PP&M: Blog entry  24

Today I have had tutorials regarding CW2  for the Debates module, and for the Personal Practice module.

In the my personal practice tutorial, I talked about my past few pieces of work, and have decided to pursue the idea of selecting, editing and obscuring the text (Blog entry 23 & blog entry 18) in the coming weeks I will experiment more with this idea, try different things, have a look at some typography artists to get some ideas, and see where this takes me. At the minute my plan is to pick out a few main things from the text (maybe..infinity, 26 characters, the punctuation - I need to think about it more, and maybe re-read the text again) and produce something similar. I also need to look into getting this printed on a larger scale, and begin working to that scale (find out how much/how long it takes for this too). I think having this on a larger scale just makes the viewer see it differently. For the whole project we have all been reading prints outs of PDFs..to have a large image of the text presents it in a whole new light, lets you see it differently. I was set on the idea of producing a book, or a series of books, but now I'm starting to see the value of having this piece printed on a much larger scale, as far away and un book like as possible, to make the viewer see the text in a different light.

However, all of this may have a wait a little, with CW2 looming, and due next friday, I really need to focus on that, especially seeing as all I have right now is a pile of books to read and some rubbish ideas. We also have the concept panel coming up the Monday after..so i really should crack on with that too. I plan to make a couple more little experiments, to further explain my point, and show where this idea is taking me, and in my presentation will discuss my future experiments, possibly show them to get opinions; I cant decide between a normal white background black text approach, or the black background with white text; which lends it's self more to ideas surrounding the universe...I need to think about this more, see some of my experiments on a larger scale, I'm sure it will become clear which way I go when I see it.

On the upside, being so busy with other aspects of the course might give me the little break I need from this work to be able to move forward with it. And of course, once these two things are out of the way I can crack on and get some serious work done, however the blog might be quiet for the next 2 weeks.

PP&M: Blog entry  23

Is was suggested, I also went back to my piece with the whole text (blog entry 18), where I had just selected thew letters MVC, and tried this in a couple of different fonts, and also tried inverting the colours, trying to enhance the feel of the text looking like stars in the sky, linking back to the idea of the universe "The universe (which others call the Library)".

Experimentation in Photoshop - Entire Borges text, focusing on the letters MCV. Font: Symbol

Experimentation in Photoshop - Entire Borges text, focusing on the letters MCV. Font: Zapfino

Experimentation in Photoshop - Entire Borges text, focusing on the letters MCV. Font: Zapfino (Inverted)

Experimentation in Photoshop - Entire Borges text, focusing on the letters MCV. Font: Courier New

Experimentation in Photoshop - Entire Borges text, focusing on the letters MCV. Font: Courier New  (Inverted)

PP&M: Blog entry  22

Today, I continued with my experiments from yesterday, but I played around with it more. I combined my patterns with some of my water colour experiments, used some backgrounds..I was planning to experiment with fonts today as well, but Illustrator wont play the game any more; have managed one today, will try for more another day.

PP&M: Blog entry  21

Experimentation in Illustrator; creating patterns with text

This took ages! For a better image of this click here. I made this in exactly the same way as before, but this time i experimented with using a wider range of characters, and different sizes, although still keeping with Times New Roman. I've run out of time today, but tomorrow I plan to do a couple more of these, and experiment with the font then.

PP&M: Blog entry  20

I was thinking about the part of the text where he talks of finding meaning in the palms of your hands, looking for meaning where there is non. This made me think of the old fashioned palm reading imagery..then that lead to henna designs, and I though bout using the text to create patterns on images of hands…then after thinking about this some more, I decided first to just have a go at making patterns with the text, keeping in mind the henna designs (floral = flower of life = hexagonal).

So below is my first attempt at this, it is a little rough in places and needs some work (how do I make a full circle with out leaving a gap?..) but generally I really like the end result, and I'm going to have a crack at making a few more, also try to make some on a larger scale with lots more detail. After I've made a few more, I will also try this out with different fonts. So far i have ono been working with Time New Roman, as i find this to be the most commonly used font in books; however, using a different font may add something to the design..who knows.

Experimentation in Illustrator; using text to create pattern

Edit:

I was able to fix the problem of the gap with trusty Photoshop…I'm not sure yet if there is a way to get around this problem with illustrator, but until I figure it out this works well enough, and makes it look much better. Now to crank out a few more of these.

PP&M: Blog entry  19

These a just a few images from me fannying around with a kaleidoscope app on my phone; I used it to photograph parts of the experimental pieces that are in my sketch book, and this was the result.

This was and interesting experiment, but I don't think I'll be using this technique again. Although it does obscure the text in a completely different way to that which I have been looking at.

