Presentation Boards

Final Practical Peer Review

Some interesting point raised in feedback.

Key parts:

• ‘Plenty of tests’
• ‘Work has repetition - just like the everyday’
• ‘Monoprints have a really effective ‘mood’ - lets viewer take away their own perspective’
• ‘Mixed media work is a step in the right direction…the everyday doesn't have to be all the same’
• ‘A full scene of people could be interesting - a larger documentation’
• ‘Maybe focus on other elements of what you are documenting…what can you hear? what can you smell?’
• ‘Homely, Silent, Nostalgic’

I believe the practical work has reached a point of making sense, of being whole and coherent without the aid of the essay when presented in the crit. I have ended up with quite a large amount of drawings, especially as I have been redrawing sketches from my sketchbooks in order to preserve some coherency in my final publication. 

I was really pleased with the 3 words that somebody put to sum up the work - Homely, Silent, Nostalgic. I think nostalgic particularly makes it relatable, allowing the viewer to picture their own life and past in relation to the drawings. This creates a connection between the work and the viewer, provoking an emotional response which I find very important.

The only think that I think lets the work down is the absence of the writing. This particular practical project I feel stands strongest when viewed alongside the ideas and theories I was researching. I think that in itself it is not the most explorative of projects, but instead illustrates the ideas presented in my essay, as it would in a book. There is not so much a clear journey in the work when viewed alone and perhaps the overall conclusion or observations get lost in this regard - one of the comments received questions ‘…what the author (you) concludes personally?’, which I think is covered in the writing more than the images. 

I cannot help but wish I had been more explorative with the work I made on this project. Especially visually, had I pushed that side more I think my concepts and ideas could have been portrayed a lot more effectively especially to an audience who does not have my writing accompanying the drawings for context and background information. 

Project Update, Compositions

• Collating the separate parts of the everyday into these 'final' compositions serves as an overview of my findings during this project. 
• It draws links between the waiting dictated by the daily commute and also by the prevalence of technology in times of waiting.
• Blurs the lines between where one part of the everyday starts and one part ends. ‘...simultaneously both everywhere and nowhere’ (J.Ebery, 2016).
• I think drawing back into these would be something to propose to take the work further, further evidencing the 'layers' and 'levels' of the everyday and how they are inherently and inescapably linked and connected. 

Project Update, Cars in Colour

• Pushing the car drawings further, taking into account the idea of different individuals and identities within the everyday.
• Despite the differences between the cars, there is still a common 'everyday' and structure of the commute. The routine and mundane not only brings the individuals together but is also inescapable, as is the social connections between all the individuals within society.
• The roads are emblematic of the structures dictated on the everyday but society as a whole.

Pratical Peer Review 2

The work hasn't really reached a new focus since the last peer review, and many of the plans for development have yet to be implemented. However a newer focus on commuting, more specifically queues of cars has emerged. The research leading up to my essay writing discovered a quote by Henri Lefebvre, saying that waiting or commuting is, 'an inevitable product of the bureaucratic appropriation of the everyday'. I discovered that commuting is highly representational of the everyday, the daily rush hour being explicit evidence of society's focus on capital showing itself in the everyday. 

Feedback suggestions:

- Create zine focussing on different locations and observations
- Use combination of looser, faster drawings and more detailed, refined, giving more information about place
- Images as singular or sequential, which is more effective? Think about context audience receives work
- Draw same place over and over, showing passing of time, creating a narrative 
- Consider whether images are relatable/connect to an audience
- What is the conclusion of work?
- How is visual research going to be processed?

Plans for development:

- Continue focussing imagery down, just waiting and queues, for example - reread essay so that imagery can successfully explore ideas written about
- Start to combine drawings into wider images which explore the everyday as a whole, create compositions that sum up discoveries
- Create zines of themes/locations for example a zine of commuting cars, a zine of people queuing 
- Process visual research through collating, selecting, developing, redrawing, collecting, combining
- MAKE MORE WORK

Project Updates, Cars

• Really fun way to work, looser and full of movement and energy. Drawing static objects/slow moving as if they are 'alive'. 
• The structures of the different everyday lives are documented, brought together by the daily commute. The volume of vehicles shows the routines and waiting that modern western society dictates on the everyday and the individuals within it. ‘…the only life that people have, which is neither completely determined nor completely free’ (P.Sztompka, 2008)

• Using COP as an opportunity to push my visual language, I found this way of making images really enjoyable and fruitful, especially in a reportage context. The immediacy of the drawings is important, as the moments captured are commonly fleeting. The ability to document the necessary forms and aspects of an image in a short space of time is an exciting challenge.

Practical Peer Review 1

Positive, encouraging feedback from peers. Work is at broad stage, documenting people in both Leeds and Manchester city centres who are ‘waiting’ or going about their daily business. Not yet explicitly focussed, a good method for starting out, being broad and seeing how it focusses ‘organically’. Review suggests that text and image results are most effective - I will try and incorporate both in my final images, letting the text give the images context and a deeper exploration of the everyday. Reduced and gestural line work was well received, saying it ‘captures passing of time as it is responding to’.

Suggestions for development - 

• delve in more, speak to people

• include individual daily routines

• zone in on favourite parts, develop

• make publication

• screen print layering line drawings up

• incorporate more text

Plans for development - 

• focus on main concepts and areas, waiting/commuting and impacts of technology on the everyday

• think about collating images into publication, collections of topics, themes, subject matters to build up a series of the everyday through different categories

• think about ways of incorporating text, talking to people? overheard conversations? interviews? own observations might make an interesting context?

• continue pushing visual language of work, develop loose mark making and quick representations of forms and subject matters

• ensure practical work links to and explores content of essay

The work could definitely be more explorative and experimental in its documentation methods and visual presentation. I am going to try and combine more research methods into single images to create a ‘map’ of sorts that builds up a picture which represents the everyday in a more detailed and broad way, taking into consideration the complexities and multiple factors of the everyday.