The purpose of this final assignment is to help you review your work and decide how you’re going to submit it for assessment. Even if you’re studying for personal development alone, it could still be helpful to take stock of the work you’ve made during this course and think about how you might develop it further. Although this sounds like a relatively straightforward and quick exercise, students generally find it takes much longer than they anticipated! Tackle this task methodically and allow yourself plenty of time to do justice to the effort you’ve made throughout the course.
Following my feedback discussion with my tutor I agreed a set of headings for this assignment. The advice was that I had completed A5 as far as I needed to take it. The Internet is a vast subject but the fact that I had decided to do a 20 year snapshot meant that I could close the project here for the moment. Hence A6 will become a concluding phase to the entire Digital Image & Culture level 2 programme.
Course content:
When I started Digital Image and Culture I was enthusiastic after having completed Landscape. I wanted to push my practise further. I wanted to expand my technological knowledge. I felt on the cusp of something. After the first assignment, which I thoroughly enjoyed making, I embarked on assignment 2. Very soon I felt weighed down with research work. Although I am very accustomed to researching, I did not enjoy the research that was being asked of me. I felt I had seen much of it before. I found the work recommended to be repetitious of previous research. I missed new and exciting photographers like JR, here in France, true African photographers like Malik Sidebe and wonderful old Japanese photographers like Daido Moryama. I wanted to blow the dust off the research articles before I read them…… As I progressed on the course I began to loose momentum. My work was suffering. I tried to make personal work but could not work up any enthusiasm.
I feel it would have been more advantageous if we were asked to create work by looking at, and studying the work of other photographers, Hannah Hoch being a typical example, rather than write 500 words about their work. Students at Level2 can be trusted to do the research and the end product will give a clear indication of how well the student has studied the recommended work. I am sure most students read, listen or look at the links recommended by their tutors as these are always relevant.
I could not see the point of assignment 4. Why not suggest a face to face contact with the tutor to discuss the A5 project?
Once I got to working on my A5 project my motivation returned and I loved the whole exercise.
Assessing my own Assignments for Digital Image & Culture:
I started A1 by learning how to divide up a circular image. I finally got around to making political satirical circular images. This was real fun. The fourth image I made of the Russian Presidents eyes was not successful but my dissatisfaction with it and the changing political scene in the UK lead to the ‘Boric Johnings‘ idea.
A2 started as a total disaster. No one liked my idea to study the Chilean mining situation. I had to rethink the whole project and it all took a long time. Once I had settled on making it about my great grandmother I was happy and was able to proceed with the work. The object of the work was to tell Letitia Millet’s story to my children and grandchildren. Hence it had to be in commercially printed book form. But the material was so tactile I felt a handmade book was required as well. This was the highlight of the course for me. Being in the presence of a reputed bookbinder as we worked alongside one another, to produce my book, was a real privilege.
Writing essays is not difficult for me. I found A3 extremely useful in that I studied the digital self and used the opportunity to analyse my own digital self. This too is a huge topic and worthy of greater in depth study.
I will discuss A4 and A5 together as, for me, they are one and the same assignment. I so wanted to do this project. My husband never makes any issue of his participation in the beginnings of the Internet, nor do any of his colleagues. But these were the people who made it possible for Tim Berners-Lee to write his front end page which became the World Wide Web. Those who came before Berners-Lee are the forgotten people. They are all in or coming up to their eighties and their story needed to be told and heard. The subject is very technical and this posed a real challenge for me. I wanted the end result to be comprehensible to the least technical person I know. My tutor claims to be untechnical and she assured me the video held her interest until the end. I am very grateful to her for this reassurance.
My grandchildren have no idea their Grandpa played such a pivitol role in the beginning of the Internet. To them he is “Silly Goose”. So I wanted him to tell the story with his own voice.
Personal Technical Development:
I feel I advanced my technical skill very little in the early sections of this course. However the making of the video was a wonderful way to return to something I had scratched the surface of in Landscape. My technical skills were abysmal when I started, with iMovie, to make videos. I was advised during Landscape to move to Premier Pro. I was totally lost and had to climb a steep technical mountain. I feel this project helped me to hone my skills a little more. I have so much more to learn but I feel sufficiently confident now to take this further. I used a DSLR with an external mic but my cinematographer friend asked why I wanted to make a video with a stills camera when I would never use a video camera ot make a still image! Because I had no choice was my reply. I am saving for a video camera which I hope to be able to put to good use in Level 3.
