Evie Pope Unit 5

Throughout the start of this Unit I was focusing on enquiring into different fields of research. I attended an exhibition at the Tate Modern, showing the work of Sophie Taeuber-Arp. I read books relating to the areas of art I am interested in and I saved these for later. I then added these to my reference list which can also be seen on my blog. Since I kept gathering knowledge throughout this unit I was able to successfully inform my practice and creative outcome. I let myself be flexible with my approach to the brief and I made sure that in the first few weeks of the unit I was interpreting the brief in different ways and exploring different ways of showcasing my work. I found that throughout this unit the friday workshop sessions were really helpful in informing my creative practice. I would take the things I had learnt and implement them into my working outcome. It also really helped to use my technical skills to fully realise the visions I had for my booklet and pdf deck. In evaluation, the design process of this unit was relatively straightforward and I enjoyed the things I learnt through the Friday workshop sessions.

This is the final week of this project and I have just been tying up all the loose ends before the hand-in on the 27th. I have emailed in my printed portfolio to the college print services so I will be ready to collect it on Wednesday morning. I have also finished my presentation deck and I am planning on presenting this online on Thursday as opposed to in person on Friday.

Although over the last few days I have been ill with the flu I have managed to finish everything to the best of my ability. My original plan was to go to the library and do my work from there but obviously I have been unable to do so. Instead I have been working completely from home – of course, this is far from what I would have hoped but I think that even given the change in circumstances I am happy with the work I have completed.

Going forward into the rest of the week I will be rehearsing the presentation to make sure I am properly prepared for Thursday. Apart from that I believe I am done with everything. I only need to make sure that this blog is linked on my PDF deck and be fully ready for my presentation on Thursday.

1. Berger, J. (1972) ‘Ways of Seeing’ Penguin Modern Classics
2. Berger, J. (1980) ‘About Looking’ Pantheon Books
3. Benjamin, W. (1935) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ Penguin Books Ltd
4. Graysons Art Club (2020) Television Program. Chanel 4 Television Documentary. London, England
5. Graysons Big American Road Trip (2020) Television Program. Chanel 4 Television Documentary. London, England
6. Grayson Perry – A Show for Normal People (2021) Comedy Show Tour, Brighton Dome. Brighton, England.
7. Schiele, E. (1918, published 1922) ‘Portrait of Paris von Gütersloh (Bildnis Paris von Gütersloh) from The Graphic Work of Egon Schiele (Das Graphische Werk von Egon Schiele) Rikola Verlag, Verlag Neuer Graphik, Vienna
8. Aluf, N. (1920) ‘Sophie Taebuer with her Dada Head.’ Stiftung Arp, Berlin
9. Taeuber – Arp, S (1918) ‘Geometric Forms (beaded bag).’  Museum fur Gestaltung, Zurcher Hochschule de Kunste, Zurich. Decorative Arts Collection
10. Taeuber – Arp, S (March 1917) ‘Sophie Taeuber – Arp performing to the sound poem by Hugo Ball in costume and mask probably by Jean (Hans) Arp on the occasion of the opening of the Galerie Dada’, Zurich, Germany
11. Borzello, F (Janurary 2018) ‘Seeing Ourselves: Women in Portraits’ Thames & Hudson, London
12. Andridge, R. Hooper, D. Saxon, S. Savage, J. The Seeds (1965) ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’ on The Seeds. Sound Recording. GNP Crescendo
13. Morrissey, S. Marr, J. Joyce, M. Rourke, A. The Smiths (1987) Strange Ways Here We Come, Recorded at The Wood Hall, Beckington, Somerset. Rough Trade Records, Manchester
14. Byrne, D. Weymouth, T. Frantz, C. Harrison, J. Talking Heads (1983) Speaking in Tongues. Blank Tape and Sigma Sound, New York City. Compass Point, Nassau. Sire Records.
15. Hoch, H. (1919-1920) Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer – Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, Collage, Mixed Media. Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin
16. Isle of Dogs. (2018) Film. Directed by Anderson, W. Los Angeles, California, Unites States of America: Fox Searchlight Pictures.
17. Moonrise Kingdom (2012) Film. Directed by Anderson, W. Universal City, California, United States of America: Focus Features.
18. Rushmore (1998) Film. Directed by Anderson, W. Burbank, California, United States of America: Buena Vista Pictures.
19. Run of the Mill – Demo (1970) Harrison, G. Song. London: Apple
20. Goldin, N (1986) The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Book. Aperture. New York City, New York.
21. Alex Danchev (2011) 100 Artists Manifestoes – From the Futurists to the Stuckists. London, England. Penguin Modern Classics
22. Mary Quant (1966) Quant by Quant London, England. V&A Publishing, 2012 Reprint Edition.
23. Chagall, M (1950) La Mariee. Gouache and Pastel.
24. Dali, S (1946) The Temptation of St. Anthony. Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium, Brussels.
25. Matisse, H (1910) La Danse. The Hermitage, St Petersburg.
26. Beardsley, A (1893) The Climax. Tate.
27. Byrne, D. Kalman, M. (2020)’ American Utopia.’ Illustrated Book. Bloomsbury Publishing. London, England.
28. Picabia, F (1920) ‘Philosophical Dada, To Andre Breton’. Martigues
29. Albertine, V. (2014) ‘Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys’. Faber, London.
30. Fanni Tutti, C. (2017) Art, Sex, Music. Faber, London.
31. Chekhov, A (1903) ‘Lady with Lapdog’. Russkaya Mysl, Moscow, Russia
32. Tate Modern (2019) Off Print Workshop. London, England
33. 1991books.com. 1991 Books (Online) Available at https://1991books.com/ (Accessed 24^th October 2021
34. www.zak.group Zak Group (Online) Available at https://www.zak.group/ (Accessed 24^th October 2021)
35. INQUE Magazine. INQUE Magazine (Online) Available at https://inquemag.com/ (Accessed 24^th October 2021)
36. Ultimate-guitar.com. 2021. ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS – 1,100,000 songs catalog with free Chords, Guitar Tabs, Bass Tabs, Ukulele Chords and Guitar Pro Tabs!. (online) Available at: https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ (Accessed 24^th October 2021)
37. Berger, J (1967) ‘A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor.’ Cannongate. Edinburgh, Scotland.
38. Matisse, H (1953) ‘The Sculpture of Matisse and Three Painting with Studies’ Poster. The Tate Gallery. London, England.
39. ‘Boiler Room Festival’ (2021) The Cause, Tottenham Hale, London, England.
40. Power, C (2018) ‘Mothers: Stories’. Faber. London, England.

