Week 4 – The Self & Identity

Lecture Comments

The Self & identity – How do we represent ourselves visually? if we got someone else to represent us visually would it be how we would want it? / show our true self?

Who am I – White British male born in Hampshire, UK. Mouse brown hair, 5ft 10, Name – James Shaw

Where am I – Currently living in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, UK, within the solar system?

What immedielty interests me – Music, Weather, Curiosity and Tennis

Beliefs / religions – None

Question from the Lecture: Do you think we are rooted and determined more by our biological inheritance? Or are we more of a blank slate where experience and environment determine our sense of value?

I think there is parts of us which are determined by our biological inheritance however I think it’s down to more of the experiences and environments we have been in / grown with. We don’t always place ourselves into environments sometimes it’s out of our control, sometimes traumatic, sometimes amazing, sometimes unexpected. I think these experiences make us who we are. We adapt, we learn, we change, we are always changing. At the core though we as an individual have a set of core values I don’t think change, different for every person. More recently influenced by the advancements of technology I think we find it harder to be true to our self, we compare, we judge, we hate, we love – but less do we think about US.

Concept Development

– Workshop Challenge 1

Response from Friends: Perfectionist, Concise, Methodical, Creative, Brisk, Impatient, Reflective. Worrier, Self Critical, Precise.

Initial 20 Words: (chosen 5 highlighted initially)

Initial 5 words: Initiated, Operational, Muted, Explorative, Ambitious

Feedback from ideas wall: Wes mentioned and highlighted about two of the words I had chosen, Muted & Operational. He made a good point around operational being quite cold and after further thought I am not sure this word captures what I wanted. I want to capture how I am alway’s on the go, alway’s exploring, working, finding. I am going to revisit this word to find a better suited value. I do however quite like muted as it sits with where I am right now, not 100% confident in where I am in my practice plus I am quite a quiet individual overall and keep myself to myself.

Wes mentioned the word ‘ready’ but I feel this lacks any on going movement? To me it feels static and awaiting something to happen.

Switching out operational for energetic. Reason: An overall theme to my self is energy and drive, determined to get Sh*t done and tick things off that list. Operational felt to mechanical and production line? Something which I am not, I like to be surprised and put on edge to keep going.

Concept Development – Moodboards:

Energetic
‘showing or involving great activity or vitality’.

Referring to my constant ‘on’ switch and energy put into everything. These images below show my constant movement, energy absorbed and let off from music. I never want to sit down and like to know what’s next.

Explorative
‘serving in or intended for exploration or discovery; “an exploratory operation”

Within both my practice and personal life I like to explore, whether that’s creatively into new materials and mediums or through exploring objects, shops, locations. I have this desire to keep exploring and seeing what happens, mistakes and all. This taps into the ‘Energetic’ side of me of alway’s wanting to play and move. What if I put this music with my work? What if we created this physically?

Initiated
‘to cause or facilitate the beginning of’

The start of a brief, the start of an adventure. Initiated captures the process of starting, the process and excitement of what’s to come and what can be created.

Muted
‘to allow (something previously muted) to produce sound again’

This taps into the quiet side of me. I am energetic but keep myself to myself at times. At time this feeds into my work, with clean and simple outcomes, not over fussed or complicated. I believe this fluctuates however at times, within different locations and after experiences.

Ambitious
‘having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed’

The want to achieve and create great work. To push myself beyond my own boundaries and the boundaries of graphic design. To be ambitious in every approach across my practice and personal life.

Design Development

Starting to explore the final outcome for this week’s challenge. Initial sketches into how i might construct a moving image/ GIF/ Animation. Choice of direction from the values chosen and ‘self’ state I am in. Thinking if I use shapes to depict the speed (circles. rectangles) or using more obvious typographic references (fast, slow, ,muted)

Areas of movement but also areas of ‘muted time, accompanied with faster music and slower music?

Early plans on how to structure the final outcome and what it’s outcome could be applied to – A series of prints/moving images which stand alone. I was thinking about adding in elements of connectivity through the use of lines on the dots? Need to explore to see how this may work. I want to keep it quite free form and not to polished. Maybe create parts by hand and join the both to show my interest in the analogue and digital colliding.

Drawn exploration for GIF/ Video work. Exploring the use of materials (explorative) and movement (energy) to create developing pieces. I want the work to be freeform, explorative, unknown to an extent. I don’t want a safe outcome. These 3 drawings are responses to music. Some faster paced, some slower but all have a sense of energy.

