‘Entanglement’ was a difficult concept to grasp at the beginning of the course, not only for me but also for my peers. We struggled to find a clear meaning behind the concept, just to come to the realization that there is mot such things. Thanks to out tutor’s in-class explanations and further research, we understood that Entanglement is not only one set thing but can be a multitude of different things together.
Working in this group for the second time, expanding our project and bringing it to the ‘next level’ was a really engaging and useful experience for us. Being familiar with our work and each other’s personal skills, we were able to assign each other a specific task that would take advantage of those skills and would make the work come out as good as possible. Of course, one of the questions that arose in our brainstorming phase, was how to expand on the previous assignment and make it suitable for the exposition and how to maintain our concept clear and the idea we wanted to shear intact. In the future I would like to work more on exhibitions such as this one because in my opinion group work is a crucial aspect of working in the media field, where you are bound to work with strangers, planning and organizing a project. Also, I would like to explore more and develop even further on the concept of ‘city life’ and research more about this topic to be able to create more media material related to it. Elizabeth Wilson (1991) states ‘the city – as experience, environment, concept- is constructed by means of multiple contrasts: natural, unnatural, monolithic, fragmented’. This concept is what we wanted to show at someone who engages with our work, to show the different faces of the city and how it can be lived in completely opposite ways. On one side, you have the chaotic and busy city that never sleeps or rests, on the other you have those calm and relaxing places inside the city that almost makes you feel far away from all that confusion. For a possible future work, I wold like to expand upon this duality and maybe show also other types of the city in different ways being this a concept really close to me since during my life I had the opportunity to live in a lot of different cities, big or small, and being able to live and see them in all of their different faces.
Planning this exhibition was not a completely easy task, we had to think about how to transition our work from a 2D web page in a real-life 3D space and we proposed our ideas to each other evaluating which one of them would work the best for our project. Was only after we had the chance to examine the actual place the class would use for the exposition, that the more useful and concrete ideas came up. Initially we were planning to bring in some of Justin’s equipment for the people visiting to use and try out, but this idea was scrapped due to the fact that the equipment might not be entirely safe, and it could be damaged. So, we had to brain storm more until we decided to use a projector to show our work on a wall of the exhibition room with a set of headphones where people could listen to the relaxing sound of water in contrast of the busy and chaotic sound of the city playing in the room. Being able to explore the class where the exhibition would take place, was a crucial step in the planning phase of our project, all the different groups of our studio had tasks assigned to them where they had to figure out various features the room had, such as understanding how lights and the projectors work or making a map of the room. Thanks to all this organization and cooperation between the entire class, benefited everyone’s work and proofed to be important for the exhibition itself.
As stated in the introduction, at the beginning of this semester, the concept of entanglement was not something that me and the rest of the class really grasped at the beginning, only going deeper in the course, making assignments with my group, and trying different things, we begun to understand that entanglement can be not only about the media you are using, for instance you can entangle Music and video and text, but also an idea, something abstract and not tangible can be entangled. For example, me and all my group members started with a different ‘issue’ or ‘concept’ and we were asked to entangle them and see what they had in common and expand on them. Throughout the course my personal view of what entanglement was changed pretty drastically, the fact that the concept appeared so brad in the beginning was confusing for me, but going on with the course, I learned to embrace that confusion that essentially gave me the opportunity of exploring and being creative while improving my group works skills. Making ‘entangled media’ was stimulating and entangle our ideas with one another was in my opinion the best part. In making our project I had the chance to critically analyse all the aspects of my work and try to find everything that does and that does not work. All the preparation we did before the exhibition, gave us the opportunity to adapt the work and change it, to make so that it would look like the best way possible, of course much more could have be done with more time and less assignments to do for other classes, but in my opinion it was able to seamlessly combine all our issues and topics and create something original
References:
Wilson, T 1991, The Sphinx In The City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women, Illustrated Edition, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.
Bennett, J (2010) The Agency of Assemblages. In Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, London: Duke University Press, pp. 20–38. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=1170671.
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