Daniel Jarvis 0902784
Studio Practice
Creativity in writing takes numerous different forms, concrete poetry I found to being the most influential, so much so that I bought myself a typewriter to make my own. I like the simplicity of how to use it, just keys and a feeder, its strangely relaxing. In the image to the left I used ‘letracet’ to create a river of type flowing over a waterfall.
A group task of creating an Utopian/ Dystopian society, in my group we combined to two together, creating a passionate society of free thinking, realistic people, without religion or prejudice. My group concluded a number of differences possibilities of society and the environment would cohabitant and its impact towards such things as architecture, culture, literature, art, creativity, popular culture, music, hierarchy, and social etiquette. When setting out making our society, we played with the idea of expanding from the studio into town and attempt to enforce our laws, and morals onto the people and watch there reactions. After noticing how much aggravation we were causing to people we decided to move back into the studio and resume creating our world there.
In my manifesto I wanted the message to be embodied in its words, not literally with text but through sound, each person listening and interpreting it differently, therefore becoming more than just one manifesto, reaching out to far greater audience. When first creating my manifesto, I already had the idea of an audio piece that people could listen to again and again. For people to take in and digest in there own time. I wanted to stay away from typography as I felt the written word is too concrete, seeing the word and seeing the meaning, noting more. I feel that listening, hearing how the words are said with such passion can create a more vivid picture in peoples minds, using there extra sense of perception, hopefully heightening the impact of my manifesto. I used recognizable phrases from famous speeches; I used their words to spread my message. I deliberately wanted the speech to be very aggressive, denoting violence. I was at the student, including Milbank, and saw the little hostility be so exaggerated in the media. I look back and think what has happened? What is happening? In my manifesto I want to push the idea of not letting go, taking back what has been stolen, keeping the heart of ‘the arts’ alive. Not letting ‘elected’ powers tell me lies about the countries ‘better interests’. Please watch ‘Video 1’.
R E L Y R S
S I N C Y O
D AN BAYLEYS
BANANA
KIWI AND
CHILLI
The packaging needs to hold a high level of intimacy between itself and the buyer. People buy on how things look, or on reliable brands, fact. The only ways new companies sneak through are buy clever marketing and packaging, Gimmicks, slogans, novelties, all work well in helping a brand establish them. With these aspects in mind we researched in types of packages that we believed increased the value of the product, making it a more desirable item. Through discussion we decided upon the idea of an origami box to create a house for the product. Engineered to open in precisely in a way that would create a theatre like unveiling. After finalizing our package net, we all then took our separate roots our interpretation, and designed graphics of we individually felt the packing should look. The flavours of the product we chose deliberately so we could incorporate hopefully what we feel to be an attractive colour scheme. This is the final graphic idea I created for the group presentation.
In this brief I looked at ways of interesting the consumer, to hook their attention with an appealing image as an alternative to typical information graphics. Originally I considered using information that was number based, making it easier to construct a design, however I wanted to push myself, make myself think, so I used information that could not be linked to any numerical value. They way I constructed this piece was by using strobe photography, a style of long exposure that uses flash’s from a light source against an object, i.e. myself. With long enough exposures, it allows you to generate numerous copies of yourself that can be overlaid in different ways as shown. I have chosen to draw upon myself with the information in a punk style to allure people’s interests, it seems that regardless of sophistication, education or social manor, people like to look at a naked person. Exploiting this fact I concluded it would be enough of a hook to interest the audience into reading the information, ‘theoretically’ being all I can do as a designer.
THERE WAS A D STUCK TO MY WORK...
