Research - Questionairres

This is a questionairre I made about collecting, which I handed out to my classmates so I could get some different perspectives on my theme. Doing this also helped me get an idea of how my work might be percieved by an audience, as the answers revealed how people feel when they look at sentimental or nostalgic objects. This seemed to be a balance of happy and sad feelings - bittersweet. 

I did a couple of drawings in my sketchbook using the text I had gathered from my survey. The first one is inspired by one of Tom Hackett's newspapers that he published, which featured lots of wavy lines of text (out of context quotes from collected conversations) and silhouetted motifs. I liked that his text takes the eyes on a journey and creates a feeling of motion and energy like the passing nature of speach. I used fragments of text from my survey that I felt were most powerful or interesting.

 

One of the answers to my question about why we keep childhood objects was simply 'Sentimental bitch :) ' which I thought was perfect. I like how it it honest and straight to the point, and the assertiveness is what informed my choice of writing which was bold and filled the page - I also used intense shades of pink which demand attention. I really like the idea of using this as the name of my cards, it would be a playful way of creating a distinctive brand. The sassiness also reminds me of some of the collectables I have researched which have very cheeky, cartoon-like expressions. 

The next survey I made was to help in the rating process of my featured objects. I asked participants (aged between 20 and 60) to rate the images out of 100 according to a set of headings what will appear on my cards in a Top Trumps style.

Initially I was going to work out averages from the results and use that as my final number for the cards but I didn't have many people take part so I decided to just use them as guidelines. It was a useful thing to do as well because my partner pointed out that funtionality doesn't have to be about whether it's useful, but more about how good it is at what it is designed to do, and this made me think more carefully about my ratings. For example, the carebear gets a high functionality rating because it is good at being a comforting, friendly soft toy. However my small vintage piggy bank gets a really low functionality rating because A) it is too small to fit much money in, B) you have to smash it to get the money out and C) the slot doesn't fit certain larger coins. 

The results for kitsch, novelty and weirdness were quite varied due to the subjective nature of the question, while the nostalgia element depended on things like the age of the person and what their childhood was like.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

29.1.21 - Objects in the Bath and Shower

Image
One of the first things that came to mind when I got the re-arrangement brief was to do something with my collection of beanies. Because they are so colourful, I decided they should go against a plain background, so I cleaned the bath out and started filling it with the animals.  The first set of photos shows the animals in a random arrangement where I photographed them from different angles... For these close up images I placed the camera in the bath with the animals and blindly took the photographs, not knowing what the results would be. The flash came on for these pictures which makes the in-focus areas appear very sharp with a clear representation of the animals' surface textures. They also remind me of claw machines in arcades, which gives the images a nostalgic feel - all of these beanies were manufactured in the 1990's and early 2000's. This is the thing that opens and closes the plughole in the bath, and it created some strange reflections of the beanies which look
Read more

'Shades of Green' exhibition at St Mary's Church

Image
'Shades of Green' is a Nottingham city artists studio group exhibition, with various works about the longing to be in green spaces during lockdown and the artists reactions to isolation. My favourite was Karl Wilby's 3D piece with the whales and flowers. I think it's really clever how they seem to be floating in the air and are feeding from the flowers like humming birds, it's also really interesting to see whales represented in such a small scale, it's quite surreal and endearing. I like the contrast between the reflective coppery metal flowers and the matt turquoise whales which suggest the colour of oxidised copper, showing a transition from new to old - shiny to rusty - maybe also alluding to the endangerment of the species. There seems to be quite a strong connection between this piece and our fabricated nature project because of how naturalistic the whales are, when in fact they have been made through 3D printing which is as artificial as it gets. The meta
Read more

Mike Kelley Style Photoshoot

Image
  Mike Kelley's 'Ahh... Youth' piece inspired me to make my own version using old teddies from home, including some from my parent's childhood and some from my own - plus a recently acquired 90's troll doll from a car boot sale. I set up the studio lighting in a way that would reduce shadows behind the objects and used a white background like Kelley's image, which gives a professional atmosphere that  elevates them from being worn-out old creatures to something special and celebrity-like. I used a tripod so that they are all to scale with each other, and I like the empty space around them, it's like they have room to breathe and think. I also had to adjust the ISO, white balance and shutter speed on the camera to suit the light and conditions of the space, then I used manual focus to get the sharpness that allows you to see all the details and textures. After uploading the photos to the computer, I cropped them on photoshop and classified them into two separ
Read more