Evaluation – Research

I realised that for the subject I chose for my Final Major Project, I had to do a lot of research as I want my project to not only be ‘aesthetical’ but also educational. I have decided to mix two periods of time which both had quite a big impact in art and music and general.

To not make any mistakes while making my Final Major Project, I did a lot of research on both periods of times which was beneficial at the beginning as it made my vision more clear on what I was going to do, but, it also had a slight negative impact in a way as I ended up having a lot of research and more knowledge on both of these eras but I had no clue what to do with it.

This research period, which mainly took part before and after Easter, helped me discover the Library and I can say now that i fully know my way around and how to use it. It taught me how to research through books and less through the internet which I think is extremely important. It has been difficult in the beginning as I did not know where to start. I did not know which book was useful and which one was not and was quickly tempted to do internet research as the information can be accessed in a much more quicker and easier way. However, I think it is important to know how to use the library and the books as the information comes from certified authors who have worked for a long time and hard to make these compact sources of information.

The negative aspect to it is that as I was scared in a way to start this project and really get into it, I “hid” myself in it which led me to finding myself stuck not knowing what to do next as I had done enough research and did little experimental zines with collages, sketches and with photocopying.

If I had to do this again, I would definitely do as much research but I would try to not loose the point of my Final Major Project and would get myself into the actual project in a more confident way as it was something that definitely put me behind in time.

Evaluation – Peecha Kucha

Doing the Peecha Kucha has helped me a lot to concretely start my work for the Final Major Project. It gave me a head start in a way as it put the ideas I had in my head into a more clear and more structured form. Doing research for the Peecha Kucha enabled me to discover other aspects of my project which I hadn’t considered before. It made me discover artists and different printing techniques such as xerography and wood prints. This presentation was the first turning point in my project as I thought I was going to mix Ancient Greek Art houses and housing objects (through art) and modern houses and objects. However, whilst doing some research on xerography, I discovered the proto-punk movement which I had barely heard about before. I had definitely heard about the Punk movement but was not aware of the impact their art had on the 1980’s generation.

I hadn’t really thought much more of it though, however, after I had done my presentation, one of the tutors said it would be interesting to see how I could maybe mix both of these periods of time in an art form.

Beforehand, I really enjoyed mixing through collages and photocopying from magazines households from the 1950’s and nowadays which I put into zines. This idea of mixing two periods of time interested me and I was also suggested to make posters which I was looking forward to experiment. Indeed, I think that posters and zines are a more original and unique way to present work as especially with zines, the viewer can interact with the work and touch it and can feel how this work is unique as it is fully handmade.

The feedback from the presentation has helped me a lot in starting my work as it have me a clearer vision of where I was heading and what I was doing.

Evaluation – Experimenting for the Final Major Project

To mix Ancient Greek art and Punk art through my project, I had to experiment a lot. I especially had to experiment a lot with the photocopy machine as my initial idea was to make proper books and zines for this project which would be based on works done based on the technique of xerography.

I did a lot of print tests to first check how it would come out on paper and how different it looked from the screen as I printed out sketches I did. I then decided to layer in the photocopy machine these sketches with some collages and even though they came out well, I still thought they were too plain and lacked

something which is why I decided to play with colours on the photocopy machine.

I tried out the copies in blue, red, yellow and green which are the basic colours but realised that the most effective colours were blue and red as they made the work stand out more without “erasing” it in a way. These colours made me think more of the punk movement as together, they created some sort of clash as they are always seen as opposites, and therefore reminded of this cultural clash.

In the end, with these prints, I decided to make zines which however only stayed experimental zines as they were too aesthetical and not meaningful enough to actually be used on their own for the Final Major Project. At that point, I had only tried mixing Ancient Greece and the Punk Movement trough art but without actually having a real meaning, a real cause behind it.

One thing that I also realised while doing this project is that choosing xerography demands a lot of planning as even though I have managed to make some pieces through making mistakes, planning out more what I was going to do would have saved me a lot of time and money on printing.

