Evaluation

My Digital World – Evaluation

Amanda Lunt

For this project we have been given the brief title My Digital World, we have been asked to produce a final image(S) that summed up My Digital World. We have been asked to place all our research, images, and ideas on blogspot.com.

For this project I came up with quite a few ideas, of what I wanted to do. My first idea was to ask people to pose with their mobile phones, iPods (or any digital item they had on them) I had this idea because people are so absorbed with digital products that they will always have one on them. My second idea was iPods; I was going to take a picture of all the different iPods going up in generation. I thought this idea fitted with the brief title because its digital, and shows how the digital world has progressed, become more advanced – I was going to take the picture like the Ape to Man image, showing the first iPod and how it has been chopped changed and re-designed into the iPods we have today. The final idea that I had was the one I decided that I would use. My idea is a bit like my first idea but juggled around a bit, I decided that I would take candid shots of people using the digital devices, for example I have chosen two people using mobile phones for my final image. This shows that people are quite dependant on mobile phones.

My final image was edited using Adobe Photoshop; I chose my favourite two candid shots of people using mobile phones and edited them on Photoshop. I zoomed in on the images so it looked like I was closer and also when you look at the image it gives off an idea that you can actually hear the conversation going on in the picture. I printed my images at A3 size onto form board, so I had to make sure that the canvas size was set to the correct size or when I printed my image onto A3 it wouldn’t be stretched or distorted.

My strengths in this project was probably in the editing, since I have taken a summer course in Photoshop I was able to use the tools I have learnt on the course and what I got taught in college and apply it to my image, to get the image to the stage I wanted. My weakness in this project was two things, keeping up with the blog, making sure I kept that up to date with my ideas and changes, the other area of weakness was confidence to take the images of the people.

On my website that I created for this project I have placed all the thoughts and ideas that I have had, I also recorded all the different stages I have gone through to create my image. On the website I have put some artist links on, these artist helped inspire me to create the final images. The main artist that I looked at was Michael Wolf, he uses Google maps for his images, he went through streets and found images that Google had taken and Michael Wolf took the image of the screen, this is getting up close and personal to the people in the images, also by using Google Maps, he was able to get closer to the people than if he was one the street trying to take the image.  As well as the blog I have been using a journal, this is a personal book, where I have been recording any ideas that I’ve had or thoughts. 

When it came to presenting the images, we were given an exhibition space at the Electric Works Gallery in Sheffield. We each had a section of a wall that went around the centre of the room. My work was placed, so when you walked into the room it was one of the first pieces of work you saw. The outside is made of glass, this makes the building look even bigger, and it looks like a space that would hold exhibition. I think that it was the right place to hold our exhibition because it fits with the brief as it all up to date and modern like the digital world is now. The inside is a lot like the outside with it being modern, bright and open. Inside you have a helter-skelter – this is the main attraction in the building, it is placed as up walk into the reception, the walls are all bright and bold so it makes a visit to the Electric Work memorable. The area that we presented our work in has a giant seating area with a computers and phone area – In the middle there is a giant circle where you can place work and on the other side of the circle is a business room.  We had an open evening on the 26^th May 2011, were we showed our work to parents, sponsors and tutors. I enjoyed the evening showing my work off to different people. This was the first time I had shown anything to an audience so when I was creating my final images I had a lot to consider, like eye level, colour, and size. I think that my final images included everything that I needed.

The Audience

1. Types of audiences that vist art exhibitions?

The type of audience that visit exhibitions are people who are interested in art. Also people who are intrested in seeing how people work and finding new artist. The main type of people who visit art exhibitions are people who have heard that an artist they like is showing work. 

     2. What is the audience expection of the type of exhibtion you are creating?
The type of exhibtion I am creating, is for the title Digital World. So I would think that the audience is expecting something to do with computers, moblie phones etc - basically anything that you would relate to the world Digital. 

 
    3. What does the audience expect in the way of presentation?
 I think that the audience would expect clean, crisp presentation. This would porvide a very professional look and finish to the images. 

    4/5  What will the audience experience from your work? What do you want the audience to experience from your exhibition?
 Hopefully the audience will get a feel for the converstation going on between the images. My image is of two people on mobile phones, I got the camera quite close to the mobile phones. The reason I did this is so when a person looks at the image they will hopefully be absorbed into the image, and almost hear the converstaton going on. 

   

Michael Wolf

This is an image by Michael Wolf, has chosen Google’s Street View tool. Michael Wolf uses Google Street View to get up close and into peoples 'personal' space, this allows him to get shots that he wouldn't normally be able to take. 
 With the image above you can almost feel the love, and how the man in front feel a little uncomfortable about the couple behind him. 

After looking at my images in there final form , I decided that these to images alone said everything that I wanted my images to say. My images  are a very similar style to Michael Wolf.
I've got very close to the mobile phones, so close that you only see some of the person. I think my images give off a sense that you're almost close enough to hear the conversation.

I'm now going to print on A3 paper, and mount to foam board. I think that printing these images larger will send off a bigger effect.