The making of the book for assignment 5 required patience, a commodity in short supply with me. This was because the dot matrix paper was so lightweight and the print was much heavier. The length of the print, 2.4m also posed problems. I had to fold it first and then add the glue to sections and then attach it to the lightweight dot matrix paper. Then this had to be attached front and back to the covers. The reaction I got from fellow students, friends and my tutor would indicate that the end result justified the decisions made along the way.
I also enjoyed making layered images for one of the exercises.
Outcome
I have completed this level despite having lost momentum along the way. My completion is due, in great part, to my fellow students and tutor, Clive White, who gave me such helpful advice and encouragement during our Side Wide hangouts.
The outcome is that I am ready to present the work for assessment. I am relieved that I have managed to get this far. I am reasonably satisfied with the end result but I do not feel that I have found my own voice yet. I feel that I have ‘created’ a voice which does not sit very well on my shoulders. This is a documentary type voice when inside my head I am not a documentarist but want to produce more original creative work. I appreciate that I have stories to tell but I am still struggling with how to tell these stories.
Where to from here?
Onward and upward. I am impatient to get on with Level 3 but am terrified at the same time. I discussed with my tutor if it was odd that I want to work on something, at Level 3, that I have not even touched on so far in my studies. She assured me that this was not unusual. In the HE6 Hangout Ariadne outlined the process for deciding on a subject for our Body of Work at level 3. She advised that we must be passionate about what we want to work on. My tutor seconded this.
I have always been passionate about the environment. I am lucky enough to have a wonderful garden on my island home. I work biologically and recycle everything possible. My compost heap is the story of my life. It contains all my shredded paper, all my cardboard cartons, the contents of my hoover, my cats hair, my own hair and all the vegetable waste in the household and garden.
When I leave my own controlled environment I am shocked and appalled to find all sorts of rubbish and litter. I am especially upset by the indestructible plastic that washes up on our shores. Most of us, with some notable exceptions, are aware that we need to do more to protect our fragile world. I would like to increase awareness of the problems of plastic pollution by getting my local community involved in finding creative solutions. I am also interested, as a qualified chemist, in exploring replacement materials for plastic. A third line of interest is using recyclable plastics to create sculptures.
As Joan Fontcuberta discusses in his essay ‘Ode to a King’s Legs’ (Fontcuberta, 2014, pp.113–25), the Photoshopped image crosses into political imagery and domestic photography
The title of this project is sexualised images but I am interested in the whole topic of image manipulation.
I believe that very few of us are duped by manipulation of images today. It is taken as said that almost every image is digitally altered. Hence we can no longer rely on a photograph to ‘tell the truth’ about some event or about somebody. Fontcuberta’s essay is about the whole topic of image manipulation and not jsut about manipulation of images to accentuate sexualisation. He discusses the Spanish royal family portrait. The image was badly Photoshopped by the queen herself. I found this hilarious and fail to understand the public outcry. So Granny ‘created’ a happy family image, so what. She could have painted the family portrait if she had been a painter, and no one would have raised an eyebrow if she had done so using photographs. I think we need to get over this idea of the ‘veracity’ of a photograph. Photographs are no long telling the truth, in this they resemble paintings. Artists always accentuated the positive points of their sitters.
Manipulation of information has existed for ever. My husband witnessed an accident in Dublin when he was a young man. He was home in Ireland on holidays and went to the police station and made a written statement and left his name and address as a witness. He confirmed that he would be available if required. On his return to Ireland he called by the police station to find out what had happened. Although the police officer had taken down his written statement on the first occasion, there was no record of this. Someone had ‘manipulated’ or disappeared his witness statement.
Was the Thrump phone call to the Farrage interview a hoax – I cannot even remember whether this turned out to be fact or fiction. Does it matter? For me it does not as I do not believe anything either of these two men say or do. Unlike the Spanish hoax phone call to the Bolivian President Morales the Thrump phone call barely raised eyebrows. We have got used to being ‘duped’ with the actions of those in power. But we do need to remain vigilant and try to decipher whether those standing for office are honest people. This is becoming increasingly difficult because of the manipulation of those standing for office, by their media handlers.
