Over the course of this public space orientated five-week project, I have learnt a plethora of new and exciting skills that sit both in and out of the digital realm. This field project has given me many opportunities to step far out of my comfort zone as well as educate me in parts of the design and making the process that I had previous rarely even considered.

What Skills and Knowledge Have I Gained?

Throughout the project I have been gaining new and exciting knowledge into the different ways that public art can have an effect on people and the environment around it, this began even on the first day of the project as I began researching various exhibitions that take place and how they have been used to impact those who visit them. Not only have I gained knowledge on various well and lesser-known public works, one of my favourites being the project 7,000 trees by Joseph Beuys. I find this to be a true and extremely impactful example of how work can have unprecedented circumstances that even the artist themselves have not considered.

As well as learning and researching public art, I have also gained substantial knowledge into new programs and techniques that are involved in the process of creating spaces and public art. As my work was chosen to be a sculpture I found the program SketchUp extremely interesting and rewarding to use, the pure expansive potential for what can be made on there is inspiring, I found that I picked up the techniques and process very quickly and I will certainly continue to use the program either within my next Graphics based subject project or in my spare time for smaller, self-led projects. Not all of the skills I have learned were within a digital format, I have also learned how to use a spot welder and in general creating physical work within a Maquette form. This is something that I found especially challenging and placed me far outside of my comfort zone, however, I found the experience to be filled with learning curves and the clear concept that I held in my head while making the maquette allowed me to quickly grasp and learn the skills necessary to push my maquette making further in future projects.

In What Way Could My Work Extend Through Placement in a Chosen Space?

Some of the effects of my work actually being created could be; a smaller environmental impact due to many of the lights on St Mary’s Street being turned off to allow my sculpture to have more effect and it acts as a large light source on its own. The large bench around it could help to bring people together more, A busy street in the center of a capital city is not often thought of a place to slow down and talk to someone, perhaps my sculpture and the benches incorporated into it could provoke interesting conversations between strangers who would otherwise never have interacted with each other.

How Has This Project Influenced me?

This project has certainly given me more of an insight into the extreme amount of detail and restrictions that are put in place when a public artwork is being considered. This project has changed the way that I approach work in many ways; one being that I now will consider stepping out of a digital format more often as the ease of manipulation and experimentation is easier and more customizable when creating something physically when compared to making a digital copy.

Overall I have enjoyed this project and will continue to develop the base skills that have been given to me over the last five weeks, the skills will continue to influence the way I create work for a long time and have inspired me to not only work harder within a digital sense but also to begin developing my physical creating skills.

Continuing on with my experimentations and developments within SketchUp, I now needed to finalise and document my sculpture within a digital presence

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Although I have an abundance of information and digital work for my sculpture, I am still lacking in many physically made artifacts that I can use to show my work in more realms than simply just a digital one. A maquette is required so that I can have something to physically manipulate during the presentation as well as assisting to create a clearer vision for how my sculpture would look and work if it were to be created. To begin this I have had some thoughts on how to make something that is easy to make and can clearly display the dynamic effects of my sculpture, the obvious choice is to just make an entire sphere and then perforate text into it, however, I would then struggle to make it light up and then it would remain a static object.

I have made some sketches of a concept that I think will remain both dynamic and effective.

(SKETCHES)

After these sketches, I then moved into creating the model physically, the materials used were a thick copper-plated wire to give the structure strong support but also still remain malleable as so I could adjust the wire clips to fit different sizes of paper in them. I used the spot welder for the first time as well as the concept of physically creating artifacts still being quite new to me, within my subject of Graphic Communication there is minimal need for these skills so there was a steep learning curve in place for me to create this maquette, as a result of this the aesthetic quality of the model suffered slightly. However, the functionality of the work remained surprisingly high quality.

The functionality of the maquette is quite effective and allowed me valuable insight into how my sculpture could potentially work outside of the digital realm. I felt it was extremely important to create a physically made piece for this project as it is an Artist Designer Maker based field project and I feel encouraged to step far out of my comfort zone and create something that would not normally be considered within Graphic Communication. The fact that this object exists physically allows me to easily manipulate it into different conditions and quickly gave me extra information that I had not previously considered into the function of how the lighting would work within my sculpture.

