Week 10 Progress Review & Riso Completion

31st March 2023

Riso Printing with Jim,

As part of the book binding workshop I’ve chosen to produce a zine made of 6 sides containing 18 images, and printed using the Riso process. Earlier this week I printed out 60 sheets of A3 paper with Jim’s support and I followed it up with the work at 9am this morning to print the opposite sides of them. Another three lots of 20 sheets that were the opposite sides of the original 60 were produced and left lying around the floor and work surfaces in the print hub..

A few of the masters got stuck in the waste bins which led to me getting a bit inky but turps got rid of it.

The paper with a current side completed needed to go into the input tray with current print face down and blank face up, whilst the bottom of the page would enter the printer first.

£33 paid for the work, paper, masters, and ink left me with 60 sheets of A3 paper, printed double sided, ready when dried, to cut into A4 sheets and then fold into the A5 Booklet as originally planned. Until they dried they would be sat all over the floor in the Print Support Hub with Jim.
Jim was extremely helpful and explained in ways that allowed me to understand how to use the machine for this basic repetitive task.

I was able to complete some of the work today alone with Jim’s supervision, setting up the Masters for each of the two colours, printing out some tests, aligning the colours, running off the pages, disposing of the old masters, and recreating the next set of masters. I dealt with paper jams on the input side where the pick up roller had taken in too many sheets, and jams in the masters being ejected into the waste bins.

Progress Review with Alice

At 10:20am I met up with Alice in room MK202 and had a chat for 20 mins about the progress I’ve made this year and whether or not I was hitting my learning objectives.

I fessed up immediately that there may not be a lot of research in my work but she said it was there in my sketchbook/blog but not given massive attention.

Happy with the contents of the blog, communication style is good, nice style of presentation which contains lecture/seminar notes and expansions of everything we’ve been asked to look into.

The learning points I take away from today’s review are:

I need to make more notes on the research of photographers that I’ve studied over the last few months, I’ve already got a list of photographers that have influenced me and I just need to put it together in one post per genre or photographer.

Equally important as a Learning objective is a “Positive attitude to studentship” or engaging with the wider art school and other artists and parts of the university. I already do some of this with the extra curricular stuff I engage with such as Print Club, FABBS magazine article submissions, Black Country Type Photowalk, SpacePlay Volunteering, Riso Printing of my Zine, entering the Ilford competition and production of my Car Park zine. Each of these could do with a little explanation and a list of the benefits I see as a result of being involved in them.

The other topic we discussed was the “body of work” that is expected at the end of the year. Alice suggested I focus on getting a product ready, whether it be a progress of works over the year or a selection from the various experiments and produce something. I mentioned about the end product and the fact that I was feeling the physical weaving of photos was more engaging with me and was a more pleasing output. I did talk also of the Barrier to seeing the image such as the Vento Barrier Grid Method mentioned in this earlier post, and that I might have a page with morse code words cut out of it that the viewer can look through to see the photograph underneath it. 

Week 11 Pre-Warning

Due to being a week behind due to illness next week will see some focus on consideration of presenting the work that we produce and how important it is as part of the process.

For week 11 there will be an after-seminar task to research presentation methods and consider the presentation of photography in exhibitions that is consistent with the message of the photography. Go to an exhibition, check out how the images are displayed. I’ll look back at some of the exhibitions I’ve been to and consider how photos were presented. Whether it’s the classic photos on a gallery wall of the Vivian Maier Anthology at MK Gallery last year or the Photographers Gallery projection of images in virtual reality in the little alleyway of Oxford street in London.

Conclusion

Overall I was happy with the feedback I was given by Alice in the review and appreciate every piece of advice she offered. She called the research thing “nit picking” but I see it as valuable feedback that could help me lift my marks up further. The work I’ve yet to do consists primarily of the 2000 Word Essay, the production of some final images and tidying up of my blog/sketchbook so I’m pretty happy. It was also mentioned that I could apply for extenuating circumstances due to my dad dying two weeks ago but prolonging the submission date will only make me lazy and think I’ve got lots of time to get the work done, thus I’ll leave it later and still have to rush.