Creating a photo book to conclude my project has been a very useful and enjoyable process. I feel the publication has helped me to refine my final ideas regarding imagery and the layered aesthetic that embodies the concepts of memory and recalling the past. It has also facilitated a great deal of experimentation with print and has enabled me to explore typography and elements of book design such as inserts. Building on from my past experience with book design in Part 2, I found I wanted to improve upon the last publication I created and make my final outcome more tactile and with a greater sensory experience for the reader. I hope that through using a matt paper stock combined with acetate pages, the design prompts the reader to interact with the book and focus on how the imagery changes when layers are folded back and replaced. 

I incorporated both my own photographs and photographic manipulations as well as archive sources using a combination of text focussed pages and purely photographic spreads. For the text elements I focussed on layering passages of both contemporary and 1960s accounts of the village, relevant to the corresponding image, using acetate. On two spreads I wanted to combine images of both eras by including an insert which formed a small section of the historic equivalent of the scene today. The first of which uses a square cutout from a section of a historic photo of the bridge to place four Edwardian children directly into the modern scene. The second is a cutout of Church House in the 1900s bound on top of the modern-day location. Printed on two sides, the archive photograph inserts flip over and equally correlate to the other half of the image on the opposite page. In the central pages I printed my photograph of the dovecot: a hazy and largely featureless depiction layering both my scale projection and Photoshopped images of the structure. Using acetate sheets inserted between four blank pages, I was able to create two opening flaps that displayed the dovecot in the early 20th century that aligned with the photograph beneath. 

I hope that once the lockdown is over, I will be able to show my publication to some of my neighbours and discover whether the images and text can provoke memories of their past experiences in the village.

Questions I would like feedback on:

- Do you think that the imagery and design communicate the concept of recalling memories of a location and times gone by?

- Does the publication give the reader a sense of the village and its history?

With the current situation making it difficult to leave the house to continue to take photos I believe I should now consider the creation of a final outcome without making more imagery and to instead work with the photographs I already have. I have been inspired by the book design work of Konstantin Eremenk to create a photo book. I hope now to turn my focus to creating a small publication using the archive photographs and some of my unedited contemporary pictures to create a design which combines the two more organically, perhaps using a simple collaging technique to do so. I have explored some possibilities for content in my sketchbook.

Questions I would like feedback on:

• Do you think this is the best way forward at this time with the current constraints?
• If I were to create a photo book how would I go onto display the final product, my intention would be to simply take a photo of each spread - would that be acceptable?

       Thank you

Working with the projector and acetates continues to prove challenging. I am finding that to achieve effective results that layer my imagery both in a decipherable and aesthetically pleasing way a difficulty with this media. Although from each shoot I have found one or two images to have interesting features, overall, I am not happy with the quality of these photographs.

One of the issues I have discovered with this technique is that the digital projection, when photographed, creates a very pixelated image. I have also found that shining a torch light through acetates layered in front doesn't create a clear image when both projections are combined simultaneously. 

After last night's outcomes not working out quite as I had hoped I decided to test another scene using digital projection and one printed acetate layer, once again suspended from the ceiling. This time I introduced layered text into the piece which was relevant to the scene. I decided to focus on the old water pumps that still remain in the village today. I printed the contemporary photograph onto the acetate and projected two shots of villagers both beside one of these pumps from the mid 19th century behind. After finding text regarding both a contemporary account of the changes to village life and archive source that dealt with the village’s water source both from Hanks’ book, I layered the two using Photoshop and combined the archive images. By placing the text in the centre, where I was also to place the suspended photograph, I hoped the two different elements would combine together when I projected the white type through. My choice of Helvetica and italicised Baskerville was to further reflect the difference between the modern and archive texts. 

When it came to the photoshoot, I found it difficult to capture both the foreground acetate film and the digital projection as my camera wasn't able to cope with the large f-stop required for a larger depth of field in such a dark setting. My camera would only take the photo at f/14 due to the lighting conditions and therefore I was only able to focus on either one of the layers at a time. This made it difficult to achieve the effect I wanted as I had aimed for the images to look more like those I had taken outdoors with in-camera layering effects. Despite this setback, I aim to trail this technique again with a different village scene when I get my tripod back from my student accommodation, hopefully this will make it easier to capture the projection.

