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SKETCHBOOK UPDATES – WEEK 7

   

  

 

SKETCHBOOK UPDATES

As stated in previous blogs, I felt as if my sketchbook was lacking in any sense of creative responses and outcomes due to my potential demotivating sense of self in line with enjoying the academic reading side of my work and struggling to find the balance. I also struggled with keeping creative when I felt like I had ran out of ideas, however I remember someone telling me that if we’re stuck it’s most likely due to the fact that we had not undertaken enough primary and secondary research to influence ideas and I agree with this to some level, therefore I undertook more readings based on more refined themes and delved into more unique and interesting views of my concept. This therefore allowed me to become more creative again and remember that my sketchbook is a work in progress and should not be overthought about; I have always found that my more creative and unique experimental developments have come from when I have stopped overthinking every step and work methodically at first to begin with.

The collages I ended up making were successful to me, I wanted to be resourceful and create multi media works which led me to keeping the tracing paper I had used in my mark making pages as a way to stop the paint transferring from one page to another. Resulting in me using them for backgrounds on my collages; using found scraps especially with marks on them or signs of wear, paint etc that show an interesting texture on them are really effective in using within collage as it adds a more textural element to the work allowing it to have more character and dimension. Using the idea of layouts and white space in my mind due to the fact that I need to look at my work from a more graphic design perspective as I will continue to be using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator for my work, I played around with this to enhance the focus of each piece of work. I personally didn’t like the colour used within the green and yellow collage which resulted in me editing it to become black and white, which is more effective in my eyes as the image comes together a bit more with the mark making which is separated more in the first original collage. The last collage was an attempt at me illustrating however I did not enjoy the final illustration product I did but thought that I should not throw anything away, leading me to ripping it up like the other images I had found and using it in the same way to create a distorted puzzle style image.

Creating the mark making pages as a response to Daphne Oram’s work was a way for me to loosen up slightly and stop overthinking my work; some of the pate transferred to the other pages as well as the fact that some pages ripped as when the paint dried the pages stuck together and placing them apart led to tear in the pages, however this led me to become less precious with my sketchbook and was therefore a good outcome; I have always found that a sketchbook with good character is not made from perfectly constructed imagery; the notes and progress sketches are the best part in my eyes as it shows the journey from idealisation to conception. I felt as these were also fairly successful as they probe to have a lot of character due to the movement of the lines reaching all ends of the page and the quick upwards and outwards brush strokes that mimic motion.

The last two feature some illustrations that I had done with no particular aim, basing them on what I saw in the mirror while not trying to make them look like me, I was just using my face for an easily accessible reference. Creating continuous line drawings have always been one of my favourite activities as I feel like they improve my drawing skill due to the fact that you have to focus carefully on the shapes being made by the subject to inform the lines that you’re going to make, whereas in sketching it’s usually focused on the lines combining rather than an overall shape being formed (for me personally) and therefore this doodles came out to be fairly decent; they’re lacking in any substance in terms of originality and therefore this could indicate that some further research into illustrative skills as well as potential influential illustrators could progress my skills and contextualisation, although I am extremely new to illustrating.

Changing my sketchbook from an only physical version, which was going to be scanned in and placed into a PDF, has changed into using a digital sketchbook, constructed on Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign due to a variety of factors. Pricing came into mind; printing constantly would be allow a lot of money to be spent on my own printing ink or the library computer printing services, the time consuming effort of sticking in pictures correctly which could be spent doing something else productive, being able to easily adapt pages and fill in gaps, allows to organise it easily, being and to add my digital work on pages easier (considering the bulk of my work will be digital it seems appropriate), can edit imagery, can still easily annotate and add text etc. I’ve essentially analysed what I was struggling with when using my sketchbook and adapted it to fit my working style.

Next steps, take this work and progress it further through digital manipulation / experimentation.

COLLAGE EDITS – PART 3 – WEEK 7

  

As shown in the sketchbook pages scanned in below, I decided on incorporating some illustrations for some fairly quick trials of collage, this was due to the fact that I had previously experimented with my own imagery, used found imagery in collages, created tactile collages which had then been digitally altered and therefore thought the next step would be to incorporate some type of illustration to not only potentially enhance my work, but to also play around, get used to using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator again after not using them for quite a few months and see what is successful or not as effective for me as a creative designer. The collage below contains illustration that is composed of a tracing from the image of Daphne Oram, who I had recently researched as a pioneer for creating a new wave of experimental electronic music before most people, and layered it with text from a newspaper, along with faded out images of her practicing in the background which were used in order to keep the whole image more about her, while still being able to become distorted at some points, I wanted the colours to be more muted and therefore sourced a piece of text to use from a newspaper. The composition works well as there is a balance across the main page, on the left side, while creating some sort of movement by allowing a small amount to be brought onto the right side, something I had seen done quite often within graphic design layouts which were always quite successful; I just anted a more unique way of organising the different pieces of a collage across two pages as I need to think further into potential zine layout styles if I want to start creating one for the hand in soon.

The result of the experimentation led me to using Adobe Photoshop, similarly to how I had used it before, finding what was successful and incorporated that into my new collages, to show some development and improvement of my graphic design skills through analysis and refinement. Therefore using filters such as colour halftones, adding noise, lens blurs, radial blurs and mixing up the composition had all worked previously as I had mentioned, and led to the success of these collages shown above. I feel as if the colour halftone is such a good tool because it ties everything up in the image and puts it in one filter to harmonise and connect all the pieces in a more coherent manner.

The second image is the most successful in my eyes, experimenting with blur tools was fairly new to me, however I feel as if the technique of copying a layer on top of the blur and having it underneath works effectively to connect the foreground, which is a repeat of the blurred image but unblurred, and merges it well with the background ad they are the same, one is just blurred and one is not. Think I will aim to continue to experiment for now but will review everything I’ve done and see what is working well and what is not going as well currently in order for me to improve.

 

