#reflective statement

As the submission deadline is getting closer, and I’m in the final stages of finalizing my first MA project, I’d like to reflect on how this blog has been helpful. It should be said that I initially hoped that I would be more active with posting more project development centred posts. But as time went by and I found myself focusing purely on the project development only, the regular postings on this blog started lacking. I supposed this adherence to my own plan and consistency, is something that needs to be improved. With that being said, the idea of having a blog in which I could continue exploring certain topics or express my thought process without being limited by word count etc, was very enjoyable. I do however think that the most helpful factor of having this blog is to practice my analytical and writing skills. I still think that there are much room to improve on still (as mentioned in my first blog post), however the more I write, the better I become at expressing my work academically.

In the early stages of creating this blog, I expressed to my tutor my wish to continue this blog even after the semester is finished. I am still aiming on doing so, as my plan is to conduct some further research in relation to my second project. I noted several areas of which I explored in this blog, to be of interest and thus I’d like to continue investigating these, but in a different context. I wonder if I’ll end up becoming more active this time around compared to during the semester. There is a possibility that the blog (even though I wrote notes on what topics to discuss each week as my project progressed) could have felt almost like a chore, as I was struggling with time management and the overall priority being towards the completion of my project.

This weight of responsibility to post regularly may have resulted in me not fulfilling this expectation I had of myself. I found myself struggling to write any sort of informative posts at times, as well as making sure that I didn’t repeat myself across assignments of different modules.

As a conclusion, I had expectations of this blog that I felt I didn’t meet, however, there are aspects of this blog that I consider having been of help in order to further reflect its relevancy for my own project. This has been a place for me to write as much as I felt was necessary for me, about anything from a design solution of which I particularly liked, to small decisions such as whether to include borders in the packaging solution I was working on, in other words, topics of interests that were less important than others.

We are reading My Name Is Red, written by Orhan Pamuk. By making the oral activity, I learned many things that helped me understand better my reading of this novel.

First of all I made an investigation about Orhan Pamuk’s life. I got to know that he was a very important Turkish writer, who wanted at the beginning to become an artist, then studied journalism and finally decided to only work as a writer his entire life. I also learnt that he has always lived in his house in Istanbul. Orhan Pamuk is well known for writing novels that represent Turkish culture in a very detailed way, while making protest of the atrocities lived in his country. But this description of own culture is made in a sort of in love way, highlighting the uniqueness of the culture. I could notice this even better by knowing Pamuk’s intense love for his city that could be easily noticed by his permanent residence in his own city. A lot of detail in the description of the streets also spills this fact.

A lot of references to the Islam, the predominant religion in Turkey, are also mentioned.

Reflecting on the creation process for ‘Maker’, I have discovered a variety of ways to improve my game design methodology through techniques based on -better time management -how to work efficiently without a group -rapid prototyping a game.

I wasn’t able to work in a group due to a timetable clash that lead to me missing out on class every week. Because of this, I wasn’t able to get a sense of what other groups were working and, what they were doing to improve their methodologies and what sorts of paths they were going on. As a result, I felt isolated at the beginning of the project but found the week meetings supportive and helpful. Combining my major studio project with the Urban Playgrounds brief was another helpful component to making sure I didn’t feel overwhelmed with too much work.

  One of the challenges of working on a project ‘alone’ (I put alone in quotations because I did get a lot of support and feedback from others throughout), was being responsible for every aspect of the project and it’s direction. From design decisions to going to meetings and organising people for play testing, I couldn’t negotiate and delegate roles, or ask for the opinion of the group what the next steps should be for the future of the project. Maybe I’m just bad at meeting deadlines, but when I work alone, I tend to leave things to the last minute, and then get behind on my goals and deadlines. And for some reason, this was magnified throughout this project. As for project management when working alone, Fowler et al. (2017) indicated that, looking after your health and mental well-being for better productivity, and working backwards from deadlines lead to more efficient workflow. Looking at the advice of freelance artists and designers (who work alone on projects and briefs similar to mine), Lenhart (2017) states that working in a shared space where others are working, even if it’s not the same type of work, is a motivating factor when working alone on projects. Another name for this is ‘coworking’ (Spinuzzi, 2012). 

Despite how I felt and the case made above, there is research to suggest that working alone is better for productivity. Welsh states that despite how dedicated you are to a task, working in the vicinity of another person working on a seperate task could hinder your focus and performance. Hoe found that we model our actions off of the person we are working near, which can hinder productivity (Welsh, 2008).

