OUIL501- Focus

Having gotten closer to the end of my visual journal, I have decided to carry on and develop more of the made up stories with illustrations below. I feel these have been developed and I would like to do some more and explore how the aesthetic could change and start to explore possible applications for the illustrations.

OUIL501- Study Task 8

Rationale
What is your theme?

My theme is focused on the manipulation of headlines within the media and it's effects on the outside world, more specifically the work we produce as creatives.
How are you exploring it visually (methodology)?

Using line and shape, I have been using collaged headlines to begin to explore new stories and reacting to them through illustrations. 
Why are you doing it this way?

I wanted to reflect the way in which the headlines can dictate our work, which I feel could only be properly explored honestly by reusing actual headlines, rather than purely creating my own wouldn't have the same impact. I wanted to respond to the cyclical nature of mass media as explained in my essay by having these made up headlines dictate my own work.
Materials?

I feel line reflects the naivity I wanted to move with in my practice. Because the work is quite satirical, I wanted to make the work simple and light, which I think its best achieved with line, shape and collage. I used collage to keep the authenticity of the headlines.
Any key theorists who have influenced this?

Marhsall McLuhan's work has influenced my work the most. His outlook on the media has been really interesting to me and his tone is quite dry and satirical, which fits in with the tone of my project. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's views on the press and mass media have also been drawn on a lot in this brief.

OUIL501- Finishing Essay

I decided to leave my essay for a couple of weeks just to try and come back with a fresh head and allow my practical work to influence my essay. The main thing I wanted to do was refine the essay down into more specific research based questions. However I'm struggling one which elements to leave out.

After this I will be just finishing off the essay and gathering feedback from peers.

OUIL501- Turning Point

After continuing with the development of my project I have started to refine the direction in which I want to go with it. Creating headlines and illustrating around them is definitely the way I want to move forward with the project as I think it opens the door to explore more techniques of headline making and journalism and allows me to respond properly through illustration.

I think the above image demonstrates this quite well. I want to keep the naive aesthetic to the work so that I can focus on the context of the work. I will now look to create more of these headlines and work with them.

OUIL501- Playing With Images

I wanted to experiment with only using collaged image in my journal. I took inspiration from Martha Rosler who I talked about earlier in the blog and use image really simply and subtly, only changing 1 or two things within the image to change the story completely.

I tried to keep quite a light tone with this image, to keep with the satirical mood of the rest of the journal. I changes one of the words in the header and put two red bands across the factory workers arms, which is only a subtle change but totally changes the tone and subject of the image. I will look to produce more of these moving forward.