The tables turned this year and instead of being given briefs to follow, we had to choose our own brief and present this as a proposal. This was also dissertation year!
I had already chosen my dissertation topic and this was based on the influence of Saul Bass, who changed the face of graphic design, movie titles and posters, and so much more in the mid-twentieth century.
Some of Saul Bass' movie poster designs....
I chose an overall topic for the more practical elements of the year, which was the journey of Saint Mungo from Culross to Glasgow in the 6th century. Much of my previous work involved journeys in one form or another, so after becoming intrigued by how Mungo, who was born in Culross, ended up becoming the patron Saint of Glasgow, I decided to walk this journey myself.
After much research, different historical accounts held different views of the actual route that Mungo walked from Culross to Glasgow. So I turned to old maps and mapped the possible route myself using the Roman roads that would have been around at the time.
Here are a few photos from that journey....
The artwork produced from these wanderings took the form of a sculpture and a book of photographs.
At every mile of the journey, I took 10 random photos. I processed these photos into a single image by superimposing all 10 over each other. This resulted in 50 abstracted photos, each representing the mood and feeling of its specific location on the journey.
Here's a sample of the photos....
The resulting book looked like this....
I wanted people to experience this journey symbolically, so I chose a spiral shape for the sculptural piece. Spirals were popular in ancient times and were used in Roman carvings, and other Christian and Celtic stone carvings. The piece had to be big enough to walk into, and a spiral would draw people in.
I worked with the GPS elevation and distance data of the walk and decided to create the structure from 4 x 4inch wooden posts.
Each post represents one-sixth of a mile of the walk, and the height of each post represents the elevation above sea level at that point.
An aerial view from the upper floors of the college
Two views of the final structure on the 2nd floor college patio.
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