User:Mirjam Dissel/notes tutorial graduation proposal

Trying to find out what to do for my graduate proposal.

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Keywords popping up by going through my work:

• mixing and matching/mashing
• collaboration
• provocation
• nostalgia
• reminiscence
• individual experience
• interpretations
• what happens inside your brain (manipulation?)
• reality vs.expectations/perception/lies
• generative & computational meets old fashioned fuzzy feeling
• contradictions

Very simple: what do I like or would I like to do once?

• I like sewing and old fashioned craftsmanship
• I would like to make a programmed book (sewing patterns?)
• I would like to make an installation that is interactive
• I'm interested in image, photography and memory.
• Write down/record dreams. Bed linen installation. Dreams interwoven, touch each other, network of experiences (how to make universal for an audience?)

Talk w/ Steve, description of 3 works:

............scans of Steve's handwriting

Homework:

• Methodology. Notes

collectivity - how we choose + manual labour of choice
modes of organisation.
personal = value through personal involvement (make uniqueness visual)

My projects revolve around collectivity. I like to work with a collection, whether already present or made on the spot by participants. Next to collectivity, I like to work with individual fantasy and imagination next to a collaborative and collective memory. A key aspect in the projects is the role of choice. How do we choose? The manual labour that is involved in adding to, arranging or augmenting the collection in ways that are instinctual but mostly come from tradition and semiotics are a thing for me to play with and investigate. The personal perspective from this manual labour, sometimes craftsmanship, gives it value and uniqueness. I then deconstruct and rearrange the collection myself. The different ways of organizing this data become the final product. Or, the work consists of the (re)arrangements of others, as an interactive platform to continue from.

• Outline of possible future project

1. As explained in my methodology my work comes forth from a collectivity, something ready made, contributed to by others. In this way I think I like patterns. Patterns as a DIY instruction for further assembly. I am also inspired by tv shows about fashion design. Often people in Project Runway design skirts pants or dresses that have the models hips stand out, sometimes incredibly out of proportion. The comments the judges always have is "no woman would want to wear something that emphasizes her hips". The designer tries to explain their work conceptually, there is always a strong concept concerning the matching top or a strong opinion about not always wanting to make the model look beautiful or thin. This clash of opinions makes me think about the subject. We know the model is thin anyways, even with a gigantic balloon skirt on, we can still see it. And the clothing is made for the runway, not to hang in shops. Which rules should the designers obey? This also happens in make over shows. One piece of clothing might be fit for an apple shape body, but not for a pear shaped one and we are all supposed to know this. There are mathematical rules of symmetry that apply to your appearance (your body, fashion, make up), when is it allowed to break these rules? When the fashion designer explains his/her concept, and even before that, I already like the outfit. But it is not commercial. When did we go from big hips > fertility > procreation > good life = beautiful to NO EMPHASIS ON THE HIPS? In some poorer countries big women are still seen as aesthetically beautiful, for obvious reasons. After the industrial revolution and even in the past 50-100 years many things have changed in the western world and the need for children to look after you is decreasing. I do not specifically want to talk about the woman's body image, but more about conceptually designing against established rules (even though these rules were very different in other times and ages.)

P.S. take picture of Steve to make stationary out of because everything sounds better in Steve's presence.