#assessmenttwo

Today our group met up and completed our assessment two work. We all had prepared a poem inspired by Gertrude Stein’s work that revolved around the idea of a ‘Valentine’. These poems like hers concentrated on the idea of pure experience and conveying these images/projections/views to an audience. 

Image Above- the cut out lines ready for shuffling and using

We then created physical forms of these poems by printing and cut them up into individual lines and began recording our process of compiling these poems together. We randomly created verses with a heading from each of our poems and sticking randomly selected lines on a piece of paper. These segments of poem sounded really cool, we loved how random and vague the ‘story’ or ‘flow’ had become, and yet we could all envision a meaning from the lines. 

Above Image - the first verse or our poem 

We continued this process with all the lines and created a full poem that reflected our interpretation of Gertrude Stein’s work very well. We extracted all the footage of this process and started to work this into a video that would provide some visual representation of the poem, as a way to ensure interest in the final work (as listening to the poem as we did in class could be boring and hard to keep up). We then used ZOOM H4N audio recording device with a microphone and recorded Nancy reciting our poem as her voice was the closest to Stein’s and sounded lovely when reading. 

Image Above - showing all our loaned equipment from the resource centre. Nancy and I enjoyed learning about the new things we could use. 

We then considered not including a visual to go along with the audio, as we lied how the poem was presented just as a recording, like we heard in class. However we then figured this may have been our own bias and we were just very proud of our work, and the audio still could have bored some when presenting. We wanted to convey the visuals along side the audio, we began editing these together. 

We played with speed and filters and liked using an ‘old time’ filter and typewriter text to recreate and extend the work of Stein in 1922. The finished work is not quite 5 minutes long, but we feel is effective and any added visuals to extend this would distract from the meaning of the poem. 

Above Image - screenshot of edited footage

Blog #1: Group Formation & Story Development

Introduction

Hello,

Welcome to my blog ‘Reflect Creatively’. My name is James Wetherall, and I am currently in my first year of Communication at The University of Newcastle. This blog is about the process and development of a short movie that I am making as part of an assessment for the subject ‘Creative Collaborations’ in conjunction with two of my classmates, Nathan and Aden.

Primitive Beginnings

In our tutorial class last Tuesday, we were split into groups for our ‘short movie’ group assessment. I was put with Nathan & Aden. We all decided on different filmmaking roles; me as the director/screenwriter, Nathan as the art director/sound desginer, and Aden as the cinematographer/editor, however these are only provisional as we expect more people to join us.

We gathered to formulate ideas for our story. I developed the idea of someone faliing into a dream and suddenly he sees drama everywhere he looks, including explosions, aliens, and protests. I guess the inspiration for this came from the kids television show ‘Arthur’, because every episode contains a wacky dream from a certain character, and ‘World War Z’, because it is about a zombie apocalypse. 

Nathan developed two ideas, one of which was ‘Vampire Speed Dating’ (I forgot what the other one was). I decided we should combine these ideas together, so the story was about someone who fell into a dream and suddenly, he was a vampire looking for a date; a combination of romance and horror. Although Aden did not develop a concrete idea for our film (as far as I can remember), he added valuable input into how Nathan and I’s ideas could be tweaked and implemented.

Despite the combination of these ideas, there was a lot of silence in our group. I spent a long time trying to formulate new ideas for this story, but whatever ideas I developed I didn’t share because I was unsure if it would fit into the storyline. This meant that there was not much further development of the story. Nathan spoke up and added a few more details, but apart from that, there was no addition of great significance.

Conclusion

The first group meeting was more about what roles would be assigned to each person rather than a rough developement of the story. This was discussed prominently among us as we worked out our strengths and weaknesses in different areas of filmmaking. I would like to see constant communcation about our ideas between us as we continue to meet together throughout the semester.

References

Explore Business Ideas. (2020, April 9). [Photograph of man looking at ideas on a noticeboard] https://www.bloomdocking.com/blog/How-to-Brainstorm-Business-Ideas-for-Your-Online-Business 

IndigoStars ASMR (2015, February 27). [YouTube thumbnail of smiling vampires in close-up view]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1i21iATCBQ

PeopleImages (n.d.). Person sleeping on his bed with his hands under his head [Stock image]. Getty Images. https://www.gettyimages.com.au/photos/black-man-sleeping?phrase=black%20man%20sleeping&sort=mostpopular

Rosenbaum, R. (2016, March 27). [Photograph of people reading movie scripts at a table]. https://www.stage32.com/lounge/screenwriting/Table-Reads-2

