I just wanted to reiterate some important notes on this assessment coming up. Just remember that procrastination doesnât work well for creative processes so if you are still sitting on ideas, stop thinking about them and just do them! Itâs essential to have the time to step away from what youâre working on and come back to it with fresh eyes/ears/nose/brain/skin/tongue etc.Â
Remembering the requirements for this assessment being:
1. Devise and carry out a series of connected experiments (at least 3) that transform a box into something new. Document the process on Tumblr. You can use different boxes for each experiment if you wish.
2. Reflecting on your experiments, transform a box into an artwork/designed object.
3. Document your final work on Tumblr and write a 200-word statement describing the transformation process (what you did, how you did it and what you ended up with). You will present your transformed box in class in Week 4.
Notice that we are asking you to âdocument the processâ. The final result is only one part of the process so make sure you document the rest of the process! These forms of documentation could vary and could become a part of the process of transformation itself. For example, if you were to try and transform the box by recontextualising it or displacing it, perhaps your documentation of taking the box to a new environment might involve a map to the new location, a video of people observing and reacting to the box in the location, an interview with someone who has witnessed this installation, which might be transcribed, audio recorded, video recorded⌠there are so many different forms of documentation and this part of creation can start to be the way the work becomes interesting or playful.
If you are concerned about the difference between the experiments and the final project, maybe you need to think about how else you might document the final work. If you have made clothing out of your box, just photographing it might be effective, but what if you put on a fashion show? What if you took video of people modelling your box-clothes in an everyday environment. Look at how fashion is advertised elsewhere, do you mimic that language, or would you like to critique it? Maybe you document peopleâs reactions to the box-clothes as much as the wearer themselves.
If you are posting time based media eg. video, sound etc. Itâs essential that you use something else to host your media outside of Tumblr, because Tumblr is not reliable! Use Youtube, Vimeo or Soundcloud etc. Link to this media or embed the media in your post.
Itâs important to differentiate the content types in your submission in your blog through titling your posts eg.Â
Experiment 1
Experiment 2
Experiment 3 âŚ
Final Work
Statement
Remember you can go back and edit older posts if you need to!
Make sure you come to class next week with a unique URL for your assessment. For example âpiasadad1001.tumblr.com/assessment1âł. This could be by creating a new page on your tumblr blog (simple instructions here) and adding content to that page as you go along. Or you could also make a page that automatically aggregates blog content with specific tags, as I have done in my blog (video on how to do this here). Or you could also just tag everything you post for assessment 1 as #assessment1, that way your URL would be something like, http://piasadad1001.tumblr.com/tagged/assessment1 . There are sooooo many videos and websites to guide you through tumblr technicalities.
Donât get too involved with looking or worrying about past examples of this assessment, which you can find many of that people have been posting over the last couple of weeks. These are just meant as encouragement. Itâs easy to get obsessed with reworking someone elses idea and itâs just as easy to get blocked by the fact that someone has already done something you are thinking of. Believe me, itâs all been done. Just make it your own! Have a conversation with yourself about why YOU want to do it! Why is this mode of transformation or this box significant to YOU? Contemplating this and being mindful of this is what will make your process unique, always.
Remember the marking criteria for the assessment:
Experimentation (35%) Evidence of experimentation and play
Creative thinking (35%) Development of the initial experiments into a final creative work through reflection and refinement
Communication (30%) Documentation of process on Tumblr, and articulation of written statement
And finally, donât stress. This is a chance to experiment and play. Itâs in the marking criteria. You HAVE to play! So just use this as an opportunity to improvise and to explore the unknown. If you are stuck, or worried about whether you are doing that, just make it weirder, stranger, sillier, more bazaar, more uncomfortable, more vague!
Iâm really looking forward to seeing what everyone has done next week!