CRITICAL EVALUATION FOR pre Masters Project

What The project was about?:
The project was created and designed for the purpose of gathering vital infomation on the creation and development of my masters project.
For this I initialy gathered infomation in various mediums, Audio, Textual and video.
once gathered this infomation was processed into a format that would be able to be added into flash with the purpose to create some sort of coheriant design.
The user of the program would navigate various webs of infomation and use this system to create some sort of space within the acutal work.
I like to feel that this peice is more like a living space, in which memories and data can be added to evolve the peice.
So the creation of this project fell into three main catogories, the gathering and storage of the actual infomation to be added to the project, the design of the actual system and it's apperance and finally the interface layout and design.
The interface and the way the user will eventually interact withg the peice will provide a lot of the expirence, so I had to look at ways of improving that system.

Why have I chosen this project?:
The master's project is about, fundementally, memories, and this project only really came about when I thought about all the memories I have personally lost.
A few years back I took a heavy blow to the head, and as a result lost a large chunk of my memories between the ages of 7-17.
I now want to remember what was lost, and as freud has mentioned, the mind is a lot like a magic writing pad, things that get placed in the memory leave indents, and when you lay thousand of these indents on top of the other it becomes hard to understand what was really there. So I hope that by going back to various places during those ages specifcally I can finally re-remember some lost memories.
I also want to take the oppertunity to document everything else I feel is relevent to my life. So if I was ever to lost my memories again, i'd have a backup (of sorts) to referre to, like a digital encyclopedia of my life.
This pre-masters project was designed to help build the strong foundations to help with the sucessful deployment of this project, to land running(so to speak).
And to do this i'd have to explore a few avenues, for example: Interface design, and how the user will eventually navigate the mass webs of information.
When all of the imformation is set out and ready I will have an easier job rolling out the information and making this project the success it deserves to be!
How Will I Achieve This Task?:
I started with the initial thoughts about the design of the actual layout that the user will be browsing. First off, I decided on a very simplistic design using photoshop to roll out some ideas.
The layout is still not set in stone, but some things have become apparant, and only could through the use of the this project. For example, to create an emotional (well more like enforce my own emotional attachment to the user) attachment to the user I decided to make the space in which the user navigates, change, and evolve depending on the emotion I choose to attach to the feild in which the user is browsing. For example, if the user is browsing an aspect I deem to be happy, the colour scheme will change and the ambient music will in turn, reflect this view.
Then I looked at ways to present the peice and what program to use. It was an easy choice, and I decieded to go with flash, mainly because flash has it's own video encoding and visual apparatus to create the feel I am trying so hard to do.
Once I knew how and what program to use, I started to compile my infomation into the hard drive I was planning to use as my memories.
Unexpectedly my hard drive went missing when visiting a friends, I believe it was stolen which I was very... unhappy about.
But I guess there is a large amount of ironey attached to this now, because I was creating this project in case I lost more memories, but instead I lost my back up.
Still, not funny, as I now have to invent money in this recession to buy a new one, as well as pay university bills, rent and fixing the car.
Guess I never have had it easy, in comparison with other students, but I guess I have developed a some what "thick" skin.
Anyway back to the topic, the stored infomation would tyhen be processed into sections and headered, then processed into the program.
I plan to have extensive intomation, like audio, video, photographic and textual for subjects that contain that infomation.
How Was The Project?:
I can't say, and there is a reason for such a comment, I did achieve the goals I set to, but my lack of technical knowledge in flash is making me somewhat uneasy, I plan to discuss my ideas with a few flash pro's in the university(thats what their there for right?) and hopefully pick their brains enough to finally understand the process and create some sort of visual diagram for the entire idea of processing all the infomation into some sort of coherent sturcture.
Other than that everything was fine, nothing was really difficult, I plan to have all the "difficulty" in the main masters project.
Well I guess the only flaws to the project were my lack of flash knowledge and the lack of respect someone gave me to stael my hard drive.
Sorry I can't say anymore, it was an ok project but very straight foward.
I could lie and say I had difficulty with, say, the layout, but I'd be lying, and there is no point for that.

The Context of the work.

The Context

Where the work goes:

This Work can go to a variety of places, but of course each place this work goes will change its meaning and its purpose. Work like mine cannot function in a gallery.

