Having developed the first six images I had a short email conversation with my tutor,

You have been busy!

Just had a look.  For me the stand out image is number 4 – there is something extra going on with the face going on the box.  No. 3 is also interesting.

4 for me has references to A Clockwork Orange/V for Vendetta type imagery – not sure if that was an intention or not.

The chess board works to link these two as a pair.  The others are technically realised but seem to have less in the way of layers of meaning  – hope this makes sense.

If (and it is an if) feasible could you develop another pair that would sit with 3 & 4?  That would be enough for a submission – it could be that you sketch them up and then fully realise for assignment 6.

Hope this helps – come back to me if you need any further clarification

In response, I put in some serious hours and created two more images around the brief she gave me. My motivation was the plastic top hat and the cube I added an element of found photography, as explored in assignment 2, in the form of images or self-portraits of Surrealist artists.

My one thought now is I am not sure if the girl balancing on the ball needs a cube with my portrait on it to tie it to the other three?

Click on the image above for a larger view of the typology click on the images below for a larger view of the individual images

Having decided that the disembodied head was the best frame of reference for starting, I tried lots of different backgrounds and images to place the head on.

Most of them did not work, and in the end, I created a scene in Daz 3d Studio with a pool of water and a colonnade. I tried several different angles for the head, but in the end, straight on worked best. I also rendered the image with long forearms and masked them back to fit the water level. I rendered the head and hands in one layer the ball in another layer and the environment in a third layer. I left the sky transparent and painted the stars in Photoshop on the bottom layer.

One of the best discoveries was to turn the ball into an emitting light source and remove the panel I had been using to light the scene as shown below.

The effect of doing this was a more dramatic light on the face and a more realistic reflection in the eyes.

They say you have to kiss a lot of toads to find a prince and I am guessing the same is valid for creating art, it is all about experimentation and development. I watched a couple of youtube documentaries on the surreal movement, Salvadore Dahli and an excellent BBC documentary on the image recommended by Andrea. They were somewhat eye-opening and explained the way that the surrealists tried to let their imagination go while creating, it is quite hard to do and led me to create several images that did not quite work for me as shown above.

Assignment five

Digital Identities 2

Use your tutor’s feedback on Assignment Four to help you develop your digital identities project to the point of resolution.

The method of presentation that you choose for your project should be appropriate to, and complement, the work you make. Your work may suit a print-based submission, or it may be appropriate to present your work in a book, audio-visual form, web-based project or installation.

Your project should involve substantial artistic investigation, and the method of presentation should do your efforts justice. You should view the project as the culmination of the Digital Image and Culture course.

Include a 500-word text that contextualises your project and provides a self-evaluation.