About this module

Pecha Kucha Presentation

My experiance with the Pecha Kucha created mixed feelings. Whilst I did find the researching and compiling of the information quite useful I did not enjoy the presenting as much. It was a process of trial and elimination getting used to the style of the Pecha Kucha. When I first started creating the presentation I leaned towards my normal approach of putting lots of info and explaining a lot of things in text. I then had to figure out that a Pecha Kucha is mostly image based, so I decided to transfer all my text of the slides and compact it into a script for. I thought this was a successful approach because my final presentation and lots of large pictures and nearly no text on it whereas my script and research was pretty well informed. The Pecha Kucha I submitted down below though is the version with alt the text on simple to make it easier to digest on a website. The worst part of this mini project was presenting, my anxiety flared up worse than it has in a while and it frustrated me a lot because I had well thought out my script and even rehearsed with people prior. But in the presenting of the class I remember being dizzy and my breathing getting so messed up I couldn't speak well and time myself like how I'd be practicing. I'm hoping moving forwards I can work on presenting and my anxiety to improve in my presentations. I will also bring the skills of focusing visually on including images in my presentations more so in the future as I feel like its an easier way to digest.

Feedback Tutorial on Essay from Last Year

Although this tutorial was a little disheartening I got a lot of feedback that I can work on and improve upon for my future essay. Reflecting on my previous essay that i did as a referral over summer I understand that one of my biggest issues was writing into much of a diaristic way, with a lot of opinions that weren't necessary and not enough referencing quoting analysing etc. I need to focus on making less sweeping and generalised statements, as well as revamping my whole writing style if possible to include writing in a more formal way. The main bit of feedback I need to work on is read more to be more accustomed to what style I should be writing in, I have currently read some articles on line and an example essay given to me. I will also try to read more essays, reviews and art magazines going forward. Another bit of advice I got was to use less generic and potentially more interesting artists and sources, for examples my last essay I used quite well know artists such as Van Gogh and Monet, so hopefully with some assistance I will be able to find more original and unique sources to draw upon going forward.

500 to 750 Writing Diagnostic - Foundations of Humankind

06/10/2023 15:49

Whilst visiting the KARST gallery to choose my work to investigate I kept in mind the idea of viewing the work through the lens of Ursala le Guin, inspired by her work “The Carrier Bag Theory”(TCBT) I was thinking already of an old time or a stone age era and how humans had evolved and become themselves since then and what the real foundations of human survival were. When I first viewed Sylvie Sema Glissant’s work such as “Dust of Water” and “our sea Footprints” I was mostly attracted to the style but as I further researched her work, I began to see the relevance between some of her artwork and Ursala le Guins “The Carrier Bag Theory”.

One of the key things I understood from Ursula le Guins TCBT was the idea of hunters vs gatherers and how historically the hunter or the hero has been glorified, le Guin put this into her own words “The mammoth hunters spectacularly occupy the cave wall”. (Guin) This point defines how the unrelatable hunters of age old have been deemed the pinnacle of what life was like back then even though that is not true at all. “Sixty-five to eighty percent of what human beings ate in those regions in Paleolithic, Neolithic, and prehistoric times was gathered”(Guin) le Guin demonstrates the untold story of “the gatherers” and how in an actuality they were a lot more common and adding a lot more to the story of how humans were evolving and changing than initially perceived. For example, something that most likely came from these gatherer people was the container, “wouldn't it be a good thing if you had something to put Baby Oo Oo in so that you could pick the oats with both hands? A leaf a gourd a shell a net a bag a sling a sack a bottle a pot a box a container.” (Guin) Le Guin talks about the importance of a container or a bag and how effectively helpful it would have been in day-to-day life compared to the hunters spear, and I believe that these parts of humans development were extremely key and important a foundation for their progress.

Following on from this idea some of the artworks I investigated form Sylvie Sema Glissant included “Footprint of a Rongo Rongo” this piece related to a bit of writing she did “The reappeared writing of Rongo Rongo” which made me think of le Guins work and how humans use to be when they were first developing. She talks about language a lot in this writing and how important it was and fascinating it is to us now. “these petroglyphs from another time, this writing of Rongo Rongo whose meaning has disappeared, … These were so many traces inscribed in the landscape of the island which had meaning.” (Glissant) This idea of our ancestors writing and leaving marks of stories or who knows what having meaning and that the use of language back then was probably a backbone of their community and foundationally exceptionally important to the growth of people. This relates to le Guins work in the way of how le Guin is preaching the importance of the role of gatherers who make things in her story, in contrast to how Sylvie Sema is writing about how people who made things have been noting and writing and making marks in relation to the making or placing of the moai heads.