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Something that I quickly realised was that the further the light source was from the perforations within the paper, the larger and then as a consequence, the more distorted the shapes or text became. This gives me important insight into how the inside of the sculpture would have to be constructed, rather than having one single large lamp placed within the center of the hollow sphere, It would perhaps offer a more dynamic finish if the text was different sizes as well as the different fonts that would be used. Or maybe if the budget permits this then there could be a circle of lamps within the sphere that were placed onto poles that slowly shifted forwards and backward in order to change the size of the text throughout the night so that the same person visiting the same sculpture multiple times would still have something new to view for many times upon viewing the work.

The model is able to rotate so I can achieve different angles, allowing me to accurately represent a sphere with a piece of paper too large for the clips so that a natural bend is achieved within the paper so that while the maquette is being rotated along a single axis, the different view of the sculpture can be achieved.

Overall I think this work is executed to a lower standard than expected, but it still functions in the way I want it to, and it allowed me to become introduced to many new creative techniques that exist within the welding and Maquette creating realm. Future improvements would be to sand down and round off all the edges of the copper wires as well as ensure to take more time and straighten out all the wires so that I can achieve a more professional looking finish.

After a short tutorial with my tutor and presenting my work so far, some complications were raised and now these have been solved and as a result, my sculpture has moved forward and I think it now appears much more modern as well as being more multifunctional.

Including Seating Areas and Joining Together

One of the developments of my sculpture was making it more multifunctional. Starting with creating seating areas surrounding the sculpture. My first attempt took me back to my Sketchup file as I felt that it was the most effective program to quickly and effectively improve my sculpture as well as it allows me to constantly improve my skills with Sketchup.

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My first draft of including seating was a simple bench surrounding the circular structure. The benches would then simply repeat themselves around the whole piece. However, shortly after completion of a digital mock-up of this, I realized that this did not match the overall modern and contemporary look of the sculpture, I needed to include the actual work into the benches, the two seem far too separate for this to be considered modern and stylistic. The seating and other additional features require more development and more detailed consideration to be used in my final outcome.

Further Development

After some more inspiration and development, I have decided to make a more simple bench structure that is incorporated into the sculpture itself. By simply raising the back of the platforms to form the rest of people’s backs, and then using the steps as a footrest. Something I particularly like about this design is the fact that there are no bordering armrests, giving people more room as well as promotion open conversation between those who sit at my sculpture. I think this appears much more modern and minimalistic. Some precautions that I took while creating these benches was to ensure that the back of the seats do not obstruct the view from the lights coming within the sculpture, to stop this I have lowered the height of the other steps to allow the back to still remain functional, and still not obstruct any views for others.

Additional Features

As well as making the sculpture include seating, I decided to include a small water feature into the border of the design in order to make it more aesthetically pleasing for viewers who walk past it during the day.

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Including eight small water jets, The area behind the seats and in front of the sphere will be hollowed so that water can be stored there to fuel the jets. An immediate concern was the extremely close proximity between the water jets and a public seating area, To manage this I have included a small wind vane on the top of the spere, inspired by a large water piece within the Cardiff Bay area that measured wind and halts the water flow accordingly. The jets will lower in power and height as the wind rises as so to not spray close members of the public with the water. These jets could turn off and drain the water once the time reaches a certain point in the evening so that the function is not destroyed in the night and so that potential repairs can be made if necessary.

Naming The Sculpture

Now that the building and concept creation for my work is nearing completion, It seems appropriate to select a name for my sculpture. After a short brainstorm, I think the name needs something short snappy and modern to tie all the aspects of the work together. The name “Variance” shouts modern to me, The variance in the nationality of the late-night workers and the variance of languages, coupled with a varying typeface and resin colour placed on the text perforations seem to fit this work nicely.

In order to ensure that there is enough room for my sculpture to exist within St Mary’s Street, I decided to go and take some photos as I explored the street on a recent Rugby Matchday on the 30th of November. I found that the street was extremely busy and there was minimal room for my sculpture, however, once I arrived very close to where my piece would be situated there seemed to be a strange open spot where there was plenty of room. Photos of this particular area are to follow.

Thinking of situating the sculpture around the areas between the two large plant pots seen in the first photo. Unsure why the large area of space remained unoccupied for the duration of my photoshoot.

Overall, the general feel of the street was very hectic yet there seemed to be enough space within the center of the street for a sculpture to exist, with considerations taken in for the fact that these photos were taken on a match day, so for the remainder of the year, there would be an extremely large amount of space given the fact that the city is built to regularly accommodate a similar amount of people to the concentration seen within these photos. I think as long as I place it far enough behind the two large plant pots then the street cleaners should still be able to easily move around the structure.