The Spanish Royal family’s christmas card ‘hoax’ seems so innocent compared to what has and is happening on social media every day. Compromising images of young men and women are been put up, photoshopped and distributed every moment of every day. Some of this online manipulation and distribution of images is causing young people to take their own lives. Within a ten week period in Ireland, in 2017, ten young people took their lives due to online bullying.
The increase of the apparent need of young people to expose themselves on social media in a sexualised manner is disquieting. I am not sure if parents can control this. I have grandchildren just reaching the age of puberty and I worry for them. But I have very tech savvy children and I trust them to give their children enough self assurance to be able to avoid exposing themselves in these types of images.
It is hard to say where this image manipulation is going. I do not believe ti will go away but I can only hope that people become less gullible and do not take it so seriously.
The first film of the African Film night, in the local cinema, was entitled “Pastorales Electrique” by Ivan Boccara. This is a documentary, by the french film director, about the bringing of electricity to a very poor part of NW Morocco.
The director returned to the mountain village over eight years to document the pre and eventual arrival of the electricity. While the theme was fascinating and the place stunning in its arid beauty, the film lacked punch. The people seemed to be a lot more interesting behind their cinematic presentation. The grinding poverty was palpable but there was a certain contentment. This was not really explored.
Before its arrival, most of the villagers felt that the electricity would change their lives for the better. The sad fact was that it did change their lives somewhat but not for the better. It only brought the light and television. The women complained that no one wanted to work any more. They all wanted to spend their time in front of the TV set. The electricity also put a huge financial burden on the families so that the fathers and sons had to go to the cities to earn enough money to support the family and keep up their payments on the electrical gadgets they had bought on credit.
A member audience commented int he post film debate that it seemed the arrival was too late. Another observed that electricity alone changed very little there needed to be further investment in how the electricity could be exploited to provide work. The real fact was that the terrain coudl not support enough vegetation to feed either the people nor the beasts.
I felt there was a much bigger story to tell than Boccara managed to convey. The pace of the film was slow as befitted the subject but how slow does it have to move? The man beside me slept peacefully through the entire film.
Had feedback with tutor on A4. I will now get on with the collection of material for this assignment.
I answered John Sterne’s message from Trinity College asking for access to his archives.
Tutor also gave me some pointers to artists who have made similar type projects. So plenty of food for thought.
8 August 2019
Great find yesterday, hubby found, when he was clearing a book shelf, a booklet about one of the pioneers of the Information retrieval world. This was the precursor to the Internet. Spent my spare moments in the Craft shop yesterday reading it. Will be very helpful to put a time line on things.
Am also toying with the idea of relating the story to what was going on in the World at the time when all this online stuff was starting. Would be a laugh to add the music of the time as well as the news headlines. Just noted that in 1971 India and Pakistan were fighting over Kashmir – nothing changes…. It was my tutors mention of the space project pioneers are that triggered this ides. I also like the idea of putting the material on boards. Could be done in five year spans – am liking this idea,
11 August 2019
My lovely Mum would have been 101 today, or maybe it was yesterday – she was always confused as to whether her birth date was 10th or 11th of August!! But she was one of 9 children so I suppose my grandmother did not have time to recall exactly which day each child was born.
Have been looking at other DI&C students A5 & A6 work. It is all so different and looks so professional. I am beginning to quake about how I will ever get all this together. However I am beginning to collect material. I can then see how it goes.
12 August 2019
Am wondering if I could make my superhighway in dark grey material and add the story to this – HOW? no idea for the moment – print on material? Would be fun to intersperse the story with the cars I drove over this time, Fiat 850, 2 x orange 2CVs and an Austin….
14 August 2019
Collecting, collecting, collecting mostly information and trying to establish in my head what happened when and by whom. Interesting programme on TV last night about Hedy Lamarr as an inventor rather than a Hollywood star.
