Assignment 6: Psychological Landscape

This post isn't late, it's just not quite on time!

So, it's finally come to this, the first art assignment that actually specifies the need for you to draw something. The title pretty much gives the assignment away, but we're supposed to draw a landscape, but not of a  factual location, but a landscape born from our mind.

Video link to the original Assignment, and now on to the rules:

1. Get a piece of paper
2. Get something that will leave visible marks on that paper
3. Create a "Ground" for the picture
4. Add "Figures" with human-like characteristics
5. Put it online

If you wonder what the terms "Ground" and "Figures" refer to, it's very succinctly explained in the video itself, but they are pretty much what they sound like they are; the ground is the ground of the landscape, and the figures are the things which populate the landscape.

This one is a much more individualistic task than some of the previous ones, especially as the word "psychological" can also bring about feelings of privacy and intimacy. But as Lucy and I have decided from the start to do all of these as a team, we've added a few rules to incorporate each other in our respective landscapes.

The two of us will draw our own landscapes and populate it with our own figures, then swap our drawings over and add our figures to each others drawing.

In this way, we are inviting each other into the world that we created for ourselves, and by introducing elements from our personal landscape into the new one, it creates something not unlike a mix of cultures, and with it a sort of culture shock. This was something we wanted to explore for this task.

My landscape

I don't draw very often, but whenever I draw I tend to draw in lines, and this time I made no attempt to smooth these lines out. While drawing the ground, I had this image in my head of a great mass which was wedged into the earth, causing cracks and shadow over the world, I imagined it being a key part to the scene and that the figures would interact with it in mostly positive way. This mass turned into a tree the moment I began to add branches.

 Lucy's landscape

She tells me that her picture has no meaning, that she created the picture randomly. Scenes of Japan definitely inspired parts of it, but she feels the end result looks like something made by a 6 year old child, but she still likes it. I think that what this image shows is a playful innocence, all of her figures are having fun in some way, whether they be flying in the sky or climbing ladders to the moon. It's a calm yet surreal landscape which doesn't pretend to be anything else.

Lucy's figures in my landscape

She added her figures with the intention to make the landscape more interesting; by turning the tree from a feature of the scenery into a character in its own right; by putting out a table which tries to catch a falling creature; and adding a snowman in peril. "No one would expect to see a snowman in this picture" -Lucy. Compared to my figures, hers a vibrant and noticeable showing a direct contrast and casting them as distinctly "other". They are the foreigners, the ones who don't quite fit, in the way that the natives may expect; but the foreigners still try to integrate, with various levels of success.

My figures in Lucy's landscape

Here, the reverse applies, my figures are dull and faded, seeming completely out of place in this thick-lined world. I tried to imagine what they would make of this world, very different from what they were used to. I imagined them gravitating towards the trees, the one thing that they could relate to. This is something I see quite often with people who start living in a foreign country for a long period of time, including myself. There is a search for the familiar, a tendency to look around for something, anything, which isn't foreign, be it a food, a place, a tv show, a building, anything which, while different, still gives a sense of security and a feeling of home from which to branch out and embrace the new.

Our two pieces work together to depict two sides of culture shock. While my landscape shows how the the foreigner appears to the native, her landscape depicts how the foreigner may cope when confronted with what is foreign to them.

Have you found yourself in a similar position? Far away from your familiar and needing to integrate with someone else's familiar? Have you seen people 

Assignment 5: Quietest Place

Here we go with number five, and it feels as though we've gone back to the themes of the first task. Both tasks seem to have a theme of exploration and searching, though the subject of location and destination are handled quite differently.

For those who like video links, then you'll probably want to click on this.

Here be the rules:

1. Go outside
2. Listen to the surroundings
3. Walk towards the quietest direction
4. Continue until you find the quietest possible location
5. Document via photography or video and share.

This is probably the simplest task that been revealed to us so far, requiring absolutely no preparation outside of a clear schedule, and the ability to locate sound. Again, it's like the first assignment in that it's about finding a specific point, but it's unlike it in that the point is not predefined, but instead discovered via comparison.

