Report

In order to fulfil the requirement of the project to present a piece(s) gained from the initial ‘Dot’ image, I have found it best to resort / utilise the upstanding I have gained from a Fine Art background in the critical analysis of images.

I have decided not to work on the idea of image presentation through the transference of the initial image into an universal understandable language related to our individual backgrounds, for how can this be imposed onto an image after the image has been created. I have, though, decided on the use of the critical analysis of the image and it’s theoretical ideas, or lack of, in order to push the image in to a presentable form that I feel relates to the ideas that I have gained through this analysis.

The idea that the image can be transferred into an understandable language after the image has been initially produced runs contrary to my belief that the idea comes first and the image, through set limitations, comes second. Seeing as how each element in the image has been arbitrarily introduced, I felt that the best way forward with the project was to base myself on this pseudo-arbitrariness of the image and the creator.

From reading the image I have found 5 differing elements:

dot, space, arrow, star and the numeral 8.

These elements could in fact be of anything or of any amount, there is no reason for 5 elements over 6 or for what those elements are.

If we were to have found one element on the page, placed in single or multiple units, then we could have devised an understandable language. This could also have been achieved through two elements, similar to binary. But the addition of 3 further elements into the scenario throws into doubt any understandable ideas of what the image might ‘be about’.

Therefore it is best to follow the idea that the image is about nothing, and is in fact, Gibberish.

In order to progress with this idea and not to translate the image in to, what is an arbitrary language, I decided to focus myself on this gibberish aspect of the image. But gibberish of what?

The elements that are present in the initial image are all unified in one way, that is they all originate from the keyboard. They are part of a universal language. This prevents me from selecting elements that are not linked in some form. In this regard the elements 4f.[! are all unified, but the elements grass, cup, theory, sky and water are not. This lead me to produce an image that is in some way carrying on with this unified aspect. The particular elements that I choose or the universal aspect that I choose are both arbitrary, in order to find a particular universal aspect that I could utilise I decided to focus on the image and its surrounds itself, namely the words ‘Collaborate, Create, Present and Report. Perhaps it is more tongue in cheek to use these elements in the image, but again the selection of the elements is arbitrary, within a set criteria.

Based on the fact of arbitrary selection, how could you ever select if not for a criteria being in place. Hence the use of the elements from the image in order to refine/ reduce down the possibilities that could be chosen from.

But how do you present these elements?

Again relying on the basis that the initial image is pseudo-random (how can anything be truly random when chosen by a human), I decided to continue with the pseudo-randomness and present my elements in a similar form. The reason for this is the continuation of the ideas gained from the initial image and from the belief that you cannot make a decision without the use of a criteria, in this sense the initial image is my criteria.

Hence the presentation of the image following from the ideas and criteria present in the initial image but with the inclusion of my own 4 elements. Hence the similarity but also the difference.