For the last few weeks, I have been collecting interior images, on a large scale, along with going through my own varied collection in interior and art magazines, I prepared a vast array of images, in which to show them, by seeing what likes they have indivually and shared, to get a feel for how broad of a variation would be acceptable to them.

I've been through this with Rachael, and with Mark vaguely, and this worked for them, I have a general idea of thier likes and dislikes, and I compiled a folder of these designs, which I shall now create a "mood board" from, and develop more ideas from, based on this...

Playing around with blog settings...

I've just spent the last hour or so, playing around with this blog I call a chore! I'm liking it a lot better now, as it feels a tad more like "mine" now.
I went through a great few changes before "settling" for this one now; here are a few of the key changes made...




I would in future, like to create a theme, whereby my blog looks like a notebook, as I am quite keen on my reflective diaries, and the diary is something I feel to be very personal, which is what I want my blog to feel like, rather than just another technological conformation...

Year of the dragon 1988...

The key to the Dragon personality is that Dragons are the free spirits of the Zodiac. Conformation is a Dragon's curse. Rules and regulations are made for other people. Restrictions blow out the creative spark that is ready to flame into life. Dragons must be free and uninhibited. The Dragon is a beautiful creature, colorful and flamboyant. An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, everything Dragons do is on a grand scale - big ideas, ornate gestures, extreme ambitions. However, this behavior is natural and isn't meant for show. Because they are confident, fearless in the face of challenge, they are almost inevitably successful. Dragons usually make it to the top. However, Dragon people be aware of their natures. Too much enthusiasm can leave them tired and unfulfilled. Even though they are willing to aid when necessary, their pride can often impede them from accepting the same kind of help from others. Dragons' generous personalities give them the ability to attract friends, but they can be rather solitary people at heart. A Dragon's self-sufficiency can mean that he or she has no need for close bonds with other people.

CHARACTERISTICS
Innovative
Enterprising
Flexible
Self-assured
Brave
Passionate
Conceited
Tactless
Scrutinizing
Unanticipated
Quick-tempered

THE EARTH DRAGON 1928 AND 1988
Earth Dragons make great managers because they are practical, levelheaded and demonstrate a knack for organizing. They still have the need to dictate and be admired, but they are affable, congenial and supportive. Compared to other Dragons, Earth Dragons are less likely to breathe fire at the least irritation. They will work diligently to complete their life goals. The Earth element adds a greater portion of self-control to the Dragon's personality and usually the Earth Dragon is deserving of the respect he or she desires. These Dragons take their life and romantic responsibilities quite seriously.

http://www.usbridalguide.com/special/chinesehoroscopes/Dragon.htm

Sorting some of my collections out...

Well today, I finally started to tackle my room, on the tidying part, as it's been in disarray ever since my deadline on Wednesday. I decided to do it properly, and look around seeing what type of collections i have that I may have even forgotten about. Amongst the chaos I found, cinema tickets, ribbons, scrap paper, empty ink cartridges?... and plenty of pieces of previously finished and unfinished work, it was this that lead me to thinking about the looking at this unfinished collection, of unfinished work, and think about maybe doing something about it in this project.

I do have a few ideas for nthis project, including looking at collections from childhood, such as the the cassettes which I would listent to to help me sleep when I was quite young; I still have a clear picture in my head of how I imaginined these characters to look. However I do not have the tapes, and due to commitments in Leeds, am unable to get home before christmas, and so as this brief is one in which I inteneded to divide into a series of shorter, self initiated projects, I feel that completing some of my previously unfinished projects, may fit in nicely with that...