As an installation piece, I felt the use of space to display all the photographs was quite effective and looking through all four films together in daylight was visually interesting albeit difficult to capture with a camera.

I found the outcomes using the projector when it was dark a little disappointing as partly as the density of the suspended photos meant the picture projected through was partially blocked out. The use of an additional torch light to shine through the films did little to enhance the projected image. It was only when I removed all but two of the sheets did I achieve a discernible image projected onto the digital projection. The only way I was able to finally produce an effective projection was through using a single torch light and the acetate sheets without the accompanying digital projector, but even then the four layers together blocked out too much light. Going forward with these analogue techniques I aim to continue exploring the possibilities digital projection has to offer and use only one acetate photograph in front of the projection to ensure both images can be seen clearly.

Using the same acetates that I had used the day prior, I explored ways of working indoors with my printed films and a digital projector. After experiencing some difficulties with the clarity of the projection using acetate films and a torch, especially during the scale project, I decided to order a small projector to help my experimentation and enhance the quality of the final images. In the evening, I created a setup whereby the projector was placed behind four acetate sheets printed with variations of the same scene with photographs ranging from a 1950s monochrome shot to my present day image. I referenced Michaela Nettell, Tom Simmons and neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers and their installation piece which explored the ways in which networks of brain cells recall memories. I was inspired by their piece Pattern Completion and considered to how I could create an installation which similarly utilised suspended elements and projection to communicate this theme. I felt the use of the acetate sheets once more would help create a layered effect whilst the digital projection behind would provide the light needed to shine through the photos as well as another more malleable visual that would be viewed on the wall. These films were to be suspended from the ceiling using thread, equidistant from one another and all hung in a row with the oldest photograph in the foreground. 

Response to Stephen Gill's photographs: layering using in-camera effects

After looking into Stephen Gill’s ‘Outside In’ series which aims “to evoke the feeling of the area at the same time as describing its appearance” through the creation of in-camera photograms which incorporate found objects into the image. This is achieved by placing certain small objects on the film’s emulsion allowing them to be integrated into the negative and final print in a way that digital editing fails to achieve any where near as authentically. I began considering ways of similarly incorporating the archive photographs in with the modern scenes and recalled many examples of artists how held the historical photograph in line with the same scene as they found it today. I liked the way that this would effectively morph the two eras together in a single image without the use of digital manipulation, but it would not have had the same raw quality that Gill achieve through utilising the semitransparency of his found objects so that the scene beyond is only partially interrupted. I wanted the essence of the historical scene to be layered with the contemporary vista, but in a way which did not make the historic photograph explicit, and like ‘Outside In’, left a sense of ambiguity as to what is placed over the landscape. 

I decided to use the archive images I had printed acetate film to be held in front of the lens in order to layer the two periods of the village's history together. As I was wary that someone might notice that this outing to take photographs wasn’t exactly a “necessary journey” for exercise or shopping I chose to only photograph the two locations closest to my house. I started by layering Littons and the old Post Office with the tinted photograph from the 1950s. The lighting conditions enabled me to capture the buildings in bright sunlight allowing the honey-coloured stone to show through the monochrome films tinting the historical photographs when the two were aligned. I was especially pleased with the results when I had used a smaller aperture of around f/16 which made the foreground image slightly blurred, however, the shape of the foliage and buildings were still decipherable in front of the clear scene in the background. I would like to explore this method further but I don’t want to make too many trips out of the house given the current circumstances. 

Refined film to remove animated graphics. Made the film look cleaner and increased the clarity of the information that was presented in between shots.

• With regard to my moving image work, should I continue to explore this way of working with moving image editing in a more analogue way with projection (test film shown below) or should I keep developing work like I have done using PremierePro? (final film in Outcomes page)

• Is the distribution of my current work (the photographic manipulations) to villagers for their feedback the right way to progress right now or should I continue to explore more ways of creating imagery before I begin to think about the photos' final display?

For my final photographs I set up a painted wooden board and leant it against the stone wall so that this would act as a projection screen and I hoped that I would be able to capture the surrounding setting beside the projection. Setting up two bases for my printed photographs to sit on, I was able to get someone to aid me in holding the two torches up so that the photographs would meet together on the middle of the board. Still then the outcome wasn’t sharp and my subject wasn’t particularly clear even on the plain board. This set up only worked successfully with one of my five sets of photos and this one displayed the Dovecot. I believe this was down to the fact both were printed in black and white and had more pronounced, heavier and distinguishable shapes.

