At this point we made produced a PechaKucha talk in small groups with the purpose of expanding the ideas we could include in the project. Each presentation containing images of past work, current research, current practical work drawings, film stills, photos.
The rules for a PechaKucha are: The presentation must contain exactly 20 slides that are displayed for precisely 20 seconds each, making the presentation time six minutes and 40 seconds.
In 2003, yearning for “More show. Less tell,” an architects film invented PechaKucha. The initial purpose: to streamline long design presentations. Sessions soon morphed into happenings: PechaKucha Nights -- first in Tokyo, then around the world. Today, more than 50,000 people present at 1,100+ global PechaKucha Nights every year. And the number keeps exploding. Today schools and business use PechaKucha to creatively and effectively engage students and employees on a range of subject matters.
In 2003, yearning for “More show. Less tell,” an architects film invented PechaKucha. The initial purpose: to streamline long design presentations. Sessions soon morphed into happenings: PechaKucha Nights -- first in Tokyo, then around the world. Today, more than 50,000 people present at 1,100+ global PechaKucha Nights every year. And the number keeps exploding. Today schools and business use PechaKucha to creatively and effectively engage students and employees on a range of subject matters.
This is was not a talk about finished ideas, more a talk on initial ideas and stating points and to document the point we are at in the project. Here are the slides I used for the talk.
All the photographs and illustrations below are my own work.
To generate ideas at the beginning of the project we were asked to take photographs based on the word dystopia. Many of these were taken in the snow. In many apocalyptic and dystopian movies extreme weather is often delt with.
When presenting these photos to others they said the snow looked like ash. The thrown away furniture as the surviving parts of a housefire.
I especially liked this image because of what I was able to capture. The two different mirrors capture opposing themes. They juxtapose each other. One reflecting the cold outdoors, cars covered in snow with dead trees and no animals in sight. Meanwhile on the other side is an illustration of birds on top of tree branches with blooming flowers with a warm yellow that contrasts the bright cold white of the outdoors. The happy picture is artificial whilst the outdoor reflection of reality is not.
When walking through a somewhere at night on your own you often check to see if someone is following you and paranoia can set in. You check the corners of your eyes for silhouettes. But here your surrounded by them, they're highlighted by the few remaining lights that are left on some faceless. It falls into the uncanny valley. often their faces are barely visible, if they have them.
As I crouched down into this cellar, I had to dodge the dead spiders hanging from spiderwebs that are made visible by the excess of dust caught on them. The stairs are steep thin and when you walk on them you suspect they might break.
But this area was definitely popular at some point, writing scrawled on the ceiling and etched into doors. Handprints on doors, the colour had faded. Keep out, but There’s no one inside.
Searching for a theme I combined what I was looking at. The exterior and the interior.
The exterior and the door are the brightest part of the collage, as you look deeper past it, the scenery gets darker. Shattered glass and chipped paint replacing the leaves. The trees decaying. But beyond the door whilst dark, appears to be more alive.
During the beginning for the project inspiration came from many different sources, one of them was generating an idea or illustration based on a word. As part of the Manchester art gallery's art club a prompt is selected each week for others to create an outcome for, the prompt for this illustration was the word World.
The hands are my own that I took picture of, strained reaching towards something. With some heavy editing, cutting out the hands from the background and editing them to look as if they were drawn. Overlayed with my notes and sketches that I made towards the project. What world was I trying to present with my work? What could these hands make? What were they reaching for?
At the time I made this presentation I had trouble finding what my theme was. But with this photograph, Which I have purposefully picked to be the last shown, helped me realise what I was working towards.
This bright orange door which stood out from all around it. The grimy grey wall, chipped with exposed bricks. The pitch-black sky caused by light pollution. The skeleton of an old railway.
The door is an escape from all of it.
Something that distracts you. If only for a moment. You ignore everything around you. And focus on a funny orange door.
