Minor Project | Experiment Set .01 | Cyclinder & Cone

Fitting with the previous two Maya model experiments, these have also been restricted to a base primitive shape as a starting point and a curvature value increase of 50 per model...

I feel as though both sets here emit some really encouraging results and have interesting moments at different points in the value increase, I'm excited to take some of these results and elaborate upon them once I leave this alternative thumbnail stage of the project.

Minor Project | Experiment Set .01 | Sphere & Cube

This first set of Maya model experiments have all been limited to a base primitive shape as a starting point and will focus on the bend deformer tool, with each model differing in a specific value so to ensure different results. I will repeat the same value experiments on each primitive shape before moving onto the next starting shape, here are the first two sets, the sphere and the cube...

  

Minor Project | Idea Development

After further conversations concerning the ideas behind my project, Phil introduced me to the term Mimesis, a term defined by the Oxford dictionary as the imitative representation of the real world in art and literature, something that my project is gravitating towards in these first few weeks.

I'm particularly interested in presenting this idea as Phil has informed that this notion exists within the realms of the crisis of representation, a topic which discusses the issues such as those that painters had with the invention of the camera as it essentially made their work irrelevant, as they were trying to replicate the real in a world where the camera had just made presenting and preserving the real a possibility that yielded much more accurate results, essentially putting painters out of business. This idea is extremely relevant to my work as my creations will serve as commentary on a software that is to sculptors what the camera was to painters, why try and recreate exact results in a medium that offers much less accurate representations? 

These ideas lead me to the core of what my project will exist upon, why use Maya to only create models, or virtual sculptures, that could be created in the real world, essentially giving Maya limitations that it doesn't need or necessarily already possess, perhaps we should be embracing the 'ugly side' of Maya and its natural limitations and boundaries, potentially opening up an entirely new realm of work to be created.

The famous works below are perfect examples of the ways in which certain mediums not only open avenues of possibilities but present natural limitations...     

All the works are incredible moments of art in their own right but showcase the boundaries of their mediums.

I'm keen to showcase the 'broken' moments of Maya as sculptures in their own right, as these moments occur when Maya essentially gets to be Maya, the user has little control of the outcome, potentially due to human error, and the software gets to affect a model in the way that it most naturally wants to, creating unexpected outcomes that defy intentions.

The search for these moments will come in the form of a number of experiments that give Maya the chance to 'Maya' something, presenting a number of opportunities for the software to naturally break or affect something, resulting in models or moments that counter what is generally expecting of its creator.

Minor project | Technique Development

After shifting my idea it's become clear that I need to find an effective way of controlling my experiments so that there are limitations to each set, but also physically showing these on my blog whilst communicating what the specific brief for each set actually is. Phil suggested looking at glaze tests as a way of successfully presenting my experiments and making them identifiable...

I think that these tests show an effective way of showcasing experiments and with a few changes could suit the work that I'm planning on making, I also looked at microscope slides as a way of labelling and presenting what I create, both could potentially lead to a possible aesthetic for this project.

These tests that I posted from my previous project are starting to knock on the door of a possible method of showing my work...

With clearer differentiation and labelling that communicates the limits and tools of each brief this method could begin to house the pieces I create from this project.

I'm currently considering designing each brief with a different set of tools, or technique in Maya, and a different aim, for example one set of models could all be given a time constraint of 20 minutes per model, an aim of being modelled into a human hand and a limit of only using the extrude tool. This could not only lead to an interesting pipeline but also a varied set of end results that would work well as a series. 

Minor Project | Idea Development\Shift

After a long and in depth with discussion with Phil it became apparent that this major project would be more successful if the focus was on something slightly different, as my dislike for Maya itself could potentially lead to a more engaging and rewarding end result.

  I'm planning to create a serious of different moments in Maya that express my anger towards the software and the ways in which I feel it prohibits me as someone trying to create work that I personally find interesting, much like these pieces of instillation art... 

I'm keen to highlight "the ugly side" of Maya in my work, the little breaks and glitches that occur when trying to model in the software, something that gets overlooked or resolved by most working in Maya when in fact its actually some of the most pure work created.