PP&M: Blog entry  18

I Showed my work again in Monday's session, all of my work from last week, and the only thing that seemed to drawn any one attention was this piece;

(can be found in blog entry 10) Now, I hated this piece. Although it looks simple, it took along time to make, for a very unexceptional piece of work. I had written it off an moved on. But with the comments made, (for a little while at least) I will return to this idea. Possibly not in exactly the same way, although some one said that this was similar to stars in the night sky, coming back to the theme of the universe...I have though about some how merging/incorporating this into my image of the hexagonal universe..? 

Experimentation in Photoshop - Entire Borges text, focusing on the letters MCV

This also took along time to make, however, with this piece it feels justified. This works quite well, but now I've done it, what do I do next?

I also just spent the best part of my afternoon trying to make a .gif, which has just not worked at all...it was going to be like the above image, but the letters tumbling down the page on a loop. maybe ill have another go at it another day, but after spending a whole afternoon trying to make this work I am reluctant. I might have to practice by making a simple one, perhaps with some images of me banging my head against a brick wall.

Yesterday, I started thinking about MVC. Why had Borges chosen that? At first I thought it could be roman numerals, but after trying to convert it, I realised that it doesn't work. I then started looking into the symbolism of it all. 

Symbolism of M:

- Masculine and feminine (chalice and the blade)

- Symbol of water (Aquarious, chalice)

- Hebrew = 'Meme' transition between night and day/life and death

- Most devine/sacred letter

- In hebrew and latin M symbolises a number that cannot be counted

- 13th letter of the alphabet

Symbolism of V:

- Symbol for vagina/chalice

- the devil

- victory

- (hand gesture) to be violated by the devil

- Pan-  androdgynous god of fire

Symbolism of C:

- An incomplete circle

- Sleep cycle

- 100

- 3rd letter of the alphabet (9 and 12 multiples of)

- the moon

-the first letter of christ

Symbolism of hexagons:

- Centre of the star of David

- 666 the devil/the triple goddess, the power of three (6 points, six sides)

- hex: spell

- masculine and feminine symbols together

- Sacred geometry (look at Mark Goulding later)

But did Borges intend any of this??? or is it just random and nonsensical like the library? he also refers to circles (life/death/creation) and fruit (birth/seed/woman) although there is no references of woman in the library, she is there in the symbolism, but was any of it intentional? Are women in the library a myth, perhaps? After all of this, I still don't understand why Borges chose MVC, surely it can't just be random?

I've thought about trying to incorporating some of this into my work, but God knows how...

But i'm coming around to the idea of pulling out small bits of the text like i have done in the pieces on this post, making it illegible, like a code to be broken, as is described in the text.

I shall have another crack at this tomorrow, hopefully I will have a more productive day.

PP&M: Blog entry  17

I wanted to recreate my previous sketchbook experiments (Blog entry 13) in photoshop; this is much cleaner and neater than my sketchbook experiments, although some of the qulities are lost in this, others are gained (such as easily being able to change to grayscale)

Experimentation in Photoshop

Experimentation in Photoshop

Experimentation in Photoshop, incorporating text from the story of Babel

I then took this, and tried to incorporate the pages of text into the design. I think that this is quite effective; although I didn't try this in colour - I think I might stick to the original plan of working in black and white when working with the pages of the book...

Experimentation layering watercolour and text in grayscale

I think this is really effective, but then part of me doesn't  want to completely write off working in colour yet. I think I will just keep experimenting with both and see what happens.

PP&M: Blog entry  16

Had a go at using pin pricks on paper with the text. These look really nice on the light box, but don't photograph well like that. So I've had to settle for scanning these in. Although i wanted to obscure the text, I'm not sure if this really works, is it going too far? I can read it, but is that because its my writing?

I'm not massively won over by this one, although it might work well if used differently (with the watercolours perhaps?)

PP&M: Blog entry  15

Today I brought all of my experimentations with the water colours from the past few days into uni to begin playing with the results on the computer. In these experiments, I used the textures I created the other day (see Blog entry 12) I scanned them in, and then started layering them onto my pages of text, altering the opacity and also cutting out shapes. I was wanting to incorporate the watercolours into my initial idea of wanting to obscure the text of the story.

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Whilst creating the textures, I was contemplating what colours to use. For me, the story conjures up images of old fashioned dark, dank place. with lots of dark wood, and green and red fabrics, dark plain clothes. So far, i have not been able to create any really dark deep colours (I need to work on this more) however the patterns and marks made by the watercolours is similar in places to the marbled pages in some old books.
For now though, I just decided to stick with red, as the text talks of a Crimson hexagon;

"They were urged on by the delirium of trying to reach the books in the Crimson hexagon: books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated and magical."

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Experimentation with watercolour and text in Photoshop

Borges, JorQe Luis. "The Library of Babel." Coltected Fictions.

Trans. Andrew Hurley. NewYork: Penguin, 1998.