First draft of outcome – Really pleased with the development and adaptation of my piece into a more digital outcome but with still an analogue core. It has been a trial and error process with an outcome almost unknown and using my value of exploration and ambition to create.

What is going well: Getting across the sense of play and exploration. The view that the original and outcomes can support the digital pieces as printed material (maybe into more of a whole experience, QR code prints which show you a different value when scanned/viewed)

To look at: Are the squares too harsh? could I use softer shapes (circles, freeform) like the original drawings. Do the squares give off a technical / digital feeling? Be more confident in the process I am doing, trying to refine to early which has held me back.

Research

Specht Studio – ” The ability to reinvent herself from time to time is of high importance, when the need for change is there she wants to act upon it”

Connected with the work by Specht Studio straight away not from just its visual appeal and references but the way its been executed. For this week’s challenge I felt like I almost had to re invent myself and really understand ‘WHO I AM’ Her work is expressive, loud but also considered, something I related to from the values I picked out. A mix of both analogue and digital to give it a sense of realness?

TedX Talk

“Seeing multiple possibilities of our future” Embrace Change”
Marcus Lyon

Marcus Lyon talks about if our identities are given or created. Do the physical objects we have in our life help define who we are? What impact does geographical location have on our identities? This is an interesting point as it brings up thoughts about what we do and who we meet at those locations. If we move location and meet someone we live with does that effect our identity. The place we live in has such an effect on our identities I think, and would we even change / adapt our identities to the cultures of our location.

Creative Review – A conversation about identity.

“I always think of how we know ourselves through other people, how our identity can be played off through other people’s differences”

Eye Magazine – Self-evident, self-motivated, self-perpetuating

“To express one’s self is to reveal a personal vision”
In this article they started to look at ‘Self-expression’ from the point of view of designers. As designers we create and put out into the world multiple different formats of work (depending on what you do) But does the work we put out there define who we are? (or are as a studio) Part of me says yes but also part of me says no. We are working with the client and yes they have to come to you for your style / your work ethic / the work you produce and your processes but does it solely define us as designers. However self initiated work would potentially be more ‘self’ led as this is coming from us as designers, exploring our own interests?

Representing Identity – Lucy Bradnock

Jackson Pollock – Poetry of the self

Final Outcome

References

Specht, S., 2021. Specht Studio. [online] Specht Studio. Available at: <https://stephaniespecht.com> [Accessed 25 June 2021].

Is your identity given or created?. 2016. Directed by M. Lyon. Youtube: TEDx Talks.

O’Rilley, J., 2010. Self-evident, self-motivated, self-perpetuating. [online] Eyemagazine.com. Available at: <http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/self-evident-self-motivated-self-perpetuating> [Accessed 28 June 2021].

Bradnock, L., 2019. Representing Identity – In Focus | Tate. [online] Tate. Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/in-focus/blood-poet-box/representing-identity> [Accessed 28 June 2021].

This week’s Critical Reflection

Working well: We are at the end of week 4 already… This week was all about ‘self’ and ‘identity’. It’s always hard to almost self evaluate yourself and talk about what you enjoy, especially as a creative. I found this week tougher than the other weeks in terms of output, but I saw this as a challenge to push myself and keep trying and experimenting.

I think it’s so important for us to understand who we really are and the values that make us who we are. I have never really thought about this but this week was another moment of thinking what I do / what I want to do within my practice.

Keep working on: Continue to explore resources beyond the resources given. I look at many resources but sometimes don’t always respond to them. Not be afraid of making mistakes. This week I felt I held myself back slightly and worried about the final outcome. Looking back I think some of the experiments I did could potentially be more ‘ME’ and ‘Self’ rather than the moving outcome. Saying this I think the final outcome is me pushing myself beyond my comfort zone slightly.

Into next week: Continue to explore and be open to new ideas. Comment more on the ideas wall and put my opinion across.

Week 4 Crit feedback :

From showing the past 4 weeks: Feedback was the work had a sense of adventure, very system based and the theme of breaking the grid. It was great to get feedback from my peers and see them express themes and ideas that I was exploring when creating and developing the work. You do sometimes worry if people will ‘understand’ your work but I think at times its open to opinion and interpretation (something I find interesting in itself)