It is time for the MA project. During this first week I will try and reflect on previous projects, insights from them that hopefully can lead to the first step for my project.
But first. I need to sort out my feelings toward this project. I am conflicted and have been debating wether or not I should end my studies here and write a thesis in Sweden. The reason is that the journey I have been doing in this course has ironically led me to the conclusion that I might have chosen the wrong course. It has caused a lot of ambivalent feelings around my studies. I have realised that I am in fact not interested in working practice based at all and I am not interested in (working with) graphic design, especially not in an academic context. I am however, interested in research and within the field of history, semiotics and visual communication (which surely includes graphic design and typography). Would I have come to that realisation without having done this course? I do not know. I have decided to finish this master and try and work with this project in a way that enables my path towards a research degree. While applying for a PhD position I will keep studying on advanced level in Sweden and work towards a dual Masters. I hope to start those studies in the spring 2023 so they will overlap this project and hopefully they can feed into each other.
Reflection Practice themed case studies
Joseph Pochodzaj
Discover new perspective–new knowledge
Pochodzaj is talking about longevity of the MA project and how t it can be built on for years ahead–I guess this is kind of my plan as I aim to use this project as a building stone towards my phd. But also as a way to make sense of parts of my intended research in a phd. I am hoping this MA project can constitute the main part of my body of work so far and could make a strong echo in my future research.
“How we engage people and involve people directly in our research is a really important thing to think about. There are two ways that I consider engagement to be important within my work: one method is engaging directly with places or sites and the other more with people and communities.”
Ben Evans James
“Some disciplines may focus on objective writing in a past tense, and by objective what I mean is removing yourself from that narrative. Disciplines which may prioritise this are things like science or mathematics. While other disciplines are perhaps slightly more relaxed and actually encourage subjectivity, and so encourage your perspective within the text. And here we can largely include art and design based writing.”
This and some other discussions on (academic) writing in this lecture is quite interesting as my research proposal from module 730 is in a way building on the lack of (evidenced) research in artistic education. When I researched ideologies in visual communication and looked at master projects dealing with similar matters I was surprised to see how much those projects and discussions were drawing conclusions based on subjective perception. I was researching a particular person in more depth as she is very vocal in terms of power analyses in visual communication (especially in Sweden) and found that much of her research is based on assumption. Which was a huge disappointment. Sometimes I feel like the discourse of this discipline is built on a big vocabulary of people who really just have constructed their knowledge foundation based on assumption? Extremely harsh and not completely fair of me. But sometimes I just feel that we could all gain from reading a book once in a while and be kindly humbled that our own lack of knowledge might be greater than what we know. I personally enjoy that feeling as it in reality means that I can spend a lifetime trying to understand more.
“The second thing is you need to differentiate between writing that is opinion-based and argumentative writing.” I saw a short lecture touching upon this recently. It was in a lecture for a Master of Science so the evidencing was clearly centered in that writing. However, one of the first things to do when forming an argumentative written piece is stating your position. Sometimes, if that position is not aimed to be fully neutral, it requires you to express an opinion. This would then mean that the argumentative writing sometimes can be building on an opinion? I am personally very reluctant to any kind of subjectivity in academic writing. I think that is why I have such a hard time with maybe not only the writing in our discipline, but our discipline in general. I relies heavily on personal perception. I do believe, however, that opinions can take place in academic writing even if it is argumentative, but that it is required to be clearly evidenced. I guess that is also embedded in the intention of that advice.
Reflection and insight from previous projects
Creatio ex Profundis
First just a note on the outcome of this, it was not good. I remember that Ben made a remark that it kind of look and feel like when big corporations are trying to be these accessible and kind giants, like Spotify’s yearly individual compilations.
I was never happy with the project, process or outcome and that note was in its accuracy the nail in the coffin for me in that project. It was true. All of that hard work just to come up with a mediocre museum version of Spotify Wrapped 🙁
There was one part of that project that I did like, however, it was the theoretical foundation and the fact that I developed a model fusing theories from DuBois and Bourdieu that fed into the user experience. That should have been the first clue for me that maybe I am just not that interested in the outcome, in graphic design, but rather in theory.
Projects relating to book history
A clear theme in many of my projects is how they relate to history and maybe more often to book history.
This project had a large focus on visual semiotics. I methodically deconstructed the signs from a medieval manuscript and put in a contemporary context. I also claimed to have invented a recipe. I wrote “This idea is almost like an equation: historic woman and her context+a contemporary woman at the frontier—the edge of discourse, wording a quote, appropriate to the historic persona. That should mean the idea is scalable? Like a recipe!” What this really is, however, is a semiotic method for effective deconstruction of visual signs. And it is quite good and can probably be adapted and adjusted for other contexts and meaning making activities. This could actually be at the core of my upcoming project, I have to consider in what ways this could be adjusted to better fit the core of that project.
The Complutensian Polyglot is a product under Isabela’s reign in 16th century Spain. A lot of interesting people were involved in that project and it contains some connections to the societal norms of that time.
Another project exploring the Complutensian Polyglot, this time from the perspective of collaboration.