How did your scale outcome have impact within a space? 

The final scale outcome was around 1m squared and created an impact due to its placement and size. The piece was fully contextualised within the space it was presented owing to its geographical location in the village and the surrounding visual information; such as the Cotswold stone wall. Disappointingly due to the lighting conditions that evening probably being too bright, the projection wasn't very clear and lacked impact when it came to the brightness and vibrancy of the image displayed.

How did you use space to help support the communication of your project? 

The use of space allowed my photographs and the archive images to come to life. As the images depict a physical space and wide open scene within the village scaling the images up through projection enabled the scene to be immersive and look increasingly as if the view was there in front of the viewer. This element of transporting the viewers to the area itself helped to better communicate the aspect of evoking memories than perhaps in my earlier project work using Photoshop to bring the two images together. Having the setting mirroring certain aspects of the photograph such as the recurring stone wall, aided the piece's ability to transport the audience to the scene owing to this multitude of visual prompts.

Selected a series of archive and contemporary photographs to print on the acetate sheets with each corresponding to another.

Trialled the technique in the evening with the final prints on acetate using two backdrops: 

•  Cotswold stone wall: Although I had envisaged the projections to be displayed on stone which prevalent in this area, when two of the photographs were projected onto it at the same time it didn’t work as well and greatly lost clarity. This may have been due to the lack of clear shapes and colour in some of the prints (unlike the Barbican film I had tested with previously). Despite this I was pleased with certain outcomes using just one of the films projected onto the wall at a time and I took two successful photographs of the prints like this. 
• Plain surface indoors: Worked well was able to shoot a moving image sequence whereby I moved a torch behind two of the acetate stills and film the effect this had on the wall from below. In doing so, I was able to create quite an immersive video panning in and out of the photographs. 

Despite the success of the final iteration of projected through the acetate films I still aimed for the final outcome to be contextualised in a surrounding that communicates the fact it is placed back into the village surrounding. 

I initially wanted to try displaying my work at scale would be projecting my film work using two different projectors both focused on the same screen to create a layered image similar to the layered clips on my moving image sequence. As I will be working from home from now on I sadly no longer have access to a projector. With a lack of facilities, I decided to instead create a makeshift projector using acetate film and spotlights to project my still images on a large surface. As I had worked with this media in a different way for my Site project outcome I tested this idea using one acetate slide from my piece and shining a torch through it onto various surfaces. Having found the image projected with quite a high clarity on a plain wall, I then considered projecting outside so that the location would reflect  my photographs’ content. The projected image on a stone wall worked surprisingly well and I would like to see how the final photographs look on a similar surface. 

For the final piece I aim to project one archive image and the same contemporary photo onto the same section of wall so that they overlap. I realised when I held the test film up in front of the light that in order to take a good photograph of the final result I will need to have at least two people assist me as one person will need to hold the torch and photograph steady. As I don’t have a tripod back home I won’t be able to hold up the other photograph. I found that using two wooden sticks to support the images may help especially if these were then placed in the ground or on a support. 

Today I created the sequences for the other two scenes I had not yet completed in my moving image work. I considered which editing methods worked best in my first edit of the Village Green scene, and decided to use the image mask tool as well as changes to opacity and colour to layer the archive images in the last two-thirds of the sequence. The image mask worked especially well for the three last photographs which all included figures standing on the road and bridge. I thought back to a similar image I had manipulated on Photoshop which included children standing on the bridge and how the simple addition of these figures, dressed in Edwardian clothing, into the scene altered the contemporary photographs dramatically making the viewer question the image's period. Using a similar method I masked each one of the figures and added each to the sequence one after the other like a memory of these people appearing gradually in one's mind.

Graphics

Finally I set about refining the sequence and creating the graphics for titles between the three scenes. For the opening and closing graphics, I felt I wanted to mirror the combination of new and old imagery that I explored in the film. This involved finding general shots that encapsulated this juxtaposition and after looking once more through the online image archive I found an old map of the village. For the opening legacy title I layered this monotone map with a recent satellite image and used a font similar to the one printed on the 1900s map. As I wanted all text to be animated to appear old-fashion I created an effect where it looked as if it was being written by a typewriter on screen using the ‘linear wipe’ transition and key frames so that each letter appeared in sequence. After replicating this effect on the subsequent titles which inform of the next locations, I added timestamps at the side of the frame when each new archive photograph appeared. 

