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Collages for Tomorrow 14/11/2013

Right now, I feel pretty stuck. I made some simple collages today to present tomorrow of symbols in the story but I don’t think I like them. They are only ideas on how I can bring the final imagery together but I still feel unsure. I think what I’m struggling with is a way of bringing it all together, but if I keep experimenting and pushing the ideas I think I can get there.

The ‘problem’ is that the story is so complicated yet very simple. The story follows the simple rise and fall of charlie’s intelligence, the build up and the deterioration of this. Yet also the story has many symbols and metaphors, characters, flashbacks and underlying themes. I think this makes it a great story but makes me want to illustrate them all! How can I create something that is going to encapsulate all of these themes? I often wonder if I should have done this in BA8 but I am certainly learning a lot about structure and narrative, especially with the information gained from my dissertation on the narrativity of the frame.

I’m looking forward to getting the dissertation done, or the draft at least so I can put all my energy into the studio work. For me I can’t write things in chunks or on seperate days as when I read the writing altogether it seems disjointed and has less flow than if I’d have wrote it all at once or over consecutive days.

tv

Above is one of the collages I made of a tv in the story. The tv is what charlie has to listen to and leave on when asleep which he doesn’t like. For me it symbolised how unnatural his situation was. Throughout the story, references to Adam and Eve are made, almost symbols for a warning that tampering with things that are unnatural (operating on your brain to make you more intelligent than you are) is against the word of God and very bad. I felt like the tv was like the presence of technology, this unnatural man made thing which in the beginning makes innocent Charlie uncomfortable. At the end of the story Charlie’s only happiness is found in the tv in contrast to the beginning showing how his character has completely changed.

In regards to the quality of the image I’d say this is probably the most successful out of the collages. The noise of the tv is odd and I think the ink and photocopied imagery work fairly well together. Left on it’s own and combined with the white space it has that odd presence which is quite dominant.