We both decided to do this on a Friday evening from 6. I decided to take nothing with me by the house keys, some cue cards, and a pen. I planned to make a note of everything we could hear in the various locations we stood in while Lucy brought her camera. We agreed that we would not communicate with each other vocally throughout the task in order to not pollute the area with further noise.

First things first, I made a note of what I could hear just outside of the door. We need to start somewhere. We heard voices discussing things, a woman cheering "woo hoo!", seagulls laughing, on coming cars, people walking with thunderous footsteps, bicycles cycling by, a security alarm going off nearby, the crinkle of shopping bags being carried. I thought we lived in a quiet area, but I guess not.

And so down the road lest heard.

Following the lack of sound.

On our walk, we came across what seemed to be a small graveyard attaching on from the street.

The saying goes "As quiet as the grave", though we heard plenty. Of this plenty included a passing car, children in the outskirts, footsteps walking with purpose, a door opening, a far of radio playing a strong beat, and a woman talking on the phone from the other side of the street.

She was noisy!

However, the nosiest thing about this little grave sight were the birds, my goodness the birds! The loudest orchestra of tweeting and fluting amplified by the size of the trees. This was not our quietest location.

And so we continue through the urban landscape.

And this then brings us to silent location number two, a small parking area surrounded by residential buildings.

It was fairly quiet compared to the road we just left, and there was a subtle stillness in the air.

It also occurred to me that we were surrounded by windows, giving the feel of the place akin to a modern arena, anyone could see us from any one of these rooms, should they be inclined to look.

After standing there for a while, the stillness dissolved, and sounds started peering out of the cracks. The cry of children calling after parents and playing with their peers, far off cars moving from the other side of the buildings, the sound of cluttered objects being moved, piled on and collapsed, babies crying out for reasons only they know.

After a bit more walking, we stumbled into a main road, and all the sound that comes with it.

Though we continued on our way, sure that we would find another slice of peace just beyond the next group of buildings.

And so we enter location number three.

This one was another little spit of road designed for parking. Listening deeply, only a few details became auditory, a doorbell, some children playing in the distance, the far cars, the near cars, and the ever present birds with their songs. It was now quiet enough to distinguish between the distance of traffic, progress was being made.

So we've been out for about an forty minutes or so, hunting for silence, when out of nowhere...

...this little alcove presents itself...

...and then turns out to be another piece of road, very easy to miss.

Walking down this road gave us a very strange feeling, though neither of us could recall exactly why.

The road persisted with a sharp turn at a harsh corner, a corner punctuated with the remains of a building.

Suddenly, as we stood there, a great roar of power swerved through the air, as an airplane dashed above us, making this the single most noisy area we had encountered.

But once it had passed, we started to listen to the normality of the background, very little could be heard except for some live drumming accompanied by song in the far off distance, and a man unicycling home.

We walked a little further past the harsh corner, and almost immediately the music flew out of earshot. For a while, the only audible thing was the ever present sound of birds, and a young child with her, father calling to each other about eating biscuits from within one of the biudlings, of which we could hear every exchange between them. 

And then their stopped talking. The birds were all there was, and soon they too flew further and further away. We had found it, our fifth, and final location.

This was it, our quietest place. Something about that harsh bend managed to eat up any sound that came that way. But it wasn't just that lack of sound that made it quiet, the area was still. All the buildings were made up of flat vertical lines with flat horizontal roofs, it was this strict two-dimensionality that gave the area its feel. We made our way back home.

Talking later, Lucy told me that there was something that scared her during our walk, a constant thought that something bad might occur, that we might be attacked. It's strange to think that such feelings can be felt so close to home, but when navigating the local unknown, the unknown really begins to take effect. She tells me that she felt very tense every time we entered a quieter place, that it felt unwelcoming.

