Link to final piece:
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/847088
Reflection on Phonar
The final Phonar project has helped me to engage with myself and rewarded me some comfort in expressing my views, opinions and emotions into my work. I have learnt the importance of narrative to help the viewer understand what you are trying to portray to them. My final piece looks into the issue of self harm and how that this has become a hidden identity that people withhold from society because of the negative ways that people portray it.
The idea behind this work is to show the importance of narrative which David Campbell expressed in the interview we heard during Phonar, and how the emotional aspect. The title that I have given this piece is ‘Hidden Scars’ and the way that I have produced the title is so that there is not much visual element to it so you can’t see, which is the metaphor for the scarring on the body. The layout of the book is important, because the sections, in which they flow, fit to the poems structure. The images represent the body to identify the markings of the body. I specifically chose not to show explicit images as to not make people feel uncomfortable and to relate the trees to the natural body. The idea behind the trees is that the different species of trees represents the different people and their different stories. The whole aspect of the trees is to signify the natural body as a form of self destruction (the beauty in the self destruction of the natural body.)
This body of work is to be used as a personal and emotive way, even though I presented this as an online book, the soul idea is to view this work at your own pace within a physical artefact. This allows the viewer to read through the poem and gain the understanding that the images and poem together collaboratively work. As Ritchin identified, people engage more with something that is physical. With having work online, it takes away from the immersive response that the work was created for. By viewing this work on an online platform, you are gaining the full experience and not forming your own response to the piece.
My final piece as a physical artefact works better, but as a rough copy it doesn’t give the full effect that I would like it to have. If I were to continue this work on, I would take the time to make the final piece a lot more personal, as it is a journey in which I have made. The empowerment that the viewer could gain from this would be much more substantial than that of a online copy. I would have liked to look at the work and make the decisions on what paper to print onto, as to create a texture for the images, as well as finding a more drawn together binding like a japanese stab binding which would hold the entire piece together. Symbolising the whole book as an artefact reference to the holding together of the body and mind.
I also need to think about how my tasks that I have looked at and developed reflect upon the learning outcomes for this module:
- Successfully undertake appropriately sophisticated research, analysis and interpretation of information.
During my final piece of my development of the spoken narrative task, I feel that I have undergone research to look deeper into my chosen subject. I have then used these resources to gain my own information from what these sources are telling me. Interpreting it how I feel appropriate.
- Identify the key issues involved in creating concepts that effectively communicate a particular message to a specific audience.
3. Independently produce a photographic narrative utilizing a range of analytical and practical photographic skills
4. Show evidence of experimentation with a range of narrative forms and media as a creative method for clearly articulating visual themes, stories and concepts
5. Critically evaluate their project work and the editorial decisions made throughout this process and its commercial relevance with respect to their chosen areas of specialism
Kerrie Caine 