OUGD405 - Brief 4- Informal Crit

Today I initiated an informal critique session with a few of my peers in the studio. It was really helpful in relation to my research and where to take it for studio brief 4. For brief 4 we have to create a product derived directly from our research, and we also must package it.

In order to do this we have to try to identify a gap in the research, a problem that has to be solved. The product and it's packaging will be a resolution to an identified issue. The issue could be as small or large as you like.

I asked the small crit group their opinions on my research and collection and wanted to see if they could identify any issues with 35mm slides as objects and as a medium. Here are their views and feedback:

• If you don't have an appropriate projector or device to the view the slides they become redundant and almost pointless

• Slides have sort of become obsolete in the 21st century purely because of the convenience of digital photography which is so efficient when compared to film photography

• They are sadly quite outdated now and obsolete as a medium

• They are difficult to reproduce or replicate

• People lack knowledge of what they are, how to handle them, look after them or even view them. In some ways they are a bit taboo when compared to printed photographs or digital images

• They are one off, unique images, once lost they are gone forever and can never be retrieved unlike digital images

• They are delicate and can break easily. Not impossible to fix but difficult. Other forms of photography can be re-printed or copied where as if a slide is damaged its not good news 

• They are fiddley and inconvenient

• Clunky and take up a lot of room

I already had a few ideas of where I want to take my research from the presentation I did in front of my peers and tutor. I had the idea to make connections between the slides, creating stories from various combinations of slides which are completely unrelated and distant from each other. This could take the form of an installation, a poster or a small publication but I haven't decided on that yet. I described this idea in the informal crit and people really liked it and said it would work well.

Florence suggested a couple of ideas that I hand't considered before. She said it could be nice to re-imagines storage unit for the slides, to make it more of an interesting object rather than a boring nondescript box. Make the box more interactive and more of a talking point, making it easier to access and view the slides rather than them being hid away somewhere. This could be interesting to look into.