Continuing and building on research conducted in the previous task, my project also answers the same question: “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?.  Through engaging with a number of class topics, through research and through a process of experimentation I was able to develop and create my final design and present my own possibility for imagining the human and the non-human and its environment. As explained in my last assignment, wastage statistics show that we as a society disregard longevity, deeming objects easily replaceable and of little importance to our own lives. These object however, have an alarming and significant impact on the environment, altering and harming the often fragile relationships and symbiotic nature of the environment and its ecology. Class discussion allowed me to understand how practice-led research can be extremely beneficial to my design process, allowing me to understand and decode what the question was asking and how I could research appropriately. This led me to break up my research into two different sections – the issue and the response. Fast fashion as a process and a mindset is something I find both interesting and alarming. Trends are designed and manufactured quickly and inexpensively to allow mainstream consumers to buy current clothing styles at a lower price. Thriving on constant change and the frequent availability of new products, more and more textiles are being discarded every year. Clothes are being disposed after only being worn a few times, and often are not considered as having the inherent quality to be considered vintage or worth keeping. Made from man-made synthetic and manufactured materials, these low-quality goods can only end up as waste, and are difficult to recycle. Another concept that I have drawn heavily on in my design process is value. In class, we examined its complexities, how we judge value, and different systems of value.  Defined as the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, and it’s worth or usefulness of something - value is placed on everything within our daily lives. The topic of value and its analysis is very relevant to both my research and my chosen concept and final design. As a society that disregards longevity, especially with our clothes (as seen in the development of fast-fashion) - we see how people perceive and acknowledge value. Inspired by Giorgio Armani's Autumn/Winter 2015 Ready-to-wear show, Margaux Roy’s photography, Altuzarra’s Fall/Winter ready-to-wear 2014 collection and Josh Blackwell, my bag design is made from recycled plastic bags.  As stated by Josh Blackwell, plastic bags have a “ubiquitous presence and degraded status”, they are quickly used then discarded, and in high abundance. Like Blackwell, I attempt to “redress their impoverished status” through recreating them into something people may perceive to be of value. My experiments draw on this idea. The first experiment, I looked at altering the value or perceived worth of a product by ‘adding value’ through the addition of embroidery. Through this simple act, the item could be seen as something unique and be appreciated. My second experiment built off this idea – by photoshopping plastic bags of varying sorts onto people and streetstyle images, the bags can be considered something desirable, something ‘on-trend’ and worth ‘buying into’ – a habit many of us do within our own lives. These experiments and my research both led me to my final design. Made from plastic bags, my project is a replica classic Chanel bag. As a luxury brand, Chanel are regarded globally as having a high value. Hand cut, hand-stitched and made to last, these bags are made with luxury, expensive materials. However my bag is also stitched by hand, carefully cut and sewn and made to last – with its only differentiating factor being that is made of recycled materials, materials disregarded and thrown away. Featuring the signature logo and a safety-pin chain handle, by bag serves as a statement as to how items that we disregard and consider trash or waste, can be re-used and serve another purpose, seen as something that could be considered valued. If we can change our mindsets in regard to value, as something that may not be the most expensive, but rather seeing value in an items practicality and its reduced harm on the environment and in addition, continue to explore and develop future possibilities for recycling, sustainable practice and technologies, we can limit the harmful relationship humans have on the environment and ecology. 

References: Research 

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion BBC News, July 2018, ‘Fast Fashion: Inside the fight to end the silence on waste’, By Kelly-Leigh Cooper,  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44968561 ‘What is Fast Fashion?”, August 2018 ,The Big Picture, By Solene Rauturier, https://goodonyou.eco/what-is-fast-fashion/

‘Fast fashion quick to cause environmental havoc”, Recycling Waste Minimisation, The University of Queensland, March, 2018, https://sustainability.uq.edu.au/projects/recycling-and-waste-minimisation/fast-fashion-quick-cause-environmental-havoc The Express Tribune, July 7 2018, “Fashion goes green with emerging designers using recyclable materials for garments,  https://tribune.com.pk/story/1752055/4-fashion-goes-green-emerging-designers-using-recyclable-materials-garments/

The Independent, May 27 2016, “How the Fashion Industry Is Helping The World’s Fashion Problem”, by Alexanda Sims, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/how-the-fashion-industry-is-helping-the-worlds-rubbish-problem-a7052826.html

References: Images

For my second experiment, I wanted to incorporate a digital factor. Using Fashion Week Streetstyle images and images of plastic bags found online, I used photoshop to incorporate the two. Again exploring the idea of value, and the relationship between the human and the non-human, these images depict how though a change in perspective, things or object we consider to be waste, something to be discarded or thrown away could be seen as something desirable. My images are below.