CLOSE READING – MAY I TOUCH IT

CLOSE READING – MAY I TOUCH IT 

Marilyn Delong, Juanjuan Wu & Mingxin Bao 

NOTES  

• Beginnings of including the idea of physical touch of materials and textiles within the studies of design and communication/products.  
• Studies come from a design and cultural view. – Design studies from China and the US share their stories and experiences of early touch memories. Responses come from simple word descriptions. 
• “Keywords: touch, tactile, sense, sensation, sentiment, design, textile, culture” 
• Tactile response/emotions/feelings in response to touching fabrics = truly little research 
• Pink (2006) = views are that designers need to draw in on both left brained activity and right brained activity – not ideal to neglect one as they work in conjunction together and one can experience things that the other could neglect – therefore affecting feelings/thoughts and could make someone miss a key part of a design / response to a design. – This is such an intersting concept as a desifgner, I had not given this idea much thought as I am usually much more in tune with thecreative side of my brain, however researching into the other side / what could stimulate the other side of the brain and if there would be a way to incirpparye that within my design work could form a more diverse and intersting stimulating outcome. 
• “The future belongs to those who can create using big-picture capabilities and integrative aptitudes of “high concept” and “high touch.” 
• “high concept” – meaning understanding patterns, new ideas, conceptual work, emotion, aesthetics and beauty 
• “high touch” – meaning understanding the human brain, interactions with senses, finding joy, communication between one person to the other through any form, purpose, meaning and reactions. 
• To summaries the above points – he states the importance of being to create something as a designer that has multiple functions in terms of emotive responses and practicality.  “sensorially and emotionally engaging”. I agree with this statement to some level, purely because I believe that if a designer creates something that also has some sort of either emotional reaction from the audience or a clear indicator that the product/service/design was created with a lot of thoughts, feelings and an emotional attachment from the designer themselves, this creates more of an attachment and resonates with the consumer far more than something simply works well. 
• “The twenty-first century designer must have specific sensory understanding of colors, textures, lines and shapes, and then find a way to involve that information in the emotional and cultural experiences of the user.” 
• “may learn to listen to colors, see a sound, or feel a space, and such sensory connections encourage artistic creation” = engaging in different senses creates an artistic reaction as it forces the brain to engage the body in diverse ways that usually just looking at something whereas if different textures 
• That are unfamiliar with the brain but connect to the design are incorporated, then the brain can draw in on different emotive responses such as remembering s=certain textures from a particular moment in time or even feeling these textures for the first time and creating a new association based off that in relation to the design/ artistic piece they are engaging with. 
• “a sensory experience such as touch is often learned in combination with another sense.” 
• “Touch frequently verifies another sense or past association.” – similar to what I explained earlier, touch is a sensation that is used less frequently within art but could create a more unique response from the audience as it can connect them with a feeling or memory from the past that would have potentially been overlooked/forgotten about within the sensation of touch 
• “Certain visual experiences encourage a person to substantiate visual with touch sensations, but in the West we have often been taught to ask permission: “May I touch it,” before reaching out to touch something.” – whereas with sight, it is a sensation that the majority of us are blessed with and cannot escape as it is often we have our eyes open than closed and witness things without asking as they happen right in front of us 
• “Comprehending the sense of touch involves aesthetics, defined by Tuan (1995) as the pervasive role of sensitive perception and shaped feeling” – people interpret their senses in different ways. As one person touches something, they could uncover a memory associated with that feeling, whereas a different person doesn’t have that memory and they could either feeling something else connected to that sensation or simply disregard it as that texture would have no prior meaning to them, and they could therefore associate that texture with a new feeling. 
• Understanding touch = understanding aesthetics 
• “what we value is a result of what we perceive; what we learn to perceive is what we value.” 
• Brain registering sensory input consciously  
• In order to incorporate sensory feelings in a tactile sense successfully means that the designer in question would need to understand their own sensory responses which are personal to them, then they can relay that through their own design for people to gather their own feelings from it or attempt to experience what the designer was feeling. 
• Street and Lewis (2001: 185) believe the role of design = “create meaning, but rather to render meaning apparent.” This quote really resonates with me as it brings a different understanding to why people deign other than practicality – an emotive response for the design to resonate with the consumer is always more beneficial and effective then something dimply made to function, which was stated in one of the quotes above. 
• “The need for designers to use their imaginative skills in the creation of “theaters of memory” has been an important aspect of bringing a significant cultural role into design” 
• “The Disneyland phenomenon is an example of recreating the “real” out of the “imaginary.” –  This is interesting for me think about as Disney films and the culture surrounding that thrives off of the imaginary fairytale aesthetics and made-up stories, yet when this is translated into a physical place, the feelings are brought to life through the use of touch and sensory applications through the place to connect the audience with the make-believe feelings that are found within the films. 
• “The advent of the world wide web enabled huge numbers of people to access a range of simulated experiences either in two dimensions or in virtual space.” Another interesting point which I briefly explored while researching into online exhibitions and hoe the use of the internet allows people to experience a similar feeling to being inside a space while online instead, therefore creating a virtual reality through the use of technology which allows senses that would normally be experienced in real life through pixels on the screen to create a similar affect, but essentially a different feeling than if someone were to be in the physical space. However, this allows design works and spaces to become more accessible to the viewers, they can access whenever they want instead of going into a physical space as well as people with physical disabilities being able to experience something, they usually would not be able to due to physical implications. 
• “Thackara (2006) describes the future of design using a different language than the customary design elements and principles; he describes design objectives more holistically, as lightness, situation, flow and literacy” – This quote relates back to the idea of design needed to engage both sides of the brain, creativity and academically in order to create an outcome that resonates. 
• “Sparke uses the term “lightness” to describe how furnishing materials of the twentieth century became modern when, for example, chintz replaced heavy velvets and brocades” 
• “Thackara states the future is collaborative and interactive, using text, sound, image, and virtual touch to provoke a critical response.” – This quote relates to me as I have always enjoyed engaging with physical installations as art pieces more than other types of exhibitions (which I still love) however an installation engages more sensory aspects than other types of exhibitions and therefore kore of my brain is working to associate distinct types of sensory actions with what I am engaging with and therefore has more of an impact in different part of my brain, therefore resonating with me further than other exhibitions. = “One designer describes the power of touching something as an internal body sensation that provides a subjective dimension: “If you’re only looking at something, you’re not aware of that sensation, but if you pick up an apple, you meet the flesh of the apple with your own flesh, and that feedback literally creates a sense of yourself” – explains my opinions well 
• Can cause memories and feelings to be associate with the touch of doing everyday tasks and therefore allowing the sensory design to have an everyday impact on your brain, making it harder to forget 

Review of Literature – The Imperative of the Sensation of Touch 

• “The skin does not exist merely to give the body an appearance. It is also a vital, humming source of ceaseless information about our environment.” – purpose for the sensation of touch – protection, covering up, pain, comfort – skin having a million different tiny transmitters to feel a broad range of physical sensations that relay back to the brain and create an emotive response. Such as something painful pricking our skin which hurts us physically, and therefore senses transmissions to our brain to make us either feel angry in frustration, such as banging a toe, or sadness and upset from doing something such as falling over when you’re a child. 
• ^^ “If the sensation of touch were not pleasurable, a mother would not stroke and fondle her baby in the right way. Severely disturbed children need forceful and persistent touching. An autistic child needs almost constant touching and rubbing to trigger a release from self-hugging isolation (Brand and Yancey 1980).” 
• Ove languages being physical touch, showing affection and caring through skin-on-skin contact such as holding hands creating a positive and loving impact on the brain, like animals licking their young, “He concludes that the licking is not for cleanliness but for essential tactile stimulation.” mother holding baby etc. 
• “Infant mortality rates drop when simple touching is adequate (Brand and Yancey 1980).” 
• “Leprosy is a classic case of insensitivity to touch and even failure to perceive pain. In leprosy, there is no touch sensation, so when a person grasps and holds an object there is no feedback” – “Without feedback, abuse to the body goes unrecognized.” these two quotes could lead to emotional numbness in conjunction to physical numbness in response to complex trauma or physical conditions 
• Touching something on purpose = brain evaluates it – smooth, silky, cool, hot, rough 
• “We experience twinges from abrasion, irritation, prickling, bruising, scratching, kissing and nudging” 
• Low level touch = background, high level touch = direct emotion.  
• Context influences touch sensations, who shakes your hand, kisses your cheek etc. = unconsented touch = bad emotive response, desired physical touch = positive/nervous/relaxing sense of emotions 
• Phrases and sayings relating to the physical sensation of touch but in a metaphorical sense such as “We rub people the wrong way, or we stroke them; a gullible person is a soft touch; something volatile we handle with kid gloves. We are thin-skinned, thick-skinned, or we get under each other’s skins. We relate tactfully or tactlessly (Brand and Yancey 1980).” 
• “Habituation – the action or process of becoming habituated.” 
• “Habituation – the diminishing of an innate response to a frequently repeated stimulus.” 
• “Habituation includes an experience as simple as repeated exposure to a touch sensation, or as complex as repeated touch exposure with accompanying positive contextual features.” 
• “Texture is revealed most fully by the vibrating motion caused by moving the hand to produce a high-pitched vibration. The initial outcome of the vibrating hand often determines whether we decide to explore the surface further” – defines different qualities of surfaces, whether something feels familiar, whether to texture is painful, soft or comforting, whether we want to touch it again or not, whether it makes us uncomfortable or happy. 

