Study Task 1 - About The Author Zine

 

WHAT WENT WELL:
- Consistency of aeshetic achieves sophistication
- The consideration of media and texture achieves a playfulness relevant to the tone of voice
- Content takes a unique stance on the author, considering sub-topics and secondary characters appropriate to my intent to educate
- Addresses the problem of the accessibility of Shakespeare through universal and comical imagery
-Reduced colour palette achieves the appropriate tone of voice while maintaining a clarity and consistency complimentary to the communication of narrative
- Production and construction of the final zine is neat and well formatted

IMPROVEMENTS TO CONSIDER:
- The author may not be immediate to somebody who doesn't know much about Shakespeare's comedies, despite the visual language being universal of humour and playfulness
- The charcoal pencil has interfered with some of the block colours to create distracting transfers
- The fragmented hand lettering works to compliment the wider aesthetic and tone of voice but lacks clarity in areas
- Could I consider applying some more traditional material appropriate to the context of Shakespeare

503 About The Author - Initial Sketchbook Ideas

IDEA GENERATION
Carrying forward the identified theme of Shakespeare's sensitivity to the comedic nature of human beings, I wish to start my visual journal exploring character and motifs. Pivotal to my interpretation of Shakespeare's comedies is ridicule and stupidity and so character will be central to the visual development of my work. 

Within wider visual culture, Shakespeare only seems prominent through his tragedies so I would like to use this brief as an opportunity to push the visual legacy of his comedies, particularly focussing on accessibility and universality.

Initial drawings have just served as a way of visualising potential interpretations of characters and the scenes they may interact in appropriate to my identified themes. My intent of practice is to capture the secondary characters and their role within the comedic development of the plays. From studying several texts, it seems that secondary characters often drive a lot of the transgression and ridicule, so it seems appropriate to focus on these in order to achieve a playful and comedic outcome that achieves my intent to encourage knowledge of Shakespeare's comedies. 

LIMINALITY/ EXCESS OF FOOLERY/ EXAGGERATION/ MISCHIEF

VALUES TO EXPLORE:
- If Shakespeare used comedy to challenge social codes and ridicule his society, how can I use illustration to extend this?

- Illustration as an extension or enhancement of text - what elements do I wish to extend or enhance? 

503 About The Author - 25 Pieces of Information

Having selected Shakespeare as my author, I have collated my research from his comic works, primarily Twelfth Night.

CHARACTERS
- Feste (court fool/ speaker of moral truths)
- Sir Andrew Aguecheek (secondary character who enjoys revelry, is rarely sober)
- Malvolio (manipulated and ridiculed by unrequited love)
- Viola/Cesario & Sebastian (central twin protagonists who cause confusion and transgression)
- Sir Toby Belch (Lord of Misrule/ conductor of revelry)

LOCATIONS
- Sea/ stormy sea coast (where confusion begins/ liminality)
- Forest (walk between more concrete locations - spot for mischief)
- Illyria GREEN WORLD (removed from ideological codes/ appropriates actions of characters)
- Court (grounding of rule and societal norm)
- Topsy-turvy world (absolute revelry/ saturation of comedy)

MOTIFS
- Cross-garters (humiliating costume/ product of mischief)
- Disguise (justifies revelry/ establishes false personas)
- Twinning (visual parallels/ confusion)
- Carnivalesque (drunkenness/ revelry)
- Unrequited love (emasculation of main male characters)

QUOTES
- 'Better a witty fool than a foolish wit'
- 'I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings'
- 'Words are very rascals"
- 'I was seeking a fool when I found you'
- 'That quaffing and drinking will undo you'

ALTERNATIVE INFO
- Shakespeare wrote didactic comedies of moral purpose
- Shakespeare's comedies conform to Heywood's structure 'Turbulenta Prima, Tranquila Ultima'
- Intent to release his audience for the social codes an ideological constraints of Elizabethan/ Jacobean society
- Acknowledged by Ben Jonson as 'the wonder of our stage'
- His content is described by Harold Bloom as 'fundamental perceptions' 

VISUALS SHOULD BE:

Humorous/ Playfull/ Mischievous tone of voice/ Farce & Mishaps

503 About The Author - SONTAG/ SHAKESPEARE/ ADAMS

From studying the list of authors, I feel that I have chosen three that will provide me with a broad base of research that is brought together by an underlying theme of social criticism. Whilst the issue of social critique is present in very different ways, for Sontag it is through her social and cultural observations, for Adams, his awareness of man's anxiety and social instability and for Shakespeare, his absolute criticism of social codes and institutionalised rules, it seems that these authors will requite my interests in observation and the sensitivity of humans.


SUSAN SONTAG - context/legacy/interests/texts
As a writer who predominately observes and criticises visual cultures and ideologies, Sontag is the most complex of my three choices. Studying Sontag would require an investment in abstract concepts and ideas that may revolve around less immediate situations.

