Transformation slowly led onto the topic of disguise which then led onto the idea of lies. While I was looking at the idea of lies I started to also explore both secrets and the truth as it related to the topic.

During this week I was also able to visit the British Museum and take a look at their African and Aztec mask collection as well as gather some inspiration from the other works that are displayed at the museum. 

Another museum that I was able to visit this week was the Design Museum where I got to go to two exhibitions, one being the "Hello, my name is Paul Smith" exhibition. The Paul Smith exhibition was intriguing and unique which allowed it to be very inspirational to me and I was able to experience things that were part of Paul Smiths life. 

Prior to this we were asked to bring in a few items which included, an empty bottle, torch, sponge, paper clips, a couple of buttons, a ball, a sock and blu tack. We were also given a list of words to get us started on our project such as "to curl" etc.

Using these things given to us as our inspiration , we decided to firstly start by coming up with ideas that linked to all our final major projects, in order for the week not to be classified as a waste. Our final major projects consisted of my project with my, which is Tranformation, and my groups mates' projects which included, Comics, Mental Illnesses and The Idea of Beauty. By trying to combine this project ideas we came up with one idea which we were all happy about which included a peacock.

Our idea:

A female peacock spots a beautiful male peacock whom she promptly becomes jealous of because she has always wanted to be acknowledged as beautiful, however for peacocks it's always been the males that have the beautiful feathers whereas the females have always had the dull grey feathers. When she spots the male peacock she goes up to him and tried to interact however the male peacock is not attracted to her and this makes the female peacock resent him more, prompting her to kill him and steal his feathers.

We came up with this idea because it contradicted the normal idea of "beauty" where the female species where always the one that had to be "beautiful".

After brainstorming and making storyboards we decided to make a stop motion and a comic strip which related to both our pathways, Lens Based Media and Graphics.

Then, using the objects that we brought in we tried to make two peacocks, one male and one female, out of the empty bottles, paper, buttons for eyes and paper clips for the eyebrows and hair, and we succeeded.

Overall, I believe our group worked extremely well together as our ideas didn't clash at all, we each gave a fair amount of input and we worked as a team to

Therefore as part if my research I have decided to look at various techniques and procedures that allows a person to transform their appearance, this includes wearing masks, plastic surgery, make up, aging etc.

As part of my initial research I looked at artists and designers such as the American photographer Ralph Meatyard, the American illustrator Erik Jones, and designers Joachim Sperl and Raoul Hausmann.

Meatyards photographs of people wearing masks intrigued me not only because it obviously went along with my project nicely, but it was rather the fact that he uses the idea of depersonalising someone by taking their identity and little difference that people had away through the use of masks and so erasing all sense of personhood. Erik Jones on the other hand appealed to me because of how well he changed a simple painting by using intricate repeated shapes as well as bright and eye catching colours.

Taking these designers as inspiration I tried to then imitate some of their works. For Meatyard I used my own photographs that I created in his style by asking people that I know to pose absentmindedly for the pictures wearing masks.

While for Jones I simply drew over photographs that I took in the style of Meatyard but drew them in the style of Jones as well as made collages and painted over them using different shapes imitating that of Jones' illustrations. While experimenting with Jones' illustration styles, I also tried different ways of illustrating pictures such as drip water colours, which I became very fond of, although it was my first time illustrating in such a way, because of it's uniqueness.

As part of my research I believe that my trip last year to Venice was very fitting as Venice is known for it's beautiful Venetian masks, which sparked my research into mask's history and uses, but I also thought that my trip to the Punta Della Dogana museum was useful as I got to see artists there that transformed ordinary pieces into extra ordinary pieces such as David Hammons' "Untitled", 2000 (which is a glass basketball hoop which was transformed into a luxurious looking, crystal covered candle holder).



During this week I was also able to visit the Martin Creed exhibition at the Hayward gallery, which was definitely not a disappointment. Although it was quite an unusual exhibition that didn't strongly have anything to do with my project, it did focus a little on transforming spaces and how we, as the audience, perceive a space.