Unit 2 Assessment
1. Realise the Project Proposal and prepare towards final exhibition:
Looking back at the last two years, this has been a trying, rewarding, extensive, confusing, and exhaustive journey for me, yet I feel I have made huge progress in so many areas. The project itself was somewhat vague initially. I wasn’t completely sure of how it would appear as an end result. Towards the end of Unit 1, I began to feel quite anxious as I had investigated a few exciting ideas, only to reveal a sense of spending too much time on the technological side of the ideas, where I sensed the danger of losing the creativity or artistic side of the project. Issues around the technology becoming ‘dated’ too quickly, therefore threatening the lifespan and the validity of the work bothered me most of the time.
Although I am actually happy with the final result, there was definitely a sense of it coming together far too late in the day, in that I still feel like I have a lot more to say, artistically, and a whole lot more to research. This year, I had too many external pressures, which most certainly impacted on the course and my input. I would like to take this further, and explore the issue of the soul/psyche in the digital and the convergence of technology and spirituality in general.
The project itself has kind of come full circle and after many months of deliberating/dithering over different technologies, it has come back to basics. I have used quite a bit of sketching, some rotoscoping: I like bringing in the old more traditional techniques into the digital. I have also found a love of film developing.
I have based much of the site loosely around Jung’s ideas on archetypes of the soul: The wise old man, the mother, the animus or anima (other half) and the child. I have attempted to make use of symbolism throughout (i.e. the willow sketch symbolized the child, youth, etc. as does the still image of the garden in the snow – the small yellow child’s seat being symbolic of past youth. These are both also representative of the youth of the internet and the digital age. The wise old man symbolizes knowledge, learning and acts as a guide, and the animus is the shadow, the opposite sex, or the hero. The cave symbolizes the mother, etc. I was originally going to add text to these images, but feel it would become a glorified slide show, so have now decided against that. The eye imagery is a more obvious symbol of the soul, but I have played around with the movement to reflect the butterfly (symbolizing Psyche). So there is much symbolism involved in this work, and I am hoping the viewer can follow the journey and feel they have felt or touched upon an essence of the digital spirit /psyche on the way.
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/imagery/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/full-circle/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/split-screen-duality-augmented/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/show-build/
Present a resolved body of creative practice that has evidenced the systematic enhancement of your knowledge and understanding.
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/soulspace-screengrab/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/seen1/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/making-the-old-man/
Analyse and reflect coherently upon your own practice and others through your presentation at the programmed symposium forming a synthesis of your practice-based research.
The Symposium , although stressful (and terrible timing for me), was very insightful. As my work was only just starting to develop into something worthwhile and more concrete, and I would have preferred to have presented a couple of weeks later, when I would have had more to show, the feedback was invaluable. Constructive in the way that you get honest questions about how you intend to actually run your project, etc., but also very positive in encouraging you that it is an idea worth progressing with. My idea for the symposium itself was inspired by Jonathan Harris (I did not realise this until later), as I sent a ‘callout’ via FaceBook, Twitter and email to friends and acquaintances from my contacts list asking them to finish off the sentence: My soul is… I was floored by the amount of replies I received. Initially I had planned to create a kind of montage portrait of the replies, but the success led me onto using this as one of my final pieces on my site: soulspace: an animated flash piece, which allows the viewer to input their word to complete “my soul is…” This then adds their word to the animation, and then the viewer ‘searches’ through an interactive animation (they can click on a word to change direction), and so, in a sense, the viewer is searching for their soul (or a description of) in the digital….
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/symposium2/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/page/3/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/rrrrrrrrrrotsocoping/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/seen1/
Summarise your overall progress and formulate a constructive plan for continuing Personal and Professional Development
Progress has been vast. Mid way through the course, I certainly felt as though I was going in circles, touching and dabbling’ with many different types of software/technology, and not really getting anywhere, but upon reflection, I can now see how valuable that experience has been, and although I may not have used some of the things explored in my final work, I have no doubt I will be revisiting these areas at some point. For instance, I intend to develop and further research Argmented reality (AR) and facial tracking. I am also very happy to have explored the world of 3D models, rotoscoping, developed my flash skills, and found a love for video and video editing. I would like to extend to after effects and take this much further in the future.
I feel my project is only in the early stages at this point. This has opened up so many possibilities to me. I am hoping to secure a space i a local gallery to show an interactive piece in the ‘digital window’ which allows the artist to show works at night. I intend to contact the gallery shortly once the course is over to discuss this.
I am also considering starting work on a paper researching the presence of the soul in the digital, and the convergence of technology, science and a sense of spirituality within the digital. This is something I imagine working on over a few years.
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/essay-unit-2/
http://annaleiza.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/full-circle/