The reason for this is because a gallery destroys ambiguity of fact and fiction. For example when you enter a gallery as a viewer you yourself made the conscious decision to do so, and therefore have preconceptions as to what you might encounter when in the gallery. You know for certain you will encounter art in many forms (Sculpture, textile, painting, Audio, video and of course performance).

Most of this art will challenge your perception to various subjects.

Bizarre art and confusion is something IU often think about before I visit a gallery, you open yourself up to be immersed in the works placed in this environment.

My work has to relate through media discussion, photographic or text based narratives.

Why? Well let me break this down for you, my work is going to consist of various photographs of the devices (the video was not right for the piece, ill explain in more detail later) these photographs will reveal just enough about each device.

If I placed this in a newspaper I’d have to base the paper it’s shown in by the paper's integrity.

For example I'd be far more likely to believe something in the FT (Financial times) over something printed in the Daily star, because the FT has more creditability.

When you watch an advert on the TV you don't normally assume that what you see is fact, because most adverts try selling you something, or have unrealistic adverts.

But when you watch the news, you automatically assume what is said to be true, due to the shows credibility and through the basic assumption that what the news tells us is true.

It’s this method that makes my work sounder and realistic, I want the viewer to believe what they see to be real. If they believe the piece is real then my piece has achieved what it's designed to.

AI would ideally like to display my work on a website where, unlike a gallery, it can be viewed by thousands of people from all over the world, different countries, languages etc.

Of course displaying work this way is different from displaying in a gallery, a gallery does in fact have a special environment, and attracts people that will see and analyze your piece.

A gallery makes your work 3D even if it’s a video or 2D medium because the space it’s placed amplifies the locations feel. So just as my work works well in the media, others will blossom in the enhanced environment of the gallery

Who is this work for?

Well I am not entirely sure myself if I am honest, I feel this kind of work would attract conspiracy theorists or people interested in the bizarre and abnormal, the web will be a good medium to focus the wording and layout to capture these viewers.

I could display this work intimately, by making printouts of the photos and leaving them in places where the public will discover them.

Adding more ambiguity as to what the work is, mainly because there would be no clear indication that what they can see is in fact art, and that alone is art.

If web based this work could be for anyone with a passion for curiosity, the images might invoke discussion, or just rebellion to the idea of these fake devices.

It's important to know that when creating this work I focused very little on whom this work was for specified for. I believe that there is an audience for every type of possible art, and that finding out who finds and views the work to be as exciting as the creation of the work itself. 

What audience emerges from my chosen context?

Well this is a hard question to answer, because the context of narrative through art has existed since humans could draw on walls.

I would like to guess that anyone who is easily interested by intriguing work would appreciate this art, maybe through the attempt to understand the devices by using all the assumptions we make today, is it green, is that a lens etc.

If the audience could feel the work they would quickly lose all curiosity towards the piece because it would be far too explicit.

Which is the exact reason the video did not fork, too explicit and too factual, nothing was really left up to the imagination, and that’s really a key aspect.

How does the audience engage with the work?

Well the audience will be given the images alone, maybe some text but very little, the devices have been shot in interesting angles to help promote the design of the pieces.

The Actual images are rather amateurish and some are shot in night vision to create a good amount of sensory deprivation. This will aid to confusion and help strengthen the work.

Sensory deprivation will help shade the real colours and give an entirely different impression to the piece.

This will help create a better ambiguity.

A good piece will hopefully, create some sort of blurring between what is fact and fiction.

We look at things very carefully when not presented correctly, so if it were to be displayed on a web site then I'd have word everything very carefully indeed.

Take Phill Reeves (Student on this course) he had an idea to create a place that is not real in our world but have it displayed on Wikipedia by having it cleverly worded and self-referencing, so as to avoid suspicion.

It was a clever and well preformed project and really did fall into the same category as my work, but for Phills work to really exist it has to go undiscovered, strange when compared to mine that has to be discovered but not believed.

My images are obviously going to be more difficult to create ambiguity due to the fact that my images have little if no text explaining narrative, where as Phills relies on it.

What readings do they, the viewers, take?

Well its hard to say, it could be a spectrum of things from bombs to small sculptures with no purpose, But I guess the whole point of this is what the viewer discovers about the items, the theories the viewer might have and how they might be able to relate to the work itself.

I would probably myself, look at the pictures, try and make out some sort of pattern or try and guess what the item is used for.

But the next viewer might think I was building a city from pieces of old machinery.

