Reflections on the lecture

This week’s lecture in an interview between Susanna and Sam Winston looking at the relationship between form and function and how we read, understand and engineer communication.

It will also explore the appropriateness of how form and material contribute to the overall message.

Sam is one of the guest practitioners who focuses mostly on the physical, specialising in bookmaking for the most part.

Sam spoke about hands having an intuition and knowledge of their own. When you’re working on something physical, be it a painting or putting together an Ikea wardrobe, I have noticed that you get into a different headspace compared to when you are sat behind a computer screen. Sam noticed that he started relying on screens and the digital world more when he entered the world of work, and it was his reaction against this that motivated him to embrace working with his hands again. I personally to resonate with this because throughout my school life and a levels I was very passionate about painting. The reason I got into art and painting in the first place was because it was an escape from screens.

Sam has had to adapt to his disadvantages, such as his dyslexia, some people might think that someone with dyslexia might not be best working with books or literature however, Sam has used his relationship with the written word to his advantage. Allowing him to consider new avenues of thought and turning his disadvantage into advantage.

Sam goes on to talk about if you were going to explore a brief about a city, he would stand in a particular part of the city or environment and would explore four different categories. These would be: process, materials, language and design. What processes are relevant and interesting for being in this particular area for example, what’s going on, how is traffic moving. Also the build of the environment which would then cross into the materials. Sam would also look at language, so found language in the environment and also his verbal response to that environment. Then the final element is design which is all of the other elements tied together.

Stephen Gill: Buried

Sam talked about combing processes and about a photographer who buries his photographs and how it’s dual language. You’re looking at a picture but you’re also looking at a process that’s adding a second voice.

I think the photographer that Sam is referring to was Stephen Gill and his body of work ‘Buried.’

The photographs that feature in this book were taken and buried in Hackney Wick. The length of time the images were left underground varied depending on the amount of rainfall. The depths and positioning in which the photographs were buried also varied, sometimes they were facing each other and other times they were buried individually.

“Not knowing what an image would look like once it was dug up introduced an element of chance and surprise which I found appealing. This feeling of letting go and in a way collaborating with place allowing it also to work on putting the finishing touches to a picture felt fair. Maybe the spirit of the place can also make its mark.”