Audio

As I was cutting the clips and lengthening the sequence, the audio track from original footage wasn’t long enough to run through the entire film. I liked the sound of the river in the final clip and to extend this over the title sequence I shot another film of the water close up to use as the background to the opening graphic. To keep the soundtrack consistent throughout I recorded the sounds in the village from my house and found that the birdsong and distant traffic noises were fitting sounds to give the film a sense of the quiet village atmosphere. 

As I have been suffering with a bad cold this week I decided to return back home in light of the advice regarding the current Coronavirus pandemic. Due to this, I have been unable to complete the work I had planned to do over the last few days. I aim to continue my project working from home and I believe I will still be able to carry this out successfully as my direction is now focussed on working purely with my village as subject matter. Despite having less access to facilities and equipment and increasingly less ability to interview my neighbours as they are self-isolating, I hope that I will still be able to continue photographing on location and making developments in my project work.

I began creating my moving image piece today on PremierePro based on my photographic manipulations of scenes in Naunton. I chose three locations to focus on at first because I felt that too many different scenes may make the film too long and that focusing on a smaller selection of the most effective clips would ensure that each was explored well in detail. I limited my film to one and a half minutes as I felt this was plenty long enough to show each of the scenes in detail I started the initial work of arranging these clips and archive photographs in a sequence that I had worked out in my sketchbook beforehand. I had decided that I would start with an establishing shot of each location as it is today and then begin to layer the historical scenes on top after a few seconds. I began exploring how I would go about this process by placing the archive image of Littons and the Village Green over my moving image clip at 50% opacity. It was interesting to see how the old house moved from being perfectly aligned with the base frame to becoming increasingly moved off as my clip became shaky and other elements came into the frame such as a reversing car. Although I felt annoyed that I didn’t have access to a tripod in order to film these sequences, I soon felt that the movement added something to this quite static scene. Maybe if I had taken the film set in a single position there wouldn’t have been enough movement elsewhere to make for an interesting sequence. 

I experimented with the first third of the sequence: the view of the Village Green. Beginning with trailing ways of working such as cropping, masking, changing opacity and learning about key-frames and timing elements. I found adding key-frames to certain clips a valuable way of creating transitions between opposing angles and frames. By fading the layered elements in and out to a point where they looked best aesthetically, successfully enabled the sequence at the start to run smoothly and united each element I added in. I began this scene with closeups of certain areas of the photograph/ moving image layered together to hone in on sections where the clips were either juxtaposed with one another or blended together well. After this I found that I wanted the contrasting size of the Village Green to be shown too, as in the 1950s it had larger pathway and was absent of the bench and cherry tree. To focus on this area alone I explored the use of images masks to reveal only the bottom half of the archive photo.  

When I returned home, I decided to shoot six films using the best locations I had photographed for my previous photographic manipulations. These included the area by the Village Green, Church and Old Rectory which had the most foliage and trees to enhance one of the only elements of motion in the sequences. The best location to film at was certainly in full view of the River Windrush further down the Village Avenue from which I can focus on the calming movement of the flowing water. I hope to combine this clip with two historic photographs of the same scene, one from 1950 and the other 1980 which both show residents or walkers standing on the bridge there. I believe it would be interesting to create a mask of these figures and impose this on my film of the bridge; hopefully bringing the ‘characters’ standing there to life. 

Working to refine some of my outcomes I set about editing the contrast, brightness and colour of my Photoshop composite images to make all the elements coalesce. The initial edits changing the overall colour and exposure didn’t go far enough to bring both the archive and current images together so I then began to section areas off through making selections and creating masks. Certain areas of the archive photos that I had colourised contrasted too much with the natural colours of the base/ contemporary photograph. By selecting these sections and desaturating them slightly made a great improvement to each piece. As the images continued to look a little unreal owing to the old photos’ contrasting lighting to the base image. Adding certain filters that made the image darker tended to help in unifying the piece; however, all the images became much too underexposed to see any clear detail especially when printed. I liked the effect the dark filters had on most of the images and I wanted to retain this quality as firstly the lighting and colour became less pronounced: blending the two photographs and quite an eerie, surreal scene was created. After my progress tutorial we discussed that the images’ lighting certainly needed adjusting and that I should also try the images in black-and-white. I decided to create two versions of each outcome, both a black-and-white and colour edit which I hope to use later in my project for different purposes e.g. the monochrome photos may work better with text than the colour ones. 