Evaluation – setting up the exhibition

Setting up my work for the exhibition was more complex than I thought it would be. It demanded, in fact, a lot of problem-solving.

As mentioned before, the sizing of my prints was not dimensioned well to fit album covers which led me to my first exhibition setting up problem-solving. I had to think of a new way to display my work so that it could still have the same “feeling” I was looking for.

I also chose to make a poster to really give this “vinyl shop” vibe to my work and to almost have a whole “mise-en-scène”. I was really careful with the poster to have a perfect balance between Ancient Greek art and Punk Rock Visual art. I decided to split the poster into two parts to really link to the title of my work which is “Cultural Clash”. I think that making one part blue and the other part red has really enhanced this idea of clash but the fact that they are on the same page still puts forward this idea of link between these two periods of time.

Putting up my work also took quite a lot of time, thinking and planning especially the album covers on the plinth. I did not want them to be just placed randomly, I still wanted them to be a minimum organised as I wanted it to be a thought through project. Deciding exactly where the record player, the vinyls and the zines were going to be was also an important part of my Final Major Project.

I think that having the record player is an important part of the exhibition as it allows this sense of interaction with the viewer. There also is an interaction between generations as I have seen during the private view, older generations such as grandparents, explaining to their younger grandchildren how the record player works.

Evaluation – Making album covers

After our second group crit we had with Peter, my ideas for my project became a lot clearer thanks to the suggestions of the group.

My work had this issue that it did not have any real meaning behind it, any real reason but after this crit, I finally found my major idea for the Final Major Project. Instead of being very general on Ancient Greek art and Punk Rock art and trying to mix these two in a very blurry almost meaningless way, I realised that if I concentrated on one aspect which would link both, it would give my project some sort of concrete meaning. This is why I decided to concentrate more on music and visual art around music in both of these periods of time as social wise, the opinions expressed in both eras were similar. In ancient Greece for example, philosophers were against new music as they said it would corrupt the younger generations. During the Punk Rock movement, it was the same thing as the older generations highly criticized this new type of music and said it was too violent, too expressive and rebellious and that it would corrupt the younger generations.

I was really interested in Punk Albumcovers and looked up Jamie Reid who was famous for designing the most well-known album covers during the Punk movement. I demanded again a lot of experiments and testing to come up to the final results. As the Punk Rock movement was all about DIY, I decided to use mixed media to give a more personal and unique side to my work. This is why I used paints such as acrylics, spray paint, collages, photocopying, editing, drawing, etc.

I did four album covers as the other ones I had made, I wasn’t really convinced by. They were either too plain or not strong enough to put up in an exhibition. Another problem I encountered was sizing. Indeed, when I printed out my album covers, they never quite fitted album covers from original records which did not make the work look professional and nice. One of my tutors suggested to maybe display some on the plinth instead.

What I decided to do in the end was to stick these album covers all over the plinth so that they would be fully displayed and could be actually seen by the viewers. I think this way to present my work was more effective as the viewer can actually see and almost has to see in a way these album covers as they are all over the plinth whereas if they were just displayed on the top of the plinth, it wouldn’t have had an impact really and some people would’ve probably just passed by.

Linking the Sustainable Futures project and the Zine Workshop (review of the process of my work)

I was not really sure what I wanted to do for the sustainable futures project. At the beginning, I hesitated between the “body” aspect of sustainable futures and the “home” part. 

At the very beginning of the workshop, I was a bit confused on how to make a zine. I was mostly looking at the final outcome and I considered the zine more as a magazine that had to be very clean and formal. I wasn’t really going anywhere and was a bit stuck with my ideas as I did not know how to, based on these ideas, create a zine.  I used my first test booklet to do a bit of research on different aspects of the sustainable futures project by cutting out things in magazines that I thought were related to the project or using old sketches that I did of cities and dumpsters for example.

When I was thinking about the photocopy machine, I just thought about it as a tool that would perfectly copy what I wanted it to copy. However, once I discovered how to actually use it, that I could change the colours, play with layers, etc. I let myself “free’ in a way with my zine ideas and decided to just to different zine tests with different layouts, different folds, etc.

