Well I have finally graduated!
My final score was a 2:1 (Second class upper division)
I now finally have a BA.
For information on how to get a copy of my dissertation click here.
For Any further work please go to my Other Blog.
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
MEDI 323: Critical Evaluation
Critical Evaluation:
The brief was very open on this project but stated that we had to explore and experiment with themes, ideas and different mediums of art. It was to be a self directed study culminating in an exhibition.
At
the very beginning I wanted to focus on developing my ‘Dreamscapes’ project
that I produced for the Experiment module in year 2. It was an enjoyable
project that I felt had a lot of territory unexplored and a huge amount of
scope. I started to research refining my ideas and the actual physicality of
making the image, through practice it became smoother and more organic to
actually produce the images. I wanted to try and paint a more complete image of
thoughts and feelings and realised very quickly that a large portion of my life
belonged to things that were not ‘real’ such as video games and cartoons or
fantasy stories etc. this lead me to the notion of the term Unrealestate, a
term which I have defined and made my own in a very concrete way throughout
this project. The downside to the fact that my work has to incorporate the
unreal is that more often than not the images are copyright. I am not sure whether
or not my usage of the images falls under fair use or not and frankly in the
interest of free speech in art I do not feel that I am obliged to care. I
personally feel that copyright has gotten to be less about art integrity and
more about fat cats turning a profit with artists that believe they are upper
crust turning on artists that are ‘beneath’ them as evidenced in the case of
Damien Hurst’s actions towards a graffiti artist known as Cartrain.
“Damien Hurst threatened to sue breach
of copyright when a piece of his art was parodied. Walker comments ‘This
legalistic response by a contemporary artist to an instance of plagiarism (or
homage) was rather preposterous, given the number of times artists have
borrowed imagery from the mass media without obtaining permission or paying for
the privilege.” (Walker, 1999, p.185)
I
therefore do not mind joining the rising tide of Appropriation Artists that are
lashing back at copyright. That being said I do not feel that my art fits that
definition rigidly since I am not trying to make a political comment but more
of a social and psychological point with my images. I do however understand the
need for copyright; people deserve to make money off of their ideas and their
work and also to not have this stolen. I would want to have the royalties of my
own art and have my ideas protected.
“Ursula Smart defines copyright as
‘ Copyright essentially prevents one person from benefiting from another’s
skill and labour or directly copying or passing off another’s work.’” (Hill
& Paris, 2001, p.295)
This I feel
however has been warped, it has become much to stringent and I would argue that
if something is changed in some way then it is no longer exactly the original.
I think it is very hard to actually totally plagiarize something in terms of
art, even a group of artists referring to themselves as the ‘new plagiarists’
altered the images and thus made comment on the original.
“In practice, pure plagiarism
rarely took place because in most cases transformations of the originals
occurred.” (Walker, 2001, p. 132)
I
had a lot more ideas besides working on taking the Dreamscapes to a new level
and blending Unrealestate into them. One of my main Ideas was to produce a
series of mixed media collages that focused on copyright, censorship and
consumerism as I have studied these topics extensively over the course of my
degree and feel that they are very relevant and current issues that can always
be addressed in an artistic manner. The main Idea that I started to refine and
even did a trial image for was the mixed-media collage of consumerism that I
wanted to produce on a huge board, I was going to collect things I had
consumed, cut things out from magazines and newspapers but have it based
solidly on what I personally consume, I was then going to add pictures of
printed money both British and American with some of the printed notes burnt.
To finish this image I was going to, in red paint, add in my finger and hand
prints. This is an idea I still want to do as I feel that it can be impacting
but due to time restraints because of my ill health and also because I feared
the image would be viewed as childish I dropped the idea for this current piece
of work. Likewise with the censorship image which I wanted a black canvas or
board with the word ‘censored’ in the middle of in a white stamp effect. I
wanted to do this because of my research and also even more because of the recent
legal debates over censorship of the Internet such as SOPA and PIPA. I dislike
the idea of censorship intently, I think free speech is a very good thing and
even if I dislike someone’s viewpoint I will still defend his or her right to
be able to voice it. That being said my latest point of contention does revolve
around the Internet, something that I very much think of as mine, the Internet
should always be free and open because that is what makes it the entity that it
is. Again given more time and better health I would have liked to explore this
to a much greater extent. I also had an idea to study the psychology of Child
Art and see if I could make Dreamscapes from a child's perspective.
