COP3 Research Proposal

Visual Journey Presentation Slides

Research Proposal

To what extent has Illustration constructed our understanding or view of historical events and perceptions of truth?

This is the question I have chosen to base my research on. I want to continue and expand on the work I have done this year exploring how society is affected by the narratives and methods we use in visual storytelling. I have looked at empathy and just world beliefs this year but would like to understand more about how they influence our views.

I would like to look at specific works of fiction that have had an impact on social and political reform.

I would like to interview people that are affected by just world beliefs, both positively and negatively.

I would like to research how and why we have told stories throughout time.

I would like to research practitioners that go against the traditional narratives and visual symbols to communicate their message.

I would like to research ways that we can tailor our work to have a positive impact on society.

I would like to investigate how we simplify the world around us to make it easier to understand and to see if that has had a negative impact on how we process information.

10 Word Pitch Poster

This is my 10 word pitch poster. I have included 10 words that are key to my project and 10 of the illustrations from my visual journal that I think communicate the words themselves. I picked out 8 quotes that I used on my essay. I thought about adding more but the other quotes I used require more context. The quotes I picked out are the ones that I think best sum up my research into this project. I have tried to use the poster to show how the illustrations, words and quotes are interconnected and overlap. I am thinking about adding some colour to the characters as well as the speech bubbles on the poster. I tried using black outlines for the speech bubbles but that made the poster design look messy and unclear. I am going to print off the poster to see if the text for the quotes is clear enough at the right scale with the fonts and text size I have used. I may have to change the design but making the text bigger will cause some problems with the space on the poster.

Pattern

I went back to a character I made earlier that I had planned to use in a repeat pattern. I designed the character as a triangle so that I could make it tessellate. The idea was to make this into a fabric or wallpaper print that could be made into a product. The pattern is made up of a large number of grey characters with one in full colour to grab the attention of the viewer. I drew the character with fine liner but when I worked on it digitally I removed the line work to make it look a block print. I really like the effect I got from doing this and think it is something I could use when making illustrated books for the liner pages at the beginning and end of the books. I am much happier with this compared to my earlier illustrations and would like to continue working in this way and trying out traditional print processes to add texture to the image.

Blue Face

I made a shape based character that is closer to my practice in other modules than my previous work for this brief. I once again used pixilation to show empathies effects on our views and used colour to try and communicate the emotion of the character. I think this character is better at conveying sadness than my previous work.

New poster

I made this poster to try and create a mono print effect, the character is drawn with fine liner then edited digitally. The poster looks a little unclear at this scale but I think it would work at A2. I wanted to find different ways to highlight one of the characters while still keeping the composition and number of colours simple and limited. I would like to try some more designs like these with traditional print processes to see what effects and textures I can create. I am still not sure I have found the right character for this repeat pattern poster. I will experiment more with repeat patterns and try to create characters that link together into a solid pattern and maybe use negative colours ways to highlight a single character.

Focus

I thought about how empathy alters our view of the world around us and decided that I could use pixilation to demonstrate focussing on one person and blurring the view of large numbers of people. I think this works much better, at first they all look the same until you notice the one clear character in the middle of the group that stand out clearly. I still think the character needs work to better convey the sadness I am trying to communicate. I have been working a lot on children's books recently and have been trying to create characters that clearly and effectively convey emotion, this process has helped me to explore this process.

Posters

I started making some posters out of my characters trying to find different ways to single out one of the characters and draw the viewers attention towards it. I want to represent the way we feel empathy towards one person we have a connection with over a large number of people we have no connection with. I started out experimenting with colour and adding name badges.

I found that at this scale the characters were not emotive enough to clearly illustrate the feelings of the character. The colours were really a clear way to show the connection between the viewer and character. I started experimenting with different characters in my journal which led me to think about repeat pattern fabrics. I think this design could work well as fabric design if the characters were shape based and I started thinking more about colour.

Numbers

The image of the right is not finished yet, I am going to add a cup out that only allows the viewer to see the word fair, the cut out will represent the way the just world hypothesis influences our views. I have been searching for phrases and words contained within other words to help me to expand on this idea of being blinkered by just world beliefs. I thought of using the word villain with ill written in a different colour or font to show the effects of just world beliefs vs reality. The other two images are going to form part of a repeating poster, the poster will feature a large number of characters all exactly the same except one will have a name badge, I want to see how people react to the poster, if they are more interested in the named character than the others, how they feel about the poster. I could make one character a different colour to stand out, maybe have one in colour and the rest black and white. I would like to just use the name badge if it works and is obvious enough. I will have to experiment with different scales and different numbers of characters on the poster. If I can make the difference in the character as small as possible and still make the character stand out in the crowd I think it will make the message of the poster more powerful. I also thought of making two posters one with lots of characters and one with just one, small in the middle of the poster, same scale as the others and see if people react differently to each of them. I am going to work on these ideas digitally so I can experiment with variations quite quickly.