Information in design is as obvious to the consumer as the designer chooses. Clarity is preference, if the information is not presented ‘typically’ as ‘industry’ dictates, that does not mean dissimilar work can not be merited under the same title. If the consumer leaves with the information intended then the designer’s work is successful. Presenting easy statistics is easy. A picture with a number overlaid is not clarity, but brutality. If you state the number 5, and show me a cat, yes I will think of 5 cats, but in five minutes I will forget those fucking cats. That pretty bar chart, fence tally, =, number, was not enough of a hook to stay in my memory. How many do you honestly remember? What information are we being told.... sorry dictated. Being able to disguise the information subliminally is a craft, though my work presents its ‘information’ bluntly, what ‘information’ are you left with... Regardless of success (if any), my attempt at presenting non-statistical information, in a style I perceive to be a more adept level of graphic communication was overlooked by ‘students favourite condiments’. Understandably mundane briefs will arise and will be taken on a souly bill paying basis, but whilst in education, free from responsibilities, and restraints, there should be no excuse not to push ideas academically, philosophically, and conceptually. It should be the minimum. So... What am I saying... Picking easy number based statistics, and presenting them in basically ‘pretty’ bar graphs is not information graphics at degree standard... Seriously, their apathy if offensive. Repeatedly add 2+2 will never get to 5.
In case you feel I’ve taken the easy route out, arguing my point instead of taking on board your criticisms, below is my new submission.
1cm = 10mm
Collaborative brief Daniel Jarvis Callum Bowdler
A book about a book, how can a book be about a book? Myself and Callum discussed possibilities of how we wanted to approach this collaborative brief, we discussed books which it’s pages could be out in the public, taking over an abandoned building to refurbish, of projection on a grand scale. The idea we decided upon was a corridor of rooms, manifestations of the extracts from a diary, each chapter being a different room. Upon choosing ‘the book’, myself an Callum immediately both agrees on creating our own diary for our work to be based on. Creating a character, a puppet we could manipulate and be the scapegoat for the ideas we wanted to incorporate. We opened our pages into the physical, allowed the participants to walk through the narrative and disgust its surroundings individually, subject to there own perceptions and prejudices. This installation I hoped allowed people to walk away with a different interpretation to the person before, transforming this book into many, for people to experience as many times as they want, free of charge.
Baby’s Room
Mind’s corridor
Reminiscence room
Addiction room
Garden room
Black room
The babies room’s, we wanted this room to be as seemingly innocent as possible, with hidden messages scattered throughout. This room on completion didn’t feel to have the gritty undertones we were after. We wanted to room to feel like something wasn’t right, that something has gone on, after discussion we added a eerie soundtrack would create this effect
The tape room was designed to explore the mind of our character, focusing on the fragility of his personality, helping us develop his character further. The room was designed to be littler than the others, forcing people to walk through unknowingly to what they have experienced, but hopefully having absorbed the works that were deliberately placed to be noticed. The bush room, this room gives a feel of claustrophobia from the bush’s blocking some of your path, have the audience to physically touch them to get through. This room was designed to encapsulate the idea that our character is always on the move. The path through the trees, always hiding from things he cannot escape, but is not emotional stable enough to tackle.
The TV room is our characters bedroom, his shrine to his lost wife, unwilling to let go, unable to forget. This room the diary tells of a man’s obsession with the past, and inability except, and to pick up the pieces of his life. The toilet room is demonstrating the character addictions, to drugs, alcohol, an extension of his addiction of his dead wife. This room tells of what could have been from his old trophies scattered along the wall. His daily life from the location resembling a bar, and his hidden addiction to drugs from remaining cocaine in ‘the local’ toilet.
Taking our ideas from paper to material was quite surreal and addictive, constantly creating the pictures and seeing there final state gave a large amount of pride. Also the way we had to podge a lot of the joins to get the aesthetic we wanted was insane, in a lot of cases I don’t know how it stood up. In the small pictures you can see a small amount of boards needed to create our book, also, you can see the amount of boards we constantly had to move to different locations as the care takers thought it was a serious trip hazard‌..
Whilst developing our idea for what the book is, and what the book should contain myself and Callum went ‘foraging’ for interesting authentic item. Alone our journey we come across several abandoned places that held gems. West park hospital staff social club was like a treasure trove of different interesting things. We managed to borrow a few items, (after and argument with security when they caught us walking away with stuff‌) which we never would have had the money to buy, also their age gave our piece a lot more authenticity than newer props would.
