Mdes illustration online journal: Semester II: Project Proposal Form Draft 2

01/01/2015

Blog entry 25:

MA / MDes Visual Communication

PROJECT PROPOSAL FORM

Name: Helen – Marie Kelly

Stage: Diploma

Date & Draft Version: 17/12/2014 Draft 2

1. Working Title:

Images of the Human Hand: A Gesture to Humanity?

2. Rationale for the project proposed: Provide a concise, logical rationale for the project, 200 words.

My Concept project is based on imagery containing the human hand acting as a semiotic or suggestive comment on the human condition. The project is broken down into several interlinked areas to ensure clarity of methodology. The Project focuses on researching a wide range of material with the goal of finding successful ways of conveying the hands potential to convey complex comments on the human condition to an audience. Whilst using research to create visuals with a combination of paint and stitch, in order to find the most successful way of creating visuals with a tactile element, I have also been exploring how human concepts such as thought and emotion and even stories can be conveyed through visually representing the hand in illustration. An example of the research I have been undertaking includes finding abstracts from fictional texts to create compositions which feature the hands of characters in positions which are intended to convey the mood of the scene or emotion of a particular character, along with researching how nonverbal communication can give insight into aspects such as culture and other such subjects. I intend my Realisation project to be based on stories attached to or heavily involving the human hand, such as myths and folklore, as I feel it provides a complex commentary on the importance we as humans place on the subject of the hand.

3. Audience: Describe the audience that the project is aimed at. Ask yourself, who will benefit from the process or outcome of the project proposed, whose needs will you meet, who are you communicating with, who are you seeking to persuade or inform?

At Present, audience is not clear due to the way research is being undertaken. As an artist I am aware that I do not want to work as a children’s illustrator, therefore I can come to the assumed conclusion that my work may be aimed at adults. Furthermore the subject of this project will possibly produce outcomes, which implore the audience to construct some of their own theories on the work and will possibly take an adult’s understanding to fully appreciate.

Having said that I do not wish to illustrate for children, I am always willing to take myself out of my comfort zone and push my work forward. For example if I find that my subject of stories about the human hand, lends itself better to children’s illustration, I will not completely disregard it.

An audience for this project could be publishing houses or galleries.

4. Theoretical Framework: Summarise the theoretical framework of your practice enquiry.

This project exists to question what it means to be human through images of the human hand and the importance it holds. I want my project to provoke thought about something many take for granted.

My dissertation is designed to aid research undertaken in the concept module, through questioning the meaning of human hand in art. In chapter one, I have explored how images of the hand as singular entities or part of a composition can comment on sophisticated and complex meanings derived from the human condition. For example how the gesture of a subject or character’s hand can change how an audience view of said character’s emotion or situation. Chapter two takes a specific topic, gender and explores more deeply into how the human hand conveys this through positioning and movement in art. I have chosen gender because I feel it is an important key to commenting on the human condition. Although there can be distinct differences in male and female in the animal kingdom, human gender rolls are very different and in some ways more defined. Although arguably concepts such as culture and religion would provide equally complex issues when considering hand gestures and the human condition, gender is a topic that in my concept module I have not explored in as much depth: as the aim of my dissertation is to aid my research, I feel that I should focus on an area that will supply something different to that which I have already researched.

Abstract from my dissertation:

This study explores the human hand in art as a signifier of the ‘human condition’. The dissertation argues that the hand is a significant factor in understanding what sets apart the human being from the rest of the animal kingdom. Imagery portraying the human hand is considered and subjected it to analysis. Scientific research is used in tandem with certain theories to provide support to the argument. The research revealed that images of the hand are commonplace, and can hold complex and sophisticated commentaries on the human condition in a variety of ways.

5. Methodology: Set out the visual methodology you will employ in researching the question you have set yourself. Construct a time-based structure for your visual research and practice.

My methodology for this project is to break down areas of practice into separate areas, which feed into each other:

The Research Book involves encompassing a broad compilation of ideas and theories based around the subject of the hand researched with a view to creating visuals from ideas that I feel have scope enough for my masters project. This book will include my own thoughts along with a range of material by others including scholarly opinion. Research varies widely from a scientific standpoint, such as exploring evolution and the musculature of the hand, to different meanings attached to the human hand through aspects such as stories and much more.