This week I have been focusing on making the printed portfolio and presentation deck on InDesign ready for the deadline on the 27th. Today I have made a lot of progress with my printed portfolio and I already have 12 pages and I still have more projects to add. The same goes for my presentation deck. I am planning on revisiting this later on in the week to refine the work I have already done.

In evaluation, I could’ve started doing my printed portfolio and presentation deck much earlier to give myself even more time to go back and refine to make sure I am happy with the outcome before hand in. However I am still very confident in my abilities to finish this project on time and be happy with what I have made.

On Friday of this week I caught the cold/flu that has been going round since the start of the term. Annoyingly this means I’ve has to cancel my plans this weekend to rest and make sure I am better for the hand in next week. I was planning on working through the weekend and finishing all of my work with plenty in time for the weekend, but instead I think I shall be resting. Of course, it cannot be helped that I catch the flu at this time but I am still hoping to be able to work a little bit so I have done enough in time for the new week.

I think that on Monday I will travel into uni and spend the day in the library to catch up with the work that I have missed out on in the last 3 days. Currently, it is Sunday evening and I have just completed my reference list and printed portfolio. That means I am ready to send of my printed polio so I am able to send it off with plenty of time. I don’t have too much left to do, I think I just need to do the self evaluation form and make sure I have uploaded video links and pasted them into my digital presentation so I can share them when I give my presentation on the 28th/29th.

In evaluation, my time management for this project could’ve been better. Although it was unavoidable to fall in so soon before hand-in I definitely could’ve completed more work before two weeks before hand in. On the other hand, I am still really happy with the work I have completed and I think that I have completed this project to the best of my ability.

Over the last week I have been curating a list of references. Gathering materials that inspire me and my practice. So far, this list includes lots of books – I find that reading has been very inspirational in my practice and I really value using influence from written word in my work. I have also gathered references from various musical sources. This is because I find that listening to music while I create work can have an influence in the type of work I create – I definitely have a preferred genre of music to listen to as I am working as I find it aides the design process. Going on into this week I will be keeping an eye out for more influences that I can use in my list of references. I’m hoping to be able to go back to revisit this list even after the end of this unit to remind myself of things that influence me and my practice.

Furthermore, on Friday I attended a workshop in which we were given a series of 15 minutes long tasks that we would use to create mood board. This was a really exciting and fast paces project which I really enjoyed doing. Finding visuals that i thought captured the essence of myself and how that is reflected in my work. I think that this project really helped me think deeper about myself and how I am reflected i my practice. In evaluation, this is going to be very helpful for the final stages of this project. Helping me think about how I want myself to be reflected in my presentation deck which will be viewed by my tutors and the presentation that I will be giving to my classmates and peers.