My project evolved quite a bit from where it started. My focus was on creating a piece of design that would let a participant explore what sort of thinker and designer they are. Throughout the iterative process, quite a few playtesters responded saying the mechanics weren’t tough enough, or that they wanted additional aesthetics like competition, obstacle-type features for more challenge, and some type of narrative (different to the narrative being built through the gameplay). While these would be interesting to explore, these aesthetics aren't part of the focus or purpose of Maker. By adding these, the game turns into something completely different, with an altered outcome for players and what they walk away with. They would still be left with a sense of the original idea but delivered in a totally new way. I haven’t come across a game that started out with one intention, and then changed it’s aesthetics through the iterative process because people didn’t necessarily get the idea behind the game in the first place. I think there are people out there who would the idea, as well as people who would get what they want out of this game and create emergent gameplay. Maybe people who want to play amongst their friends like “Drawful 2” (n.d.), or create their own games entirely using Maker as their platform. How would I connect with this audience? This is assuming there is an audience who would gravitate towards Maker. Releasing it on a popular platform like Steam might garner people similar to my playtesters, but it would reach a wide variety of people.

I would say that I developed my game fairly quickly by the end of week 7. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to make: product, aesthetic, and design wise. Overall, I think I made something that fulfilled by project objective, but there’s always room for improvement, roads to explore, and more to learn from the process.

Definitions:

Emergent Gameplay: Unintended or unforeseen potential of a game Audience: Persons who share similar desires and attractions

References:

Fowler, A., Whitehurst, K., Omran, Y. A., Rajmohan, S., Udeaja, Y., Koshy, K., … Gundogan, B., (2017). How to study effectively. International Journal of Surgery Oncology, 1-3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/IJ9.0000000000000031

Lenhart, Mike. (2017). Freelancers: Beat Work-Alone Loneliness. Retrieved from http://artbistro.monster.com/benefits/articles/1453-freelancers-beat-work-alone-loneliness

Spinuzzi, C., (2012). Working Alone Together: Coworking as Emergent Collaborative Activity. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 26(4), 400. https://doi-org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/10.1177/1050651912444070

Welsh, T., (2008). Working Alone May Be The Key To Better Productivity, New Research Suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080220110323.htm

As it has come to the end of this module I feel that I should do a reflective statement on how I feel I have performed on this module, the new ideas and different methods I have explored, as well as my feelings towards the next module and where my work may take me. 

Looking back to the start of this module in February, my initial focus was to stay true to my love of walking and adventuring to take landscape photographs, but I wanted to take inspiration from my previous modules - The Thought Experiment & Collaboration project. When looking at my work now I can see strong influence from my collaboration project where we looked into technologies power and influence it has on art today. My current and most recent work has been primarily focused around going back to the basics of photography, by using the traditional ways of photographic printing in the darkroom using liquid light. With influence from The Thought Experiment module, where I made a lucid dream style video at Oxwich Bay in the Gower, my subject matter has continued to be different beaches however not all in the Gower this time. 

My biggest influence on this module and where I feel my work started to progress and take place was after my tutorial with tutor Paul Jeff, where he showed me different land artists as an initial idea starting point. This then lead to my research on the renowned photographers Richard Long and Robert Smithson. I was in awe of Richard Long’s use of photographing rocks and the textures that were present, and combined with Robert Smithson’s magnificent Spiral Jetty, immediately I wanted to go out and create my own land art sculptures using rocks and pebbles. 

Something that has brought my great joy throughout this module is collecting materials and items found along my different shoots. In particular when I collected different shells & driftwood to make a Windchime, which I then took back to the same beach to leave there for others to enjoy. From then on it progressed to collecting rocks and pebbles to print my photography on, using the old photographic method of liquid emulsion. 

In my opinion, I would say that my strongest area of work has been my use of different different experimentations within photography and my artist research. My love of film photography has come back and inspired me to continue using film cameras on the next module. The cameras I have experimented on this module have been digital slr, polaroids, 35mm & Diana camera with Lomo film, where in my previous modules I would have just used my digital SLR. Having only used the photography darkroom before to print images onto photographic paper, in this module I wanted to do something different and explore a new way of photography, by researching into liquid emulsion I fell in love straight away with this method of printing images. Throughout this module I have ensured my standard has been far greater than my previous modules. The amount of research I have done into different artists, photographers and different photographic techniques has massively improved, i’ve stepped up my gain and pushed myself in order to get the best possible outcome. 