However, it wasn't completely negative, we did have fun on our walk, and we managed to see some amazing things:

A little tree in full bloom

Shoes suspended on a phone line

Hot air balloons drifting gracefully

Remarkably silent cats

Some intricate door art

And an incredible mural.

Bristol has a reputation for street art, and living here can get you rather indifferent about it, thinking you've seen all the street art there is to see. But there's always something new in a hidden cranny of the city, away from normal routes. And in the end, this is what I think this project is really about, discovery. Discovery of silence amongst the noisy, discovery of new amongst the familiar, and discovery of peace amidst the active.

Assignment 4: Never Seen, Never Will

This weeks task is all about interpretation, more so than usual. While all of the prior tasks might have been interpretable in certain aspects, as I'm sure is obvious from comparing our interpretations to the examples in the video, this one pulls interpretation into centre stage.

This is the video link

The rules of the task are thus:

1. Think of something which both exists and has not be seen by yourself before.

2. Depict this unseen subject in some way.

3. Upload to mass appeal

Fairly simple stuff with a heck of a lot of possibility. As it happened, this week Lucy and I were separated. She had left for Birmingham the very night the assignment went live, and I left for London just as she came back, only to return today. This is why it's taken this long for us to complete the assignment.

We were lucky with this one. The task is so subjective, it would be much more appropriate for us to do one each than to work on one together, and we were able to use our separation to our advantage. While Lucy was away, she would find something for me to depict and describe its features in as much detail as she could in a single text, I would then try to draw this thing base on the text. I would also do the same for her while I was in London.

This was the text she sent me:

I saw a street art today in Birmingham.

It is an animal which is made of sand.

It is laying on the floor.

It looks very strong.

Its body looks like a beast which is as big as a dog.

Its chest makes it looks strong.

It had medium length tail.

It has triangle-shaped ears (normal size).

Its eyes are like black berries (round)

It has a pig nose.

It has two vertical frown lines above the middle of two eyes with a frowning look.

The shape of its mouth is an inverted U shape.

Its cheek is kinda prolapsed.

It has four paws with four toes/fingers, which are quite sharp.

In my eyes, this creatures looks a bit like a pig and a dog. But it is not fat.

This is what I came up with.

It's been a long time since I've drawn anything, so I was a bit uncertain as to how this would turn out. I deviated a bit from the description, because the creature that was in my mind wasn't lying down, and had a much longer tail than whatever it was Lucy saw. The vein like cracks was something I added as I imagined how  a creature made of sand might move, how it would lose grains with every step, with every breath, with every beat of the heart.

When Lucy saw it, she took a few minutes to look at it, tilted her head a few times, and then said a single word, "different", before looking at it a bit more. She said she could recognise her description in the picture, but could not see the creature she had described. 

I sent this to Lucy:


I am looking at a painting of a landscape.
It is evening.
The sky is blue, but there is a large cloud which casts a dark purple shadow along the view.
As you go closer to the horizon, the colour of the clouds goes from purple to red, with the sky yellow at the horizon.
There are trees silhouetted against the yellow sky, large palms and trees with scraggly branches.
The trees are not close together, but are also not far apart.
At the base of the trees are dark bushes which can not be distinguished from another.
The trees are far from the viewpoint, and so appear small.
Tall grass spans the length of the scene between the trees and us.
The grass is dark, yet not black like the bushes.
The grass reflects the yellow sky slightly.

What follows is her image along with her thoughts.

When David described what he saw in London in a message, I was quite happy to imagine what the painting looks like. After reading the description, I had the general idea about the look of the painting. I decided to use my PC to create my imaginary painting based on the message. I wasn’t quite sure about the level of blue sky, grass and bushes in the evening. So I just used common sense to draw based on my understanding of colours. During the whole process, it reminded me of drawing a picture of Doraemon by using my PC. Therefore it was fun though it didn’t look as good as I expected. Probably I couldn’t figure out the transition of the changing colour in the picture. I tried really hard but failed. Overall, I enjoyed this experience! 


