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Group B: Critical Design, 5m pres: bring a Draft PDF of your Critical Design Publication, discussing how its chosen form extends or speaks to its content

For the design of my essay, I have laid out some preliminary plans which I think best reflect its nature via visual means.

Touching upon the theme of luminosity, I considered printing with glow in the dark ink. This touches upon the trickster nature of a Will-O’-The-Wisp. However, I decided against this due to 1) its artificialness not being reflective of the natural elements I discuss and 2) charging the essay in the light and then viewing it in the dark are not particularly relevant to the essay’s content.

LAYOUT CONSIDERATIONS

Instead I am thinking of designing the book using the technique shown above in the “What’s Inside?” children’s book. I like the simplicity of the reader holding the book up to the light and having to personally intervene in order to fully read the essay.

So far, I have created these example sheets:

the front of page = writing facing the correct way / back of page = writing is backwards.

If you read the essay held together, or on an opaque table, it would not make any sense. By holding it up to the light it will show the entirety of the text.

This technique could be used on pages with larger and less text, to take into account the difficulty of alignment when printing.

Other techniques may be the whole page is written on the other side, with all of the text backwards.

I intend on printing on A4 and cropping with a 5mm bleed all around.

PDF CONSIDERATIONS

For the PDF’s purposes I intend to photograph the essay either on a lightbox or the essay being held to the light – whichever technique combines legibility with the design principle the most effectively.

TYPOGRAPHIC CONSIDERATIONS

I have really like these local 1970s/80s Norfolk supernatural quarterlies. They both discuss similar folklores to that of my essay and have a regional aspect that evokes a sense of familiarity with me. Providing the text is very legible (and considering photography will be involved for the PDF) a similar typewritten font and perhaps some hand drawn titles / hand drawn notes or diagrams may help me to evoke this style. In particular this may work well for the front cover (MATERIAL?)

BINDING CONSIDERATIONS

My initial instinct is to spiral bind the pages. I am thinking about this option because I want each page to be easily separated from the rest of the essay – when holding up to a light source, a gutter would complicate the holding of it, as well potentially limiting the opacity of the page. A decent sized left hand margin needs to be considered to take into account the dimensions of a spiral, which I will look into. Another bindings that create this flexibility may also be suitable, which I will briefly look into.

Group B: Writing sample: read aloud 300-500 words discussing one displayed image\ example of practice (not your own) in relation to a specific critical discourse

CHAPTER 2: PLACE & FOLK

SECTION 2: EXAMPLES OF LUMINESENT LORE.

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CHAPTER 2: PLACE & FOLK

SECTION 2: EXAMPLES OF LUMINESENT LORE.

The Will O’ The Wisp is known by many names around the world: Min Min (Australia), Luz Mala (Argentina/ Uruguay), Aleya (India/ Bangladesh) and Boi-Tatá (Brazil), to name a few. Will O’ The Wisp’s roots are from ignis fatuus – fool’s fire, giving us already an insight into the doom that the lore is infamous for encouraging. 

The appearance and behaviour of the Wisp can vary in all of these locations to the extent that they could be referred to as analogous to one another, rather than exact renditions. These differences range from warm to cold fire and from benign lost ancestors to malign demonic hosts. They are usually seen in areas of marshland as floating balls of fire or light. Elusive, momentary, and ethereal in appearance, its aesthetics are synonymous to the usual characteristics that make anomalous events so intriguing to people. 

The phrase, which translates in modern English The Will of the Torch, with Will supposedly deriving from the proper pronoun. Although I instinctively read Will as a verb, its American counterpart is sometimes described as a Jack o’ The Lantern and has connections to the British folklore (Newell, 1904). This tells us that the Wisps have been malevolently personified, and perhaps notably so by Christian communities, which is logical when considering “apparitions and visions are inevitably interpreted, on reflection, according to their cultural contexts” (Harpur, 1994.) Fire and light are dominant within religious texts, creating all kinds of metaphors and reactions which influence its followers.

The county of Norfolk not only has several historical accounts relating to this phenomenon, but a folklore inextricably entwined with it as well. This lore is known as Lantern Man. In this personified version of a Wisp (perhaps not surprisingly considering the location) it is said that a figure wanders the Norfolk Broad fens, lantern in hand and ready to strike. The figure lures the lost and the confused to death. If the victim decides to whistle, this is said to be a particular accelerator in the Lantern Man’s murderous intentions. Their motivations (apart from a hatred of whistling) are unknown, but victims, the most famous being Joseph Bexfield (d.1809), are usually found in the marshland. 