Touch Properties and Sensory Evaluation 

• Smooth vs rough = separated and measured in our brains 
• Ticking gives signals – laughing reaction – annoyance 
• Itch – frustration / pain/ relief / desire 
• “Affective properties are those with meanings and values associated with the stimulus object.” 
• “Properties that we group together based upon relationships among features and prior experience with similar objects are called “collative.” 
• Complex emotions and feelings / memories, vs something more familiar and comforting or triggering 
• “fabrics with a flat and warm touch resulted in a “classic” sensibility but those with a flat and cool touch represented a “modern” feeling.” 
• Reactions do not always have to be positive or negative as they can make you feel indifferent or neutral towards something, or even bored. 
• “tickling with a feather on the back of the hand can be perceived as a subjective tactual sensation.” – connotations with different forms of touch that are not communicated verbally, suggestive, comforting, such as when someone is sad, and no one says anything they just give them a hug to suggest and personal security from the person giving the hug to the person receiving the hug. 

Associations of Touch 

• Pepper (1970) states “acknowledges four origins of associations in development of our perceptions: those properties located in the object; the idiosyncratic traits within the individual; those needs and basic drives that traverse the individual and create our common humanity; and those familiar experiences with family and social groups within one’s culture. Regardless of origin, touch sensations create experiences and memories that lead to judgment and action”  
• Idiosyncratic – relating to idiosyncrasy; peculiar or individual. 
• Idiosyncrasy – a mode of behavior or way of thought peculiar to an individual. 
• therefore, this means that our bodies can understand through touch when something is familiar, comfortable and strange, negative, positive, reminiscent of the past, relating to a fond, sad, triggering memory etc.  

 

• “What early experiences of touch are remembered and how are they described? What early memories of touch are related to fabric or clothing and how are they described?” 
• Researching suggests that early experiences in life reflect the adult’s perspectives and feelings towards social relationships, perceptions and interpretations through early life experiences. 
• In the study – US and Chinese students’ studies something like art and design = where sensitivity to touch = favorable for what they’re studying 
• “Approximately one-quarter of US respondents (27 percent) and one-fifth of Chinese respondents (22 percent) reported touching certain animals (e.g. cats, dogs, fish, horses, rabbits, snakes, silkworms). As the second most prominent category, bedding (e.g. baby blankets, sheets, blankets) was reported by US respondents (14 percent) involved in an early touch experience, while many Chinese respondents (17 percent) recalled the experience of touching family members or familiar people (e.g. mother, father, grandmother, a boy or girl, an infant). Other main categories of objects recalled that were common among both US and Chinese respondents included natural elements (e.g. trees, rocks, water, sand, ice, snowballs, flowers), stuffed animals, dolls or toys, food, home furnishings and clothing items or fabrics.” 
• Animals = most frequently remembered early memory touching in both cultures, mother’s skin wasn’t mentioned although would be a very early memory. 
• 50% of US people in the study who touched the animals had negative relations to it = “rough,” “coarse,” “spiky,” “slimy,” “bumpy” or “scratchy”). 
• Chinese people in the study had fewer negative reactions but more unpleasant tactile feelings = “sticky,” “prickly” 
• US people – Bedding = soft, smooth, comforting, security, calming 
• Chinese people – family members – ““liked” touch sensations with only one exception. Although with mixed cognitive descriptors of “stubble,” “prickly,” “warm,” “soft,” “smooth” and “coarse,” the affective descriptors were mostly positive, such as “comfortable/ comforting,” “safe” or “happy.”” 
• “one respondent described touching her father’s unshaved chin as “prickly and fuzzy, yet masculine, safe and mature.”” – proving that the sensation of touch can be extremely complex due to the different connotations surrounding different feelings, but when context ins involved the emotional response or literal response can be altered due to the situation/people involved/area this was taken place/how long ago this was. 
• “Temperature to touch is one of the foremost feelings that takes the least amount of effort to comprehend” 

