December Assessment Year 1

This blog has been sitting in draft form for some months, as the assessment and process were problematic - part of the sent work was omitted from the assessment, and in a separate issue, my dyslexia had not been properly accounted for over the year. It was all a terrible mess, but sorted now, and passed.


Assessment


Overall Comments


You are a valuable contributor to the MA Cohort, your views are thoughtful and you show a particular strength in verbal communication and debate. You have made a helpful contribution as Course Representative. Your reflections and commentary on the things you’ve read and the shows you have visited are insightful and informing, valuable for other students to read. Your own moving image work is subtle. It successfully combines your desire to produce beauty with your idiosyncratic and oblique view on the world.


MA 1.1 Visual Enquiry and Research Methods M 30 credits Mark 40%


(This mark was reassessed due to part of the physical material I sent having been omitted from the assessment. It is now 45%)




Knowledge of contexts, concepts, and methods specifically;
knowledge and understanding of a range of research methods and theoretical practices, your rationale, context and applications to the field of Art in relation to your own work (LO1).
Understanding through the application of knowledge, specifically;
ability to identify an appropriate area for research and methods to plan and execute a research project and to evaluate progress (LO2).
Application of professional skills, specifically;
ability to reflect critically on contextual practice in order to address personal development needs. (LO3)
ability to communicate research processes and findings demonstrated through written and oral means (LO4).


In the first half of the year you have demonstrated a coherent art practice, with thoughtful and imaginative responses to projects, particularly in your submission for Mapping the Territory. You have supported this practice with wide reading and exhibition visiting. Your reflections and commentary on your blog are well considered and informative.


In the latter part of this year the production of your own worked has dropped off, in favour of curatorial activity and making a context to show your work. In the October tutorial, I emphasised the need for you to provide a rationale for submitting your curatorial work as your practice submission for the formal assessment of Visual Enquiry. Additionally in your blog, you refer to a tutorial with Emma who has confirmed this point. See extract from your VE October 2011 tutorial report below:


I had sent Angela links to recent launch of theViewergallery, and discussed all that it entailed. As concerns MA, all recent work has been about this, and so when it comes to compiling work for upcoming assessment, the challenge is to show not only how this is something to do with my practice, but my actual practice.


The work you have submitted, the Long Line polyrama, is the product of an on-going participatory drawing project, where your role as organiser and facilitator has created a successful event. In terms of documentation, the drawings are well photographed and accessible to participants and viewers online.


As a submission of your practice for this unit, there is little evidence of your intervention – in terms of a concept underpinning the selection of work or choices around its presentation online. You refer to the Long Line as an animation, however it views as a slide show of other people’s work with a soundtrack devised by someone else, there is no evidence of your editorship. What constitutes what a practice is, is contentious and you have to make it evident in your submissions for formal assessment what exactly your practice is.


You have made a good essay submission, it is clearly and succinctly written, a comprehensive and well informed commentary on the value of moving image art in 2011. You discuss the range of difficulties for professional artists’ whose medium is the moving image, reflecting on your own practice and positioning yourself in this context. Your research demonstrates a professional understanding of the commercial and organisational problems associated with moving image art, in relation to funding, contracts, technology, curating, archiving and the sale of the works themselves. Your bibliography is up to date and relevant, however given your comment that there are a lot of books available about moving image art, you have mentioned only one book. You need to include a reference section separately from your bibliography.




MA 1.2 Professional Context M15 credits


ASSESSMENT MARK 60%


Knowledge of contexts, concepts, and methods specifically;
knowledge and understanding of the nature and structure of the Creative Industries sector and your place within it (LO1).
Understanding through the application of knowledge, specifically;
your knowledge of the Creative Industries and presentation of a coherent strategy for career development (LO2).
Application of professional skills, specifically;
presentation and communication of the aims of your programme of work and its relevance to its intended audience (LO3).
Self-management, independent learning and demonstration of use of transferable process (LO4)


You have a sound grasp of the creative industries sector and have already operated within it effectively (The Koestler Trust, Arts Council England, the Viewergallery). It appears you are currently trying to find a place/rationale for your own practice in terms of made, physical artwork and are using constructed systems to make your past work, and the work of others, public. You have made a conscious endeavour to engage with current debate around sale of work through attending relevant events and keep up to date with current debate which serves you well in your writing.


