Visual Language I
Fall 2006, Massart


Jane D. Marsching email
office 3rd floor south 309 , hours: Mon 1:30-3 Tue 2-3:30 signup sheet is on the door

 

Project: Extracted Interpretation

 

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Project Goals: To explore extracting ideas from outside sources.

Skills: digital photography; lighting and color in photo; reviewing formal fundamental elements explored in Imagery Development.

Project Description: Create a work that responds to an article on the front page of any newspaper from anywhere in the world using the medium of digital photography. Through color and light and image evoke the emotion of the element you responded to in the article.

SUGGESTIONS & GUIDELINES:
1. As you are reading the article, jot down notes about the event, your feelings about it, the author's point of view, omissions of fact, etc.
2. Here are possibilities to consider:
-The work need not be literal or representational in this project. On the other hand, your imagery cannot be arbitrary in that it should be created for and about an aspect of this article. It may be helpful to start taking photos of different ideas to see what is the visual reality of the ideas. What I mean by this is that you need to see the image of an idea, before you can judge if the idea is too literal or not. Sometimes the most literal idea can be interesting, sometimes it can be totally uninteresting.
-The photograph can be abstract, it need not be recognizable, although the project does require that you address the emotions behind the thing you wish to express.
- One possibility would be to photograph friends who could stand in for people discussed in the article. Consider how this could have the effect of transposing the situation of the article to a different culture, making the story go beyond time and place.
-Consider doing a sequence of two or more photos to tell about something that happens (It need not tell the whole story in this sequence but could just tell about one small detail).
-A carefully selected detail can express the larger whole.
-Carefully consider the presentation of the photos: what scale, what to print the photos on; whether to include text from the passage in the novel you derived the idea for the illustration
-The photograph can be a landscape, or interior with or without figures.

FINAL PRESENTATION REQUIREMENTS:
Print the image onto quality computer paper (mat, semi-mat surface), or whatever media that may contribute to the image.
The image can be tiled, but it can be no smaller than 11" x 17".
You may choose to do a two page spread. You may choose to incorporate the text. You may choose to make the image the cover of a book, including the title.


Process:
Week 1: Discussion of article; research other points of view. 4 studies of images.
Read: Art Fundamentals chap 10 (Content and Style)
Week 2: Bring in ten or more photo images either on your hard drive or computer, which explore the visual possibilities of your final idea. Explore experiment with the fundamental elements from Imagery Development: crop, abstract, line, shape, contrast, scale, composition, movement, positive/negative space.
Week 3 & 4: Finished Photo Printed