In conclusion, this task was intended to be about imagining that which we have not experienced, but we made it more about communication. The onus was not only on the one drawing to depict the idea, but on the one describing as well. Translating visual information into language, and then back again. In this way, a lot of information is lost in the change between mediums, but additionally a lot more information is gained, creating a different yet recognisable outcome.

Testing the Waters

Right, so it seems that there isn't an assignment this week either. It's a shame, but I understand that having so many assignment come in at once might discourage people from doing them, and not everyone is as determined (read: insane) as to attempt each one within the week it's set.

You may have noticed that I've been experimenting with the layout of the blog a bit. I including a link to all the assignment videos in the top right corner. Might also add a sort of contents list which will allow quick jumping to specific assignments, saving you valuable scrolling time and bypassing the rather awkward archive list system that blogger uses. What do you think, is that something you would want?

It sometimes feels like I'm in the minority when it comes to using blogger for these assignments, with most people opting for tumbler and youtube responses, so there's a part of me that thinks that the very medium I'm choosing to express ourselves by is counting against us. However, looking at the statistics page, it seems that there are a number of you who are interesting in reading how we tackle these problems, reading the ideas that go behind them, and the problems we had along the way. Though I'm sure that Lucy's pictures are a major factor in why anyone would continue to read these posts.

It also seems that a number of your have decided to share this blog with others. Thank you very much for this. It really does feel quite motivating to know that there are people who enjoy how we tackle these challenges enough to share them.

So, seeing as this week is essentially free from assignments, it would be nice to get to know some of you a bit better. Might even get clearer idea how many of you there are.

If you have a dedicated Art Assignment blog, put it in the comments.

If you want to share your art assignment tumbler and youtube posts, why put that down there too.

If you just want to tell us what you think of the assignment so far, ask us stuff, or even just say "Hi", comments all the way!

If your just here hoping for a new assignment response, sorry to disappoint. There should be a new one next week, but depending on how much time and ideas we get, we may do some of the older assignments again just for fun.

Assignment 3: Intimate, Indispensable GIF

After a two week gap, we finally get our third Art Assignment.

Video link in part of this sentence.

This one is the first assignment to date which is not a performance project. As such, it it the first in which the emphasis is on the end product rather than the process. Additionally, since the end product in this case is making a GIF, there isn't a whole lot that can be shown pictorially about the making of said GIF, unless you are interested in what GIF creating software looks like. It's going to be a picture light post today.

Here's the breakdown of the steps:

1. Think of something intimate and indispensable.
2. Depict it pictorially in some manner
3. Animate these pictures as a .gif file
4. Put it on the internet.
5. Fame and glory (sic).

You are currently reading the results of step 4, whereas step 5 is up to you and not us, so I suppose I need your help to become famous and glorious in order to complete this task to the letter. So yeah, help us with step 5.

Anyway, when I first watched the assignment it was late at night, Lucy had already gone to sleep and I was buzzing, thinking about what sort of things we could turn into a GIF. All sorts of things went through my mind like making a timelapse of something, doing a stop motion transformation, or even make a short film. But none of these things really answered the fundamental question, what was our intimate and indispensable thing?

The next morning, Lucy saw the assignment. We talked about for a bit, and came to the conclusion that it was us, that our intimate and indispensable thing was the time we spent together doing things like baking cheesecake, doing the art assignment, and taking many pictures of various Gromits.

Let's explain that last one.

First, are you aware of Wallace and Gromit?

If not, then fix that immediately and give this a view.

During summer last year, a ten week event was held in which 80 large statues of Gromit were placed all around the city of Bristol (and surrounding areas), each one decorated by a different artist, with their own punny name. The idea was that at the end of the ten weeks, they'll all be auctioned off with the proceeds going towards healthcare for children.

at the time of the event, Lucy and I had been together for about eight months. We had seen the Gromits around on our normal walks, but didn't pay them much notice for a while. Then Lucy found out how many there were and decided she wanted to take a picture of all of them. By this point we only had a few weeks left before the event would end, so we had to move fast.

