3W27 Reflection (and assessment guide)…

So this is, I believe the final posting before the assessment stage of the course. I therefore shall attempt to talk through my materials for assessment. This is very much a guide for looking for things pertaining to the assessment and I hope to justify some inclusions and exclusions. First, I shall present the assessment criteria stated in the course manual:

• On-line text / diagrammatic /visual / aural presentation of your work, demonstrating a critical understanding of digital arts and how your work relates to current thinking and research in Digital Arts
• Practical work resolved according to your proposal and presented professionally as part of a on-line group event
• Supporting research material in appropriate form
• On-line log documenting your role as a member of the exhibition/presentation team
• A written report in two parts: artist’s statement – explanatory comment and critical evaluation of your own work in the context of current creative practice and reflection – a critical analysis of outcomes compared with intentions, a review of overall progress and outline plan for further development (1000 – 1500 words)

With regards to the first criterion this is my participation in the colloquium for which I gave a presentation on-line to my peers. This can be found here: http://www.garymcleod.co.uk/colloquium.mov However, I also gave a presentation of my work and research to the Natural History Museum in April. I believe that this also covers this part of the criteria and can be found here: http://www.garymcleod.co.uk/challenger.mov

With regards to the second criterion, I believe that this amounts to my installation set up at the degree show. The presentation at the natural history museum pretty much resolved my original aims of the course but the installation takes it a little further. Whilst trying to display the photographs in an interesting and different way, I feel that the installation also addresses developing concerns of mine concerning the role of an artist and a migrant in an unfamiliar society. In addition to that, the work continues to explore my ever-continuing journey, through employing further GPS coordinates in my head and virtual space, which somehow define who I am and where I am. The HABIT installation collates together the breadcrumbs of the past two years and sees if others can follow them in one way or another. This is similar to the traffic light video chessboard I exhibited 2 years ago and the galaxy of Osaka traffic lights displayed on a gallery ceiling 3 years ago. At this moment in time, I have not had any further updates regarding the setting up of my installation (despite attempts to contact people) and slightly concerned that it hasn’t been finished. Meanwhile, some photographs of the set up can be found here: http://challengerpart2.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/i-was-there-but-i-wasnt/ Also, a complete set specifications for the installation including diagrams and instructions can be found here: habit-part-2-specs

Concerning the third criterion, I have much supporting research material in electronic form on both this part of the blog and the previous year’s blog: http://hmschallenger.wordpress.com/ However, I have also had 3 one off books produced. These are rather difficult to show online and actually rather difficult to document because they are simply just books with dark covers. Below is an image of the books and where I had them printed as proof of their very existence.

The most comprehensive of the books “Challenger +” is available for viewing in the exhibition itself at the school. Also available to see in the exhibition space is a sample print of the archival ones given to the Natural History Museum. Also, videos of the method I used to make each of the pictures can be found here: http://www.garymcleod.co.uk/470.mov, http://www.garymcleod.co.uk/471.mov & http://www.garymcleod.co.uk/472.mov

In addition to all of this, my new website: www.garymcleod.co.uk also presents the work produced on this course as well some of the research. This website was produced with the intention of giving myself a more professional platform from which to work. It is simple and clean and is pretty thorough.

With regards to the third aim, this online journal pretty much speaks for itself. I was advised to show communication with the face to face students and other onliners in order to evidence working together towards the degree show. The problem here is publishing other people’s emails on my blog. It’s basically unethical to do that. I have communicated with the necessary peoples involved in setting up the show through the weekly chats and through email but I feel wrong to publish those here. I could of course make my blog private with a secured password but I am not comfortable with that either. It suggests that I am possessive over my work and ideas, which I believe I shouldn’t be. The long and short of it is that I asked two people to help set up my exhibition on one particular day, but due to unorganized chaos at the school end, it meant that my installation was not set up by the time my helpers needed to leave. This leaves my set up rather open ended. Thankfully, one of the other onliners- lucy- was there. We spoke for a little bit about the setting up, as I did also with Nicholas- one of the face to face students. With regards to my role as a curator, I did manage to attend on exhibition meeting when I visited the school in April and as Adrianno could probably testify, I took great part in that particular discussion. As for other meetings, it is difficult being this far away. One has to keep saying, could we get camera in there, or could we get a computer in there so the onliners could take part in the discussions. A limitation of the course perhaps? So, I did what I could, when I was there and able to do it.

With regards to the final criterion, the relevant documents can be found here: http://challengerpart2.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/mada-3-artist-statement-final-reflection/ These include the artist’s statement and the final report of my aims and objectives.

My hope is that the blog and its contents pretty much cover everything I have seen, thought about or talked about over the past two years. The problem for me is really knowing if I left anything out. After all, I have posted so much and so often- sample images included- that it’s hard to keep track! Nonetheless, I believe I have been as comprehensive as I can be and I hope that what I have produced is easy to follow and navigational.

There is one final thing to mention. The Science museum in Tokyo, recently just held an exhibition about Darwin, have informally asked me to help with their exhibition about the HMS Challenger in 2009. This is mostly concerning the original research pictures I took at the beginning of the course when I visited each of the Challenger locations. Basically, from what I gather, they wish to use the pictures to contrast what Japan looked like then to what it looks like now. If those images are of good enough quality, I will use them and they will hopefully be exhibited. If not, well, I will simply go back to each one and do it again. I prefer the latter to the former. Either way, this is a good thing, which will further fuse my name with the Challenger. That’s a scary thought