I
was interested in Child Art because I have studied child psychology in the past
and also I think that finger-painting is a very underrated medium, an opinion
that has only amplified with research. It is very expressive and freeing and
also I think intrinsic. It relates to our ancient ancestors that painted with
their hands on cave walls, in the sand, on stones etc. because I feel that we
all have an inherent need of and appreciation for art and also, high art
critique aside, have the ability to produce art. I understand that at first
glance this avenue of study may appear completely tangential on my part and in
some ways this can be considered true. I was worried that focusing on just
myself would make the project a little one-dimensional so I wanted to expand my
scope by collaborating with a child. I do regret that this idea was only half
complete, however due to time restraints caused by illness it would have been
impossible to follow my tangent to its full conclusion. So this Idea may seem
quite unrelated but I planned to make Dreamscapes using the Unrealestate
accumulated by a child. I’d have liked to gone further with this but there
would always have been the danger that it would not have been received well
because of its evident childish nature.
In
the end I chose to stick with combining Dreamscapes and Unreal estate and
taking both of my home-grown concepts to new artistic levels. I have drawn
heavily on my own experiences, feelings, emotions and influences, as my reality
is the one I know best. I understand that other people will have different
perspectives to me and may interpret things in my images I had not originally
thought of or intended but that I feel is a huge part of what art as a whole is
about and if people add new layers of meaning then my images have new layers of
meaning and I am happy to embrace that. I hope that some things will be
obviously conveyed and that my reality is not so different from other peoples
as to render the contexts void. I have opted to make a somewhat risky move and
include my faith as a Pagan in this project. It is not always viewed correctly
and often portrayed in a horrible light and I wanted to dispel that. I have
played into certain widely held notions but I have done so respectfully and not
compromised the integrity of what I believe. I have tried in my final series to
include a wide range of topics that I feel my life revolves around and the
elements feature heavily in this both in terms of faith and gaming, again a
large part of my life, so elements have a triptych in their own right. I have
also covered time, faith, a season, an actual dream and chosen my room and how
I view it with my thoughts and feelings as the center because that is where
most of my reality happens and where all the images were made.
This
project has naturally been hugely influenced by the things I do. Video games
have played a huge role in my life so naturally they influence my idea of art
and also my art in general. I have been gaming for as long as I can remember so
most video games are like old friends to me. This odd relationship I have with
video games was one of the starting points of my theories of Unrealestate.
This
project has been fairly hard to achieve, as I have been limited massively with
time due my ill health. I have had massive troubles with back pain and then as
a result very strong medication which has made it hard to stay awake, let alone
focus. It has limited the amount of what I could do both in terms of focus and
mobility so a few ideas have had to be shelved. It has also made sticking to my
schedule a nightmare owing to falling asleep because of the medication when I
had work to be doing. There have been some bonuses to being on the medication
however, not least of all the pain relief, but due to the fact that my back
problems are so bad I am taking opiate based medication, which has been helpful
in boosting creativity. I know that several of my inspirations, in terms of
literature, in life were using opium at the time of writing their great works.
I find this quite ironic really that I am unintentionally following in the
footsteps of Poe all be it to a much lesser degree. I feel that re-working the
images has been easier and a lot more fluid because of this, I have been able
look at my images in a different way and in some ways see more clearly what
needed to be altered in my images in order to achieve my desired effect.
However the pain-killers have made writing anything extremely difficult as they
tend to leave me drowsy and quite confused which seems to happen in waves, this
means I have had very limited time where I have been completely lucid and
focused.
Despite
these massive setbacks I am happy with the direction the project went in and
the actual end result, I feel I have worked very hard to ensure that the
setbacks I faced didn't sway my project too much off course and that the end
result still is in line with the goals I had in mind both at the start and as
the project developed. In a funny way this has very passively altered the
project because art comes from life thus life experience can only serve to
enrich art.
To
conclude, initially in this project I wanted to take a very psychological stand
point to my art because of my previous interest in the subject of psychology. I
feel that I have achieved this through extensive research into the fields of
art psychology in terms of the project as a whole. I have paid particular
attention to colour and its meanings and connotations so that I could have more
control over how my images would be viewed and thus manipulating the
psychological tonalities of my images. I wanted to explore children’s art from
a psychological standpoint and although I ultimately did not opt to incorporate
any of the child collaborated images into the final exhibition run of images it
was a very valid practise as well as a very interesting experiment.