According to the timestamps, it took us about 13 days to get them all, with the Bristol local Gromits being the first to go, and the outliers being left until last, including Gromits found in a farm, a little village in the middle of nowhere, in front of an arboretum, in Cheddar, and a station in London. (1 city... nothing but lies).

While Lucy took care of the photography side of things, I handled the logistics, planing out routes and digging through bus timetables (neither of us drive) in order to reach them all. As some of the Gromits were indoors, closing times became a constant source of aggravation (especially that stupid library that doesn't think Mondays or Wednesdays exist!). Some of the further afield Gromits were so remote, that there was a real danger of getting stranded with buses becoming once every two hours, stopping at invisible stops.

But we did it, we got through the hardship and struggle and collected several pictures of all eighty of them. And it is with these pictures we set about making our GIF.

The image was made using GIMP 2.8, a really nice free little program with an intimidating user interface. I recommend it to anyone who wants a good free GIF making software. There are 196 frames in this image, each one required resizing in order to fit the required dimensions. All the images were taken by Lucy last summer, displayed in order of capture.

As the photos were taken with no intention to do anything with them, sorting and sizing them was long and tiresome process that both I and Lucy contributed to. At one point Lucy cried out that she'd rather be studying her accountancy work than resize another Gromit. In a way, the process of making the GIF was not unlike the laborious process of tracking them all down and plotting their route in the first place.

But that's what makes it all so special to us. It was hard work, and at times we hated it, forgetting why it was we started this project in the first place. But with each photo collected, our determinism to complete the set grew, as did our excitement to plan out the next one.

Such memories and experiences of the journey made the destinations all the more memorable. They strengthened the bonds between us and set the precedent for more unusual endeavours.

We laughed, we got lost, we went on a lovely walk, it rained, we got wet, and it was an adventure. -Lucy

Others have done Assignment 1

No new assignment this week it seems. Instead we get to reflect and share on the accomplishments of the first task done.

As a reminder, the first task had us find the geographical midpoint between yourself and another person, then you meet up at that midpoint at a pre-discussed time and date with no communication until the stated schedule.

Firstly, I'd like to thank Bec for being the first person to comment on this blog, and tell her that I'm so pleased that these words could help her gain the resolve for the second assignment. You can see her efforts on her blog here.

Here is the video that shows of all our attempts. (You'll find pictures of mine and Lucy's around the 1:23 mark, which is a pretty great time stamp to get). Also a quick shout out to Meg (the lady with the baby in the video) who I've been communicating with on youtube, was one of the first videos I was of something completing this challenge, and reaffirmed that we weren't the only ones to meet in the middle from within our own house.

Do check out the youtube page itself to see links to all the other Art Assignment followers in the video description. This here is the link.

If you didn't make your way into this highlights video, please post a link to your stuff in the comments on this blog so at least I can have the chance to enjoy your accomplishment.

See you next week for Assignment 3!

Assignment 2: Stakeout

Here we are again for Assignment 2 of the Art Assignment.

Link to the accompanying video here.

This time, the assignment involves randomers, people who have nothing to do with the project being involved. This inevitably adds a flare of unpredictability into the mix, which is certainly what we got when we finished our project. But before we talk about the end, let's start at the beginning.

The steps for this one go thusly:

1. Get an interesting/intriguing object.

2. Place the object in a public place, where people can interact with it.

3. Sit and watch from a nearby place.

4. Document how people interact with this object.

5. Stop documenting when either the object is removed or there are no more people.

6. Upload results.

Again, Let's take step 6 as adequately completed, otherwise you wouldn't be reading the messages on this piece of internet. Also again, my wife Lucy was involved with the recording, providing you will all the visual commentary, with myself providing the written commentary.

So, let's begin with step one.

After watching the video, the first thing we had to figure out was what did we want to leave behind. We knew we didn't want to use anything that either of us would end up missing, so anything that had financial or sentimental value was immediately out, and when you're looking around your home for potential objects, that rules out quite a lot of choices.

