This project has possibly been the longest project I've undertaken and with it it brought a lot of struggles. Throughout it my feelings about Murakami and how I wanted to portray him remained largely the same- to me there's always been something dark and surreal about his work. At one point I started to think not just in terms of the books themselves but the relationship between author and book, and started to question how women, lust and possession were presented, and I tried to present this myself in some of my final prints.
However, by the time it came to making the final 15 second sting and prints it was hard to remember what had attracted me to Murakami's novels and what I thought about them. I started to become too introspective, developing work based on my own previous work with little regard to Murakami's, and to correct this I had to sit down and think about the motifs and themes that I had worked with right at the beginning. All along I didn't want to just illustrate scenes of Murakami's work, but my own response to the worlds he had created- but at a point the work was becoming too detached.
The length of time also presented some more problems in regards to design aspects. I went through a few significant stages of image styles and ideas. Stylistically I went through quite a journey, working less cartoon-y and more figuratively at times and really refining images down to simple abstract shapes at others, and I think this experimenting has really benefitted me. I think it is always good to be flexible with your work, because being flexible means more opportunities.
Although I'd known for a while that I had wanted to work with lino I feel the ideas for my final prints came about quite suddenly. I'd been making and struggling and making and, unsatisfied with all previous work, decided to sit down and draw something shape based, odd, and based on the motifs of the project- at least that was the brief I gave myself. I didn't develop these images very much before I printed them either, I think there is something to be said about the immediacy of an image with not too much concentration, though the months of preparation in research and image making were vital to this and fed into these ideas most definitely!
This module introduced me to many new methods of working. Print making is not a regular part of my practice or something I thought it would be. I had never seriously done lino printing before, and decided that as well as suiting what I wanted to make it would also be a good challenge- and it was incredibly challenging. It took me many many failed prints to finally get a method that would work. It was stressful but I'm glad I persisted- in the end I got successful prints and, on a personal level, showed me that I do have the effort inside me to keep going, which is reassuring, if not a corny way to look at it.
In the end I found I could work with lino, but I'm not sure if it's something that will become a regular part of my practice. If anything I'm feeling a little exhausted from all the print making, but in time I'm sure I will be able to face it again. If anything, working with a medium that for me can feel quite restrictive has taught me about working with shape and restricted colour more. Both of these have been something I've been interested in my practice for quite a while, but using lino- which I think is the process that utilises these the most, has really challenged that way of thinking and encouraged it to expand.
I also worked with After Effects for the first time which was also an interesting process. I'm not sure I'm best suited to it, as before I have discussed how I prefer animation through frame process such as gifs in Photoshop but I think I created something adequate in the software. I'm sure it's a good skill to have, and may come in use not just for animating but other film endeavours, which may come up in OUIL503 Responsive.