15 August 2019
Worked in the shop yesterday. Used some spare minutes to read up some more on the run up to the Internet. My head aches. Got Barry to explain some of it to me over dinner. But this was after I stopped off to attend the opening of my best friends exhibition. Discussing TCP/IP after a glass of red on an empty stomach does not assist understanding….. But I am getting there and am more convinced than ever that the story behind the WWW is at least as interesting as its ultimate arrival.
21 August 2019
Finally got A2 book off to Blurb. Also contacted book binding lady in Cork to bind handmade book. She will give me a date when she has one free.
Contacted two ex colleagues of Barrys about their memories of working on EURONET. They don’t seem to have much but we will see if I can jog their memory. At least they think the project is worth while and Chris sent me some links.
Had a few days off as we had to go to Cork for pre operation for hubbys cataract operation on Friday. Will spend the weekend with son and family. He and I can discuss how and when he can interview his father for project. That is if we get a moment in between grandchildren activities.
22 August 2019
My beloved daughter’s 49th birthday – where did those years go?
Decking finished around studio and garden cleaned around north side.
Had interesting exchange of emails with the parliament about material they have on EURONET – precious little. But they did have an image of the first computer used for EURONET. They also apparently have a video of the launching by Simone Veil and Roy Jenkins. The material is not digitised so I am not sure how or if they will be willing or able to give me a copy. Also had a good paper on the History of the WWW indicated by my husband’s colleague of the British Library.
25 August 2019
In Cork with son and family so that Grandpa can recover after cataract operation on Friday. All going fine. Back for check with surgeon early tomorrow and then back home.
Haven’t had time to discuss project with son. He very busy and travelling all over Europe in the coming weeks – Brexit preparations I suspect. Today he is making skateboard ramps for youngest member of family who is obsessed with skateboarding at the moment. Half the family gone to the Women’s football semi finals in Dublin…. It is like a merry-go-round with children these days.
I managed to get some sort of ‘highway’ on the wall of the studio before we left. Now I need to add information in a sort of timeline. Then I will try to make some sort of visuals to demonstrate the technical material around the Internet Background.
27 August 2019
Trying to make a chronological order to the Internet and WWW development – it is incredibly difficult as people are sloppy with dates on the Internet.
At the same time I am trying to get out to the garden to get it ready for the Garden fete on Saturday…..
29 August 2019
I wish I had seen this when I was doing my project on the Industrial School for Landscape.
I will go to see the exhibition when I am in Dublin. It is powerful work.
1 September 2019
It has been a busy weekend for me. We had the garden fete yesterday which was a brilliant success.
On Friday I went to Cork to do a book binding course to bind my handmade book on Letitia Millet: The Dressmaker. I found the one to one day brilliant. Barbara Hubert runs a book binding business and gives group and very occasionally individual tuition. Because I could not attend the group day she agree to give me an individual half day.
I had everything ready all the pages cut to size. She made an identical book in size and thickness alongside me. I had to follow what she was doing as she explained.
4 September 2019
Back in Cork for a day and a night for hubby to have medical tests. This all takes eons of time. He has amazing good health for his age but ones body starts to break down and medics expect people of his age to be decrepit! Trying to get him discharged from hospital took a full hour. The staff were super busy but we had a boat to catch. Only one nurse, a Chinese male nurse, seemed to get the urgency. He finally discharged us as the doc was unable to leave whatever emergency he was attending. Hubby very tired, needing a bit of TLC. But I have to work in Craft Shop today. I’ll leave all ready for him.
Won’t be busy in shop today. I may have time to think about how to represent project. I’ll bring computer in case I have some down time.
Busy few days ahead as garden and studio open on Saturday for the Taste of West Cork.
Then friend looking for photo of me for the book he is doing on artists of West Cork. Need more days in the week and more hours in the day.
6 September 2019
Need to get everything ready for tomorrow. Wondering if I could get input from visitors (if I have any) on how to represent the ‘Superhighway project?? Might try but my experience with these open days is that people are just curious to see your house and some of the garden. They are not especially interested in the work….
Took photographs of my handmade book. Added these to A2.
9 September 2019
Today is the calm after the storm. The sun shone from early morning till late evening. This is always the decider as the weather an event here on the island is a roaring success or not. From the first festival boat at 10.30 till the last at 5.30 the people came.
