Week 8 & Presentation
In the class before our presentation we outlined the key principles for our ontographs. What do we want it to do ? how is it going to achieve that? We discussed as a class ways to achieve this and were given reading material to reflect on for our presentations at the end of the week.
Week 8 the class presented the first step to our finished ontographs. We presented to a panel of three plus Adrian in order to receive a variety of constructive feedback.
The panel made a number of observations and suggested some ideas about where I would go next.
Narration: two suggestions were made in regards to narration. One would be a soundtrack with myself talking about the topic I am exploring. The second would be my rabbling’s as I walked, speaking about the things around me in relation to Tim Ingolds book.
How it is presented: The panel suggested that I continue with this style of documentary. The seemed to like the way the videos were presented and responded more positively to the informal style compared to a more traditional short film.
In today’s studio we worked on our 100 video assignment. I have already completed my 100 videos so today’s class mainly consisted of me organizing my videos on Flickr, appropriately titling each one in order. We paired up and reviewed wheat each student was up to with three prompts.
Example : Rens Ontograph Cats
What do you think it does? (Is doing)
Although in its planning stages, I believe that Ren’s list about cats aims to teach its audience about cats, highlighting fine nuances about their physical facets.
List all the things it means?
Means cats and humans are very different in their genetic makeup. Cats are complex living things with many unique elements.
What else/other things could it be about?
Differences between cats and humans.
What makes a cat a cat.
Adrian gave me the name of a couple of artists so I can explore my topic further. I will be looking to either present my work in a different way e.g. one large video, Korsakov etc.
Both studios this week focused on, as a group, getting on top of creating things. The aim of this week was to make it clear to all of us what the next assignment is asking us to do. Each member of the group needed a direction to go in for the 100 video task, so that they could begin creating as soon as possible.
Adrian gave a short introduction about the concept of facets to get us thinking about topics we could potentially explore. He discussed how all things have facets that make up what they are. These facets form networks and networks are the main thing we are interested in. This amusingly led into a conversation about whether unicorns and Jedi knights are real but it illustrated the point, that we have grown as a group to now be able to discuss the technicalities or ‘nitty gritty’ of what things are, a skill that had many of us confusingly looking in Adrian’s direction in the first few weeks of this semester.
We heard a number of group member’s ideas for the next assessment and enthusiastically discussed the strengths and weaknesses of their ideas, specifically in relation to the time frame we have. The focus was to have your idea take on one of three categories. A field guide, letters from or a list. Ultimately after conversations about movement, Melbourne, mice and dogs each of us had either a direction to go in or the beginnings of an idea that we could now go away and think about. This was achieved by all of us figuring out what this assignment would be together, setting the constraints ourselves and working as a group despite it being an individual assessment.
Image source: https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7177/6899274793_68dd3e1f31.jpg
Frankham, Bettina Louise. “Complexity, Flux, and Webs of Connection.” A Poetic Approach to Documentary : Discomfort of Form, Rhetorical Strategies and Aesthetic Experience. (2013). 137-176. pdf, or entire thesis.
3 quotes that interested me from Complexity, Flux, and Webs of Connection Reading
For the social relativist, nothing exists that cannot be explained through the machinations of human society – particularly the complex, evolutionary forms of culture and language.
“When then to make of “the world” or “the universe”? they are concepts human agents mobilize in an attempt to contain and explain things in a neat and tidy way.”
“Search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) constitutes the primary purpose of the instruments. Radio telescopes listen to the sky, SETI collects and analyses the data in a hopeful search for electromagnetic transmission suggestive of extra-terrestrial life
With Adrian’s absence we set out to conduct our own studio. We began by asking each other questions on what we thought was an ontograph. Hearing other students views on what the meaning of this topic was interesting and allowed me to hear about the topic from another point of view. We chose to discuss the prompt “How do all things equally exist but yet do not exist equally”. We recorded each class members thoughts on the prompt and the results we quite different. Some saw the prompt as a comment on society while others argued it was stating common sense.
My response: All things equally exist but many of us place less importance on some things or even choose to ignore them all together.
Although not a great deal was accomplished in this studio it was a bonding time for us as a group and really helped us to get to know how each of us think.
For our first ontograph we were asked to explore one thing or one idea, media related or not. This ontograph would serve as a practice so that as a class we can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our understanding of what an ontograph is.
I chose the topic of health as I was feeling unwell that lesson and health was on my mind. I began by outlining the three main points that I though “health” meant. ‘Getting good results.’ , ‘Living a long happy life’, and ‘Being able to do the things you want to do’. From there I created a number of different lists e.g. people who take care of your health, foods, medicine, and technology used to monitor health. After a brief talk with my tutor I changed the main topic to ‘Bodies’ and began to focus on more specific things in relation to maintaining our bodies such as Antibiotics. Who discovered them, what are they made out of etc.
My Ontograph at the class presentation
My Ontograph received very mixed reviews. Some people really liked it while others rated in very poorly. This made it difficult for me to understand what it is I needed to improve on. One thing I was sure of was that I needed to focus on one specific thing rather than a general topic
Class feed back after presentation.
Other class members ontographs were differed to mine in style. They took more of the mind map approach which made it clearer to see connections between things. This is something that I will adopt for my next onotograph.
Other class members Ontographs
In class you need to talk to your ontograph. Five minutes maximum. Present it not to me but to/for each other.
- What is it about?
- What is it doing?
- What do you think it shows?
- What has your thing now become?
- Is it different to what it was before? How?
To encourage a more productive environment, the class began the studio in a small circle. After recounting what we had been up to this week Adrian proposed an studio plan in which each class room member would be given a role each week. being at the end of the semi circle I received the least sort after roles but I am interested as to what happens to the people who weren’t at that studio. I listed my (about bi weekly) roles on my blog so I do not forget and so the class commenced.
This week we mainly focused on planning our next ontograph for next Friday. This will be a first graded ontograph and respectfully Adrian made sure each of us were aware of our topic and what medium we were choosing.
Thing: Gameboy colour Cartridge
questions for next tute
if im presenting as photos
– How many photos is ideal?
– How many of them should be taken by me?
– to what standard are these photos ie. should i be taking them with my dslr or phone camera.
What tasks i’ll be doing in the studio
Week 6 REFLECT
Week 9 REFLECT
Week 10 AFTERNOON TEA
Week 11 DOCUMENT
Week 12 NOTE TAKE