Monday, our Manifesto groups had our group tutorials, and we came back a little confused about what the next step would be. We are in a good place for starting to formulate our artist response, as we have created a solid idea of our Manifesto, but collaboration will be an important part of that response.
After our group tutorial, the manifesto group gathered to talk about our initial ideas, and the conversation was actually quite productive. Some of us have clearer ideas of what we want to create than others at this point: Niko is considering making some sort of restraint helmet that will criticize the idea of phone addiction; Neveah thinks she will probably make a poster of some sort; Aoran has ideas to some sort of restraint clothing that plays with imagery of straitjackets, and the rest of us are still in the process of experimenting.
I am really fascinated by the touch component of screen addiction. The average person with a smartphone touches their phone at least hundreds if not thousands of times a day. I find this very strange. If the phone did not respond with a moving screen, this touch register would mean nothing, and gestures would look ridiculous. Yet, touch is the main means of communicating through these screens, giving us a window to visual infinity.
I want to create some sort of visual log of just the touch, but finding the right materials for that is proving to be a little tricky.
On Monday, we had access to all of the printing materials from the fine art pathway session, so after discussing the beginnings of our ideas, I went to go and try to experiment with this idea of creating a touch timeline.
I used tracing paper and black ink on my fingers, and I tried to put one gesture per layer of tracing paper. I didn’t love the effects of the black ink on the slightly translucent tracing paper because they didn’t necessarily register as finger prints so much as smudges. Clare suggested that I use some of the transparent material that is used to keep the ink from drying as a sort of approximation for the oils in our hands that leave little smudges on the screen. I liked the effect of that as an ink. However, the tracing paper stacked up didn’t quite show the progression of gesture as well as I wanted it to.
After experimenting with tracing paper, I worked with another, soft transparent material that I found in scrap. The nature of of the material proved to be too distracting . in the way that it captured light. It did, however, provide an interesting point of comparison for texture and texture differences.
Ultimately, I will have to create a touch registry in a different way. Luckily, I have my group for support on this issue. Francesca brought up an idea of three dimensional registers for touch, and this made me think of registering touch on the phone as a topographic map. More investigation is to come!
RCA Graduate Diploma 