I live well off the beaten track so signposting is important. One of the artists has signposts made and I made copies of these. We were four artists living along my track. I am the last on the track. I thought no one would climb up to our place – but they did – lots of people. Some are interested in our garden and some in art. All were delightful. I was alone as hubby was in Dublin with the three generations of Mahon’s watching Ireland play Wales at rugby and celebrating the youngest’s 8th birthday.
It was a tough day for me but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did not get any great suggestions for my project but I did meet an IT guy and his civil engineer wife who were very interesting about the future of all this technical world. They were also interesting as they have just bought a whole island just a little further out to sea from us. They invited us to visit which I would love.
I fell into bed with no great ideas for my Superhighway project but this morning I see Kate posted that we could have a hangout tonight and I suggested discussing my project. Ley’s hope they agree.
13 September 2019
Friday 13th……. We off on a night out to celebrate our wedding anniversary and Barry’s birthday.
After my guests left yesterday I got some work done on my Superhighway in Illustrator. Really it only helped to get me re-started on using Illustrator. I will set up as many A3 landscape files as I need for my scroll. A couple of things became clear already. I will need quite a bit of space for each year that something happened. Am wondering if the audio of interviews and/or sound effects will help with the explanation. I think it will have to. I think I will have to have the scroll finished before the audio can be made so that it will ‘follow’ the timeline. Otherwise I will have to do a lot of editing on the audio,
15 September 2019
Wonderful meal and evening at Liss And. Could not believe that I did not know that James Thurell had designed the Sky garden there. Thurell is one of my all time favourite artists. We visited the garden before dinner then had amazing 7 course taster menu. Wonderful food.
James Thurell’s Sky garden. Liss Are
Back home Sunday and got some cleaning of moss off paths. Lunch was a BBQ RNLI fund raiser at the island hotel. Back home and more moss cleaning.
Then still working on different designs for the scroll. Did not know that Illustrator would not recover images from an external hard drive for an illustration. Had to move all needed images to a file on the desktop and redo. Not happy with road so will probably redo it before I watch Monty on gardener’s World at 7.30 a.m.!!!
16 september 2019
The time is flying by and the weather is beautiful so I am busy putting the garden to bed. Got daffs planted and gladioli transplanted as well as a Pieris transplanted. Some mowing done and now it is down to building highways!!!!!!
19 september 2019
In Dublin to see sister and try to meet up with the Trinity archivist. Sister doing well – down to one velcro wrist support. Meeting Trinity guy on Friday. He does not seem to be a ball of laughs – we’ll see. Worked on my scroll in the train on way up to city yesterday. Will look at it again now to see what I think.
21 september 2019
Met up with tech archivist in Dublin – strange guy. Could not figure out who funded him or for whom he was working. He had some suggestions about how he thought the project should go but I am not sure I altogether agree with him. I will certainly research and use some of the suggestions but I felt his experience was very academic and Ireland based.
23 september 2019
Planted just under 200 bulbs but unfortunately hit my chest against the handle of the wheel barrow – very bruised and sore. Joined hangout last night – really interesting as always. I did not present anything. Due to rain all day so will have time to do research. Young neighbour to dinner later.
24 september 2019
Horrible day. Am up to 1983 on my scroll. Can only do so much and my mind freezes.
1 October 2019
Where did the Summer go???
Sent a first version of the scroll to tutor. I also sent it to son and daughter. Latter replied with suggestions. I am now working on these – making it less wordy and more visual. It is difficult to work on such a large piece. Have reduced the type face.
6 October 2019
Have got the scroll to a place where I will present it tonight to the Hangout for comment. Await tutor’s input too. Also received a recording of a 2015 presentation from an old colleague of Barry’s . Might be useful for the audio.
Decided to return to France on Wednesday next. All very frenetic trying to get everything put away. Have my box ready to post tomorrow containing all my work.
14 october 2019
Back in France and all set up to continue my project work. I called to my printer first to discuss whether he could print 2.2m long work. I showed him the work and we discussed papers. Since this is an expensive exercise I would like to have a ‘test’ print. As always Pascal had a suggestion – he came up with a cheap paper option for the test. I’ll go with this.