The final idea.

This is a screen shot of the images I'm going to use for my final image. My 'idea' is, that I have took candid shots of people using there mobile phones around town and I'm zooming in on the device. The idea is that people are always using some sort of digital device and that it dominates peoples lives.  I'm going to print the images onto A4 photo paper then mount them to foam boards, I'll be using Velcro to keep my images on the wall.

So i've decided to change my idea, AGAIN....

But this time I think I'm going to stick with it, as I think it matches the brief for My digital World better than the other two ideas i've had.
So this idea is a bit of my first idea, just juggled around a bit. I'm taking pictures of people using digital devices such as phones, ipods, etc, I'm going to take two types of pictures: The first type of picture is where I have asked the person to pose for an picture,the second type is a sneaky shot, where I just take the picture of the people in action whilst using the devices - this type of shot was to show how dependent people are on the digital devices.
If you take a look around your town you will normally find that most of the people are using mobile phones or have some sort of musical device on them.
I'm not sure which type of picture I'm going to use, so I'm taking both to see which one turns out better.

Final

I have my final image, I have choson to use 4 ipods, showing the different generations.
To create my final image i have used photoshop.
On photoshop i changed the brightness and contrast to bring out the bright matalic colours, other than that i have made no other change to my image.
The image size is A3, I have chosen to go A3 because i only have the one image so i wanted it to look good. The ipods are tilted slightly to the side so you can see how the ipods have moved on and changed in design.

Idea 2 - The break down.

So i have decided to go with idea 2  because i think that it describes the digital world better than the first idea.
So for my idea i have decided to take individual pictures of the Apple Ipod devices. I'm taking the pictures of the devices on the own sideways and so that the top and bottom of the ipod is touching the top and bottom of the picture. As the ipods get taller, obviously the images are going to get taller increasing the size of the picture. I'll be using either 4/5 different ipods, in  the different  generations, I will place the ipods in generation order so the size may be all up and down - this I think looks like the network connection you get in the conner of a digtial device, therefore thinking this more to the digital world project.

Idea 2

This is my idea for the ipods.
I'm not sure which position to place the Ipod's in either the first one or the second one. I think that the 1st matches the Ape to Man image better but the second image shows how the ipod has become more advanced and developed.

2

1

My idea - Further

I now have two ideas that I would like to develop.

1. My first idea was to mirror Martin Parr's idea of taking pictures of people in the street. What I have done is took pictures of people using there digital item (eg - phone/ipod) either from afar or have them pose - I'm not sure which I want to use because Martin Parr had them posed.

     2. My second idea ( I prefer this idea to the first) is too take pictures of of different ipod generation and how they have developed. I have thought how I'm going to take them but I'm unsure of which to use, the first is just to take them lying flat to show how advanced they have become, the second way to take them is like the Ape to Man image - where the first one is the oldest then the last one is the newest.

Out of the two idea's I like the second one more, but I have the images for both so I don't have to chose just yet which I want to do.

Group Discussion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzjkBwZtxp4

^ this is a link to a video about Robots and how developed they have become. The reason we looked at Robots in our group discussion was because robots/ or machines are being very developed in the digital, for example you used to wash the pots there is now a washing machine that does it for you. The main discussion we had was about could the Robot/Machines become so developed that they take over the world?

Lose yourself.

This is one of my final images (1//3) this image shows that when using digital devices you can get lost in your own world. By having his ear phones in he's cutting the world off , creating a barrier around him.

http://mydigitalworldorg.blogspot.com/

 ^ This link is to the digital world blogger, on here you will find related topics to the subject title my digital world.

Check it out :)

Difference of quailty.

 For this I have taken a video of a digital device using my blackberry (mobile phone). Once I had uploaded the video to my computer using the cable connection ( connects to the computer via a USB port) I played the video and took a screen shot of the quailty. This image shows that the quailty of image is not very good, and has distorted the image slighty and doesn't show the image to its full quality.

Josef Schulz

Josef Schulz, also spelled Joseph Schultz (Serbian: Jozef Šulc), was a German soldier of the 714th Infantry Division stationed in the Balkans, Serbia during World War II. He died in 1941, allegedly executed after refusing to take part in a partisan execution. The German High Command recorded him as killed in action. The plot of the Yugoslav short movie Joseph Schultz (1973) is based on the incident. Based on a Bundesarchiv study, the incident was dismissed as a legend by scholars in the 1990s
      .- Wikipedia

Here are a few pictures by Josef Schulz, Josef Schulz takes all the writing out of the pictures, and just leaves the colours and the shapes. Everything is very simple and smooth. I like what he does with the pictures.

Thomas Ruff

Thomas Ruff (born 1958 in Zell am Harmersbach) is an internationally renowned German photographer who lives and works in Düsseldorf.
From 2000 to 2005 Ruff taught Photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Thomas Ruff studied photography from 1977 to 1985 with Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Art Academy). Ruff names Walker Evans, Eugene Atget, Karl Blossfeld, Stephen Shore and William Eggleston as his main influences.
This is just a bit of information on Thomas Ruff.

