Methods & Madness

AIMEE POPEMEthOds & MAdnEss

GrAPhIc dEsIGn

hIErArchIEs & systEMsIN ORDER of ALPHABETICAL TITLE ORDER

20,000 Leagues Under the sea, African Adventure, Amazon Adventure, Angels and demons, Anthony Ant’s creepy crawly Party, Arctic Adventure, Black Beauty, Black Magian: high Lord, Black Magician: Magician’s Guild, Black Magician: novice, Butterfly Lion, cannibal Adventure, code of romulus, colt at taparoo, colt from snowy river, da Vinci code, diving Adventure, durer tcP, Eagle in the sand, Elephant Adventure, Emperor: death of Kings, Emperor: Field of swords, Emperor: Gates of rome, Emperor: Gods of War, Fellowship of the ring, Garfield: A Gift for you, Gorilla Adventure, hh: rotten romans, horse Whisperer, hP: chamber of secrets, hP: deathly harrows, hP: Goblet of Fire, hP: half-Blood Prince, hP: Order of the Phoenix, Philosopher’s stone, hP: Prisonor of Azka-ban, hums of Pooh, Jurassic Park, Killer Instinct, Lion Adventure, Lost World, Moon Filly, More twisted, narnia: Prince caspian, narnia: horse and his Boy, narnia: Last Battle, narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, narnia: Magician’s nephew, narnia: silver chair, narnia: the Voyage of the dawn treader, Of Mice and Men, Pri-vate Peaceful, return of the King, safari Adventure.

At the time, I was rather stuck as to what to do and decided to sort out my bookshelves whilst I thought of what I could do. however, by sorting out my mini-library, the realisation struck that I could put my reading choices to work.

I have sorted out my books on my shelf by Order of title, Order of Author and Order of Publisher. I will perhaps revisit this brief in the future as I feel I could have done more than I have. I will need to re-photograph the featured books against a single coloured sur-face and a single perspective.

In OrdEr of ALPhABEtIcAL AUthOr

A.A. Milne, Anna sewell, Anthony Masters, Anthony Masters, c. s. Lewis, c. s. Lewis, c. s. Lewis, c. s. Lewis, c. s. Lewis, c. s. Lewis, c. s. Lewis, caroline Lawrence, christie Golden, christopher L. Bennett, conn Iggulden, conn Iggulden, conn Iggulden, conn Iggulden, dan Brown, dan Brown, dave stern, david Baldacci, david Mack, diane duane, Elyne Mitchell, Elyne Mitchell, Elyne Mitchell, Elyne Mitchell, Elyne Mitchell, Elyne Mitchell, Elyne Mitchell, Elyne Mitchell, J. K. rowling, J. K. rowling, J. K. rowling, J. K. rowling, J. K. rowling, J. K. rowling, J. K. rowling, J. M. dillard, J. r. r.tolkien, J. r. r. tolkien, J. r. r. tolkien, J. r. r. tolkien, James herbert, Jim davis, John steibeck, Judith & Garfield reeves-stevens, Jules Verne, Kieth r. A. decandido, Keith r. A. decandido

I realised belatedly that I should have listed the Authors by their surnames, not by their first names. I will have to go back to this when I revisit this brief in the future. this has been one brief I think I have had not much motivation to continue this semester and should have done.

In OrdEr of ALPhABEtIcAL PUBLIshEr

Orbit, Arrow, Bantam Press, BcA: century Books, Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury, collins, collins, corgi, corgi, daily sketch Publications, Granada, Granada, Granada, Granada, Granada, Granada, Granada, Granada, Granada, Granada, harper collins, harper collins, harper collins, harper collins, harper collins, harper collins, harper collins, harper collins, headline, hippo, hodder, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Knight Books, Lions, Lions

hEIrArchy of BOOK hEIGht

It was suggested that I could also work off from the height order of the book as some of the images above show a ‘at the time’ uninten-tional height order.

I decided to take this on and came with something that is simple and can easily be recognised as what could be a book. It is rather reminisiscent of charts you can make in Word to display data which is a rather nice tie-in.

Out of the three, I like the one opposite the coloured block ver-sion as it also seems to behave like music notes on a music sheet. It almost feels like it’s itching to move about the page or behave like sound bars and go up and down in beat to the music.

I also like the one on the left for its simplicity alone.

