Child Character

Undecided on how I may want my child to look, i created 4 different outcomes to help me decide. This would be the character in which the shadow will loom over, to show an intimidated child, and a violent parent.

1st

Was a vector style, and coloured a similar way, this seemed to sharp and clean cut

2nd

Was the blacked out image of the child, this wasn't very clear and difficult to make out the shape of, but i thought that when the shadow is applied, maybe people will work out what it is suppose to be easier.

3rd

Was black and white, this seemed quite bland, and didn't really draw my eye to it

4th

Was coloured, but made to look like a child had coloured it in, this was to emphasise the fact that this was a child and make the audience show empathy towards the child.

Light box

Now to coincide to the new idea, I have added the shape of the woman to the light box, so that when the other light is used to create the shadow the baby and the woman will disappear.

Here is an image of how it may look, i had to change the levels and vibrance so that the image was visible, the camera quality wasn't as good as it could of been.

Shadow Poster Design

Here is a poster design, i used type that was tight and quite aggressive looking, as i wanted it to suggest abuse, just by looking at the font, it's also sharp, and a sans serif, as this is suited to my title, a serif font would create an older style look.

Shadow Posters

Here is how i am going to make the posters that create a contrast, the first will be based around light and below, is the second part to this, creating the shadow's using a light source towards the poster, below i have shown how it might look, one without an image and the second with an image on the poster.

LightBox

Here, i spray painted a box, and cut out the image of the foetus leaving a thin line for the light to show, experimenting I found that the effect of creating the light to stick in the eye, didn't work, after discussing with friends and family, we came up with the idea of just creating a quick flash, like from a camera, as these stick quite strongly in the eye, and to see if these have the same effect. If this turns out not to work, i will then go on to work with the idea below this post.

Pregnant woman

Here I printed out the image of the pregnant woman onto A3, and then projected the baby shape onto the poster, the main idea now is to create posters that could work well with the projection of an image, the baby and pregnant woman are the start, I will now go on to create other light boxes to project other images onto posters made by myself, relating to adoption, and lighting up an adults life. This isnt to scale, and will look different in the final show.

Light

Then by accident using the image i had made, i shone the light and it created the effect below..

I felt as though this was similar to how an ultrasound would look, so i felt this would work, and become quite effective.

Goethe's theory

Here was a start to the new idea generated through talking with simon, through Goethe's theory, taken from what i had seen at the Tate Britain in london. Here the idea is that you will have to stare at the image for approximately 30 seconds, the light then is inprinted into your retina for a short amount of time, then as the image is stuck in your eye, looking away you will see the image still in your mind, then you'll see image transferred over onto the poster where the image could be seen, simply through the image being imprinted onto the eye.

Box

Here i created a box for the shapes to sit, i felt this worked quite nice as when natural light hits the shapes in a certain way, the shadows appear in the back, depending on how many lights are hitting the image this creates an abstract look.

Although like everything else this is to art based, so now i need to go back to graphics and what i will make corresponding to this.

Shadow/3D??

Here I experimented with my shadow, creating one image from a normal image and then propping the other image up, shined a light which created a interesting look, altho the imagery was 2D making the shadow made kind of a 3D image.

I feel this could work well, although I may try and make the image that is projecting the shadow onto the canvas flat, so when you look at the image, you can only see the thin line of the picture as i would intend on making the shadow stand out more than the 2D image itself.

Idea...

Originally i was going to make a cube, to create something that people could pick up and interact with, turning it around to view each image, but during making this I sat it up with the three images and it created quitean interesting look, like a slideshow of still images.

The idea with the images, was to be simple and not to in your face, so people would see them, and get the message that is intended.

I then placed a word in the right hand corner, this relating to how the person may be feeling and tried to create a similar shadow feel, but also distorted to again get across an idea of violence.