With regards to where I feel I have been unsuccessful, I would say that it would be my lack of theory with relevant theorists, as well as my unsuccessful attempts when using liquid emulsion. When it comes to finding relevant writers and text for my work I do tend to struggle, I procrastinate a lot and then end up missing it out or waiting to the last minute, which isn’t good. Within the final module I will ensure this changes, if I need help I shall ask, this isn’t something that is easy for me but in the long run it will be, I need to gain more confidence. When working with liquid emulsion it is a very delicate and sensitive process, any little mistake and that could ruin the whole process. For example, I have had several errors occur when either coating the materials in too much gelatine or not enough, as well as the same with the liquid emulsion so you will simply see your image float away in the developing liquids. To stop this from happening in future, I must simply take my time and pay close attention to how much coverage should be on my materials, as well as understand there will be failures but as they say ‘practice makes perfect’. Another area I would of liked to explore more is with ceramics, however as I live in Cardiff and travel down to Swansea for university, somedays I’d get to the ceramics block and there would be a class in there, even if it was supposed to be open access. Next time I would like to ensure I can get into the ceramics workspace to do some of my own creative ideas.

When thinking about the next module and where my current work can take me, there is definitely more I can do and I would like to continue with this style of work throughout the next module but with a more in depth thesis. My work within this module is not finished at all, in fact this is just the starting point of my creative adventure. I would still like to explore more land art and even try creating a large outside installation for example my idea is to re-create the spiral jetty on the sand using rocks and pebbles and then wait for the tide to come in and wash its all away. In the next module I would also like to continue my experimentation with different cameras but this time move onto large and medium format cameras. The locations I choose to photography also will be different, I want to branch out of the Gower and stop exploring the places I already know, but instead go out and explore new places across the UK or even further, to capture the feeling I get when being immersed within a new landscape setting. Continuing to experiment with liquid emulsion and the different materials I can print on, the more I practice this style of photographic printing the better I will  be. 

This module has enabled me to come out of my comfort zone and try something different with vast experimentations, and by doing so I have learnt so much more and I’ve become very inspired to continue striving to improve and better myself throughout the last module and the future. 

Creative: Cooking

I learnt many new skills that would prove to be beneficial to my independent university life later on, and one of my main goals was to overcome my fear of cooking with oil honestly I am still a little bit afraid but the fear has lessened due to the cooking sessions. Cooking was definitely more challenging than my previous creative activity, did i enjoy it? Only the outcome, the process not so much. But overall, personally I think it was a worthwhile activity to take on. As for changes, I would’ve liked to join a cooking CCA so the lessons are more structured and that I am also learning with other people. I know that theres a cooking CCA at school and also an outside lesson “Hers Kitchen”

Action: Swimming

I have gotten faster and gained more perseverance in swimming. It takes me less time time to finish a lap and with this new found confidence I decided to do the House Swimming next term. I hope I don’t drown in my own embarrassment and at least get second last. One of my goals was to identify which stokes needed improvement and it was breath-stroke, I notice I am slower with this stroke and figured out it was my technique when diving under the water, I am still in the process of altering this mistake.

Service: 

 i. Forestry Club

I enjoyed doing Forestry Club as it was one of my larger CCA’s where a group of people are working on an area solely to make it a more sustainable environment. From this activity sparked my longing to be a Graphic Designer and I can’t wait to see my design on the backs of everyones T-shirts, just thinking about it makes me so overwhelmed, and that I might add was the highlight of this activity. Truthfully, the activities weren’t as challenging as I thought because as part of publicity team I actually have experience already in painting and making signboards. This activity benefitted others as I feel as I have contributed into making a Greener JIS and I believe that the Outdoor Discovery Centre is going to be a large part in raising our reputation but ALSO raising awareness for the environment especially since Earth Week is coming up next term 

ii. Study Buddy 

Okaaay another reflective statement. Where do I start. So for the first half of this sem we had to design one media stream of Air New Zealand’s inflight entertainment system. For this project I partnered up with Jess. I’ve worked with her before on other uni projects but not with design. We’ve pretty much established good communication and worked collaboratively on designing this project. If I could change something differently on how we approached this project, it would have been spending less time designing and worked more on prototyping and user testing. Though we did invest a fair amount of time towards user testing but I feel like we could definitely improve on it. Other than that, it was really great working with Jess and I got to see how she approaches the design process which I could use for future projects. Overall, I was really satisfied with our end result. Our inflight entertainment design has both good design and animations incorporated within it. 

Now for the second half of this sem. We had to design a responsive website for a New Zealand social change project and this time I got to work with Nicole! We decided to design for Smalltalk, they pretty much spread awareness towards depression in New Zealand. And they sell stickers with positive messages on them. Me and Nicole sussed out our idea for this website straight away and had a clear plan of our process. Designing for responsiveness was definitely difficult, even more so when we had to use programs we weren’t familiar with. The learning curve affected our process of user testing. We didn’t get to user test our website as much as we wanted to. But we managed to get through it, and designed a beautiful responsive website. I enjoyed working with Nicole, it’s funny coz we both were prototypers in our previous groups. 