To resolve the images I looked back at my key research references, namely Nicolas Dhervillers, and remembered how he used a "digital process adapted from the cinematic “day for night” lighting technique to make his compositions appear ‘outside of time’ owing to their surreal lighting. I felt that through using the lighting effects on Photoshop’s filters I could create more united compositions whilst being able to highlight certain areas of the images that are most prominent or illuminate the fact that the photographs show historical elements. The point and spotlight effects worked particularly well to create a natural light cast over the entire composition to make the figures and buildings appear very much as if they were in the modern scene.

Now that I have completed five successful images I would like to continue to explore this technique in further compositions using different scenes in the village and through the use of moving image. Going forward with these particular photos, I hope to distribute the images within the village community. I initially felt that displaying my work around the village on notice boards etc. (ideally placed along side the correlating locations themselves) would be a good method of presentation in order to receive feedback and spark conversations regarding my neighbour’s own memories of the village. Due to the developing Coronavirus pandemic I feel this would be impractical as many of the elderly residents are staying home and avoiding contact with others. Therefore, I aim to send out my photographs as a series of postcards, either digital or physical, to wish them well during this difficult time and possibly provoke their memories of happier times spent here. 

Notes from tutorial:

• This week I should concentrate on creating a series of composite colour images that depict both the black-and-white archive photographs and the contemporary scenes edited together. Although the black and white Photoshops allowed me to easily create a realistic and harmonious composition it was felt the two photographs combined together a little too well making it unclear that one is indeed an old analogue photograph. Creating the composition in colour could create greater ambiguity in the scene as the hand-tinting can make the colour look unnatural.

• Could look in more depth at the architecture aspect of the project by finding architectural development in the area - how buildings have been redeveloped or altered in some way. Go back to looking at the idea of architectural plans and could introduce old drawings and artwork (redrawing a scene onto the old print) .
• I started to think about how I could continue to combine set design with this idea of using architecture. I have found it difficult to design effect sets around people's objects due to their owners' attachment to their personal effects. I could therefore develop ways of devising a way of bringing a more 3 dimensional design into my work.

• Explore working with type: it was suggested I find examples of written descriptions about a place and combine them with my own written account of the same location today
• Looking into moving image and how I could combine static archive photographs with modern moving image work.

This week I aim to shoot film at the same time I photograph the locations in my village to create footage I could use to explore this idea. It would be very interesting to see modern film of the scenes juxtaposed against static old archive imagery. I believe this would display the differences more starkly through moving image and also might create a larger impact. 

I received positive feedback from my peers when I presented the piece to my group at Tuesday’s crit. They were interested in the piece, looking through its layers and felt it linked well with the site and that through producing an object based outcome it would be good to present the piece to the rest of the class. One of my peers suggested that I could explore the use of technology and how additional aids such as VR could be useful in expanding upon the basis of my work as a layered history. For example, I could use a 3D scanning camera to create a digitalised rendition of a space and show how it would have looked in the past. This might be interesting to try as an interactive piece in a space like the Barbican where people can use a headset to visualise the space they are currently in, in its previous state. I am interested by this juxtaposition of the historical placed within modern contexts as a way of portraying memories that are alive today. 

Whilst I was presenting the piece to the class it was mentioned that the tactile quality of the piece made it particularly effective as it prompted interaction and a greater level of engagement seeing as it was a small, accessible size. In contrast my tutor felt that it would be better to have the photographs printed larger and maybe even projected or turned into a piece of moving image in order to be more immersive, as if the person was experiencing the place. This rather links back to the technology aiding this feeling of being immersed in the history of a place with a larger scale image. I am now considering the idea of using projection and large scale display to bring the imagery and ultimately memories to life for an audience. In closer relation to my project proposal I feel that it would be interesting to explore the scale of images and immersing people in photographs or film to see whether I can trigger their memories of certain events. One such way I could do this would be to see if someone’s recollections of an event are aided when their home movies or photographs are projected large-scale creating a more immersive experience evocative of places and people depicted. Such images could be compiled and edited together to produce a moving image sequence taking the viewer back to a certain time.

