The exchange program while in idea is good in practise it is not so successful. If it had been organised as perhaps one event during a class where we got to see everyone's work and critically analyse it there may have been more ideas generated. There is a great deal going on during the semester and time is at a premium at working out a schedule that allows us to not only do uni work but also work our jobs on the side is fairly insurmountable for alot of us. I think there needed to be more consideration also for the fact that we know people from other areas of COCA and perhaps it would of been better to see the begining and end of the process rather than sporadic meetings that put more pressure on than the good the provided.
There was a great deal of effort put into trying to get this roll to grow mould but before success could strike my flatmates boyfriend threw it out with the weekly rubbish. Hopefully some happy seagull found it at the dump.
The key thing that I took away from the feed back on this series of shots is to focus on the textural quality of the food. This will add a layer of confusion for the viewer so it really causes them to have to think about the image and what they are seeing.
I was unable to take any images off the Sony floppy disk for some time as there was an issue with getting a reader to arrive 3 orders later and a lot of frustration one that arrived and worked was ready to go. The images below a snapshots to develop the idea and show different peoples food in various stages.
My initial concept was around tech waste and the impact that it has on the environment. The constant cycle of consumption and the increased rate of technology becoming obsolete but still fully functional. This caused me to search for the oldest digital camera that was still functioning. I managed to acquire a Sony Marvica from 1997 which utilized 3.5'floppy disks. This then lead me to searching for a floppy disk reader as my computer did not have the capability to read them.
Upon needing to work in a team my idea shifted from being about tech waste to utilizing tech waste as the medium in which to represent an idea around food waste. The idea also challenged me to use a medium that is typically not even regarded as worthwhile. As sadly photography is also part of this insidious cycle of a new camera every year with incremental advancement. I might be a stickler for the Film format cameras but at least you could have a declarable difference between the cameras.
Food waste is a massive issue in New Zealand but also Globally it has a negative impact on climate change with more Greenhouses gases being released into the atmosphere due to uneaten perfectly good food that goes to waste which is exemplified by the peach grading system in the united states. This system penalized what a peach looks like and has nothing to do with the taste or damage to the fruit.
https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/peach-grades-and-standards
Through the process of developing a proposal we uncovered a few ideas that really helped us to unify our work together and develop new ideas.
Embracing the idea of focusing on the textural qualities of the by-products and products of food production. From dough to oil and bagel Rhine. There is a strange beauty to them and reminds me of the effort involved in creating each of these series through actually cooking or baking the meal and documenting the side effects of those experiments.
Adding more of the burnt textures to the mix of images to splash in some well needed character to the series.
