Mia/Text on Method
Notes
Calendar page of Methods (10.4. 2019)
WHAT IS A METHOD? method as a habit, how you do things, how you approach way of working methodology is an analysis of that about how I am working and what am I working on
what methods did you use and how did they work for you? what kind of researcher are you, what suits you how did you do it? your methods + content material practice of research decisions (a la mistakes) (which result in) change in direction recognition of a core research strand (recognition of what is important to your research) affordance (more than just the function) how the new skills you acquire tie in other skills and what such skills afford
what to use for the text on methods?
- wiki pages of projects
- tutorial logs
- essays
- interview
what - content
how - methods (techniques etc.)
why - decisions, choices
First draft
Where does it come from? (past)
- photograms, collages, mixed media paintings
What is it now? (present)
1. Trace
- what: photobook, blank pages, tactile,
- how: finding, chance principle, marginal fragments in public space... obstacles&decisions in the making - change of direction (david's tutorial!)
- why: to relate photography to my previous practice, to open up my ways of thinking, working, looking
READING&WRITING
- what was the input (my readings)
- how was it processed (my methods)
- what are the products (my writings)
- how does it feed Trace and Drawing camera
2. Drawing Camera
- what: a) camera b) photographs produced by it
- how: creating a wooden camera (customising the template), experimentation with materials (plastic foil, drawing tools)
- why: to break down the complexity of the camera, to make a tool that is not commercially produced and is in this sense unique, to merge 2 principles of working(photographic and drawing methods)
3. TVACUUM
- what: 2D animation
- how:
- why: to learn about digital tools for animation
READING&WRITING
- what was the input (my readings)
- how was it processed (my methods)
- what are the products (my writings)
- how does it feed TVACUUM
Where is it going? (future)
MAKING: photograms, collage
READING&WRITING - What is: image; drawing; sign; animation
It is not alone. (context)
Second Draft
Where does it come from? (past)
[Steve's brief feedback on your 2nd draft: I think this is a sound way to proceed: by describing each work and allowing discussion to develop from there. I appreciate the notes you take on the process (above), stick to those points and you should make a good text on method. We can discuss your latest draft at the next session.]
What is it now? (present)
1. Trace
is an A4 book with white hard cover and simple screw binding. When opened, one can notice that papers vary from watercolour, sketching, toned paper to canvas and semi-transparent pages. Many of them are blank, forming the breathing space between full-page images that the viewer runs into while leafing through the book. Trace displays as a photobook, showing a photographic series of marks and traces which resemble details from paintings and drawings – brushstrokes, drips, stains and blots. Photographs disclose a typology of painterly marks in public space, where they are often overlooked as mere proofs of use and ravages of time. The word Trace has multiple meanings: firstly, it means to copy a pattern through a piece of transparent paper or to draw a shape by showing its outlines. Secondly, it means to find something that was lost at the same time indicating a mark or sign that something has happened or existed. The latter is embedded in the photographs and the method of taking them, while the first is embodied in the work’s interaction with the viewer. Chance principle was the crucial way of working here and is closely related to my painting practice. I transformed myself into a hairsplitting observer, looking through the analog camera on a hunt for marginal marks of use. Instead of actively leaving traces as a painter, I became alert to be able to run into interesting, painterly fragments. I wished to make a photobook which would at the same time be a sketchbook, allowing the viewer to add his own marks, drawings and notes in it. However, the object itself turned out to be perceived as precious and vulnerable, and definitely not lead to viewer’s intervention. But one of the teachers suggested that the means of presentation might induce similar effect. Therefore, I decided to keep the form as is (instead of thinking about alternative, more sketchbook-like binding), and concentrate on the ways of presenting the work. The book will be exhibited in a small gallery space in Ljubljana. The middle of the table will be covered with charcoal powder, with the book and cotton gloves lying. Clean white covers would be stained immediately, and anyone who would want to leaf through the book, would inevitably leave marks. This decision made me think more about what happens with the work when it reaches the audience and is somehow out of my hands. I became more aware of the importance of this viewer-artwork interaction and I recognize it in my previous works as well. --> reading writing Duchamp Creative act
to relate photography to my previous practice, to open up my ways of thinking, working, looking
READING&WRITING
- what was the input (Susan Sontag, Martin Jay; Marcel Duchamp, Rosalind Krauss)
- how was it processed (notes, close reading, synopses)
- what are the products (my writings - essays)
- how does it feed Trace and Drawing camera
2. Drawing Camera (Risbaparat)
is a handcrafted medium format camera, made of plywood. On one side, the project includes planning and making of the camera - a tool to produce images - and on the other, it encompasses the images as its outcome. With the hand-made photo camera I explore the relation between drawing and photography and seeming difference between objectivity and subjectivity of the image. Works made with this camera are actually photographs that merge with drawings directly in the process of exposing the film. It is a collage that happens in the machine itself. Right at the spot where I want to photograph, I draw a composition onto a plastic foil, using different markers, then I slide it in the camera and take a picture. Thus, we get a negative which combines a scene from my surroundings with a drawing made at that very place. Creative process of making is therefore intertwined with the chance principle. In terms of presentation, I find it important that apart from the photographs, the camera as an object is on display as well. It tells the viewer about the process of making the pictures and is therefore a key step to the outcome.
The question arises, why I would like to make my own camera in the first place, since the market offers such a wide range of attractive equipment. Nevertheless, hand-making enabled me to build specific characteristics which produce unique effects of the images I could never achieve with serially manufactured tools. DIY approach is also a response to extremely fast development of photographic technology, which actually reveals as problematic. Photographic cameras are becoming exceedingly complicated and thus non-transparent tools. Users can fully understand only their productive aspects, while the structure remains covert. In contrast to that, the structure of Drawing camera is streamlined, keeping its operation clear and explicable. But we should not disregard the fact that any camera, before all else, produces images in a specific, selective way. Thus the ultimate image can never be an objective registration of reality.
- what: a) camera b) photographs produced by it
- how: creating a wooden camera (customising the template), experimentation with materials (plastic foil, drawing tools)
- why: to break down the complexity of the camera, to make a tool that is not commercially produced and is in this sense unique, to merge 2 principles of working(photographic and drawing methods)
3. TVACUUM
- what: 2D animation
- how:
- why: to learn about digital tools for animation
READING&WRITING
- what was the input (my readings)
- how was it processed (my methods)
- what are the products (my writings)
- how does it feed TVACUUM
Where is it going? (future)
MAKING: photograms, collage
READING&WRITING - What is: image; drawing; sign; animation