CLOSE READING – EMOTIONAL TEXTILES

Emotional Textiles: An Introduction
Alice Dolan & Sally Holloway

CLOSE READING – EMOTIONAL TEXTILES
 

NOTES 

• Exploring emotive properties of textiles – Northwest Europe, 17th century to early 20th century 
• First detailed report studying link between materials and emotions – “– from the metallic lace adorning christening robes, to union cloth burial clothes.” 
• “Keywords: emotions, affect, material culture, gender, life-cycle, making, craft” 
• “Emotional Objects: Touching Emotions in Europe 1600-1900″ at “Institute of Historical Research, London, in October 2013.” = influenced this study 
• Fabric and feeling 
• Explored “methods that can be utilized to uncover the emotional histories of objects made from a broad range of materials, from carbolic soap and glass beads to engraved coins and locks of hair. The 12 panels explored death and memorialization, love, faith, and emotional spaces from freemasons’ lodges to orchards.” linking different types of ways fabrics and materials can be manipulated, changed, altered, distorted, woven, blended etc. in order to evoke a different understanding of what the texture/style is representing emotionally. 
• “The 12 panels explored death and memorialization, love, faith, and emotional spaces from freemasons’ lodges to orchards” 
• The influence that inanimate objects can have/ exploring personal and cultural identity as well as historical references and development 
• ““Quilts 1700–2010” (2010) and “Wedding Dresses 1775–2014” (2014–2015) at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and “Threads of Feeling” at the Foundling Museum (2010–2011).” 
• “do textiles possess greater emotional potency than other materials, or are textile researchers more attuned to emotional meanings within their work?” = argued by the artist’s intentions, their desire to work on a piece, what they want to represent to their audience, time and effort (which is subjective), process and sourcing, references and connections to their own emotions. 
• Texture on the skin and the implications/connotations of that physical touch translating to an emotive response 
• Keynote lecture by John Styles = focused on tokens – left from hospital= scraps of fabric/brought my mother/carers, = if mothers were in a place to reclaim their infants these tokens were identifiers. 
• “Items such as Proust’s famous madeleine in A la Recherche du Temps Perdu can emote at one point but not another”  
• “what can objects tell us about the history of emotions?” 
• “How can historians read the “material language” of objects to recapture their emotional meanings?” 
• The links between sentiments/texture/textiles was not explored in too much depth prior to this 
• “objects remain conspicuous by their absence in Jan Plamper’s (2015: 294–296) list of future sources for the study of emotions by historians” 
• Conspicuous=clearly visible 
• “material objects such as christening garments and grave textiles provide a wealth of opportunities for reconstructing material vocabularies of emotion” = emotional significance, sentiment and meaning subconsciously brought along with the idea of a gift or something handed down generations, or something to signify a culture = links to wealth, protection, tradition, expensive materials and rarity which can influence the response of the person who engages with the item. 
• “material manifestations of particular emotions such as love” 
• Emotional meanings of textiles linked to the process – such as textiles having connotations of women’s domestic work = holding a lot of context regarding the history of graft and women creating to survive or creating for a reason that is deeply important to them = for an income, children’s clothes or something sentimental like bedding / cushions etc. = personal. 
• “Women were and are memorialized through the products of their needles and spindles, whether plain sewing or elaborately embroidered bed curtains” 
• Lots of energy and labor going into these techniques and process for an important outcome. – time consuming, skills admiration, comfort 
• The life of the person who owned a piece of clothing before someone else, hand me downs and generations, sharing clothes n materials, the rips and rough textures symbolizing- or literally representing wear, tear and the fact that someone has lived and experienced things in these clothes.  
• Comfort of having something from when you’re younger, such as a baby blanket or a toy. 
• “Furthermore, the ability of clothing to retain the shape of previous owners can evoke the physical presence of long dead bodies.” 
• Artifacts – taking readings from them, different interpretations as well as factual evidence you can get from found objects and what they can tell you about a period of time, a person, a feeling, an historical event etc. from either observation but also touch and analysing the material/processes/wear and tear etc. 
• “archaeologist Sarah Tarlow attests that her empathetic reactions to the study of burials directly influenced her research questions. However, she cautions that our emotions cannot be used to understand emotional experiences across time or space, although they can provide personal insight into the complexity of feelings that motivated past actions” 
• “Why should historians not keep a kind of fieldwork diary about their emotions during archival work?” – Plamper 
• ^ This is an interesting point, as you cannot ask someone at the time what they were thinking because the time has passed, and the object is the only thing you have as reference of what you are researching – historians have knowledge and context of the era of what they are researching and their opinions of the emotive responses of the artefacts they are investigating could prove to be of use – or at least provide context/more complex opinions of certain situations. 
• “In turn, Tarlow (1999: 30–35) states that nearly every human experience is mediated by emotion, therefore the past cannot be understood without its consideration.” – This quote really resonates with me as I agree, human experience, and in this context, the process of constructing and object using materials is done to create something which would in turn effect an emotion along the way. 
• “Robinson likewise characterizes the historian’s work as a “powerful affective experience,” describing the thrill of chasing up evidence and pleasure of finding treasures in the archives” 
• “the potential of objects to elicit particular emotions does not end one or even 100 years after their creation. As objects move across time periods and regions, they still retain the power to move us” – opinions are ever-changing and therefore the meaning of these objects/archives etc. Could develop, become more positive or negative considering the research that has developed over time- if new things are found out then this could change the meaning etc. As well as the fact that emotions change after a while, if people remember certain things or new links are drawn to an artifact then this could change the way we view something. 
• “The sources studied here include extant objects, paintings, letters, diaries, conduct literature, newspapers, and parish records.” 
• “rare glimpses of the emotional histories of neglected social groups, such as the yeoman farmers studied by Antonia Brodie, or poor Londoners analyzed by Hilary Davidson.” – allows a voice to be heard from underrepresented groups- or more information to be found out about a period of time/group of people that have previously been kept in the shadows/overlooked within a historical context = resulting in withholding evidence or less factual pieces of information. 
• “The authors utilize a range of disciplinary approaches, including archaeology, anthropology, art history, and genealogy, in addition to histories of emotions, dress, and gender. These disciplines offer different starting points, methods and lead to differing lines of enquiry, yet the goal is the same, to investigate why people have emotional responses to objects, how these meanings were created, and how they can be extracted from things themselves.” 
• Archaeology – “the study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artefacts and other physical remains.” 
• Anthropology – “the study of human societies and cultures and their development.” 
• Genealogy – “a line of descent traced continuously from an ancestor.” 
• ^ Therefore the quote above explains how the context of something as well as the development of how people evolve, materials and processes change, and cultural differences between the present and the past can influence different questions to explore and a range of possible outcomes which are unique to what is being discussed and investigated. 
• “Sally Holloway (2016) has suggested focusing on particular revealing moments such as the creation, exchange, and display of textiles, considering the clues provided by symbols, colors and materials” – symbolism through colours has significant cultural history to it, different colours can mean luck, wealth, protection, positivity, hierarchy etc., materials can also have the same connotations, especially of wealth- more expensive fabrics for people who can afford it leading to their appearance reflecting the attitudes and reactions of their persona- all through the textiles used within their clothing. 
• “Moreover, scholars such as Oliver Harris and Tim Flohr Sørensen (2010) have created new linguistic frameworks to structure their analysis. Their effort to interpret Neolithic emotions using archaeological sites was structured around a quadripartite framework considering “emotion,” “affective fields,” “attunement,” and “atmosphere”.” – another example of situations reflecting the context and reactions to certain artifacts/objects. 
• “The issue begins with the process of accessioning an object into a museum,” 
• Accessioning – “record the addition of (a new item) to a library, museum, or other collection.” 
• “Bridget Long develops the theme of emotional crafting in the domestic environment by using diaries to consider the pleasures and consolations provided by sewing for women in eighteenth-century England” Interesting topic to discuss as sewing could have been emotionally draining and labor extensive with negative emotive connotations attached to it, relating to the forceful act of having women do this type of work by habit, rather than out of love contrasted with the idea of women looking after their own selves and children and therefore sewing builds up impressive technical skills which could result in it becoming a rewarding outlet as a hobby. 
• “Anna Schram Vejlby explores artistic representations of middle-class women knitting in portraiture of the Danish Golden Age, emphasizing the power of crafting in embodying romantic and maternal love.” 
• “She demonstrates how emotional value can be extrapolated in the absence of textual sources by analyzing how mothers utilized the color red, silver coins, and metallic threads as magical strategies to protect their infants.”  
• Extrapolated – “extend the application of (a method or conclusion) to an unknown situation by assuming that existing trends will continue, or similar methods will be applicable.” 
• ^ Above quote explains how traditions can cause security and comfort in a process as well as having an outcome that is known and expected and could be built upon throughout the years as skills and methods change and improve. 
• Magical strategies providing more spiritual trust into how powerful an object/material can be in the eyes of someone else. 
• “end of the life cycle to uncover histories of dignity, pride, fear, disgust, and grief” 
• Raising new queries regarding the personal implications of objects within Hilary Davidson’s research into “nineteenth-century burial textiles and the affective power that the surviving scraps have over her as an individual and scholar” 
• “flammable “gossamer” fabrics elicited wonder in nineteenth-century visitors to the ballet, which could quickly turn to horror if tutus were set alight by gas lamps” – juxtaposition between a positive outcome and something extremely traumatizing and damaging. Further enhances the idea of the fragility of fabrics, expanding on ideas regarding their lifespan and the waste that can occur with said objects/materials/textiles = development of chemically flameproofed garments / building on the construction of technical fabrics, adding new meaning and context behind the materials- protective. 
• “Threads connecting these articles include gender, memory, faith, and rituals of the life cycle” 
• “Women were frequently tasked with preserving a family’s memories, with large-scale textile projects such as quilts conveying memories across generations “ – the idea of freezing a moment in time using textiles is something I had not thought about much previously, as this is something I would usually associate with photography/film therefore bringing new emotive meanings to the function of textile creation and using them as artifacts to tell us about a particular moment in time in a way that a photograph cannot. – Bringing me to the idea of textures as an underrated sense/ underrated way of being able to connect a feeling to how something feels/how it was made etc. 

The Photograph as a Construct? – Lecture Notes and Analysis

The Photograph as a Construct?

NOTES:

