MA Visual Communication: Online Journal

PP&M: Blog entry  6

Last week I didn't get much done because I felt stuck. I had this idea, but I didn't feel confident enough to plough on with it because I wasn't sure if I'd strayed too far from the original task. After a tutorial and talking to a couple of people, I think I need to stop, rethink, and head in another direction. From looking at the images I had produced so far,  it was very difficult for someone else to make the connection with the story, which is, I think, what they want from us.

So, last night and the past few days I've been brainstorming, doodling,  coming up with ideas for work to produce this week, based on a few different ideas, so that hopefully next week I can narrow things down and follow one direction.

I have had  few ideas; the main thing I wanted to focus on (taken from my other previous ideas) was that of extinction. The fear of death, and of man kind dying out. This is the paragraph on which I have been mainly focusing;

" Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations, which inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I  know of the districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know hot to decipher a single letter. Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations which inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I believe i have mentioned suicides, more and more frequent with the years. Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect the human species - - the unique species - - is about to be extinguished, but the library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret."

 Following from this, I also thought about the emotions described in the text through out, the despair, sorrow, madness (although I am unsure how to depict this as of yet.) 

Scan from sketchbook

One of the thing I had been thinking about was the representation of the bird as a symbol of death, or the human soul. Not sure that just images of dead birds likes back to the story of the Library though..I started to think of ways of relating this back to the story.

Scan from sketchbook

The above image I was thinking about the quote; 

"Once I am dead there will be no lack of pious hands to throw  me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite."

The falling bodies seems to be a theme which many people have picked up on, and the grimness of falling dead bodies all around. For me the falling is more about a feeling of helplessness, and reminds me of falling dreams.

The bird in the image is supposed to represent a nightingale (the nightingale is a boring little brown thing, and I haven't worked out how to show that whilst working in this media yet). The nightingale represents longing, or a departed soul; it's cry is said to be that of a cry for help from someone trapped in purgatory, or a warning of impending doom or death.

This image also bring in another element that I might start to experiment with: pattern. I have done a couple of brief experiments with this idea, but i think that it is something that I should give some more time to this week. I really like this small section included in this image..how else can I use this?

Scan from sketchbook

With this image I was thinking of an artist I mentioned in an earlier post, Andrew Beckett (Blog entry 5 - Click). I liked the way in which he picked out one colour among his monotone images. I find this technique particularly helpful wen trying to show a specific type of bird in a monotone image. It allows the viewer to see the type of bird not just a bird. However, this works really well with a gold finch, because of their natural markings...this is not as effective with little brown jobs such as the nightingale above.

In this image I chose to show a goldfinch. The Goldfinches are said to represent the passion of christ, and his human nature. The red mark on their faces is said to have been obtained when one of the birds pulled a thorn from Jesus' head at his crucifixion  Goldfinches were also once kept as a pets by many, and is therefore a reminder that God lived and died as a man here on earth. 

I wanted to experiment more with the idea of the falling bird. This image then got me thinking about taking the pages of the text and trying to make it more illegible, and confusing and difficult to read.

The idea I got from this was to create a book with the pages of the PDF. It would be a drawing, then a page of the altered text (5 pages of text in total, 5 images to accompany the text). This would serve as some kind of final piece for this project (we have not been briefed to produce a 'final piece' as such, I would just like a goal to work towards).

Example of double page in book.
Left: image created from the text. Right: Cut out PDF

Used my image of the falling bird to make up this image, I'm not sure if it actually works too well with that silhouette...need to do another one with the bird in a different position.

Experimentation with the text

Example of double page in book.
Left: image created from the text. Right: Cut out PDF

I like this idea actually, I wasn't sure about it at first. Again, this is something that I just need to keep experimenting with.

Becket. A. n.d [online] Available at: http://www.illustrationweb.com/image.aspx?sz=760&image_id=82310&fitw=y&src=hires&name=image_57323.jpg> [Accessed 11th February2014]

Irby, J. 1962. Labyrinths

Borges, J. The Library of Babel