Bibliography

Guin, U. le (no date) The carrier bag theory of fiction - ursu - other futures, Le_Guin_Ursula_K_1986_1989_The_Carrier_Bag_Theory_of_Fiction. Available at: https://otherfutures.nl/uploads/documents/le-guin-the-carrier-bag-theory-of-fiction.pdf (Accessed: 06 October 2023).

Glissant, S.S. (no date) Accueil. Available at: http://sylviesema.com/ (Accessed: 06 October 2023).

First image is a 1st hand sources, photo taken by me.

Second image is from http://sylviesema.com/ , Glissant, S.S. (no date) Accueil. Available at: http://sylviesema.com/ (Accessed: 06 October 2023).

Creatively Reading Myself - The Personal is Political

20/10/2023 16:08

Initially I didn’t think of my work as political, and I did regard it as more personal or based around the human experience or emotions. But the more I thought about it the more of course the quote “personal is political” made sense and I found myself arguing against myself. Whilst I do think I did not create most of my artwork with political intent, such as trying to get my voice heard or actively trying to raise awareness, I do think some of the themes I explore have an indisputable political element. But again, I haven’t been focusing on the that part of the subject, but maybe I should. For example, when I was researching mental and physical health issues, I was finding out the chemical and biological reasoning or trying to put people emotions or experiences into a picture, I wasn’t really researching the political side of it. Like regarding mental health issues a lot of mental illnesses have reason to do with the brain and chemicals but there is also a huge socio-political factor regarding how society can affect mental health or how lack of accessible healthcare can make these issues worse. I think personally I try to avoid making my art political, even though it's impossible, because I don’t like that specific genre of controversy and it requires very in-depth research to get the correct facts a lot but there are some very obviously political themes, I would like to explore in the future such as feminism or capitalism.

Thoughts on a Seminar

15/11/2023 21:39

Recently some of my class mates did a creative seminar presentation closely reading the text "Sick Woman". It was very insightful both in the way of the text and concepts surrounding it but also about how a creative seminar can be presented. My group and I had a meeting after reviewing what we thought they did well and succeeded in to figure out if there is anything we should plan to improve on or if there is anything we want to do purposely different. One thing I thought the group did well on was that they clearly had very informed research and lots of insightful analysis as well as other texts and artists that related and enriched their points relating to their original text.

My Final Thoughts on Creative Reading 525

14/12/2023 23:10

Coming into the creative reading module I was concerned about my level of essay writing because last year I initially failed my essay module, this was pretty disheartening for me because the year prior I got an A- in my essay so I felt like I was all over the place. I found the module quite helpful though, I found the gradual increase of writing, presenting, digesting and analysing texts very helpful, although there was some ups and downs. Between sessions with my lecturer and tutorial with my tutor I've been given consistent helpful advice, information and resources and I now feel much better equipped to tackle essay based tasks. I have now completed my essay for this module and found myself significantly more capable this time around, although without even getting feedback I can see some things I know I will need to work on more in the future I feel like I have improved so much since last year. I feel like i have a larger knowledge on where to find and access resources as well as a better understanding of how to digest texts and artworks in an essay approaching way.

Creative Seminar "Materiality" - With Felicity, Kianna and Henrikke

21/11/2023

Yesterday my group and I presented our creative seminar, and it was very enlightening for me. As a starter I found out as much as I don’t always love working in a group, presenting as a group I found calmed my anxiety significantly. I was able to present better and have more confidence overall, even taken so far as answering a lot of the questions during the Q and A.
I feel like overall the seminar was successful and the feedback was very helpful. Feedback from my peers included, that the use of play doh was helpful but potentially distracting, defining words was considerate and useful and that our artists, theories and ideas all linked well into each other. Some feedback from my tutor included refencing artists by their last names not first, usually I would do this but as we were presenting and tyring to pronounce names, I was very worried about butchering my artists surname but nevertheless I intend to take all this advice forward.
Reflecting myself, I feel like as a group we were very good at linking to artists and explaining our ideas and links very well. For myself going forward, especially for the essay, I want to technically unpick the text more, to understand the writers intentions as well as continue to link to more theorists and texts as well as other artists.

Finalised Essay For Creative Reading Module.