Meeting with Rowan

Ok I will talk about what I can remember from my meeting with Rowan last Friday.
We started by talking about my main project, a hand drawn, character based animation.
It seemed to Rowan that I was describing a way of living, or a set of principals to live by. The key ones were Traveling and Aspirations such as those I associate with UP! and with living out all of your various dreams and fantasies, in a positive way of course.
She also noted two films that seem to share the themes that I am interested in, Click - about a remote control that allows the individual god like control of his life, however he inadvertently wishes away all of the best parts of his life. The key message being live in the now and live for what and who you have got, make the best of what you have instead of always looking towards the future.
Next was UP which covers many themes, Ideas and even locations that I personally have an interest in such as Venezuela, aspirations, never being to late to change, living for those in your life, travel, adventure and anti materialism. These again were examples of guidance on ways of living.
The main theme that developed however was anti materialism, brought about through my interest in Michel Landry's work. She stated that this is about the commodity and possibly the school of thought that leans away and is possibly repulsed by the commodity. Or those that embrace it or are trapped int he spell of the commodity. Marx and his spell of commodity.
My narrative Ideas so far deal with Emotional attachment to personal belongings/ Items. This is also apart of the context, either my own developing ideas or looking at adaptions of novels and books as a process of work. Or possibly looking at books and Novels that also deal with these themes.

My two possibilities so far seem to be to develop a narrative story or a sequence of images or events based on a theme, I asked If I could do both? Rowan gurned a bit at this like I was asking an impossible question, although in my opinion it is this way that genius lies, lots of hard work no doubt, but real solid work.

So she created a small chart asking me to look at characters in books and films and possibly art and animation. I will look at anti material characters and Materialistic characters.

It looks like my Primary Research will be in the form of Interviews - Rowan pointed me in the direction of this text, Gray & Mullins (2004) Visualizing Research : Research Methods in Art and Design.


We then went on to look more specifically at Anti Materialism, placing it at the centre of a spider diagram. Around this she came up with themes of Commodity Culture, Capitalism, Mass Consumption, What is it, What is it a response to?, a way of living?

So for the dissertation I can compare and contrast Materialist and Anti Materialist Characters. I imagine I may have to look at characters in advertising, or who have been borrowed for advertising. 3 sections or possible chapters were Film/Animation, Fiction/Books and Art/ Advertising. I do believe these were possible chapters.

Bellow this, maybe as a possible conclusion is Anti Materialism - a new trend in Culture? how and why. For this I can look at human habits and instincts towards gathering and holding onto possessions, possibly our inexplicable attachment to places and objects etc, our desire for what is familiar and our fear of what is strange and new.

That was the whole meeting.