At the beginning of the Invisible Touch project, my Team and I were unsure where to begin and how to go about reaching a consensus about what our final product would be. We began with a video call and we introduced ourselves, spoke about our thoughts on David’s lecture and what our expectations for this unit and university are.
Our first official project related discussion was about how life has been different since Lockdown. Literal touch and various forms of social interaction has essentially been banned and replaced by a form of ingenuine intimacy. We’re still in the real world but it feels so different and somewhat fake.
As a team, we agreed to value communication and teamwork in order to engage our different skills and produce something we are all proud of. We also understood the importance of asking for help when we needed it. When Sarah was in the room, we would speak to her about the progress of our project and she gave us designers she thought were relevant. She mentioned Arakawa and Gins: Reverse destiny architecture. She also said that to be without a sense would mean you would have to learn to move differently. We planned for our scheduled meetings with David by listing questions we had and listing topics we would like his input on. I learned that discussing your project with someone outside of your group is very useful and important for generating ideas. Fresh eyes also bring helpful criticisms that we would have otherwise missed. It's easy to avoid looking for flaws in your own project because you want it to be perfect, it’s easy to add things but its’s harder to critically consider what may be going wrong.
We discussed different forms of touch e.g. How do we connect and communicate the themes of numbness, rebirth – re-experiencing something new and change. You can move away from yourself, then you’re no longer the person you used to be
We discussed our experiences with the pandemic literally but agreed a somewhat abstract final piece would be interesting. We talked about how technology is taking over everything, i.e. even with typically hands-on creative courses we now have online lessons We all share experiences even though our exact experiences are different. For example, we are all living through a pandemic but we all have different responses to it, e.g. Missing friends: some may text more, others held regular Zoom calls.
As we were comparing how life has changed, we realised how masks are usually used in plays to show emotions and exaggerate facial expressions, but the masks we now must wear limit our ability to express emotion. We concluded it would be interesting to use masks to exaggerate emotions but out of the context of the Coronavirus Pandemic.
We chose to create a video because we believed it was the most effective way to communicate how senses affect us. Moving Image is a powerful language for communicating abstract ideas. Everyone would see the same thing but because there is no speech or narration, it leaves enough room for audience interpretation. Hence maintaining our goal to create something both abstract and understandable by a diverse audience.
Organising what we needed for filming was easy because of our teamwork skills and communication. We listed what we needed and how we would acquire those resources. We all split the cost of what we needed and utilised what was already in our possession. We chose tasks based on our skills. Moet made the masks and painted them, Erin was the main actress and did the final editing. We all sat with Erin to provide support whilst she edited, we gave advice and clarification on our shared vision. Holly, Cecilia and I shared other tasks such as directing and filming. In the end, we all did some filming and collected sounds for the video’s audio from our surrounds in the park.
I would say we worked very well as a team. I believe this is because we listed out our strengths at the beginning and from that understanding, we knew what a realistic vision for our final piece would be. Our main issue was thinking we had two extra days to finish our project. After receiving clarification from David about our project deadline, we were able to shift our personal project timeline and complete everything on time.
This project taught me not to underestimate the value of building a rapport with my teammates and gaining an understanding of our skills, personal interests, personalities and areas for improvement. It helped when we were stressed and working under a time constraint
In my course, Production Arts for Screen, we have been focusing on learning to refine our accurate drawing abilities. We have been drawing wax model ears. Week one was spent drawing 5 accurate angles of the ear. In week two we had to flip the ear by eye and draw the same five angles as accurately as possible. In weeks three and four we scaled up our drawings by three times and sculpted them.
I have not had to draw accurately in a while so I found the ear drawings and perspective drawings fairly difficult to wrap my head around. In foundation year I used a lot of rough sketches to communicate my ideas. Ears are difficult to draw but drawing them taught me the importance of detail, measurement, and looking at shapes when drawing technically. I am learning how to communicate better through my drawings.
I found sculpting, in general, easy but sculpting accurately was rather difficult. I had used clay during my foundation diploma to make a model of a building. Sculpting an ear was difficult because of all the different folds, curves and how the ear holds itself up in some areas and in others, it falls upon itself. I learned how to use tools to shape and remove back the clay. I know the importance of having a consistent eye-level view when I am sculpting because when I stood up it would look every different.
Overall Unit One has been somewhat challenging for me but I have found it very useful. It was an effective introduction to my course. I now know how to work on a project with people from different creative backgrounds. I
know my strengths include teamwork, filming and creative thinking. My weaknesses are accurate drawing, sculpting and time management. Now I know this, I can learn to work with and around my weaknesses. If I could redo this unit, I would better plan out my time to manage all my tasks. And finally, I am proud of completing my first unit. I will take the lessons I have learnt with me to all my following projects and the rest of my creative career.
Final Video:
Final Mask / Video prop
Filming :
Ear Drawings:
Clay sculpting an ear :
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