User:Lidia.Pereira/Trimesters/RWRM/IAssignment

1.

The Regretful Magdalene project comprises a series of graphical experiments that range from illustration to guerrilla design tactics, graphic to package design. For example, an infographics reflecting about global water shortage is part of this set of experiments, as is also a fake travel agency propaganda booklet advertising the Pacific's Garbage Patch. This booklet tries to emulate the visual identity of an existing travel agency as well as it possibly can and is then put in a public context (cafes, bars, libraries), mixing inconspicuosly with other propaganda (leaflets, flyers, etc). These are only two of the several experiments I worked on. The subsequent results are then presented in the form of a publication, which reflects on the common aspects that links all these experiments to each other. The materials I used (both on the experiments and their final publication) range from homemade glue (edible ingredients only) and moss paint to several types of recycled paper.
This set of experiments required some versatily as I worked with as many different techniques as possible. I will only present some of the most technical interesting examples, this decision not meaning there is any hierarchy between these experiments. One of these is coincidentally the one that failed blatantly: the moss graffiti. First I prepared a mix of butter milk, moss and water and then cut some stencils with the text I wanted to paint. Being thus prepared I set out to the streets to get my moss paint on some walls. I then waited for weeks but nothing really happened. Another experience was a set of stickers which should not be printed on sticker paper, so I printed them in regular recycled paper and then spread them around using a glue prepared with water, wheat flour, sugar and vinegar. For the final publication I worked with Adobe InDesign, dividing the editorial structure in two main chapters: one containing the reflection on the conceptual link between these experiments and the other presenting the latter and their description.
The title of this project already hints at some redemptive intentions behind it. After four years of studying graphic design, I started noticing there was a key aspect missing from our curriculum: a social concern with the results of our practice. So I began to question what was the impact design had in shaping society's values and ideals. Being tired with the over-inflated neutrality discourse I felt like addressing this issue with some palpable research and results - thus deconstructing it. Yet another goal of this project was to fight against the autorreferencialism one can find nowadays within the field of graphic design, being its social responsability almost completely overshadowed by this self-righteous star-system. This set of experiments, as well as their explanation, were then a way to try to escape this falsely isolated bubble by asking some questions regarding social conscience within the field of graphic design. I chose to focus on ecological issues, partly because it has always been a field of interest for me, partly because there was a bursting scene of urban ecology-focused projects where I was studying at that time.

2.

Paradis Artificiels gets its name from the book Baudelaire wrote about drug usage. Working around this concept, I created the artwork for an invented opera. The final result comprises two books which seek to emulate a collector's edition: one is the deluxe edition of the musical score, while the other seeks to represent the opera's program. Both books have distinct yet graphically close illustrated covers, in which I try to explore complex details through the creation of vectorial patterns. These where then printed in olive green cardboard, whilst the book interior was all printed in recycled paper.
The process for this project started with an effort to gather as many poems and texts relating to drug usage as I could - these include poems by Samuel Coleridge, Lord Byron, Fernando Pessoa, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Baudelaire and John Keats and texts by Thomas DeQuincey, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. I was then presented with different text formats that had different editorial demands. My first editorial decision was to use the poems as if they were the lyrics, usually printed below the musical notation, and the texts as if they were short descriptions of the opera scenes. Deciding it would make more sense to publish these in different volumes rather than printing one big volume comprising both, I used Adobe InDesign to work on their editorial structure and Adobe Illustrator to work on their covers.
I've always been fascinated with the subject of drugs and escapism. As I never tried them for myself, I get some vicarious satisfaction from reading other people's experiences. This project was then a way to combine three of my fields of interest - design, literature and overcoming of the self. The whole purpose of this project was more conceptual than it was functional, and being so I chose to assemble the text material I found in the form of an imagined opera to underline the nonsensical aspects of drug abuse, as well as the seeming freedom when can also get through music. As an opera is not only music, but also acting and visual apparatus it seemed to me to be the perfect metaphor for the subject of this project. For me, the opera represents the heightened sensations, the crossing of boundaries between all five senses - sound becomes sight, sight becomes smell, words become colour, etc.

3.

Easter is a series of nine photos which construct a narrative based on Anton Chekov's “The Day Before Easter”. When put together, these photos convey the sense of a route, of a path that somebody takes across a rural landscape in which we can see, every now and then, connections to Christian symbology, like crosses and monuments to the cavalry. The subdued natural light that is transversal to all of them, as well as the near absence of a human figure, holds this series together in a pastel color ambiance.
This series was all shot in one day while wandering around a small rural village in Portugal. I used an analog Nikon and a 400 ASA color film.
When I read Anton Chekov's tale I was immediately drawn to it by its simplicity and melancholy. There was something there that I could relate to the way I experience reality. This was probably why I wanted to work around it, not merely portraying what happens in the tale, but transferring its ambiance and visual properties to my own experience. The sense of home and nostalgia I feel is portrayed in "The Day Before Easter" was the motto for this set of images, and so the wandering through seemingly abandoned landscapes became a way of conveying this somewhat conforting absence and solitude. The Christian elements aim not only to create a link between the tale and my village's traditions, but also to add an extra layer of melancholy.