OUIL 401: End of Module Self Evaluation

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	04
OUIL401 Context of Practice	Credits	20
End of Module Self Evaluation

Name	Kimberley Burrows (KB261215)

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I have developed a number of key skills thanks to the Context of Practice module this year. I have advanced in my ability to Harvard Reference correctly and effectively ensuring texts can be accurately researched again and again. My scope of research methods have expanded, looking to Google Books, J-Stor and journals in the library, going beyond news articles and blogs online to triangulate with, resulting in a more academic and professional tone of voice in my writing. I have learned the technique of synthesising contextual research with using a visual journal in tandem with that research to unpick and analyse key elements. My skills in triangulating texts has soared with confidence and I feel like I am much more able to look at art theory and contemporary illustration, drawing comparisons, asking questions and form debates, analysing images in-depth and reflecting upon my own work.
2. What approaches to / methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your practical outcomes?
The breadth of research I undertook for the analysis and relevance of style in illustration informed my visual journal outcomes tremendously and also allowed me to go beyond researching in books and looking to magazines and newspapers for content. The Varoom Illustration Report was a crucial find. Reading the articles gave me inspiration to play with the idea of style and how differing aesthetics can alter the communication of a message in political symbols and deconstructed propaganda elements. Reflecting not these in my blog was paramount to keep investigating and iterating ideas.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I have a particular strength in maintaining a comprehensive and cohesive blog; combining weekly lecture and seminar notes, crit and discussion reflections and any questions raised, library research, image research, trips and visual journal progress. As well as documenting my journey throughout the year, I have created a powerful database of my thoughts, feelings, struggles and reflections which I can revisit in the future to consider how things can be done better in more advanced COP modules where the work will be more demanding.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
I get too excited with researching, which I enjoy tremendously, and find I can produce too much research going beyond what was needed. I tried to solve so many things from my quote and subsequently found it difficult to refine what I wanted to tackle with my work. I had to really filter through my findings and clarify what I wanted to say. I tend to overthink and overcomplicate!
5. Identify five things that you feel will benefit you during next years Context of Practice module?
• Having a clearer idea of what I would like to explore, by completing my COP2 proposal, gives me a precursor to what I want to unpick and contextualise - rather than from a set quote as with this year. I lost interest in my quote halfway through the module and wished I had chosen something that would have retained my interest. However, with the ability to now choose my own subject matter I feel I won't grow bored or disinterested in the content as it is something I genuinely want to explore further in a theoretical, practical and synthesised way. • Being able to triangulate, analyse images and Harvard Reference will make the essay writing process much more efficient next year. • Learning from my mistakes. I feel like I've hit many brick walls, dead ends and hardships this year with COP and I, more often than not, felt lost and like I had no direction. Because of this, I think I have built strength of character and confidence in my ability to research independently and regroup through plans of action and this should streamline the process next year ensuring I won't feel as off-track. • I have a much better understanding of what is required from me in a written and practical sense. • I've been rather limited in my access to media and materials due to many factors - including cost, time restraints and availability of workshops. I want to have a better consideration of materials next year to explore an exhaustive range of ideas and approaches, to further synthesise my theoretical and practical work.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’) 5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance				x
Punctuality					x
Motivation			x
Commitment				x
Quantity of work produced					x
Quality of work produced				x
Contribution to the group					x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

A copy of your end of module self evaluation should be posted to your studio practice blog.

This should be the last post before the submission of work and will provide the starting point for

the assessment process. Post a copy of your evaluation to your COP blog as evidence of your

own ongoing evaluation.

OUIL 401: Final Written Pieces

Proposal: Context of Practice 2

COP2 Proposal in 250 words:

For COP2 I would like my theme to focus around the Op-Art movement, optical illusions and how we perceive imagery based on our perception, our level of sight and our life experiences. I'm quite interested in this subject area after visiting an exhibition recently at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery and discovering the alluring and highly contrasted monochrome paintings of Victor Vasarely. This enabled me to reflect on how I interpret the images as someone with a severe visual impairment. Does our level of sight affect the way we read images? Does the interaction of shapes affect the way the picture is communicated? How do our past experiences define and shape us to read pictures in a certain way? Colour theory and how the lens perceives light and colour will be of importance to my findings as well gestalt theory and how our lives affect the way we perceive information. I think it is important as an illustrator to remember that our work will be read in a number of different ways by our audience and understanding those interpretations will underpin my work. I have started to create imagery in a similar vein to Op-Art, highly influenced by my gallery visit and discovery of artists such as Vasarely, Bridget Riley and Josef Albers, and informed by Zaha Hadid's love for organic shapes and forms with exterior skins; drawing parallels to Op-Art. I intend to investigate and explore these themes in the development of a visual journal.

