500 Word Summary - No.4

 Throughout this project I have discovered a lot of things about my chosen topic, my interests in illustration and my own practice. I am intrigued by how we form relationships and bonds with other people and how a state of constant connection can affect our day-to-day lives. I am also interested in the idea of self and self disclosure and how these two things affect peoples perception of themselves, perception of others and how other percept them. I feel that my research was broad and covered a lot of different topics that I managed to dwindle down to a more specific area of research, allowing me to explore an interesting subject in a way that suits me as a practitioner.

Overall, I think the thing I’ve gained the most from undergoing this research project is how I want to inform my own practice, and I feel that this could be something that I continue exploring throughout other modules and in my personal practice. It’s also given me more confidence to be more honest and authentic in my own work, a quality that I believe to be integral to image making.

I believe that this has also changed the way I approach work, and think that thoroughly immersing myself in research before creating work will help lead to more fully developed outcomes in the future. The research aspect is something that I usually skim over with an eagerness to create practical and I’m now realizing that delving into this further can help inform my outcome to a fuller extent. I would also like to be creating more work that stems from human experience as I feel this contains a level of authenticity. It would be interesting to expand on a few more projects and start to take on board my own feelings and opinions as well as the feelings and opinions of others. I would also like to continue exploring how my work sits in a digital and physical environment and how I can translate between the two. Whether this be in terms of process or where the image eventually exists, online or in the physical world. Both avenues can reach different audiences and certain topics and themes will suit one above the other.

Overall, I think that I’ve managed to complete this module to a decent level. I do think I should have given myself more time, started research earlier and developed practical work sooner. I’ve always struggled with COP, it’s not a module that I enjoy and is something I continuously put off. I have really enjoyed the research aspect of it though and feel that if I hadn’t done the usual thing of avoiding it I would have been able to further push and develop my work to a fuller extent.