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C&N Assignment 2 – Tutor Feedback
Assignment 2 highlighted Tutor feedback
Dear Robert
Thank you for your feedback on assignment 2 and apologies for the slightly tardy response, my fiancée, Anastasya, has been visiting from Hong Kong so things have been on hold for about 4 weeks.
Your report is useful and I understand some of your points, however, I have to say that I was a little disappointed that you failed to understand my idea, I think this was because I was a little obtuse with the genesis of the idea – not to say that your criticisms are not valid. I just need to clarify my side so that I can get your help to visual my ideas better.
The genesis of the idea came from an incident on a dive boat which resulted in a death (autopsy as now shown it to be a heart attack). A diver surfaced signalled that he was ok; and then quickly collapsed on the surface of the water. My colleagues had to respond from the boat, pull the diver onto the boat and deliver CPR for about an hour until the diver could be brought back to shore via speedboat and onto hospital, where unfortunately he was pronounced dead.
In the aftermath, although ever one had responded correctly, the overall feeling amongst my friends and colleagues was what if? What if we can got to him sooner? What if we had started CPR sooner?
When you are giving rescue breathes prior to chest compressions you could seconds using the phrase “one thousand” this tied with a 1000 Thai Baht note (approximately GBP20) and raised the question, would you buy an extra second a 1000 Thai Baht? The repeated notes is the illustrates that to buy a minute you would need 60,000 Baht (GBP1400).
The other images are my measure against these initial images illustrating:
- What you can earn from an honest day’s work.
- What it costs to survive for a month.
- What you can save in a year.
The “long time” & “short time” again relate to earning and spending in Thailand, Pattaya particularly as it relates to rates within the sex industry which is hard to avoid here and is a major part of the economy.
The final image of a blank background is to illustrate that no matter the different units/components of a lifetime cost/add up to life/a lifetime is priceless.
I did think of producing the whole series based on repeating 1000 Bht notes but I decided that these would start to lose their impact as the numbers of notes increased.
Now in answer to the questions raised in your opening paragraph; I’m not sure which of these I am trying to comment on. In Thailand there is always an undercurrent of what things cost and what they are worth, an example is that just the other day a colleague had left the important shopping he had for his girlfriend behind at the Dive Centre, another colleague had kept it safe. When we offered heartfelt thanks, he was greeted with I can can’t spend thanks, I want money not thanks. Although this was slightly tongue in cheek it gives an illustration. You also see how
in any bars you are sized up to how much you are worth to them when you are only there for a beer. Therefore the underlying statement to give meaning to my work is that not money although almost vital for life cannot be used to value life.
As you can see there was considerable thought and background that went to the concept for these images but I’m not asking you to change your viewpoint I just need a little help in developing my conceptual thinking to illustrate this properly. As you have commented I’m doing the coursework and the research, however, I’m struggling with the meaning and often I find that not liking the work or I’m finding that the images in the example sets are what I would consider repetitive.
If i may refer you a project of mine from EYV “The Humanity of Litter” which was one of the first pieces of work I produced based on theme/concept and it was criticised for repetition which something I’m seeing most of the work I am being pointed at.
I think before I plough on with a potentially ill-conceived rework of this assignment would it be possible to step a short phone call to supplement your report because as you can probably infer I’m having a mild crisis artistically
Edit email response from Robert and reply
Hi Peter,
I cannot give extended and ongoing feedback on reports. As you can imagine that could be a never ending circular discussion and I do not get paid for it. For extended support you must contact the OCA head office in Barnsley.
It is good you have responded to my feedback but you seem to think pictures of bank notes can intrinsically express something about time or a life/death situation. You are not making that connection in the pictures so how can the viewer ever work it out? Reading your text doesn’t help because the connection is arbitrary. You could write a text about anything, from planets in orbit to the movement of tides and it will still not connect to money unless you visually make that link.
The best solution is to have video tutorials rather than written reports, but you didn’t ask for one this time. That gives you the opportunity to respond and makes it more of a discussion. We can talk about other artistic issues then.
Best wishes,
Robert
Hi Robert,
Thank you for the response and completely understand. Actually, your response is helpful, I wasn’t trying to put forward an excuse just more trying to better articulate myself.
As you say I need a something to anchor the money to life/death/time which will help the viewer connect things visually. I’ll work with your suggestions and hopefully bring this up to scratch.
Pete