Issuu Presentation

Postmodernism or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

'Postmodernism is what you have when the modernisation process is complete and nature is gone for good. It is a more fully human world than the older one, but one in which 'culture' has become a veritable "'second nature"...'

'Postmodernism is the consumption of sheer commodification as a process..."

Technical Difficulties!

... and a blow to my confidence with this module

Edited to add (13th April 2017): At this stage in my research I encountered a whole host of technical difficulties - from my Virgin Media box losing its connection to w-fi, having had the box for 6 years and needing a replacement, which took 5 days to arrive and no technician to install it. Enter me, someone who can barely see, fitting an internet box with instructions being read aloud by my mum who kept asking, "IS it done yet?" I do surprise myself and managed tog et it sorted out for everyone's devices in the house!

Also edited to add (29th April 2017): on Wednesday evening (26th April 2017 - hand-in for everyone else and the beginning of my extra time) I went out to dinner with the Board of Governors to celebrate the year of meetings drawing to a close, but on the way home dropped my phone down a drainage grate upon arrival back to my student accommodation. With holding my cane, my bag, purse, 3 trays of food and my phone in my lap it was near impossible to pay the driver. The taxi driver wasn't particularly helpful in wanting to hold any of my things to help make it easier for me to pay him and when leaving the car all of my items dropped out onto the floor. Great! I managed to get everything together - apart from my phone. I did feel a drainage grate embedded into the tarmac, however... Panic ensued. It was 10:30pm at night and Leeds City Council wouldn't be available to get the grate up for me. I'm not a teenager who abuses their instagram feed - I'm someone who is nearly blind whose phone is their life - helping to guide their Guide Dog and themselves safely to new locations where they haven't learned the route of and helping them with this COP module. Life = over.

One fire truck, 4 firemen, one drainage grate lifted and one mobile phone in a biohazard bag later - I was left without a phone which is what I use to take a photograph of each and every single page of the books I have loaned from the library, which is then converted from text to speech in an app called the KNFB reader. A time-straining, non-headache inducing and super-fun experience!

It's a fantastic app and helps me to read my mail and printed ephemera with ease, which people still somehow want to send to me in small print?, and being without it stranded me for 3 days. I now have a new iPhone with the app reinstalled but time has been lost and I have lost my confidence with this module. I'm trying really hard to get my final piece of writing finished and to go back over my other pieces of work but I had just lost the motivation, the interest and the inspiration. I was doing so well and think I've uncovered some really interesting research to synthesise with this module but my confidence has been knocked and I just want to curl up and be swallowed by my duvet.

Visual Journal: Final Pieces

Here are what I consider to be the 'final outcomes' of this module that I will be analysing for the third and final piece of writing.

Postmodernist Culture

"...contemporary life as a 'society of the spectacle'... commodity was the image rather than the concrete material product."

"...the explosion and acceleration of cultural commodities, or, more generally of social images or 'signs' functioning as commodities, produces a 'political economy of the sign'."

"...is the reflection of a basic reality."

"...'an escalation of the true, of the lived experience' in other words, the cult of immediate experience, of raw, intense reality."

"...artistic modernism is defined at some point between practice and theory, between artistic objects and their definitions. The postmodern debate makes this interrelationship even more complex."

"...the modernist revolution in the arts is to be understood primarily... as nothing less than art's discovery of itself, as form, subject, and practice."

"...what quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions?... significant form... lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relation of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. To appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life."

"...the multiplication of stylistic norms and the return of symbolism. Whereas modernism emphasised the integrity of style of the artist, postmodernism breaks down this norm by encouraging multiplicity of style and method."

"...involves the hesitantly ironic adaptation of other modes, historical an contemporary."

"If the subject of Modern art, according to one oversimplification of Clement Greenberg, is the perfection of its medium, then the subject of Post-Modern art is about [sic] past art which acknowledges its artificiality." 

"...the mixing of incompatible styles"

"...postmodernist art is characterised by 'the willingness of artists and audiences to embrace subjects of mutual and perennial interest, to acknowledge all the uses of art'..."

"At root, Post-Modern art is neither exclusionary nor reductive but synthetic, freely enlisting the full range of conditions, experiences, and knowledge beyond the object...allowing a myriad of access points, an infinitude of interpretive responses."

"...unabashed return to representation, symbolism, connotation, and all the other forms of referentiality."

"Jencks believes that art can now acknowledge itself as it always was, thoroughly bourgeois, and return itself to the forms and subjects tabooed by modernism. Jencks finds nothing distasteful in this new realism.., he believes we must adopt an attitude of amused, agnostic pragmatism."