I also ordered the dot matrix paper – I had to order a whole box as 40 sheets on eBay were almost as expensive…. i sincerely hope this project works. But it is principally for the grandchildren so it will work for them anyway.
Barry checked the story and is reasonably satisfied with it.
16 october 2019
Picked up a cold on my way back to France…
Sent a low res copy of the project to my daughter who was very broadly positive. She made a couple of suggestions and picked up some typos. These are now corrected. I like her suggestion of an Intro. this will be easy with the dot matrix paper.
Now I just have to get the paper – should be delivered tomorrow.
18 october 2019
I am using my time waiting for my dot matrix paper delivery making a combined image of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. I’ll replace the Russian Presidents eyes with this as I like it better.
I am also re-reading the whole of this Level 2 submission….
22 october 2019
I left a copy of the 2.4m image in with my printer yesterday. He will make a test copy so that I can check the text and the positioning. I will stick this copy to the dot matrix paper . I am worried about what glue to use as I tried 3M and it shows through. My printer could not help with that. I will put up a question on the Hangout.
Just came across this Wacom video I really shoudl take mine out and try to come to terms with it:
Listening to BBC World Service this morning I heard about Naim June Paik’s exhibition in the Tate Modern. He created a work called “The Electronic Superhighway” Had a look at it. His work is really interesting and inspiring. My work looks so FLAT compared to this but it has inspired me to try to do better and maybe to carry this project forward.
The Electronic Superhighway
24 october 2019
Pascal, my printer, had my test Super Highway ready this morning so I went round to collect it. I was well pleased with the quality on the cheap paper but it has a strange backing. I checked for typos and then I folded to try it out on the dot matrix paper – only to discover I have miscalculated the width of the paper. It is 28cm and not 28.5. So I had to reposition a lot of stuff on the 2.4m long image…. But all this gives me great practise with Illustrator. I also learned from Pascal that you can open a file saved in Illustrator in Photoshop. This retains all the information and you can then save it as jpeg. One learns something every day.
Now the corrections are made I will have to wait till Pascal has time to print it. He is working on huge images for an exhibition at the moment.
25 october 2019
Took part in the Tutor led Group Work online: HE6Contextual studies and Body of Work led by Dr Adriadne Xenou. It was the first time that Zoom had been used for a video conference like this. There were a few teething problems but this did not detract in any way form Adriadne’s facilitating and opening presentation. She guided us through what is expected of us at L3 and how we can go about selecting a topic. She started with the choice of Grand Narrative. This will then lead to the part of this narrative that especially interests us. She dealt with the need to love the topic and how this will help with the research.
We will receive the slides she was working from as a PdF. She was assisted by Gina Lundy. We were a group of 14 students, most already at L3.
27 october 2019
The final version of A5 is with the printer. Now I am working on ideas for a cover.
This morning the Profile om BBC4 was Bridget Riley. What a woman at 88 she is still working and producing amazing work.
This painting disturbs your head like much of her work.
29 october 2019
Waiting for Pascal, the printer, to email to say he has finished the work. But he did warn me he is very busy this week.
Meanwhile my husband and I (sounds like the queen….) spent yesterday morning out on the street beside our house cutting up board to make a cover for my book. This is the joy and the problem of living right on the roadside of a French village. We do not have any garden so all this kind of work has to be done on the side of the street. This means that many of the passer’s by offer advice or just stop for a chat. This, of course, means that the whole project takes ten times as long. But it did get done and I bought an image from iStock to put on the front as I don’t have any suitable images myself. I spent the afternoon resizing it and adding a title with dot matrix print. Fun indeed.
This morning I printed the cover image on A3 lustre paper but did not like it much so I tried the etching paper which has caused me no end of trouble in my Pro9000 printer, in the past. But it sailed through and printed nicely. So now I need to go to the art shop in Aix to buy black paper for the back cover – I have every other colour under the sun but only a scrap of black left. I also need PVC adhesive. We used ot have an art shop in the next big town but with the way of things in this modern age it closed. But the plus to a trip to Aix is we can have a lovely lunch somewhere. Must check what’s on the the gallery.
30 october 2019
Today is the 50th anniversary of the first message to be sent using packet switching network. Only half the work arrived!!!
