Human Intimacy as Currency I think human intimacy is one of the most The New York Times-Maham Hasan important things in life and clearly so when its the first idea I have as something to be valuable enough to be a new currency. I also think it’s a very appropriate topic with the current state of the world being in a global pandemic that is preventing so many from human intimacy in the way of touch. I found this New York Times article very moving when it read that touch is the most important non verbal behavior for nurses treating older patients as it’s the “only sensuous experienece that remains”. With this I decided that ‘Human Intimacy’ is the currency i’ll go forward with. Visualising Carol (2015) Dir. Todd Haynes Human Intimacy When I think of Human Intimacy the image Photography that comes to mind is this shot from Carol. I think the best method for creating It really showcases my image will be a photograph. that cinematic moving Recording a touch that can be read quality of how precious as platonic or romantoc something touch can be. people recognise and know. Torbjorn Rodland “There is Torbjon Rodland is a beautful example of photography a lot of reflecting a great sense of tactility so with this inspiration I hope tactility and to photoagrph human inttimacy in such a visceral way. touch in a photograph” 51
Image Making Graphite Paper Drawing As I initially did not Ugloino and His have any subjects to Sons by Jean photograph I studied Baptise Carpeaux some marble sculptures that feature intimate hand details. One I was particularly drawn by was this leg deatil on the sculpture of Ugolino and His Sons by Jean- Baptiste Carpeaux so I decided to produce a Graphite Paper drawing of it. Photographing 52
Adapting Photograph I went forward with this image as I felt it held that cinematic intimate quality the most. I think it can be read as either platonic or romantic intimacy but either way I think seeing a hand touching skin especially the neck proves well as an image of ‘Human Intimacy’. I also think the fingertips through the hair slightly is something rather sweet and gentle. I converted the image into the duotone red as said in the brief but it lost a lot of detail. I increased the brightness downed the contrast and added some noise to make the best edited version but it still seemed a bit flat and lost Monoprinting I decided to again apply a tactile Cleaned up in Photoshop before colour edit method to the image with the method of 53 monoprinting; creating an image physically with my hands felt appropriate for the touch focused concept. I think the monoprint provides some texture that provokes that sense of touch more than the flat photographic image did previously. I did have to make an edit in photoshop as when I began monoprinting I was planning to include the background until i realised it would be clearer without.
Final Image 54
Statement My currency in 2030 is ‘Human Intimacy’. I think even in our present day human intimacy can be scarce for some people and that for most there can be nothing more valuable. Whether it be platonic or romantic it’s a highly sought thing by most of the human population. Especially given our current climate of a global pandemic touch and intimacy on a physical level can be an extreme rarity so why should it not hold such a greater value in this extreme future. Evaluation Working on an actual live brief was really exciting for this task and defintley gave me some drive to really want to make something good if it was going to be out in public for people to see. I liked how i approached the task in a more conceptual sense with ‘Human Intimacy’ and it felt like something I was really actually interested in and wanting to explore. I think it was a nice approach to look at something of value not being a physical product but still a physical thing. As i reflected in the photographing capital brief photography is not my strength but I want to keep challenging myself to explore ideas around it as this practice is the best way to improve. I don’t think my photographs were anything special but developing them with the physical hand process of monprinting definitley elevated that more intimate feeling I think. Perhaps the texture is a little much, I hope the image isn’t lost too much or unclear, I focused on shading in the print as being a single colour image it was these areas that are going to reflect details and perception of a cleaer image. 55
Mini Me Digital Workshop 56
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Initial Research First Ideas FlipFlopFlyin The Noun Project Eboy From looking at these icons and pixel art it will be important to keep a refined colour pallete Smalllike Black outlines 58 give icons their simple recognisable charcater
Refined Draft Ideas My ambition for how I want to be in the future has been the same for about five years now. It’s to be happy and financially stable with a cat, an apartment with a balcony and a SMEG fridge! To create these icons i’m going to go for a more illustrative shading and shadows type approach. My icons for a hobby are going to be skating. I’m going to basically start focusing on smaller parts as the wheel till scaling up to a full shot by the third icon. However I have some varying ideas on how full scale to go in the final icon I dont want the image to be too complex and lost. These will be a little less illustrative than the last and feature only the same thing. I was struggling a little to narrow down an aspect of my charcter and how to visualise them so decided to go with my star sign Pisces that tells multiple aspects of my Testing Colours and Border character. I could create my own version of the traditional fishes symbol and decided as my last ones I really wanted to make them as simple and effective as I could just as icons should be. To do this I would With this playing about with colours and only go about adding detail to what looked best I founf that the icon actually worked much better without the circular border and that just the linework should be a prominent colour. 59
Final Icons Ambition 110px 300px 400px Hobby 110px 300px 400px Character 110px 300px 400px 60
Icons In Use Evaluation This project wasn’t exactly difficult as the technique is imple drawing with a square brush but the length it takes to draw with one and think about all your choices beforehand is rather long! I decided to explore the three differnt mini briefs with different approaches and styles. I first began with my ambition for a cat I decided to just work with similar colours and create features with shadows and patterns rather than outline although it sort of looks like the 400px one has an outline. I think they made very sweet images and iI made sure to keep up this matching colour palette for they are a set of icons. However this is where i feel this approach kind of failed, the images don’t have a very icon like quality about them and woring at a small scale I think the image just gets lost in the colours. Therefore on my next topic I decided to have an outline for all my images, I think this definitley worked a lot better but some of the aspects were still a little complex for icons. Finally with the charcter aspect images I think i had the best result as I really tried making them simple and clear icons. It shoudl also be noted how much more difficult I found doing this with only web colours but overall i like my images a lot. 61
Vector Drawing Digital Workshop 62
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Final Drawing 64
Evaluation This brief was a very simple one but with not much experience in Adobe Illustrator I did find it a little challenging at times. I initially created my illustration of the drawing mechanism as only a linear one but decided to challenge myself a little more with adding colour. I’m actually really happy with how it turned out for how inexperinenced I am with the software and defintley founf the workshop valuable as I went on to create some illustrations with it for later projects. 65
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