My thoughts on the last semester? Knackering, nerve-wracking, painful. Summarizing – not the best, to put it mildly… But!!!! I always find something positive even in terrible times! I’ve learnt lots of new skills:
· working with Blender – 3d sculpting programme (I’m still not good tho, but I know the basics now, so it’s still a good start)
· Nomad Sculpt tho – I AM A PRO NOW LITERALLY (just kidding, but I know a lot of stuff)
· Learning what stresses the shit out of me – basically everything
· and the fact that my hardships make my work better because I’m looking for solutions that improve my project (that’s what I read in my feedback from Miranda and yeah it might be true) The thing is I usually think that my first concept is always the best. Sometimes it’s impossible to make it in real life, so it’s perfect just in my head, but still, I sometimes think that the first idea and making it the way I planned would be the best. So yeah, even if I had lots and lots of issues with technical stuff in my project I made it work in the end.
· I also think that I improved my speeches and presentations a lot – I’m definitely more confident and I can prepare for it better than in the past!
Even though gaining these skills, as I said, it was a super hard semester. I don’t know if I would like to go through that one more time. Being this stressed and tired is not great for my health – mental and physical. But after Christmas break, I feel better and I’m excited about the new semester!
Oh, one more thing – I’m definitely proud of myself! I got great feedback overall even if there were some constructive criticism it was still good. Plus, I even started working on my assignment earlier than usual – that’s a very good thing. Let’s hope I will start doing my job even earlier this semester.
Okay, I didn’t rest that well during my free time. I thought I will, but the exhibitions came up and I didn’t expect that I’ll be such a great part of the organization team in January show. (I also started preparing myself for the Gwesty Cymru exhibition which came out unexpectedly, and I started stressing so much more). So yeah as I said I was busy preparing for the January show, which was so exhausting. It was too much work for not enough people. Not going to lie it was almost painful at some moments and I don’t have amazing memories of preparation. But in the end, it came out much better than I expected it to be. I think that there were easily over 50 people (maybe even 100) who visited the SoA and everyone enjoyed the show. Oh, I also created the posters and booklets for it, here they are. I think they are okay, but I liked the Takeover ones much much better.
To sum up, it was a harsh experience, but the final outcome was great, Many thanks to all people who took part in this event and Thanks to Janos, Saad and Richard for organizing this with me. And good luck to anyone who will decide to do it next year!
This semester I’m already pretty stressed, because every year, every semester I have a billion ideas about what I can do for my project. This semester wasn’t any different, to be honest, but when I thought about these ideas longer I rejected them all because they weren’t good enough. Now I’m left with nothing – brain empty. I always know what exactly I want to do, I have a clear idea – obviously, this idea evolves over weeks, but I have a solid base. You know what I’ll share with you those ideas that I had, maybe it will help me a little:
– Creating a sculpture… hmmm a sculpture?? Rather make a mask made of a plaster cast of my whole head, and then fill it with some kind of liquid that hardens or clay, so I’ll have a replica of my face and head. So the thing is that I’m scared of maturing and getting old, so I wanted to present my face as it’s getting old. I thought about using a mould for it so I would cover the sculpture with all kinds of things that can grow mould. I found some great photos of mould that are inspiring for me, and I just thought it looks great.
The other idea was still connected to mould but instead of it I would use beads like in this case
to imitate the mould. It would represent my fear of what getting old looks like for me. I’m scared of passing time, I wish I was young forever, but I know it’s not possible. I feel like I’m losing time, that I don’t use it enough. I still have a lot of things to do in my life, but I feel like I will not have time to do it, or maybe I’m losing this time thinking that I will not have time. I already know that I’m an overthinker, and I should be doing things and not just thinking about doing them
– The other idea is a music video for a song. What song? Not sure That’s the problem. I really don’t want to collaborate with someone who is not my very close friend, cause I know myself and I know that I am a people pleaser, so I wouldn’t be able to tell someone that I don’t like something they’re doing, to not hurt them. It’s a different thing with my friends tho. Buuuuut, none of them can make music. I also can’t and I don’t want to start a project based on technology once again, because we all know how it ends. I enjoy working with video making and I always wanted to do a music video, so that’s why it came to my mind. The idea for the music I had (If I would create one ) was to base it on a clock ticking.
– The last project idea was to play with lights. Here are some photos that inspired me:
I would like to create something similar, but I don’t want to copy it – obviously. The problem is that I don’t know what exactly you could do with lights to connect it with time.
– And the overall idea for the project is to be big and spectacular. Oh and also some interactive, because we want to focus on this for the Takeover to be interesting.
The last part is about the group tutorial that was on Friday. I think it was a wonderful and helpful experience. I realized that there are others besides me who are struggling with doing research and inspiration and motivation. It came out that it was not only me!
Additionally, after repeating things written on paper so many times, I realized more what my flaws and good sides actually are. It became real. It was so nice to talk to others and share our experiences. I had conversations with people that I’ve never really talked to. People recommended researching documents about human perception, and perception of things overall. To understand the time and stop fearing it. So let’s do it! Let’s find movies, books, podcasts and all those things about human perception!
Time songs:
a colourful lively post, lots of ideas, do credit the images that are not by you. Have you read Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – about a painting that ages while the person whose portrait it is doesn’t age, its well worth reading and in keeping with some of your ideas, also Marc Quinn’s bloody head.