Paper Play: Puzzles

I am determined to get an interactive and organic side into this project and I feel this can be achieved in how the work is presented. Having looked at the Rubick's website and been inspired by my keychain Rubick's cube I was convinced that I could create a puzzle that the end user could decipher and unfold to display artwork. My dream is that the puzzle would unravel the layers of multiple personalities that the pictured person had created to reveal their true self. 

This initial design process was intended to create an interactive cube, that displayed a complete picture across each complete side, and allow the user to mix these pictures up to create a unique and new face design with each flip of a cube. 

Although fun and challenging, this is extremely hard to complete, with industry standard cutting needed and revolutionary pivoting designs on the corners of the cubes to achieve what I really wanted. As you can see in the images the cubes that I created came pretty close to achieving my initial dream puzzle, but all signs were that this was too complicated, and so I moved onto a new 2D puzzle design. 

I had recently seen a flyer design that blew my mind, it was an endless fold design that had 4 separate images that folded around each other with seemingly impossible folds. So I set about trying to re-create this image in my head and produce a net design that would allow me to do this. Here is what I came up with, this is an advanced prototype believe it or not, with the first outcomes being made out of separate parts, this is made out of one piece of A4.

Using the images that I created for an initial project exploring alter-egos I printed out the design onto one piece of A4 And created the below puzzle, which working from left to right in both rows shows the journey through 4 separate images that fold endlessly into each other. I really think this is a unique idea and tool to use to display my work and intrigue the user into play with my work.

Catching up with some experiments part 2.

Continuing this archiving of experiments here is some interesting outcomes that I achieved when playing with an OHP. This all happened the day before Colophon and Luxembourg and so was a bit rushed but the OHP gives off an amazing texture into the projections, with an aesthetically beautiful border and colour palette that is hard to re-create digitally. These images show me simply placing object from around my room onto the mirror and playing with the focus to achieve these abstract results. Can you guess what the objects are? Well the bottom right object is a teddy bear - yet it creates an almost biological outline complete with sharp and fuzzy outlines. I personally love these abstract outcomes, things such as a glass can be distorted to create a totally new object, and its this idea of distortion (pretence) that I want my imagery to illustrate.

I like the idea of placing an object onto the projector and getting a totally new reflection on the wall, it relates back to the light box experiment where I talked about how the reflection is not always what you would think - is this because of the false identity that people build up socially - can this haunt you? Haunt you like a shadow? 

Catching up with some experiments...

Before I move on with the next chapter of this project there is some interesting work that needs documenting.  The photographs are just playing but are relative to my hypothesis of pretence. These photographs show initial play with form and light - the first set showing simple silhouettes created by taking pictures in front of the giant light-box in the library. The idea here is playing with shadows to create something that is not the truth. 

With Nick distorting his outline by using his hands to add features to his face a number of illustrative opportunities open up. Obvious imagery could be associated with shadows, where the reflection is not what the object truly is thus highlighting the idea of pretence.

The second set of photographs came about from me just having a laugh in the kitchen with a roll of black reflective paper. Attaching the tube to the lens of my camera provided some really interesting images - some where the face is reflected and distorted over and around the original. Again I thought this could be useful to the theory of pretence, with the true individual in the centre and the false identity built up around the edges. 

I really like this image, with the face distorted in really flowing yet unnatural lines providing an interesting composition to work in - circles and reflections and could provide a basis for my illustrations. This little exercise does highlight the fun involved with experimenting with cameras and simple crafts to distort the imagery manually. The idea of framing and masking certain parts of an image could relate to hiding certain aspects of your image, yet the reflections showing and distorting the pretence.

Masking a turning point.

Here are some masks I drew after returning back from Colophon. Just started drawing simple line drawings, at this time I was struggling with too many ideas and a return to drawing was therapeutic, and eased my worries. The initial idea behind them was to continue this idea of pretence. The idea that people create masks for themselves, stories even being made from these masks - made famous by Batman, Star Wars, and I would draw these masks - perhaps colouring them in Photoshop. People use masks to hide their true identity, particularly in gang culture, and I thought this could be an interesting if not a little off direction.

