#CONCEPTUALPROCESS

[artisinthemaking]

An example of a map- mapping where they have travelled by colouring in the countries 

[jnguye]

CONCEPTUAL PROCESS

A friend was doing a study on lynching for an English assignment in high school. I didn’t think much of it then and I don’t remember a lot of it either but I was sure I wanted to look into it myself. I love artists such as Goya, Durer, Gittoes and the likes of them; interestingly the ways in which they interpreted and expressed sinister, shameful yet somehow intimate events. So it was quite natural for me to have a liking for more loaded and intense topics such as this. It didn’t take much and I soon found myself neck-deep in information, pictures, documentations and events surrounding lynching and its history. Frolicking around, I came across “Without Sanctuary” by Barbara Lewis, a text which contained some very deep and graphical material particularly involving the treatment of 19th 20th century black Americans. Flicking through the text, an image really stuck with me and astonished me as to how degraded and abused; not only, were these individuals but also black America as a collective individual. The image depicts a lynched body post-death being degraded and abused, as onlookers graffiti the victim’s body with the characteristics of a clown; in reference to, the then popular, minstrelsy show.  

What I want to address is the necessity of all the events that had occurred during that time. Why black Americans? They too are humans. We share the same blood; we share the same bounty which we were blessed, yet somehow, still, an outcast, and an inferior. 

Without Sanctuary Plate1 Courtesy of the Allen/Littlefield Collection circa1900

[edwinz3460063]

Final Piece - Epic Mundanity is the "uncreative" result of both divergent and convergent thinking, also allowing me the opportunity to explore alien methods in the making of this film. It depicts an overdramatic representation of the mundanity that is writing in a book. The Epic factor is emphasised through the music which is a reversal of the tone of reality therefore explicating the use of divergent thinking. Convergent thinking comes into play in the development of ideas in terms of both filmic techniques and choices for actor and setting which all build on each other allowing for further well thought out ideas. Uncreativity is quite a prominent theme in this film as I have cut and pasted a track with the same tone  as the Death Note Epic Writing Scene, sinister yet epic. It also is an appropriation of the scene in question showing a serious side yet also contrasting it with an awkward reality as seen in the ending. Regarding alien methods, my brother, Edmund Luo gave me an understanding of the process involved in preparing a production so I adopted it partially and created a storyboard to establish a sense of direction even though my usual process was always mostly improvised as seen in Dramatic Walk Home.

[ilikeskiescofa1002-blog]

FINAL PIECE - Is This Your God? 

For this final piece I combined a lot of the ideas that came up in my experimentation. I had set up an altar and placed my materialistic monster and another bunch of stuff painted gold to resemble a statue idol. Below is a dish with money rolled up as incense, suggesting that all our wealth and toil is poured into our desires for material goods, pride, and funnily enough, wealth again. The background music is a 'paulstretched' version of my 10th documentation, which conveys the subliminal messaging and the subconscious idea better in my opinion. This piece as a whole suggests that the god we are really worshipping (whether we know it or not) is our pride and greed. We become the slaves of what we want, and money is a cruel master. 

Ideally in a gallery setting I would make the gold sculpture bigger, and also have a lot of these gold found objects hanging from the ceiling, as well as the music ringing throughout the room in the background to create an eerie mood. 

[keyfa]

Experiment Two- Chatter Box Inspired by objects that represent communication. The monotony of this chatter box humours human interaction.

We are made to feel stupid, annoyed and awkward. I wonder how people react to conversations if they're awkward?

[mitchconceptual-blog]

Week 5: Thinking Through Media

Our initial associations with bubble wrap - its context, characteristics and properties

[jnguye]

early research

[edwinz3460063]

Documentation Piece #10 - Before recruiting my actor (Matt Zammit), I took a range of photos, unintentionally planning and scoping out my setting for the Dramatic Walk Home. This provided me with a semi well prepared foundation on which I used to decide on the route home we'd take so that there would be more opportunities to capture the radiant artificial beauty of the city. These here are only a few of the photos taken. As the conceptual process here was material prepared for me through sheer coincidence, I feel that it could possibly be classified as Alien Convergent Thinking. Maybe.