Bourgeois - materialistic values and conventional attitudes.

"...institutions and canonical traditions which is to be challenged in postmodern art and postmodern theory."

"...postmodernist art aims to undermine the modernist imperatives of the formal and stylistic integrity of the individual work..."

"...promote the exploration of the multiple relationships between art and its contexts."

"...image and text are to be understood as an enactment of a 'postmodern sublime'..."

The Post-Modern Reader

"Post-modernism means the end of a single world view and, by extension, 'a war on totality', a resistance to single explanations, a respect for difference and a celebration of the regional, local and particular."

"A major goal of post-modernists... is to cut across this spectrum of tastes by using tactics of eclecticism."

"...the attack on artistic experimentation is specifically reactionary: aesthetic judgement would only be required to decide whether such work is in conformity with the established rules of the beautiful. The use of categories in aesthetic judgement would thus be of the same nature as in cognitive judgement. Both would be determining judgements."

"...the subversive force of an aesthetic consciousness that rebels against the normalising achievements of tradition."

"...the analysis of the judgement of taste, whose object is something subjective, the free play of the imagination..."

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Pluralism in Postmodern Perspective

Ihab Hassan

"...ambiguities, ruptures, and displacements affecting knowledge and society. Indeterminacies pervade our actions, ideas, interpretations..."

""The postmodern only disconnects... a preference for montage, collage. The age demands differences, shifting signifiers, and even atoms dissolve into elusive sub-particals."

"...all conventions of authority, a massive 'delegitimisation' of the master codes in society.. decarbonise culture, demystify knowledge, deconstruct the languages of power, desire, deceit."

"...entertains its exhaustion', subverts itself in forms of articulate 'silence'. It becomes luminary, contesting the modes of its own representation... thrives on the formlessness, the emptiness."

"This irony assumes indeterminacy, multivalence; it aspires to clarity, the clarity of demystification, the pure light of absence... These express the ineluctable recreations of mind in search of a truth that continually eludes it, leaving it with only an ironic access or excess of self-consciousness."

"Hybridisation, or the mutant replication of genres, includes parody, travesty, pastiche. This makes for a different concept of tradition, one in which continuity and discontinuity, high and low culture, mingle not to imitate but to expand the past and present.

"Performance, participation... Indeterminacy elicits participation; gaps must be filled. The postmodern text, verbal or non-verbal, invites performance: it wants to be written, revised, answered, acted out."

"Immanence. This refers to the growing capacity of mind to generalise itself through symbols. Everywhere now we witness problematic diffusions, dispersals, dissemination; we experience the extension of our senses through new media and technologies. Languages reconstitute it into signs of their own making... culture into an immanent semiotic system. A patina of thought, of signifiers, of 'connections', now lies on everything the mind touches."

Edward Bernays - Propaganda

"Propaganda can play a part in pointing out what is and what is not beautiful, and business can definitely help in this way to raise the level of American culture. In this process propaganda will naturally make use of the authority of group leaders whose taste and opinion are recognized."

"...without organization and direction their individual votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens or hundreds of candidates, would produce nothing but confusion. Invisible government, in the shape of rudimentary political parties, arose almost overnight. Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow down the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three or four."

"We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions."

"To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or commodity or idea."

"It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and cliches and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders."

"...the use of propaganda, carefully adjusted to the mentality of the masses, is an essential adjunct of political life."

"...there is a good deal of irony in the fact that business has learned everything that politics has had to teach, but that politics has failed to learn very much from business methods of mass distribution of ideas and products."

"The politician understands the public. He knows what the public wants and what the public will accept."

"The public has lost faith in campaign promotion work. It does not say that politicians are dishonourable, but it does say that campaign pledges are written on the sand."

"It is essential for the campaign manager to educate the emotions in terms of groups. The public is not made up merely of Democrats and Republicans. People to-day are largely uninterested in politics and their interest in the issues of the campaign must be secured by coordinating it with their personal interests."

Varoom: Articles on Style

The next article I've been reading in Varoom: The Illustration Report is 'The Anarchy of Style' by Paul Davis. Here are some key quotes that may help me in the development of my essays and visual journal.

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The Anarchy of Style

Paul Davis

"I have a dream..." That wasn't an attempt at style. No, he meant it. But again, therein lies style because of King's sincerity. And we all know he was right - his delivery, his integrity and intention."

"That's where style lives: in your soul. Style can be so perfect, it transcends nitpicking or criticism. Style is a glorious thing when it's done right and it should look completely effortless. Style in work - in image making - shouldn't look tentative, forced or like it was made with worry and stress, lacking in confidence or obviously based on the dictation of another illustrator's work."

