Friday, 21 July 2017

Tutor Feedback Assignment 5

Overall Comments
The project really came together, well done. As hoped, it is insightful, interesting and very topical. The sheer scale of it is impressive, allied to a good presentation and pertinent reflection and research, you will have come so far over this last year. I’ve really enjoyed looking through this work and feel that the subject matter will be appealing to a mass audience – before putting it out there, work through your presentation, ultimately you want to show work as professionally as possible.


Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity


Notes from, and in addition to, our Skype tutorial -


You have the project! Its a real achievement in scale and scope. Presentation is key now.


The time you have left is best utilised to work on this.


We noted your concerns about the quality of  iPhone photos – this leads directly to your thoughts on how the work will be shown/viewed/disseminated. We discussed some prints – these would be exemplars, I mentioned that a recent student submitted prints of video stills (his final work were photo-films), but if we think about how work might first be encountered it could be as a flyer or magazine write-up – but your work should be engaged with the screen, its about the screen, initially captured via screens and should therefore, I feel, be mediated through screens. That said the black border harks back to prints, purist f64 group practice etc, I’d suggest removing this and keeping the work in the context of today. Perhaps research more on blogging/vlogging/contemporary diary practices.


We discussed this dissemination, really the work needs to be held in your hand, whilst the viewer is remote, the expectation of immediacy – the feeling that you are in their home – is what drives the project. It engages with voyeurism, the domestic, family and the familiar.


You are going to look at a website for the project, perhaps even an app, as it is likely to be viewed through the same device as it was made (and is about!).


I mentioned Fred Ritchin’s Bending the Frame, the BJP/Time articles, iPhone photos from Afghanistan and their dissemination.


Cite references of work made and displayed using iphones, gallery exhibits. We discussed that often the display of mobile phone based work is an afterthought – phones on walls etc, in your next module think carefully about the ways viewers will experience your work, start from want you want them to experience.


You have seven months worth of work, what reasons can you find to condense or edit? Part of the work’s appeal is its consistency.


We discussed your title, something along the lines of Family/Time/Volume, potentially a play on Sally Mann’s Immediate Family. Nan Goldin is a good reference for works made and shown in volume. You’ve since selected Family Moments which has a slight cynical edge. Play critically with other works, see if you can refer to the work of others through the title.


You confound us every now again with some of the insights, the narrative loosens and tightens as we go through the days.


For assessment, the concern of having to have prints. I will speak to Jesse and Eddie at assessment. This is surely an online project. The initial encounter is really important.


Look at Joachim Schmid, Andreas Schmid, Eric Kessells, printing out the internet.


Contact learning support re pregnancy. My best advice is to get plenty done now!


In terms of highlights, you have many pics to choose from, the irony of 659 and 703, the triple device shot, phone+shopping trolley, phones in car, son’s haircut, all the breakfasts, the hotel breakfast shot,


As noted previously your 'diary' writing is warm and immediate. Its a tricky balance that I think really works – cite any literary influences, particularly any that correlate with the visual – many artists keep, or have kept, diaries.

Coursework
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity


Decent and relevant reflections on your work and others. Good to see you following up on previous references, and even producing experiments in response to Martha Rosler.


Research
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  


Signpost wherever you can what you have been reading and how its affected the work you are making.


Learning Log
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  


Good to see the work presented here. Look again at the black borders. Wordpress do have some excellent templates, a shift from Google may be in order. A designer recently used Wordpress to produce what is effectively a website rather than a blog for my www.relativepoverty.org


Suggested reading/viewing
Context


Please look at any extra practitioners above.


Pointers for the next assignment / assessment

Good luck moving on to next parts of Level 3. You now have a solid piece of practical work to contextualise and bring to the world! Well done.


Reflection.
That's it. I've completed my project and it would seem that my tutor is satisfied with it also. There is still some concern about how I will be submitting this project for assessment, as it really needs to be submitted online as that is how is it meant to be viewed so I think I will take my tutors advice and create a blog/webpage specifically for this project. This, as long as there is no issue, is how I will submit it for assessment. But I will check with my tutor nearer to the assessment date to confirm whether I am ok to print and submit only certain images as prints with their corresponding text so that the assessors have something physical to look at.
I have taken on board the comments regarding the black background on my prints on my blog and have changed that accordingly.
The main focus now is getting the project onto a webpage and then getting the sample prints done asap.

Overall, this has been a challenging module. But now that the project is completed, I am extremely happy with it and this feedback confirms that it has been successful.

Friday, 19 May 2017

Reflecting after Assignment Five

I have just had my Skype call with my tutor following on from submitting Assignment 5 and I can say that it was a very positive conversation.
My tutor seemed impressed with the volume of work in my final project and that the volume and commitment is a major part of the work itself. He thinks that the diary aspect works really well and that it really works as a digital project. We need to think about how it would be presented and that it should really be screen based, maybe focussing on it's own blog/website. We talked about Wordpress, which I have used before and would be happy to use for this project alone.

