Week 4

This weeks' exercise would help to generate ideas for a wider brief: to design covers for a poetry anthology.

The titles for the covers we have to design are: 1.Some of these things are true                                                                           2.The footprints she made 
                                                                           3. Inside our heads 

Intent: to investigate the visual communication  of abstract – feelings and thoughts

The Communication Objectives relate to the three titles:

1. to communicate a sense of child hood in the form of an idealised unreliable memory 

2. to communicate the abstract nature of identity.

3. to communicate the introspection of thought.

The Content to work with was from a video a poem and a piece of music i.e. 

'Ghosts Before Breakfast '(1928) a Dada film by Hans Richter

'Fern Hill' a poem by Dylan Thomas

Reference Points:

Alfred Bestall

Analysis

Analysis sheet

The Image of the young child with the sticks for a face communicates the abstract nature of identity by removing a recognisable appearance. This automatically wrong foots the viewer as the sense of identity has to come from the posture and other features. The image is made surreal. The posture of  the child looks scared  and the symbolism of the twigs setting fire could represent a loss of identity security or confidence.

The Alfred Bestal image reflects childhood by using fantastical imagery. It is an idealised version of life where animals and people concide and cross over. The use of the castle in the background reflects fairytales and the elements of magic allow children's imaginations to be set free.

The poem evoked imagery of summer and rural life which links with idealised childhood memories. The music was hard to interpret but will create different thoughts in different people relating to 'inside our heads' 

The Dadaist video had fantastical elements of objects moving independantly and the clothing shown in them represent identity clearly.

Experiments

I tried to combine aspects of the Dadaist film with alfred bestall's children's illustrations. I focused on the clothes to represent identity with the surreal aspect of them moving indepentantly as if the clothes were alive. I found footsteps were another good icon for identity as they show decisions travel and experience.