- /(email) Zine – text again is good, in parts really good. A really really useful productive exercise and I can see why you did it. Really good end product, definitely professional standard quality. Images are ultimately a WIP and could be progressed into something more mature if you wanted to.
It looks like you are making a lot of progress in a really short amount of time it’s actually quite frightening to see how much shit you get through!
- (email – ex OCA) The first thing I thought was about text and (visual) image. With text we naturally, sub-consciously, often without regard start at the first word top left and read from left to right, top to bottom. I thought of this in respect of the visual images that came after the text, about how difficult it is to interrupt that structural, taught, cultural position. It is different – albeit maybe only directionally – in other written languages.
And also about how the process of reading (the words) from front to back, another construct, delivers the context by which the visual images work with this reader; how they might, or might not, resonate with this reader… I felt “positioned” by the text. I knew where to start by the construct of who I am, the position of the text, the way the text was placed told me where the work began. It’s start.The images, perhaps by design, perhaps as a product of the process, are soft. And I think that lack of didacticism works – even with the agency of the text ringing in my ears. I could sense a tension about where the images sat on the page(s). The continued resistance to engage with a traditional form, to ensure that I, as a viewer, would have to look in order to see.
Did you edit this by yourself, or did you work with someone? Either way I’d be interested in the thought processes.
- (email) Thanks again for sending the zine to me – it’s soo good to see an idea come to fruition. The text and images do work well together and I ws particularly struck by the linkage between “Both mummies lay still. …….” On the bottom on one page followed on the next page by the photograph of the elderly lady waving.
- (message) Interesting without a title on the cover. I like the image on the inside cover too. The text reads well and is nicely spaced making it easier to read and digest. I like the mix of image sizes and layouts. It has one of my favourite images in it although I prefer that image in colour./I’m sitting here now trying to workout the significance of the Virgin Mary and the two mummies./
- (email – non OCA) I was left kind of wanting to find out more about this place you visited for your research. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and looking at your work. I wish it was a big book to be able to see those great images. I thought [it] was a very honest exploration of family and religion perhaps?, and motherhood with some pictorial references that reminded me a bit of the suffering of the ‘madre Dolorosa’ that griefs for the flesh of his son.
Category: Genre Peer Feedback
BOW A2: Feedback
I have shared the Zine and had some helpful comments and answers via email and on Padlet following a hangout session to my questions as detailed earlier on the blog. Huge thanks for all the people who were able to make suggestions.
I am now trying to look at the sequencing again and have moved verse to front and blurb to the back. I need to cut as have 40 pages max for a zine with ExWhyZed who will print a very small run which I am going to try and sell online.
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On the intro, I think the shorter intro might be served better if it was just the last paragraph i.e. even shorter than your ‘shorter’ option, though with an added sentence that “places” it. Along the lines of “…made in early 2020 in Italy by a native South African domiciled in England – or some such, that alludes to the narratives you explain more explicitly.I too wondered about the images in the book, wondering about the sizing, I thought perhaps being too big. But then I’m not sure about the overall sizing of the book, and I think that will be critical. I don’t think there is a temporal theme going on, which I like a lot, perhaps this is more important when you realise your introduction text more completely. And as for the “Made in China” concern, don’t be concerned, it’ll “spin” your reader and not necessarily in the direction you think.
- Really liked the images. Useful comment about the postcard book- I may follow up for my work.
- I too loved the images. Agree the fish image is over-dark, also with swapping the text and the poem. Given the nature of the work is there any way to make the poem less linear too? (good idea)
- It did occur to me that with everything going on. Trump’s appallingness over the ‘Kung Flu’ will probably be largely forgotten so I wouldn’t worry about it. I think that image works brilliantly as is.
- I’m sorry I missed the first part of your presentation due to the problems I was having with audio – the sound just disappeared!
I’m very interested int he way you aligned the images – the separation between 10 and 11 and then the placing together of 12 and 13 – would love to know your decision-making process.
