tahliahercuscofa

[tahliahercuscofa]

Iteration 5: The ex-boyfriend box

Quite possibly one of the most fascinating collections. We all have one but why? Having recently broken up with my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years I wanted to explore the ridiculous, yet beautiful collection of significant things and speak to the insanely personal meanings these things had associated with them. Why do I choose to keep and plastic spoon and a sugar stick, a handful of movie passes and bus tickets? In an aim to prove how personal this collection was I asked members of my family and a few friends what each of the items meant to me - not one person correctly associated the item to the meaning which assisted me in realising why we keep these collections and that is because they have an absolute meaning to us that they have to no one else.

[tahliahercuscofa]

Iteration 4: Nanna’s collection

My Nanna is a compulsive collector so I thought it would be appropriate to experiment with some of her ideas on what she thinks a collection is and why she collects, because frankly I had no idea. I sent her a message and I was pleasantly surprised with her answer, I thought that she had a particular reason for her larger collection of thimbles but basically she collects them for me. I loved this and hadn't considered it as a way of documenting a treasured relationship between two people and I know, that when I take care of the collection one day, I will cherish it and build on it to hand down to my granddaughter. A lovely example of collecting for the sole purpose of creating an heirloom.

[tahliahercuscofa]

Iteration 3: Who cares?

How do our collections convey information about our relationships with people…Supposedly going through my card collection of birthday/christmas/congrats/goodluck/bonvoyage etc cards the top 30 people that consistently sent me cards would be those closest to me.Through carefully tallying the results I found that the majority of the cards I had consistently collected were from my Nanna followed closely by my immediate family. The biggest group of people who I had kept cards from were those in High School. While these results were expected - there were a few outliers - single cards from people who I am very close to which simply speaks to the inconsistencies in collecting and then challenges the reasons for collecting if our collections are not accurate.

[tahliahercuscofa]

Iteration 2: Some things will never change

While the collection of documents provide the development of achievements and facts about me, I wanted to explore how the collection of photographs can illustrate physical development. Going through photo albums, I chose photos that were of me in a similar stance over the 19 years I’ve been alive. After layering them on top of each other I was fascinated to notice that this showed those aspects which have changed and those which haven’t. My eyes  and smile for example, have barely changed. While each individual photo is cherished, it is the overall collection of photos that really speak to physical journey I have undertaken. 

[tahliahercuscofa]

Iteration 1: Why?

Everyone collects things in one way or another - however is this something that we do for ourselves or to prove our existence to those higher than us. I’ve explored this idea by sorting through my collection of important documents that have been collected throughout my life including birth certificates, bank statements, driving test results, licenses, HSC, uni acceptance. To represent this idea that we must collect in order to prove our existence I have created a human bodice out of my documents standing for the importance of collecting personal documents as they represent who we are to the quantitative world! While this model of a body made from documents is not alive, neither am I without my birth certificate.

[tahliahercuscofa]

Going to have a play with some of the points my beautiful grandmother brought up in our conversation. I love how she has no clue how many thimbles she has. This is a great example of collecting for the sake of collecting.

[tahliahercuscofa]

Draft Iteration 3: Representing the importance of collecting important personal documents as they represent who we are to the quantitative world! While this model of a body made from documents is not alive, neither am I without my birth certificate.

[tahliahercuscofa]

Draft Iteration 3: Do we collect as evidence of achievement or evidence of existence! Going to do something super cool with photocopies of my collected documents showing how an individual is not recognised by the government without paperwork!

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Draft iteration 2: How do our collections convey information about our relationships with people...Supposedly going through my card collection of birthday/christmas/congrats/goodluck/bonvoyage etc cards the top 15 people that consistently sent me cards would be those closest to me...the results were very very interesting!

[tahliahercuscofa]

Draft Iteration 1: Do collections assist in documenting the development of a story - here I have use my parents collection of photographs of me and attempted to document my development through layering (trying to line eyes up). Bit of a fail!

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Assessment 3: Documentation

How does documenting in the form of collection show our development in life? Does it actually depict an accurate recount of development or is it just our obsession with collecting and holding onto the past that it rienforces?

[tahliahercuscofa]

our group is so lost in trying to represent our original thoughts...we are literally experiencing the problem we have been assigned

[tahliahercuscofa]

I had this abstract thought:

As a group we are trying to detriment our own original ideas to come up with something that represents what we think...isnt that kind of contradicting the whole point of the problem...could we perhaps figure out a creative way of explaining that!

[tahliahercuscofa]

Initial Ideas

Our team has individually researched what we believe our topic is about, here are the results:

Rachel: Rachel discusses the discrepancies between the perceived and actual in the way our brain works. Introducing to an article which explains how we see our hand to be shorter and fatter than it actually is, supports her concept of body image and how it relates to the detrimental representation of "original".

Priya: Priya introduces the philosophical thought experiment "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" which links to perception. She also challenges the meaning of the word "other" - does the "other" actually exist? Is it a stereotype in itself?

Alice: Alice's ideas are around the form of the human body and comparing the original to the current. Her ideas discuss the impact of human activity on the "original" form and detrimental experiments are used on the human form.

Tahlia: Tahlia's research is based on the idea of photographic representations eliminating the significance of an "original" experience. While the introduction of photography created many opportunities, her view includes the impact of photosharing over the internet such as instagram which is a continual act of detriment towards significant places, people and experiences. 

As you read, we have come up with four very different ideas and are in the process of collating these ideas to come up with a sound understanding of our concept. 

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Tiny Sydney Edited to create a completely different perspective!

[tahliahercuscofa]

An Instagram short film Whoot! Recreating "original" experiences through the detrimental acts of instagramming humans

[tahliahercuscofa]

HA! Great - people wasting their and being detrimental to an abys of original experiences!