Day 3 - Timeline

Day 3 (05/09/2013)

Today our task was to produce our own timeline of our past 3 days. We took a look at artists who uses timelines in their work such as Ward Shelley, who is recognized for his giant timelines relating to the subjects of science and Judaism. Also, we were suggested to create a comic strip timeline like the works of William Hogarth, an English painter known for his prints and series paintings.

My initial plan for my timeline was to cut out strips of paper and my printed photographs of the past 3 days events, and scrunched them together to form a large sphere. I wanted to create a timeline different from the ones we usually see, and the way we see it. The timelines will be all muddled up in a ball of paper strips, and the idea you have to walk around, ducking down, looking above and at all directions to find the right photograph strip with written words. This idea actually came from visiting the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, where we are able to move around and within the structure. 

This photograph shows how I first started off gathering plain strips of paper, and then I started to cut out strips of my printed photographs. This picture captures the photograph I took of when I was in the course of burying my capsule.

 

 

For each strip of my printed photographs, I wrote at the back of the paper the date and the event that happened on the day.

 

Instead of me continuously cutting out strips of paper, I thought of collecting other people’s rubbish and gather them into my work. I found strips and cut out papers, used straws and post it notes, which I gathered in my work. 

 

As the piece was building up, I began to notice strips of paper were falling apart.  As I did not use any equipments or materials to stabilize the work, it became hard for it to stay together.

 

I then decided to spread the work apart and create a series of different forms with them. 

A staff suggested to me to take photographs of the work under the sunlight, in which we can see the shadows that forms in and around the piece. This made me think about the different places I could put my work in and how I could further develop the piece. 

I tried placing my work on the floor to see the differences it creates on a light and dark background. I feel when the piece is on a dark background it stands out more and I feel a slight sense of detachment from the ground.

I tried assembling them in to different shapes and forms such as the above picture where I gather the piece into a linear form. Also, I tried putting them into the shape of a circle and a spiral. 

Overall, I thought I got on very well with the given task. The morning presentation where we looked at different artist’s timelines helped me a lot at building up different ideas for my own timeline. Therefore, when we got on with the work I found it fairly straightforward with a few ideas in mind. 

The work did not turn out the way I initial planned, but I found myself much preferring the way it turned out when it was all spread apart. This taught me how things do not always go the way you would expect it to, but from my experience I further develop into my work and it became something I much prefer and found successful. The works still contain the aspects of what I planned for which is the disorganization and the idea of having to walk around it.

For today’s task, I made a very vague and unclear plan of what I was going to do. This could affect my time management, resulting in not able to complete the work. I would occasionally look at my phone to know the time. It is important to manage my time well, making a habit of completing work on time, as well as other aspects such as coming in to the lesson, doing homework and giving in the work on time. A well detailed and clear plan can help avoid mistakes, priorities on what is important and help with our time management.