Bomb Project!

This week from Monday 1st November to Wednesday 3rd November all years of Interior and Environmental Design were given the 'Bomb Project'. Rightly named so, as the tutors emailed us all on Thursday last week to inform us that on Friday we would be getting a new project brief that would run for three days the following week. So we have all been jumbled up into groups all containing people from each year of my course. Not only was this to get the studio bustling and active for open days, it was to get the years mingling and get the first years more acquainted with everyone.

At first I think everybody felt the same on Friday, dread and wondering what is the point to this? I know that I have quite a lot of project work on at the minute along with my dissertation development, so it felt a bit  of a hindrance.  However, it showers your head for 3 days and would always be another experience and article of work for my portfolio.

So the project brief is pretty complicated but in short, each group were given a specific topic and 2 thought evoking images. Following on from this it was up to us where we wanted to go with it as long as we produced a 2D or 3D outcome that occupied part of the studio area. Then on Wednesday the 3rd we would have a quick informal presentation of the final outcome and get some feedback from the tutors. The images we were given:

I was in Group 10, which consisted of 8 people and we were given the topic 'CARE'. On Friday afternoon we did a quick mind map of our instant thoughts of what this title meant to us. The obvious things where coming up like the elderly, cotton wool, first aid, plasters and so on. We then decided that for Monday (the official starting date for the project) we would gather images over the weekend that encompassed the meaning of 'Care'. These are the images I gathered:

As you can see I gathered a wide variety of images. Meeting up on Monday morning, a few people had not got any images but through a discussion with the images we had, it lead us on to thinking about the other end of the scale. We were thinking very obviously of the things we care for but then we asked ourselves "What about the things that we should take care off and don't? 

We also had been thinking about visual communication and signage that give you warnings and cautions e.g signs helping you take care when driving. So we decided to try to combine the two. Was there a way in which we could gather a collection of items that we should take care with but don't and add a warning symbol to them, to make people pay more attention? 

So Monday night we went home trying to think of these items and add the 'Warning' signage to them in which ever way we wanted. I decided to find some less obvious images, get them into photoshop and incorporate the warning sign in an interesting and realistic way. The images that I chose all have a variety of messages to convey, some more serious than others and some even with a double warning meaning e.g. the bottle of water. My images can be seen below:

After creating these I started to look at creating 'Warning Tags' that could be attached to other everyday objects that wouldn't necessarily be able to have the logo incorporated in or on it. I created a simple tag and attached it to everyday objects that we know we should 'take care' with but don't. For example, we know we should take care when using safety pins but how many times have you been using one and ended up pricking yourself?

Tuesday morning came and we collaborated chosen images from each person to create an evoking visual presentation. We also printed out the 'Warning' logo we had been using and created some stickers and tags. These were then attached to items around our studio area that we should all take care with but don't. This reinforcing our concept and adding a 3D level to our presentation.

Images & Stories - Assignment 2

We previously had to read ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ by Roland Barthes and discuss the linguistic character of imagery and how messages can be contained within them. The second part to this assignment was to pick 3 random images and ask a select number of people to look at the images and write a short story, within 5 minutes. This was to either prove or question Barthes theories. The three images that I picked at random where a girl blowing a dandelion, a cat and a clock.

The results were extremely varied and the stories had a wide range of imagination but there were some recurring themes.

Name: William

Age: 53

Gender: Male

Profession: Shunter

Story: While the girl was out playing blowing dandelions in the fields. Her cat thought she could have a nice nap in her soft bed. But the time was running out as it was almost one o’clock and her mother was making launch for her and the cat

Name: Sarah

Age: 50

Gender: Female

Profession: Sales Assistant

Story: It was a beautiful summer day the green field was filled with cotton topped Dandelions . In the distance the church clock chimed 1in the afternoon the little girl enjoyed the Field of dandelions as she picked them up and blew the flower seeds into the air and watched them float away, her grey cat lay sleeping on the pillow of her bed.

Name: Cassandra

Age: 33

Gender: Female

Profession: ICT Teacher

Story: As Katie wandered through the lush green field, she heard the church clock strike 1 o’clock in the distance. She knew she should she hurry as her mother would have lunch ready but it was such a lovely day, just as she was about to head home she noticed a dandelion, she picked and decided to make a wish. She wished for a kitten, a pet that could come with her on her adventures.

