Mark Ecob’s blog

Video link: myfoodthing.mp4

FINAL TUTORIAL NOTES 290425

– Angel – it tells the story in a different way, not just a standard document.

– Framework of an official government document, the grid within it, as a way to intersperse the story

– Start of project, taking away, doing the same thing here. Ripping the document. Wish you did it literally. Physically engage with the document, exploration through materiality could be more meaningful.

– Perhaps use a blow up of document as scale, rip[ing it away like a poster.

– Different document underneath, birth certificate to driver’s license or marriage certificate, could offer a chance to speak about these stages of life, at those moments.

– Interesting way of a story, telling it through the medium of the birth certificate. There is room for doing it with other government documents. We need them, but they don’t really say anything about US.

– Some moments to illustrative in the video – big syringe, don’t need to illustrate everything! Don’t need the image, perhaps just keep moments. No need to fill the whole thing. Let the conversation happen.

– Needs an edit/art direction stage to come back to it. Practicality stopped that stage, problem with timing on the MA.

– Does this lend itself to something imprint in the next stage?

– Gayatri: liked the stamps, could they have stayed? Could the document at the end keep those. Houman – the stamps are a chance to express feelings.

– Document changed at the end, but it could be more obvious, take it further?

– Victoria – this could be layered, the official stuff at the top, the new, personal stuff underneath.

CONCLUSIONS:

– Another level of iteration would have been great, but no time.

– Documents as expressions of identity the theme right now, take forward into Positions through contextualising. Add depth to them.

Chloe Turner and Esther McManus

Notes from today’s presentations, gallery visit and symposium:

• Esther made me realize that publication is more than a media, the choices I make with stock, colour, the materiality is in itself a form of craft. Could my Positions through iterating response include an archive or share this kind of curation? Renewed my interest in publications. I am yet to make one this year but it’s on my list! Eager access publications workshop.
• “What can you learn from the materiality?”
Iterating sheds light on things, experimentation in practice develops questions.
• Asked Esther when she became comfortable with the unfolding nature of practice, I feel like I’m just turning the corner now.
• Very interested in her layering approach with content and her cross year studio.
• Discussed with Esther and Chloe authenticity and honour in working with natural and how you present it, needs to be true to the content, the audience. Another example of co-design.
• MESEUM OF TRANSOLOGY exhibition was amazing. First I was taken in by the personal side of it, particularly the trans kid section. I was immediately it by how unprepared or uneducated my kids are on Trans rights and the Trans community, as am I. The placard ‘STR8 CIS MEN NEED THERAPY NOT US’ hit particularly.
• In ever-changing landscape of Trans debate, archiving “returns us to the object”.
• Concept of archive material being lent out, placards back into a protest and used like a library book being loaned, adding to its life.
• Archiving as protest?

Ven diagram completed.

Methods of iterating was the most inspiring, meaningful and offers the most potential for expansion.

MEDIA: Letterpress. METHOD: Reversed, reclaiming ink from the page, illustrating with negative space.
TOPIC(s): Identity, documents, simple and expressive messaging, typography.

Snippet taken from video submitted at the end of Methods of iterating project, where a letterform removes ink from a word, creating something new…

Thoughts for next iterations:

– Start with this video still
– Consider going into the letterform further, what would happen if parts of a petter, serifs, uprights, crossbars were taken away too, would that offer insight?
– Perhaps repurpose the paper used in the video into parts of the booklet?
– Print a new word or phrase
– Pronoun concept discussed
– Identity documents discussed, taking print away from them?

Overall, time is very short between now and tutorial 2. I will begin with experiments and see where it takes me, with an eye on developing references for part 2 of the brief. Any printing and binding will need to be very simple, a single day to iterate, print and bind is available.

Visual Essays
with Verónica Posada Álvarez/Lucy Rogers
Mar 13th, 2025
10:00–17:00
F205


– Chose HOME (and Home Making) as my topic, with a view to use material from Methods of Translating to create a visual essay
– Defining home – safety, warmth, familiarity
– Struggled with being objective, looked at various permutations with myself and my father compared, census data from our lifetimes, themes of fatherhood and male role models, mental health etc. Encouraged by tutor but unable to give this critical context
– Final experiments looked at statements about Dad combined with video and photography, and situating location-specific census data alongside family photography of that location.
– Other group members’ work included great work, standout examples were Cicely’s Kings Cross project and also a dinner plate/gathering concept from some year 2 students

Notes from Labours 2 workshop:

• Interesting exercise in citing a set of people who inspired our group individually (Anthony Burrill, Dana Abdullah, Raymond Queneau, Anne Alders, Oswin Tickler). In group with mainly Yr 2 students
• We cited using Language in the form of Text and vice versa after eliminating more everyday connections such as form, methods craft.
• Fascinating way of reconsidering connection, citation
• ‘Book Waste Book’ reference – everything about supply chain and material on the imprint page in the prelims, very interesting for my industry background
• We chose the loafers image to ‘citate’ and considered everything from materials to corporate map of sales, distribution, company ownership all the way to basic ‘commons’ involved in the production or a shoe, and cultural references such as the Japanese heritage in the design

15/2/25

Tutorial 1 notes
• Eduardo advised that in his research, motion was not recommended in icon design focussed on improving accessibility
• José – simplified the toolbox in Adobe, can this expand to other tools? Can it be more complex?
• Adobe software monopoly discussed, pricing means majority of users catered for are sighted
• Is bespoke toolbox design achievable? Will we alienate one community if we work with another?
• Abbie – conversely, the development of technology has adversely the affected accessibility
• Beatrice – project is functional, recommends ally-ship and approaching the community we are focusing on to develop the enquiry and inform the design. Community-specific testing
• José – WACOM connection? Example from mark’s experiments, practical consideration in a week
• Abbie – recommend narrowing it down either ICONS, NAVIGATION or APATHY (Adobe issue), we’re asking the right questions.


Follow up meeting with Harry and Jane, with Abbie – agreed to approach various practitioners of low sight or connected to the community, to provide user led feedback. Also started sharing references for written piece.

My final iterations were two videos, available here on Onedrive:
Iteration 1: https://artslondon-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/m_ecob0820231_arts_ac_uk/ER4HrtyoXylLssVLa-rFbUsBz7Nsm-Gj20S2UBusHev1YA?nav=eyJyZWZlcnJhbEluZm8iOnsicmVmZXJyYWxBcHAiOiJPbmVEcml2ZUZvckJ1c2luZXNzIiwicmVmZXJyYWxBcHBQbGF0Zm9ybSI6IldlYiIsInJlZmVycmFsTW9kZSI6InZpZXciLCJyZWZlcnJhbFZpZXciOiJNeUZpbGVzTGlua0NvcHkifX0&e=jhkiOn
Iteration 2: https://artslondon-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/m_ecob0820231_arts_ac_uk/EXzHMyiv-fJPl1GwiWa–FwBTAxQvRvULjj67KsKWkGbyQ?nav=eyJyZWZlcnJhbEluZm8iOnsicmVmZXJyYWxBcHAiOiJPbmVEcml2ZUZvckJ1c2luZXNzIiwicmVmZXJyYWxBcHBQbGF0Zm9ybSI6IldlYiIsInJlZmVycmFsTW9kZSI6InZpZXciLCJyZWZlcnJhbFZpZXciOiJNeUZpbGVzTGlua0NvcHkifX0&e=E90G4M

Some notes from my final tutorial:
• Yellow version works better, more contrast and curation
• The removal of the T is enough
• If iterated further, remove line between the words
• Consider space around it, now the move to moving image, is there a way of echoing ‘furniture’ from letterpress or a background?
• Yellow one succeeds because all of the hands are moving together
• Newsprint version (iteration 2) is more fruitful to printmaking, but feels like a proof or draft
• Artist mentioned as reference but incomplete – ‘Sebastian ____’, neon artist, being between words like this, to follow up
• Now I have the tool, further iteration could mean new words and brining this to a wider audience
• Could this riff on identity, could I commission cut letters of elements on identifying documents for me and repeat this process, asking “how are we defined by documents?”

The form of draft 3 of my written response is a video.
Due to memory constraints, it is available here on OneDrive: https://artslondon-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/m_ecob0820231_arts_ac_uk/EehlRFMMQO1KrFTJqtbn9PYBNWrqB6rn9FKh6xWVmmyR3w?nav=eyJyZWZlcnJhbEluZm8iOnsicmVmZXJyYWxBcHAiOiJPbmVEcml2ZUZvckJ1c2luZXNzIiwicmVmZXJyYWxBcHBQbGF0Zm9ybSI6IldlYiIsInJlZmVycmFsTW9kZSI6InZpZXciLCJyZWZlcnJhbFZpZXciOiJNeUZpbGVzTGlua0NvcHkifX0&e=StRlZG

Please contact me at m.ecob0820231@arts.ac.uk for any access issues. Thank you.