Unit X week 3: Materiality.

Creating a 'manifesto' and thinking more into the conceptual approach we would like to take as artists/designers, before getting our hands on any type of material to work with was an unusual approach to beginning a project as a textiles student. However, this feels now like a really beneficial way to work, due to the concept or manifesto allowing you to be much more selective in choosing materials and also allows you to see the materials in a different way. 

Working in a group of similar interests from the starting point 'creating sensations' we created our own manifesto, which will fuel and drive this unit x project and that we presented to the rest of the group. We received great feedback, as our poster explaining the 3 main points of our manifesto was clear and concise, focussing on our singular theme.

Group Manifesto.

 In terms of materials, we managed to obtain a wide range of exciting and interesting materials to experiment with, ranging from silk printing screens to neon yellow lanyards.

 

 

I'm really excited to begin the experimentation and planning of our outcome, and to reflect our strong manifesto points through these processes, with strong intentions to create something that will create a sensation that will affect all the five senses, in a fun and intriguing way. Over the Easter break, we will be thinking about and researching ways in which we could use the materials, and what we want to use them to produce. I will also be developing and sketch booking with drawings and research responding to our concept and materials. This will allow us to work very efficiently and productively when we return. 

Unit X week 2: Reinterpret, Reinvent, Remake: Manifesto's.

 Susie Macmurray 'shell'

In this weeks session we have been focused on the use of manifesto's within the art and design world, and how these can be of great importance to certain practitioners within their practice. 

By researching and printing 3-4 manifestos that, as a group, we found interesting and inspirational and explaining the reasons we chose the particular ones that we chose to the rest of the group was an educating experience.

A particular manifesto that I found interesting was artist Susie MacMurrays. I love the way that Macmurrays practice is based on this strong engagement with materials and the body, focusing on stimulating both physical and cultural associations with the viewers that encounter the pieces. It is the evoking of a feeling, emotion, memory or association from the viewer that led me to chose this particular manifesto, as I am really interested in this concept of creating a sensory experience, or creating a situation for the viewer within my own practice which could be seen as an interactive approach to working. 

This interest in the sensory experience and the creation of a situation means that I have been put into another group within the Reinterpret, Reinvent, Remake class, who also have an interest in this conceptual approach. We will be working on a group manifesto which we will present in an interesting way in next weeks workshop. It will be a great experience to listen to other peoples ideas an interpretations of this ideology, and work together to create something based on this.

Unit X Launch- Reinterpret, Reinvent, Reimagine:Rooftops

Today's launch and 'un-conference' broadened our minds to consider what key themes within art and design inspires and engages ourselves as creative practitioners.

Discussions  within mixed groups of students from different areas within the school of art was a great opportunity to hear a range of opinions on the topic of design.

Personally, the key themes and ideas which I think are things which are inspirational and important to me as a textile student are:

'Creating sensations'

The thought of holding the power to create an experience and situation for a person is a very exciting one, especially when imagining the possibility's in terms of being able to evoke feelings or emotions through something. This is an idea which I find really exciting and interesting, and something I would love to explore within my practice.

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'Future proofing' 

Planning for and expecting the unknown,  thinking about future materials and themes of importance in the future. This is such an important skill to have and be able to respond too.

Evaluation Locating Project.

Branding Project.

Overall, I am very happy with the way this project inspired and intended for designer Issey Miyake developed and the final pieces that I created. I am glad I embraced the opportunity to create work focusing on fashion as a context, to develop skills and knowledge in an area I am not usually interested in doing. The strengths in this project where definitely my use of colour and the compositions in my samples, along with the experimental heat set processes that I used. I would love to have had the time to push those ideas much further and in a much more experimental way, as I feel that there is a lot further this could have been pushed and developed.

Self initiated project.