All conclusions would be as true as they are fake, because the point is that anyone’s opinion would be as valid as the next, my work only exists to challenge what we think we already know about truth, nothing more.

Contextual Frame Work #003

My quest to discover various locations about information about Narrative in art and narrative artist's.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE1D61338F931A25757C0A963948260

http://artipedia.org/artsnews/exhibitions/2007/02/28/horn-please-the-narrative-in-contemporary-indian-art/

Kevin Reynolds, the Director of Water world 1995, Created what I still class today as my favourite movie of all time.

I'd like to add this film itself, to my list, because even if it’s not seen in galleries as such, cinema's attract a different but yet still viable audience.

A film itself unless a documentary, will be posing a fake fiction, but the peice will be placed in a formal, begining middle and end sequence.
This generic system is what makes me feel that moveis are disregarded by upper socitiy in the feild of art and then people slip it into the catogory of entertainment.
This is of course how I feel towards the subject, I can't say anything is fact or fiction as my opinion might be missing vital intel towards the standing on movies as art, but not art movies.

Water world features a fake fiction that could actually be a reality, the ice caps have melted causing most of the world to be underwater.
Plants are priceless and dirt is gold.

Films like the day after tomorrow also focus on the possibilitys of disaster through global warming.

In essence this kind of narritive thats not far fetched can also be related to my peice.

Contextual Framework #002

Sophie Calle 1953

"Sophie Calle is a French artist who works with photographs and performances, placing herself in situations almost as if she and the people she encounters were fictional. She also imposes elements of her own life onto public places creating a personal narrative where she is both author and character. She has been called a detective and a voyeur and her pieces involve serious investigations as well as natural curiousity."

Pulled this quote from this link below, purley because I could not describe her better.

http://www.iniva.org/dare/themes/space/calle.html

For my video, which I am possibly taking stills from, I did exactly what she does, Created a fake narrative and characters, even the location was a lie, I claimed it was the east hills in wells, but it was in fact filmed at an iron age settlement in Warham, about 3-4 miles away from the east hills.

There is an immense amount of back work that goes into the planning and writing of the script and how the show might go in Sophie Calle's work, each piece carefully constructed to convey the appearance of her characters integrity and functionality. The degree of curiosity and the seriousness of her questions are nearly a comparable to the time spent in the preparation. Video work is very time consuming, and making sure the point of the piece is conveyed appropriately can be quite a challenge.

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?um=1&hl=en&q=Sophie%20Calle&ndsp=20&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv

Constructing Contextual Framework #001

Joan Fontcuberta

Well lets get this show on the road, to make a decent start I'll look at a well known artist in the field of narrative.
His name, Joan Fontcuberta, born in 1955, this Spanish artist is considered one of Spain's top artist's as well as being a very shrewd editor and writer.Galleries such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre George Pompidou, Paris; and Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany to name a few, most of his works are show in Europe and America.
It would appear that he prefers group shows as the list I dug up shows a great number of these types of show, maybe because its more planning to create a space dedicated to your work alone, and maybe there is a time and cost issue.
Last exibition he attended, opened 8th of October this year (2008)http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/instInfo/inst/10124/lang/1

His work's have featured a fake fiction comparable to my own work, by creating and manipulating images and story to allude the suspicions the audience might have about the works authenticity.

Costa Llobero Garden, Barcelona, de Joan Fontcuberta

This is an example of some fake flowers he created, I guess this piece is clever on quite a few levels. He is telling a story, trying to persuade your mind to believing this is real, while being a photographer, and sculptor.
http://www.amillionyearsoflight.com/site2/fotografia.html
This is his homepage, It has snakes with legs, super giant snails and appears very clever in the works execution.
My work is in essence the same, I am creating a fake fiction and trying to sell it to the audience. In my piece, I have machinery over organic substances, that’s about the only difference. But like him I too feel the best way to show this is in photographic form, because the video I created was to explicit in the uncovering of the objects, ill go into that in more detail later.

Critical Evaluation

Critical Evaluation

What was the project? 

Its a series of small sculptures, that will be filmed in the context of a armature discovery.

The various devices can be seen on this very blog, as well as an explanation of the actual story behind the devices.

What's the point of this project?

Well I have always wanted to try and merge creativity and reality into one.

I love the idea of changing the elements of normal life to make it seem a little more bearable, again hitting on the psychological aspects of hyper reality, and our desires to constantly change our surroundings and opinions to help influence a better mood.

