My project four is displayed as a blog to represent the alternate perspectives (under subject 1, 2 and 3) all housed within the same location.
Task 4
on Category: Task 4
on Blog 3
on When visiting the location with my sisters, as expected, the animals took up a huge part of the attention paid.
As part of the project experiment style, I asked them to each pick a place to go and then pick what they wanted me to take pictures of, also prompting them to look at more than just the animals. Through this I noticed that my youngest sister, Charlotte, took interest in the animals when they were alone rather than in groups or herds. Whenever she asked me to take a picture of something it was usually a single animal, “that zebra,” or “the meerkat.” I am not sure why she was more drawn to these. Perhaps because she is younger, focusing on one is a little easier than several, doing different things. She tends to do this when reading books too- will generally point to one illustration out of the whole page and talk about that.
Contrastingly, my other sister, at eight years old, enjoys reading everything she can understand- because her literacy is improving. Thus, she paid a lot of attention to the signs, telling us what lots of them said, if there were no pictures to tell, yet also asking to take pictures of the animals, single and in groups, too. The concentration differed a lot between the two, and I think I only noticed because I know them so well.
Just with the Abbotsford Convent in task three, the Zoo proved to be a generous location to house different attention, perspectives, etc.
Blog 2
on The next location I’ve chosen for my sisters to visit with me for task four is the Werribee Zoo. Although I have been here before it hasn’t been for around 10+ years and I have little recollection of what it actually looks like.
What I enjoyed in task three’s location (Abbotsford Convent) was the way that the natural landscape worked so harmoniously with the architecture there too. I feel that zoos will try to incorporate this blending of sceneries together too, and so I think it would be a good location to choose.
When I visited the zoo alone, my attention was obviously drawn to animals there, but again, I found that the signs and buildings had an aesthetic that was really colourful and eye-catching. Understandably, it had to be this way to draw peoples attention to where they needed to go, and I think it was these colours that captivated me. I also liked the rustic and tribal feel that the location gave off- and I feel like the pictures I took from my experience encapsulated the warm and bright colours the landscape offered.
To note: I have also never been to a zoo alone, and so I think the animals were actually less of a novelty when I was by myself. Although i did go to the different to exhibits of theirs, I also paid a lot more attention to the foliage and manmade structures aswell.
Blog 1
on 
The first steps for my final project were to:
Choose people for my experiment and to choose a location too. I settled on choosing my two younger sisters again, and settled on Port Melbourne as the location for them to go to. I picked this randomly off of the map and was somewhat sure that they hadn’t done there before, as they had told me they hadn’t. However when we arrived, I realised they had been there before, and quite recently, so I didn’t want this to be the final location. I also found that the prospect of using a mic and having them notice sound here was pretty difficult on a windy day- not effective like I had hoped. My next task was to therefore find a new place to go, and a new medium to attempt.
Task 4 Reflection
on Task 4 Reflection
At the beginning of this studio, the task of ‘noticing’ felt like it would be simple, as noticing things is in our nature- something we do every day. I initially wasn’t sure where this topic would lead my final project to, as it felt too broad to really zone in on something specifically. However, during task one, the idea of forcing yourself to notice something you wouldn’t usually, was a lot more difficult than it seemed. Simply saying to yourself “Today I’m going to take notice of all the street signs I pass” sounds like it could work, in theory, but when put into practice, I found that as a starting point it was more difficult than I had anticipated. When something is as routine as getting to and from a familiar place, we tend to look over the simple things, such as the names of streets, roads, etc. For me, especially, I tend to generally look over such things and that was why I made it my mission, in a sense, to take note. As a beginning point, this forced me to pay attention to the things I actually pay attention to, and question, ‘Why do I notice this, rather than that?’
I think it was task two; travelling to a new place, out of my usual routine, that made really gave me the idea for task four. Because, when put into a new environment, I could not blame my noticing on any predispositions I had of the location. There was no biased for the environment that I was in. Instead, the things I noticed would say more about what I am susceptible to noticing rather than what is outwardly there.
Because of my younger sisters’ involvement in my task three, and the way that turned out, I wanted to do some research on the way that children perceive things- how this may be different to adults because they have had less time to adopt preconceived beliefs and bias opinions. Some of the research made task three a lot more understandable. I noticed through task 4 that at locations, distractions were a big issue in experiencing their environment. For example; when my sisters saw the Spirit of Tasmania ship it was difficult for them to notice much else, as they had experienced this before. However, I started to see that this wasn’t a distraction, it was just their different way of noticing, similarly to how I may be ‘distracted‘ by the sunset, etc.
I don’t think my final project reflects everything I have learnt in this studio-
I was not happy with the way I tried manipulating photos to show different perspectives. I was also unhappy with how I could not stick to my desired schedule that I had made up in class. Minor complications kept arising and I ended up putting the project off until it all became too much of a rush. However, I do think task four is an approach, nonetheless, at attempting to explore the notion of noticing and all that comes with it. I found that my most difficult task was figuring out which medium would best fit the idea I was looking at. What I explained in my proposal was how I was very interested in the readings idea of ‘nature as a backdrop for human consciousness.’ I think this tied in really well with the idea of one location and multiple perspectives. As much as an environment has its own noticeable features and things that stand out, we will all experience it differently from one another- no matter how similar we are. That was the idea I wished to explore through my work in task four.
I decided to present task four as a single blog with three separate sections to represent the three different perspectives. I found this way effective for me because the blog as a whole acts as the location whilst the three links (subjects) act as the three separate perspectives, of the same place. Evidently, my younger sisters experiences were different to the one I had at the zoo, but the changes are really subtle until looked on over and over. I think this is because the zoo does tend to draw your attention to one thing at a time, (usually animals). However, I chose images that really did demonstrate what my sisters also focused on.