New start, New ideas

Today was a day I felt had been a long time coming. Over the past couple of weeks, myself and others had noticed a lack of motivation and enthusiasm for the project from some members of the group. And especially with only 1 week left you would think there would be a sense of urgency about the studio. Coming into the studio to find that half the group hadn't arrived and wanted to work from home and 'brainstorm' ideas I found very disheartening, having all agreed to meet first thing.

The three of us in the studio felt like we had an important decision to make in order for us to move forward. We asked for advise off one of our tutors, who reassured us the decision we were about to make was for the best and would benefit the whole group.

We will now finish the project split into two separate groups that will each create something different to install on the rooftop next week. I feel that I had wanted to make this decision a couple of weeks previous to today as I felt we had not been working as well and efficiently together, but I didn't know how to go about it. However, this is something else I have learnt this unit; choosing who you work with in a group wisely, have an understanding that everyone in the group will need to be willing to compromise when it comes to difficult decisions being made, and also to be more honest with the group I'm working with; if I feel that there is becoming a lack of communication and cooperation then I should share it with the group so we can rectify the problem before it gets to far as it has in this project.

In a way I feel a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. India, Katie and I looked back over the research we had done in the weeks previous, to bring ideas through to use in our designs for our new installation as a smaller group. Photographed below is our ideas board; including rough sketches of what we have visualised.

We have agreed that we will continue with the 'creating sensations' theme. We are hoping to use the top, thinner stairs, the hanging area directly below it, as well as two different sections of the scaffolding walls. We are keen to make our installation as interactive as possible to give the audience an enriching sensory experience.

We decided to go home and start playing around with the different ideas we had been discussing earlier in the day so that we could make some decisions of what works well and what doesn't. Below are a few photographs showing myself and India's experimenting with different materials.

 Balloons wrapped in pva covered string and raffia and
 balloons filled with water and glow sticks

  Water bottles filled with water and glow sticks

The result from the first photo, also done in different
 coloured raffia to follow our chosen colours

I felt these all worked really well. However, I wanted us to be able to move these initial ideas forward as I felt they were quite basic as they are in this form. I am hopeful we can push these forward in the next week to make them more interesting and unusual.