• shared ideas of what photography is
• question how we may define it
• photography theory – truth in photography
• documentary photography has more authenticity and integrity than overly  constructed images
• nan goldin/ corrine day /
• gregory freedom – more carefully constructed, high production values – maybe more cinematic,
• could find value in either of these
• paul hyman – untitled, from ‘Sefrou’ series “the shopkeeper’s gesticulations appears to be aimed at the camera but were in fact directed at the drari, the crowd of young boys, gathered behind Hymanu
• reproduction of real events
• close to the truth ?
• simultaneously a truth and a lie – photography
• in the book “Photography and Anthropology” Christopher Pinney says – authoritative nature of the image – the truth that lies behind the image (referencing the quote above)
• good example showing that what you expect from an image is not what actually happens
• Jeff Wall – Mimic 1982 – observes moments in reality and the everyday and reconstructs them, appears to be snapshots / documentary style but they’re constructed images, reinvented and reappropriated to make you question something – in this image – an action in the street, questioning if something is racial aggression or a gesture, questioning the context behind it, what’s happening before and what’s happening after
• title “Mimic” reflects the way the photograph has come about and been built and set up
• difference between documentary and snapshot photography:
• “first, let us consider the snapshot, or instantaneous photograph. The snapshot is a theft: it steals life. Intended to signify natural movement, it only produces a petrified analogue of it.” – Thierry de Duve
• suggesting snapshot = fluency of time
• capturing an incident as it happens
• freezing time
• photo left behind from this moment – impossible posture, moment has been performed and the moment is frozen
• recollect images that have been captured as snapshots – candids- red eyes and things that you didn’t see before come to surface, funny faces- not reality but also super reality
• document – decisions on what to capture and what to include but the snapshot seems more informal and spontaneous = inner fakery if the audience assumes to much abt the element of chance involved
• capture – creating images with a camera – outside of ourselves, otherworldly quality
• snapshot – lo fi / amateur aesthetic – purposeful style
• Martin Parr – prejudicing in relation to photography – exploitation, utilising these if properly understood – “photography is a naturally exploited medium, i’m not ashamed at the fact that i exploit people. one of the things that i am very interested in is generating the idea that we are all part of the problem
• two way dialogue when looking at imagery; content / context – position that it’s given to us from, more sympathetic to image depending on what it is, bringing cultural understanding to image
• in praise of the snapshot : Bill Jay states “the snapshot has a dignity and an honesty that many professional photographers would dearly love to find in their own work”
• alternative way of looking at the snapshot
• example he suggested: mother watching over her children on the beach- he speculates she’s watching with concern as well as love = unexpected emotional response / drive in her to take a snapshot- argues that she is closer in spirit with the best photographers that she would realise = subject is the essential ingredient of the picture not the photographer or the process of the photography
• not concerned about her style of photography, she’s taking it in the purest form – like a recording than an imposition – construction vs reality
• Wolfgang Tillmans – Lutz & Alex climbing tree – documentary photography AESTHETIC = adds weight and personality and experience
• image FEELS natural, doesn’t matter if it’s constructed or not but looks fun and authenticity of the illusion, captures an expression on the girls face- expression of movement – what happened before and what’s going to happen
• Steven Meisel- Madonna, Like a Virgin album cover
• reveals itself as a portrait as an era in music and culture
• nostalgia to it
• idea of authentic = truth
• outtake from the shoot
• important to consider the photograph as a construct – power of photography as a construct, documentary pictures can appear to seem simple or pure might have been constructed to get the perfect “natural image” = might be more a deception than an image that you know of constructed because the audience is aware of it from the start – more honest and revealing truth about its intention
• converse ways of looking at truth in photography
• A good article – image flow called Artifice of Photography by Nathan Lomass (in study materials) – talks about a lot of contemporary photographers – questioning understanding of reality – truth in photography comes from the revelation of an artifice
• Clare Strand – A girl in two halves, from the series Conjurations 2007-9
• Photographic practice during lockdown :
• Julie Cockburn – balancing act – photographers gallery london
• uses found imagery and appropriates the image and therefore changes its meaning (close to what i enjoy doing)
• by mark making on the surface of the image (try this !)
• her work refers to covid – personally she finds it hard to look at her work without seeing it through the lens of the pandemic
• “like everyone, i carefully negotiated my way through the news bulletins and supermarket isles, cautious not to become overwhelmed with the enormity of the pandemic. while in isolation i noticed how much we connected by sharing our creativity on social media in an act of sharing and being seen, our bread, our gardens, our dances, our cardboard generated projects, this is my show and tell.
• Elena Helfrrcht – inwards – isolation diary during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak 2020-? Shown at 15 (fifteen gallery) as part of a group showcase called Hurry Up its Time
• Semblance – look at the artist statement in case you typed it wrong
• “inwards is a series of photographs, examining my time in isolation in london, uk, the images have been taken inside of the house and in nightly walks in my neighbourhood in london, focusing on symbols and representation of the world within and the events around me. when thinking about self isolation in quarantine, the concept of inside and outside changes its weight and context. the current circumstances forced me to retreat inside in a double sense; in house and into myself. as being secluded from the outside world and all of its distractions is an invitation for introspection which is almost impossible to decline. moreover, i am hiding inside because i fear something from the outside might enter my body, or the body of those i love, an uninvited guest, the thing unpredictable inhabiting me, making a home within my fresh nesting within my breathe until there is no space left for me”
• untitled by elena helfrecht / the onion tree by elena helfrecht
• Nick Knights zoom photography – linked article that explains his processes and a separate article on a models view on creating virtual photoshoots- several photographers have explored different ways of doing this through a computer screen/ video chat etc.

Undertaking this lecture, although not necessarily focusing on photography as my specialism, allows me to still understand the concept of different types of narratives used within the construction photography in terms of authenticity and capturing different moments whether that be for an editorial or a more candid style. I found this lecture particularly interesting because I have always been fascinated by the careful manufacturing that comes with a photographic shoot for an editorial as well as being interested in documentary photography/more candid and natural shots. Even though I might not want to focus on photography for my final major project, potentially including it within my own collage work could be an outcome I could work towards, as well as the fact that it is always useful to understand ways of critically analysing photography.

Photographers such as Corrine Day and Nan Goldin construct their images, but the way they present their subject appears in a more authentic way which comes in correlation with the way they position their models, the makeup, setting and context behind it. Such as Corrine Day’s several shoots with Kate Moss; she appears to be having a natural facial expression, not overly posing or creating a scowl or intimidating expression on her face similar to a lot of editorial modelling shoots, and the clothes she is instructed to wear are not usually flamboyant or overly glamorous, such as her being in something mundane such as jeans and a t shirt or her underwear, but not in a sexual tone. 

The argument between these images being more authentic compared to actual documentary photography intrigued me as the latter is seen as the ultimate natural style of photography, however seeking out the opportunity to photograph a specific scene in the hopes of finding people that fit the image that the documentary photographer wants to take, which is therefore planned, could be seen as more staged than if a model were to pose naturally in order to fit a brief. A documentary photograph could be seen as a reconstructed image, as it’s a snapshot of the real world but taken carefully and chosen to capture something in particular, similar to an editorial. However, the difference between a snapshot and documentary photography was also pointed out, a snapshot being far more candid and less thought out conceptually, a pure emotional response to a situation in order to freeze a feeling and hold on to an emotion forever saving it as a “fluency of time.”
 

Another argument suggests that snapshot photography could be seen as more informal, due to the fact that there haven’t been days spent seeking out a location, constructing outfits and styling with makeup and hair products and therefore is more unceremonious. This does not necessarily have to have a negative connotation though, this could add more legitimacy to an image and make the audience feel more accustomed to buy into this type of material as it could therefore having more meaning. 

SKETCHBOOK SO FAR – WEEK 4

Visually, I am feeling positive about my sketchbook as I enjoy the style of my presentation, which is very important to think about when showing my work to tutors or catering it for an audience for them to see it effectively and easily. I’ve explored a few online exhibitions and artists that have caught my eye.  

I feel as if I have a long way to go and believe that I haven’t put enough in my sketchbook considering we are on week 4. This has proven to me that I need to book some time in to focus on my sketchbook and therefore I have booked in to go to the studios on Monday as I am falling slightly behind on that. 

My goal is to do another 20 pages by this time next week with my own experimentation

TO DO:

 

 

 

 

 

 

TASK 1 TUTORIAL AND NEXT STEPS 

TASK 1 TUTORIAL AND NEXT STEPS 

In preparation for my Task 1 tutorial, I scanned in my sketchbook for my tutor to look at easily, however, next time I will be sure to make it into a PDF document instead of having the separate JPEGs as this would look more professional and seamless in terms of presentation, which I need to be very aware of at this stage. Prior to this meeting I had felt unsure of the direction of my work as I had not narrowed down my concepts to something niche, I had been doing general research to gain a wider understanding of art and design in different forms so that I could find something that catches my eye to expand on and investigate further. However, I had a lot of loose ideas floating around in my mind which made me unsure on how to progress.  

