Final Project - Belated Update

I have been thinking, researching and working on the final project for a few weeks now and this is a bit of a belated update.

The main concept is Overpopulation and how it affects everything around us.

I was able to work in the science lab at the college and tried to film yeast culture growth, but unfortunately it’s been a bit of a fiasco. They just refused to grow… however, I still managed to get a few interesting photos out of the experiment, so it wasn’t a complete disaster. The photos inspired me to produce some monotype prints.

I also played about with an idea of using jelly babies, possibly filling up a large jar with them etc. I made some vacuum/heat molds with them. I may do some castings of them, possibly with glass, just to experiment. The shapes really remind me of frog spawn I’ve been watching, looks very strangely related.

So far it looks like my main piece is going to be a painting/prints on a large MDF board.  I’ve made a lino cut stamps for the piece, however it isn’t very flexible and doesn’t print so well when used as a stamp. I therefore made a vac/heat mold and now making a latex version of the stamps. I really hope they work….

I’m also looking at overlaying prints of them on large sheets of tracing paper and stacking them one behind the other to create a multiple effect as well. It’s all about multiplicity and using the printing process really supports the concept of this work.

I’m also working on a sound piece which will reflect the main painting/print. It’s a dialogue I wrote, which starts of very happily but further on gets darker, louder and violent. It’s a work in progress just now but it’s going very well. Phil who is helping me with the editing seems to like it too which is good. I made quite a few recordings of my classmates, other students and some lecturers. At first I was a bit worried if they would be up for it, but they all got very emotional and expressive, and liked this new experience. The voices/sounds are overlapping further on and it does make a person feel quite upset and unsettled, which is exactly what I’m aiming for.

I’ve also finished my steel plate for the Charlatan brief. It’s looking good, I’m quite happy with it. I’m still working on screen prints, which are details of photographs I took while I was melting metals on the plate. I’m really enjoying screen printing, great fun.

My business cards are ready to get printed, so I think I’ll get those done in the next week or so. I think I might get some greeting card size cards done as well.

I bought a few frames, most of them for the prints of illustrations of similes for my 1^st project. Just need to frame them now. I’m also hoping, (time permitting) to get a few more of the prints done before the show.

Final Project - "Human Subconscious Need for Self-destruction for the Greater Good."

The topic I would like to explore in the final project is: “What effects is overpopulation having on our world. What happens next?”

The world’s population is now more than 6.8 billion and continues to grow by 83 million people per year.  During the last half-century, the world’s population more than doubled. Between 1960 and 2010, the world population rose from 3 billion to 6.8 billion. In other words, there has been more growth in population in the last fifty years than the previous 2 million years that humans have existed. Currently the rate of population increase is 1.2% per year, which means the planet’s human population is on a trajectory to double again in 58 years. This extreme growth in human population is brutally challenging the Earth and its resources.  We are starting to pay our debt already in the forms of widespread diseases, shortages of water and food supply and destructive weather caused by climate change. We need to seriously consider how fragile our ecosystem is and how difficult it is to rebuild the balance that took billions of years to create. For the sake of preserving our planet’s more and more fragile eco system and the future of our offspring; are we able to make a conscious decision of not reproducing in such high numbers?

(http://www.populationmedia.org/issues/population/)

Theory: “In the life cycle we like to think we are at the top of the food chain. But is there something bigger (putting God aside) than us (our planet itself possibly) that is forcing us to think and act self-destructively, because it has a need to regenerate? So in any way we think, act, plan, if it’s developing drugs to cure diseases and prolonging our life, genetically growing human parts to save lives, inventing new ways of growing and producing more food, water desalination; ultimately we are overpopulating the carrying mass we stand on and heading for self-destruction .”

My main aim is to record people’s reactions on this very real, current and scary topic, mainly their opinion on human reproduction and to find out if we are able to make choices that could affect our children’s future.

Methods, Materials, Equipment and Processes: (describe what materials, methods, equipment and processes you intend to use)

I am hoping to produce a large painting incorporating multiple prints to signify the reproduction/multiplication on a grand scale. I will be working with paper, possibly plaster, paint and lino, woodcut or colograph prints.

There is a possibility of producing a video which would be projected onto the painting. However as I have no experience of video production, looking at the time constraints, this option may end up not being used.

I am also considering involving the viewers in making drastic decisions

(probably under a cloak of anonymity) that would be calculated and provided as

a statistic, (for example every 30-60 minutes), with a final result at the end of the exhibition.

Proposed Research: (give examples of appropriate art/design research, including examples of artists/designers and practical experimentation, that you intend to undertake)

I am looking at the controversial work and approaches of Andres Serrano, Cosimo Cavallaro, Patricia Piccinini and Carolee Schneemann. Their work seems to be related to the way I perceive the drastic situation we are in and I would like to build on that.  But I also like the much “softer” work of Diana Al-Hadid and Hilary Harnischfeger. I may possibly approach my piece in a similar way, using various materials to create structure and texture.

Creatures made by Patricia Piccinini, based on a theme of doing the right things for the wrong reasons.







Cosimo Cavallaro - Birth

Diana Al-Hadid - Towers

Once I make a decision which way the project will head, I’m planning to create a small scale sample to test the materials that I am planning to use and to give me an idea of how the final piece will look like. I will experiment with various types of printing and painting to achieve the desired effect.

I would like the piece to be thought provoking, radical and possibly a bit confrontational. I would like to collect people’s true ideas about the subject by creating a simple 1 question digital survey with a yes or no answer.