Angels and Devils

These illustrations aim to portray the way just world beliefs influence our view of the people around us. Through stories we are taught that the good people prosper and become successful and that if you are bad you will pay for it. From the world around us we can see that this is not true, successful people are often ruthless and taking advantage of others is one of the reasons they are so successful. On the other hand homeless people are often demonised as lazy and there are many assumptions made about how they found themselves in the situation they are in now. It is easier for us to judge someone to explain why they are in such a bad situation than it is for us to come to terms with living in an unjust world where bad things can happen and our circumstances could change at any time. There is comfort in these beliefs and they have the positive effect of encouraging people to be nice to one another. The problems come when we start to blame victims for what has happened to them. I wanted to show successful people portrayed as angels or similar to saints in religious imagery. These people are presented to us as examples of success, something to aspire to. I think this idea could be taken much further, I would like to interview some homeless people I know and tell their stories about how their liver led them to where they are now and show them as the angels and saints they can be.

Heroes

I decided to try using super heroes to explore the empathy and the just world hypothesis. I wanted to show the super heroes reacting effects that fiction can have on the reader, effects that the stories they are part of increase. to explore empathy I illustrated a super hero feeling empathy for someone in trouble and experiencing empathic distress taking on the mental state of the other person, I wanted to communicate that this would make the hero unable to help them, they would be able to offer some comfort but would not be able to stay disinterested and level headed in order to logically address the situation. I also made an illustration showing a super hero using empathy to decide who to help between on person in trouble who they know and a large group that they don't. The super hero feels empathy for the single person and chooses them over the large group. The third illustration shows the superhero relaxing at home when his phone rings with an emergency, he decides that the people in trouble must have done something wrong to be in the situation they are in so doesn't respond. I liked the idea of the super heroes reacting to they beliefs portrayed in fiction as if they are reacting to themselves, rendering them useless. They represent the writers of fiction who like them are aiming to do good, to promote moral beliefs without knowing the negative effects of their methods.

Finishing essay

I added a few more paragraphs to my essay. I noticed that I had only connected my research to my practice later in the essay and had not explained my reasons for concentrating on fiction as a form of escapism. I think the essay is much easier to understand now and ties in all my research in a more coherent focussed way. I also noticed that I had only mentioned compassion as an alternative to empathy very briefly without addressing how practitioners could attempt to promote it through their work. I think this is because there is no obvious way to remove fictions expansion of empathy but I thought it was important to try and address the issue as best I could based on my research.

Ideas

I have been thinking of ideas for my cop research proposal, I have really enjoyed researching my essay this year and am thinking of taking the topic further. I would like to further explore the Just World hypothesis, how it influences individuals and society and how it is caused by or encouraged by fictional narratives. I would like to interview practitioners to see how they attempt to communicate moral values within their writing and illustrations. I would also like to interview people who could be effected by the Just World beliefs ideas. Home less people are often looked down on and it is easier for every one else to deal with the issue of homelessness by convincing ourselves that the person in some way deserves their fate, that they must have done something wrong to lead them to where they are now. I would also like to look at illustrations, films and books that challenge just world beliefs and do not rely on ideas such as heroes and villains to communicate moral values.

More essay conclusions

I am getting close to finishing my essay, it has changed a lot from my first draft. I have tried to reflect on the feedback I got and refine my question. One thing that was bothering me was that it was not linked closely enough to my practice but I think I have now addressed that issue. To simplify the essay it now concentrates on the Just World hypothesis and empathy. I have looked at the benefits and problems with both of these and how they are reinforced and expanded through fiction. I wanted to look at ways in which writers and illustrators can attempt to reduce the negative effects. Empathy is tied into the core process of reading or watching fiction and so would be much harder for practitioners to address. Through fiction we are invited to see the world through someone else's eyes or at least to form a connection with them. Trying to combat the increased levels of empathy caused by fiction would mean changing the core values and process of it, also we have empathy without ever reading or watching fiction. Paul Bloom has an interesting way of looking at empathy and its bias, he compares it to anger. What he means is that anger is something that is in some circumstances justified and logical even when it leads us to take action but it needs to be subservient to logical thinking. He suggests we should look at empathy the same way, one of the ways empathy has negative connotations is when it is used to make important decisions. Through fiction practitioners could promote rational thought and objectivity through narratives to try and reign in the impact if increased empathy. it is hard to try and understand how to change fictions effects on empathy, the Just World hypothesis is slightly easier to understand. The just world hypothesis is promoted by the narratives commonly used in fiction. Simplified ideas of good and evil that allow the practitioners to communicate a narrative. In our real lives decisions are rarely as simple as good and bad and looking at the real world in a binary way can be harmful. Practitioners could try and tackle the complexities of situations and not rely on heroes and villains to communicate the moral values of the story. Specific moral values and life lessons could still be promoted through fiction but without the idea that decisions and people are either good or bad.