They are nothing special but mark a turning point in my project as a whole, before this I had this idea of creating many small projects to create a body of work - but I found this to be underwhelming and restrictive. I normally involve myself into projects for a while and work into a final process that has meaning, and the short projects did not allow me to do this. They did, however, allow me to play with many techniques and give me ideas to carry on with. 

With the shackles released from the short projects I moved on and kept these experiments strictly as development rather than outcomes.

Initial Short Projects: James Case study

So continuing on from the last post I created a miniature set of my friend James' fictional heroes. At the front is James himself followed by his comic book heroes Spiderman, Batman, and Superman. Old Gregg and the Cockney geezer from the Boosh also get an appearance here. 

Now, drawing on the psychology aspects learnt from the articles that I researched earlier in the project I learnt that each character could be seen as a deviation of James by including a striking characteristic.

In the earlier more technical drawings I used his hair to distinguish him apart from his mask, here that wouldn't fit in with all of the characters. Still there is another characteristic with James with his glasses. So as we move down the line you can see each character has the same glasses on, and this helps to link them together as the same person. 

Now, to keep a little refernce point to the imagery I thought I would include a clue as to what it is all about, Wally style, by including the comics in the images too.

The result turns out like the below image, which I think is pretty effective. I could take this technique on to create relative imagery, perhaps write words and draw big objects using the characters as building blocks. For example I could draw a comic book made completely out of James's characters with each one like a puzzle piece given the correct hues to fit into a larger picture as a whole. The layering system adds perspective to the image, and perhaps if a background were to be introduced this could add yet another dimension or relevance to the image rather than a blank space.

Initial Short Projects: Character continuation

After the initial success of the last short project I decided to further indulge myself with continued character designs. This odd couple are random scribbles that I did in response to reading a couple of issues of Vice magazine, there were articles looking at people who obsessively collect items, and I thought this was reflected in their appearance.

So a little exercise in my character designs I developed a liking for hand drawing then scanning them into Photoshop. I have always liked to draw afros and sunglasses and this being a self indulgent style at first I then managed to strike upon a brainwave to make it relative. A toilet epiphany if you will. Why not do a miniature case study on someone's hobbies, and see what this does to their appearance, this style is quick and easy to produce, scanning in sketches and colouring them in dans Photoshop and so I could produce mini images that could build something greater? After looking at images by Andrew Rae I was reminded of how awesome Wheres Wally was, and how long I used to spend as a kid just taking in one double page spread. Below is an example of how I could use the above style to create something larger out of small components.

Initial Short Projects: Mixing digital with real

After the research from the New Scientist I decided to indulge myself in some character design that had been burning through my patience to get done. Although an obvious response to an alter ego I feel that overlaying a photograph with a characterised alter-ego is a light-hearted and artistically efficient way of working. 

Click on the image to make it larger and you will see a gallery of 4 friends, where I have taken their nicknames or hobbies and turned them into a characature over the top of their photographed body. For example there is James, a man obsessed with comics and graphic novels, a hobby that lends itself well to my theory as the protagonist stereotypically lives out a double life as a normal human being and a superhero. So James was easy, linking his normal body with a distinctive Spiderman mask works quite well, and by keeping features such as the hair and glasses similiar lets the brain register who the person is.

That is another interesting part to this experiment, taking the the words said by both the BBC and New Scientist posted earlier it is interesting to see how the brain works and can register someone through certain features, because even if I were to take the body away, the glasses and hair would probably mean that his friends would be able to distinguish who it was, add their knowledge of his hobbies and the mask would confirm the judgement to be correct.

The image of Mike works well in this respect, taking the image of his clothes and you probably wouldn't be able to tell who it is, but once the iconic Mikey hair is added all of his friends will know who it is. Add this to the fact that he is labelled as the old man of the group and the stance and composition come into effect to confirm that judgement that this old man is a version of Mike, if not a little extreme. 

It seems that once this split second judgement is made the smaller things don't matter; for both Eric and Mikey the colour of their skin is seen as a stylistic choice by myself rather than a reflection of their true self, and doesn't alter the brains recognition of the individual.