One thing that my tutor did point out was that the project didn't really connect with the title. I need to focus more on the time aspect, as I talk a lot about trying to portray the element of time through the project. But the photos are still showing family surrounding me and close relationships between my subjects so family could be in there. Maybe around time being split or shared.
He said maybe we could look at Sally Mann's Immediate Family  or on Modern Family and play on this in some way.
After thinking about the sharing and time and family aspects, I thought about maybe "A Family Moment" or just "Family Moments". I will run these by him.

My main concern is how I am to present this for assessment. As a digital project, I was wondering how to send this project in for the assessment process when you can't completely submit digitally for Level 3 courses. My tutor confirmed this was an interesting point and that he will speak to a few people at OCA to see how we can work around this. But after discussing it over, we said we could always send in a selection of prints from the project, but they would need to be small and possible screen sized to correspond with the project itself.

I am happy with that. I will look into possibly being able to print screen sized images as iPhone screens are more of a 6x3in(?) sizing. I would also have to print out selected pages of text to accompany them too. But we will see what my tutor comes back with once he has spoken to the relevant people.

I am really proud of myself and this project. It was towards the end of last summer that I changed tutor's and had a meltdown to my (now) tutor as I had no idea where to go with my work. I now understand how work can be derived from something that you feel passionate about. The work is personal and indicative of my own experiences. It's a part of me and every family member who is present in this work. It's a 7 month slice of time in our lives and will serve as an archive in years to come to reflect back on. I have achieved what I set out to do, to show the viewer how devices can take over, if you let them. And how relationships can be affected, again, if you let them. I wanted to assure people that it's not just happening in their homes, it's happening in mine too and I hope that people can relate to not just the project but to me and my own life, and possibly millions more. And I think that through this work, I have achieved that. It will be interesting to see how it is received by the public and I am eager to progress to the next step of getting my work seen.

Friday, 12 May 2017

Martha Rosler

In looking at photographs with text, Martha Rosler's The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems (1974-75) is a highly political piece of work. The set of 21 black and white photographs along with accompanying text include many store fronts and usual haunts of drunken people within the Bowery district of New York. The text that accompany the photographs include words that are associated with drunkenness or alcoholism that allows the viewer to create their own interpretation of the viewpoint that Rosler is displaying. But Rosler does not in fact photograph any drunken people at all within this project. The viewer visualises the point Rosler is making through the shop front photographs and the choice words to associate with drunken people and being drunk.

The text plays a powerful part within this project, as it does with most image-text photographs. Text can accompany the photographs well, either to emphazise a viewpoint literally, or by associating with the photographs to allow the viewer to come to their own conclusions about what the viewpoint actually is.

It would be interesting to see if I could create a similar image-text accompaniment as in this project by Rosler. But with the vast amount of images within my own project, there wouldn't be enough words to accompany the photographs. The project would need to be a lot smaller, maybe a photo a day for one month. And then use words associated with the scene or my mood of the day to showcase my viewpoint regarding the devices at that time. Either way, for the project as it is, it would not be plausible however I am keen to create a one-off image with inspiration from Rosler's project.

AlCallow piece inspired by Martha Rosler - 2017


Bibliography:
Afterall.Org, (2017), Afterall Exhibition 'Martha Rosler: The Bowery' [Online], Available at: https://www.afterall.org/events/afterall-exhibition_martha-rosler_the-bowery-in-two-inadequate-descriptive-systems_, [Accessed May 12th 2017]
Edwards, S., (2012) Martha Rosler: The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems [Online], Available at: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/martha-rosler, [Accessed May 12th 2017]
MarthaRosler.com, (2017), The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems [Online], Available at: http://www.martharosler.net/photo/bowery.html, [Accessed May 12th 2017]

Allan Sekula

I've just spent a bit of time doing a Google image search for Allan Sekula and have come across his work Photography against the grain. Again, I am unable to actually purchase a copy of this book but was lucky enough to find a copy available to view online, available here.

I haven't read through the essays, I didn't feel it relevant at this present time, but I did have a look through his works Aerospace Folktakes and School is a Factory. Both these works have sequences of photographs with accompanying text. What I like about Aerospace Folktales were the fact that the adjoining commentary was short and to the point. They seem to be making a small but relevant point as to why the photograph is included or what relevance the subject has. The photographs are accompanied by a commentary as two interviews with the engineer and the wife. The engineer spoke of work, the economy and how it affects ability to get work, whereas the wife spoke of the work and economy and how it affected her family. The commentary focuses on skills as an art form. It would be interesting to see this exhibition as it was. The introduction states that the original version included "142 prints and titles grouped into subordinate narrative sequences." The sound track that accompanied the prints "consisted of four conversations" that played for seventy-five minutes continuously in a small room next to the main exhibition and the commentary was displayed at the end of the exhibition.