Child abuse

After looking for campaigns to either imitate/ make better or do different, i came across these images, relating to Pedophile's and how it is not seen until the lights have been turned off, and the character then glows in the dark. I find these visually quite disturbing, and work really well getting the point across in a scare tactic kind of way.

Shadow's

I placed my shadow images together to then create one large image of my shadow work.

Four Business Cards

Here I designed four different business cards, although i feel they don't work, after talking with Shaun i agree that the logo is quite cheesy, and it doesn't really relate to what i've been experimenting with, so i feel i should use a logo, created through ways that I have been using and try and create a piece that then links to that rather than something thats quite plain, and doesn't relate to the work I have already made.

Fake Foster agency business card??

Here was my logo, put into use on a business card, here i have cut out the shape of a baby, this so that when lights shines through this hole, it creates a glow around the cut out.

The baby cut out was quite tricky, as i used a scalpel and the image is pretty small, so i'm not sure wether or not the image can be seen clear enough, so that is recognisably a baby.

Torch Test...

..Successful.

I gathered my resources and constructed my idea...

Using a shadow i had already created, i printed out the image smaller, and carefully cut around the smaller image then placed this inside the head of the torch, this then created the results below.

Discovering that this works, i will now decide wether or not to now create scenes of the same style, except i feel i will have to purchase different torch's as the one i have used creates an unnecessary circle in the middle, distracting the viewer away from the images i've created in the light.

Alterations

After the group crit on wednesday it made me think, and as the tutors thoughts were right i wanted to move away from the Glow in the dark material idea, as this would create problems - for example crude words and images could easily be drawn as there will be no supervision, towards this.

So after a night of thinking i've come up with a solution so this is prevented from happening, and yet still keep the interaction in place, I want there to be interaction as i feel, if it was just a plain poster or just something to look at people will then just move on, and then my piece wouldn't communicate with my audience, whereas I want my audience to see this and have something to say about it, rather than just walking past and thinking to themselves, thats good.

So I feel I will create something something similar yet different to Ron Terada, creating the shape of a person and child using Electroluminescent Wire, but then also having a space below for the shadow, to create the contrast of light and shadow.

Interactive Side...

So now we come to the interaction, here to create the shadows, I will create a number of silhouette, proportionate to the size of where the light would come out of the torch, creating the shadows to appear on the wall, these will be quite dark scenes, to get across the fact that the shadow's will then interoperate child abuse, rather than the light which is putting across the joy and happiness a child would bring to PARENTS.

To help get the idea across, i made this image below, using a silhouette from on of my previous experiments, you see i will scale it down, so that it fits on the torch, and when the light is turned on the Shadow figures will appear.

Logo idea??

This was a start to an idea for a logo, here you see the hands and in the background a heart this to symbolise love, then it will move to a child sitting in the hands to show that it receives love, and is cared for. This is the first idea for a logo that will go towards my fictional foster agency.

Creative Review

"We knew from the start that this shoot was going to be really experimental so we spent a long time researching things we'd like to try and test. For the shoot itself we loaded up on anything and everything we could find that we thought would work – confetti, glitter, plastic swords, glow in the dark paint, fishing wire, LED lights and 1000 glowsticks."

Quote from Creative Review

I like how this has been created, combining different techniques and a group of people with different talents, which created something visually, really interesting, the mirrors reflecting the light and colour all creating tiny yet symmetrical effects.

What am i trying to communicate???

For my FMP i'm trying to focus on two subjects relating to the word PARENTS.

Light

With the light, and glow in the dark experiments I was trying to get across the idea of the child becoming the light of the PARENTS life, and how the child may change the perspective of the parent and bring the joy and happiness, so i'm trying to make my piece bring joy and happiness to the audience, hence why i feel an interactive piece will be more suited as people can enjoy the joyment of doing/experimenting, with what i have used but also, to create something visually quite joyful, I am deciding whether or not to use EL wire, similar to Dan Flavin's style of work, which i feel brings a sense of joy because of the light in a darkened area.