It is a style that I lifted from an article found in a copy of Vice Magazine, and after some research I found the artist; Jiro Bevis. His site is pretty good, hand drawn illustration coloured in digitally in Photoshop always looks good and his portfolio boasts some strong collaborations. 

I really like the simplicity of the images, and the degradation of the images once I had scanned them in to my computer was interesting - perhaps scanning or photocopying my future images could provide and interesting effect to the appearance of my work. The images are simple yet effective, and the style is definitely one that I will try to continue, if not in this project then for other personal work. The style takes me back to work that I did for the AIB library for an awareness campaign for their E-resources:

Initial Short Projects: Possible Actionscript Play

After the last post I thought that my last project could play an important role in the development in distorted imagery. The ability to chuck my images into Actionscript and change the appearance of a face or object could tie in well with the theory of pretence. Click on the image above to see how that looks; the skull on the left is my original image- with two actionscript deviations next to it. This technique could create a mask or separate image that could be overlaid.

Initial Short Projects: Paper Faces

Again although a basic preliminary project, I found this quite exciting and a generator for future ideas. Bringing together the previous experiments I decided to use basic photography and the same techniques to distort and change the form and character of the face. 

The top left image has been cut up and placed back together in reverse order. It is interesting to see how the image retains a certain degree of recognition, particularly in the centre of the image which compares to this cambridge study on text. Here they argue how the human mind does not read each letter separately, but the word as a whole.  E.g. Hree tehy agrue how the hmuan mnid deos not raed ecah lteetr saeraplty, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Does this apply to our face? This reminded me of something I saw on the telly recently where the eyes and mouth are turned upside down yet still look normal at first glance - is this because the brain takes in the face as a whole (to recognise) at first and then breaks it down? 

On this BBC science page I found that the brain goes through three stages in face recognition. The first assesses the face's physical aspects, secondly we decide whether it is a known, recognisable face and the third step - which some struggle with - is to put a name to the face. 

So, although it is a simple experiment, these images poke into basic neuroscience and hopefully challenge the ability to initially recognise a face. This is a really interesting direction to move in, using faces and distorting them to challenge the ability to recognise them could be related to the idea of pretense that we create for ourselves - My artwork in effect could begin to mimic or illustrate the changes that we place on our appearance, both physical or mental in order to fit in. The work could take on a satirical tone in order to mock the images produced or act as a surprise to people into realising what they look like when they lie outrageously about themselves. Would the person be able to recognise their own face once the changes had taken effect?

The below images are continuing to experiment with form, both stretching and shrinking the face - to show the effects of fat or thin in the face. 

Initial Short Projects: Paper Play

Moving on from the initial play with cutting up paper, I decided to add another dimension and use a pop up approach to my design - which when photographed made a pretty interesting type design, if not predominately 'M's. 

Although time consuming the work is interesting - the shapes created could provide a 3D structure onto which I could place artwork that could be transformed or mutated by the changing structure. This could allow an interactive dimension to the work as the user could play with the form and push the cut outs into their own desired positions. I guess the platform doesn't have to be plain paper but could be a face that is then cut into with the deliberate intent to distort a certain feature.

I also like the use of light to create reflections, these reflections could be exploited to make further shapes and imagery - perhaps using paper to create a shape and the shadow providing a new image from that what you would expect - to reflect the notion of multiple personality.

Initial Short Projects: Paper Cuts

I mentioned in earlier posts that I really wanted to mix organic processes into the roots of this project. After looking at the work of Maria Yaschuk I was inspired to start playing around with paper trying out techniques you do when you're at school but with a basic theory strung through. The idea is that I'm using two separate images and then merging them together in various ways - in a visual response to how people who suffer from multiple personality disorder (MPD) merge two personalities into one.

Although the outcomes are basic, the idea is to physically play with the idea of mixing imagery which is perhaps something that is harder to visualise in digital terms. There are definately processes that I will call on later in the project. Perhaps with the use of my photography rather than newsprint to mix portrait photography.