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[joseacordova]

Portfolio Brief Day 2

This day was sorta uneventful, we learned how to use indesign wich was nice, but apart from that not much, 

we had and opportunity to take pics of our work, and i noticed how much work i had actually done

I think this is one of the reason for doing the portfolio aswell, sorta like a reflection on all our coursework, and i have been having fun discovering projects i have forgotten all about 

I have been doing evening live drawing classes as well , i have so many that they dont fit anywhere else in my room is a bit of a problem to be honest haha

Im starting to see the shape of this portfolio and hopefully i will do something substantial.

[joseacordova]

CHS Week 8- Essay Guidance

Today i did the horrible mistake of arriving extra late, i got here at the middle of t he lecture so i missed out on a lot, so this post will maybe be short.

Today we got advice on how to write our upcoming essay

I have already decided to do min on comics in different formats and how they tell visual narratives. Im gonna focus on sex fantasy by sophia foster dimino, lady of the shard by ggdg and homestuck by andrew hussie. The reason for this is that i think these show just how varied you can be with format and use it to enhance the narrative at place, this being why these are some of my favorite comics ever and i think about them constantly anyways so i see no reason why not to talk about them.

Sex fanatasy has been a particalur recent influence, too much of and extent maybe so i hope too sorta, exorsice these influence away ala sarrach horrocks , who famously says this, in her own words she seeks to kill her influences and take away what she needs and keep moving 

http://mercurialblonde.squarespace.com/my-writing

Ill leave a link to her website  here bc not only is she a brilliant critic but also a brilliant comic artist

When it comes of the shard its one of those very , once in a lifetime comics, and gets at that tenderness and genuineness i want to have in my own work, i talked about this in my comics post, the more self indulgent narrative with these heavy themes that end up feeling even more powerful bc the story feels human. Im using the essay as and excuse too analyze it more endepth and hopefully be able to take away something of it for my own work, i really want to make these types of stories, because  in the end, i just want to make people smile

[joseacordova]

Friday Seminar -Portfolio brief

 So this friday we got briefed on our new project, which is to make a portfolio of the work we have made through the term.

We got shown different examples of ways to portray your work in your portfolio , and then in groups looked for examples for ourselves. 

Thinking about how i would develop my portfolio, im worried it will be bland just because i don’t play around with the form, the physical one atleast, enough. I have moslty stayed in the more tradional side of things, hopefully by then i will have more interesting ideas fro what to do too “spice it up” but that could easily go sideways since sometime i do the opposite an put too much into a single thing.

For reference i startled looking at other university student’s porfolios to have and idea of what can i do, considering im still a student and not as good as i can be in the future(hopefully), and even then these uni students are amazing

https://robgilliam.carbonmade.com/projects/6382182

https://www.mabelye.com/

these mostly focus on working for animation so a lot of the work put in it is catered to that, i would have to do something different since (due to the coursework we get) my work sorta jumps around everywhere ahaha, and also I assume they dont expect a “professional quality” to it, and they hope that we experiment with ways in witch we can portray ourselves and our work to others

[joseacordova]

CHS week 7: Comics and Visual Narrative

On CHS we discussed one of my favorite things! comics!

We discussed a lot of the introductory ideas of comics , something that caught my attention was right at the end when maggie mentioned Moto Hagio and other shoujo manga artist as comic artist that are truly advancing the medium in interesting ways.

This caught my interest because ive always thought this so i felt validated hahha

We live in a culture were things enjoyed by girls are seen as lesser,cheap or tacky, but shoujo manga have always bee at the forefront when it came to exploring more topics related to sex, gender and sexuality . Shoujo holds such a rich history and such a plethora of different stories that all qualifying as “lower stories’ is a huge disservice to the genre but the women who make these

I love shoujo bc of the ways in which it can portray enhanced emotions ,  not sticking to the “logic” we in our world have, and the authors are self aware of the silliness in this enhanced emotions, but like theater ,they hope their audience suspends their belief to enjoy these rich stories.