Name: Ross

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Profession: Student

Story: As time began to slow, the dandelion seeds appeared to hover motionlessly in the air. Lucy knelt down and ran her hands through the course blades of grass that surrounded her. They moved with very little bounce and failed to spring back into their original position. The meadow that she had once loved was now as dead as time itself. With no weather, the sound of trees rustling or the twittering of bird’s song, the world she once loved was gone. Or so she thought . . . the tail of a grey cat could be seen through the branches of trees in the distance. She wasn’t the only one left.

 
 

Name: Rachel

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Profession: Student

 

Story: The little girl is young and innocent, who has a close connection with her cat. Over time this bond grows stronger and stronger.

 

 

Name: Ross L

Age: 22

Gender: Male

Profession: Student

 

Story: A young girl spends her time wishing and dreaming. Her dreams take her to far away places and different times in history.

 

As you can see from these stories they vary not only in length but description. The majority of the stories have the same principles of a young girl playing in a field of dandelions and her cat lying in her bed asleep. But what surprised me was that only one mentioned about her making a wish. The clock was picked up as either one o'clock, lunchtime or to do with periods in time.

 

The story that I choose to be my main outcome was the one by Cassandra. The principles of her story where that the young girl was playing her garden of dandelions, around lunchtime and made a wish for a pet cat. To enable the next group of people to come up with these same ideas I added a further image to help them. This photo can be seen below:

 

I chose this image to help people think of the girl being at home and possibly help the thought of it being lunchtime. A few of the stories that I received from these four images can be seen below.

Name: Jake

Age: 20

Gender: Male

Profession: Student

Story: Jenny was running around the meadows, pouncing from behind tall rocks, tall grasses and clumps of dandelions. “Rarrr!” she exclaimed. “No one can ever defeat cat woman!” At that, the church clock struck one. Lunchtime. Before jenny began to run home she picked up a dandelion and blew it to make a wish; “please make me a cat”.

Name: Marianne

Age: 47

Gender: Female

Profession: Support for Learning Assistant

Story: It was one o’clock on Friday afternoon and she had just escaped work for an hour. Her Husband collected her and they drove to their house, not home. They spent the next thirty minutes in a frenzy packing the car so that they could leave straight from work that night. They were going home for the week-end, away from this God forsaken place. By five o’clock they realised they’d forgotten something, so returned to the house. As they unlocked their door, to their shock and amazement, a beautiful cat ran past them out of the house. “It’s a sign” she thought. Seven days later, finally, she got the call she’d prayed for. Her Husband was being transferred and they were going home. At last, she could allow herself to dream about the home and family she had yearned for, for so long.

Name: Brian

Age: 51

Gender: Male

Profession: Civil Servant

Story: I love going to Grandma’s, she has a big old house, which has so many rooms; each one filled with amazing things! My favourite is Grandma’s room. When you walk towards it, all you can hear is tick, tock; tick, tock getting louder with each step. Opening the door you are faced with a giant grandfather clock. Just like the nursery rhyme, hickory, dickory, dock, but there is no way any mouse would be running up that clock. Sheba, my Grandma’s cat, is always on her big iron bed, purring like an engine and ready to pounce! I love going to my Grandma’s house...

Name: Kirsty

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Profession: Student

Story: It was a warm summer’s day, around lunch time. We were all relaxing in the field behind the house, wishing with the dandelions while the cat rolled around lazily on the picnic rug.

Name: Stephanie

Age: 29

Gender: Female

Profession: Shop Assistant

Story: It was 1 O’clock in the afternoon as Eva skipped down the steps of the old farmhouse. It was a lovely sunny day and she had just had lunch with her grandparents. She wondered where Smokey had got to as she reached the field full of dandelions. She began running and playing in the fields of dandelions, blowing them making wishes and watching the seeds float about in the air.

 

Name: Linda

Age: 43

Gender: Female

Profession: Checkout Operator

 

Story: It was a warm summer day and the clock in the hall had just struck 1 o’clock. The fields around the little girl’s large white house were in full bloom. The girl played in the back garden blowing the seeds of the dandelions and watching them float up into the air while her grey cat lay sleeping on her bed.