[ilikeskiescofa1002-blog]

Documentation #10 - You Are Obsessed With What You Really Want (uncreativity) 

I am taking words from popular songs and stringing them together to form a sentence. This conveys how popular culture sends us subliminal messages on how we should think and act. I think music is a powerful tool. 

Songs used: [YOU] - 'You Found Me' - The Fray [ARE] - 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' - Taylor Swift [OBSESSED] - 'Price Tag' - Jessie J feat. B.o.B [WITH] - 'With You' - Chris Brown [WHAT] - 'What I've Done' - Linkin Park [REALLY WANT] - 'Wannabe' - Spice Girls 

[mitchconceptual-blog]

COFA1002: Week 5 HW

In week 4 we began our new topic 'Thinking through Media'

In class we discussed various examples of works that incorporated different uses of media and ways that media can be used to portray various messages.

In groups we selected a material which we then investigated and brainstormed about its general uses and associations. For this task we needed to think of a way that through the media (Material) we could represent it in an opposing way.

My group chose Bubble Wrap as our material - fun, interactive, playful, soft and maleable we chose to represent the Bubble Wrap in an opposing form by converting it into concrete with use of photoshop.

[katherine-m-kennedycofa1002-blog]

Assessment Task 2

Conceptual Process – RESEARCH 3 of 10

3) Gathering images of the participants

As aesthetic considerations are secondary to the concept in conceptual art and conceptual process, I have decided to remove the control of image sourcing in any conventional sense. So I will not select an image that I deem appropriately indicates how each individual looks by looking through their facebook-profile-photo-albums. Alternatively, I have decided to use their profile image of choice at this current moment or stage of my research as representational of them as a person because they have made a conscious choice to present themselves in this way. I will also take their banner picture as a greater extension of self and gather the interesting data that has emerged from this aesthetic information.

This is in keeping with ideas around ‘uncreativity’ such as; ‘plunder, copy and recontextualise’ but also relevant is the question ‘Is it ok to carry out these uncreative acts?’ This is because each individuals original intention regarding their choice of profile picture/(s) is for their facebook page however I will be taking these images out of this context and placing them with their chosen music that they listen to during a ‘break-up’ instead.

The second notion of ‘Is it ok to carry out these uncreative acts?’ brings me to an impasse as I know if I tell each person of my intentions they will try to take control of their image and change it to something ‘appropriate’ thus limiting the truthful nature of a pure conceptual idea or they will abstain from being included altogether. One participant did abstain and was so removed from the project.

For ease of viewing all of the mentioned images I have used Windows Live Movie Maker and selected .50 second for each image…I have not re-sized, labelled or provided any other information with these images as this is still a primary research phase and I did not want to contaminate the originals.

[mitchconceptual-blog]

Week 5 HW continued:

Further experimentation with the antithetic to represent bubble wrap.

By placing the bubble wrap into a container with water and placing it into the fridge the ice created a solid material which the bubble wrap was morphed into. Changing its state from fun, interactive and maleable to stiff, cold, hardened and repulsive.

[mitchconceptual-blog]

FINAL PIECE: Main Image + Close Ups

Concept: Connectivity - Through Technology

- My final piece was constructed by combining my two main iterations throughout my process/documentation. Using the screenshots of the 'physical locations' I overlaid the information of the geographical coordinates and the mutual friend amount of my unknown Facebook friends. 

- Inspired by the work and concepts of Shannon Rankin and Jim Sanborn the final piece was focused conceptually on the process of 'Un-Creativity' and the developing process included divergent thinking.

- The final piece focuses on communicating the connectivity humans have through technology and to illustrate how we feel this connection due to the information that can be accessed providing us with a sense of belonging.

[mitchconceptual-blog]

Documentation: Nine

Practical Experiment: Iteration

- Using the conceptual process of 'Un-creativity' I have recreated Shannon Rankin's work 'Patterns in Pieces of Maps' (From previous documentation) by using the gathered screenshots from my Facebook friends locations.

- By masking the screenshots into a circle shape and resizing appropriately I have attempted to recreate as best as possible the piece. The scale and patterning is not identical but at a quick glance it resembles quite well.

- Critically: I quite like the result of the iteration/experiment however I would like to incorporate more of the information documented (geographical coordinates & mutual friends amount) into the final piece.