"Style can't help itself. It's whether you like it or not."

" It is inherent, style. It's silently learned; tacit in its nature and nurture, unless you're a human with lazy pretensions and find yourself riding on the coat tails of someone else's trial and error and hard work because you can't think for yourself. Therein lies the difference between style and fashion... "

Maira Kalman (Illustrated The Elements of Style (2005) by Strunk, White and Kalman - "Style is not about style. It is about questions and reading and listening to music and going to museums. It is about life."

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The Encounter with Style
Geoff Grandfield

"Style is a fascinating subject in relation to illustration, sometimes so shiny and slippery as to make it difficult to get a clear view of. For many years style has been a word that is used with caution by lecturers on the subject..."

"Style can be a cheap copy or it can offer a voice, an identity, an attitude, to communication; in fact a lot of the characteristics so valued in illustration that one could be forgiven in thinking the two are inseparable."

"The surface of things can imply without meaning, and perhaps worse in the context of an art form, without truth. Illustration can just mean representation divorced from content. As all the visual content of illustration is constructed and inherently subjective it is impossible to produce without a style."

"Absolutes such as left or right for politics are attractive for definitions, but the experience of reality is more about shades of tone. There can be an honest subjective originality or there might be an informed and knowing referencing of obscure sources, both have validity but equally dependent on context. What is the content and how well it is articulated, does the surface belie the meaning or perfectly express it?"

For me, this quote perfectly encapsulates the instance of Zeegen disregarding Shrigley's satirical political poster. Does he understand the obscure source it is referencing - giving it a much deeper context than just surface qualities? Is it the fault of Shrigley for not communicating more effectively the original poster he took influence from? How could it have been made clearer in his parody? Does his naive 'style' and subtle humour not depict this enough?

"Style, as a personal code, can be sometimes derived from personal experience."

"Originality has to be accepted by an audience, with its inherent contradictions of mass approval."

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Plains Indian Drawing
Roderick Mills

"Illustration can at times mistakenly become about style - confusing personal visual language with developing an effected 'look' to court fashion, to commodify a product to make an illustration career. However, with the consumption of imagery speeding up in the age of 'It's Nice That' the appetite for the next 'trend' is potentially altering how we value images, and illustration."

"Divorced from its personal subject matter"

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The Culture of Style
Lawrence Zeegen

Interestingly enough, Lawrence Zeegen wrote a contributing article to this issue of Varoom! Fancying seeing you here! No particular quotes popped out to me as such to use in support of my writing; but reading this 6 page spread really opened my eyes to Zeegen's breadth of knowledge and understanding of contemporary illustration from the 1989's all the way up to the present day. He has seen it all - emerging trends, the movers and shakers, key figures, hot topics, illustration falling into obscuring again in the 90s... All through The Face. Purchasing The Face magazine from its first issue in 1980, all the way up to the final issue in 2004, Zeegen recalls his journey of growing up as a school boy in his final year of high school when he bought the first issue - to going to art school and then going on to become a professional - still following the magazine to see what was new and interesting in illustration and graphic design. Giving nods to particular writers, photographers, illustrators, designers, musicians, actors and celebrities helped me to appreciate Zeegen's background, introduction to illustration through his magazine, his interests growing up and how those informed him, and his awareness and insight into trends, fashions, peaks and the need for transformation in the field.

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Ephemera of Style

"Our world seems to be sanitised, touch-sensitive simulacrum in comparison, purged of much of that which makes life pleasurable: texture, smell, physicality, the sheer joy of discovery, of assemblage, ownership."

Is this what print fairs strive to tackle? Giving people physical codes of their work to display, touch, smell, stick in a notebook - instead of see through social media? An interesting quote to consider.

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The Politics of Style

Zoe Taylor

The article illustrates how political illustrations were looked down upon and not wanted for mainstream publications such as French Elle, The new York Times and American Vogue. In the '60s, Antonio Lopez strived to tackle themes such as police brutality and women of colour taking not of their underrepresentation. Illustration can influence culture and be an extremely powerful vehicle to convey messages - but will the average consumer be interested of prints of these themes? Clients did not request this sort of work at the time. Can illustrators today make a living from producing work with a political and social agenda?

Tom of Finland, too, was a gay artist working in commercial contexts. HE focused on gay subculture particularly aesthetic and identity, whereas Antonio wanted to change the mainstream perception on a wider scale.

