Posted by  Rachel King  at Sunday, 22 January 2017 21:07:55

I found the briefing simultaneously enlightening and more confusing. Though I had an idea of the various ways the project could go, the seemingly endless possibilities the briefing described meant I was unsure how me and my partner would go about the project for instance whether we had to meet up each week. I was reassured by my meeting with my partner since she seemed really nice and we had some interests in common which encourages me to think we will communicate well during the creation of our piece. The seminar cleared up the points I was not sure about and I plan to communicate with my collaborator soon discussing the character I have made.

I gave feedback earlier in the week to my partner regarding the artwork she sent me. She had warned me they had been told they could be very abstract so I was concerned and did find it difficult penning a response to the art. However, when I considered the vastness and mysterious nature of the sea, her artwork seemed to reflect its unknown depths and colours really well. In terms of a character I figure this could reflect someone who hides things and can be emotional but I think soon we should meet ti really think about our creations so far. Unfortunately, since I have been ill this week we were not able to. However, I plan to message her to meet up and discuss things in person very soon.

The last seminar gave me a lot of insight into the reasoning behind the project. Originally, I had just seen it as a challenge and a chance to try working with someone else but not really as an opportunity to really create things I would not have been able to before. Now I see that it makes sense to think that on your own you may hit your peak potential but when you work with someone else, you must reach past these limits since you have their ideas to add to yours. The idea of the lone genius now seems almost absurd to me. 

Thinking about the way collaboration is so closely linked to life was interesting. Furthermore, reading about collaboration in different areas of media for example showed the endless possibilities for putting different mediums and people and ideas together. The reassurance that the final product, while important and something to work hard for, isn't really the point of collaborating makes it easier for me to go about the project. I'm now more focused on putting our thoughts together rather than just worrying about the final creation.

Finally, I sent my partner an instance of our characters meeting. It was difficult to do this since her character was 'the sea/ocean' which is quite an abstract thing to grasp. Though she did give some direction such as describing it as powerful and destructive as well as gentle and a source of relaxation. I mostly focused on the idea of the unknown that she also pointed out and tried to make an enigmatic character who was not well known by and instead speculated about my by character. 

I have currently drafted some words of poetry to send to her later today. These are just going to consist on snapshots of thoughts and scenes which may be relevant to our final piece. I found it easier to write these than what I did before since we now have a clearer sense of our characters.

Looking at the various examples of ways to write one piece in the seminar I found to be a really interesting concept. As a result of thinking about these examples in combination with the poetry we wrote at the end of the seminar, I found a new way to present and create pieces to send to my collaborator. Since our piece is beginning to revolve around refugees and themes of travel and adventure, I figured taking words from headlines regarding refugees might be useful to access language commonly related to them. I took these words and made a poem out of them, but from the perspective of someone fleeing their home and seeking asylum. For example, instead of the 'refugee crisis' England is facing, I wrote 'We are fleeing a crisis' and so on. After I sent this to my collaborator, she particularly liked how I decided to collect these words. She also felt I should lean towards writing poetry to further the project which I agree with since I found it much easier to come up with ideas through poetry. After hearing how other people have been looking at art with their collaborator, I also sent her some images I thought may be of use. 

My collaborator has advised me to think further about our focus colour of 'red' and she's spoken about focusing on creating a sense of isolation, a theme I plan to look into further. This partly stems from our decision to keep things vague in terms of exact context and just create a general conception of refugees etc. 

I'm still trying to figure out how to develop more of a relationship between our characters because although I did write about our characters meeting, after discussing with her in person and her character, a new one emerged, I have written a bit adapting the first meeting but I think it will help to give this further thought.

The exercise adapting the short story in a group I found quite enjoyable. Since I'd missed the seminar that focused on this before in week 2, I found I had a better understanding of how we could go about it due to this seminar. It was interesting to see which parts we remembered and then figure out the best way to portray that on a screen.

In terms of the collaboration, there has been rather little activity this week. After sending quite a few different ideas last week, I hadn't sent anything for a while before my collaborator prompted me to this week. I sent a few things in response but they were not very developed and were very raw (as in first draft raw). However, I still thought it would be best to send them and she said she'd have a look. It was then I realised that though I had sent her several things, I had only received two pieces back (the initial character and another image). I asked her therefore if she had anything to send me and so she sent me what she thinks are probably final pieces. I'm not sure that I'll be able to have much input as a result though there were aspects of it that I knew I agreed to and I liked.