Looking to my own project, I would have far too much text to be able to display it all alongside the photographs. It would need to be alongside to correspond with the photographs of that particular day. I'm not sure how the best way to exhibit this would be in that scenario. Hence why a book might've been better in the long run or an online blog as suggested by my tutor. I will definitely have to have a good think about it. 

School is a Factory is also a works based around photographs with accompanying text. The photographs appear to show people at work or in training and the text then confirms who the subjects are and what they are doing. The text also gives some context surrounding the subjects, like the reasons these people undertake this type of training and if and where the training will lead them when they are fully qualified. Here the text is informative and gives background information to, not only the subjects in the photographs but also to the norm for the types of training being undertaken and where the subject may or may not go following their training. The text accompanies it's image yet really informs you of the political view Sekula wants to get across. But all the images are of real events. They are real people in real jobs/training. And we get a good visual that what we are seeing actually took place. 

References:
Sekula, A., (1984), Photography against the grain: Essays and photo works 1973 - 1983 [Online], Available at: https://ia600303.us.archive.org/18/items/AllanSekulaPhotographyAgainstTheGrainEssaysAndPhotoWorks1973-1983/Allan%20Sekula%20-%20Photography%20Against%20the%20Grain%20Essays%20and%20Photo%20Works%201973%E2%80%931983.pdf, [Accessed May 10th 2017]
Sekula, A., (1978-80), School is a Factory [Online], Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/4/4d/Sekula_Allan_School_is_a_Factory_1978-80.pdf, [Accessed May 10th 2017]

Wednesday, 10 May 2017

Tim Lott - The Guardian - When does close friendship turn into emotional infidelity?

My tutor dropped the name Tim Lott in my previous feedback, mainly for the way he writes his family column and how he talks so openly about himself and others.

I have just read through his a couple of his more recent columns and came across his post from 7th April 2017 entitled "When does close friendship turn into emotional infidelity?".

I must say that I found this post interesting and rather relevant, in a way, to this project.

One of the first questions he poses is "Just what does it mean to be emotionally unfaithful in a time when email, instant messaging and mobile phones give us more private ways to connect than ever before?"

I can relate with this. My marriage is solid and I completely trust my husband, but when he spends so much time on his phone, and I know he does message other girls, I cant help but wonder why? Or what he is doing/talking with/talking about. To him, he is just talking to a friend, however I find it quite disrespectful to message, for long periods of time, members of the opposite sex. Especially if you are married. I would never dream of messaging a friends husband, or anyones husband for that matter, for a chat. So I find it difficult to comprehend those that find no problem with it. Do I trust my husband?...yes! Do I worry about it?.....No. Am I happy about it?....No!

But this is is where social media and modern technology create an issue. You can hide this sort of behaviour from your spouse/partner/friends. There is no way of them knowing that this is happening, given that they cant check your phone, etc. And it's that secrecy that I find disturbing.
Plus it's a whole other level in regards to teaching our children the dangers of certain individuals online.

My daughter and I were talking yesterday about social media after she had had a talk about it in school. She was talking about connecting with her friends and was quite proud of the fact that even though she has a Musical.ly account, she didn't have any other social media at all. She only has an iPod so her friends can email her or iMessage, some can even Facetime. But she looked confused when she asked me about connecting with my own friends online when I was younger and I said we didn't have the internet when I was younger. Her reply was "yeah, but you could still message them" to which she was even more confused when I again told her, we didn't have mobile phones when I was her age. I didn't have a mobile until I was 17 years old and even then it was pay as you go, £10 would last you over a week and when you could get enough signal to send a text message, they cost 12p each!

She forgets that this is still relatively new technology but I forget that it's all she's ever known. So we have to adjust to the fact that this is their norm now. But the dangers of social media are hard to teach when it comes to being careful of who they talk to online and how much information they share with that person. I am currently engrossed in the MTV show Catfish, hosted by Nev Schulman and Max Joseph, where people contact them to find out if the people that they have been speaking to online for however long, are actually real people and who they say they are. Majority of the time, they aren't and it's only a few that get their happy ending, but mostly it's people out to play games with others, making up fake people and fake back stories and usually just a joke that went too far.
Trying to teach this to our children is not only vital, but an unfortunate side effect of modern technology. There are people out there who just want to trick others. And these people could be the mailman, the lady down the street or even your own spouse.

So back to my point about this post - I know the post is about emotional infidelity but social media plays a huge part in this nowadays. You don't have to meet people in secret anymore, they are just a few clicks away, without the fear of getting seen by people who may know you or your spouse.

