Week 1

Im our introduction week to the new semester we began with a reflection on the pros and cons of the January show.

Overall I really enjoyed the show, I loved how my work was displayed and felt I utilised the room I was provided well to capture the dissociated and out-of-place feelings I strived for when planning this piece. In addition to this, I loved seeing everyone else’s work and how they interpreted the theme of “The Everyday”, especially the two micro short films in lecture room 206 by Justas Kavaliauskas, which I found incredibly moving, as they reminded me of my families own old family videos and reinforced the fragility and movement of time I’d recently been reflecting on.

However, there was a mutual agreement that for future reference the leading of the audience could have been better organized with a more accurate, thought-out estimate of the amount expected for the booklets, a clearer layout of the building allowing all art to be seen and interacted with artist’s allowing the work to be fully explained and discussed.

After this evaluation, we moved on to discuss audience types in regard to our possible target audience for the takeover exhibition and how we can reach them to guarantee their attendance through advertising and art.

For my audience type, I looked into ‘A quiet pint with the match’, which reminded me of a regular at a pub I used to work at back home, allowing me a specific and in-depth understanding of how this audience type would respond.

This study also involved us playing the character, responding to an artwork that would commonly be dismissed by many. To combat this we discussed ways in which the surrounding environment could change to accommodate these various audiences, making the artwork more appealing without directly changing it. For my character I acknowledged how he’s most likely in this situation as a result of a family day out, therefore I took inspiration from the TATE in Liverpool and suggested a separate room for kids to play in, with various art activities to keep them entertained and prevent them disrupting the artwork, resulting in my character being allowed a moment alone with their partner to properly look at the work. However, this doesn’t change the fact that they may not understand the work and so not enjoy the experience, therefore I suggested text on the wall to explain it or an audio tour, which also then encourages conversation as they develop their understanding and emotional response.

Afterwards, we were told to pick a person in Aberwyswth who matched this audience type and keep in mind how we could guarantee their attendance and enjoyment when creating our artwork under the theme of “Time”. In response to this, I chose my roommates Ben and Ethan whose attendance is guaranteed but whether or not they’d enjoy it was debatable as they didn’t with the January show holding little response to any other artist’s work. For a moment I struggled with this until I thought about the tv shows, humour and video games they enjoy and realised how they’re likely to respond positively to something with a shock factor. After discussing it with them and confirming they’d respond well to shock factor involving gore as long as it was “actually cool” and not done in a “cheap or lazy way” I was able to expand on an idea I had been playing with in my head, the thought process of which is shown on the page from my sketchbook above. With the concept not nailed down all that’s left now is to figure out how to portray it, which you can see I’ve already started exploring through quick sketches.