My tutorial was extremely helpful as my tutor made me focus on what my favourite projects have been during my time on fashion communication and to start with that as it is important to do something that I genuinely love and build from that point. Illustration, visual promotion and the magazine project were by far my favourites, I don’t particularly feel confident in styling and I enjoyed photography but I don’t feel as if I want to focus on that for my project; however I would like to incorporate it at some stage. My main focus is on collage and graphic design with hints of illustrations as this is what I am drawn to the most and I feel more effective working towards. The idea of a zine was highlighted to me as this would be perfect for my style of working. Writing my blogs has also been enjoyable for me and have previously done a bit of poetry for the illustration project and my level 5 option module which would be great to incorporate more within my creative practices. Improving my writing skills is something that I am keen to do, through the use of article writing, critical analysis, essays poetry and blog posts. 

Personally, I feel as if I need to go through my sketchbook and take notes on what to do next creatively as I haven’t actually created any creative outcomes or experimentation. My book is lacking in creative outcomes and therefore I need to dedicate a few days of doing solid work in either the studio or the library, as I can’t work that well in my own house, in order to keep up to date and find my feet within this project. 

TASK 2 TUTORIAL AND NEXT STEPS 

TASK 2 TUTORIAL AND NEXT STEPS 

Prior to my tutorial for task 2, the historical and contextual studies part of the module, I was really stuck on what direction I wanted to go in therefore I decided to do about 10 different points of research on my blog, in different areas of art and design that interested me in order to find some sort of theme or common ground to them refine my work and progress further into the module successfully. My main areas of interest were looking at Linderism, an exhibition by artist Linder, as I enjoyed the collage process she created, as well as the context pf the style of the work in relation to the era that she made it in; the provocative symbolism within her collages being realized in the 1970s which was around when women’s rights movement was at its peak.  

Artists like Nigel Henderson caught my attention due to the way he used photographs and distorted them manually along with creating photograms using a negative scanner; I appreciate the experimentation in creating something that looks unique and original, something I need to push myself to do further within my own creative practice. The HATE Zine I discovered on Dazed Digital also had imagery that stood out to me visually, the uncomfortableness of it all made me occupied in finding out more, and discovered that the zine pushes the narrative of talking about ‘taboo’ topics relating to sex and the body in order to normalise situations that are usually not discussed in depth as well as opening the discussion of sexuality and the body in a contemporary creative context that differs to a lot of magazines I have seen previously. Also, designer Juluis Raymund’s body typeface was another considerable influence of mine as I had not seen anyone do this before and once again the uncomfortableness made me want to explore it further. 

When coming to the tutorial, I was aware that I had not refined my idea as I should have already, and therefore sought out some guidance regarding this. Understanding the common imagery or themes within my research helped me to form the beginnings of an idea so I could refine my concept for my essay down. I suggested to my tutor that with Linder’s provocative images, researching into Pantone’s release of potentially taboo colour ‘Period Red,’ HATE Zine and their images of bodies covered in baked beans along with fruit dripping all over someone’s chest, my common theme was potentially provocative imagery, representation of the sexualism of content in editorials etc.  

Therefore, my next step that I was advised to do was gain some more academic written research such as journal articles, literature, and academic books as I was lacking in that when discussing my research with my tutor. I also need to brainstorm and start refining my ideas down further, I am feeling positive as my tutor gave me a good starting point, but I need to go to the library and find some books relating to my concept. 

NOTES FROM TUTORIAL

different depiction of the body

different methods of depicts of the body

task 2 – one vain to draw out as a theme

really drill down into

critical reading

planning how it’s going to look

what kind of delivery

linderism – bodies – provocative – sexuality

broad range what is it that you find interesting

dada – surrealism

increasing normalisation of sexually provocative imagery

been acceptable within the fine arts for a while

widely consumed by art lovers

worked it’s way into mainstream culture

real – not playboy

descriptive words that are used in specific imagery

mundane sexually provocative image

tupac’s

use of sexually provocative imagery in other artistic forms – early photography and collage