In relation to Jim Lott's writing style, I admire his truth and honesty. He is authentic and sincere in his opinions and doesn't hold back when talking about his own life and experiences. I feel this is a great quality when reading writing such as this. People can relate and have their own experiences when someone talks so openly. It doesn't feel forced or fake at all and gives the reader an insight into him as a person. I like people who say it like it is. Who you know will be honest genuine. I don't like two faced people or others who tell you what they think you want to hear and from reading a few of Lott's columns, I can see he is neither of these people.
I am documenting my photographs with diary style text, where I am writing in a similar way. I am accompanying the daily photographs with a written account of who, when and what devices are being used a) to emphasize the usage that take place daily in my house and b) to outline exactly how much time is being taken up daily by these devices. I write in an honest and open way, much like Lott. I wont sit there sounding all perky and happy if I'm fed up and annoyed that my kids are nagging to go on the computer again and I wont pretend I'm not bothered when my husband wont put his iPad down and get dressed. I will tell it like it is. Mood swings and all.

References: 
Lott, J., (2017), When does close friendship turn into emotional infidelity? [Online], Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/07/when-does-close-friendship-turn-into-infidelity-marriage-intimate-secrets, [Accessed May 10th 2017]

Bibliography:
Lott, J., (2017), In a moment of existential crisis, I took my child's teddy to bed and held it all night [Online], Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/28/in-a-moment-of-existential-crisis-i-took-my-childs-teddy-to-bed-and-held-it-all-night, [ Accessed May 10th 2017]
Lott, J,. (2017), Mamma Mia! It's hard to praise mothers everywhere and not insult anyone[Online], Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/24/mamma-mia-praise-mothers-everywhere-insult-anyone, [Accessed May 10th 2017]
MTV, (2017), Catfish: The tv show [Online], Available at: http://www.mtv.co.uk/catfish-the-tv-show, [Accessed May 10th 2017]

Chauncey Hare's Interior America

I have been looking online for a copy of this book but I cannot source anything online and am not able to purchase one at the moment. Thankfully, I can get a pretty decent look at some of his images through a Google image search and can see exactly what I was expecting from the title, everyday photographs of working class families within their homes. Unfortunately, I think my tutor advised to me to look at this project predominantly for the personal statement and they way that he spoke of himself and his family but I am unable to find it online.
So I hope to be able to return to this work at a later date to be able to read the introduction when I am able to get hold of a copy.

The photographs themselves are similar to the images that I am planning to take myself. They are an honest representation of different families within their own homes. I think the reality of if is an important factor. Home is where you are completely yourself, where you can relax and don't have to put on any facades. So photographing people within their own homes, feeding their families, getting in after a day at work, give the viewer an insight into their reality. Into their lives. There's no airs and graces, or staged performances into how people want to be seen or how they want to be portrayed to an extent, it's just an insight into them as people and how they live and this is what I want my own project to objectify. My reality and an insight into how I live within my own surroundings with my own family, with the inclusion of the reality of modern technology.

I will keep trying to track down a copy of this book and return back to this post when I do.

Saturday, 6 May 2017

Willie Doherty

I have briefly looked into the work of Willie Doherty as suggested by my tutor.

Born in Northern Ireland in 1959, he continues to work there today. His work appears very focussed around political views surrounding this country. On his website Williedoherty.com, we see a lot of his work centred around isolation, graffiti, abandonment, burning or burned out cars. I see it as not so much a documentary style but it definitely addresses the political factors I think of when I think about Northern Ireland like War and terror.
The photographs and videos are addressing what has happened there and they have an overwhelming sense of reality as opposed to being staged in any way. It's documenting what is there at the time the photographs were taken which hold a scar of what has happened there before. As most of his work holds the same subject area, you can see Doherty's personal voice about his country and his work.
I think my tutor was wanting me to look more at how he includes text within his photographs and I will say that I find them quite powerful. The photographs depict the reality of the borders and a feeling of being caged or enclosed behind barriers or the wishes of freedom and the future. The text Doherty has included on each photograph, even though they are minimal, only heighten and bring home exactly what he is trying to tell you.

When it comes to text within my own work, I also feel the need to included words to really hone in on what the pictures already tell you. The words make the images stronger. To see, for example, five photographs of my husband on his phone might seem excessive to some but nothing to others. Looking closer, you may see he has the same clothes on in them all, maybe he wore them more than once, maybe they are all in one day. But adding the text really accentuates the fact that all five photographs were not only taken the same day, but every hour for five hours (as an example of course). The text can add that extra level to the photographs. Just like it does in Doherty's work.

References:

Doherty, W., (2017), 'Willie Doherty' [Online], Available at: http://williedoherty.com/home, [Accessed May 2nd 2017]
Lack, J., (2009), 'Artist of the week 38: Willie Doherty' [Online], Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/apr/22/willie-doherty-artist-of-the-week-troubles, [Accessed May 2nd 2017]