Writing in the mid 20th century, her work will no doubt have been informed by many societal changes and be very much moulded by developing ideas of culture. Sontag's aesthetic observations are most of interest to me through her criticism of taste but to focus on this in 503 may be to overlap too much with study of Sontag's writing in COP.

As an activist, Sontag's writing can cover some very evocative and controversial issues which could be testing to my illustration practice. How can I communicate controversial ideas that are not my own through universal, sensitive images?

My primary interests in social criticism drive my interest researching the following texts:
-The Double Standard of Ageing, 1972
-On Photography, 1977
-Illness as Metaphor, 1978


WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE - context/legacy/interests/texts
As a Jacobean playwright, Shakespeare's plays cover many subjects and contexts, but for the purpose of this project, I wish to focus on his comedies. I feel there to be too much existing visual material surrounding his tragedies and his histories seem too direct. Shakespeare's comedies offer a satirical social criticism alongside a sensitivity to the comic elements of human beings. 

As entertainment for the courts, his work can be very formulaic and traditional of the Jacobean era, but these comedies also pioneer a different level of humour. Often farcical, his plays can be very clumsy but they also address many social codes which for me requites an interest in social criticism.

I am looking to explore the comedic and mischievous theatrical devices he employs and consider how this could drive playful illustrations that universalise his writing.

Texts to consider:
-The Comedy of Errors
-Twelfth Night
-A Midsummer Night's Dream

I may also study some of the Globe on Screen stage performances as these would aid my understanding of theatrical devices in line with comedic elements.


DOUGLAS ADAMS - context/legacy/interests/texts
Adam's as a satirist and essayist seems to commonly explore hypothetical entities and nonsense comedic situations. Working with fiction, his work naturally invites hypothetical situations, but Adam's work seems to enjoy a saturation of humour. I am aware of his environmental and conservational concerns and I wonder how this may have informed some of his texts.

I am curious to explore his entirely fictional works as these seem so concerned with hypotheses and absolute nonsense. My emerging practice already operates within a humorous tone of voice and I would be interested to extend this through existing narratives. 'The Meaning of Liff' particularly interests me as I feel that Adam's definitions invite some diagrammatic or typological images which would develop the complexity of my image making.

Texts to explore:
-The Meaning of Liff, 1983
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1973
-The Salmon of Doubt, 2002

503 About the Author - Initial Brief Analysis

A new author brief; what do I think?

-need to commit to this author for an extended project

-how can I select an author that resonates with my interests and beliefs?

-illustration and reading are intrinsically linked

-I should choose an author who doesn't have an existing plethora of visual imagery surrounding them
-how can I apply my interests and knowledge of literature and analysis?

THOUGHTS
This brief seems like a sort of extension of the 'Persons of Note' brief we did last year, but with more of a focus on authorship and literary legacy. From the outset it seems like the perfect project for me as I said to myself that I wanted to make sure I maintained my interest in English Literature if I wasn't to do a degree in it. In light of this, I feel drawn to some of the more classic authors such as Shakespeare and George Orwell so that I can explore some deeper literary themes, but I am also conscious of not illustrating already known or visually wealthy narratives. As this project is quite extensive, I must consider how interested I am in the author and so I feel something humorous and comical would work to drive my investment of that author in my creative practice.

WHAT I WANT TO ACHIEVE FROM THIS PROJECT
I think at level 4, I was often quite quick to run with an idea and it seems appropriate that with the length of this module, I should invest a good deal of time and creativity into the exploration of ideas. A collection of short stories or excerpts may help me to do this, rather than focusing on a challenging novel. My practice seems almost certainly concerned with sensitivity and humour so I feel that a text of many parts or unfamiliar concepts could be useful to driving the communication in my tone of voice.

WHO STANDS OUT/ WHAT HAVE I FOUND OUT
From the list of authors, I have pretty much ruled out any sort of gothic authors or authors who apply existential themes as I feel these already have a wealth of existing imagery around them and I would prefer to challenge myself with something that I can really play with. Similarly, I feel reluctant to choose science-fiction or dystopian novels as whilst I am interested in the anxiety and social critique of them, I have invested a lot of time in studying these thematically and feel I have exhausted many of these in literature studies. Alternatively, I am intrigued by satire and authors such as William Burroughs and Douglas Adams are standing out to me as being potentially quite experimental and mischievous in their language. Non-fiction also intrigues me as I feel this could be an opportunity to explore some editorial approaches to illustration and work with issues that are perhaps more real and engaging to my potential audience.

3 TO FURTHER RESEARCH
My curiosity mainly lies with humour and social criticism and so I have selected Susan Sontag, William Shakespeare and Douglas Adams, to research in more depth. This selection seems to provide me with a range of different themes and contexts, yet they are all grounded in an element of social criticism.

PLAN OF ACTION
To drive my project forward I must now investigate the authors' legacies and the potential thematic issues I could explore. 

-Research each author contextually
-Identify appropriate and relevant texts to study
-Analyse and evaluate texts/author against intent for practice