10 word pitch 3

Synthesising

1- Comparing quotes from Neil Gaiman about fiction being a doorway to another world and the use of doorways and portals within fictional writing and film. I started out looking at book ends as a way to show the journey of reading a work of fiction, then expanded the idea to try and explore a range of theories relating to fiction. Theories such as personal development, growing up and learning through the characters stories and themes in fictional writing. returning from the worlds explored through fiction with weapons and armour that can help the reader deal with situations in their real lives. Genre snobbery, the way fantasy and escapist fiction are viewed as inferior to other literary genre's and also the changing trends relating to which books we should get children to read, and the detrimental effects this can have. Through my research and visual investigation I have discovered the extent of the influence reading fiction can have on us as individuals and as a society and also the misconceptions we have about fiction and its influence. Empathy and the just world hypothesis are widely viewed as positive but can have negative implications whereas escapism is often viewed as lazy or self destructive but can have a positive impact.

2- Combining common forms of escapism with the idea of doorway and portals between worlds to explore the positive and negative impacts of them. I used drug addiction to illustrate the negative aspects of escapism as it is the escapist activity that is most condemned and has the most obvious impact on the individual. I wanted to show both the influence activities such as computer games, television and reading on people and the common perception of these activities. it is not only drugs that can take over someone's life, even escapist activities that appear to be positive like exercise can become an addiction and lead to that person choosing the activity over other important parts of their life. The activities are not necessarily bad but hey can come to be a place of refuge for someone who is struggling to deal with their surroundings, having somewhere to gather your thoughts and reflect on the world around you is a positive but feeling a constant need for that safe place is not. It is not necessarily escapism that is deserving of its negative public image but addiction.

3- I combined empathy with a portal or aperture that allows us a glimpse into another world. I wanted to show the problems that occur when we use empathy to make decisions. I was trying to use the aperture to show how when we use empathy to make decisions we are not seeing the full picture, our vision of events is skewed by our own biases that make us empathise more with some people than others, for example people we have something in common with such as ethnicity or location. this process helped me to look at empathy as reductive rather than widening our perspective.

*I am struggling with this task as I unfortunately missed the seminar where it was briefed, I think I have gone into too much detail and not in the ways I should have .I am going to carry on but shorten my points then analyse them afterwards in relation to process and results.

4- I used repetition and character to demonstrate empathy not being able to apply value to numbers of people. We feel more empathy towards one person we know something about than we do about 100 people we don't. I have tried to demonstrate this in a number or ways using scales to show one life being heavier (more important) than many, glasses, apertures or doorways obstructing our vision only allowing us to see the people we identify with.

5- I have used drowning and rain as a metaphor for depression to show the impact empathy can have on an individuals mental state. Someone who exhibits high levels of empathy effectively takes on the emotions of the people around them and it can start to wear them down. I wanted to show how this can make someone feel. I have tried to find the clearest and most effective way to show how this emotion is transferred.

6- I have used images of powerful books leading people to show similarities between classic works of fiction and religious texts. Fiction has been involved to major shifts in social and political opinion and whether the influence is good or bad it certainly has the power to influence individuals and societies. Fictional writing has an impact on how we act, think and treat other people, it influences our world view. Fictions influence is strong enough that certain leaders have tried to ban fictional texts within their societies. I aim to find ways to investigate these similarities through religious iconography.

7- Working on religious iconography made me think about the effects of the just world hypothesis and how it influences our view of people in the public eye. 'Good things happen to good people' so successful people must be good. I Have worked on some portraits of angels and devils based on celebrities and cultural leaders. I think this idea may work better with stereotypes instead of real people (homeless people, company execs) if I can make the stereotype clear in my images to remove any complexity from a celebrities character that could lead to the images having multiple meanings.

8- I have combined together the ideas of repetition, the invention of the printing press and the expansion of empathy. Printing presses that print hearts, doorways or glasses. I need to take this further and experiment with different signifiers for the effects of empathy and fiction. I could possibly take this further into 3d printing.

9- I experimented with genre snobbery and changes in the view of fiction over time. Genre's seen as superior in a private club with no fantasy or escapist fiction allowed or fictional stories that are now seen a literary classics remade now and being viewed as trashy fiction by todays values. I wanted to find a way to show the different levels of genre classification like leagues in football, this would also allow me to show the change over time (promotion, relegation).

10- I have been using super heroes and villains to explore the just world hypothesis, the binary idea of good and bad. It made me think about the simplification of the complex world we live in. It is a hypothesis that helps us to understand the world around us. We tend to see things in an almost binary way (politics, healthy/unhealthy food). I need to look at more theories relating to how we process information and see if and how they tie into the just world hypothesis.