GrIds WIthIn PIctUrEs

When I researched Grids, I asked myself “What can classify as a grid?” did it have to be solely within text and box? On a macintosh dashboard, you have a little ‘move the square to make the image’ game and realised that grids existed within images as well. When you take a photo, you have little dots on the viewing aperture that allow you to set the frame and line everything up how you would like it. I then wondered how much would you have to take away of the grid for that image to be no longer recognised.

the process of doing this project took me ages to do. It evolved cut-ting standard-ruler-width squares and then realigning them on pa-per. then a scan for every square. With these images I had scanned, I created a short stop-frame animation. I may possibly go back to it again and slow the frame rate down if I can.

to see this stop-frame animation, please refer to this link ;

http://kathleen-pope.livejournal.com/3494.html

MEthOds of PErsUAsIOnWe did many ways of answering this brief. I was working in a group with Patrick and tihana. We all had separate ideas and we decided to do them all for the shere fun of it. My idea was to turn all the chairs to face the divide that crosses the room one day that we’re in. I also did a minor partition of putting ‘Out of Order’ signs on the computers in the refectory. It worked, no one touched them whilst I was there watching.

We have more ideas, but since they are all on video format, then you will have to refer to the link provided by to the appropriate post in which I’ve posted them ;


One is about paranoia and the other is about trying to persuade people to become distracted by the coin dropping to the deck.

BIOGrAPhIEs - BrIAn EnO

“We used to say in u2 and i think it’s true of Coldplay, We didn’t go to art

sChool.... We Went to Brian,” - Bono

OBLIQUE strAtEGIEs

these are a bunch of phrases Eno (along with others) devised to be used when stuck for writing a song but they can also be used as means of advice. As you saw before, there was a keyboard with numbers. Each of the phrases from these Oblique strategies corresponds with a number.

BrIdGEs- BUILd - BUrn (1)

cUt A VItAL cOnnEctIOn (2)

dIstOrtInG tIME (3)

dO sOMEthInG BOrInG (4)

FAcEd WIth A chOIcE, dO BOth (GIVEn By dIEtEr rOt) (5)

hOnOr thy ErrOr As A hIddEn IntEntIOn (6)

IntO thE IMPOssIBLE (7)

JUst cArry On (8)

LOOK cLOsELy At thE MOst EMBArrAssInG dEtAILs And AMPLIFy thEM (9)

MAKE A BLAnK VALUABLE By PUttInG It In An ExQUIsItE FrAME (10)

OnLy OnE ELEMEnt OF EAch KInd (11)

PUt In EArPLUGs (12)

yOU ArE An EnGInEEr (13)

rEMOVE AMBIGUItIEs And cOnVErt tO sPEcIFIcs (14)

thE IncOnsIstAncy PrIncIPLE (15)

rEMOVE sPEcIFIcs And cOnVErt tO AMBIGUItIEs (16)

tOWArds thE InsIGnIFIcAnt (17)

tWIst thE sPInE (18)

cOUrAGE! (19)

the idea for this came from the man himself, as you might expect. he had a synthesizer which was broken in the terms of synthesizers but he took those broken sounds and made them useful because of how science-like and spacey they sounded.

the result I have come to isn’t quite what I had in mind and I maytry some more stop-frame animating and include some sound recording. It’s definitely a brief I would come back to.

Much of what I have learned about Brian Eno can be found in a BBc documentary come Interview with Eno and I have posted them all on my blog, a link has been provided below.

ht tp ://kathleen-pope. l ive journal .com/1396.html

shOOtInG stArs - chILEAn MInErs

the idea behind this one was to create a photo-montage for a post that chilean_Miner, aka Alex Jenkins and steve Morrison, wrote on his twitter page, which can be found here;

http://twitter.com/#!/chilean_miner

the montage was meant to look as funny as the phrases sounded when reading them on the twitter page itself. Instead, they’ve lost most if not all of that edge which is a shame. It’s something I’m going to have to revisit and improve.

the text has to be changed to something more uniform, akin to what ‘lolcats - icanhaz-cheeseburgernow’ use for their photo’s of felines. Perhaps a way to go would to be look at more lolcat images and then by still using photo-montage, which is a process I do not usu-ally engage in, create more kitty themed works in relations to the twitter phrases.

there is also a video version of some of the tweets made by Jenkins and Morrison. ;


dIFFErEnt WAys OF tELLInG A stOrythe whole of my ideas for this are list below. this is a brief which I have found incred-ibly diffucult to manage and gain any inspiration for. how do you tell a story in different ways, especially when somebody thought up the idea first?