 

Concluding from all of these images, some of the main principles where picked up but still were not exact and now that the house has been included a lot of people included the word 'house' in their story rather than the idea that the young girl was in her garden. Another thing that was dominant in most of the stories was that the cat was lying sleeping rather than the fact that the girl was making a wish and that being for a pet cat.

 

I therefore decided that I would add one word to one of my images to see if the story is made clear. I added the word 'Wish' to the picture of the girl to see if this made people think that she was wishing for something i.e. a pet cat. These next stages with the words only involve the original 3 images.

Name: Fiona

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Profession: Student

Story: The little girl was playing in her back garden at lunch time. Blowing the dandelions and making wishes for a pet cat.

Name: Donna

Age: 35

Gender: Female

Profession: Shop Assistant

Story: It was a lovely warm summer’s day and everything was perfect, well almost. The church clock stuck one and it was time to leave for lunch. Before the girl ran home she picked a dandelion and wished for what was missing, someone that she could play with. She already had a cat but it tended to run off all the time or would ly asleep on her bed.

Name: Carla

Age: 21

Gender: Female

Profession: Shop Assistant

Story: It was a summer’s day. The little girl was outside her house, wishing for a cat when she grows up.

Name: Maria

Age: 41

Gender: Female

Profession: Stay at home Mum

Story: The little girl was playing before lunch in the field beside the woods. Her and her family were out for the day. The dandelions were in full bloom. She began to blow the seeds away and wished her mum and dad would get a her cat that could play with her.

Name: Jackie

Age: 37

Gender: Female

Profession: Teacher

Story: As the little girl wandered through the lush green field she knew she would soon have to hurry home for lunch. She noticed a few dandelions and picked one. She blew hard and made a wish. She wished for a pet that wouldn't sleep all day the way her cat does.

The stories that I recieved for this part of the assignment gave me mixed results. Some people where picking up on the fact that the girl was wishing for a cat, while others still took the image quite literally, and wrote that she already had a cat that slept all day. The word wish now appeared in every story but not necessarily as I had hoped. To try and get the story correct I added yet another word to another image, only this time I added 'Pet' to the picture of the cat.

Name: Caroline

Age: 20

Gender: Female

Profession: Student

Story: The little girl wishes for a pet cat to play with in her garden throughout the long summer days especially at lunchtime.

Name: Graeme

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Profession: Student

Story: The little girl wished to live in a large beautiful house in the country with a fuzzy grey cat when she was older.

Name: Christine

Age: 23

Gender: Female

Profession: Student

Story: As the clock in the nearby farm struck 1 o’clock the little girl was playing in the field near the woods. As she picked ip a dandelion and blew the seeds away, she wished for a cat as a pet.

Name:Anita

Age: 45

Gender: Female

Profession: Pharmacy Assistant

Story: A little girl was out in the garden playing in the fields of dandelions. It was nearly lunchtime as she could hear the huge clock in the town chiming. Before heading home for lunch, she picked a dandelion and made a wish – for a pet cat.

Name: Dwight

Age: 29

Gender: Male

Profession: Restaurant Manager

Story: The little girl was playing outside in her back garden. She was in a world of her own, playing till her hearts’ content. Her garden was in full bloom and covered in dandelions. She was picking them one by one, making wishes for her future and wishing her parents would get her a pet cat.

Name: Claire

Age: 23

Gender: Female

Profession: Student

Story: As the clock in the nearby farm struck 1 o’clock the little girl was playing in the field near the woods. As she picked up a dandelion and blew the seeds away, she wished for a cat as a pet.

From all of these stories the majority of them have the main concepts. Each one has picked up on the girl making a wish and the fact that she wished for a cat as a pet but the clock is still adding a lot of variation. To try and solve this I repeated the experiment again only this time adding yet another word to the clock image. I added the word 'lunchtime'.

Name: Liz

Age: 45

Gender: Female

Profession: Checkout Operator

Story: It was a summer day and lunchtime was nearing. The little girl was outside playing in her garden with the dandelions, she was making wishes, one of which was for a pet cat.

Name: Geoff

Age: 48

Gender: Male

Profession: Engineer

Story: A little is in her garden at lunchtime playing. She makes a wish on a dandelion for a pet cat.

Name: Charlotte

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Profession: Student

Story: One day at lunchtime I was in my garden and made a wish on a dandelion for a pet.