From
the outset of developing this from the ideas formed in my second year I wanted the
finished images to convey a sense of liminality, blurring the lines between the
‘real’ and ‘un-real’ to paint a more rounded picture of what I consider true
reality. I feel that I have achieved this with the final direction I have taken
the project in and the final exhibited images I have produced. I personally
feel that I have taken my original concepts and pushed and refined them to the
limits. I would have liked to play with more mediums and maybe have combined a
lot more mediums but that is an avenue I can still explore in the future. I do
feel that I experimented a lot with both concepts and mediums and through
extensive research have produced something that I am very happy with.
Labels:
Critical Evaluation,
MEDI 323
MEDI 322: Project Complete!
Project Overview Movie:
Critical Evaluation:
My project
originally started off as collaboration with my friend Loren, owner of a
bespoke / custom cake company called all
kinds of cake. She wanted to expand the horizons of the company and
establish a base with which she can work from and increase public awareness of
her business in order to increase her revenue; helping to turn it from a hobby
business into a more profitable, professional company and maybe eventually developing
it into a shop.
In order to
take her business forward we both decided a website was absolutely crucial, the
amount of people online is ever increasing and having a medium with which to
contact these people gives a huge advantage to a business. Creating a website
was only the start of it however, Loren and I had decided that the website
would need to be as professional as possible; in order to develop a really
effective website we had to essentially set about developing the business as a
brand, encompassing all aspects of business branding including things like a
logo and graphics etc. As a collaboration this led to some really interesting
and unique opportunities, both Loren and I have a keen eye for design and so
developing a theme for the company as well as an eye catching logo (primarily
for the website but with a view that it may eventually be used in a shop)
proved to be really enjoyable and successful.
We both had
very different ideas initially, due to our different interests and backgrounds.
My initial approach to the project was drawing on a more surreal, anime style
as I thought that it would be a completely unique approach, this was based on
my own personal associations with cakes. Loren was firmly against this idea and
wanted to use a theme based around the style of the 1950’s, this would evoke a
more retro-diner feel, using soft, pastel colours and stylistic fonts. It
didn’t take her long to convince me that this was the way to go and it made me
look at the project with a different thought process. This led me to develop
ideas that I probably would have not have even come up with had I gone on with
the anime idea without Loren’s feed back in collaboration.
The
decision-making was left mainly with me, everything creative like logos and
themes were initially my development after we had agreed on a stylistic
direction during our many meetings. I would then get extensive verbal feedback
from Loren. Using this feedback I would go away, rethink and edit my ideas and
get feedback again, repeating the process until we were both happy with a
finely tuned, finished product. This was in no way an easy process, both Loren
and I were having personal problems in our own lives and although the work was
progressing, it was not at the rate that was necessary to stay on schedule. The
development of an entire brand would be a full time job outside of the academic
context and would probably need a specially assigned team to get everything done
properly. The many unexpected obstacles and hurdles we both faced slowed us
down in the development process. Eventually we did agree on a logo and a theme
but it was much later in the project than I would have liked.
Because the
project had hit a snag in terms of staying on track with the timetable, the
process of developing a website with all of the features I had planned became a
daunting task, particularly as I still had a lot of work to complete with the
deadline looming closer and closer. In order to tackle this I brought in a
website developer, another friend of mine, Paul. This expanded the
collaboration further especially because I had to then relay messages between
him and Loren’s Father Jim, who owns the domain names and server space intended
to host the finished website.
Initially
this was a very good move, Paul was very receptive of ideas and knowing the
urgency at which I needed the website developed he began immediately. This
enthusiasm did not last very long unfortunately and his progress became slow. I
began to think that maybe he underestimated the level of work required and would
not be able to complete the site to the agreed deadlines or to spec. He was
very hard to reach at this point and I think it may have been down to
embarrassment, owing to the fact that we are also friends and he had to let me
down. I feel if he were a professional this would probably not have occurred. I
personally did not have a problem that he would not be able to do it but it I
would like to have been properly notified, so that I would have had a chance to
correct the situation.
I started to
feel that I would need to try and create a contingency / back up plan, which
involved me developing a website using an online website development tool
called moonfruit. This was a challenge as I had not used the software before
and had to learn it as I went because there simply was not enough time left. It
proved however to be a very good tool as the website came together and there
were easy features that gave me ideas of how to better improve the site. Loren
liked the website I had developed as I was able to make a unique site which
included most of the features I had originally planned as well as some extra
ones, most notably the social widgets.
