Again, due to time constrictions and having to focus on report writing in week 19, I have merged the blog post for week 19 and 20.
Critical report
The majority of my time these two weeks were spent finishing the writing and design of my critical report. The final document can be found here:
User generated outcomes
As mentioned in last week’s blog I wanted to gather user generated outcomes for my project, in order to make the result as realistic as possible. Even though I won’t be able to actually develop the digital art making tool, I could still ask friends and local artists to draw outcomes using an illustrator template.
I started by developing a user guide for the Illustrator template and an information page about the project. This way I could easily reach out to people without bombarding them with information.
Current results
So far I have collected outcomes from two users (the fact that you have to use Illustrator has been limiting as it’s not familiar to non-designers).
User 1:
Fig. 1: Reigstad 2022. ESP.Culturo user generated outcome 1
The first user took a casual approach to drawing, explaining that outcome 1 (above) illustrates summer, because this is something she loves. Outcome 2 (below) is a more abstract and interpretable illustration without a title.
Fig. 2: Reigstad 2022. ESP.Culturo user generated outcome 2
User 2:
“Cracked open music pours out of cracks in an apartment building”
Fig. 3: Reigstad 2022. ESP.Culturo user generated outcome 3
The second user took a more conceptual approach than user 1, drawing abstract illustrations of community living. He explained that the first outcome represents someone playing load music in an apartment, showing how a community lives in peace together. The second outcome represents the user’s community garden, which he talked about as a peaceful place.
You can see fingers or something else.
It’s meant to be an aerial view of the community garden area.
Everything is centred around it.”
Fig. 4: Reigstad 2022. ESP.Culturo user generated outcome 4
Since I have only gathered outcomes from two users it’s too early to draw any conclusions. However, I find it interesting to see that both users ended up drawing something related to nature and places. This correlation made me realise that although the aim of my project is to build a culture, the outcomes might also end up saying something about us as people, and how people think about peace as a concept.
In conclusion
Since I’ve focused on my report this week, there isn’t a lot of studio practice to reflect on. I am however happy with the user generated outcomes, and excited to gather more in the follow weeks. Seeing how the two users’ outcomes overlap in thematics, I also think it would be great to curate selected exhibition rooms based on themes that appears in user outcomes. This does however require a large amount of outcomes to be gathered, and since I’m using Illustrator as a tool, there is a certain limitation to who can participate and not. It might therefore be beneficial to reflect on ways of contributing using physical drawings, which could be translated into the template settings by myself.
LIST OF FIGURES:
Figure 1: Ingrid REIGSTAD. 2022. ESP.Culturo user generated outcome 1. Private collection: Ingrid Reigstad.
Figure 2: Ingrid REIGSTAD. 2022. ESP.Culturo user generated outcome 2. Private collection: Ingrid Reigstad.
Figure 3: Ingrid REIGSTAD. 2022. ESP.Culturo user generated outcome 3. Private collection: Ingrid Reigstad.
Figure 4: Ingrid REIGSTAD. 2022. ESP.Culturo user generated outcome 4. Private collection: Ingrid Reigstad.