8 november 2019
I have been waiting for my print for a week now. Pascal had some emergency but has promised to get on with it on Monday. Hubby will be away for three days so I hope to get the video done before he returns. Then I can get him to do the audio. It is a lot of work and I need to get on with it.
I have checked the whole level 2 DI&C blog work. I will get the labels and plan done this weekend.
Meanwhile I am reading about preparing for my final year. I am reflecting about working on the broad theme” Pollution”
10 november 2019
Went to the African Film festival night in our local cinema, last night. Wrote up a review.
Made the audio of Barry’s story of the Superhighway. Now I need to refresh my Premiere Pro experience….. I found this good video:
15 november 2019
Been a manic few days. Hubby back in Ireland to have a small skin ‘thing’ removed from his face. That went well but on the way back he discovered his bank card had been hacked for the second time in 5 months. My sister’s car was stolen last Friday but was recovered by police – a very weird story.
While dealing with the million calls regarding these upsets I was trying to clean up the audio which I was happy I did.
Then Pascal was ready with my scroll and my Boric Johnings image for A1. Got to work immediately to fold and stick my scroll into the dot matrix book. This was difficult and messy. Got it done.
Made video of book – in fact had to make 3 videos to get one that ‘fitted’ to the audio. Not sure if this will work. Started to try to fit them together but realised that I needed to leave it till today as I was too tired. Also we had torrential rain and for the first time ever we had a leak coming in around the window…
Will concentrate on it today.
21 november 2019
I put the video up on the hangout on 17th November. I knew it was raw and unfinished but I needed guidance. As always I got it from Tutor Clive White. He suggested making a story board to check where I needed to break the video to match it to the audio. Karen made the point that she wanted to see close ups of the content of the book and Kate wanted to keep the sounds and even offered me the dot matrix sound.
I took all these suggestions on board and have been working on the video and audio since. This involved reshooting the video at the original height from the book and a lot of cutting of both the audio (to eliminate background noise and hesitations) and the videos. I then made a series of close ups of some of the book. I thought originally I could use ‘zoom’ but Clive had advised against this and online this was confirmed. So I used the tripod placed nearer the book and shot a number of short videos. I then uncoupled the audios from these and placed these at the points where I had decided they should go.
I added titles and the imported sounds of dot matrix printer, old telephone and finally modem.
I worked on the whole for two days and finally was reasonably satisfied with the result. I am uploading it to Vimeo as I write. The first attempt ended in a error as my internet connection is unstable today.
Lat night I participated in the ‘Zoom” presentation by by tutor Andrea Norrington. It was excellent and I wish I had had this when I was starting. There was twenty student participants. The Powerpoint presentation was seamless and students could comment either using Mic or with chat. A really positive experience.
Just listened to the Roddy Doyle and Anthony Gormley interview:
Really interesting to hear two artists explain how nervous they are before letting go of a piece of work and putting it out into the world. Also they are both still developing their art.
25 november 2019
Looking forward to tutor feedback today.
Read this interesting article in NYT this morning by Tim Berners-Lee. Should I use it as back page of my book????
Communities are being ripped apart as prejudice, hate and disinformation are peddled online. Scammers use the web to steal identities, stalkers use it to harass and intimidate their victims, and bad actors subvert democracy using clever digital tactics. The use of targeted political ads in the United States’ 2020 presidential campaign and in elections elsewhere threatens once again to undermine voters’ understanding and choices. [Opinion | I Invented the World Wide Web. Here’s How We Can Fix It. – The New York Times. 2019. Opinion | I Invented the World Wide Web. Here’s How We Can Fix It. – The New York Times. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/opinion/world-wide-web.html. [Accessed 25 November 2019].]
27th november 2019
Coning up to the last hurdle. Feedback received and uploaded to Drive. W can complete the final step tomorrow.
Thank you to my tutor for the link to this lecture – terrifying:
This latest filmy Ken Loach is, in my opinion, his best. It is based on the true story of a man who worked for DPD in Newcastle in the north of England. The man was a type 1 diabetic and allegedly he died because of the working condition under which he was forced to work with this company.
Loach’s film creates a scenario of a hardworking family with two children. The parents were both employed, he in the building trade and she as a nurse carer. In the crash of 2008 he lost his job and they lost their house.
