RUMBI:
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WILL :
Yesterday was focused entirely on creating a poster for the National Astronomy Meeting Conference on Monday July 6th. Rumbi and I attended a session with an arts professor, Duncan, to discuss the creation of posters from an artistic perspective. The name of the session was 'The Language of Memory.' We were asked to consider our projects and our experiences up to that point and write twenty random words to describe it. Twenty colours and images were also written down. Up to this point, I had been sceptical whether Duncan's idea of a poster was the same as ours. For the NAM Conference, Rumbi and I are required to make an academic poster but the material that we made at the end of this session was more artistic. Nevertheless, it was still relevant to us in the respect that we challenged an established concept. Archaeoastronomy feels like a field that challenges and rivals archaeology which is a more established field. The concept that was challenged in this session was far more provocative.
The idea was put forth that Remembrance Day should not be on any date in particular and that the commemoration is made impersonal and intrusive. It was suggested that the Two Minutes of Silence are not two minutes to remember those who died for us but two minutes where you have to remain silent.
This discussion tied in nicely with our trip to the National Memorial Arboretum where we were first introduced to the idea of examining the dialogue between place and person. One of the posters designed in this session had various memorials from the Arboretum underneath the red, bold words: "Remember? You Should." It was a very forceful imposition. I went in a completely different direction from everyone else and went from an artistic to an academic approach with my poster. It was filled with text explaining why I had selected various images to epitomize five of the words I had selected earlier to describe my experience of the project.
Rumbi and I later went to the City Campus to complete a first draft of the poster. PhotoShop will be used to create the final conference-standard material but for now, Microsoft PowerPoint was employed. Images of the stars in the Orion Constellation are included in the Prospects session. Artwork from Stellarium in the Western, Egyptian and Arabic Starlores are superimposed over the stars. The point being made here is how the project could be expanded to include other starlores other the Western lore which is the default on Stellarium.
From the session with Duncan earlier, I was inspired to incorporate provocation into our work to make it more interesting and personal. For example, I supposed that when we take a panorama of the Lee Westwood Sports Centre, we ensure that when it is imported into Stellarium, we situate it such that at some times of year, the Orion Constellation hangs over it. This is to suggest the idea that some people who work out in the gym are vain and arrogant as Orion was. This will not be written down in our poster or introductory talk but it will be mentioned when someone asks us about what alignments we will make with our impressionistic panorama.
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WILL :
Yesterday was focused entirely on creating a poster for the National Astronomy Meeting Conference on Monday July 6th. Rumbi and I attended a session with an arts professor, Duncan, to discuss the creation of posters from an artistic perspective. The name of the session was 'The Language of Memory.' We were asked to consider our projects and our experiences up to that point and write twenty random words to describe it. Twenty colours and images were also written down. Up to this point, I had been sceptical whether Duncan's idea of a poster was the same as ours. For the NAM Conference, Rumbi and I are required to make an academic poster but the material that we made at the end of this session was more artistic. Nevertheless, it was still relevant to us in the respect that we challenged an established concept. Archaeoastronomy feels like a field that challenges and rivals archaeology which is a more established field. The concept that was challenged in this session was far more provocative.
The idea was put forth that Remembrance Day should not be on any date in particular and that the commemoration is made impersonal and intrusive. It was suggested that the Two Minutes of Silence are not two minutes to remember those who died for us but two minutes where you have to remain silent.
This discussion tied in nicely with our trip to the National Memorial Arboretum where we were first introduced to the idea of examining the dialogue between place and person. One of the posters designed in this session had various memorials from the Arboretum underneath the red, bold words: "Remember? You Should." It was a very forceful imposition. I went in a completely different direction from everyone else and went from an artistic to an academic approach with my poster. It was filled with text explaining why I had selected various images to epitomize five of the words I had selected earlier to describe my experience of the project.
Rumbi and I later went to the City Campus to complete a first draft of the poster. PhotoShop will be used to create the final conference-standard material but for now, Microsoft PowerPoint was employed. Images of the stars in the Orion Constellation are included in the Prospects session. Artwork from Stellarium in the Western, Egyptian and Arabic Starlores are superimposed over the stars. The point being made here is how the project could be expanded to include other starlores other the Western lore which is the default on Stellarium.
From the session with Duncan earlier, I was inspired to incorporate provocation into our work to make it more interesting and personal. For example, I supposed that when we take a panorama of the Lee Westwood Sports Centre, we ensure that when it is imported into Stellarium, we situate it such that at some times of year, the Orion Constellation hangs over it. This is to suggest the idea that some people who work out in the gym are vain and arrogant as Orion was. This will not be written down in our poster or introductory talk but it will be mentioned when someone asks us about what alignments we will make with our impressionistic panorama.