Moto hagio does this in spades, and her art greatly complements it

her art has such a delicate and entrancing quality, and constantly breaks from the rules to show these extreme emotions,

I really found interesting for the tendency for Japanese comics to have a more “film like” language, altho ppl would say it originates from tezuka, i would say its and eastern tendency as well. 

Connor willumsen talks about this here, the idea of the western painter and the eastern painter. To put it simply, the western painter paints what he sees and the eastern painter paints what he feels, its really interesting. I recommend watching the video not only because of this but because connor willumsen is a genius comic artist.

I want to take some of these things in my own practice, I like media that dont care if its being self indulgent or silly but its with a heartfelt intent, i value honesty and genuineness over anything, it might sound like a dubious thing but, you just feel it when it is like that i suppose. 

[joseacordova]

Everyday Connections Day 3

For this last day we had to put our chosen set to images wherever we wanted, then we went around and looked at them so we could take notes and see how people made connections between images

One set of pictures that really interested me where ones that were sticked on these dirty windows, and the room was dark, the images were all of decaying objects but they formed a house. It was really atmospheric in a sense, looking at them you could hear the images scratching against the window and just sorta this disturbing feeling of looking at these decaying objects.

In that same room there was a set of images that were hanging from the ceiling, these were great because , all of them portrayed a morning routine, but the images were hazy and they moved around bc of being hanged from a ceiling, a swell as the lights of the window peering through these pictures. What ended happening was that it gave them the sense of being memories, they constantly shift around, rearranging , some become less focused and some enhance, it was very good!

A last one that really took me away for its “simplicity” was one were all of them were connected by a piece of rope, it sounds obvious, but ppl like me who are lazy and dum wouldn't have thought about it , it was just a very sequence too look at , and the colors were beautiful

I would say that in conclusion while, i dont believe i gave it my all in these seminars the usefulness in it is apparent , and hopefully future me decides to implement some of these things in his work

[joseacordova]

CHS week 4:Interaction Design

This week we went to the V&A for the exhibition play and disrupt, ive already been once but it was nice to go again

The exhibit does a sort of introductions to more in depth thinking into video game design, they selected a variety of video games to show the ways in which interaction can be done. Almost all of them i have played so it was very fun to see them shown in this big gallery space

The first game shown was journey , and indie game with a focus on atmosphere, one thing i didn't know that surprised me was the footage shown of the developers recording themselves walking and running the way the mute characters in the game walk, it seems obvious in hindsight but it really shows how thoughtful most design choices in video games are. The idea of working in video games has crossed my mind before , thats how i initially got into drawing and seeing the process has definitely reignited that spark.  

(and image of some of the production art of splatoon)

In a conversation with my peers someone mentioned how in splatoon , the ads show across the Tokyo metro were for the fashion line in the game itself, this was was very interesting because not only is it a fictional brand its adverting the brand that is the game itself and its focus on fashion. 

Another interesting thing was a video we watched that showed the community aspect of video games, specifically eve online, were big companies and political warfare are born from the players themselves by being a sandbox game. In sandbox games theirs no end or goal, their are just systems in place that players can utilize and explore, therefore being why its called a sandbox game. This is incredibly intriguing because of how much simply players can push a game to its limit with no narrative or end goal at all, taping into that general want from amassing power (talking specifically in a capitalist society, im not sure whether their is other types of communities in eve online but it could see it as a possibility were there is players that just seek to live peacefully within the game , but the ones with the highest amounts of power have a lot of say in how the game is run therefore why the event show in the video is so talked about)

Something that i will note was the focus on portrayal of minorities and women in video games, specifically on mafia 3 .

A genius mechanic in mafia 3 is that, the main character is black, if you spend to much time in a white neighborhood , eventually the cops will be called. This is genius because the game FULLY puts you in the shoes of a black american, making any player experience a real and present social problem

A final thing i will talk about is language specifically coding language, its interesting because this has been and area of interest of mine , more specifically in spoken word more than coding but its still similar.  A part of the exhibition focused on how most popular coding language is only accessible to english speakers, greatly disadvantageous to  a lot of countries, especially third world countries. I point this out because I have thought  about this on a daily basis as well , how to even get a chance of success you NEED to learn another language if its not your first your already in a very steep learning curve , coming from a country were English is not our first language , i was privileged in that i could learn it early on, but most of my peers back home don’t know how to speak or even read it. This simple fact cuts them off from getting jobs that have higher wages , were for me i learned it form tv as a kid, and native english speakers  just know it, we immediately  have more chances of success . Im interested in general to explore narrative with language and how i can imply certain things by purposefully breaking rules of language

[joseacordova]

Friday seminar : Everyday connections day 2

This i REALLY messed up,, i went to the wrong group without even noticing until halfway trough so now im double deeply embarrassed.

Apart from this today we talked about the different ways in which we can make these connections between images which were typology , chronology, continuity. For multiple reasons i wont get into defining each one extensively but something to get form is  that, they are very interchangeable and one can exist at the same time as the other

We went again to arrange the images , this time i brought more so i had more to play with

this time we went trough some of the same combinations from last time, one that was different and which i found fun was when we were asked to organize them chronologically (sadly i dont have a picture bc my phone died), an something that i noticed was that as time went one the pictures got darker and the last few were all in nighttime , literally representing the passing of a day.

I tried to bring a wider range and scope in the images, but still found myself in a rut and none of the images produced gave any interesting results.

I know the intent of this project and i wish i could make something of substance but i feel that all of them have been lacking

Next week we will bring our final selection of pictures so hopefully i will have something for then

[joseacordova]

CHS week 3: Information Design

I found the topic of information design incredibly interesting, since we can take pictures now, the idea of the only form of visual recording being drawing might seem foreign to us.

I found this image show in the presentation especially interesting.

The story behind it is that, when explores went finding new species of animals, they couldnt take pictures, so they sent a detailed description back so an artist could make and impression of it, the result being this.

This is interesting because its something you would see in a magical realist story, especially the thought process behind it 

this one if even more far of since its and interpretation of a plant but, supposedly, people still assumed they were actually creatures in disguise and would draw the roots as human like

This all ties back to my original interest in magical realism and the showing of how different people and cultures perceive the world, I definitely want to investigate further and see what other things i can gather.

I like the idea of superstitions and pre conceived notions of how the world works seeping into how information is relayed, although its also a pretty morbid concept since we can see , even in present day, how thee pre conceived notions held by powerful people can be used to make harm.

So of i ever wanted to include any of these concepts in my work, i would try ti find things  that are a celebration of it ? maybe? i cant always ignore the bad in these things, but i also want destigmatize superstitions as inherently bad things , even tho obv theirs a LOT of instances were it is used for harm,  im rather talking about it when its inherently tied to a culture and their nationality , language etc, since one could say superstition is everywhere , i would say even especially as artist

[joseacordova]

Friday Seminar: Everyday connections

last week we had been briefed, we had to bring in 25 pictures of things we witness on our day to day, I normally don’t go out a lot so this will be particularly hard but i tried my best to take interesting pictures.

(I messed up and arrived late[deeply embarrassed], so I missed part of the seminar )

I mostly focused on minute things such as this sticker that was in a light post. I didn't have any particular reason for it, i guess since in general the scenery is just “drab” (prob me just being immature) , and i guess i generally like drawing small objects that inform  the bigger picture i guess it could come from that.

when it came to arranging them i felt myself stuck, i found that the images i took weren't varied enough and I couldn't find a lot of interesting connections but i stil found it enjoyable, this came in direct contrast to when we traded our images.

lauras images were extremely varied and very nicely printed ( I printed mine in photocopy paper) and something I noticed was that here images focused on bigger sweeping landscapes (and just better taken pictures) but it revealed to me just how different surroundings can be perceived

By the end of it , we were told to bring more images next week

Ill try to be a bit more varied with the subject matter to hopefully produce more interesting connections

[joseacordova]

CHS term 2 week 2 Sensory Design

For this lecture we talked about the ability for media to activate senses that might not seem apparent at first glance . Something that was eye opening to me was the fact that there is about 33 senses than what is initially told to you in school. I was particularly interested in the mention of comics, I knew that comics have the ability to be “a temporal” or just the ability to control time but never I had tough about the other sense it could replicate so im hoping to explore that more in the future.Another thing of interest was Sensory Ethnography and Sensory History. Especially Sensory History since I am interested in exploring the way culture affects the ways we experience taste, time. Aswell as the social, political and economical impacts the “taste” of certain items affected a country.

Ive thought about this a lot in relation to having moved over to the UK and how certain food/drinks are perceived (eg. coffee, sugar cane, rice) and how events history change the perception of these 

( sugar cane as representation of american colonialism and exploitation  and used as oppressive force on the Puerto rican civilians but doubling as symbol of hard work as well)

[joseacordova]

A Day In May

(I decided to include the story written in the workshop on this blog , just to be able to have the product  made from  the progress recorded  in here)

Waking up the Ninth day of may without any rain ,Javier knew Carlos had already left .His sheets were neatly folded and set , Javier’s  were thrown , shifting around, making indescribable patterns let to be deciphered. Javier walked outside were the grass greeted the sun, taking a whisk of the wind , it meant time to work. He tended to the  house made of Boards  and zinc as exchange for staying there , a treaty sealed with a friendly kiss. Javier didn’t mind this transaction, he was glad that it had happen , he fixed damaged floors, feed all the cows, pigs, lizards, horses and dogs that while weren’t neither of them  were , freeloading  in the pen adjacent to their abode, he tended the meat out so the sun could  bless it  with a golden hue , He climbed 100 feet up  trees to reap the finest platanos to hold a feast for both of them . He walked upwards , downwards and leftwards, doing all manner of jobs but stopped  in the kitchen,  indicated by a hanging bed sheet, a  he noticed that their was no spices to prepare the food or preserve the meat. Javier  walked two mountains over to Aurelianos House, asking for salt , its advised to only buy salt from Aureliano ,unlike others , he blesses his, not only will meat last longer but its helpful in protecting households. He jumped the fence down to the plaza, were Tata , Javier’s Aunt ,offered strangers  items from  her collection of spices , honey to renew lost love, paprika to remember something forgotten   , pepper to erase a bad dream. Javier didn’t need to hear these explanations, growing up with his aunts explorations into distant towns  taught him as much as he needed , she slipped him a jar of her sofrito , shut tightly to contain the flavorful odors . She also gave him a bundle of hay ,Tata and everyone around stuffed their ears with it to protect their ears from the  sound of Juan and his band of out of tune men playing songs to hopefully produce the first lucky rain of may in this Ninth day of the month . He passed Dona Marias bakery , with those huge ovens and fogones all to make ends meet, Javier bought her famous majarete , a delicious mixture of 3 types of milk and the peel of a lemon . With sweet splendor in his mouth , hay on ears and more chores to be  done ,Javier reminisced in glee at a  tragedy past.

Many months ago Javier had just received the fortunate news that his till that moment unknown father the local town drunk , died electrocuted by divine intervention ,as many residents  of vega media confirmed . At the vigil Javier was confronted by his late fathers 7 wives ,all refusing speak directly at him , The fortunate news came from the fact that  the old man had amounted a fortune thanks to bank interest and it was to be divided between his children .“He doesn’t have his  eyes ” “He doesn’t have his smile “ “He doesn’t have his hair” the wives exclaimed as they compared Javier’s face to the pile of ashes that was his father. All refused to the legitimacy of the letter sent to Javier by the Department of Family Matters “You can never believe those, I got a letter saying that my mother died from scurvy , but we later found out it was from seeing the devil to many times in her sleep” The 5th wife exclaimed as she ripped the letter in bits and feed it to the wind. Javier wept big salty  tears  from rage ,damaging the dresses of all the women, men and pets present. Javier stormed out  , Carlos, the town reader, charged with anything minutely related to the reading or writing , witnessed Javier in his sea of tears. Javier felt a seed of shame grow  in his chest, “he must find this very funny ” instead Carlos offered Javier a meal at Dona Marias bakery ,her  sweet bread a cure for any ailment of the heart .

 Sitting at dona marias, Carlos asked the questions and Javier answered them. Small talk turned into secrets , and Javier was trapped as the 2nd round of coffee with milk appeared and the conversation dipped into a pool of bitter and sweetness . Why were you crying, do you care, do you mind , but why , could you , did you , can you , I would? . This arose more from curiosity than pity, pity was unknow to Carlos, or alteast hard to dig, thought Javier .They didn’t get a sight of each other compared to when they were younger , the day Javier left his home and moved with tata, he had bumped into carlos , who was reading, the only person who could read in vega media. This enthralled Javier, only somebody so curios would learn to read , he thought. Carlos looked at him back , he gave Javier a book but didn’t move and inch of his mouth. A moment of realization came over Javier, Carlos couldn’t speak, and from that moment on they thought each other their secret. Javier the art of the spoken charm , and carlos the art of the written word. When both had learned what they needed they set on their ways and never spoke again, and occasional glance perhaps, but nothing more, that’s it until Javiers dad died and he found himself here in front of Carlos with all the questions in the world and so much more. He knew this feeling, but  didn’t give it a name. That meeting continued ,ended and echoed  through the metal walls of Carlos’s house.

Javier thought of this as sweat trickled down his curls in this Ninth day of may without rain , aligning the zinc plates so they wouldn’t fall as easily as he cleaned the curtains that determined the boundaries in the home. Hearing Carlos footsteps outside, promptly sitting on a chair. Javier immediately made the coffee with milk and brought it outside, Carlos sat  looking away to the clouds. The cups being set as he silently looked outside. So many letters to send and read and write  is tiresome when you’re the only one who can . Javier felt that same feeling that was felt so many uncountable months ago when they talked so intimately after so long. It never happened after that, he stayed here hoping for that one more sentence , for that one more question, be it curiosity or pity , Javier didn’t care , he just wanted to listen to the voice only he had listened too. Javier went to relate to Carlos the details of the day the things he had prepared and the things he would do , a delicious mofongo with shrimp for dinner ,  of how he made sure to put oil around the house so it wouldn’t fall , how he made sure to buy the correct milk, how he saw the locket and kept it safe, about his friends Marinas booming tarot reading business thanks to  her immaculate accuracy, how they should visit sometime,  how they should learn to ride one of those horses , how they should cook those pigs for Christmas, and Javier noticed how all the I and mes turned into us and we, He  went quiet in shame. The clouds whispered to each other and broke the silence, roaring and shaking as all the animals screamed and ran. “IT’S THE FIRST RAIN OF MAY” Javier exclaimed, excitedly showering in the lucky water for this to be his year, Javier ran amok and extended his arms towards Carlos who stood there in shock, as if something had captured his chest and crushed it into a pulp. Carlos took the rain, felt the touch of its luck. In that moment Carlos spoke , but not only that he spoke , he said those words that had haunted Javier till his death, that had haunted him in the most enchanting and morbid way, that would haunt him as he took  Carlos hands in his , as he repeated those three words , to be only know by him and to be spoken to nobody else as they swore under the rain as it drowned out those three words. Both of them waiting for that last twist of the knife, a backhand slap to wake them up, for their unexpected tale to end in the way they expected, it didn’t , it just kept existing here in this ninth day of may with its first shower of lucky rain.

[joseacordova]

Friday Storytelling Workshop #4

Today was the last day of the storytelling workshop and we presented our stories.