Varoom: The Illustration Report - Style

A good style, in my opinion, should encompass identity, authenticity, intent and authorial voice. I decided to read Varoom: The Illustration Report's Style issue to better understand this tricky subject and what it means to contemporary practitioners working in the discipline both today and yesterday. The opening article is an interesting ready and overview to the many different styles in illustration and what that can potentially mean. Here are some key quotes which can inform my writing and my visual journal...

Key Quotes
'Style has many directions, dimensions, surfaces and gestures.'

''Style' is like politics - there's no escaping it... Inevitably not standing out, being unstylish is inescapably stylish. 'Normality' is a 'style'. First lesson of style - it's a paradox.'

'Like many ideas which have social, psychological, economical and artistic power, it's more productive to consider not what 'style' is, but how it functions, is used and deployed. There's Swiss Style, International Style, Lifestyle, all the styles which pursue the universal, the utopian and the aspirational - 'style' as the aspiration in becoming something else, to becoming different. There are ways in which style is portrayed, ways in which 'style' is discussed, ways in which 'style' is worn, ways in which 'style' is used as an instrument of power, ways in which 'style' is used to order and police expression, and ways in which 'style' is used to escape and create.'

'While educators worry about the impact of context-free images via blogs and social sharing on the work of students, and young graduates worry about needing to find a style that's identifiably theirs for commercial reasons, 'style' as an issue for commercial creatives is often regarded as an irritant. In the early 1990's designer Stefan Sagmeister famously hung a sign in his office - "Style = Fart".  He says, "It was the headline of a theory that style and stylistic questions are just hot air and meaningless. I discovered that this is simply not true. Through experience I found that if you have content that is worthwhile, the proper expression of that content, in terms of form and style is actually very important. It can be a very useful tool to communicate that content.'

'Fashion is flat, 'style' (derived from the Latin 'stylus', a writing instrument) has a point.'

'Tom of Finland transformed the iconography of 1950's muscular, heterosexual masculinity whereby invisible, oppressed gay men could become visibly gay through turning up the volume, amplifying a particular 'style'. In this instance, amplifying 'style' creates a way of inhabiting different kinds of personal and social relationships.'

'Does the lack of critical debate on 'style' in illustration, for example, mean that illustration is merely mannerist, aping artistic techniques? Is illustration a theatrical, seductive copyist?'

'If this is true, it's partly because some Brands and clients often demand this, they want illustrators and photographers with a 'style', rather than sensibility, they want something that is 'on-trend'. It's the idea of 'style' as a 'look', where 'style' crosses into fashion. Which doesn't make it wrong, or bad, or immoral. It only becomes that when this kind of illustration practice is the only option for illustrators.'

''Style' is all too oppressive as possibility, as a limited palette, as an off-the-peg choice. when 'style' becomes something like an impossible task for a creative it becomes seriously compelling. When 'style' is a matter of discovering your authorial voice feels like an exercise in vanity rather than art. "Commissioned images have begun to feel overly 'authorial' and self-consciously 'styled' to the exclusion of finding new ideas and new ways of thinking about illustration and how it could work. When illustration escapes the 'style' it has been allocated, things begin to move.'

'Ina Blom for Art Forum: "a real account of style must move beyond the tendency to always see style as an attribute of something else and instead see it as a transitive quality or as a form of being always in the making, acting of its own accord and not on behalf of some other project or quality."

Vance Packard: The Hidden Persuaders

Key Quotes
Taken from the chapter: "Politics and the Image Builders"

"The depth approach to politics seemed justified by the growing evidence that voters could not be depended upon to be rational. There seemed to be a strong illogical and nonlogical element in their behaviour, both individually and in masses."

"People's memories were "significantly better" in recalling material that harmonised with their own political viewpoint or "frame of reference". There was a clear tendency for them to forget the material that didn't harmonise with their own preconceived notions."

"Americans, in their growing absorption with consumption, have even become consumers of politics. This has brought an increased emphasis on giving the nod to the best performer; and in evaluating performance the "sincerity" of the presentation has taken on increased importance."

"Printer's Ink, the merchandisers' trade journal, quoted a ranking Democrat as saying in 1955: "Any candidate is aware, of course, that... the sooner he begins to build a favourable image of himself in relation to the issues of the day the more likely he is to come through."

"Both parties will merchandise their candidates and issues by the same methods that business has developed to sell goods. These include scientific selection of appeals; planned repetition ... No flag-waving faithfuls will parade the streets. Instead corps of volunteers will rind doorbells and telephones... Radio spot announcements and ads will repeat phrases with a planned intensity. Billboards will push slogans of proven power... Candidates need, in addition to rich voice and good diction, to be able to look 'sincerely' at the TV camera..."

"The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal... is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."