Studio Practice 1:3 Assessment

Assessment Studio Practice 1:3  - mark 67%

Overall Comments – Year Two

Well done Eleanor. This year has seen you make a step change in recognising the connections between your critical voice, your research and your visual work. You have also made strides forward in organisation.

Unit Comments

MA 1:3 Studio Practice: 30 credits

The moving image piece is very successful and apart from the odd glitch, is resolved into an atmospheric and immersive piece, which we imagine would work well on a large scale with surround sound.

The drawings are a valid exploration within a set structure and single medium that form a strong base from which to make moving image work. You have used a very explicit process to produce an enigmatic work and it seems unnecessary to show the drawings alongside the moving image piece, if you want to maintain the air of mystery.

The sound score is evocative and essential, it balances the depths of the imagery well without overpowering the delicacy of the drawings. It is significant that you discuss sound structures and mathematical compositional devices (Schoenberg) in your journal, and make the relationships between this and your drawings/moving image.

There is a contrast between your journal entries, your essay and your statement. Your essay is well written and structured but would benefit from more references and quotes, particularly to other practitioners and works. Given that the purpose for your statement is a public exhibition, it tends towards over-describing process, this element could be reduced. However your journal entries are a real step forward as the impact that research and critical reflection has on your making process is more explicit.

Unit Leader: Caroline Wright

Unit Tutor: Angela Rogers

Assessment Criteria

Knowledge of contexts, concepts, and methods specifically

Knowledge of your research context; which integrate imagination, critical awareness and technical or material competence (LO1).

Understanding through the application of knowledge, specifically

ability to undertake a rigorous critical engagement with thematic concerns which extends beyond your own practice (LO2).

ability to identify and understand the work of key artists, professional practitioners, writers and theorists, etc (LO3).

Application of professional skills, specifically

ability to articulate oral and written presentations that introduce and contextualise your activity (LO4).

Reflection

I was really happy with my moving image piece, The Future Past Tense, and with how all the drawing project and keeping up with the research and so on had gone. It was alot of work, and the piece squeezed out the last ounce of juice of my computing capacity. Technical and compatibility issues are always going to be the lot of digital artists or those working with any camera, and I really had to believe it would all work out - still to go through the piece a few times to iron out the inevitable slight glitches and rogue frames that creep in in such a large and complex digital piece.

If I wasn't so happy with my result, I would not have laughed so much at the comment in the assessment about my statement over-explaining work - after all the effort I made to be more explicit. I would never put a statement like that with work anyway - it did over explain, and I had done it for the MA. Can't get them all right. Also I knew that I hadn't managed to cram in more references and examples in the essay - it just didn't seem possible in practice!

Overall I thought this was a much better year in most ways in the MA - more about personal work and practice - more self directed. I'm anticipating more of that in the next two years. The shadow over the MA year was Emma leaving. I think we could still do with her different voice.

December 2012