Final Evaluation

Final Evaluation 

In this evaluation I aim to look at both the success and probelms I have experienced throughout my project in my research, planning, time management, how my original aims might have changed and my final outcome.

Looking back at the title of my project “Human interactions, an exploration in to how humans interact with objects and materials”, I would say my work has taken a slightly different direction. As my research progressed I became more interested in the pycology of how people feel about objects rather than how they interact with them. One of the reasons for this change was the success of using people for my primary research, in which I questioned people about the value of objects. The friendly nature of the questionnaire was very casual causing people to open up and relax, revealing some interesting results. When researching peoples interactions, I wanted to video how they used my objects, however this led to people feeling embarrissed, confused or too shy to even participate. The nature of the two experiments were very differernt, the camera making the results less genuine than those from the questionnaire. I pushed my primary research by taking advantage of the crits to use them for research. Once displaying my objects I would often ask people to write down feelings they had towards them and I could observe what they did with them away from a pressured environment.

During my secondary research, I struggled to find artists or exhibitions that were relevant to my project. I could have prevented this by researching events in London before the project started. I could have used resources that were easily accessible to me such as the Time Out website or Tate Britain leaflets and putting details on to my action plan. This lack of preparation led to the rushing of my notes on artists and a lack of time for visiting more exhibitions. Being too vague on my action plan also created problems like not having a quiet space to film my experiments which meant noises of people slamming doors or talking came out on my video. I should have book a room by asking my tutors in advance. On the other hand, not having a completely silent space suited the spontanuity of the experiments. If everything was too perfect it could have looked staged and maybe even nerved the participants even more. 

A positive to being vague on my action plan is that I had room to experiment, something which I could have done more of. Feedback from a crit commented that I often over think things which has led to huge amounts of evaluation on my blog, instead of spending the time doing more 3D work. Feedback also noted that my project fits together too well, in other words I needed further exploration in order to find somthing unexpected and not so in keeping with the direction I was already going in. I resolved this when in Falmouth because it forced me to use what was in my surrounding environment. I collected found objects from the beach which had different aesthetics to the previous metalic forks I had been using. I then used the trip to explore the relationship between objects, site and context.  (For more explanation refer to blog entry: Critical Review of my Action Plan). 

  

Lastly, I had originally planned for people to interact with my final piece however, I think this would have been too predictable or obvious when concidering the title “Human Interactions”. My new outcome is a contrast being, very static, my objects trapped in frames dislpayed like precious artifacts. I explored how the display of objects can alter peoples feelings of value towards them in response to my questionnaire results. 

‘When asking people to forget the original use or value of their object and then give it a new use, the common answer was to display or frame it in some way. I have interpreted this, discovering that a valuable object subconciously still holds meaning to the individual therefore they are reluctant to damadging, taking apart the object or using it in a way that would destroy its value. The only option is to  preserve it, giving it the status of a piece of art work.’ 

(Blog entry: Evaluation of the value of objects questionnaire)

Overall, by using people as a resource it gave my project momentum and feeding off other people kept me active. The main problem I had was a lack of preparation and time partly due to the pressure of interviews. If I had more time for the project I would make the effort to visit exhibitions and other locations. Visiting Falmouth has shown me that inspiration can be found when least expected. I think that the fact my project changed direction is evidence that I have challenged myslef to explore a variety of ideas leading to an unpredictable and satisfying outome.