The Main Sketchbook is involved with exploring stitch and paint as a means to intertwine the notion of ‘feel’ and give the work a tactile nature with the preferred painting method I chose after my research in Personal Practice and Methodologies module. The Main Sketchbook uses ideas/ theories from the Research Book as an initial standpoint, on which to build in order to ascertain the scope of certain aspects and to in turn allow ideas to grow and possibly allow new ideas to form, which can then be more closely researched in the research book.

With the combined idea development and research from the two aforementioned books, I have by the end of this project to been able to select certain areas, which I feel have commented well on the human condition and have the most scope to take forward for my Realisation project. At this stage the idea I intend to take forward to my Realisation project is ‘stories about the human hand’, this will include researching myths and stories we as humans have attached to the human hand to portray its importance. I may also include how the human hand itself can be used to tell a story or convey a message in the form of story telling.

The Blog involves researching the work of others to aid understanding of how mediums and materials can be used, which may inspire how physical work is created in the Main Sketchbook. The blog will also question and explore who I am as an artist and aspects such as how work can be presented as possible outcomes, this area will focus deeply on what it is I want to achieve as an artist during and after my study at university. The blog will also provide a place to fully explain the thought process at certain points during the module.

A smaller but significant area is the Drawing from Life book, which deals purely with practicing visually representing the form of the hand, which in turn can lead to ideas to research more closely. This book has also allowed me to consider hand gesture and movement in a more simplified way.

6. Deliverables: Please list the outcomes that you envisage resulting from the project.

Throughout my concept module I have found it difficult to rest on many aspects of what I intend to take forward, due to the wide subject area I decided to research, however now that I am at the end of my concept module I have been able to make certain decisions which will allow me to move forward, and through consideration narrow down what my deliverables might be.

Possible deliverables:

Framed stitch and paint images as fine art pieces telling certain stories about the human hand (small samples of which have been made for this project in order to ascertain whether it is possible).

A sequential set of illustrations, which tell a story about the hand – this I feel should comment on how the hand is important to the human condition.

7. Identify any exceptional practical requirements that the project will

necessitate: Please list anything beyond the usual provisions of the programme.

8. Bibliography: Reference all resources including images following the Harvard system.

Adler. K. and Pointon, M. (eds.) (1993) The Body Imaged: The human form and visual culture since the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

BBC News (2012). Fighting may have shaped the evolution of the human hand. [Online] BBC News. Available at: http://www.york.ac.uk/integrity/harvard_other_accordian.html [Accessed 4th November 2014]

Berlin Painter (480 B.C.) Herakles and Iphikles attacked by snakes. Pottery, Paris: Louvre

Berman, P.g. (1993) Body and body polotic in Edvard Munch’s Bathing Men. In Adler, K and Pointon, M. (eds.) The Body Imaged: The human form and visual culture since the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Clarke. K. (1956) The Nude. In Nead. L. (ed.) The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (1992) Routledge.

Carrier. D. and Morgan. M.H. (2012). Fighting may have shaped the evolution of the human hand. [Online] BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20790294 [Accessed 4th November 2014]

Deepdane Painter (Attributed to) (470-460 B.C), Perseus and Danae. Terracotta Red-figure Pottery

Eakins. T. (1898) Salutat. Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts. Oil paint, 126.4 x 101.0 cm

Fabbri. P.(2011) Beyond Gombrich: the recrudescence of visual semiotics. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Gill, M. (1989) Image of the Body. New York: Doubleday Dell Publishing Inc.

Gombrich, E. H. (1993) Gombrich on the Renaissance, Volume 2: Symbolic images. 2^nd Ed. London: Phaidon Press Ltd.

Harter, J. (1985) Hands A Pictorial Archive from Nineteenth Century Sources. Ontario: Dover Publications.

Hatt, M. (1993) Muscles, Morals, Mind: the male body in Thomas Eatkins’ Salutat. In Adler, K and Pointon, M. (eds.) The Body Imaged: The human form and visual culture since the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Havelock. C.M. (1995) The Aphrodite of Kindos and her Successors: A Historical Review of the Female Nude in Greek Art. 1^st Ed. Michigan: University of Michigan.

Hawkins. B.W. (1863) Frontispiece to Evidence as to Mans Place in Nature. In Huxley. T.H. Evidence as to a Mans Place in Nature. (1863). In The Zoological Relations of Man with the Lower Animals. (1861) 1^st Ed. (p67 – 84.) London: The Natural History Museum.