week five :)

FRIDAY’S CLASS

On the Friday before reading week, we brought some work to share with the class and get some feedback on. This was absolutely terrifying, but actually really helped (: Originally, I’d printed out what I’d written so that it could be passed around and I wouldn’t have to read it aloud –  something that I didn’t think I’d be comfortable with. But, when it got to my turn, I kinda figured that the whole aim of this project is to push myself out of my comfort zone, so I ended up reading it out instead ! This actually ended up being the thing I got the most feedback on; that it was easier to connect with my writing having heard it read in my voice. I think I’ll take this into account for my final project (: I also got some advice about not over-explaining my work, to just jump straight into it, which I’ll also take account of – I’d not realised that I’d almost been conditioned to feel apologetic about sharing my experience with gender. This is definitely something that I want to unlearn, there’s nothing to be sorry for, I’m not entirely sure why I felt like there was, but it might be interesting to use this project to explore that ! 

After the group crit, we began with an initial plan for our workshop ideas in the form of a quick poster. I struggled to think of anything at first, but once I eventually got something down, I ended up really liking the idea – after developing it and creating a powerpoint, I’ll use it for my presentation next week (:

READING WEEK

This week was reading week, so we didn’t have any IP classes or tutorials to attend. We had the opportunity instead just to work on anything we needed to, and prepare for our presentations the following week. Admittedly, I think I could’ve taken better advantage of this week in terms of progressing with my project – but I spent a lot of time catching up on other modules I’d fallen a little behind in >;(

Though I may not have done as much practical work as I would have liked to, I did do some much needed planning. Through this, I encountered some issues that I think I might have with my project. Firstly, the 7-8 characters I had originally planned may be a little ambitious – especially in the sense that they were starting to sound a bit too similar to one another. I’m going to need to aim for quality over quantity, instead; maybe 5-6 characters that are more refined. 

I also found that I was struggling a little with how to present some of the practices I wanted to explore – like music. I’d initially planned for one of them to be a band member, and while I can put in pictures of gigs that I’ve done, I wasn’t sure how well a video would work. I’m thinking I either scrap the idea, or have the pictures go alongside something else – I’m going to get a rough draft of the writing and see which I think’ll work best (:

Another recurring issue I’m having is settling on how I am going to ‘set up’ the final draft as some form of exhibition or installation. During our group crit, I really liked the idea suggested that I have the extracts read out rather than just displayed for people to read themselves. The problem is that I’m not sure how I would execute this. If I set up an exhibition, I’d need a handful of devices that can record and play audio, which isn’t really feasible with my budget. Another option I have is compiling everything into a book or a film – but I think I’m going to think about this more towards the end of the project, as I’ll be able to better see what works once I have everything ! 

Despite all of this, I now have a solid plan of what each character will be, and what practice comes along with them, so I feel a lot more prepared for the actual making part ! (:

I did also manage to use some free time and some wooden blocks that my flatmate was throwing away to make a little minecraft-inspired sculpture. While this wasn’t a part of any of my character plans, I think I’m going to write it in ! It’s something new that I tried and had a lot of fun with, which is for sure the main aim of my project ! 

PRESENTATION

For next Friday’s class, we were asked to prepare a PechaKucha presentation to propose an idea for a three hour workshop that we’ll run later on. These presentations have twenty slides which only last for 20 seconds each – and I was a little nervous because I’ve never used a format like it before, and being concise isn’t really my strong suit (: I actually found that it almost forced me to be more efficient, though ! I spent a lot of time during the reading week finalising my plan for the workshop, and conducting a trial run with my flatmates – which was so fun ! They really enjoyed it and so did I, and we made a new house mascot (: 

I also wrote up a script to help me stay on topic while I presented, which I’m really glad I did because I definitely would’ve panicked otherwise ! I had a lot of fun making the slides to go along with this, even if some of the photos were a bit strange – very limited with which ones were transparent !