It was also mentioned at the crit that through exploring a public space like the Barbican I was now looking into collective memories. At the start of the project I wanted to explore the idea of more universally remembered events and places which comes under the theme of memory-work which aims to create an alternative history of mutually shared events through personal memories and experiences. 

Going forward in my project I decided to focus, for now, on the idea of collective memory. 

Initial ideas for this week’s work:

Old footage from a certain time projected onto something - research into how the old films affect people/ the viewer

Photograph series of objects and layered memories - call for people to submit their old photos of a certain place and write about them 

Interview people on a certain time, event, decade or place 

Combine old photographs from archive or personal sources with new photos of the same space, aligning the two together. 

• Could do this using in-camera effects: place the old landscapes in front of the new, cut outs, layer acetate film in front of the scene
• Or using collage or Photoshop to layer historical and modern depictions of a space

Collective memory is an especially fascinating topic that I feel I could deal with on a more personal basis, looking into my own spatial memories as well as those held by others. During the Site project, I wanted to create something that had a resonance with those that had experienced the location and had memories of the Barbican’s various developments but I was unable to receive feedback from this specific audience. One way in which I can relate a space to its long-time residents  is by going to a place where I know them well and can easily gain their thoughts, memories and insights into their collective history in a space. Using the village I grew up in, I aim to combine old photographs of the area with the scenes I know well today, and through this, discover the villagers’ collective memories. By finally placing the photographic collages back in the areas they depict I hope to get a response from my neighbours and prompt their own memories of these locations. 

Situating the piece on site

I took the piece to the site and tried to find places where the audience would be most likely to engage with the work. Owing to the cold, there were very few people walking around the grounds so although I would have liked to display the piece on one of the open-air walkways were the audience would be able to view the site from a similar perspective as the piece shows, I had to place it inside instead. I displayed the work next to a leaflet stand accompanied by a poster in the Barbican’s trademark orange. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep the work there before it was removed so I didn’t keep it there long enough for anyone to physically interact with the work. I believe if I had placed the light box below the acetate sheets I may have seen a bit more interest in the piece as the hallway was quite dark and it wasn’t clear what the piece was in those lighting conditions it was placed in although viewers were able to take it to the window and hold it up to the light.

Creating the final piece proved difficult and the work went through a series of iterations before I decided on the piece’s final format. Originally I had intended the piece took on a similar presentation to that used by Rauschenberg and Botero, where their work’s acetate layers are stacked in between a perspex surround. As I did not have access to a workshop today - which would have enabled me to cut through thick perspex - I was only able to use thinner sheets. This made it particularly difficult to get the photos to flat stack in a box format with gaps in between. As I also wanted to ensure the piece had an interactive element to its design the photographs had to be accessible and I wanted the audience to be able to look at them on their own. This meant that I couldn’t stick the sheets together and I had to bind them together another way. I thought that by hole punching each page and then binding them with metal ring binders would allow for the piece to have tactility and now the user could also pick all the sheets up easily and hold the to the light to see through the layers. Acting like a book the audience could now flip through the pages discovering the history as they work from the back towards the modern photographs of the site. 

Despite this I still felt that stacking the acetate film directly on top of each other made it difficult to see the layers easily so I needed to have gaps in between each sheet. I feel that I would still like to use small adhesive pads to act as spacers between each sheet as this may make it easier to see through.

I originally thought of using a small semi-circular card tab to pull each acetate sheet out of a box but as I had to opt for a different presentation this later developed into tabs that would be used to lift the sheets up, pulling them apart from each other, to look at each individually. As the photographs are semitransparent it isn’t entirely clear what each layer depicts and I felt I needed to accompany each layer with a small explanation. On each of the tabs I printed descriptive information surrounding the provenance of the photographs or maps printed on the sheet or general facts about the site. It was very interesting to discover so much about the rich history of Cripplegate and the development process the site has gone through to reach its status today as one of London’s most iconic Brutalist buildings.

After having decided on various stages of the site’s history I began to collate secondary archive imagery as well as selecting from my own photographs I had taken the day before to begin to create a visual narrative for the piece. I discovered various source’s which were to prove very useful in documenting the estate in its phases of development as well as its former state as the Ward of Cripplegate. Using the library databases I was able to find a range of sources from which I could find historic imagery of the Barbican.

