Assignment 2

(FIG 1)

(FIG 4)

(FIG 2) (Alone)

(FIG 3)

For this assignment I was asked to chose three pictures at random and ask a selection of people to come up with a story that linked the pictures together in no particular order. here are a list of the stories.

Female, 20, Interior And Environmental Design

A cat gets left at home while its owners go for a day out to a seaside fairground.

Male, 20, Interior and Environmental Design

A cat stuck on a Ferris wheel at the seaside.

Male, 20, Time Based Art

A cat in a green velvet glove which had been left on a Ferris wheel going so fast that it fell off and on to the beach.

Female, 20, Speech Therapy

A cat escapes from home and goes on an adventure to a fairground at the beach. It has a go on the big wheel and jumps off onto the beach.

Female, 19, Interior and Environmental Design

A cat is stranded at an old derelict carnival at the seaside.

Female, 20, Law

A cat ran along a beach while a fair ground was there and saw the big wheel.

Male, 45, Planning Consultant

A cat got lost at Blackpool pleasure beach.

I was then asked to add another picture to try and sway the story towards one that I had been told. I decided to go for the first one I was told. The following are the stories I was told once I added the extra picture.

Female, 20, Interior And Environmental Design

A cat gets left at home while its owners go for a day out to a seaside fairground.

Male, 20, Interior and Environmental Design

A cat owns a caravan at the beach where there was a fairground.

Male, 20, Time Based Art

A cat's owners went on holiday and left him at home where he watched a scary film about a haunted Ferris wheel.

Female, 20, Speech Therapy

A cat is lost in a caravan park and tries to find a way home but then he bumps into some Pikies.

Female, 19, Interior and Environmental Design

A cat is locked away on its own in a caravan while its owners are at a carnival.

Female, 20, Law

A cat is left at home while its owners go on holiday in a caravan.

Male, 45, Planning Consultant

A cats owners went away on a caravan holiday leaving it at home alone.

It seems that adding another picture has in some cases successfully swayed some of the stories but not all of them. Will adding a word to one of the pictures help them all come up with the same story? To test this out I added the word " Alone" to (FIG 2).

Male, 20, Interior and Environmental Design

A cat who was home alone decided to go on a Ferris wheel by the beach

Male, 20, Time Based Art

A family of cats from Estonia left their cousin cat at home while they went on holiday because he meowed weird.

Female, 20, Speech Therapy

A cat escapes from home and goes on a holiday to the beach fairground.

Female, 19, Interior and Environmental Design

A cat who lives on a deserted island is upset because its family have gone away on holiday without it.

Female, 20, Law

A cat is left at home while its owners go on holiday in a caravan.

Male, 45, Planning Consultant

A cats owners went away on a caravan holiday leaving it at home alone.

It seems that in this case adding the word hadn't affected any ones story in the way I had been trying to. However it might have had I used a different more specific word. Its interesting how easily you can influence peoples minds to think in the same way as you by tweaking certain things. I wonder if I had kept the photographs in a specific order would it have influenced their stories further.

assignment 1

For assignment 1 we were asked to find someone we didn't now and with a collection of photographs make assumptions about there life , family, background, class and many other things.
The person that i was investigating was a jewelry designer. This was the only thing i knew about her. From her photographs i managed to assume the following.

She had a lot of photos of her with her sister which made me think that she must be quite close to her.

The clothes she wore and the areas she was pictured in seemed wealthy, so from this I assumed she was reasonably wealthy.

Allot of the photographs were taken in sunny places which made me think that her family either go on holiday a lot or are from another country.

Photographs of her at the zoo and of family pets made me think that animals were extremely important to her and she really cared for them

In every picture she seemed to be dressed well which made me think that she must be very conscious of fashion.

Some photos showed her carrying bottled watter and playing with skipping ropes which made me think that she enjoyed sport and keeping herself healthy

One picture showed her near a boat and a separate picture showed her and her sister in bed with bed clothes covered in sailing boats. both photos together made me think that they may be involved with sailing some how.

She seems to be wearing a lot of pastel shades, perhaps they are her favourite colours.

Dressed in a religious gown in one of the pictures makes me assume that her family are religious.

Quite a lot of the pictures were taken outside and near flowers or wearing something flowery which made me think she had some attachment to flowers and the outdoors.

This is how I did.

"i am from Poland and me and my family do go on holidays very often. also i am very close to my family and my little sister is one of my best friends ever. i do love animals, flowers and nature in general, if i could I'd probably stay in the countryside. and yes i do enjoy exercising and taking part in different sports, well maybe not so much anymore because there just isn't enough time. we used to go sailing quite a bit. also I'm addicted to fashion and sometimes fell like a total fashion victim"


i never thought i would have been even half right with my assumptions but I am extremely surprised how easy people are to read when you really try.

Its nice to feel different from everyone else and to be a bit unique sometimes.

Response To "Understanding Bourdieu"

I still don't understand Bourdieu. However I do understand Jonathan Baldwin, thank god!. Thanks to his translation of the book I feel i understand the main themes of his work. He was very objective and understood that people of different classes and backgrounds had different tastes and took different paths in life, not just because it was in their genes but rather in the jeans. The type of people they grew up with, the environment they were accustomed to all contributed to the way they dressed and they things they did. Its the whole nature nurture argument again. An example of this might be a teenager who likes Gothic music. By being around others who listen to the same music and dress a certain way they are more likely to dress similarly, to fit in and because it is expected. Although they think that they are being individuals by not dressing like everyone else in the world, they are really fitting a mould for the group they belong to. These fashion trends change and with that comes waste.

It would be a good idea to consider this when designing. Trends will always happen, and this is what makes things disposable. If we as designers want to design long lasting products we have to make them timeless by not following fashion trends. It is quite difficult to get out of that box because we are surrounded by fashion. It is also dangerous because if people begin to like what you produce then that itself will have become fashionable. It might be a never ending circle but we wont know till we try.