REACTION, ‘have balls of steel’. Why should they be so hard? I prefer the gentle touch. I have no problems getting naked and showing my masculinity, I use my body in my work all the time, but my ‘steel’, that I like to keep to myself. I Deliberately intervened with myself, stopping me from brashly looking for something outrageous to perform, the easy route. I wrote my feels, Inner thoughts that most people keep hidden. I wrote them ALL down for hours, unreserved, though fearful of judgement. Everything in my mind I hide, that you hide, written in a book in front of me, detached from the security of locked corner’s of myself. I left my book, that part of myself on the train, the busy circle line. I placed a sign with it, informing you to read it. I left my contact number and my name also. Someone called.
RING, RING Unknown number.....
(OH NO, someone read it) Deep breath... WHAT DO I SAY?!
Hello... Daniel? Yes? Hi im CELIYA, im calling from the london
Underground.
OH...
(FUCK) We have a
book here with your contact number in... it has some information in it
OH, erm, yer,
Someone handed it in to me at hammersmith station
..... Did you want to come and collect erm, sorry
it?
no, thats ok, bin it..... please..... Bye. Hang up
Which is bigger?
Which is smaller?
The Lab was too busy to
Make me Think
It was too busy to for me to concentrate, so, I sat at home, thought. I worked at uni for one whole day out of the two weeks, I didn’t like it, to busy, Pardon me, excuse me, cattle, kettled. People get in your space, want to use your stuff, want your help, want your opinion, want, want, want, when really I couldn’t care less. I love looking at work, and seeing people create, watching the cogs turn, leave me alone. 50 questions and small talk, all formalities getting in my way, getting on my nerves. The idea of putting everything back….. hmmmm… To me, seems to totally undermine what was achieved, I didn’t work there I know, but, I did help create that space and feel that what it represents shouldn’t be lost. The openness of the space felt free and inspiring, looking at the blank walls and see what could be there next week, all that was amazing. To add the clutter back, hiding the potential doesn’t denote the idea that we are making any lasting change. Should it be done again isn’t a question, it shouldn’t have stopped. Yes I understand that the walls need to
be painted white, there needs to be a tables and chairs for workshops, etc etc, blar, blar, blar. One side of the working circle totally is intrudes upon the other, why cant ‘classes’ takes a back seat to production, what great advantage does keeping tables out for day workshop have? They are just one day, a day will not change your life, no one is suddenly going to change their whole style because of 5-hour lecture, its not going to earn anyone a degree. Leave the tables outside, in a storeroom; in a corner of the hallway where the unused books collect dust, bring them out if you need them, if people want them! I’ve solved that problem in a sentence. Hurray for me? No? There’s another problem about something that conflicts with the first problem that stops the second problem from allowing you to complete the third? Seriously, can we not just stop, think, process, resolve. We are paying for an education that is constantly being hindered by restrains and irresolvable differences between departments. What people want is simple, tutors and technicians, seriously that’s all, we know what’s good for us, lets cut the fat.
Clear the executive offices, knock them through and create more space for us to work, to work without being pestered by caretakers on power trips because they have a fucken walky-talky! To work as and when we want, where we please, to be able to move something like a sofa from the SU (R.I.P) and not have care taker say it is in the wrong part of our university. We paid for that sofa, our tuition clearly doesn’t go on materials, something has got to be ours surely? Every student pays his or her way, how dare someone dictate to us where something should be in a student’s workplace. Go fuck yourself. Teachers and students are creative prisoners handicapped by the apathetic safety officers, estates managers, and god damn care takers to appease some document; which I’m pretty sure has lots of pages pussy footing around the same statement, and I’m pretty sure I can find it somewhere on ‘myuca’. Common sense is dead, it seems any mention of creativity or self-expression in this establishment is only warranted by satisfying learning outcomes, or again I say it, health and safety.
Anything uncontrollable or unpredictable is stunted, and tossed in that ever growing ‘if only’pile. Lets be honest, there is nothing stopping anyone from doing anything, we students have allowed ourselves to be dictated to what university is. We pay for it, we argue with it, but we all love it. What hierarchy has been created that stops education from being fun, free, and experimental? What did I do with the other hours I had available? I spent them developing my independent.