Even thought felling satisfied with something as and artist is frowned upon, i feel as if the story i wrote “A day in may”  stepped me  in a direction I have been trying to find ,in narrative and style.specifically .Retrospecting on it i wish  had made the Gay relationship more obvious (although few of my peers noticed it) i felt as if i still stayed a little to safe when it came to being more upfront and raw , but i also enjoyed writing and reading some slightly more elusive and in Jane”s word “sensual”. But this doesn't mean i wont experiment with other subjects and forms of expression, the opposite, I’m even more excited to dip myself into the unknown and explore what stories i can tell. They advice to find ways to implement our development in this workshop in our visual practice and i have a lot of ideas of what to do know, illustration wise and in my comic work.

I was also very excited to present, I understand peoples hesitation with wanting to not present , but whenever i make a piece of work i want to show it everyone, because dammit i worked on it , and it may suck and be the worst thing ever but here it is. Presenting felt exhilarating, and being to speak something so personal felt invigorating . Theirs a lot of things I wished I had done a lot better , presentation and writing wise. I definitely read some parts to quickly since i was scared i would take too long , apart from being anxious of messing up. Writing wise their is parts I felt were a bit unclear, and actions that went by a bit too fast, as well as not expanding upon the two main characters relationship.

I was the first one to go so I also got that out of the way ,so I could enjoy the rest of the presentations without worry.  Their was a lot of great work  that I definitely want to experiment with , such as making more meditative slow passed work, I’m also interested in delving into horror  in some way that isn't gratuitous or exploitative , which i found one in particular to be , but didn't brought for sake of not delving into gender politics and objectification of women in the middle of a crit. And speaking of crits, I hope i didn't step over a line since i felt i spoke to much each time.

But all in all this workshop has been of extreme help and manage to help not only me but lots of my peers churn out work, and I hope we manage to do this type of thing again between ourselves so we can keep pushing our writing skills.

[joseacordova]

Friday Storytelling Workshop #3

For this Friday We discussed the assigned readings , I managed to read 2 of them, the yellow wallpaper and the tell tale heart. We mostly discussed what the author was intending to express and how they did it , about the use of points of views and such. For the second half we started working on our final writing assignment which we have to present out loud for next Friday.

While conversing with someone about ideas for the writing , i talked about how i wanted be able to show my experience, in this case touch upon aspects about  growing up in Latin america and explore Latin american literature more. I have been thinking about this a lot about since moving away from home and then to the UK, and how always all media I consumed portrayed  a white suburban  lifestyle, and growing up i felt that was what i was supposed to do this  . Is it until later that i realize that this is not a truth , and this more than just “more diversity” (which is also important and their should be more of) , but its more about how I want to show how I view all these experiences other people have  but how i view them due to the country i grew up on , in the system i grew up in, how i view these places that are foreign to me (That have long histories of colonialism) and how these experiences are even more informed by my sexuality and mode of expression.I also want to give some justice ,  a chance to shine, to the experiences of people I have met and left to study here.  Its also about the simple fact that i believe the most resonant stories are ones close to your heart, I don’t wanna shock people , I want to paint a tapestry of emotions ( be it something i have experienced or someone I know) ,of somebodies life and show it to people , to take whatever they want from it be it love or hate. 

I have  already written down some ideas for the specific topic,and some magical realist books and short stories to look into for ideas in a writing style that helps me divulge great chunks of information in in few sentences as well as different modes of description, such as “Two words” by Isabell Allende and 100 years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  and I’m hoping to develop it early enough so i have chance to write and edit with time to spare.

[joseacordova]

Friday Storytelling Workshop #2

 We went over the things we discussed last Friday and expanded upon them.

We talked about brevity and how to boil down things to capture the reader, so we discussed our 100 word stories and after reading them out loud we had to reduce it to 10 words. We also  had to write and introduction to a story in few sentences that had “something terrifying” happen .

These small writing prompts really made me think of how to word things in ways to suggest certain deeper emotions, something that connects back to the idea of wanting to describe a situation and less the actual place. I explored this way of writing in my 100 word story  but I feel that I went to much on the opposite direction were everything was little but to dubious and disconnected. Even though I am  dissatisfied with the outcome i decided to make a little zine with the writing from this assignment to see how i could show this story visually.  For I it was thinking to much about the lense so i feel that it was more visually oriented from the start.