“The disposal and re-emergence of bodies may have given rise to folklore when supernatural reasons are ascribed to natural processes and the well-preserved nature of bog-bodies. Thus, folklore potentially draws on the existing liminal position of these landscapes (as uninhabitable and dangerous) and sites for the disposal of dangerous bodies, which may then return in unexpected ways.” (Flint and Jennings, 2020).

These liminal spaces, Flint and Jennings suggest, seem to be creating a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, cycle of place – narrative – place. The topography of Norfolk Broad area has a distinct lack of contour with deceptive depths, combined with the pathetic fallacy of mist. It feels simple to see how the folklore could have originally manifested for need of a cautionary tale. The landscape contained both topographical and meteorological hardships for the people in the area.

Current Essay Structure:

Week 6: Bring 3 eg’s of practice (not your own): discuss their relevance to your essay with reference to a specific & named critical voice or text.

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1. “Babes In The Wood” aka “The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and howe he Commytted the keepinge of his Children to his own brother whoe delte most wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it”

• story written in Norwich
• inspiration said to be from a lore based in Wayland Wood
• included in a folkloric anthology in the 19th century called in The Ingoldsby Legends
• a morality tale, even more so in later versions

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2. Lantern Man, Will-o’-the-Wisps, Fool’s Fire

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2. The Eccles Sea Monster: Parallels with the Essex Serpent?

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Possible future investigations:

– The landscape and folklore that inspired Tove Jansson

– Land artists

– topographic & etymological connections with folklore

WEEK 4: Bring 1 example of practice (not your own) and discuss it in relation to 2 research sources / critical theorists.

I think a good starting point would be to think about how a place can have the sensation that is contains meaning, due to its natural features. My initial research has brought me to the term “Genius Loci”

Originally Genius Loci were physical objects used in the Roman era that were meant to contain a protective spirit, usually ordained with serpents, that can be still be seen in some areas of the UK (this concept can be seen in lots of other cultures around the world.)

The phrase has now become to be more about “The Spirit of a Place”

“The Romans called it the Genius Loci: that special something every place has. It cannot be denied that every place has its character: a complex set of non-verbal signals, the smells, sights and sounds which set off a chain of associations deep within us, beneath the level of language.” _{https://kateshrewsday.com/let-me-tell-your-story-audiobook-narration-by-kate-shrewsday/}

Even thought there are undoubtedly theories that can explain this feeling (note to self, find these), I still find this idea intriguing – that a place can contain meaning which then connects to a person on a mysterious, personal, maybe soulful, level.

At this point I would like to mention the work of Léon Spilliaert.

_{Woman at the Shoreline, 1910 & Dike at night. Reflected lights, 1908, Léon Spilliaert}

Spilliaert’s practice contains an abundance of atmosphere which can be attributed to a combination of his personal life, the aesthetics of Ostend and the materials he chooses to work with. To me this brings forth a relationship that is symbiotic in nature.

“Spilliaert saw the coast differently, perhaps because of his obsession with monochrome ink and watercolour drawing, perhaps because of his insomnia, which meant he saw it at night and in the pale early morning.

His compositions – washes, lines and areas of darkness or shadow – are laid out with precision.

Their appeal comes from his peculiar directness of vision, both sharp and unspecific, which suited his subjects: the long horizon line of the sea at Ostend, the endless columns of the Grand Hotel, seen through a murky northern light.” _{https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n08/john-paul-stonard/at-the-royal-academy}

Although Spilliaert has no links to folklore, he is a relevant element for me at this point in my investigation, when taking into consideration the idea of the “spirit of a place”. I feel like these paintings are snapshots from my mind which Spilliaert some how managed to create a century beforehand.

It also tells me that a “spirit of a place” can be transferable through people via artefacts and not just something that you experience necessarily on your own.

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I think the next stage for me will be looking into the symbiotic links that landscape and folklore have, in order to link together the concept of genius loci and its contributing factors to folklores. (landscape – a sense of place – folklore!)

I would like in the meantime to have a look through the following material:

• ^{Daimonic reality : field guide to the otherworld Harpur, Patrick “how strange and seemingly unexplainable phenomena share a common background, and recreates a world-view that has been articulated by William Blake, W. B. Yeats, and C. G. Jung.”}

• ^{The beauty things Edmonds, Mark; Garner, Alan “Alan Garner draws much of the power of his writing from his sense of place and history, and that of his and his family’s history within that place.}“

• ^{Permeability, James Hillman & Margot McLean}

Interweaving mythology and psychogeography in the hope of finding an intersection where personal myth can be used for autobiographical illustrative practice. 