Throughout the creation of the body of work during this module, I have picked up and revisited skills outside of the digital art mediums I have found myself comfortable in. Using the notion proposed in the brief that this should be an experimental body of work that encourages creative play, I decided to try a plethora of different mediums.

Focusing within my physical submissions, I have submitted a body of work exploring Watercolour, Collage, Sewing, Mixed-Media and Poetry. Focusing within my digital submissions (located on the tumblr: http://punk—art.tumblr.com), I have submitted a body of work exploring Photography, Animation, Digital Collage and one short film.

This reflective statement will be split into two parts, Physical and Digital, and I will write about my overall experience for both with a reflective conclusion at the end.

During the beginning of my physical body of work I wanted to create some works of art that forced me to revisit previous skills and begin to properly dedicate my focus to getting better in these mediums. With the watercolours in particular, it was an art form I used to experiment with a lot during childhood and at secondary school, and it had been about 5 years since I had properly dedicated a block of days to this form.

My favourite part about the watercolour work is the fact that although I’d only spent about 5 days in total on it over a period of two weeks, I feel like my progress and my attempt getting-to-grips again with the form was really successful. I have very low confidence in my drawing ability, which is one of the main reasons I stay focused on and so comfortable with Digital Art mediums - but this project of creating my own technicolor crystals really helped me begin building confidence in my drawing from reference and free-hand ability again. Although the structures for many of the crystals aren’t perfect, they still have an edge to them I really like and I think I would like to explore this medium in more depth. The creation of the colour palette for Painting 4 was really one of the most exciting aspects to the whole project, I spent a lot of time really organising the colours and number mapping them out on to my outline, and I think as I developed this technique throughout the project it really helped bring integrity to the work.

With regards to the collage work, this was one of the more emotional and intricate focuses within my body of work, and as I went on, the inclusion of my own poetry written on to some of the pieces in the notebook really adds a dimension I wasn’t expecting to get out of this project. I love collage work a lot and I am really excited to continue pursuing this form next semester. I would love to do large scale pieces, however I also really enjoy the notebook format. I liked showing the pieces to my friends before this submission, and having them flick through the book, as if it was one cohesive artwork in itself made up of separate ones. I have gone into quite a lot of depth with this body of work during the “Collage Reflective Statement” I have submitted alongside this, and I hope that will help give more information on the pros and cons of collage work and my development throughout.

My physical body of work, although small in size, took up much of my time within the 8 weeks I had to compile this new body of work, and I feel that the thought processes and the meanings behind some of the pieces are some of my most developed work yet, with the collages in particular.

During the beginning of my digital body work, I wanted to keep on the tangent that I had started with my Live Brief project “Natural/Unnatural” last semester. The most solid sections of the digital body of work I believe where the Photography projects and the Animation. These are mediums I feel very comfortable in as they are the main mediums I showcase on my personal arts blog on tumblr that I have gained a following on. I have a familiarity within these mediums that I have built up over a number of years, and the most trailing part of any work based in these mediums is the aspect of finding theme and context to the work.

With the photography project “Vulnerable Masculinity” - which can be found on the blog provided - I wanted to explore the concepts I am personally researching for my Dissertation Project next year. I plan to write about Vulnerable Masculinity in Contemporary Art and the decontextualisation of Masculinity that we have come to know in the west. The photographs ended up looking extremely soft while also remaining powerful. It was a delicate balance to uphold while still keeping the bizarre aesthetics I love to showcase within my artwork, and I feel like these photographs are extremely successful, and some of my best photography work to date.

The animation I worked on during this semester was also engaging and interesting, however I feel like I could have been doing better in the range of palette I had based a lot of the works around. My favourite piece I created for this body was the first version of “Mutual Destruction”, which is an Animated Gif that depicts a bunch of shot-up and destroyed iPhones floating in a pastel abyss. My least favourite Gif is the Anime Eye one, which was only a short test but I feel like the gradient is lacking. I really loved exploring notions of animated text movement and how that can determine the tone of a piece, and I would like to explore this notion more in the future.

Overall, I feel like this is a very experimental body of work which has reflected some of my most personal work submitted at university yet. The majority of the work was made during a time of immense reflection while I was at my parents house in France for the first time in two years. I feel like I am beginning to become more comfortable with presenting aspects of myself and my thoughts without fear of others thinking it is stupid, and using my already developed sense of aesthetic to tie in my political and social mind with my aesthetic.

I hope that I have organised this submission in a concise manner and that the information I have provided alongside each experiment within the wallets will help make sense of the work.