Looking back on my intentions written in my brief for this self-written project of work, I am disappointed that I did not succeed in producing work to the experimentation and standard that I aimed to do so. Sadly, unforeseen circumstances halted this development at a key stage of my sampling and affected my concentration greatly.  However, in my final samples there are some areas that I am pleased with and would have been great points to develop and experiment with much further. For example, I love the use of foil and flock that I have used in areas of the knits, which represent this idea of fragmentation and broken image that I began with at the start of my visual research. Also, I think that the use of cable ties would have been really interesting to experiment with as useful attachments and edges, along with giving a flash of colour communicating my ideas of different emotions in the strength and weaknesses in layers of the city.

Self Initiated Project- Final pieces.

 

Although these final pieces contain some successes, such as the flocking and foil printing and the contrast of yarn qualities and knitted structures, when thinking about my intentions for this unit of work, I have not succeeding in being as experimental and definitely not 3-dimensional as I'd have hoped. Due to unforeseen circumstances last week which affected my attendance as well as my concentration greatly, I lacked the development in sampling which I was hoping for to succeed in this project.

However, I am pleased with the fragmentation of imagery and quality, and the contrasting primary colours which represent my ideas pushed through this project my by concept. I also really like the use of cable ties as an embellishment in some of the pieces, which I think could have been developed greatly and used in interesting ways such as fastenings and attachments between pieces if they where to be displayed.

If i had the chance to develop this project further,  I believe that these pieces would be much more experimental an dinteresting to communicate my intended ideas to an audience. I would also consider scale and composition much more in accordance with my context, thinking much more about spaces or places and how these pieces would fit together to be displayed to communicate my intentions.

Monday 16th February.

Although the samples that I have created so far in development from my imagery for my self initiated project reflect some of the qualities that I have intended to represent and communicate from the start of this unit of work, I need to reconsider and be much more sensitive with my colour pallette, compositions and the qualities of yarn which I have been using using together.

My yarn choices can feel slightly acrylic in some areas of the pieces which is something that I definitly do not want, so a revision of these yarns is well needed.

Furthermore, I need to begin to develop the printed imagery that I have been wanting, to represent the segments of imagery throughout my visual research. To do this I will be using flocking and foil, whcih will communicate this segmentaion, but also add to the different qualities and different feeling which represent these different layers and emotions through the city.

Scale and communication is definitly something that I need to think about when creating these pieces due to my context.

I have had some success in finding a volunteering role, as I have been asked to assist as a volunteer at an event at Salford Quays titled "PixelPyros" on Friday 13th March. This is a really exciting opportunity for me due to my interest in this field.

Monday 2nd February.

Completion of branding project.

When looking at the final collection of fabrics I have created for this branding project aimed at Issey Miyake, overall I am happy with the outcomes. I am glad that I had the chance to experiment and aim my work at a different context, and I really enjoyed working with heat setting polyester, and I think that the final samples I produced using this technique are the most successful and interesting. 

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Personally, I think that my colour compositional work and the colours in my final samples are the most successful points of this unit of work. If I was to improve on this work, I would love to take longer in experimenting and pushing this heat set process, as I feel like it could develop into something really interesting and unusual.

Self Initiated Project development.

In hope to get the chance to develop and support my context for my whole practice as a student, I have been in contact and have applied for a volunteering role at Manchester Art Gallery. Having a passion for contemporary art and gallery spaces has drawn me to this, as I would love to pursue a career under this category and so this would be a fantastic opportunity to be involved in.

Screen shot of application for Volunteering Role Manchester Art Gallery.

In terms of my self initiated project, a second tutorial with Amy this week has been very helpful in decisions about yarn colour, quality and knit techniques I want to include in my pieces of knit.  I intend to reflect and interpret the concepts and ideas behind my visual imagery, through different textural qualities and techniques within my knit pieces. For example, representing the weaker structure of the city that has been effected by poverty and uneven distribution of economic growth with fine yarns- in the colours that represent the negative connotations (reds, oranges, blacks) and in contrast, representing the economic growth in the stronger layers and connotations of the city in much more fancy, smooth, flourishing yarns.  I love the idea of these pieces representing and changing through these different structures and qualities, communicating these different emotions as intended in my concept.