The project
is going to be an on going one and now, just because the website is done and
the branding has begun it does not mean that my role is finished. The project
has been a huge learning curve; I initially thought that working with Loren, as
a friend, would be a relaxed atmosphere and would go seamlessly. This was not
the case and because of the friendship it was assumed that we would be more lenient
on each other when unable to attend meetings due to personal issues, which set
us back in our progress. If this was not an academic piece of work but an
actual professional job (i.e. Loren had hired me or there was no prior
relationship between us) I feel it would have gone smoother, Loren would have
been more interested in deadlines as it would be her money being spent and it
is likely she would have had a clearer agenda on the design side of things from
the start.
Bringing in
Paul was a decision I did not take lightly and although it appeared promising
at the beginning it quickly went on to prove fruitless, I do not blame Paul for
this, I was misinformed about what he could do and I dropped him in the deep
end, he was just trying to help a friend as a favour and probably didn’t
understand the scale of the work that needed to be done. Again, if this was a
professional project I would have had to spend money bringing in somebody who I
knew could get the job done by way of extensive research, in this project I
lacked the resources to be able to do that.
I feel that
although there were numerous snags and hiccups within all stages of the project
the fact that Loren and I are both happy with the end result proves that it was
a successful collaboration. In reality, whenever an agreement is made to work
with other people, you are taking on board all of their problems and issues, in
a professional setting a contract would be drawn up to ensure that these are
minimalized when it comes to getting the work done. In this project the
opposite happened and the problems were exacerbated, coming before the work
because of our existing understanding and friendship.
Labels:
Critical Evaluation,
MEDI 322
MEDI 317: Dissertation
Well now that my dissertation has been marked I can offer copies to any interested person.
To request a copy of my dissertation titled 'Copyright and Participatory Culture: the threat they pose to one another.' then please email me at kara_mad@yahoo.co.uk please make sure to title the email 'dissertation request'
Please allow some time for the return email with the attachment of my dissertation to be sent out.
:) Thank you.
To request a copy of my dissertation titled 'Copyright and Participatory Culture: the threat they pose to one another.' then please email me at kara_mad@yahoo.co.uk please make sure to title the email 'dissertation request'
Please allow some time for the return email with the attachment of my dissertation to be sent out.
:) Thank you.
Labels:
MEDI 317
Thursday, 27 September 2012
MEDI 117: Somthing Similar...
Afterlife: Making Rotten Food Beautiful: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/afterlife-rotting-food/?pid=3802
I had to post this article because it just reminded me so much of my own project on mold. It is fascinating to see another photographer get the same kind of results and to find out the type of mold I was photographing.
I had to post this article because it just reminded me so much of my own project on mold. It is fascinating to see another photographer get the same kind of results and to find out the type of mold I was photographing.
Labels:
MEDI 117
Friday, 21 September 2012
MEDI 323: Final Exibition
The layout got changed for the better... here is my final exibition.
Labels:
MEDI 323
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
MEDI 323: Finger Painting Studies
As part of this project I wanted to focus on child-like or childrens art. I chose to investigate this by producing collaborative finger-paintings with my friends four year old son.
When I scanned in the images to use them for making Dreamscapes they lost some of thier depth of colour.
This lack of colour put me off of making a Dreamscape image with them as they had lost quite a lot of original colour and therefore meanings and connertations would be lost or skewed. Also later I opted to keep the project a more personal and self reflective effort on the advice of my tutor but I have found some intresting things on finger-painting in the process.
I had originally wanted to prove that finger painting wasn't childish and was a valid art form which I feel the video does. Its increadible what you can actually paint with your fingers.
It would have been intreresting to produce a Dreamscape using the art that me and Mauwgan had made together and maybe something to look into in the future.
When I scanned in the images to use them for making Dreamscapes they lost some of thier depth of colour.
This lack of colour put me off of making a Dreamscape image with them as they had lost quite a lot of original colour and therefore meanings and connertations would be lost or skewed. Also later I opted to keep the project a more personal and self reflective effort on the advice of my tutor but I have found some intresting things on finger-painting in the process.
I had originally wanted to prove that finger painting wasn't childish and was a valid art form which I feel the video does. Its increadible what you can actually paint with your fingers.
It would have been intreresting to produce a Dreamscape using the art that me and Mauwgan had made together and maybe something to look into in the future.
Labels:
MEDI 323
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