Independent practice 2A: Interrogation Unit EGRD 2010 Antoniya Kuneva
Proposal Last year for my Independent practice I focused on reflections/mirrors and playing with light by doing long exposure photographs and using a torch to create different shapes. My kaleidoscope photography took an important part in my portfolio last semester because I linked it with the Lab, I was and still am fascinated with the reflection and repetition of shapes and think there is scope to experiment more with the ideas in the future. This semester I would like to take some of the concepts I looked at last year and try to conceptualise them more. I need to ask myself how to externalise my work more as so far it has been just experiments. I would like to continue looking at light and colours in their physical sense. Do we all see the same colours? How do you know that what you consider yellow is the same as what another person sees? What is colour blindness? I have been asking myself these questions but never really read into it. Some of the methods and tools I’d like to use are calligraphy, book-making, screen-printing and photography. I had lots of single-side-printed paper left over from college, which I ended up using to make up-cycled notebooks. I then illustrated the covers using a calligraphy pen. During the summer I also been reading a few books on and off. One of them is called “The Inner studio” by Andrew Levitt and it’s about opening your mind and finding inspiration in the psyche, it is very useful and got me interested in the psychological part of the design process. I have also been reading a book called “Backwards in high heels” by Tania Kindersley and Sarah Vine. In one of the chapters they talk about the balance of opposites in human nature“The animus is vital for men and women both: in its simplest terms, it is the part of you that gets you out of bed in the morning. It is the anima however, which allows you to pause and smile at the shafts of sunlight coming through the window as you wake.” I didn’t really pay much attention to this theory until the other day, when I opened a book in the library called “Left to Right” and on the first double page spread there was a list of the opposites: “left, right; word, image; male, female; page, screen…” I then remembered about Carl Jung’s theory (animus and anima) and realised that it can be linked to design. I haven’t read through the rest of the book but it made me think about the differences between printed matter and computers, which can be a good starting point for my Independent practice.
Prisms and glass
What is a rainbow?
Well of course, it is the shadow of colourful balloons in the sky!... Semi-transparent materials (like balloons) have a coloured shadow as they let through some of the colours of the spectrum.
CD’s and other reflective materials
Rainbows
Colourful shadows of balloons casting onto a white ceramic plate.
I find it fascinating to explore the qualities of a prism. Some sides reflect what is in front of it while others just let the view go through while slightly angled and with blurry, doubled edges of the objects in range. As if they have mini rainbows around them.
Photography
Photos taken in the London zoo(this page) and quick experiments (opposite page)
Georgina’s notes from our initial discussion/plan
The initial idea for this short film was for it to be based on colour and responding to music but after a long discussion we decided that the narrative should be most important so what we needed to do next was to choose a theme. We wanted to use a fairy tale but also to stay away from over-used cliches like Alice in Wonderland and Disney. Since I am Bulgarian and know quite a few stores from my home land, we decided on using “The Golden Girl�. The story is about two step sisters and an evil step mother that wants to get rid of her step daughter so she sends her away. When the girl gets taken into a magical river she finds her way back home and comes back carrying a chest full of treasures and her body covered in gold. The step mother then decides to send her own daughter off to the same place in hope that she will come back as beautiful as the other girl but that never works out... Our short film is still in process of being edited and put together.
The Golden Girl
A collaboration with Rebecca West and Georgina Sadler
1 Day Exhibition We had a lot of editing to do for the Golden Girl video/film and the 1 Day Exhibition was an opportunity for us to get on with it. Me and Rebecca were working on the selection and cropping of video footage while Georgina was creating music to go with the visuals. At the end of the day we projected the clip onto a semitransparent material (the same one we used in the photography studio).
When Sallyanne posted on the blog about the opportunity to receive a free ticket to TypoLondon I immediately sent her an e-mail. It was such an amazing experience including talks from big graphic design and typography firms and a calligraphy workshop by Andreas Frohloff. Some of the talks I saw were Chip Kidd, Morag Myerscough and Jonathan Barnbrook. We were also invited to the ‘after party’ where all of the speakers were available to approach in an informal setting.
TYPOLondon
End of the day
Day1 The “LAB week 2” kicked off with Zoe Sinclair’s (from The Girls) workshop where we had to make a group portrait. I was working with Lauren Gregory and we ended up using one of the photography studios and projecting a collage of things we like or are interested in on top of us.
