Group note: Prezi – Some good use has been made of the online media tool Prezi to exhibit the project. It is worth considering here how a Prezi looks from a distance. The words “The Task” announce the objective. A Prezi, like a photograph, can have form. It would be worth considering how an arrangement of text and objects, viewed from a zoomed out position, can use formal elements to unite content and theme. A crude example (a suggestion used here to clarify rather than as example to follow) would be to arrange all the contents of the Prezi into the shape of a bottle. Formal elements could then influence the type of bottle we see, the feel of it and the overall tone of the image. Inside the Prezi, frames are used well to present images and accompanying information. The images are presented in a pyramid structure: it would have been useful to hear in individual evaluations thoughts about why line and shape here were designed in this way. There follows a useful explanation of the inspiration behind the work, introducing themes of natural resources versus manufactured commodities and organic elements versus hazardous materials. Frames are then used to deliver each of the three works discretely along with explanatory text. A final frame deals with audience feedback. It would have been more effective to integrate the target audience focus group feedback into each of the individual frames. Comments could have been cited and analysed alongside the images they refer to. A chief weakness of the presentation, and therefore a key area for development is the lack of attention given to an analysis of how formal elements unite each work’s theme and content. This is as true for the target audience research feedback as it is for the creator’s explanatory notes. In terms of the former, the focus group should have been asked questions specifically designed to elicit ideas about subject, content and form and the relationship dynamics between the three.
Individual note: Blog – The blog should feature an extended account of the analysis begun within the Prezi, and should focus on how the photograph’s formal elements unify what we see in it and all aspects of its content with the overarching theme(s) of the work. This is not in evidence on the weblog.
Prezi – At the outset of the evaluation on your blog you explain that your “job was to show the divide between natural and artificial objects” and where you believe “most people would place them visually in their mind”. To be accurate, this wasn’t your job. Your task was to build a group photographic project around the theme of light, with the possibility of exploring sub-themes of the main theme. The idea that there is a “divide” between natural and artificial light is over-obvious. You develop this idea by taking a gigantic leap into the unknown proposing that we can “guesstimate” where most people, in an imaginary image context, would place one or other of the two objects you have chosen to symbolise nature and manufacture. It seems that you are at the beginning of what could be an interesting idea here but unfortunately you give us nothing more to go on. Is it that you wanted to explore people’s feelings about natural light sources and artificial forms of light or natural resources and manufactured commodities? Or is it that you wanted to initiate some sort of Rorschach test where you would require people to view natural and artificial content, invite them to freely associate and from that free association draw conclusions? If this all sounds vague it is because your own premise is vague. You needed to comprehensively explore a specific theme and the satellite ideas around it prior to analysing how the formal elements of the piece unify its content and theme(s). You move in an interesting direction when you talk about value, tone and quality of light. The plastic bottle has been placed in the shadows and the running water under direct sunlight, to endow the former with negative associations and the latter more positive ones. You then say that equal space has been attributed to each kind of water to show that each has its place in the world. There is an inherent contradiction here which might have been worth exploring and which might have led you to some very useful creative development.
There is a brief breakdown of the technological process behind the construction of your image. Some problem solving during construction is mentioned: the adjustments to brightness and contrast could be illustrated with screenshots. Both of these sections could have been more detailed. In the text that accompanies your photograph you really need to be using the critical and aesthetic language of artistic appreciation: using a more concise and selective text than the abovementioned extended analysis on your blog, the Prezi’s text should draw the reader’s attention to the themes of the art work and you should be directing us to how the formal elements in the photograph are unifying content and theme(s).
You also need to discuss the target audience focus group feedback in terms of how they have responded to subject, content and form.
For the most part good class work and homework and a promising response to the objective. C--
Group note:
ReplyDeletePrezi – Some good use has been made of the online media tool Prezi to exhibit the project. It is worth considering here how a Prezi looks from a distance. The words “The Task” announce the objective. A Prezi, like a photograph, can have form. It would be worth considering how an arrangement of text and objects, viewed from a zoomed out position, can use formal elements to unite content and theme. A crude example (a suggestion used here to clarify rather than as example to follow) would be to arrange all the contents of the Prezi into the shape of a bottle. Formal elements could then influence the type of bottle we see, the feel of it and the overall tone of the image. Inside the Prezi, frames are used well to present images and accompanying information. The images are presented in a pyramid structure: it would have been useful to hear in individual evaluations thoughts about why line and shape here were designed in this way. There follows a useful explanation of the inspiration behind the work, introducing themes of natural resources versus manufactured commodities and organic elements versus hazardous materials. Frames are then used to deliver each of the three works discretely along with explanatory text. A final frame deals with audience feedback. It would have been more effective to integrate the target audience focus group feedback into each of the individual frames. Comments could have been cited and analysed alongside the images they refer to. A chief weakness of the presentation, and therefore a key area for development is the lack of attention given to an analysis of how formal elements unite each work’s theme and content. This is as true for the target audience research feedback as it is for the creator’s explanatory notes. In terms of the former, the focus group should have been asked questions specifically designed to elicit ideas about subject, content and form and the relationship dynamics between the three.
Individual note:
ReplyDeleteBlog – The blog should feature an extended account of the analysis begun within the Prezi, and should focus on how the photograph’s formal elements unify what we see in it and all aspects of its content with the overarching theme(s) of the work. This is not in evidence on the weblog.
Prezi – At the outset of the evaluation on your blog you explain that your “job was to show the divide between natural and artificial objects” and where you believe “most people would place them visually in their mind”. To be accurate, this wasn’t your job. Your task was to build a group photographic project around the theme of light, with the possibility of exploring sub-themes of the main theme. The idea that there is a “divide” between natural and artificial light is over-obvious. You develop this idea by taking a gigantic leap into the unknown proposing that we can “guesstimate” where most people, in an imaginary image context, would place one or other of the two objects you have chosen to symbolise nature and manufacture. It seems that you are at the beginning of what could be an interesting idea here but unfortunately you give us nothing more to go on. Is it that you wanted to explore people’s feelings about natural light sources and artificial forms of light or natural resources and manufactured commodities? Or is it that you wanted to initiate some sort of Rorschach test where you would require people to view natural and artificial content, invite them to freely associate and from that free association draw conclusions? If this all sounds vague it is because your own premise is vague. You needed to comprehensively explore a specific theme and the satellite ideas around it prior to analysing how the formal elements of the piece unify its content and theme(s). You move in an interesting direction when you talk about value, tone and quality of light. The plastic bottle has been placed in the shadows and the running water under direct sunlight, to endow the former with negative associations and the latter more positive ones. You then say that equal space has been attributed to each kind of water to show that each has its place in the world. There is an inherent contradiction here which might have been worth exploring and which might have led you to some very useful creative development.
There is a brief breakdown of the technological process behind the construction of your image. Some problem solving during construction is mentioned: the adjustments to brightness and contrast could be illustrated with screenshots. Both of these sections could have been more detailed. In the text that accompanies your photograph you really need to be using the critical and aesthetic language of artistic appreciation: using a more concise and selective text than the abovementioned extended analysis on your blog, the Prezi’s text should draw the reader’s attention to the themes of the art work and you should be directing us to how the formal elements in the photograph are unifying content and theme(s).
You also need to discuss the target audience focus group feedback in terms of how they have responded to subject, content and form.
For the most part good class work and homework and a promising response to the objective. C--