Lucy then had the idea of buying a box of chocolates and leaving them out for people to take. It was an interesting thought, but I wasn't certain how willing people would be to pick up and eat chocolate they just found lying on the ground. She then suggested that we gift wrap it and leave it as a present, and that was it, our idea was set.

The chocolate themselves, easily bought with little hassle.

It suddenly occurred to me that this task was making the world a bit more like a videogame, in which there are random items on the floor for people to pick up and claim as their own. In particular, random gift boxes being left on the floor was reminiscent of one of my favourite RPGs, the Mother series (also known as Earthbound). Lucy had never played a Mother game (this will be remedied soon, I'm sure), but she too liked the idea.

 

These is what gift boxes lying around on the ground look like in Mother games (mother 2 and 3 respectively).

And this is what we had to work with.

We had a red ribbon, but only green wrapping paper. However, like a lot of wrapping paper, the inside was a pure blank white. Looks like we'll be wrapping this thing inside out.

After this project became a big Earthbound reference, I just ran with it, quickly making a message in MSpaint which resembled the games many text boxes.

Which was printed and stuck on the box, along with some information guiding them to the Art Assignment youtube page, so that they may understand why they had just found a a present randomly place in the middle of the street.

Before you could say "Fuzzy Pickles", Lucy had managed to wrap very neatly.

And this was the finished product.

The tag was a fairly late idea. We were afraid that anyone who looked at it might just assume it was a birthday present that had gotten lost and so wouldn't want to take it away. The message in the tag should clear any possible confusion up.

And so that was that, our Earthbound style present completed, we resolved to awaken early the next day for step 2.

We awoke at around 7 am, and left roughly at about 8. It had been a long time since we had been both awake and outside at the same time this early, so it briefly reminded us of our first couple of meetings waiting for the early bus. Very few people were around, and that was good, it meant we could nonchalantly leave the present on the ground, and get back to our view point without anyone noticing.

After some wondering around, we managed to find a coffee shop with seat overlooking the front-of-house windows, and quickly claimed the seats. Lucy ordered a drink while I looked around for good dropping places, and finished the breakfast sandwich I bought a few moments ago.

This was the spot, that square drain cover next to the pillar.

We needed a spot that wasn't directly in front of the coffee shop, so that they won't see us taking pictures, but it had to be near enough for us to see what they were doing. The good thing about putting it near the pillar was that it would prevent people accidentally walking into it, as well as draw their attention towards the ground. Putting it inside the boundaries of the square helped too by telling people that this present was placed here on purpose.

Placed for all to see.

It didn't take long for our conspicuously placed gift to garner some attention.

Setting up for this to become a long wait, I went to the counter and ordered a hot chocolate. When I returned, Lucy had been taking pictures in rapid succession with excitement on her face.

Someone had picked up the present, someone with a noticeable 96 embroidered on his jeans.

And just like that, Mr.96 started walking away. We thought that was the end, but then...

 Was...was he unwrapping it?

 He was unwrapping it! That little tint of green proves it, the presents wrapping was off.

And what's more, he went off to the bin to throw away some of the wrappings. 

And away Mr. 96 went, never to be photographed again.

We checked the time stamps on the camera, it took all of one minute to put the present down before someone picked it up. We were amazed it had gone this fast. In my mind, I had seen this lasting a lot longer, with most people ignoring the present, or giving it a quick glance before moving on, with the event culminating in someone stepping on it. But no, it was taken almost immediately. Lucy thinks this is because people like getting presents.

On our way out of the shop, having finished our drinks, we saw a street cleaner sweeping up the floor, not too far from where the present once lay. Perhaps it was to our fortune the gift was taken so soon. Had Mr. 96 ignored it, perhaps it would have been cleared away as though another piece of discarded debris.

Like the first task, it seems that our time spent in preparation had exceeded its execution. And again, I suspect that most people would have spent less time picking an object and more time watching interactions. I wander if this will become a running theme for us in the coming assignments.