Project Brief Four

REFLECTION

Project brief four was a vast learning experience for me in many ways, as Nicolette and I worked towards creating an artefact to represent television as an institution.

Collaboration is significant in order to function as a successful and able media practitioner. This task was the first of which I had to work critically and creatively with other person in order to create a single sustainable piece of work.

We were told in week six’s lectorial of the importance of forming a working relationship with our group members both professionally and socially. This certainly helped my experience as once I was able to feel comfortable in all environments I found it easier to express myself in terms of our project. This enabled me to speak out when I felt things weren’t working and allowed me to listen to Nicolette when I was shown better ways to achieve our goals.

Certainly the most difficult task was allocating time in which we were both free to complete tasks. We outlined clearly in our collaborative contract when we would make ourselves available to meet so this definitely assisted when allotting times. We had a few issues with illness and various external factors but were eventually able to find a balance that worked best for us. I learnt a lesson in the importance of compromise and understanding the needs of my partner as well as my own. Initially it was difficult to allot time for the more consuming tasks such as filming and editing, but we were able to (I feel) successfully communicate via email, Facebook and Google drive to enable us to complete work separately but to each of our standards.  As such, when we were able to meet in person, our work moulded quite well.

I feel like our work is quite textured. We attempted to do so in order to convey the vastness of television as an institution. We both took into account what we had learnt in the previous two project briefs in trying to create a successful piece. We also took inspiration from readings such as M Horkheimer and T Adorno’s 1972 paper entitled Dialectic of Enlightenment which challenged us to create an art piece too representation television as an institution.

I think structuring our project was difficult as we had a wide range of knowledge to show, but attempted to do so in a creative and entertaining way. As such we had to adapt our initial plans of a stand alone video to created something more whole and sustainable. I think that because our plans changed the final result is clumsy in some aspects. We perhaps dedicated too much time to post production and dismissed some important elements in the pre production stage.

Brian’s feedback during class helped us tremendously in forming clarity of our ideas and tantalising all our information into a much smaller concept of the mobility of the TV institution. As I was ill and unable to attend a tutorial, Nicolette was able to communicate the class’ thoughts regarding the project brief and what could be done to improve our artefact. This allowed for our independent thought before we meet to reassess our ideas.

Class discussion and feedback was helpful in other ways too. It assisted in our initial understanding of the term institution and the limitations and restrictions this form set to us. When we first drew institutions, both Nicolette and myself were a bit hesitant. Though overall though I am proud of what Nicolette and I have achieved as it was far beyond our initial expectations.

There was a fine border between making our project about television as an institution above television as a medium. We took this into account when deciding to include a document outlining what our abstract piece conveyed. We challenged ourselves in choosing this medium to present as much of it’s meaning is developed through personal reflection. Therefore we found it suited this task to create a few accompanying pieces. ‘Television is on the move’ has a light approach to this matter and as such one can identify the unfamiliarity with TV not being on the couch in the living room environment. Environment was so important to us, as much of our research was directed towards televisions place institutionally in our homes and in our lives.