Cross Area Crit

Above are two images of the work which I presented for the cross area crit. Although I felt they were still 'in the making' process, I wanted to show the students from the other MA pathways what I was currently working on. I also felt with much of my installation work, I was being presented with a lot of formal issues which I was struggling to tackle and thought it a good oppertunity to recieve some feedback on this.

After setting up the piece, the crit began with giving everyone the oppertunity to just simply look at the work and then discuss it amongst themselves whilst I listened, however refraining from any sort of imput. This was a great chance to see peoples initial reactions to the work.

The first comments were about the table setting; people felt the plates and cutlery looked awkward and 'too well placed'. They questioned the significane of the imagery - why it was important. Was it the people or the place? They also found the content of the photographic visual was distracted by the materiality of the support on which it was presented on. This is something that people have commented on before when showing this piece of work - they find the media more intriguing than the actual set up itself, which is an aspect I will need to take into consideration when continuing to develop this piece.

I seem to have been so drawn to this speciffic medium, purely for its dimension and also the seductive quality it enables the image to adopt once printed onto; however, I feel the content of the image is something of importance to me. I want the sense of place and setting to be emphasised and established, and I am unsure that the material is allowing this to function.

Continuing with the feedback from the crit; the other students then went on to discuss how the table needed to be changed. Perhaps positioned lower down and using more of a traditional breakfast table as at the moment it seemed to only resemble an image and set of objects sat on a painted plynth - which it was. This is an area I already knew needed addressing. I had been on the hunt for a breakfast table for weeks, but did not have much luck and so I had to subsitute this with the combination of a plynth and table top just to give an idea of what I was trying to suggest.

Another comment made about the installation was that the figures in the image were over bearing because of their larger than reality scale - I didnt deliberately intend on doing this and it wasnt until I actually stepped back myself and really looked at the work that I then realised they were right; the figures made the piece somewhat dramatic. I think that this is actually quite an interesting attribute as it is allowing the work to play with this idea of with what is real and what. The image is fictionalised which then presents the viewer with the question - did this actually happen?