Following on from last term, I continue to be interested in creating work which lands anywhere in between a spectrum of observational to autobiographical illustration and am keen to explore tangents and alternative routes. 

Additionally, I have an interest in folklore, and I would like to delve into those surrounding my home county of Norfolk. My past is heavily rooted in this area, as is my ancestry. I am always intrigued by the roots of a thing, whether they be etymological, folkloric, historic.    

For me, I feel a connection to the place, which is not just through friends and family, but also with the topography of the area. 

I would like to pull on the thread connecting mythology and psychogeography (but I am not sure psychogeography is yet the accurate word for what I’m seeking.) 

It is my hope that by balancing the fact and the fiction throughout this research, I will find a juncture at which I can see new processes for my practice. 

Connected Creatives:

Some potential elements to touch upon in the critical publication:

• What is a myth and how does it manifest? 
• Finding examples of where topography has turned a truth into a legend.

• Discovering and dissecting choice legends from the Norfolk area, e.g. “Black Shuck
• … As well as finding some connected to the land ie: the climate, the contours, the fertility of the ground etc.

• Psychogeography/ flânerie: a male dominated realm. Finding some alternative lenses, such as female and indigenous artwork. 
• Jung’s theory on ‘personal myth’.

Thinking about…..

• Format: I would like the project to be constructed simply but needs to be able to portray pace & flow

• Colour schemes: I have been looking at various Moquette patterns and TFL posters, and conversely photographs of London, to get a sense of hues that best reflect 1) The environment and 2) My intended atmosphere.

• Audience: Considering the personal connection to the work and potential audience

• Psychogeography: A brief look into this theory: “the effect of a geographical location on the emotions and behaviour of individuals” – reflecting on how the environment affected my feelings and in turn, the reason why I focused on these people in particular.

Listening / Watching / Reading….

– Podcasts: Scientists who specialise in the physical construction of memory to gain a grasp of the basics of how memory works on a biological level

– Risograph: Online tutorials and a looking into which mediums best to use with this method of printing. I can see how this process may be a beneficial way of combining final images into the informal layout I am envisaging.

– Tangent Threads: Following on from conversations of Passages, researching tangents which have connections to communication and memory (Camera Obscura, Mis En Abyme) to gain thoughts on how best to depict memory in my drawings.

Articles/ Essays such as:

– Art Based Communication for Individuals with Dissociative Spectrum Disorders“

– “Effectiveness and feasibility of Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) in patients with borderline personality disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder – a pilot study”

These have helped me gain some understanding of how and why art therapy is beneficial in trauma causes. On a less extreme level, I am creating links between these treatments and my own reasons for creating the project.

PSYCHOGEOGRAHY / ART THERAPY / MEMORY BUILDING / DELAYED REPORTAGE INFORMED IMAGE MAKING

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5m pres. Show your work in progress: what’s your main challenge and how is your research addressing it?_

Fast Observational Drawings in Crayon

_{Creating some quick drawings to loosen up my technique. Here I am using either a coloured pastel or pencil in an A6 sketchbook in order to form some bold marks. The benefit here is fast depictions of characters, but the issue is not being able to capture expressions or surrounding details.}

London Themed Drawings

Drawing on Location

_{Drew on location for the Street24 event. Found it interesting on both these sketches and the crayons sketches that people seem to shift and walk away as soon as they notice that you are drawing them / your eyes are on them. Perhaps it’s more the body language I am creating (ie maybe I am obviously uncomfortable.)}

WHAT IS YOUR MAIN CHALLENGE AND HOW IS YOUR RESEARCH ADDRESSING IT?

1. Creating a narrative to transport the characters through the finished article
2. Combining the characters into a cohesive format.
3. Using a technique that best emulates the formula I am intending to use.

The quick answers:

Looking into book design that emulates the concept of unreliable narration / Positioning the characters in various ways using researched compositional techniques / Experimenting with different ways of mark-making, to see what creates the most convincing atmosphere.

Having to depict characters when I have no photographic or drawn references to go from – just text – might prove to be difficult, but this is one of the main points of my investigation.

By reading some of the following texts, I hope to gain insight into how memory’s fallibility and combined with last creatives who have used memory as a device, think of ways of depict unreliable narratives.

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WHAT I’VE BEEN READING