We see the family in their rented accommodation with their two children, a young daughter and a teenage son. The husband Ricky applies for a job with a fictitious parcel delivery company. He learns that he will not be employed as such by the company nor will he have a contract. He will be ‘on-boarded’. This means he will be responsible for securing his own van, taxing and insuring it and for all the parcels as well as the electronic system he is obliged to use.
In order to buy a van his wife has to sell her car which she needs to make her home visits. He is obliged to work from 6am to 21pm. He does not have time to eat or go to the toilet. His wife, Abbie is also on a zero hours contract and has to work very long and tiring days. They are not at home until the youngest child is in bed having fed herself. The teenager starts to skip school and get into trouble with the police. Ricky has to go to the police station to discuss with the officer how his son’s behaviour will lead him into trouble. By skipping work Ricky incurs a sanction and has to pay £100.
He is mugged while stopping to urinate into a bottle in his van. He is badly beaten and has to go to hospital. His boss rings to tell him he is not insured for the passports which were stolen from the van nor for the electronic tracker which the thugs smashed. He is now accumulating more debt.
His son realises that his father has had a lucky escape and that he is partly to blame for the trouble they are getting into. But he fails to stop his father getting up the next day and insisting he has to go to work although he can only see with one eye and he is still very badly shocked and bruised.
The film ends with a blank black screen as his van careers off down the road and his family is left standing in the street.
When the lights went up, slowly, in our cinema at least half the audience were in tears. No one moved.
This is a shocking commentary on how capitalism is driving our workforce to debt and death in some cases.
Watch Fred Ritchin’s lecture, where he discusses several key aspects of the digitalisation of photography, including his description of ‘photographs of the future’, at Link 1
I have watched this video twice once as it came in the sequence of work on this assignment and again today, 16th October 2019. I am not quite sure why I did not write this up at the time but I suspect it was because I had the same feeling after the first viewing as I had today. I agree with much of Ritchin’s analysis of where photography and photographers were in 2013, the time of the video but I hope we have moved on somewhat.
He started with the classical images which were changed in the eighties and nineties to fit a page or a purpose. First it was moving the pyramids by National Geographic and then darkening the face of OJ Simpson by Time Magazine. In the former case the picture editor explained it was done to fit on the front page and it was not serious as he just moved one pyramid to a position it would have looked if the photographer had stood to the right. In Time magazine’s case the editor claimed he moved a police mug shot into the realm of art. Ritchin was rightly disgusted. This was the beginning of the public loosing faith in the authenticity of photographs. The US government, he believed, did not show an image of the killing of Bin Ladin because no one would have believed it.
His total disgust at Susan Sontag’s choice of image to represent the horror of war pleased me very mush as I am not a great fan of Sontag. What moved him most about a series on Iraq was the image of someone at the dentist. This was a normal activity in a war torn zone. People behave and do normal things even in war zones and it is not necessary to show only blood and guts.
However his shock at the sacking of all the photographers of a Chicago paper would not raise an eyebrow today unless it was in a European country where unions who’ll not permit such an action. But, and I have made this point throughout my studies, there is no place any more of professional photographers to be fully employed by a newspaper. The people on the street have sophisticated cameras in their iPhones and can make the images. I do agree with him that the authenticity of these images is often in doubt. But professionals did, as he admits, ‘doctor’ their images to make them more dramatic and even won prizes for their efforts.
He unfolds the story of alternative ways of seeing and representing the world almost as if it was something he had painfully worked out. I am thinking of the roll over of images giving two sides of the story or writing stories about what was going on as in Raymond Depardon’s case. I do like his site Pixel Press where he shows that the US was not the only country o suffer attacks similar to 9/11. But today this work is hardly unique.
I did enjoy the part of his lecture where he demonstrates how a photographer can make a difference. The examples he give of the south African photographer following the lady taking anti-viral drugs and JR making the images of the women in Kenya.
I have not read his book “Behind the Frame” but having seen the video I am not inspired to buy it. Most of what he says here and I assume he says the same in the book, is so self evident today that I feel it would be a waste of money.
He is, however, a great presenter and holds ones interest for the full hour.
Digital Image & Culture 