"In works in variation form, the coda occurs following the last variation and will be very noticeable as the first music not based on the theme.
Charles Burkhart suggests that the reason codas are common, even necessary, is that in the climax of the main body of a piece a "particularly effortful passage", often an expanded phrase, is often created by "working an idea through to its structural conclusions" and that after all this momentum is created a coda is required to "look back" on the main body, allow listeners to "take it all in", and "create a sense of balance."
Dirk and I have been working alongside some of our peers to put together some concepts for the 2010 Emily Carr Graduations Exhibitions catalogue to be presented to the grad committee this Friday. We—with Jennifer Griffiths—were leaning toward a more photographic approach to the publication and were interested in using projection techniques in some form or another. We propose to use projection as a theme that carries through not only the publication itself, but across the promotional material for the grad show and the show itself.
Our concept uses projection as a metaphor for the transient movement of students as they pass through the physical confines of the university's structure. The school will always be present but the students float through like light.
Below are some photographs of some tests from last night:
On the heels of the events highlighted in the last post—not to mention a surreal sidewalk encounter—we have been looking into a book mentioned in the Stuart Bailey interview entitled Exercises in Style by revered French author Raymond Queneau.
The book, translated by Barbara Wright, tells the story of a young man on a bus in 99 different ways. It challenges and jousts with language, voice, storytelling and perspective.
Queneau:
"In les Exercices de Style, I started from a real incident, and in the first place I told it 12 times in different ways. Then a year later I did another 12, and finally there were 99. People have tried to see it as an attempt to demolish literature—that was not at all my intention. In any case my intention was merely to produce some exercises; the finished product may possibly act as a kind of rust-remover to literature, help to rid it of some of its scabs. If I have been able to contribute a little to this, then I am very proud, especially if I have done it without boring the reader too much."
There is an obvious connection to our project in the way it approaches a subject from a variety of entry points in order to communicate a story.
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Queneau, Raymond. Exercises in Style. Trans. Barbara Wright. London: Gaberboccus Press, 1958. 15. Print.
"The implication of this in terms of graphic design is that any piece of work could be designed in (at least) 99 different ways, using a graphic vocabulary rather than a textual one (or, obviously, both). I’m interested in learning, or teaching, how to be able to recognize and use those different styles in a manner appropriate to each new piece of work, starting from zero every time. That’s exactly what graphic design and modernism mean to me. The sort of work I like and aspire to make is based on this pluralism, intelligently drawing from the whole spectrum of style rather than sticking to one slavishly."
A link provided by Mr. Clément Vincent highlighting some reflections by Stuart Bailey of Dot Dot Dot and Metropolis M.
Coincidentally, Bailey in currently in Vancouver in conjunction with the Contemporary Art Gallery. Or perhaps it is not a coincidence at all.
Today we met with Don and Tak—the principals over at Free Agency Creative—to talk about the direction of our thesis project.
They seem to be on the same page in terms of concept and application and the meeting was incredibly helpful in allowing us to create a more defined focus.
It is our intention to develop a two-stage approach to expand the limits of lateral thinking and making in the initial stages of the iterative process. The first stage of this approach consists of a new methodological framework, which uses the Morris Multiple Happiness Inventory (MMHI) as impetus in contextually reframing the problem space. The second stage consists of filtering a pre-determined design problem through the new system in an effort to yield dynamic results.
Our methodology is essentially a prism that will refract the problem space into a variety of diverse paths—or streams of light, if you will—in order to expand the options available in the initial stages of the ideation process.
The shifted focus will employ a methodology remniscent of this:
