Module 4.6Critical Study

Brendan Lownds

6Degrees ofSeparation

After researching, the theory of ‘The Six Degrees of Separation’ took my interest more than anything and felt I wanted to communicate this visually in my own style. To do so I wanted to explore some of the processes I learnt in first semester; by which I mean illustration, linocuts or screen printing and some typography elements.

At this start of this project I was dubious to read that the brief was completely independent and had very minimal constraints. This is usually not the way I like to work, I would much rather be given a set of rules/guidelines to work around. Taking this into account I began with deciding what number to base my work on; for a while I couldn’t make a clear decision, but after looking into each number and their connotations in society I finally chose the number 6.

As my content is a philosophical theory that has been ‘proven,’ I thought I should primarily use infographics to back up the evidence that has been found to inform people of its existence. I could use a variety of colours, each colour for a different person or nation involved. Also I could conduct a series of interviews and surveys to see if it works around the environment I live/work in.

Throughout the development of my ideas i have tried to communicate the experiment to an audience in an abstract aesthetic way. I want my final product to be seen as an instalment, that can be viewed by a mass of different people to broaden their knowledge of the theory. Once I have a wide audience this could lead to a campaign for people to get involved and help bring more evidence of this working. Along with the instalment I could also use my design as flyers or posters for an exhibition, this is about community and population not corporate wealth.

Being a social theory based project my work has a lot of social implications, its audience is that of anyone and everyone in any given community. Therefore this being the case it must very gender and age neutral, easily accessible for everyone. The ideas I have will hopefully fit into the Graphic Design Industry well, as the design I have thought up of can be very versatile. Being used for many different things; a poster to make people aware, a design on apparel, a cover for the television series and/or for the film, a moving image with infographics or a layout of a website.

My idea thus far is to create a physical instalment, as well as the piece of screen-based digital design. I plan the final outcome on being a 3D model of several sheets of clear perspex, each being a different layer of an individuals relationship. I tried to make a mock up of the layers using acetate and permanent marker, which personally I think it worked well.

The theory of ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ (or the ‘Small World Phenomenon’) was looked into in 1967 by the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram. The idea of this experiment is that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world, so that a chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It was originally set out by Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 and popularised by a 1990 play written by John Guare. Whilst reading up on said theory, I became really intrigued to find out if this worked out. When Milgram had started he sent out packages to 160 random people in Omaha, Nebraska, asking them to forward the package to a friend or acquaintance who they thought would bring the package closer to a set final individual, a stockbroker from Boston, Massachusetts. After been given instructions on to send the parcel on to someone they knew very well, and for them to repeat the process… the parcels all finally reached the right destination with an average of 6 steps.

I looked into the work of other artists who had made their own work/visual communication based around the theory. The work of 3 artists I found on the site ‘behance’ (Mette-Sofie Ambeck, Kalia Apostolidou and Joe Kwan), took my particular interest with the works of a brand identity and networking designs. I found it interesting to see how other people had communicated their ideas through design; for myself I took inspiration from other artists I knew already and had discovered over the past few months. These artists/designers include; Kelsey Brookes, Trent Whitehead, Louis Bourgeois, Keith Harring, Nobuhiro Nakanishi, Barry McGee and Holton Rower… each giving me inspiration, be it use of colour, line work, use of medium or paint techniques.

Holton Rower ^

< Nobuhiro Nakanshi

The art of Kelsey Brookes is primarily based on colour and abstract compositions. I was fascinated by his work as soon as I saw it, the choice of neon bright colours and consistent flow of aesthetically pleasing formations. Each piece of work is made on a large scale canvas either square or circle, using paint and other mixed media. At the first sight of his work you will be lost in a gallery of psychedelia, whether you are familiar with the effects of these drugs or not you will instantly link this work with the movement. Brookes most popular work is that of a series called ‘Seretonin, Happiness and Spiritual States’, where he first started producing this style of work. His process was to create something aesthetic and something conceptual, the conceptual work consisting of the molecules that mimic serotonin in the brain; LSD, Psilocybin, Mescaline and DMT. Putting the molecule of LSD onto a canvas and communicating its colours and feeling of taking the drug visually, sort of like taking the drug and then viewing the drug under a microscope.

Holton Rower ^

< Nobuhiro Nakanshi Trent Whitehead ^Louise Bourgeious ^

After working at a biotech science laboratory, he decided to leave and pursue his hobby of painting. In the video ‘Like Knows Like: Kelsey Brookes’ he admits; “getting frustrated with having to constantly be focused on a figure, and the process wasn’t free. I felt like I was really arduously working and pushing something difficult.” He continues to say “…instead of putting a figure on it I would just paint something abstract, something I enjoyed seeing”. I feel a connection to Brookes when he says this. For myself I was working in a factory before i came to university, such a monotonous job in a dead end town so when I found out I had a place at uni in a good city it was a sense of freedom, a chance to do something i loved to do. This should be the same to anyone anywhere, don’t be stuck in a dead end job if you are unhappy… freedom is the key to happiness in both work and play.

“For some reason I have always been drawn to this idea of a tunnel,

yano they say at the end of your life as your visual

system is degrading you see some kind of tunnel.

And I sort of like this idea of a tunnel that

draws you forward into something new.”

In addition to researching artists online I recently visited the Tetley Art Gallery in Leeds, at the time of the ’Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014’. And ‘Portraits of Emotion’ by Paul Digby. which is an “exhibition of large-scale paintings by Leeds-based artist Paul Digby portrays people enacting the emotion of joy”. From this visit I was able to see how other practitioners communicate their ideas, and especially how they chose to present them to a variable audience. The work by Paul Digby was incredible, a series of 4 huge paintings on canvas split into 2 sets of 2. The first pair were hung on a plain white wall, (the top of the canvas at least 10 foot off the floor) giving off a huge sense of harmony and healing from the green backgrounds behind the painted figures. All together pleasing to the eye, being the most restful colour to look at I couldn’t help but feel content and connect with the emotions Digby had captured, reflecting them to his audience.

Moving on to the second set these were much more controversial of a gallery space. Being displayed in a large boardroom, filled with a dull browns, forest greens and subtle burgundy. At the head of the table hung on a great wooden panelled wall, were the other 2 paintings perfectly placed next to the windows to allow the natural light reflect the colour to the viewer as soon as they walked into the room. This time instead of a green, he has chosen a vivid mustard yellow on one and to contrast a cerulean blue on the other. A brilliant choice of colour in such a quite room allows the viewer to really feel the emotions that are being portrayed in each image, which are without a doubt all positively up bringing. Bold yellow allows the audience to feel cheerful and to stimulate mental activity which works so well with the chosen figure; alternatively

Along with the ‘Portraits of Emotion’ exhibition, I was also able to catch the ‘Jerwood Drawing Prize’ exhibition including work that took my interest from; Ian Andrews, Mark Cazalet, David Rees Davies, Susannah Douglas, Hannah Downing and Hilary Ellis to name a few. Seeing all this work gave me a lot of inspiration and motivation on how to execute my idea physically and not just in a sketchbook. It has helped me make some big changes to my work for the better, in example I have thought about making a large scale painting rather than a 3D installation to communicate my idea.

In reflection of all I have done for this project in the past 6 weeks, I believe my work has worked well. Despite the fact of not expanding my ideas to the max potential and maybe rushing to get things complete, I believe a bit more time management could have gone a long way. I am however glad with my final outcome and hope it can be understood by fellow students or practitioners. This is my example of how to visually communicate in an abstract style, leaving questions unanswered and hopefully keep the audience intrigued enough to have different outlooks on the content.

The process of work has been enjoyable. Although I usually like to work in a very strict way with set guidelines and constraints, this has been enlightening on how to work in total freedom which is something I wouldn't normally tackle. I was able to take aspects from work I had made in previous semester, such as illustrating ideas using several different mediums to see which looks best. If I were to change anything about my final outcome I could have possibly used different colours/formations, but also could have included a more infographic outcome along side the abstract image. On the other hand due to having this aesthetic pattern I could now pursue using this design and include it on several different things as I mentioned before in the development process; things such as posters, flyers, covers and website layouts.

Unkown: Stanley Milgrim (Online) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram#Small_world_phenomenon [Accessed March 12th]

DeVita–Raebu, E. (2008): If Osama’s Only 6 Degrees Away, Why Can’t We Find Him? (Online) http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/if-osamas-only-6-degrees-away-why-cant-we-find-him [Accessed March 12th]

Reynolds, P. (1999): The Oracle of Bacon (Online) https://oracleofbacon.org/index.php [Accessed March 12th]

Smith, D. (2008): Proof! Just six degrees of separation between us (Online) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/aug/03/internet.email [Accessed March 15th]

Unknown (2012): Small World Experiment (Online) https://visualexperiment.wordpress.com/author/kulisyobrazu/ [Accessed March 15th]

Watts, D. (2010): Duncan Watts and Dalton Conley discuss Six Degrees of Separation (Online) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFK1bpQwHF4 [Accessed March 15th]

Brookes, K (2013): Like Knows Like (Online) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S3pxdtMCUU [Accessed April 13th]

Brookes, K (2014): A Biochemist Becomes an Artist (Online) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srLolynpig0 [Accessed April 13th]