The Universe Is Shaped Exactly Like The Earth When You Go Straight Along Enough You End Up Exactly Where You Were

After talking with my tutors today my vague ideas of what to do are slowly becoming more defined and focused I think. The whole idea I've come to is to do with humans destroying the Earth and nature and how in the future nature will fight back as the two become further and further apart and the only way nature can survive is by fighting back. This fits the broad Gaia concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment in order to make the environment more suitable for life.

I've been listening to this song basically so much since starting this project. The lyrics and whole mood of the song link to what I'm doing I think in a way.

I'm going to start putting up more work hopefully, I just don't enjoy the whole scanning process.

THE STORY SO FAR...

Now Easter has definitely finished and college has started again I thought I should evaluate my progress in my research so far.

After choosing a monstrous subject: The Future to base my project on I was hoping through research I could narrow it down to a fine point and carry on with that direction. That has been a harder task than I thought but so far I feel I'm going somewhere with my research and ideas.

First thing I think the quote 'Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future' by Wilde is a quote that summarises where I sort of knew I wanted to go with my work with the whole idea of the world getting worse, humans ruining it and themselves (because no one wants to draw happy people.) This is a quote I feel I can work with even if I don't directly relate to it and has led to me to start thinking about the enviroment and how we're destroying it but also the recent economy crises and how we're even managing to destroy this made-up, all powerful, fictitious thing called the economy. Not only are we destroying it but we're letting it destroy us.

This whole idea of me thinking about the economy and the environment was in progress when I managed to end up on a book review about the baby boomers and how they've ruined our futures. Not only are we going to have to pay ridiculous taxes for their pensions but also have been the wealthiest generation. Money aside they've also probably been one of the most influential generations on the downfall of the environment and increase of pollution, leaving us with this poisonous toxic society that we live in. So although this doesn't strictly fit into Wilde's quote in a weird way it sort of does proving the point that modern society is full of pollution and stress leading to sin.

Along with the ideas above I've been thinking about the rapid increase in population and how there's only so many houses you can make with a functional world still existing. This is something which like the baby boomers is relevant to my life now as it will be in the future with England being the most densely populated country in Europe (possibly the world?) Anyway this thought process made me think J.G. Ballads book High Rise could be an interesting read as it is about a society of people in a tower block who have everyone and everything they need(according to them) surrounding them so they eventually spend all their time inside this human built world in the sky and it all goes horribly wrong(I think I haven't actually read all of it yet).

After Geoff's presentation in college I have also begun to revaluate how I do my research; instead of just looking at directly related research I've started to broaden it by looking at different things that could influence my drawings and colour schemes I like. I have also started to put together an A1 sheet of landscape influences, with photocopies, illustrations and making collages from landscape images. I'm going to do this for my character design for the people in the future and also the machines and technology so I have a few A1 pages of research that I can easily reffer to when drawing my initial ideas and final projects.

After this week I'm going to start slowing down my research by spending next week experimenting and figuring out a concrete final idea with plans and sketches of alternate ways I can make it so in two-two and a half weeks I should be able to just get on with my final piece.

GORE AND NAZI PORN POSTERS

I found this website called www.thewrongsideofart.com which seems to have every weird amazing film poster ever made. All the genres from aliens to nazixploitation to sex education films. I don't know why blockbusters these days fail to have posters that don't seem like they've had the same fancy photoshop template as every other film. Surely if they can make such amazing posters for some b movie that never really made any money let alone be remembered, they can't for any of the new ones. These posters just seem to tell you so much about the film which I think these days they don't.

First of all I started looking at the Naziploitation one's, naturally. Nazi art and the whole design of their campaigns has always been admirable and probably quite groundbreaking even if some wouldn't want to admit it. But one way of making something better is by adding seductive women. i like the way the first two of these try to stick to the original look of nazi posters making it almost subtle that they're not propaganda from the 1930's, which you later realise by the nudity and cleavages. This sort of poster art and the layouts are something I want to explore for my final major project as the layout is very important and something I fail at, at times.

I then moved onto looking at the more obvious gore and Sci-fi posters which never fail to amaze me. As much as I'd like to say I will do some illustrations like these it would be kidding myself but in any case they're nice to look at as inspiration seeings as my drawings will be of the future so Sci-fi art and illustration is something I feel will be important in my research.

RICHARD CHASEMORE

I bumped into the illustration of Richard Chasemore by accident online but after having a look at his work I love how technical it is and the way he draws machines. He does the drawings for Dorling Kindersly books as well as Star Wars. I'd like to be able to produce such detail in my work, I'm going to start studying images to enhance my drawing as this is something I have not done enough this year so better late than never.

HIGH RISE

I've started reading this book 'High Rise' by J.G. Ballard. It's an interesting read (so far) and the concepts of a microcosm society in the future as everyone living in this high rise block of apartments are surrounded by all that they need they become more and more reclusive. I was thinking about how in the far future with the population growing at an alarming rate building will have to start going up in the sky or underground/underwater to accommodate all the people. I was thinking this could play a key role in my large scale A1 drawings as an arrangement or background.

SKETCHBOOK

I started looking at my dads 2000AD 1984 annual and got inspired to do some drawings using line and some bold colour in the first. No doubt the character is influenced by Judge Dred but hey, I AM THE LAW.

HOW TO SAVE THE COUNTRY BY ACCEPTING YOUR PARENTS HAVE FUCKED YOU OVER

Just saw this article on a vice blog about a book coming out by Neil Boorman called It's All Their Fault: A Manifesto. As you can probably tell by now it's about how the older generations have fucked over our future with student debts and every baby being born with 22,000 debt effectively. Basically the book puts forward some interesting predictions as well as hard facts about the future for the up and coming generations.

These sort of facts are something I can start moulding my project around looking at possible outcomes in the future, with all the old pensioners living the life whilst everybody else lives in a crippled world full of debt which would inevitably lead to a broken society and a world of ruin.

ARTICLE

HOW TO KILL YOUR PARENTS

EVERY SAINT HAS A PAST AND EVERY SINNER HAS A FUTURE

As I begin to get more and more wrapped up by my final major project for college this blog will probably start to take one direction: The Future. This is what I've decided the theme's going to be and something that I've been researching throughout my Easter. I was looking at famous quotes about the vast subject and I ended up picking Oscar Wilde's "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future". For me this quote is about the corruption and downfall of the world as the more we progress and go on the more we seem to fuck the world up and the more society and the connections between nature and humans seems to fall apart.

As a starting idea I would like to end up with some drawings and an animation which is short and a collage maybe with the quote being read out. I would like to go bigger with my drawings maybe some A1 sized drawings as this is something I often fail to do but I'll see what happens.

Recently I've been looking a lot at the work of Gary Panter as his vast influence on many of the illustrators I like is really strong. When I was on his website browsing I found the section of his work which is all light shows. I've been into light shows for a while without really knowing too much about them or making any myself. Panters use of line over a use of bold colours is something which translates well into illustration as well as lights and something I'll look at for my animation projection. I also like the more abstract ambient shapes that he uses which has a very Sci-fi feel and looks like some sort of projections of space.