With this in mind I wanted to start with a subject that's not too far fetched but weird enough to invoke interest.

So I took something that we see everyday, A tree, something we see see in our everyday lives, but in a strange and new concept. I have attached different devices to a tree that seem to be monitoring different aspects of the tree and it's environment.

So I guess the ability to try and create ambiguity and interest. This notion of self discovery is something we as children try to achieve through playing, we discover ways to interact with objects and even direct our own scenes using our toys as props.

How Did I Achieve My Goals?

I started by looking into making emotional attachment to work's and other factors that propel this emotion, this leaded through a multitude of ideas.

Originally, I wanted to have a Robot of sorts, as the discovery, I researched into the “uncanny valley” and discovered the boundary's that separate our assumption that something is real or not, and even if we believe what's alive.

Then I decided that the device's importance was really only going to be justified mainly by its location of discovery.

Then I decided that A robot was not necessary and that it's too far fetched for me to do well enough for that vital ambiguity.

I tried to find someone to relate this too, but I know nobody that is making fake videos using sculpture. So I looked up cybernetics, robot designs, and eventually just looked at PC's and how there appearance might be modified to custom for this ambiguity of something that exists for another reason.

But with no names to call from in my head, I found finding artist's, more so those on the web, to be very difficult.

All I can say is that I tried, maybe there needs to be a new movement of fake art's that try and create this ambiguity.

A friend of mine is also working in a similar field, he is creating a computer, but is re wiring and changing its interface, its not something that relies on the ambiguity that mine project needs as his computer will actually work, but just in an unorthodox manner.

What problems did I find in this project?

Well the biggest flaw, as always, for me was the technology side, I quickly discovered that a glue gun wont stick onto certain metal surfaces, so to get around that I placed strong tape down first, then glued the parts to the tape.

I had some considerable setbacks with the Sony handycam, I have posted this on the blog, I tried to use the blog as a diary for the project but with the acquisition of the ability to take still images towards the end of the project it was too late to show the stages of the design of each of the devices.

But I have learned a lot of good lesson's from this, mainly to do with my over reliance on technology to preform tasks.

The main problem was keeping the amount of realism (so as to not arouse suspicions of the video being a fake) while all the time creating the sense of wonder of the discovery.

I tried very hard to make the video as real as possible, so the frequent swearing and mucking around is a result of me trying to make this video seem as real as possible, I do plan to put it on youtube and gauge peoples responses based on there views i can see if there was any ambiguity.

This project was successful, in my opinion I created a fantasy fiction using devices I had set, the video seems pretty real and there is not enough detail to assume what is show is in fact fake.

I'd like to focus on creating successful ambiguity through fantasy works in the near future. I feel a certain fascination through creating a new reality through my own ideas.

About the location, I specifically chose the east hill's in wells as the focus point for the video, but it was actually shot elsewhere, but I tried to create another fiction by filming it in another place altogether, so even the location is fake, this way no one could go and look for the location of the device. I actually filmed it at an iron age settlement.

The location offered a better perspective of wonder and has an amazing tree all by itself, its surrounded by mounds and this gives the tree a unique feel that helps aid in the confusion between fact and fiction.

The line is hopefully blurred enough to create the atmosphere I wanted.

The discovery video is worded so that it would appear to be on the east hills, there are little bits, like the messing around, that try and make the video not focused on the device alone, as it would soon click that this is all staged. I just hope that no one has been to the iron age settlement in Warham, it is very hidden and very few people even know of its existence.

All in all this project was a good success, in its execution anyway, I just hope I can trick people that don't know about this project into believing the device.

We shall just have to see, I'll monitor the youtube video, which i should be uploading soon, ill post it and its results on the blog :) 

*EDIT*

The Video cannot work, and I will do my best to explain why. The video is too explicit in the devices uncovering and this completely shatters any ambiguity cast to the viewer. The main way to achieve this degree of deception I would need to withhold more information from the viewer.

The Video, is just wrong and it appears I made a big mistake thinking that the Video medium would be appropriate for this method of presenting this.

The public are not easily thrown by video either, mainly because it is possible to computer generate almost anything, same could be said about any form of digital works, but we for some reason don't associate this with photography, obviously there is a great deal of photo manipulation, but it's effect on the public rely solely in the method that it is shown to the viewer.

