"5000 word essay" is perhaps the most awful words that can be said in art school, although with that being said, I don't mind an essay or two, given that the subject is right. And considering we get to pick a subject we are interested in, research into it and write about it, I'd say we've got it pretty good!
So I instantly knew my subject that I'd write about: Printmaking, I just had to narrow it down to a question that I wanted to write about. Now I chose print because I want to further my knowledge of it, but because of this, I'm finding so many things that I want to talk about and having a hard time to condense it down to a single thing. I wanted to avoid the typical "Digital Vs Traditional" debate or the question of whether Print is dead, simply because It's not and I'd be done in a few words.
So bypassing these subjects, I needed to find a topic that was about printmaking in Illustration as opposed to fine art, was interesting and taught me things I didn't know about print before. I mind mapped continuously, as well as constantly changing my question before I went down to speak to John the in house printmaker. He gave me some answers to the questions I would ask in my dissertation, and from our talk I left with a possible topic I could write about. The next generation of Printmakers - Will print die out with this generation? It sounds interesting already! I emailed my lecturer who knows print quite well, and asked for her opinion. Although she liked the idea she felt that I still had too many questions that made up the "bigger question", I already had a feeling that this was the case.
So at this point I'm trying to condense it down, narrow it into questions that are directly relevant and will discuss them with her later in the week.
At first when I started researching what it was I wanted to write about, I was quite determined to find a topic that wouldn't get bogged down with anything historical, something that I now realise was completely ridiculous! I panicked a bit when the tutor in charge of the dissertation mentioned Key theorists, to which I had none! This made me realise that in order to write a decent essay, with a good debate and critical analysis i'd need to put in some history. To my surprise it was there in front of me all along, there's a key text that my tutor advised me to read: Walter Benjamin's Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, but I also realised that Bauhaus will play a massive part in my writing - I'm trying to prove that print can have a future in modern art, something that Bauhaus did when they took traditional methods and used them in modern ways. I need to research more into that over the summer but I believe it will work. I also want to go back onto the lectures we received earlier in the year about movements like the constructivists because they could also play a part in showing how print can be revived when put with a purpose.
On the whole I'd say that I have a good idea of what it is that I'm going to write about, I just have to make it more specific in order to fit into a 5000 word essay.
Researching this proposal has made me realise how difficult it can be to find things related to printmaking in Illustration - a point that helped me decide that my topic was the right one and had potential!
I'm looking forward to being able to link what I find out through my written research and putting into practise in my studio/professional work.
No comments:
Post a Comment