Independent Practice
ME | EM
Insanity. Something I’ve always worried I suffer from. Sometimes I talk to myself, sometimes I daydream and almost react to what I’m imagining. I’m scared that people notice the things I do, or that I’m not quite aware of how bad I am, and people keep it a secret from me. If I was to be left alone, for a long period of time, isolated from society, family, and friends, I don’t think it would take to much effort for me to snap. Crossing the line from creatively different, to padded cell guest, I’m worried. I wanted to perform an imagining of my fears of insanity, to act out my interpretation of the mindset and behaviours of the mentally ill. In my video I am the audience and the actor, I structured the video similarly to that of a theatre performance, with an act 1, interval, act 2. I build tension throughout leading to the violent finish. I try to be as theatrical as possible whilst also trying to maintain realism. In my video I’ve attempted to demonstrate the ups and downs of the life of the insane. Please watch ‘Video 2’.
Brand Whore
I created a French fold, hand bound catalogue of designs I produced myself, printed by myself on tshirt’s I made at home, on a silkscreen I exposed in my cupboard. Society is being forced into believing that quality can only be bought, why? A capitalist opinion to keep people buying, stopping the rediscovery of hard work. With little knowledge it took me an hour to produce such simple t-shirt that large firms with similar designs are valued at £25. Robbery. Brand Whore. How beautiful we all look in uniform, in unison; from shop to shop we browse, buy, browse, buy, bag after bag of our self-indulgences. Greed and gluttony are so beautifully embodied in that big red banner spelling ‘SALE’. Our knees tremble, our pockets burn, we buy too much, money’s gone, guilt now creeps in. We complain of being skint, so we buy to numb the feeling. Red floods through the letterbox each day. We buy shells of happy faces to mask our spoilt insecurities. We need that fix of poverty by purchase, we take on the spur, we do the nice things too much, living that better way of life at a competitive %APR.
I went to a talk from Brian about setting up a home silk screen area. I was very interested in the idea after hearing and researching into all the things you can print on with a screen. One of my main grievances this year is money, or the lack of, and it go me thinking about all the useless items I spend my money on, Clothes mainly. One of the trends for clothing at the moment is t-shirts by a reputable company that present a simple upper and lower case of a single letter, in Helvetica bold. Loads of people have them; they are £25 a pop, how? I begun to look all the t-shirts I have and I didn’t see anything particularly great, all the designs I usually choose are subtle and simple, easy to make. I discussed buy a screen to Brian who pointed me to a company called screen stretch. They were able to offer me all the products I need to set up my workshop, including all the chemicals I would need to exposure my screen. Now I am entirely independant from uni. There were quite a few teething problems…. Screen wouldn’t burn stencil
Screen wouldn’t clean Bought uv bulbs to expose screen Bulbs didn’t work Argued with man about trading uv bulbs for 150watt bulbs Had to wait for cleaner to come Cleaner came, screen clean Tried another exposure, ALMOST WORKED! Exposed again, WORKED! Exposed screen at 24 hour during locking Exposure didn’t work too well Tried cleaning screen next day, stencil wouldn’t come out Looked into buying a jet wash, too much money Had to wait a week to go home and to borrow dads jet wash Attachment to tap was too small Bought a new attachment New attachment didn’t work Bought a new tap Old tap wont come off Scrubbed old tap and forced on new attachment on New attachment broke Kicked a bag which had my kitkats in over next doors fence in frustration Had an argument with neighbour about asking for my kitkats back Spent 30 mins cleaning tap Bought a new attachment Hose fits! Jet wash still couldn’t remove stencil Didn’t do anymore with silkscreen for 3 days Noticed that there was enough room to expose my design in corner Expose screen again Ink got caught in mesh as dried to quickly Shat myself Bought new medium Printed first t-shirt
During my lab week at home I started getting bored of souly screen printing and I begun searching the internet for interesting things I can do myself, and I started looking into hand bound books. The intimacy in creating a book interested me, I liked the idea of it being personal, and having human blemishe. I looked at my t-shirts I’d made and begun to think of ways to present them, and I decided upon creating a catalogue of my work, incorporating the ideas of making your own belongings, and staying away from large corporations brain washing society. As a result of my limited number of t-shirt I decided to create my book using French folds, a method I’ve noticed designers use to fill out an empty book.