Here from www.glow.co.uk, I have found EL wire for £14.95, this might be used to create the shapes i'm looking for, and create a nice light look.

Looking at Ron Terada, he has created a contrast also, using light and shadow, using the words me and you as seen below.

I like this as this is similar to what i'm doing using light and shadows, to create a contrast between the two.

Also similar are Tracy Emin's neon lights, except her work is personally about herself, which creates a very personal feel to her work.

Shadows

With the shadows i'm trying to create the sinister look, showing child abuse and violence toward the child, the retracting from the idea of light, and the turning it around to look at a more sinister side to the parent to child relationship.

Placement?

Here I have come up with the idea of where I could put some of my work and how it may be presented.

Below, i explain how i could use one of the cupboards and use a black curtain, this is to ensure the area stays dark, and within on the walls will be the Light sensitive glow in the dark material, this placed here so that the audience can interact, as the glow messages fade away over time, i have come up with the idea thanks to Saeed, to use Electroluminescent Wire, to create an outline of a pregnant woman, and within more electroluminescent wire to create the outline of the child, this then creates a visual piece as well as an interactive piece for the audience of my work.

Glow Graffiti

Here are some outcomes created through the glow graffiti kit I bought from www.glow.co.uk

I feel the outcomes were quite nice, and i have now developed an idea for how i may want my piece to be presented, which will be posted at a later date.

Also...

The below post has come from failed attempts with a similar concept, except this was software found from a website called www.graffitiresearchlab.com, the software was called laser tag, here a webcam picks up the point of a laser on a surface, and then as this is connected to a projector it then creates a digital image drawn from moving the laser in a certain way.

I attempted to try this with my tutor Simon Gordon, but unfortunately we could not figure out how to get it to work, using a macbook and connecting the webcam it did not seem to respond.

My Package has arrived

This morning my delivery came!

Containing - The 70cm x 70cm glow in the dark material

UV light Spray Can

Stencils

Now the waiting for darkness is on ...

Light Man 2

I then used the silhouette as a guide instead, and drew on the outside of it, this worked better than my previous idea, and preferred the outcomes, but would like to have a proper area to set this up, so that you don't see a living room in the background.

As you can see i also decided to change the light around me, so that it was no longer pitch black, this created a more vibrant image, doing this i used a torch rather than using the main light in the living room as i felt this was to bright.

Neater Light man?

I then went about working out a way to create a light man, that looked neater than the ones i had done before, previously creating a stencil in my lesson, i went onto using that as a guide to see if it would work.

First Experiments:

As it was a stencil, i tried lighting the back of the hollowed out space to create the look, my results are below.

As you can see the outcome didn't come out as i thought, as when the light hits the edge of the cardboard i found that the light spread, and the camera picked up to much of the light that i intended to picture

Motion Experiments

Using the aperture on my Canon eos 350D I began experimenting to see how long i would need to set it, to give a sense of movement. I didn't want to much motion as I needed the image to be visible and the main objects clear, so it was obvious that you could see someone being hurt but also have the effect of speed in the process.

Test 1

I started with the aperture on 6, my result below:

As you can see there was minimal movement displayed, as it took the picture quite rapidly unexpectedly, but there was a nice form appearing on my left arm, I felt I wanted something like that for the whole of the image.

Test 2

I then increased the aperture to 9, my result below:

This created a nicer image, as you can see the blur occurred all over, but once again it seemed to happen quite fast, so i couldn't really get the movement of an arm swinging to hit someone into the image so I tried again, using the same setting...

As you can see this worked well the second time, as there was enough movement and enough of the image picked up, it wasn't to blurry and it upheld the motion feel i was trying to create, i then carryed on experimenting, just to make sure that this would be the best result.

Test 3

Here i then set the aperture onto 13 to see the different outcome:

As you can see, the movement for this was a little bit more rapid than before, I quite like the outcomes, but feel I now need to test real/staged situation's to create my look of an abused child.