As I said, I found looking at the images placed me in a more solemn and meditative space – reinforced by your choice of mono. I agree with comments about the importance of not having a title so that the viewer can enter the mood - I very much like your zine and believe you should stay ‘true’ and leave the ‘made in China’ as it is. You have inspired me to research Cartesian theory thank
- (Hangout tutor) Your zine content and layout does a great job of presenting complex ideas in a creative way that’s both sophisticated and accessible. The zine format carries the work really well.I recommend investing in a copy of McLuhan & Fiore’s ‘War & Peace in the Global Village’ book, as well as ‘The Global Village’ (McLuhan & Powers) – you won’t regret it! For your CS research you might find it interesting to research Heidegger’s theories around ‘Being and Time’, and Foucault’s ‘This is Not a Pipe’ – is a great little book on phenomenology and how the meaning we take from what we see is subjectively preconditioned (so kind of of Cartesian). Finally, Karl Marx’s interpretation of ‘technological determinism may be be of interest, too
BOW 1.2: Peer feedback
Peer feedback (to be added to as and when it arrives)
MA student, not OCA
Ok, watched it a couple of times and – sort of – in the spirit of your word suggestions:
erotic,
sensual,
creation,
procreation,
recreation,
fragility of the personal,
timelessness/cyclicalness
I think this is the best ending you’ve made so far, I loved it.
I was interested (and happy) to be confused by certain juxtapositions, the narrative structuring that built in my mind. And those confusions are quite important at the length of the piece.
OCA Student
I watched both the Village work and also your Collaborative (music) work and remain in awe of your creativity – well done.
As so often in the past I struggle to understand and this is maybe because I don’t let myself ‘feel’ rather than trying to interpret. So bearing this in mind the video made me think of the microspores around us all the time and the beginnings of life. Some of the images are intact quite sensual. I found that I needed to watch to the end and was not tempted to cut it short. Overall, thought-provoking and creative.
In terms of showing it, I suspect that if it cannot be projected you are stuck with a screen of some form. How about embedding the screen in some form of ‘box’ or ‘lightroom. This could be large or small depending on how you want the viewer to see the screen. It could be looking at it through peep-holes or fully immersed in the ‘room’ Thinking randomly, the room could be made of some form of black drapes with a few places for people to look in. Alternatively a form of tunnel with viewers looking in. Difficult but I am sure somewhere an idea will gel.
OCA Student
I felt that there were elements of: texture, ambiguity, alien, biological, and possibly sexual. Micro to Macro overlays. I found the appearance of the woman in the red dress very sudden. The colour of your own images is jarring, as is the sudden audio. I liked the overlay of the images and juxtaposition between them. There is a theme of flowers opening – sexual reproduction, particularly when overlain with the cell movement? I felt that towards the end there was an overlay of control / eugenics and possibly abortion? The final feeling for me was tragedy.
Reading your poem reminded me of a book I read a few years ago – Mitchell, D (2014) The Bone Clocks London: Sceptre – there is a quote that I used for a documentary project:
‘Then all those little pale lights,’ whispers Holly, ‘crossing the sand, they’re souls?’
‘Yes. Thousands and thousands, at any given time.’ We walk over to the eastern window, where an inexact distance of Dunes rolls down through darkening twilight to the Last Sea. ‘And that’s where they’re bound.’ We watch the little lights enter the starless extremity and go out, one by one by one.
I, like Doug, found I needed to watch the film to the end. But if you decided to make it shorter it wouldn’t matter either. Probably the first half felt ‘slower’ to me than the second half.
I think Doug has made some excellent suggestions regarding presentation. You could either project on a wall and go large, or have an ipad or small phone as the screen and make people look up close, with some headphones. Both could work. With the idea of an iMac, it may distract from the piece itself?
2 October Hangout
- Version with Game Boy music: Really felt taken back to the 80s and enjoyed it. Imagined it being watched on a small screen reminding her of Nintendo Gameboy further. Enjoyed the sexual angst present in the film. Was confused by the presence of the men – but didn’t mind feeling that confusion. Felt the film worked as a conveyor of a specific feeling.
- Felt the film was still in early development and imagined it would be refined further but enjoyed it on the second watching. Felt too confused by it the first time around though.
There was a discussion about moving image and still photography and how/why moving image is accepted on the course. I stressed that all tutors have been very encouraging about using moving image and indeed, I’ve seen some of them encouraging others to experiment with it more.
SJField - OCA Level Three Study Blog 