Tutor Feedback: Assignment 4

Formative feedback

Student name	Amanda Callow	Student number	507285
Course/Unit	3: Advanced	Assignment number	4
Type of tutorial	Skype

Overall Comments

The project is shaping up to be insightful, interesting and topical. Scale is important, keep up the work for as long as you can – and keep up the reflection and research. Well done.

Assessment potential

Assignment 2 and 4 Assessment potential

I understand your aim is to go for the Photography/Creative Arts* Degree and that you plan to submit your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in this assignment, providing you commit yourself to the course, I believe you have the potential to pass at assessment.  In order to meet all the assessment criteria, there are certain areas you will need to focus on, which I will outline in my feedback.    

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

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

Great to see the project growing. Keep producing as many images as possible, we can worry about editing later. It is good to see real volume.

Your 'diary' is warm and immediate. Its a tricky balance that I think really works – have you cited any literary influences?

Keep up the reflection on what you already have in the light of essays, other practitioners, and new findings.

'Disruptions' to the body of work can come later, you need to make sure you have a solid, consistent stretch of time documented. The longer it stretches the better.

Keep your observations on extended family, keep everything in at the moment, every interaction might be important.

Have a think about what the participation of your subjects means. Think about the ethics, your obligations to them, how you feel about the project, how they feel.

Think about where/when is your cut-off.

Ask yourself if you have a thesis you want to 'prove'. What was your opinion on family life + technology before you started? Has it changed?

Currently you are playing the role of the 'straight' documenter, what are you doing it for? (Again possibly time to look at Inside/Out by Abigail Soloman-Godeau.)

I mentioned the Phaidon Family book.

Matthew Finn said to me recently, he'd been told “they really aren't many projects with 30+ odd  years longevity” - people are interesyed in long-term intimate engagements.

I also mentioned Chauncey Hare's very open introduction to his book, Interior America, where he spoke very candidly about himself and his family. I wonder if Tim Lott who writes in The Guardian might be interesting – he recently revealed how, and why, he talks so openly about himself and others.

We discussed making sure you can document family events coming up that disrupt looking at screens, what about the longer days, summer activities, school holidays? Weddings, parties, festivals?

We discussed how the final work should be presented - perhaps it should be viewed on screens, perhaps even on phones.

You have documented yourself, in the process, keep up the personal reflections too.

I mentioned looking at Allan Sekula and Martha Rosler for examples of text and images working together. Also check Victor Burgin, John Kippin, Willie Doherty. All very political but then everything is, especially within the family.

Coursework

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity

You are doing some decent reflection and its good to hear you following up on previous references.

Research

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

Try to tie in who you are reading with the work you are making.

Learning Log

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

Good to see the work presented here. Have a play with how the blog presents the work as this might inform how it is displayed in future (on a screen, scrolled through...).

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

Please look at the practitioners above.

Pointers for the next assignment / assessment

For the next assignment date we'll be making decisions on the final output, so you'll need to do some serious research into how you might present the work, it might be worth checking the work of very recent graduates to see if you can find anyone who's presented personal screen based work. Start with OCA, then look at RCA, Brighton, Westminster, LCC, Farnham, Bournemouth, USWprogrammes.

Tutor name	Les Monaghan
Date	06/02/17
Next assignment due	06/05/17

Reflection.

I have been very pleased with this feedback and it's good to hear that the project is making good progress. 

The first point to mention is the scale of the project. With assignment four, I only submitted one month's work as I felt it may be too much to take in but my tutor disagreed and said that the more there is, the better so I know not to hold back in the final assignment or the final body of work and to include everything that I have. We touched on when is a good time to finish and for the time being I will just keep on with it until anything changes or until the end of the module, whichever comes first. 

My tutor told me to think about what the participation of my subjects means and how we all feel about the project. My kids and parents are not bothered in the slightest. My mum only queries to make sure she looks decent in the picture, if she knows I am taking it. My daughter asks why I am taking her photo, again when she notices, when all she is doing is playing on her laptop. My husband knows that he is the main subject of my work and although I try my hardest to keep my shooting secretive, he does realise on occasions and has no problem making certain hand gestures if he feels the need. I cant say that he is happy about being the main subject and I'm sure he would rather he wasn't but he knows that it's an artistic project and is prepared to go ahead with it. I am always conscious of how I show them all though. Obviously I wont photograph my children unless they are dressed and I know my husband is uncomfortable with how his body looks in some photos so I am always respectful to him by not photographing him in his underwear or at least trying to crop out areas if he is sat up in bed. I don't think I would want to include anything that any of them really didn't like. So I do pay attention to these things and I feel that is my obligation to them, to not make them look bad or make them feel uncomfortable in any way. 

I'm not sure at this point if there is a thesis that I want to prove. If there is it would be along the lines of how modern technology can interrupt with the family relationship. Before I began this project, I was concerned about how much time that my husband spent on his phone and his devices in general. I was fed up with my kids constantly asking when they could go on their devices. None of that has changed. What has changed is my knowledge that I am not alone. Reading as many articles as I have been regarding this subject matter has shown me that this is so common nowadays and that there are more than likely households that are far worse than my own. But I cant prove that these devices do create a family divide through this project. I can highlight my own situation and express my own experiences but it hasn't created a divide within my family because I don't let it so I cant prove that it does.

I have some other photographers to look at and I will try to do that as soon as I can. I also need to start thinking about the final presentation and how I could present the project in a digital way. I have spent a good few man hours trying to find any works that are digitally presented in the way my own would be and have found nothing. I have been through the recent graduate shows of all the schools listed in the feedback and have only come across two images, both from the LCC Flickr account from last years graduate show. One was of work by Alixanne Hucker, where an iPad was attached to the wall for viewers to 'Bait Themselves', possibly a selfie type activity. The other was the work of Elmo Tan, where four iPhones were connected to the wall, each showing a photograph. But further Google searches on both students shows nothing. I think I will have to discuss it further with my tutor as I really don't know what I am meant to be looking for in regards to this and as much as I am trying to look for it, Im not coming up with anything.