and how it’s crossed over into mainstream and editorial photography

READING

think of key words

think about the language they have used in the blog articles

journal articles

start to filter out what you find interesting

refine more

take forward for task 2

13th november

open a word document – use it as a dumping ground, collate all sources

find books

critical reading

journal articles

wrote down ideas in word document in full sentences

any question or topic that relates and forms to mind

or any new ideas or new takes on the topic

CLOSE READING – TACIT DIMENSION

• “Tacit knowing is the way in which we are aware of neural processes in terms of perceived objects”  
• Tacit means “understood or implied without being stated.” 
• Subsidiarily means “Serving to assist or supplement” 
• Structure of tacit knowledge – thoughts have elements where we are aware of the reason of our thoughts- existing in our bodies 
• Thinking is not only intentional – fraught with the roots that it embodies 
• From-to structure 
• Originality breeds new values- breeds them naturally. Can’t choose a new set of values but we create or adopt them based on what is needed 
• Soviet ideology under Stalin= denied justification to the pursuit of science = questions of philosophy – believed “science was a morbid symptom of a class society; under socialism the conception of science pursed for its own sake would disappear, for the interests of scientists would spontaneously turn to problems of the current Five Year Plan” saying the “conception of science” is interesting to me because science to me, is something that is usually factual, intellectual and done for a specific purpose to research or find out information and therefore doesn’t appear to be conceptual in my eyes. Also “the interest of scientists” is another interesting phrase as I feel like scientist should surely be neutral in their opinions if they are into factual topics and situations, their opinion would not affect what they were to find out anyway as research would back up all of the claims. 
• “denial of the very existence of independent scientific thought came from a socialist theory which derived its tremendous persuasive power from its claim to scientific certainty.” – this is also a very interesting approach as I just stated that I assumed how scientific facts are facts instead of having an ulterior socialist motive 
• No freedom of thought  
• “we can know more than we can tell”- science could have, and in my opinion definitely do have, the answer to a lot of things that would help save thousands of lives such as remedies to cure illnesses etc., however are being withheld due to money- begin able to prove these important pieces of information/products to people who can fund it and therefore creates a selfish and dystopian approach to science and something so ‘innocent’ as a cure for an illness 
• Recognizing a face amongst a million- but sometimes we can’t tell why we know this face- this knowledge cannot be put into words= police created something where we could select a variety of different facial features which a witness can select individually, to build up a face that they recognize– for example to find a criminal. “This very act of communication displays a knowledge that we cannot tell” 
• Recognizing the moods of a face without understanding why 
• “Ostensive definition” – ostensive meaning by direct demonstrating e.g. pointing,  
• Gestalt psychology says that we could understand a person’s facial features/ expression by understanding our awareness of the details without knowing what they are/what they mean 
• Physiognomy – a person’s facial features or expression, especially when regarded as indicative of character or ethnic origin 
• Knowing what vs knowing how – similar to intermingling bodies; these two work in conjunction with each other and influence each other’s direction to concept 
• Tools, probs, pointers=the art of knowing- verbal pointing 
• Psychological experiments revealing the diabolical machinery of hidden persuasion 
• Experiment – presented someone with many syllables that don’t make coherent sense, after showing certain of the syllables, administered an electric shock=anticipating the shock at the sight of “shock syllables”- but when questions couldn’t say what they were= expect the shock but not what made him expect it 
• Another experiment- exposed someone to shock when he happened to say things that related to certain “shock words” = person could anticipate shock by avoiding saying the associations, but they were doing it subconsciously 
• These above experiments prove that one can know more than tell 
• Subject vs observer 
• Basic structure of tacit knowing 
• Connecting two terms of words/sounds vs association and anticipation, relying on awareness of shock  
• Combining two kinds of knowing = shock syllables and shock associations formed the first term, and the electric shock formed the second term, “we know the first term only by relying on our awareness of it for attending to the second” 
• Disattending from certain things for attending to others – first term to second term, first term being proximal and the second term distal 
• Proximal – situated nearer to the center of the body or the point of attachment. 
• Distal – situated away from the center of the body or from the point of attachment. 
• Proximal term is having a knowledge that we may not be able to tell 
• “Relying on awareness of features for attending to the characteristic appearance of a face”, “likewise, relying on our awareness of a combination of muscular acts for attending to the performance of a skill” 
• Functional structure of tacit knowing 
• Begins to alter as we are anticipating an electric shock – learning what expect, looking out for it 
• Phenomenal structure of tacit knowing as shown above 
• Combining functional and phenomenal aspects, signify approach to shock when the sight of certain syllables makes us expect the shock – gives them meaning to the individual experiencing 
• Characteristic physiognomy = meaning of its features, physiognomy expresses a particular mood 
• Identifying physiognomy = understanding our knowledge of features for attending their meaning once placed together 
• Semantic aspect of tacit knowing “tends to displace all meaning away from ourselves. If we use a tool, and we are accustomed to it, we locate the tool’s effect (the meaning of its impact) on ourselves (e.g., our hand)” 
• Ontological aspect of tacit knowing  
• Ontological meaning “relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being. “ontological arguments” 
• 2. showing the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area or domain. “an ontological database” 
• The way we see objects is by awareness of efforts in our bodies which we can’t technically feel, we can determine the size, shape etc. of an object using our body without feeling it= internal process to qualities of outside objects 
• Understanding the dimensions etc. of an object naturally- eyesight vs using tools and probes 
• Extending subception to subliminal stimuli  
• Muscle twitches when there’s an uncomfortable noise= increasing frequency of twitches = tacit knowledge, internal instinct, automated response, u controllable 
• Philosophers have argued that perception does not involve projection 
• Tacit knowing relates to nervous system 
• Events in our brain = subliminal twitches; perception= tacit knowing 
• “our own body is the only thing in the world which we normally never experience as an object, but always experience in terms of the world to which we are attending from our body” understanding how our body reacts and exists in the world that we exist in 
• German thinkers stated – empathy=proper means of knowing man and their humanities 
• Repeat a word a lot = reduced care in how you say it = mistakes = loosing substance and confusion, examining something or going over it too many times can make us lose sight of it 
• “recovery never brings back original meaning” 
• Going over something too much with too much analysis and detail can destroy the meaning or bring a new meaning to it, but changes the way you thought of it before 
• “The experience of seeing a problem as a scientist sees it in his pursuit of discovery” “all research must start from a problem” – only successful if it’s a good problem/original, problems are hidden, a good solution is finding something so hidden no one else would have even thought it existed,  
• Plato, in Meno says searching for a solution is not needed because you know what you are searching into resulting in no problem, or unsure what you’re looking for and therefore can’t find a solution to something that you’re not looking for 
• Plato’s solution = “all discovery is a remembering of past lives”, explanation has hardly been accepted, neither has any though 
• Humans progressed by encountering problems and solving them 
• “if problems nevertheless exist, and discoveries can be made by solving them, we can know things, and important things, that we cannot tell” 
• Truth vs fruitfulness, recognizing true statements 
• “Anticipation of discovery, like discovery itself, may turn out to be a delusion” 

The Tacit Dimension was the second close reading that we were instructed to do by our tutors, and I had thought that after completing the first one, I could potentially find this slightly easier however I found it more difficult to comprehend. The language was very complex like before, but it took me a while to understand the different terms and ideas that were being explored as I hadn’t heard about them before. Once again, I still viewed this as a good thing due to the fact that it will allow me to improve my critical thinking, allow me to explore complicated types of thinking and reference important movements within philosophy that connect to the ideas of art and design movements.  

Tacit means understood without having it directly explained; therefore, automatically knowing something. Therefore, the idea of tacit knowledge reflects on automatic responses, sensory actions, the nervous system and anticipating results due to signals from the brain. The experiments that were discussed helped me visualize what the author was saying as he was giving examples for me to understand further. One of them being in an experiment, someone was used as a test for tacit knowledge by being given nonsense syllables to listen to and after a certain one they were then shocked with an electric shock. Although they did not know what the syllable meant as it had no prior meaning to them, they started to anticipate the shock without stating how they knew.  

Soviet ideology under Stalin meant that they believed in denying justification to the pursuit of science which were questions raised in general philosophy and therefore it was  believed that “science was a morbid symptom of a class society; under socialism the conception of science pursed for its own sake would disappear, for the interests of scientists would spontaneously turn to problems of the current Five Year Plan” saying the “conception of science” is interesting to me because science to me, is something that is usually factual, intellectual and done for a specific purpose to research or find out information and therefore doesn’t appear to be conceptual in my eyes. Also “the interest of scientists” is another interesting phrase as I feel like scientists should surely be neutral in their opinions if they are into factual topics and situations, their opinion would not affect what they were to find out anyway as research would back up all of the claims. “Denial of the very existence of independent scientific thought came from a socialist theory which derived its tremendous persuasive power from its claim to scientific certainty.” This is also a very interesting approach as I just stated that I assumed how scientific facts are facts instead of having an ulterior socialist motive. Science could have, and in my opinion definitely do have, the answer to a lot of things that would help save thousands of lives such as remedies to cure illnesses etc., however are being withheld due to money- begin able to prove these important pieces of information/products to people who can fund it and therefore creates a selfish and dystopian approach to science and something so ‘innocent’ as a cure for an illness. 

Knowing something subconsciously without understanding what that actual thing is, was discussed in length within this text which I thought was something interesting to debate. On one hand, the tests prove that we can indeed sense something happening, like the electric shocks even though we would be unsure on how to communicate how we know, but you could argue that it isn’t us knowing it in our brain, it’s us being fed signals to react to something, therefore making us not understand it at all as it is subconscious. 

“Anticipation of discovery, like discovery itself, may turn out to be a delusion”  

This quote stood out to me as this could mean a variety of things. The idea of searching for something that is not there creates some sort of fake delusion that we are trying to make up, and therefore is man-made. But on the other hand, you could argue that it wouldn’t be any sort of delusion if you’re discovering new information, even if it’s new to our particular brain and discovered by someone else previously. The act of discovering a problem could be delusional as everything has a solution already to our knowledge, there could be nothing left to discover as it is all already out there. Relating to the quote of “if problems nevertheless exist, and discoveries can be made by solving them, we can know things, and important things, that we cannot tell” because if we already know the thing (even if we can’t tell) then we have discovered it already? 

Overall the ideas discussed were very complex for me and therefore I am unsure if what I was discussing even made sense but I enjoyed reading this type of text even though it took me a few tries to get to grips with it. I will challenge myself to read more academic texts and attempt to critically analyse them like I have done with the past two as I am keen to improve my critical writing skills for my dissertation project. 