Day2 Mary Ikoniadou, cofounder of Making Do did a really interesting workshop on Graphic Authorship. We were re-mixing one of the issues of their publication based on translation and decided to cut it up and make post cards out of it, talking about the experience of looking at the artist/ designer’s work in each section. It is as if we are sending a postcard to a friend and writing about a new “place”, making it more personal by showing our point of view to them. It was a really enjoyable talk with some great advice and during the workshop Mary was talking to us about publications and discussing issues like “Do we need yet another publication in this world?”, “How to make sure the design of the magazine is considering the content as opposed to the designers’ personal taste”, “Some of the pro’s and con’s of working collaboratively on a publication” etc.
In the evening me and Rebecca West were filming in the park and creating footage for projections for our collaboration project with Georgina.
Day3 Catch up work for mine and Lauren Gregory’s submission for PaperCo. Day4 One of my busiest days! Started off in the photography studio with Gina and Becky from 9.30am. Then there was a talk by YCN for an hour, which was very interesting. Then, back to the studio with Becky where we were playing around with balloons and powder paint. In the evening we were lucky enough to film in a swimming pool, thanks to Gina and her manager at work! It was a day full of experiments and unexpected problems..(camera braking and us forgetting to bring things etc) I missed the workshop and talk by Hellicar&Lewis that day as we were filming which is a shame as I heard it was pretty amazing.
The Lab Breakdown/Evaluation
Evaluation During this term’s Independent practice I took further my interest in colours and reflections by doing a range of experiments and recording them photographically. I purchased a small prism in order to explore refractions further but my experiments have been quite basic so far. I have borrowed a few books from the library talking about colours and light and would like to do some further reading. Working on the short film The Golden girl with Georgina and Rebecca was a challenge as I do not have much experience with filming/acting/editing but it was definitely worth it! When the girls approached me they had already decided that they want to make a music video and had liked my colour experiments and reflections. They asked me if I want to join them making a video but instead of creating the music and being led by it, we decided it is much better to have a context/storyline first. We gave ourselves a week to film (during LAB) so we needed a strict script or structure to avoid confusion. The Bulgarian fairy tale is about transformation and involves a river which changes its colour; when someone walks in they come back completely changed. In our version of the film we concentrate on the metamorphose of the two sisters. During the summer holidays I was lucky to get an internship at an advertising agency called MBA. I learned a lot about how big agencies work on commercial briefs. Most of the time I had to read mocks and amendments that the copywriters and designers have made and do the changes in InDesign. This taught me the importance of copy writing, grammar and how layout can be changed to the smallest millimetre and still make a huge difference. At times I had to change the text of a letter 5 times because of rivers or widows, which taught me attention to detail. When I was working on Henderson’s brief in the beginning of this year I found what I have learned through my placement particularly useful as most of the work MBA does is Direct Mail. TypoLondon was another great opportunity I learned from this semester, the talks were very interesting and the opportunity to meet and have a conversation with famous designers taught me about how important networking is and about being able to talk about your work with enthusiasm. As I mentioned in my proposal at the beginning of this unit, I have been reading books about psychology of design and the importance of the unconscious in the process. ‘The Inner studio’ is a book I found when I went to Canada during the summer, a friend of mine (doing Architecture at university there) recommended it to me. It has helped me changed my way of approaching briefs to some extent and hopefully I will be able to apply the tips in it to my future work too.
Bibliography Videos: http://vimeo.com/23986237 http://vimeo.com/26906724 http://vimeo.com/17649377 http://vimeo.com/28426215 http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye/step01.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aN8gI_8SC2E http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WruFyFWJffI Books: Barthes, Roland (1977) Image, music, text, London : Fontana Burnie, David (1992) Light: Eyewitness guides, London : Dorling Kindersley in association with the Science Museum Cotton, Charlotte (2004) The photograph as contemporary art, London: Thames & Hudson Crow, David (2006) left to right : the cultural shift from words to pictures, Lausanne : AVA Academia Feisner, Edith Anderson (2000) Colour : how to use colour in art and design, London: Laurence King Kindersley, Tania; Vine, Sarah (2009) Backwards in high heels, London: Fourth estate Levitt, Andrew (2007) The Inner studio, Canada:Riverside Architectual Press Placements: MBA, London 6th-17th June 2011
Evaluation
and Bibliography