This year one of the forum's that I attended was a response to the public forum headed by http://www.theaoi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=100&Itemid=1 Amelia Johnstone with guest speakers Jonathon Rosen, Graham Rawle, Bill Bragg, Matthew Richardson, Anna Bhushan, Andrew Foster and David Kerr. Jumping off from a transcript of what they said, my classmates, Tash Greenhalgh and Bert Gatens chaired the one I attended.Tash's opinion is that commision work is best for those starting out, young and want to make a name for themselves, However they should also find the time to work on their personal stuff.
I agree and I do think commision based work gives you experience which is needed for those who start out but the way I like to see it is that personal work that is self-initiated is a lot like street performances and commision is more like a venue, a musician could get picked up by a producer in both circumstances and that's how they measure their success. Experience is experience and a gig is a gig, doesn't mean they are not hard working, there are those who mix music in their basement too and use the internet as a platform in this day of age.
I believe a balance is needed and I pay very much close attention to how many artist and film makers work. In the end it also comes down to chance, too much of commsion work would bore me and so would too much self-initiated but sometimes we have to adapt to what chance is given to us in that moment of time and it could be dependant on the economy or your brand. Adaptability is key and it is important to change our method if we are not successful.
At 2022NQ in Manchester this week the Eskimo Creative agency set up a talk/panel on Monday with other events there that ended on Thursday. It’s a part of the Kopparberg Unestablishment festival That I believe is still on in Manchester until the 25th. I was not able to attend them all since it was deadline week but I did go on Monday where Steve Layton chaireda few speakers, instead of going through their biographies I’ll just put this link that describes them here: http://eskimocreative.com/unestablishment/
As the link says, I attended the event to gain insight into “The Future of Storytelling”. The gist of it all is simple, the talk was about where storytelling counts in this day of age compared to the past, Steve Layton commented on the information age, as people handle our information and record a census they unwittingly may not realise that they hold the key to real and honest stories. Information of all kinds when you done the math on it can have a story extrapolated from it. I recently found this enlightening video on Narrative, it’s from a series of podcast interviews from film maker Kevin Smith, this excerpt here tells us about how human it is for us to want to puzzle together stories.
Mike Ryan, who has one of the rarest jobs in the world as a “futurist”, says stories are still important and will be more so important in an age of robotics and information high since they are a strong component for our humanity. We are also in a world where we are bombarded with Nostalgia products that are capitalised on in response to our collective conscience, one that could be born as the last century has had rapid change in technological advances and one that could be a consequence of a fear of losing ourselves within a scary machine dominated future where personal and intellectual achievement is lost as gadgets become a quick fix for our base desires. These are same gadgets that can be our tools as well as weapons.
My feelings towards the future of storytelling is that we have habits as a human race and it is these that can make us vulnerable to consumerism, when we exploit those vulnerabilities we have the option to respect the audience and thus as an author we must serve their persona without being a slave to it. To be a slave to it means we are just churning out nostalgia products for a quick buck, the intelligent will not be as keen to us with such methods.
There were two intelligent questions that was asked and answered by the speakers when I was there, both deserving of thought and debate:
1.)What tool has recently advanced/changed the way we make stories?
2.)How much input and control should we give consumers?
They all gave obvious answers more about the venues and forums we have available to tell stories in this age as well as give examples of how not to work as a creative. My answer to this is easily informed by a great story teller, Hideo Kojima. Not having the ability to make movies he settled on the interactive media of videogames, as a Games Master you play in his stories, you dance with the author as he leads you into a simulation. My answer is this analytical commentary video in its entire context, as is. The Video as comment inside fiction explains our need to make stories. See the intro and understand how this moment is of a videogame commenting on you as a person but fast forward to 3:50 to watch until 10:50 to see what informs me on this subject as well as the state of art in our world:
After recently hearing hearing one of Adrian Shaughnessy's podcasts on the current state of illustration it's really had me thinking about where illustrators stand in this world and my future work. You can listen to Adrian's podcast here: http://www.shaughnessyworks.com/ Currently the man runs Shaugnessy works, a consultancy combining design and editorial direction, he's a co-founder of the london based design company Intro, aswell as being a co-founder for Unit Editions, a publishing company producing books on design and visual culture.
The State of Illumination:
Taking part in a small forum in response to the above podcast, I learned that illustration's effectiveness in this world is based on the commentary the image has, it can illuminate text, decorate articles but then again so can a lot of art do that. Social and political commentary, that's where I think illustration is strongest. A progenetive and early example would be Francisco Goya, a historical painter who infuses this responsiveness and story telling to his era within his work. And we can see an evolution of this responsive, satirical style within the works of Gerald Scarfe and many modern illustrators, especially of the political cartoonist variety. These are people who are not only highlghting something in an image but they do so in their own prefered colour, like a movie director, they adapted an existing text in their own way. And like a newspaper story, they can easily paint who we should feel apathy for.
The State of Commisions:
Personally for me, establishing your own presence, visual world and language would be the best way to form a portfolio; where as a weak portfolio is too full of commissions, it has no flavour. I believe illustrators thrive on self promotion more than photography as it’s easy to imagine what an end product of a photo will look like. Illustration is purposefully made to "illustrate" and "decorate" an existing state of text or media however an illustrator should never have to wait around for the next commision. They need to find their own voice and establish their presence, thanks to the internet this has become far more eaier for us. Also thanks to the internet, opinions are easily exchangeable, and I welcome any one who wishes to comment or argue with the points alluded to here.
