Monday
First thing we did was create creatures but we only got to draw certain bits of the creature, so head then body then legs. it was an alright experience and was a good way to get the animation and Fine art Students to feel more relaxed while working together.
Our second task was to continuously write our name without taking our pen off the paper for 10 minutes, this wasn’t a fun exercise and i didn’t really see a point to it So after a few writing my name i then decided to draw me drawing my name on a smaller paper and i found that way more creative and interesting.
We were put into small groups of 5 or 6 were we would have to come up with a video about anything we wanted but it had to do with light.
I was in a group with Mc Corey Harris, Rosie levy, Anabel Fry, Theo and Mike Jones.
We decided to work on the idea of story’s such as fairy tales and Religious stories because these story’s are very recognisable and we wanted to put our own spin on it.
As you can see, we created shadow puppets with Little Red Riding Hood. We decided this was the right story to create because we found that this was the most recognisable and told story that many people would have heard of.
The style really makes it seem way more ominous due to the story always being a more uplifting and colourful, while our work used dark and harsh colours and lighting. This makes the scene more impactful than if it was colourful.
Tuesday
We were put in the same groups as we were Monday and this time we had to create a beginning or an end to a video created from another group and we have to create a photo based on it.
We got given a clip of people eating food and drinking, things we spotted was things like pizza and straws, alcohol and or fizzy drinks. (unfortunately i cant show you the video since i cant put videos on this and they haven’t uploaded it on YouTube).
With our ideas we came up with the idea of waste and how the products they were drinking and eating soon leaves to littering and destroying our own environment.
These pictures were taken from Campus all the way to the end of the bridge leading up to Tesco. As you can see there is a lot of rubbish that is just lying on the ground were no one has been bothered to collect or even put in bins.
We also decided to collect everything we took a photo of because we felt since we were there we might as well clean it up.
This is a collage of all the photos showing off how much we’re polluting our planet with all our products of fast food as well as drinks and plastic.
Its also surprising how the colours of our products are remarkably easy to spot, due to the unnatural colour schemes our products take.
Thursday and Friday
Within these two day’s we had to create an installation combining the new video and Picture we collected from other groups to create something physical to be shown on Monday.
The new video we have was of a person lying on the floor while behind them there were shadows of hands coming out of them and eerily start moving closer to the persons face. It was Dark and used shadows to show that this was something going on through the persons mind while they were sleeping, like a nightmare but it became real.
The Picture we got from another group was with a person looking behind them while a shadowy figure is seen behind them. The shadowy figure appears to look to have been inspired by Nosferatu with how the shadow is shown with its hands down. The person is also shown to be visually scared and upset.
My group had decided to follow an idea popularised by Winston Churchill called the Black Dog.
“I think this man might be useful to me – if my black dog returns. He seems quite away from me now – it is such a relief. All the colours come back into the picture.” – Winston Churchill
We also had a book titled “I hand a Black Dog” written and illustrated by Matthew Johnstone explaining in detail what depression is like and how they managed to over come the Dog, which heavily imply’s depression.
With this idea we decided to bring in items that can link to depression, let it be body image problems with food rappers, fitness magazines or fashion clothes and news Papers were interesting items to collect.
We then used them to create a shadow of a dog to represent the Black dog, using all the different items that when collected together creates Depression, “the black dog” was a really fun idea, and trying to link all the items to accurately show a dog shadow was a fun exorcise to figure out.
What I Thought?
I found the work to be interesting and i actually didn’t mind creating the video, picture and mini sculpture. they all had different reasons for liking them. and being collaborative so everyone in the group were able to voice there own opinion on where this project would be heading was still fun and i was able to see how others were able to think up ideas which was a great way to get all the information on paper.
But there were a few parts of this work i did not care for or felt like it insulted my intelligence that i over all had mixed feelings during this project.
First things first the writing my name over and over again was pointless and a waste of time, why couldn’t that time be used for things like the actual collaborative work we were meant to be doing. Im pretty sure righting my name over and over again doesn’t involve working with someone or being collaborative so it honestly was a waste of time.
There was also moments where we had to sit and watch videos for about an hour and a half which contributed little to nothing to what we were trying to achieve. This work honestly if we were given the freedom would have been completed on the Tuesday. But due to what i assume is just poor management and timekeeping that my group had to come in or stay behind after uni just to be able to finish our work.
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