#assessment 1

I was given the brief to create a poster based on one of four questions of my choosing. The question I chose was “Can creative acts be rebellious when rebellion has become canonised in art, design and media histories? What would a contemporary creative rebellion look like?” because it was the one that interested me the most. First, I started to look at street artists who predominately use posters and the two artists I looked at were KAWS and Shepard Fairey. In his early days of street art KAWS used to take advertisement out of bus stops, paint on them and then put them back. He added a graphic quality to the advertisements which made them very eye catching. Shepard Fairey pasted up posters of his illustrations which eventually lead to the famous Obama poster. After doing the research, I decided to look at advertisements and wanted to comment on the repetitious nature of them. I took ads out of magazines I had around the house and collaged them. This was a small experiment that didn’t really go anywhere. Next I looked at the obsolesce of technology, specifically the fact that we still have old technology around when tech is so advanced these days. I did a small digital collage for that idea with Nokia phones but that gave me the idea for my final design. I decided to make a fake phone ad using a picture of my phone and putting them up on phone boxes. I added text reading “The Future is Now” to emphasise the advance technology we have today. I like the idea and the way I executed it but I think the quality of the poster could be better. I wish I had put up all A2 posters but I didn’t know how big the phone box actually was.

Final Work

Research 1: Munsell Colour Notation System

Before I experiment with ways to translate colour to be ‘read’ by other senses, I needed to find a way to quantify colour so that I could tangibly represent it. 

This system divides colour into three attributes of, hue, value and chroma.

Hue refers to the colour itself, such as green, red, blue etc. These are given letter codes, so red is represented by the letter ‘R’.

Value is how light or dark a colour is and is indicated by a number, from lightest to darkest. So the value ‘2′ would be lighter than the value ‘6′.

Chroma is how weak or strong a colour is, indicated by a number from the weakest (left) to the strongest (right).

FINAL WORK 

Assessment 1 - Statement

As humans, our daily lives are bombarded with all things technology. Have you ever wondered a time where you haven’t used a piece of technology? A time where a task was done without it? Technology is evolving at such a rapid pace, taking over us to a point where it is becoming us. It may develop to almost have the same processing power as humans. Using this concept, my work interrogates how humans and technology, even though being extremely altered, are slowly merging themselves together.

The interesting aspect of this topic is that it explores how humans are being so significantly influenced by technology, whether it be devices such as phones, tablets and laptops or biology, through genome editing, implants and artificial intelligence. Being someone who uses technology each day, I got inspired by this consumption and began researching in this area. From the beginning, I liked the idea of illustrations and producing a minimalist visual impact, where the artwork talks. Not Not Cam Scott is an artist who has particularly influenced the end result of my poster. His work, ‘Digital Realities’is based on the means of humans and technology, addressing digital popularity becoming far more important than the quality of content. In this way, we have integrated ourselves in every media form.

For my first experiment, I used the notion of ‘communication’ and created an abstract grid in Adobe Illustrator. The next experiment was on drawing in software and playing around with the brush tools. The third experiment was finding a way to create complex shapes. All my experiments were conducted digitally (software), displaying our interaction with technology.

Concept Statement

I chose to do a mural design for my poster as community murals are the most common type of artistic collaboration that not only involves every aspect of the community but also brings the community together.

My mural design represents and explores the idea of how conflicts in collaboration is a necessary tool for growth within a community along with collaboration. [m1] A community has such a large entity of people that conflicts are [m2] bound to occur during collaborations as it is impossible for everyone to agree on everything. However, being able to overcome these conflicts will help the members of the community get to know one another, bringing the community closer and promoting community growth. Thus, I came up with the metaphor that conflicts in collaborations are the seeds that you plant to grow a community and that multiple seeds (collaboration) are needed to achieve this.

Assessment 1 - Final Poster

Art and design often explore relationships between humans and non-humans, the environment and ecology. How can contemporary art and design propose new possibilities for imagining the ‘human’ and the environment? 

Final work: 12.03.16, Eliza Connolly, 2018. 

300 word statement:

On the 12th of March 2016, The Great Barrier Reef was pronounced dead after the biggest mass coral bleaching on record occurred. The Great Barrier Reef is the single largest living organism on the planet and is one of the seven wonders of the natural world. Unfortunately, coral bleaching is its main threat. Corals are given their vibrant colours as a result of algae who inhabit them. As the climate changes and the water temperature increases, the warmness of the water kills off these algae which causes the tissue of the coral to appear transparent and for the coral’s bright, white skeleton to be revealed. This then leads to the coral losing its colouration which results in the “bleach effect”. If this stress put on the coral persists for long periods, bleached corals often begin to die which can affect the reefs they live in at a global scale.

My poster aims to explore the relationship between humans and ecology due to human’s negative effect on the planet and on the Great Barrier Reef. A direct example of these negative relations with the environment is the Adani mine funding in Central Queensland. As of July 2018, mining company Adani is close to sealing a deal on a $16.5 billion mine fund in Queensland. It is known that the digging up and burning of coal from this specific mine will release huge amounts of pollution into the climate which will add to global warming and significantly increase the damage to the Great Barrier Reef which as a result will worsen the coral bleaching. Although aware of these harsh effects on the environment, the Queensland Government have continued to give necessary governmental and environmental approvals for this mine. It is due to issues like this that the environment continues to suffer at the hands of the human population, thus creating a negative relationship. 

Sources: 

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/adani-qld-mine-rail-line-financing-close

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/08/explore-atlas-great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-map-climate-change/

https://www.barrierreef.org/

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/federal-government-to-lend-money-to-adani-business-associates-20180305-p4z2uy.html

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/adani-qld-mine-rail-line-financing-close

https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/adani-owner-son-claims-carmichael-mine-financed/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/19/great-barrier-reef-30-of-coral-died-in-catastrophic-2016-heatwave

https://www.coralcoe.org.au/for-managers/coral-bleaching-and-the-great-barrier-reef

http://theconversation.com/how-the-2016-bleaching-altered-the-shape-of-the-northern-great-barrier-reef-95142