Evaluation

Communication Technology has been a learning journey for me which is what the brief was designed to do. I have realised that I do actually have somewhat of a key focus, although it may not be immediately recognisable from looking at my blog. In this evaluation I hope to explain my understanding of what happened thoroughly and clearly in a way that I can read back in future and refer to.

First I need to talk about my crisis around the interim crit. At that point I thought I didn’t understand what was needed of me and that I was failing the module by not documenting enough. Through the summer I thought I would start the year by learning technical drawing, but what I learnt from doing some life drawing, perspective drawing and figure drawing was that providing I keep doing it, I will learn to draw well over time. This suits my learning style, which is through repetition, whether it’s hand rendering or learning a new computer based design program. While sitting and drawing for a while most days I’d become involved with the Students Union, I had been contributing to Active Arts too and it had also come that a few students were wanting to start a life drawing society. I was trying to be involved in all these things. I sought help from tutors and friends after the crit and two things were said that helped me. One idea was to blog everything I was doing and how I was learning from it, so I began to do that although I kept it to things where I was learning new, practical skills. The second thing I was told was that I was spreading myself too thin and that I needed to gain a sort of focus in order to intensify my learning experience.

By looking back over my blog, I realise collaboration is a key concept for me and in this brief I have been observing and researching how disparate technologies are used to help people in different socio-economic groups reach self-actualization.

I came to this conclusion by analysing my initial approach. While I enjoy sitting and drawing on my own, I could not motivated enough to produce a huge body of work simply for my own individual drawing practice. When it came to working with other people however, I had all the time in the world. After realising that, I began to tell people that I enjoy drawing, painting, making and collaborative projects. I rang several people asking for volunteer work and they got back to me saying that they had projects I could work on with them. Networking then, is a key skill that I must tap into in order to grow.

It might seem like I was approaching projects in a curious and opportunistic way and maybe I was, but I have learnt the value of that approach. By disallowing myself any sort of editorial role until later on in the brief, I made sure my own prejudices and expectations weren’t able to interfere with the collaborative focus of my approach.

A good way to explain my learning process would be to go through my blog explaining the process I went through as I see it.

Perspective drawing was hard but I got to grips with the basics in the end through reading about the theory and having several discussions with tutors and friends. Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Google Sketch Up, colour work, costume drawing and figure drawing as well will all develop gradually through necessity and / or repetition and through applying the theory behind it. This back and forth process of academic and practical study has been useful to me and certainly speeds up my development and helps to prevent my practice becoming stale.

The days I spent at Inkwell Arts and Blaize Community arts were a start in realising what I really value in terms of collaborative arts. I enjoyed learning with a group at Blaize’ animation workshops and came away having taught a group and bettered my own understanding on stop-frame animation. I helped empower a group of Asian kids to use art and communication technology to express their views on bullying, which was their agenda not mine. Inkwell was different in that I was networking with established artists about their own creative practice and possible volunteering oppertunities, but in an environment related to mental health and my old job in a psychiatric ward. Going back to that environment from a creative standpoint and really trying to help was something that drove me to apply to university.

The ideas of networking, collaboration and developing my own personal practice came together when I did a two day job with Clockwork Eye Productions. I learnt camera, lighting and set design skills and had the opportunity to employ and improve my own image composition skills through the direction I was given.

Working with Active Arts has been a good learning experience too. What was particularly good for own practice was using InDesign to create a proposal in PDF format to sell our group to the Leeds Love Arts Festival. It worked too. We completed the two days workshops in the middle of Leeds indoor market and we drew attention from the local community. However, I don’t feel like Active Arts is a group I can devote too much time to anymore as I need to spend my time focusing on my own practice. By that, I mean I need to start taking control and focusing on collaborating with people who have skills I am really interested in.

The only time I have taken an editorial role is during an on-going process setting up a life drawing society with the Students Union. It has been testing my organisational skills in a way that a passive role wouldn’t and it has pushed me into networking with the college Human Resources department. The creative- bureaucratic collaboration has been interesting. Firstly, I approached it from an aggressive angle. I got other students involved and we put together a proposal which explained why this would be beneficial to us all and it didn’t work. They presented me with their own problems with the set-up of the society and I set out to solve them. Now, as a creative group, we are trying to solve the problems they present us with until there aren’t any left.

In conclusion I will repeat that By looking back over my blog, I realise collaboration is a key concept for me and in this brief I have been observing and researching how disparate technologies are used to help people in different socio-economic groups reach self-actualisation.

My plan now is to join onto a project with a set designer for a week, who is building back drops for a Shakespeare production in County Durham. I have also been asked to come with a way of making a room in an old factory look damp and mouldy. These two projects relate to set design and are definitely collaborative projects. In the project in County Durham I will be learning some new skills in set making and in the second project I will be using those skills to aid a film maker. 

I believe that collaborative learning is a strength of mine and that it is a valuable process when done well, not only for myself but for all the individuals involved.