Wk13 - Honours Proposal Prepared & Submitted

Finished the honours proposal and showed it to Martyn.  He happily signed it.  :)

Wk12 - Met Kit re: Honours Proposal

I met Kit about the Honours Proposal.  She was infinitely helpful.

Major Proposal & Feedback

It seems every time I discuss my work with anyone, especially in a group situation, I come away feeling as if I've been punched in the guts.

Depite my Keynote presentation being railroaded at slide 3, the general feedback was that I should remove the deliberate insertion of the murder/death symbolism in the work and focus on 1) getting the practice down first, because 2) that symbolism and imagery will come in that process.

Essentially I've been directed to just go for it, start shooting...  thus, I have scheduled some test shoots for next week.  I can't get the 5D but my HV20 should suffice for this exercise.  As a result, the aim will be to film my three subjects (hairdressing, ceramics and cleaning) so as to observe the actions and work out what it is I need to film in the studio.

Major Theme: "Capturing the Now"

Chris asked us to come up with a phrase/one-liner to describe the work.

Process/thoughts regarding the theme:

• Collecting and throwing away
• What is important and what we collect
• Important collections
• Collections of today are the rubbish of tomorrow
• Collections of now are the rubbish of tomorrow
• Collect today, throw tomorrow
• Interests of today
• Interests of the now
• Collected interests of today
• Captured interests of the now
• Collections of today
• Collections of now
• Capturing the Now

Finally, I decided on "Capturing the Now"

[AJ] Australian Journey's Work Proposal - Jarred Objects

Aims/subject of the proposal

• What is the nature of the work you are proposing?

The work will be a set of nine 360 degree photographed objects, each held in glass jars suspended in liquid.  These jars will have fake specimen tags adding to their "authenticity".  These photographs will be presented as spinning objects within a browser.

• What is the subject matter of the work?

Drawing on the 360 degree views of items presented in the Australian Journey's Shoebox and my fascination with the jarred mud and sea creatures done on the Antarctic mission, and just generally with scientists historically taking specimens, this work will make comment on modern life now as the jarred items will include electronic and common household objects.

• How many works do you intend to produce for this project?

There will be one web page presented with these nine objects shown in a standard 3x3 grid, possibly spinning based on the mouse-over event.  Optionally, it would be fun if such spinning could be accelerated depending on user interaction, ie. fast or slow mouse-over.

Research/working process

• What's the historical or conceptual basis for your ideas?

History shows that we take specimens of existing objects for later study.  Within the Australian Journey's exhibit, you not only see evidence of this with the jarred objects, but with the entire "jarred" set of cases, holding, coins, dresses, wool, instruments, etc.

• How will you go about developing these ideas, and what visual material and other research will be involved?

 As a commentary on modern life, as if these items were found and jarred in the future, the objects will have a technological focus, highlighting the irony of placing electronic things in liquid.  Themes include communication, entertainment, technology,   Such items include:

1. a mobile phone (Nokia 8210)
2. an original iTalk iPod attachment
3. an XBox wireless headset
4. a post-it note with a shopping list written on it.
5. iPod headphones
6. a Micro-SD or SD card.
7. Concept of LCD TV printed onto Acetate or Tracing Paper to have an opaque object.
8. -
9. -

* Q. I'm looking for feedback and other ideas in regard to what items could be included. 

Methods and materials

• What methods and materials do you intend to use?

Cleaned Jars
Objects suspended using Gelatin.
Software options:

1. Using Nuke, model the jar and use 3D projection to build a 3D view of the object and use a camera to circle the object.
2. Using the photos themselves, present as a sequential image animation.

Background, etc.  Should be well-lit, all encompasing white background.

* Q. Is the 3D projection idea overkill?

* Q. How would such a bright environment be achieved?

• What new skills do you need to develop?

1. 3D Projection, ties in with my Digital Compositing complimentary.
2. Advance roll-over effect withing the browser... possibly using JQuery, as learned in first year.

Timeframe

• Give an outline and plan of your work in relation to the time available.

Week 3 - Have objects within jars, photographed with labels, etc.
Week 4 - Test 3D projection concept with photos and/or
Week 5 - Webpage setup and layout complete.
Week 6 - Mouse-over functionality introduced.
Week 7 - Review.

* Q. Does this seem reasonable?

Visual Materials

• Provide drawings, diagrams, related visual and research material which may be useful in developing your proposal.

Within the article, Making of Australian Journey's (8 October 2008), senior curator Martha Sear, stated:

"... amazing scientific material gathered on the voyage including – I think this is our favourite named object in the gallery - assorted sea gunk. It is stuff that was trawled up from the bottom of the ocean by the expedition and put in a jar. We have the jar, and you can see the little shrimps and strange creatures that were found under the sea."

Jar containing mud and sea residue.

Test Jar Image #1

Test Jar Image #2

Deadlines

• You should prepare a full-length detailed draft for discussion by the end of week one of semester, and the final version for approval by the end of week 2.

Questioning Map Concept and Proposal

As much as looking into Ptolomy's Map was interesting...

I placed the map onto a plane and changed parts of it to correspond to the terrain. 

1. Whilst the map looked kinda good at such a close camera angle... it clearly would need to be worked over, either to remove the words or clear them up... I think there is too much work here.
2. My ideas for the camera wandering around, seeing the drop to the sea, seeing the fire pop up as they reach the equator, and get blown back by the winds... are very basic and to be pulled off nicely, I'd need to be able to draw better and better represent my pop-up book concept without it looking cheap and nasty... I want something clean and polished.
3. I want to know more about the legends back then, ala, too hot at equator... this is proving very difficult to research.
4. My other thought of a Southern version of the map, as if Australians had explored a small amount and thought New Guinea was larger, as was New Zealand, with a similar heat concept at the equator again needed better fleshing out and better drawing skills.  I think if this concept was undertaken by a group it might have a better chance of success.

It's a pity, 'cos I was enjoying the idea of using the Ptolomy map.  I was going to write up the proposal anyway but I've decided against it now.