This is Thomas Ruff 2007

For this part of the work we looked at images that are made up of pixels that can be seen. One artist that uses this method alot. This was Thomas Ruff. 

 

Thomas Ruff

Thomas Ruff is one of the most acclaimed photographers working today. Ruff went to Dusseldorf Art Academy and studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher. He claims that they are part of his inspiration for his work. 

Thomas Ruff has done work with pixels. He did this by showing the pixels in his photographs.

Word Cloud

This is a word cloud for soical networking sites, I have most of these social sites. The whole class thought of different websites for the cloud.

facebook, twitter, tumblr, blogger, myspace, flickr, youtube, google; maps, docs, translator, earth, streetview, images, search engine, yahoo, hotmail, msn, myb, gmail, weheartit, amazon, ebay, wikipedia, play, formspring, hmv, isohunt, dailybooth, guardian, bbc, iplayer, 4od, skysports, lovefilm, peerblock, paypal, avg, norton, spybot, kaspersky, utorrent, piratebay, spotify, itunes, youtubeconvertor, smile,

Digital Timeline.

1895 - Cinema + Radio - This is the 5th date on our digital timeline, I have written it on my blog as I think that it's a pretty important date. Radio! I mean this is pretty big, finally people can send out big news to everybody via the radio and the cinema - this has played a big part in people's life.

2006- Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey - This isn't really a big part of the digital timeline, but it is one of my favourite social networking sites, as it allows me to follow celebs and keep up to date with the lastest news about them.

2010 - Apple Ipad. - This has become pretty big in the digital world, since 2010  over 8 million Ipads have been sold worldwide. The Ipad is basicly everything you need at the palm of your hands.

Where my idea has developed from.

This is 'Love Cube' by Martin Parr. For my idea I have decided to do something very similar, but my idea will be in colour, the people will hvae some sort of of digital device on their person. The idea is that the human population is so absorbed in using digital devices everybody always has one one them.

The idea.

For my idea have decided to take images of people from afar, who are absorbed in the digital world - eg using their phone, Ipod some form of digital device.
I want to record how people when using digital devices lose them selves in the real world and become absorb in there own digital world.

The research.

For my research I looked at video's on YouTube, the videos I looked at to start with was based on the digital world, my research to start with wasn't really based on anything I was just looking at Digital world in general. After I had done some research I narrowed the search down to robots, I looked at everyday robots, things such as Dishwasher, Washing Machine etc - things that do the work for you that once you would have done yourself. We looked at the evolution of robots and what could happen if they came to developed, could they take over the world?

Sheffield Electric Works Gallery

Yesterday we went to the Sheffield Electric Works Gallery to look at the space we would have when we put our work up in May.
The building is made mainly out of glass, the building has a sliver glare off it. It looks really posh and designed for hosting exhibitions.
Inside the building it is all modern and fancy. I like the gallery, I think it will be great place to host my exhibition.

These are logos from the sites I use. All these sites are from the digital world.

The morning.......

This morning I was given a new task called My Digital World. The way I looked at this project was in a digital way, looking at technology and the expressions people have on their faces when they play on games, or use the computer.

My idea for this project is expressions of people using the computer and playing games, I'm thinking of doing portriat image. 

This morning I hvae been taking pictures related to the title using different digital media, I used my mobile phone (blackberry) and the colleges camera (Fujinon) I found that my camera took the better images, but I didn't think it would because it has a lower megapixel.
After I had took the images I needed to get the images onto the computer, it was easy for the images on the camera, but for the images on my mobile phone I had to use the digital world. I uploaded my images from my phone onto facebook (social network) via my phone, this didn't take very long but it did take longer than using a lead. Once the images were on facebook, I screen grabbed the images and saved them into a folder so I can edit them later, then it was easy just to upload them onto blogger.

Exploring Pixels

In digital imaging, a pixel (or picture element) is the smallest addressable screen element in raster graphics; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be controlled. Each pixel has its own address.

This is the original image from the mobile phone, in this image you can see clearly see the image, but you can't see any of the pixels that make up the image.

This is the same image but I have zoomed in by 300% using the magnifer tool on photoshop. You can now start to see the pixels in the image, causing the image to become pixelated.

This is the image again but zoomed in 1600%, all quality of the image has been lost, but you can just make out the image, this is part of the ipod, if you hadn't seen the original image you wouldn't know what this was. This is the furthest I could zoom in, if I could zoom in any further I don't think you would be able to see the image at all, it would just be a pixel blur. 

Digital Media

These are the same images taken on different media devices, I think that the camera phone shows a better image than the camera. The moblie that I used was a blackberry Curve -Bold, the camera is a Fujinon. The images on the left are taken on the mobile and the images on the right have been taken using the camera.
 When I started I thought that the camera would take the better images as the mobile doesn't have that many megapixels on the camera, but looking at the images I think that the mobile pictures look better, because the images seem clearer and brighter, where as the images from the camera look a little grainy and pixelated.