 Today I created a number of models within a time limit of ten minutes, not allowing myself to fix the problems that occurred to the structure when put through various tools I hadn't really worked with before, I'm very happy with what I've created so far but want to push it to be more "broken"!

Minor Project | Idea Development

After deciding that I wanted to focus my major project on the idea of privilege, something that was sparked after viewing Dunkirk over the summer, I decided to see if there were any interesting in my family's history. Once I had spoken to a few relatives I discovered that my great grandfather was very heavily involved in the second world war, although I knew I didn't want this project to be specifically focused on conflicts or military I thought that this would be a perfect place to start looking for more in depth inspiration.

Amongst countless medals and artifacts from his time serving in Scotland and Africa, I found this valentines day letter that my great grandfather had send to my great grandmother whilst he was stationed in Africa, there was also a reply that she had written him asking him to bring a banana home from his travels as their son had never seen one.

Finding both this card and the reply really struck me as I couldn't quite get my head around the idea that I was sat talking to my granddad with an iPhone in my pocket that is capable of ordering 100 bananas in a matter of seconds and he spent a period of his childhood having never seen a banana. This hit me as a perfect vessel for the idea of privilege that I'm hoping to depict in this project, as it opens a massive fissure between our generations and highlights just how different our lives were.

A notion that I'm really keen to adapt from this artifact of their life together is this idea of effort, or more importantly difficulty, as we live in a world where its not uncommon for valentines day messages to exist on screens it seems like nothing short of a miracle that a couple went to this much effort to communicate on this day of romance whilst living in completely different countries, during a world war. I'm currently looking at ways in which I can illustrate this theme of effort or struggle through more subtle ways that suggests this topic if the audience looks deeper but can still exist as an entertaining piece of film without this extra step. 
    

           
                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsg1y2ZrPfA

          
                           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCCXq9QB-dQ

In the above videos I feel as though the idea of what it is to struggle or suffer is beautifully depicted, illustrating the theme itself but not blatantly depicting the source material, something I'm hoping to achieve in my work for this project, in whatever form that takes.   

Idea Proposal | Major Project

The idea for my third year major project stems from the 2017 film Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan. After initially struggling to find inspiration to work with my shape animations, that I began to explore in my last project, I found a theme in Dunkirk that caught my attention, the idea of privilege or ease of life.

Fig 1: Movie Poster, Dunkirk

After seeing the events these people, some of which at a similar age to me, had to go through, I couldn't help but feel extremely privileged to have lived such an easy life in comparison. 

Fig 2: Screenshot, Dunkirk

Moving forward with this theme, I would like to adapt it to suggest motives rather than to force any kind of military or millennial aesthetic into my work. Potentially similar to the subtle way in which William Eggleston suggests areas of American culture in his photography.

Fig 3: Biloxi

In terms of aesthetics and methods that I want to use to create my work, I think that the intro animation to the Netflix series Daredevil best illustrates the ways in which I want to form my animations.

           
                        Fig 4:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFYFh8w4758

I'm really interested in creating a film that suggests, in a not too overpowering manner, the difference in quality of life between me and someone who lived out their youth during a time of hardship.

When thinking about the physical appearance of my film, I plan on taking forward the technique used in the most successful part of my last project. The above images were seen as the moments of my film that most effectively manipulated the two mediums of photography and CG, something that I want to have as a foundation for this project, whether that be via projection mapping of deformation.

Illustration List

Fig 1: Movie Poster, Dunkirk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Yo2KOBlcM, Accessed on: 26.08.17

Fig 2: Screenshot, Dunkirk, http://www.mtv.co.uk/harry-styles/news/harry-styles-speaks-actual-words-in-these-two-new-dunkirk-trailers, Accessed on: 26.08.17

Fig 3: Biloxi, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/genius-in-colour-why-william-eggleston-is-the-world-s-greatest-photographer-8577202.html, Accessed on: 26.06.17

Fig 4: YouTube Video, Daredevil, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFYFh8w4758, Accessed on: 26.08.17