These zines are not like a magazine where there are columns of writing and a neatly printed image next to it. Even though at the very beginning I wanted to make a very clean photography zine, I really enjoyed having a “messy” zine that maybe does not make sense for a lot of people, but when I look at it, I know all the different processes I went through to make them. They were planned out in a way but I did not think of how they would come out in the end. I was in fact in a way a surprise for me how they turned out and I liked how they looked once put together.

For my main zine for the sustainable futures project, I was thinking on how we can make some of our objects in our homes eco-friendly but fun to look at and that can have several purposes. For that, I focused on objects that can be found in children’s rooms and I thought about chairs. I was a bit stuck at the beginning but by making research on different companies that did that and looking back at my childhood, I had an ides. I remember that I had, when I was younger, a “banana armchair” and that I really liked it. However, I am not sure to what extent it was made out of materials that were good for the environment. Based on this memory, I thought of some sort of armchair that would be designed like an avocado.

I first looked at different plants that could be used for materials to make this comfy chair. Then I did some research on the actual fruit as designing it based on an avocado could give a good example to children on what is good for them food wise which is why I looked at all the benefits that an avocado could provide. The chair can be divided in four different parts: it can be a normal chair, it can be divided in three different rocking chairs and the seed can be used as a bean bag or a big pillow.

When I was doing the actual zine, I encountered some problems while using the photocopier. I had to figure out how I wanted it to be laid out on the computer and how I could insert my sketches in. I find it sometimes quite hard to work on the computer and I still struggle with photoshop. I was a bit stuck at that point but to go around this problem, I just decided to make this zine really “personal” by completely hand making it. I did at first a test zine with collages of my sketches and photos. I decided to handwrite as well the explanation of this idea to make it seem more “personal” and eco-friendly. I think it shows that it is an idea of a product that is “cared about” and even though it isn’t neat, if it were to be given out, people might actually feel closer to the idea as someone actually wrote it.

I also had some problems at the end to photocopy it in a way that it would be right way round in a zine but I kept the mistakes and the test zines as I found the outcome interesting in a way.

 

Zine Workshop

When I first signed up for the workshop, I barely knew what a zine was. The only thing I knew was that it was a kind of magazine that was self-published. I discovered during the workshop that a zine is in fact something that is very personal, something that is unique to the artist (as it is a work of art).

The workshop was spread out through two sessions. At the beginning of the first session, Danny taught us about the basic things to know about a zine and how to make a zine. We started off by sewing simple pieces of paper together with a special thread. I later used that booklet as a research booklet/zine on the sustainable futures project. The rest of the day, we did research and experimented how a zine could be presented in different ways. I learnt that it did not only have to be in a form of a booklet but that it could also be folded in different ways. A zine can be presented like a brochure or just folded in four or in six or like an accordion, etc.

We also looked at different forms of zines that Danny had either made, found or bought. All of them were very different and unique. Some zines were almost telling a story through simple photographies in black and white which gave the impression of a very neat work of art. Other zines looked like folded maps but they were in fact an artists artwork and they were not made to be used as maps.

I also learnt during this workshop how to properly use the photocopy machine as it is an important part in the process of making a zine. It is thanks to the photocopier that this unique piece of art can be replicated and given out or sold to other people. Thanks to the photocopier, this unique piece of art can be spread around the world which is not always possible for other pieces of art.

During the second part of the workshop, I finally understood what was the purpose of a zine and how I had to make it. Therefore, I spent the rest of this session testing and trying out different ways of representing some of my sketches and playing with the photocopy machine to change them a bit and to play with layers.

Even though I was a bit confused at the beginning of this workshop, once I understood what was the purpose of the zine and that I could be completely free with what I put in it and how I resent it, I really enjoyed this workshop and continued making more zines for the sustainable futures project.