Your personal practice plan examines your current areas of work and suggests possible development, however there is a lack of long term and strategic planning with a relevant timeframe. As you state, you are in a position of potential; going forward with an aim to maintain strong control over your broad interests conflating where possible to keep a focus and clear rationale for your practice as a whole.


Through the Viewergallery you are broaching a new way for you to engage an audience. Moving into curatorial/coordination of projects requires consideration of a range of issues – criteria for selection of work, curatorial rationale, the responsibility of showing other artists work and the communication that is required to ensure this is a smooth and beneficial experience for all, are just some of the considerations. This, coupled with publicity, marketing and logistics result in the requirement for many skills in organisation, administration, communication, critical awareness and judgment. As a first foray into this world, you have produced a successful event, made a funding application (despite being unsuccessful this is an achievement), engaged the public, linked into other networks and supporting organisations (The Big Draw for example) and importantly provided a platform for artists to show work. The moving image programme is coherent and each piece sits well with the exception of the work by Michael Szpakowski (this piece seems to be less about drawing and more about the participatory element).


Be conscious of bringing in a more strict curatorial rationale for future projects, ensuring your aims chime with current issues and debates. For example, the text in the booklet that accompanies the Viewergallery screenings could have included references to contemporary animation and drawing.


Ensure you are totally clear about your position regarding your own artwork (as maker/ as provider of a self-made platform for showing work), your role as a curator (selection, management and critical rationale) and facilitiator (as in the Long Line). Understanding your role can be confusing for the viewer and whilst in one way it demonstrates the range of skills and experience you have, it can be diluting if your rationale is not fully considered and justified and has a clarity to the outside world.


There is clear evidence of your skills being transferred cross-area, you are self motivated and have a professional approach to the Viewergallery and all that entails. The amount of work in organising an event such as this should not be underestimated.


Reflection


Now that some weeks have passed since the assessment results first came through, I can summarise and reflect upon the aftermath. My initial mark for Visual Enquiry was 40%, the lowest mark at which one can pass. This was not what I was in truth expecting - I thought I had done more and better work than just enough to scrape through. The initial feedback tutorial from Emma was not really enlightening. I thought that I must have made a mistake in submitting work, perhaps through some dyslexic error, but it seemed that:
1. There were certain deficiencies in my VE work concerning background context material, and
2. I was assured that my dyslexia had been properly considered during assessment.


This was confusing and raised more questions than it answered. Such a low mark told me I was really missing something, and I wanted to understand what was deficient, especially since I felt I had done a considerable amount of work, and been fastidious with MA commitments. I also began to question what consideration of dyslexia means as regards the assessment and the OCA. 


I really racked my brains about this, feeling willing to examine the truth. A chance remark from a fellow student made me realise that the physical folder of my VE work must not have  been assessed. Looking at it from all angles, it was the only thing that made sense of the feedback - the very aspects which were seemingly missing from my submission were the material I had sent, and if that was considered, there would be the very background and context required.


The dyslexia thing is a separate issue. Taking account of dyslexia is not merely about disregarding poor spelling - it is much more structural and specific. The OCA always knew I am dyslexic, but had not made provision or referred me to the DSA - Disabled Student Award. I could have had special dyslexia tutorials this year. My dyslexia lies in areas of structure, for example, I will write a coherant answer, only to later discover that I have misunderstood the question.


The assessment feedback came just before the Christmas break, and so any resolution or further progress had to wait until the new year.


Postscript


It did indeed turn out to be the case that part of my work had not been assessed. This was amended and I got a new mark of 45% for the VE.
The OCA's policy for dyslexic students has since been changed, and an automatic referral to the DSA, disabled student's allowance for assessment is now part of the system.
Partial results.
I really did consider leaving the MA over these issues - it seemed that the approach was inflexible, defensive  and unsympathetic. I had a bit of a classic dyslexic panic, but even that turned out not to be the main issue.
However, I have got so much from the first year of the MA - it has been a great focus for activity and valuable in other ways, so in effect, I decided to just swallow the injustices and get on with it.


18th February 2012