An example I used in my "Context" post was about the way we naturally assume that when we watch the news what we are watching is in fact true, when it would be just as easy to manipulate images and sound for a broadcast, its because we have been brought up to always believe what we see on these channels, I mean, Why lie to us right?

This theory I have came to acquire questions the authenticity of everything we do, almost immersing ourselves in a hyper reality, much like the film "The Matrix" where a chosen few inhabitants of earth realize their entire lives are nothing more than a lie.

This could be true about our media networks, showing images to control the mass's, this is not a new subject, many believe that the whole purpose of religion is to do the same, control over fear, with a fear of death many religions offer a "better place" for those that obey and follow a set of rules.

So now I have a new idea, and I feel this is the best way to create the ambiguity and wonder my work hopes to achieve. Through still's of the device, and the best ones seem to be the orignal images I took to show you the process and design of the objects.

The shots taken in night vision are perfect as they, deprive the viewer of true colour, making parts more unrecognizable, much like the main evil character in the film "Sunshine" who is almost constantly blurry from camera manipulation and CG. This helps mask what's not necessary, you only need to know he is evil, not what skin tone he is or if he has any birthmarks, but at the same time makes us, the viewer attempt to put the peices of the puzzle (his apperance) together out of curiosity.

So I will be using the initial shots, they are the most effective. I will print these out and they will represent the piece's no other information will be needed, this creates more curiosity, being withheld information is itself a form of sensory deprivation. And this will prove vital for creating the confusion and ambiguity. Maybe the only information given might be a lie to grab the viewer and strengthen the believe that this piece is in fact real, something like "Photo's of a weird device" Or play some audio(if it was web based) of strange sounds that sound machine like. 

The process was interesting, never before have I reverted to initial work as a finished product, There was the making of the devices, which took some considerable time to create the necessary ascetic feel I desired. Then it was the initial photo's of the devices, followed up by the research into different types of human behavior, followed by the contextual framework then the planning and filming, editing and production of the video(which I thought was the final piece) Only then to discover that the execution of the piece had been ruined by being to explicit and holding no information from the viewer. So now I have discovered that my final piece was created in the initial photographic stages of the development.

So now reverting back to those images.

This has been a truly interesting process, Where I have at every corner discovered how wrong my previous assumptions had been, evolving and changing the project into what it is now, very successful in my opinion.

Who is this for?

Well, it is most defiantly for those with imagination, some people that might view this work might think it's just junk laying around, even though I have tried very hard to create a device that inspires and creates imagination.

For me as a kid, well actually even now I do this, but most of my childhood (from what I still remember) I always pretended I was not in our world, I guess this brings me back to hyper reality.
Actually, gonna find a good paper on it.

Ok, a quick search gave no good papers.
But an explanation

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hyperreality.htm (<---Actually a good description)

Anyway as a kid I'd imagine that the locations I was in were related to those of films or games, or just a fusion of things I liked at the time, as for why? well there are a bunch of psychological factors involved.
mostly with a desire to lose your attachment yourself from your current world, and I'd guess if you are unhappy with something you'd want to change it.
If you were happy with your existence you would not have the desire to remove yourself from our present reality to engulf yourself in another.

I'd often pretend I was a lab worker creating weird machines to help me with my bigger experiments, so I guess this device was just an extension of my fascination of hyper reality.

People evolve over the years and lose there sense of adventure and imagination because life, as we all know, throws restraints on us.
Our jobs, social life, love life, money issues and not to mention the growing responsibility's we all face hinder our progress to great imaginations and the natural thirst for exploration.
People often, more so these days, hope for a holiday or events so that they themselves can break away form reality.
A music festival, golf match, sport on television and of course the most popular of all, video games, can all be considered as methods of breaking away and sub versing from reality.
I guess most of us would rather connect to a new reality and enjoy something a little less than our mundane lives.
For most of us its, wake up, get ready for work(usually a job you hate), a little interaction with friends then home (see wife if applicable) eat, sleep and repeat.
It's no wonder why humans seek alternate reality's and live a little excitement.
It's probably why fantasy films do so well in the box office, when watching a film you become attached to that enviroment and almost feel in place there.
An audience with no imagination or curiosity will get no pleasure from this piece, but for those that like to believe and those that like disconnecting from reality should hopefully find this appealing.

A piece by Eric Dodson, is relevant.

http://www.westga.edu/~psydept/dodson/nonlectu.html