Archive for April, 2017

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Class 11: The crit

April 26, 2017

The show of student art work this week was very successful. Each student exhibited one piece of art and, led by Glenn, presented it to the class; explaining the origin, inspiration, context and production.

Treasure Ballinger and her colleagues from Virtual Ability Island and Cape Able Gallery joined us and shared their responses to the work. The range of work was impressive, as was the relationship with the theme of the module this semester.

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From left: AlxMway’s acrylic is a view of Schull from Sherkin through a keyhole; Yashurdoshur painted her reflection looking down on a still pool of water as a symbol of Utopia.

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jackmittens’ painting of the archway within the walls of the Abbey on Sherkin Island – you are neither outside nor inside.

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Fayebubba painted the Abbey from a photo – measured by points on the buildings.

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Shadidame seems to be walking under Saoise’s fairytale bridge over a stream near her house. The fact that it seems like a road yet is a river gives it a heterotopic quality.

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Unfortunately Inchydoney was having trouble with the internet connection and was logged out before she could present her intriguing painting.

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From left: ChipVanCorner’s painting of the community hall in Sherkin; whatyamacallit’s Mocollop graveyard in Co Waterford; Burnsygirl’s painting of the Abbey is a reminder of her great grandparents buried in a similar place.

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Left: Shadidame’s heterotopian space of crisis and deviation – Retirement Home. Right: freddymcfreddy’s Boat.

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freddymcfreddy was inspired by Foucault’s description of a boat being the ultimate heterotopia: a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea.

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Deeuwan’s acrylic of her garden, a heterotopic ‘other’ place for festivities apart from our home.

Glenn, John and Locks complimented you all on the show – it was very impressive that you were able to mount it so successfully. The work was a thoughtful response to the readings this semester and you all presented confidently. Well done!

Afterwards we all teleported to Cape Able Gallery where Suellen Heartsong’s SL photography show is on. Gentle Heron was there to greet us and Slatan Dryke razzed some of his moving photographs and dynamic sculpture on the lawn (see more on his website). iSkye Silverweb showed us one of her interactive sculptures, more of which can be seen at Ethnographpia in SL.

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A moving airborne sculptural work by Slatan Dryke.

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Class 10: Teamwork

April 19, 2017

There was a healthy turnout for class this week, despite the Easter break. The issues affecting voice in SL appear to have been resolved, although some participants were still having difficulty.

John explained that due to an unexpectedly busy period before Easter he had been unable to make arrangements for Sitearm Madonna to join the class this week. Site has frequently presented on teamwork, particularly in the online context. We will try to arrange a visit from him before the end of the semester. In the meantime, John presented the lecture on teamwork based on Site’s slides for Team Building Tips. If you missed the class review the slides and talk about the content with your team partners.

We had an interesting discussion based on our own experiences of team working. We compared that to the theory and put particular emphasis on the fluid nature of collaboration. The stages of team development are not necessarily linear and so teams can move between Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing and back again in almost any order. Similarly, the roles required for a successfully performing team may be taken on by different team members at times. The theory is useful to guide teams as it provides a structure but it must be seen as a useful guide rather than a rigid set of rules.

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Group project: Digital Skies

April 6, 2017

For this project you are required to create a single artwork as a member of a team – a large-scale group canvas. Each individual team member will research and generate their own images which will be combined by the team into a final composite image for exhibition in Cape Able Gallery. The exhibition will open in late May on a date to be announced.

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Digital Skies: Art and Utopian Thought

For the opening of the exhibition each group give a short talk to present their work, and discuss the experience of working in a team, virtually, collaboratively. This will be followed by a crit.

Each participant must also describe the progress of the project in a weekly blog post with particular emphasis on their contribution to the project. (What are you bringing to the group and how does it fit into the team’s work?) Discuss the details of the project and also the issues that arise in working collaboratively online. How easy is it meet up virtually and plan the project? What difficulties arise in development? How easy or difficult is communication? What particular problems arise and how do you deal with them? Focus on the experience rather than writing a ‘correct’ post or having an answer for every difficulty.

See page 6 Module assessment for assessment criteria applying to this project.

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Class 9: Assessment

April 5, 2017

Glenn and John took the class through the requirements for assessment, which is divided into two parts. Firstly, the group project and secondly, the individual blogs.

Firstly, each participant will be producing a series of digital paintings as part of their main module. For the SL module you will produce a large-scale group canvas (in the groups given in week 3). We are asking you to collaborate on a canvas to give you the experience of working on an online collaborative project. You will bring the finished canvas into SL for a group crit and exhibition.

The exhibition will take place in Cape Able Gallery on Virtual Ability Island in May (provisional dates are 17 or 24 May). A team from the class (burnsygirl, freddymcfreddy and whatyamacallit) will coordinate the exhibition with the curator of the gallery and will also invite residents of Virtual Ability Island to take part.  Part of your learning in this module is figuring out how to work virtually with people you have never met in RL.

Each group will give a short talk to present their work and discuss the experience of working in a team, virtually, collaboratively. This will be followed by a crit.

There will be a dry-run in DIT on 26 April. You will show your work in progress more to get a feel for exhibiting in SL than anything else. John suggested that you should review the module website to see how past student groups have presented their work.

Secondly, you will be assessed individually on your blogs. You need to ensure that you have made the five mandatory posts as described in the ‘Things to do before next class’ section of each class summary. Following that you should have at least five more posts describing your engagement in the group project.

Finally, 50% of the marks for this module go on the group project and 50% go on the individual blogs. For full details see page 6 module assessment.

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