This project really revealed the importance of historiography and how it can affect the perception of history. I understood how the constructs of the Enlightenment regulates much of our understanding of not only our ancient past but also present. This fanzine looked at the colonial construct of motherhood for example and related that to the construct of Tiamat’s motherhood in the creation story of Enuma Elish. These constructs can have truly harmful effects on the people it delimits, in this case women who become mothers.
This is what I want to work with and in an ambition to find some solid ground on ideologies in visual communication I think fragmenting this proposal into a practical project can be a good start. When I was in a meeting with one of the professors in the research group I sometimes attend, he said that anything that can build towards my phd-any extra academic points are good.
This project was a good example on how to turn my proposal into something practical. However it lack connection to a visual exploration. I need to turn this theoretical approach into something that can be a search in the visual.
Reflections for moving forward
Look at my own context where does it all begin, look at colonisation.
In what ways can I make my research available with a long term objective to bridge the gap between theory and practice?
Could i connect my research to something practical–but in the hands of someone else, students, educators etc? Similar to Joseph Pochodzaj’s deconstructed MA show.
Will I need a primary object of analysis? Like the book, a book in particular, the alphabet etc?
Conclusions and insight
- Avoid any digital solutions, I don’t enjoy working with them, the outcome is never good (for example Creatio ex Profundis)
- Models, methods and making theory into something concrete and visual is something I enjoy and often do with some success in projects.
Initial inspiration
I read this MA thesis many years back and find it such an interesting approach to typography. I think this was featured in an older edition of Visual Research. This is such a lovely work of extensive research and finding an interdisciplinary dimension within graphic design, making the process itself intriguing.
This project was about developing a system for charting the passage of time within Dracula by Bram Stoker.
The novel comprises a series of fictional diary entries, letters and document “written” by the range of characters central to the story. Some of these relate to each other through their description of events and locations from each fictional partic- ipants viewpoint – and the overall narrative is hold together through a complex series of interrelated structures.
»Throughout the project
the reoccurring question was: how many ways can time be shown?«
Mapping
She started out with one chapter, chapter 8 – since it contained a lot of clues to which time it was. First of all she mapped those clues. They could be:
- Date and time notes in text
- Moon phases
- References to time of the day
- Train timetables
- Travel schedules
- Timelines
- Locations
- Characters
- Events
Research
To be able to make a valid research and have an interdisciplinary approach to the project Sarah Backhouse studied narrative since it also provides appropriate methods for her research. Book design theory and typography was also used.
- Narrative
- Book design theory
- Typography
Regarding her research and studying narration she also writes “Some of the categories have provided me with methods that I have applied to chapter eight, in order to investigate the content and draw out the relevant information” – That is sort of an essential approach to research. Defining what you need for your project may sometimes be adding to your own knowledge to be able to fulfill the task. To be able to define that and use that in a terse way is just simply very good, admirable.
Here is an overview of her research filtered through the theories of narration, these are diagrams used to define the order of events – the duration of them and how often they occur. She then filtered the chapter through these diagrams, making it possible for her to map the story out through these parameters.
She then visually generated some ideas (these are visualised in the thesis):
Chronology– One where she placed the events in chronological order
Timeline-A calendar on the outside edge and a 24hr clock on the right margin. This requires some level of deciphering. If there is anything in the text referring to time it is then underlined.
Gradient-A visual representation of night and day using color (I personally really liked this one) She relies on what her reader intuitivly (color theory+semiotics, connotation)feels about the shades in color, as it represents night and day. Applied to that she also has the 24 hr clock – the lines sticking out from the gradient as well as the calendar at the bottom.
Photographs-»Visually it refers to illuminated drop capitals in it’s placement« (also one of my personal favorites, but I think it disrupts the content a bit too much and would sit better if this was for example an exhibition or simply if this project took another form.
Events-Interlacing events visually.
Letters– Set as letters, differentiated from diaries.
As inspiration for the Timeline & Gradient she looked at The Telephone Book designed by Richard Eckersley Sakoontala. The phone book is not an actual phone book. The designer of the book worked closely with the author which has integrated the design in the content! Very similar to ergodic literature.
The final outcome for the project was a set of three books which outline alternative systems for mapping the passing of time within Bram Stoker’s Dracula, each focusing on one single chapter of the original book.
How can this connect to my project
What Sarah Backhouse did was using graphic design as a visual tool to explain something (temporality) within an existing object (the book Dracula). It serves as a framework for understanding, a lens if you will. Even if my project will lie far from this it has components that strongly relate to what I want to do.
Initial thoughts on ideas
Could my project be to visualise a method to analyse ideologies in visual communication? A lens that utilises postcolonial semiotics, historical and ideological processes in a multimodal social semiotic approach?
It can be abstract, like a caleidoscope. How is the lens that shows according to norm for example and how can that be refracted? Is it possible to deconstruct semiotic regimes, and break apart the chains of signs in them?
Rethinking aesthetics of empire? Can I find a way to visualise this and create some kind of method that opens up for pluriversal outcomes?