5:30AM Shoot

As well as capturing photos during a busy day in the afternoon on St Mary’s street, I also felt it important to take some photos of an empty street where there are minimal lighting and a complete absence of people. This way I am able to show more successfully how the lights will affect the street and where the structure will go. Although the street is brighter than I first thought as there are still street lights on as well as some Christmas lights at this time of year. Some photos do help to show parts of the street that are poorly illuminated, however something to consider is that some of these street lights be turned off if my sculpture is placed there. helping the environmental impact of Cardiff alongside enhancing the overall impact of my sculpture’s existence. An interesting aspect that I captured was the buildings that surrounded the street, they were extremely tall and seemed to disappear into the background unnoticed and without appropriate utilization. Not only would the words of my sculpture be placed along the floor but they would also draw attention to these large and older buildings by placing text all across the building fronts. Even if the lighting on the street was not dimmed the coloured resin that covered the text perforations would still show through significantly as the street lights are almost entirely one single colour. So while these would perhaps improve my work, it is not necessary for it to take place.

Following on from this I think the next thing to complete it creating extras for the sculpture, for instance, creating surrounding benches and water features.

Potentials to Consider When Presenting

Ensure that you are being involved with the entirety of the production process (Creating sketches, becoming an overseer while the fabricators make the work etc.)

Alongside this, consider the effects of the work on other people than simply those who have created it.

Include my site visits within my presentation, answer the questions that I asked myself while I explored the site, to satisfy any potential queries that clients or viewers might have.

Professional styled, formal worded presentation.

Keep a sense of engagement within the presentation/work in order to stimulate debates as well as create a sense of ownership. Include information about every form of the potential impact that my work would have on the surrounding environment within my presentation.

Record ideas

Develop

Reflect

Build

Keep records of contacts and works.

Sculpture Name: Variance

After reviewing my ideas so far as well as looking at the Public art strategy file for Cardiff I have discovered that when creating public pieces of art certain criteria must be met to allow that art to qualify as fit for public use. One of these conditions is that the structure must not include a large amount of dangerous sharp edges and must be rounded at the corners. As my actual sculpture is a large sphere slight structure this will not be a concern in those fields, however, for the actual text perforations themselves, the typeface must be chosen carefully as to remain to be legible at a far distance as well as at several different angles, due to the existence of this conditions I think that a sans serif typeface will be necessary, A heavier set typeface will not only boost legibility but also will not the edges from being too sharp and violating any preexisting conditions. I am considering using a wide range of different typefaces within the structure as I think that this will make the sculpture and the lights surrounding it as interesting as possible to look at and interact with. A shortlist and visualization of my initial ideas for potential typefaces are as follows.

Looking through a large number of varying typefaces I have selected a smaller portion of more appropriate typefaces. While within graphics projects I normally have to reduce these options down to only one option, for this project I think that it may be appropriate to choose multiple to use for the sculpture. The different typefaces could be used to represent the different nations and the varying languages that will be cut into the work.

While I previously mentioned that the text had to be rounded in order to remain appropriate and conforming to the Cardiff Public Art Strategy, It is possible to use a sharper-edged typeface and then after perforating, I could simply sand down the edges of the text to make it safer. This could be mocked up digitally using methods found within Adobe Illustrator or potentially done within SketchUp.

Towards the end of my type explorations, I found that the bolder, heavier typefaces seem to work more effectively. Examples such as Futura were my favorite as the typeface is easily legible, nicely constructed and sans serif. However, I think that if I were to use Futura the sculpture could potentially lack a certain dynamic aspect, as the letterforms within the typeface are quite flat and predictable. However, I think that using a bold Futura font alongside a thinner font like Roboto would offer a nice degree of contrast and allow the sculpture to retain a certain degree of dynamism

I do not think that script font or decorative fonts would be appropriate as the text would already potentially become distorted by the shadows being cast out onto the floor and walls of the surrounding area, an easily legible typeface is critical and I think that the surrounding environment will be able to distort the text for me into new and interesting shapes.

I think that the font I will choose moving forward will be Futura and Roboto, these fonts are available in various different weights and styles so I am still free to experiment with varying styles once the text has been applied to the sculpture.

However, a point has been made on the surrounding environment and what effects that will have on the sculpture. I think that a photoshoot is required of St Marys Street on a busy day in order to judge where the flow of people is, what the volume of people is, as well as if there is even enough room for a large scale sculpture to exist within the center of Cardiff.