Reflective Statement

Overall this unit has been successful for example my final designs for the rough guides I am really happy with it was different to design a graphic image.

I found the blog was useful during the technical blocks because I could look back at the photographs I added and actually stop to see what I made and properly analyze it. This has highlighted a major problem in my work process as I realize I never spent time to sit and reflect and actually think about what I am doing. I feel this work process can keep you on track and I plan to give myself time to analyze work throughout this course.  

The work in this blog and unit overall has been a step up from anything else I have ever done and I feel I am gradually getting used to this level of intensity and work. The theory tasks have been particularly challenging, in fact the theory tasks startled me a lot having not had much knowledge in any of the areas we studied. The academic reading for The System of Collecting Jean Baudrillard I must have read five times just to understand some of its context but I am glad I didn’t give up because analyzing Ed’s Toy Collection and looking on YouTube for collector videos was very fun.  I have learned so much since starting this course and looking back at my blog I think it is an accurate description of what and how I have worked and learned during the first months of my the course.

The Queen - Group Drawing Workshop

 

Manifesto

·        Re-cycle and re-use fabrics and old clothing to minimize wastage.

·        Share large fabric samples with friends to minimize wastage.

·        As often as possible use natural dyes such and source organically produced materials to reduce chemical impact.

·        Exhaust printing and dyeing to reduce wastage dyes.

·        Look at traditional techniques in a more contemporary context.

TED

TED’S Ten

1, Design to minimize waste

2, Design for recycling/upcycling

3, Design to reduce chemical impacts

4, Design to reduce energy and water use

5, Design that explores clean/better technologies

6, Design that looks at models from history and nature

7, Design for ethical production

8, Design to replace the need to consume

9, Design to dematerialize and develop system and services

10, Design activism   

“Of the total textile fibre produced, up to 65% is lost, post-consumer, to landfill, incineration or composting, which represents between 400,000 and 700,000 tonnes per annum in the UK. Of this, at least 50% is said to be recyclable” (Allwood, 2006)

 

David Telfer minimal duffle coat

 



2010 Yield exhibition Telfer showed a minimal Duffle Coat combined with minimal seam construction and Zero Waste design to create a fabric efficient quick to make piece.

Timo Rissanen, men's Zero Waste Coat, Leggings and Scarf 2008

‘one cupful of pesticides and fertilizers are used in the production of the average t-shirt’ (Observer, 2005)



Becky Early - Exhaust printing

My Favourite Things - the Pathology of Collecting

Started off looking at how objects are organized and categorized in a collection. A good video to watch to analyze how people choose to display there personal collections compare to an official collection (museum collection) is the pony room tour video below. It is interesting as a collections organization is purely how the collector chooses to display it and the collection is most likely to be only for the collectors eyes often hidden away within a room of there house. There are many different ways collections can be organized and displayed such as by shape, size, type and value, although how does someone determine the value of an object is it purely what someone is willing to pay or is it rarity of the object.

Moving onto looking at Freud’s View of the Human Mind: The Mental Iceberg

conscious (small): this is the part of the mind that holds what you’re aware of. You can verbalize about your conscious experience and you can think about it in a logical fashion.

preconscious (small-medium): this is ordinary memory. So although things here aren’t in the conscious, they can be readily brought into conscious.

unconscious (enormous): Freud felt that this part of the mind was not directly accessible to awareness. In part, he saw it as a dump box for urges, feelings and ideas that are tied to anxiety, conflict and pain. These feeling and thoughts have not disappeared and according to Freud, they are there, exerting influence on our actions and our conscious awareness.

This theory puts out the idea that people collect to forget and explains why we record what we want to remember. Meaning some collections maybe could be described as a form of escapism from your unconscious level which in Freud’s view is largest area in the Mental Iceberg which you cannot control.

What we have begun to suspect is that the collection is never

really initiated in order to completed. Might it not be that the

missing item in the collection is in fact an indispensable and

positive part of the whole, in so far as this lack is the basis of the

subject’s ability to grasp himself in objective terms? Whereas the

acquisition of the final item would in effect denote the death of

the subject, the absence of this final item still allows himself the

possibility of simulating his death by envisaging it in an object,

thereby warding off its menace.

The System of Collecting Jean Baudrillard

The Ceramic Galleries at the V&A London 1909 is a good example of an object graveyard as the objects are put behind glass never to be used again. The object is completely divested of its function and now only exists to be collected.

Knit Block (4)

Weaving Sample - Technical Block 3