End of Week 5

Looking back to the last project, what differences in approach are beginning to emerge?

I would say that design is working very much more to a brief, whereas media seems more open to interpretation, and is more about the framing of something, and how it is presented to the world. This is something which I find fascinating; how it is the media practitioner who gets to decide how that piece of art or information is viewed by the world. I think that this is actually something that can be applied to theatre and costume, which is the direction that I was to go, in that the costume designer is framing the character and choosing how they are presented to the audience. I also like how there often seems to be a message within media; the artist is able to make a comment on how the world as that see it.

Have you changed where you see yourself currently in terms of art/design/media? If so, why?

I wouldn't say that I have completely changed where I see myself, which was design based, with an influence from art, but I definitely now think that media is something which interests me also so maybe I am now slightly closer to the middle of the intersecting circles. I didn't know much about media before starting this course, but one that that really appeals to me is how the media practitioner is able to frame the piece and present it to the world, through their perspective.

Which skills developed in previous weeks have been useful this week?

I found that my idea of the creative process has continued to develop and I feel that because I was able to practice the pattern in the last project, that this one felt more natural and it flowed nicely. I like having the structure from working in a design based way, but media also gave me more room to experiment as I didn't have to reach a certain point at the end or fulfil a brief.

How have new artist references been useful in helping you think about new approaches to your project?

It has been interesting seeing this whole mass of new influences who I hadn't seen before as I didn't think they were especially relevant, but I was surprised to see how influenced I have been by some of them. Tim Walker is probably my favourite photographer who I have looked at so far, and I think one of the reasons why I love his work is because of how it appeals to the theatrical, costume design side of me.

How have the practical and material elements of the work gone - how well have you kept notes?

I have kept notes on how to do a lot of the things that we learned, including photo shop and premier as these are things which I haven't done before, so would like to refer back to in the future when I use these programmes again. I also used a lot of mind maps to get the ball rolling at the beginning which I found really helpful as it is a really fast way of getting all of my ideas down on the page.

What could you do better next week?

I am going to try and move further away from the design based structure, and embrace the freedom of the media project, which is stepping out of my comfort zone, as usually I like working to a brief. I am going to try and experiment and see where it takes me and go with the flow a bit more, and try and be more open to new ideas that I hadn't planned for or expected.