On Monday of this week, we were finally in the collage lecture theatre again attending a talk by The Fandangoe Kid on authenticity in her work. This talk was incredibly moving, detailing extremely difficult experiences and how The Fandangoe Kid has managed to turn her heartbreak and grief into artwork and how this is all based on her staying authentic to her true self and how she feels. We learned about the design process behind her work and how she used her feelings as a way of motivation. I learnt a lot about authenticity from The Fandangoe Kid and I think I will always be reminded of the way she spoke of grief and heart ache when I am creating work and trying to stay authentic in my practice.

On Friday I attended another in person workshop for another one-day brief. This week we had to make a zine about who we are. Following on from last week I went along the same lines of showing who I am through my favourite things. The list of my favourite things being roasted broccoli, Matisse, northern Italy, David Byrne, books, the Velvet Underground, Guinness and of course, Dada. I spent most of the day making little hand drawn illustrations of these things to include in my zine, I was also planning on including typography, but I ran out of time. I think my main problem with these one-day briefs is that I always run out of time and end up rushing to make a final piece which I am never fully satisfies with. This is going to be something that I try and focus on this week to make sure I don’t make the same mistake again and finally make an outcome I am proud of and can perhaps include in my presentation deck for the final project of unit 5.

This week I attended the Unit 5 briefings. We were given all the relevant information necessary for the upcoming project, the first of our second year. We have been told to make a series of deliverables based on 4 of our strongest pieces of work. This work can be from university, art foundation or any self-devised projects. I am looking forward to experimenting with the layout of my presentation deck to make sure it best showcases my strongest work of the last few years. As well as this, we must collect 40 references of what inspires our work. I am also looking forward to curating this list. I think it will be rather tricky for me to narrow the list down to just 40 references as I am influenced and inspired by so much. I am planning on curating a list of my favourite films, albums, songs, books, and artists to use for this list of references to back up my strongest projects. Hopefully there will be an explicit link between my favourite work and the work I create, showing my active influence and inspiration from art and design around me.

On Friday I attended one of the first in person workshops of this year. WE were given a short one-day brief entitled ‘Who Am I?’. This was an interesting brief for me to work on. I first started by looking at the work that inspires me in hopes of finding a place to start for my poster for this brief. A book I have been reading recently is called ‘100 Artist’s Manifestoes – From the Futurists to the Stuckists’ Selected by Alex Danchev. This book has been incredibly interesting, and I have immensely enjoyed exploring all the different kinds of manifestoes and proclamations from different artists of who they are and all about their work. I was recently reading a DADA manifesto written by Francis Picabia published in February 1920. The manifesto consists of 7 short chapters. Starting with CHAPTER I, ‘DADA has blue eyes, a pale face and curly hair; has the English look of young men who are keen on sport’. My favourite is CHAPTER III, ‘DADA has always been twenty-two, it’s slimmed down a bit in the last twenty-two years. DADA is married to a peasant girl who loves birds’.

            Throughout art foundation I was heavily influenced by the DADA movement, my final piece being a series of 3 Dada animation inspired by the collage work of Hannah Hoch. Having had such a heavy influence from Dada I thought it a good place to start.

            After unsuccessfully experimenting with trying to replicate the Dada letter press style I went back and reread the Picabia Manifesto and I thought about what drew me to it so much. I realised it was the light jovial and playful tone of the chapters – happy yet very expressive and still showing a lot of Picabia as an artist. Who was known for his experimental portraits, enlarged eyes, unrealistic colours with unnatural and swirling shapes. Linking back to the brief I was thinking about how I could show ‘Who I Am’. I wrote short lists of what I liked and what I didn’t like. Trying to capture the same kind of tone that was seen in Picabia’s CHAPTER III.

            Since this project was a one-day brief, I ended up designing my poster as a kind of ID card. To be completely honest, I don’t really like the way it turned out. I think that I was just trying to make sure I finished the project in time for the end of the day and therefore I didn’t achieve the same affect I was hoping for in my work. I think that this may be a project that I chose to revisit if I can as the research portion of this brief was quite enjoyable.

            Next week, my plan is to continue to research the way that different artists have explained themselves through their work and how this can be seen through their manifestoes. I want to gather as many resources as I can before I start making my presentation deck, this is because I want to figure out a way to best display my work.