Bryan Wynter – Monoprinting

Bryan Wynter was part of the St Ives group which is a group of British painters. This artist was very interested in nature and his paintings and other works of art got more and more abstract as the years went by. In his lifetime, he worked for several years in Cornwall where he developed his high interest in landscape, hence, nature. He was more well known for his constructions which he titles IMOOS which means Images Moving Out into Space. “Using a parabolic mirror, he would hang contrasting pairs of painted shapes, which rotated freely. Their reversed reflections enlarged, appearing to move in opposite directions”. However, I was more interested in his monoprint work. His monoprint titled Path through wood really interested me. I discovered this artist after I did the monoprinting workshop, however, I could in a way find a link between his work and one of the prints I did. His monoprint is about nature, it is based on a landscape. He also lived in Cornwall for several years which might have influenced his work. I think there could be a link with one of my prints as while I was making some of them, I tried to link them to the Eden project which is located in Cornwall. I also scraped the ink with a spatula to create the leaves and the different lines which one can also see in Bryan Wynter’s work. To enhance this idea of nature, and also because I have a big interest regarding litterature, I decided to write down one of Rudyard Kipling’s poems about nature.

Also, I mixed the yellow and blue ink which was still on the desk to make this dark green colour.

Path Through Wood 1950 Bryan Wynter 1915-1975 Purchased 1990 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/P77361

Monoprint workshop – typography project

When we were doing the typography project, several workshops were going on during the two first weeks. One of the workshops I did during the first week of this project was monoprinting.

Before this workshop, I had never really heard of monoprinting before. When I asked people what monoprinting was, I still did not fully understand how it worked. I soon understood while doing the workshop that monoprinting was in fact quite easy and was a way of printing that was relatively quick as well. We first had to spread some ink on a glass surface with the help of a roller. After that, we only had to put a sheet of paper on the rolled out ink and draw on the pack of the paper. This prints out reversed on the other side of the paper. What I liked about monoprinting was that I never had a total control over the outcome of the printing. Sometimes, it did not come out at all as I wanted but I figured out it made an interesting design. I also started playing around with the ink. I started, with a spatula, to scrape the ink and then press the paper on it.

I mainly used a blue colored ink as I wanted to link it to the colour worksheets we did at the beginning of the year. I also linked some of the monoprinting to the Eden project by making a jungle-like pattern and printing out one of Rudyard Kipling’s poems about nature.

In the afternon, we cut out some letters in cardboard, stuck them to a sheet of paper, rolled ink over it and passed it through the pressing machine. I decided to use the word “transition” to link with the typography project.

 

3D Workshop – Clay – Data project

At the end of the second week of our Data project, the groups swaped and the workshop of the day was clay. I had never really properly made sculptures out of clay before which means that this workshop was some sort of discovery for me.

We were first told some health and safety rules as this workshop still was in the 3D studio. For example, we had to be careful not to drop any clay on the floor as when it dries, the clay turns into dust and it is bad to constantly breath it in when one is in the studio, especially for people who already have breathing problems. We also need to thoroughly wash are hands as it does make the skin more dry.

I learnt during this workshops that there were different types of clay which I never really know about. Clay is a material that is quite easy to shape eventhough it has to be forced a bit in the beginning as it will tend to come back to its original block shape. I also learnt that what makes clay crack, when it is cooking, is not the air that would be trapped when we work with clay but water. If there is too much water on a piece of clay, there will be more chances of it cracking.

We made clay sculptures throughout the whole day. The first few sculptures I made were based on my data but as I was still discovering clay, I tried to play a bit more with this new material. I managed to make 12 sculptures for data during this workshop. For example, I made a small ukulele which I will put different coloured threads on to represent how many times I played the ukulele throughout the week. I also made a pile of dog biscuits to represent how many biscuits I gave to my dog throughout the day during half-term. Some students decided to use some of their body parts and then use clay as molds which they poured plaster in it afterwards which came out really well.

I really enjoyed working with clay eventhough I usually avoid making sculptures as it is usually a bit of a struggle for me. However, I liked doing quick and easy 3D sculptures out of clay.