Weekly lecture 10th October

Risk and Experimenting

take mental exercise, leads to improvement, ability to be creative on demand

especially when stuck:

turn abstract to reality
do something with technology you're not 'meant' to do
surrender control
put unconnected things together
make people see things in a new way
put something in a new context
make the process the subject
don't be afraid of simplicity
do something else for a bit - gather, digest, play, think, don't think, A Ha!, reality and testing (Go Hunting)
be a debaser
break something and mend it, don't be too precious

use my hand made set of oblique strategy cards

Shadow casting

Using an OHP I projected images drawn from the previous small scale shadows of lace, the lace itself and parts of a floppy disc (collected from A4 and more store fabric bin, seems appropriate for TRON, an item from the recent past).

I placed these things flat on the bed of the OHP, and traced some of the larger projected images to capture the scale. I then realised that by lifting the objects/images off the OHP surface, the images would double, and become more blurred and spooky. Also, when I dangled the lace in the air, colourful aurora-type lines appeared in front of the lamp. 

 

 Trying to combine some of the images didn't really work as they are too closely spaced. The colour alteration is based on my earlier photo of a snake and provides good contrast between the shadow and colour. I then used this same colour scheme with the projected image of the lace. The stretched image projected onto the table is more interesting and spooky looking than the flat image on the wall. It also gives a better sense of movement.

 

 To look at the structure more closely I made some close up images and coloured them to highlight the positive or negative space. In the left hand image the black spaces seem to jump out from the page; this could be achieved using an aquaspan binder when printing. The right hand image has the fuzzed edges that drawings designed to be seen with 3D glasses have, which makes it difficult to look at for long. 

 

MA Print Design Exhibition

One of the MA students' work within the NAD building caught my eye; Gemma May Latham used point papers normally used to code for patterns to be made into weave with a jaquard loom to show people's enjoyment of an interactive hole punching workshop at the Whitworth. She combined original code with their responses to create an installation.

holes form a linear pattern

close up of punched paper

This alternative notation is visually pleasing and delicate, mixing old and new processes and ideas to create something unique. It is a record of an event and so has added meaning. I could record the melodies of daft punk in a similar way; instead of punching holes in paper I could print on fabric, and the placement of shapes would be determined by the musical line or rhythm.

Alternative Notation

I had a look at Cornelius Cardew's scores last week and parts of them were interesting but I didn't feel inspired, so I found similar works that I preferred visually that each have a different feel to them.

Music to Airports score by Brian Eno

This one has a robotic sense to it, resembling circuitry and the repetition is clear.

Score to Digital Sensation No 1 by Scott Wollschleger, 2007

These marks could be random mistakes; spills or slips, but here they have a function.

Tom Johnson 'Syncopated texture' from musicalpointers.co.uk

I like the overly ordered form of this 'score' and the fact that it uses traditional notes in a new way.

As well as looking at music notation I thought it would be appropriate to look at knitting and crochet instructions, as these can be used to make lace and fabric in old fashioned or new ways. These examples are taken from the following books: The Knitter's Bible by Claire Crompton and The Crochet Bible by Sue Whiting. I could use knitting and crochet notation to document part of Daft Punk's track, and use it to make images for print.

These Shell stitches are used to form lace. The notation itself is visually attractive and clearly shows the shape produced.

The shape of these undulating patterns remind of the softer base melodies from Daft Punk 

The shells are arranged in a set pattern, are large and imposing compared to the rest of the delicate structure, like the loud booming sounds used in 'The Game has Changed'

Group Tutorial Monday 7th October

As I was confused about the differences between high end and high street, I asked Alex and he cited 3 main ones:

materials used - (expensive or cheap)

selling price or cost - (hand stitched is ore expensive than machine, digital print is more expensive than hand)

design - quality of finish, more unusual designs and original designs for high end; high street designers tend to adapt others' designs or produce a version of them

This clarified my thoughts, though it is still difficult to categorise my work. At the moment I use cheaper materials and prefer screen printing, but I like the freedom to make my own designs. Moving forward I could try more expensive materials to see how they perform and continue to learn photoshop and produce some digital designs.

Showing my direct and shadow drawing of lace that I had done in B&W for screen purposes, Alex said that we still have time to play around with drawing and image making so don't need to focus in so soon. As a result I can experiment, retaining the spooky quality of the shadow drawings in my use of colour (Tron is dark and menacing and so this should be reflected in my work). Also I need to use an OHP to up the scale of the shadows, take photos and maybe draw from them directly.

Having used Timorous Beasties as an example of the mix of old and new subject matter and techniques, Alex wondered if I was going to introduce any subjects into my drawing; I am happy to use more abstract shapes as music is nebulous, and TRON to me is about colour and atmosphere as a whole rather than one particular image. I hadn't really focussed on the fact that Timorous Beasties change the meaning of specific images of people and animals, so perhaps I could find a better example of someone who uses old and new in a more abstract way. 

Deaf Institute actually has Timorous Beasties wallpaper which I will look at; also I plan to watch the original TRON film from the 80s which Alex had said contains accent colours and could be a good way to incorporate colour into an otherwise dark design. There is a programme called Audacity which can be used to visually observe each level of sound within a music track; the sound waves might provide interesting shapes for colour accents.

Plan for this week:

Use OHP to make larger scale shadow drawings

Start manipulating scanned lace and drawings in Photoshop

Watch TRON

See wallpaper in Deaf Institute

Use Audacity

Do a traditional drawing of the lace

Add colour to drawings

Scanned lace

In order to produce a defined, exact image of the collected lace I scanned it. This means I can manipulate the image later on photoshop, or deconstruct it without worrying about losing the original shapes and lines that are the basis of my drawings. The dark lace looks flat, whereas the other samples cast more shadows and still appear 3D. Both effects are interesting and maintaining the 3D effect could be achieved by using texiflock or aquaspand.

Drawing lace

To get more images to use for print I started drawing from lace that I have collected, in black and white so they could potentially be used for screen printing. This is a selection of the drawings, which were done with fine liner pens. 

drawing through lace ribbon looks like cross stitch

drawing part of the lace, repetitive shapes

drawing the negative space in the lace, it resembles rocks, scales or tortoise shell

Using a small craft lamp I cast shadows from the lace which I then traced to produce these spooky, strange shapes. Ominous dark shapes capture the mood of TRON and Daft Punk's music; making the shadows larger and more diffuse using an OHP will result in even more nebulous, unrecognisable shapes and add to this effect.

distorted flower shapes

lace held close to paper, shadow becomes huge

two lights used to cast multiple shadows