CLOSE READING – INTERMINGLED BODIES

• “through making we constitute the way we are in the world” 
• Connections between the body and the universe 
• Extend across space meaning synchronous and across time which is diachronous 
• Keywords: agency, material, narrative, tact, apparatus, network, meshwork 
• Everything is man-made, artificial, constructed 
• Understanding what the artificial vs natural entails when we’re born into a world like this 
• What we make changes the world around us whether that is on a large or small scale 
• Object orientated ontology (O.O.O) – philosophy 
• Social sciences and material culture- why we make and the way we make 
• “early making was prompted by the body’s awkwardness and fragility” – making things to fit in easier into the world and easier for our bodies 
• Referencing “The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (1985), Elaine Scarry” 
• Making a chair is for a body- and the body adapts to the changes of sitting down, while being accustomed with extra artificial man-made legs 
• “altered surrogate” – body being awkward and not able to function I terms of sitting or holding stuff- which is why things are made to accustom the body – like a prosthetic 
• “pain is without object”, desire is to desire SOMETHING, fear is to fear SOMETHING, pain is pain 
• We do not feel the pain of others, or things that are not in our own bodies 
• “in any real understanding of making there needs to be an appreciation of the unmaking that shadows it”- counter reactions, or what would happen if this thing wasn’t made, or you tried to do the thing you want to do without the thing being made in the first place 
• Scarification of the earth through deforestation is pain on the earth which affects us bodies who exist on the earth and therefore allows us to become intermingling bodies with the events that occur where we exist even though we do not physically feel this pain- it will affect us and our successors etc. 
• Bandage= substitute for skin, aids pain, protects wound= making helps pain 
• “trans-corporeal pain” meaning the idea of pain beyond the physical sensation 
• “we may consider touch that has sensitivity, delicacy, diplomacy and seeks to produce harmony” 
• “tact is both ethical and poetic” 
• Ethical- aiding, helping bodies function etc., poetic tact meaning political, economic, social and cultural context- making takes place in those spaces 
• Making is the relationship between pain on one side and the imagined objects that help on the other side 
• Craft is dependent on unconscious skill from practice and repetition 
• Good that the usually provide physical examples of what philosophy they are talking about in order for me to understand and visualize a theory 
• Tacit knowledge is like understanding how a human can make a tool work from action to reaction and finished product/ reaction of the tool 
• Making pots is possible by a history of pottery- limitations of pottery make incredible reactions but when the skill is detached from the reason why they are making something, then you can question and reconfigure their work for new motivations and create things with more purposes. 
• “tacit knowledge is an incomplete theory of thinking and making” 
• Design elevates making- concept to outcome 
• Design based making vs craft-based making 
• Design based making – material engagement, strategically motivated  
• Know how vs know why 
• A design will detail the making of something without necessarily having the practical skills to complete the making of it 
• ‘Toaster Project’ making a toaster from scratch when he could only make a sandwich; getting materials, refining them, working them into a toaster design, modelled on a toaster he found= worked but not well, failed after one use= proving that it had to make something by yourself that is essentially made by an entire civilization 
• “only distinction between craft and design based making is in the primary motivation”- know how vs know why 
• “everything and nothing shoulders blame and credit” 
• Material invention between the materials and the craft from the beginning of the construction to the end, while designing takes place and an affect is made- a solution. 
• Connection between the materials, the process of transforming the materials, the design of how to use the materials, why it is being made, who is making it and how they learnt these skills as well as the execution of the final product as well as years of improvement and areas to expand on this as an entire process 
• A situation and circumstance that produced the aesthetic 
• Craft work- like someone making pottery or china etc. relates to authentic tradition and history- such as Korean narratives and symbolic images- patterns relating to the actual product and design 
• A maker needs to appreciate where they are acting from 
• Economic apparatus acts on practice meaning that you make to sell and what you make is determined by what you sell 
• Needing to sell (or make money) can affect the maker’s motivations negatively, affecting quality of authenticity. 
• “Making should first make sense to a maker and second resonate with others” 
• Nicholas O’Donnell Hoare – MA Design Critical Practice at Goldsmiths connected his jewelry making to the practices of goldmining 
• Origin of the metals that he sourced to use, truth about gold mining/ gold extraction – learned about toxic environments within the production of gold, mercury is banned in gold mining but the price of gold has increased x3 since 2001, mercury is the easiest way to extract gold, still used where it is illegal because it is cheap, small scale gold mining is the second worst source of mercury pollution in the world, fossil fuels are worse, in the Amazon Basin village they use mercury to extract gold, mix it into the river with bare hands- exposing themselves to potential mercury poisoning, positing the river and environment = wanted to give up making jewellery, created mercury condensing kits to combat the problems he faced, making it safer as gold mining is crucial to their survival 
• Nicholas O’Donnell created a service where people could redesign their jewellery (such s if they had a divorce or outgrown the design)- cost extracted from the piece of jewellery, each new design is created with less gold than original,  
• His narrative for that was an ethical concern 
• All making practices are done in a 4d meshwork; spatial, temporal 
• Production and consumption – mining, extracting, exporting, wearing gold – and different geographies – river, village, Brazil, England 
• Poetic making – ethical – uses that within his practice to solve problems – social and environmental 
• Critical perspective into making is important = think through how what we make influences us  

Doing these close reading tasks have proven to be a challenge for me as I hadn’t read something this academic in so much depth for quite a while. I really enjoyed taking the time to read through this text although I found it very difficult; this is a good thing because it means that there is room for improvement and teaches me that I need to stretch my academic reading further as my skills are not the best as they should be at a third year level. During lockdown I became increasingly more interested in philosophy and different theories as I started to read more philosophy-based fiction books and became fascinated by the ideology that people came up with. The never-ending questioning of a topic made me engrossed because there is never a right or wrong, only thousands of possibilities as well as thoughts and feelings to back up these claims. 

One of the concepts that engrossed me was the idea that currently, almost everything in the world is manmade and carefully constructed, little is natural anymore and anything that has been constructed, has been constructed as an extension of our bodies to exist comfortable on this earth. An example of this being a chair made to aid us in sitting down on   desk, allowing us to rest easier by giving us an artificial extension of legs to support us in doing an everyday task. We would need to do the everyday day to survive and therefore using the chair would assist us in making our lives more comfortable, as one of the themes in this text was stating that our bodies our awkward and unable to do certain things, which we have fixed using the art of craft and making. 

Another concept that came to light in this text was the idea that pain, unlike fear or desire, is without object. Pain is internal and emotional, yet fear is motivated by fearing something in particular and desire is similar. However, you could argue that a material object could cause pain, something you can see could reflect an emotional reaction of pain as it’s known that you can sometimes feel pain physically when you’re emotionally affected. On the other hand, you cannot feel someone else’s physical pain, but you can empathies with their fear or desire as pain is not only subjective, but also dependent on what inflicts the pain or what is deemed as pain.  

Design based making versus craft-based making was something that I had not previously explored before. The idea that something is made to solve design problems, to improve on previous designs and to construct something visually pleasing whereas there’s craft design, which is physical and tactile; that “only distinction between craft and design-based making is in the primary motivation”- knowing how to construct something, using materials and craft processes versus knowing the reason that something is being made, the effects it would solve and who it would be used for. However, you could argue that these two work in conjunction with each other as opposed to juxtaposing. The design would influence the way that something is constructed and the way that something is built could suggest that there would be improvements for designing it. 

Nicholas O’Donnell Hoare’s work for the MA Critical Practice at Goldsmith’s proved the point of ethical means of production would come in handy with my business project in learning how to source materials and using machinery in an effective manner. He discovered that with gold mining, which is what he based his final major project on, people in Brazil use mercury to extract gold which is illegal in most places as well as incredibly dangerous with the risk of mercury poisoning. He identified a problem and worked to combat the problem and find a solution; therefore, allowing his craft to become ethical and solving social issues worldwide. 

Overall, I found the text difficult to get into but found that eventually I was getting used to the language and understanding the different concepts being discussed. I didn’t agree with everything said but that is the beauty of philosophy in my eyes because everything can be argued upon and different people have alternative solutions to the problems that are brought up within philosophy. I enjoyed doing this close reading, but it has shown that I need to pick up more academic texts especially for writing my dissertation as it allows me to explore more complex subject matter, and really delve into the specific and obscure topic to relate back to art, design and fashion.