+ Alarm clock -different times -different alarm sounds -iPhone changes

+ Feeding the cats -Bowl disappears, food on floor -Pour food, no food comes out -Food, cats eat, turn into big cats -Poor food, cats say no

+ Making coffee -no coffee -no sugar -no liquid -no mug -mug moves

+ Eating -Eating delicately -eating sloppily

+ Waiting at train station -different people -random creature appears and wrecks havoc -bump into famous person

+ Leaving house -different coat -different hat -different times

+ turn on Macbook -White screen of doom -Blue screen of yay -different welcome noises

+ Warcraft -daily dungeon over and over -same dungeon over and over -different pet each dungeon -different costume each dungeon -cook 1 thing of everything and wonder why -Meet some random player and ask the time

+ Look out of window -little changes of something coming towards the window -some bird comes crashing in when one least expects -cloud with faces -Weird weather

+ turning on the telly -same channel every channel -Blares some personal message on the screen at you -different image -random images/clips making the main show -no picutre just sound -no sound, just picture

I went with the idea of Warcraft, since I’m always on it... I thought it would be a new way of showing and gaining information. I was more interested in the reactions (or lack thereof in some cases) than in the actual thing itself. some people can be rude, some friendly and willing to respond and some just plain ignore you but with the fashion I did it by recording my dungeon fights, for a non-WoW player, the information is very confusing.

As you can see here ;


With feedback from simon and other students, I have decided to keep the essence of the game but to also simplify it. Warcraft uses nameplates to signify a player or nPc (non-Playable character) and I use a piece of software also called an Addon that changes the name plats to the class image.

By using these nameplates, I intend to see if I can use them and text to show what was said in the dungeon. I have done a rough esti-mate of what it would look like when I come to do it on the next page.

For the Methods and Madness unit, I found myself in a state where I have had little to no motivation for most of the briefs and I think the only one I really like and am proud of is the Grids brief with the deer. As such, it’s been a hard semester to get through this year, or maybe it always seems more drastic before the christmas period.

I feel again that I could and should have done more for the briefs and I endeavour to try harder for next semester, look back at this briefs and work some more on them. Maybe it’s become to my attention now that I’m closer to my final year and ever closer to the ‘real world’ and maybe I find that too daunting to deal with. However, I’m certain my stob-bornness and determination will not stop me from trying hard to complete what I’ve been and will be set in the future.

I’m glad of the variety of briefs however and look forward to more interesting ones in the future. I enjoyed working on the grids briefs as I managed to do something that was outside my usual field of work, which is mainly just pencil drawings and I even like how I’ve subconciously presented it in this portfolion. the other briefs intrigued but I didn’t feel overly inspirated or motivated by them. ‘shooting the stars’ was about people who weren’t anywhere local to me and I don’t really watch the news much since it usually gets me down. in a way, I suppose I did find a route out of that by finding a funnier side to it. I don’t live in chile so what is terrible for them isn’t necessarily so for me.

Again, the Biographies brief was mediocre, whilst I was piqued to learn about Brian Eno and his collaborations with artists I listen to daily, I just felt a slight repeat of last year’s brief. I understand that it’s important to know about established artists but it’s difficult to do something for/about them and still make it your own.

Overall, it’s been an okay semester and though my motivation for the last few months has been lacking, I’m looking forward to next semester and hoping for stuff that may catch my attention this time around.

Brian Eno - Peter schmidt, (Unknown) Edition 2 - Oblique strategies, http://www.rtqe.net/Obliquestrategies/Ed2.html, 15/12/20

the Uranium cafe, (Unknown) Engaging Brian Eno documentary from the BBc4, http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/02/27/engaging-brian-eno-documentary-from-the-bbc4/, 15/12/2010

david sheppard. (Unknown), On some Faraway Beach: the life and times of Brian Eno, Unknown: Orion. IsBn: 9780-7528-7570-5,M

Alex Jenkins - steve Morrison, (Unknown) chilean Miner (chilean_miner) on twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/chilean_miner, 15/12/2010

Pet holdings, Inc, (unknown) Lolcats ‘n’ Funny pictures of cats | I can has cheeseburger?, http://icanhascheezburger.com/, 15/12/2010

BIBLIOGrAPhyEVALUAtIOn

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Methods & Madness