These included: 

- Brittanica Images which contained photographs of the ancient London Wall whose remains still stand in the residential areas of the grounds. 

- Digimap from which I was able to obtain a detailed Ordnance Survey map of the site which I later used to create the orange block colour map that is shown throughout the work. This site also had the useful feature Historic Roam which enables users to see a map of an area in close detail from the early 1800s. The Barbican area was surveyed in the 1870s, 1910s and finally mid-century when the map dramatically altered from historical streets to a clear space, devastated by bombing in the Second World War. 

- The Barbican’s own archive contained ample documentation of the construction process photographed in 1979.

Found at - http://sites.barbican.org.uk/buildingthebrutal

After collecting secondary sources I then combined my own imagery I had taken on site in the days before to present the area’s most recent development as the Barbican. On top of these images I pasted the orange outline of the main site plan and buildings I had created using the Ordnance Survey map. I created each building and space on a different layer which allowed me to selectively place the respective part of the site onto its correlating photograph. For instance, on the layer for St Giles’ Cripplegate Church, I placed the colour blocked building on top of the photographs that displayed the church. All of these coloured sections of the map were layered in line with one another so that, when viewed from above, the map will build up and all the modern-day buildings will be seen throughout the acrylic layers.

Photoshop of all layers shown together before print

I visited the Barbican once again today to work out where I am to situate my work in the site. As I aim for the scale of my outcome to be quite small at no larger than A4 (due to constraints when printing on acetate) I searched for places upon which I could place a small plinth or box on top of which my piece will be presented. I originally aimed of areas of the site that are elevated, such as walkways or public balconies, so that when the audience looks at the work from a top-down perspective the physical view behind the piece is mirrored. 

It would be best if my piece was placed in an area where both tourists and residents congregate. Although my work may appeal more to those who don’t live at the Barbican, as it is likely that residents are aware of the site’s history and therefore will not learn anything new about the stories the site holds, it would also be interesting to see if my piece brings back any memories for the long-term residents. On the other hand, new visitors to the site and children would benefit from interacting with my piece to discover the centre’s past. With this in mind, I decided to seek out places that tourists were occupying. Such areas included the Lakeside Terrace (a large seating area adjacent to the water in front of the library and restaurants), Gilbert Bridge where the view is particularly picturesque overlooking both sides of the site and finally in the large seating areas indoors (large numbers of people here due to the bad weather outdoors). Out of these locations I decided it would be interesting to trial my piece initially along Gilbert Bridge which links the Barbican Centre to the residential areas on the opposite side. This would allow both audiences (visitors and residents) to experience the piece. 

Another location in which I could place my intervention could be alongside the Barbican’s large maps to direct the visitors. With a similar view of the site presented in these printed maps that are dotted around the site, I could place my work, a ‘map-like’ birds-eye view of the centre, alongside to spark interest. As people studied the site maps they would also see my historic depiction of the site and seek out a more detailed presentation of the buildings they are navigating around. This would mean that the interactive piece would be seen largely by first-time visitors. 

We discussed what I found when I visited the location and who I had perceived to be the audience. Saying that I found there to be three distinct audiences: residents, first-time tourists, regular visitors and those with young children, we then talked about the other demographics which include those that visit specifically for the arts centre and events, children and young adults who attend the Girls’ School and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Therefore, I will be considering which audiences my work will be suited for and adapt the piece accordingly.

When we discussed my second and third ideas they stood out as they both physically portrayed layers of history. The combination of photographs printed on acetate so they are semitransparent felt much like memories in general. They build upon on another, getting richer and sender as the years past. I also thought how, like the photos printed on thin plastic, are memories aren't always crystal clear and we often have a certain haziness when remembering certain events. 

Including a map element to the piece was thought to be particularly pertinent as the navigation of the site, by design, is reliant on maps. The architects wanted to ensure the Barbican (quite like a fortress) felt almost impenetrable so they made entrance ways difficult to find for the general public. They wanted the development to have a feeling of safety and exclusivity for the middle-class residents it aimed to attract. Therefore, my piece is useful for the non-resident audience who will be looking at maps in order to discover the site. 

As all ideas had an interactive element to them, my tutor thought that it would be interesting to consider how I control the response to the piece and document this. I aim to place the piece back in the site somewhere that the audience will be able to hold the piece up to the light in order to fully see through the piece and discover it's overlapping images.