Name: Diane

Age: 31

Gender: Female

Profession: Teacher

Story: A little girl was playing in her garden in the masses of dandelions. It was nearly time for lunch but she had time to make a wish. She wished her parents would get her a pet cat.

Concluding from all of these stories it is clear that the addition of this third word made all the stories contain the exact same things. Each story spoke of a young girl, playing in her garden at lunchtime, making wishes on dandelions for a pet cat. I also noticed that even though each of the stages with the words only had three images, nearly every person spoke of the little girl being in her garden, which shows that the house did back up images at the start. The text on the images also seems to reduce the length of the stories as they are more to the point and simply contain the principles of the story, there is no extra padding, so to speak.

The main idea behind this assignment is to prove that adding extra images and adding text to imagery can give a better understanding. At the start the images where totally random, but yet most people seemed to write the same sort of thing. By the time the fourth image was added a story had been selected and therefore a chosen meaning. However, as soon as text was added the story was totally understood and clear.

Polysemy is also something that was truely established in this assignment as it has shown that a small amount of images can be interpreted in completely different ways from one person to another.

Roland Barthes

I was asked to read ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ by Roland Barthes and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to read. The language of the text was quite hard to understand and the underlying theories and messages Barthes was trying to get across took a while to come clear due to the form of writing. However, the main principal of this text is to study images and their linguistic nature. “How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?”

There are three types of messages; the linguistic message, a coded iconic message and a non-coded iconic message.

One of the first things that are studied by Barthes is an advertisement because the image is without a doubt intentional, to ensure the message within the image is transmitted as clearly as possible. Advertisements are formed with optimum reading and tend to be quite frank. Here the ‘Panzani’ advertisement is thoroughly studied and broken down into all the different messages it contains. First is the linguistic message that it portrays; the caption and labels have a hidden code of the French language, this is classed as a denotational linguistic message. However, the name ‘Panzani’ itself gives a signification of ‘Italianicity’ and this is classed as a connotational linguistic message. Secondly, we are left with the pure image which straight away gives off a series of signs and symbols that have been imbedded within the image for its viewers. This allows you to understand the image quickly; as an advertisement should be understood. This linguistic message needs a cultural understanding to be decoded and presents us with multiple questions; do they duplicate certain information in reading the text? Or is there something new that occurs in the reading of the image? As a result of some of these questions Barthes has been able to break linguistic messages down further into two sub-categories, ‘Anchorage’ and ‘Relay’.

           ‘Anchorage’ helps the viewer to choose the correct level of perception and enables them to not only focus their gaze but also their understanding. It controls the reader towards advanced meanings and guides them through the signifieds of the image, allowing them to receive some and avoid others. The text allows the designer to control the reader and guide them towards a meaning they have chosen in advance.

          ‘Relay’ is a sequence of text in cartoons, comic strips and films that is complimentary in relationship to the image and provides a meaning that the viewer cannot find in the image. This type of message is usually present for quick reading and to get the point of the image across quickly; therefore making the image seem “lazier”.

A coded iconic message is a series of discontinuous signs that are relayed in the image through objects, colours, text and so on. Relating back to the ‘Panzani’ advert, Barthes shows that that colours act as cultural messages to signify “Italianicity”, the image and text portrays the contextual information and the open bag portrays freshness and domestic preparation. This combination of text and underlying information creates the perfect advertisement for magazines and its readers.

A non –coded iconic message is a literal, visual message. It is simply a literal message rather than one that contains underlying messages and symbols. Its purpose is to support the symbolic message and provide a literal meaning.

The final thing Bathes speaks about is the fact that drawings cannot be decoded because unlike a photograph they do not produce fine detail or every feature of the subject matter. The denotation of a drawing is therefore less pure than that of a photograph as there is no drawing without style. The scene captured in a photograph is ‘there’, captured mechanically and not humanly; where as a drawing is aided with various techniques and signs drawn from a cultural code. The artist will have portrayed the scene in the way in which they see it and this subsequently means that there are underlying messages within the drawing.

A photograph is never experienced as an “illusion”, is in no way a “presence” but is the reality of the “having-been there” unlike a drawing.

Barthes therefore showing us that one image is open to various interpretations and that text aids us to understand imagery.