For next week we have assigned readings , which will be used to discuss writing techniques used by each author . I hope that future me has read them all , so we will see .

[joseacordova]

Friday Storytelling Workshop #1

On Fridays now we will be lectured on storytelling and writing. 

in the workshop we went mostly over a general conversation about why writing is important , what do we do with writing , why do we do it, and the concept of authorial voice and how to find it. I found Jane , our lecturer, to be giving out a lot of helpful advice when it comes to our practice

“your currency is your view of the world”, something she said that really resonated with me, it digs down to that idea of how we as individuals perceive the world, in a figurative way. Its a very obvious statement , but being told about it again really opened my eyes.

We had to write a quick story with the prompt , “The leaf” and i based mine on the aftermath of hurricane maria, trying to describe the initial shock. As i had little time it was very rough and to direct and simplistic, but it is and idea that i wish to develop further, since I wish to implement Puerto Rico and aspects of my upbringing in my work. We also  did and exercise were we had to describe and emotion with the five senses, but use foods or objects. I liked the idea of using foods as adjectives, since in my own work i have been focusing a lot on not describing objects or places at all and more how to describe the feeling of a situation,since i myself find literal  descriptions of rooms or places boring and uninteresting* (obviously this doesn't mean ALL , and its a case by case basis , but sometimes you gotta generalize to make your point) so I hope that with these workshops i will be able to develop this further. 

Another that i really like was another thing Jane said 

“Something new can be a question” I like this since it i believe it states how anything we do doesn't a clear answer, we don’t need “Point” but and experience, i really relate to this idea since i have talked about this concept before and how finding a new thing to say doesn't have to be as hard as it seems.

Lastly for next Friday we will need to write a story in no more than a 100 words , which I assume is to see how we can boil down something to its essence and how to catch the readers attention,  I already have and idea in mind so we will see how it goes next Friday.

[joseacordova]

Presentation- Friday Seminar #4

Its after today , the day of presentation, that all of my questions were answered and the nature of the project made total sense to me and wished i had done better.

My group opted to talk over the video too give it a feeling of this being more of a conversation than it is a formal presentation While I am glad for this and idea of the receipt booklet, I would've have wished for a more engaging way to have presented , as indicated by one of my tutors. Seeing the different ways other groups tackled the project, especially the group with the word echo, really opened my mind to the possibilities of letting the subject inform the mode of presentation.

If anything these past 4 weeks have managed to help me better understand how to interpret the briefs and be able to get a creative solution , and while i hope to be able to explore a more expanded way to express whatever it is i get assigned to do in the following months

[joseacordova]

Friday Seminar#3 - Presentation

We got asked what  presenting meant, I don’t know how the school system in the U.K is so maybe its a cultural barrier or something that happens in university, but i’ve noticed that I’m no really sure what I’m supposed to do or answer half of the time. Initially i felt that it was more that since its art school they expect us to think more about “artistic” answers rather literal answers such as “ we present to publishers, companies. etc” but in this case they were looking for this answer. The reason I initially didn't want to say this answer was that i believed  it was too literal and believed that wasn't what they wanted and keep second guessing myself.

After this situation  i have been  rethinking the way i tackle my art education here. I've have been to focused on pleasing the instructors and not looking into what i want to do which has definitely lead to some frustrations during my personal time. Another thing that made me realize this was when paddy and nick mentioned the phrase “Form follows Content” to make the content and the form will be there , not the opposite way. Arriving here and focusing so much on making a form into which i have to fit to please not only my instructors but my peers taste had made me hit a roadblock and this seminar made me realize this, even tough its not related to this at all, m still glad i did.

Back to presentation, My group has decided what to do for our presentation in relation to our word, join. Were gonna bind a book , made out of collected receipts and items we find trough the week and record ourselves doing this, record the process of binding,  record the process of editing and after the video explain the process , define some terms , and explain how to get to the workshops were we made the book. After three weeks unsure of what to do we finally have a set goal , so im finally relieved.