The “Aesthetic and Practice” course has profoundly influenced my approach to Digital Arts, providing me with a solid understanding of contemporary practices and the language of the field through engaging lectures, seminars, and workshops. Exposure to a variety of art practices and fresh ideas has pushed me to think bigger and experiment more in my work. Creating a research blog, presenting my ideas, and building a portfolio have sharpened my critical thinking and helped me turn concepts into practice, while optional technical classes allowed me to focus on skills that directly support my creative goals. This course has equipped me with the confidence, knowledge, and tools to navigate the world of digital arts and approach my final major project with a clear, exciting direction.
Introduction
This portfolio showcases the creative journey I’ve undertaken throughout the course, highlighting the development of both technical skills and artistic exploration. Each piece reflects my engagement with contemporary concepts, allowing me to experiment, refine, and express my evolving ideas.
Themes
This collection explores five key themes that have been central to our class discussions and creative projects. Each section focuses on a distinct idea, drawing from contemporary topics and concepts that have been explored throughout the course. By incorporating these themes into the work, I’ve aimed to blend technical skills with thoughtful exploration of the ideas at hand.
Theme One: Artist as Community
Art creates community through the subtle exchange of unspoken dialogue, where tacit knowledge is passed between creators. It allows a form of communication that goes beyond verbal language, driven by the desire to connect in ways that aren’t limited to conventional conversation. In this unit, I explored how my practice and methodologies speak to the communities I’m part of and the ones I want to build.
Collaboration and Community : The Build
We examined how artists work together in the capacity of a collective in curation. curate and organise my work paying attention to space and light to form a new perspective on your collaborative artwork. Alongside the possibility of performance. A lecture that discusses collaborative practice techniques built upon some of the methods we have studies in Research Methods. Alongside a longer case study of an artist in collaborative Practice and research.
My Contribution
Embraces the concept of “The Artist as Community” by proposing a visual communication strategy for the “Between the Tides” festival, celebrating diverse artistic expressions.. The strategy centers on a visual identity with a color-coded system distinguishing activities [Music (Red), Art (Green), Spoken Word (Yellow), Workshops (Orange), and Kids’ Activities (Blue)] while maintaining consistency through bold typography and thematic imagery. Inspired by our exploration of collaborative practices, the design focuses on curating visual elements with attention to space, light, and adaptability across platforms. This approach unites the festival’s offerings under a shared, visually engaging framework that reflects the collaborative and community-oriented spirit of art.
Theme Two: Artist as Conduit
The Artist as Conduit highlights the role of the artist as a channel for tacit and embodied knowledge, emphasizing tactile and experiential ways of creating. By engaging with haptic visuality and bodily knowledge, this theme encourages artists to draw on their innate creative drive, exploring their practice through sensory and tactile experiences. It is about using the hands and body as conduits to translate unspoken, lived experiences into meaningful artistic expressions.
My project, Ramen, exemplifies this approach by incorporating tacit knowledge through an immersive process. I explored the craft and culture of ramen by cooking it, visiting ramen shops, and engaging with its textures, flavors, and techniques. These hands-on experiences informed the creation of the artwork, embedding the sensory and cultural essence of ramen into the piece.
Theme Three: Artist as Nomad
The concept of the nomadic artist challenges conventional ideas of rootedness and creative stability, highlighting the freedom and complexity of a life in constant motion. Historically, artists traveled to find inspiration or patronage, but today, nomadism encompasses not just physical movement but also virtual mobility through digital tools. This lifestyle allows artists to explore diverse cultural contexts and draw inspiration from various environments, reimagining their relationship with place and identity. However, nomadic practice also brings challenges, including financial instability, logistical hurdles, and the emotional toll of transience.
Student Led Seminar
In the seminar, I explored the multifaceted nature of being a nomadic artist, focusing on the technical and emotional challenges they encounter. The discussion began with practical obstacles, such as the lack of permanent studio space and the complexities of transporting materials and finished works. I highlighted how many nomadic artists adapt by working with portable mediums, such as digital art or smaller, more manageable pieces.
Additionally, we examined the emotional and psychological strains of a lifestyle defined by movement, particularly the isolation and lack of stable connections it can bring. The group engaged in discussions about how nomadic artists sustain their careers while balancing creative freedom with the challenges of constant change. Through case studies and critical questions, we reflected on how nomadism shapes artistic practices and career development, fostering thoughtful dialogue about the resilience and adaptability required to thrive in such a dynamic lifestyle.
Seminar Workshop
We concluded with a collaborative workshop where students created drawings based on personal items or memories they would carry with them as nomadic artists. The activity allowed them to reflect on the concept of mobility and how it could shape their practice. Students applied the nomadic concept by exploring portable formats and considering the emotional and symbolic value of their chosen objects, connecting their artistic identity to the idea of movement and adaptability. This hands-on exercise highlighted the diversity of approaches to nomadism and encouraged participants to see it as both a challenge and a source of creative inspiration.
A Day in Walton-on-the-Naze
Our trip to Walton-on-the-Naze was a perfect mix of fresh air, good conversations, and creative inspiration. We wandered through the city, took a long walk by the beach, and then stopped by Nose on Naze, a cozy little bookstore run by one of our faculty members. Inside, we got to chat about artist publications, flip through some amazing examples, and check out past students’ work. It was a great reminder of how art and publishing can come together in really personal and unexpected ways.
Theme Four: Artist as Cyborg
The Artist as a Cyborg concept refers to the fusion of human creativity with technology, where artists extend their artistic expression through digital tools, artificial intelligence, biofeedback systems, and cybernetic enhancements. This idea challenges traditional notions of authorship and creativity by incorporating machines, algorithms, and interactive systems as co-creators. It suggests that the artist is no longer a solitary creator but a hybrid entity, integrating human intuition with computational processes to expand the possibilities of artistic production.
The Circle Experiment
In our first Artist as a Cyborg workshop, we started with a simple exercise, we were handed sheets of paper and asked to draw circles by hand. As expected, our circles were wobbly, imperfect, and far from symmetrical. Then came the next step: using any technological aid we wanted to draw the circles again. The difference was striking as our new circles were nearly perfect, precise, and machine-like. But as we compared both versions, we began to see the value in our first sketches. Despite their flaws, those hand-drawn circles carried a sense of authenticity, individuality, and artistic expression that the perfect ones lacked. It was a moment of realization, technology enhances our abilities, but sometimes, imperfection is what makes art truly human.
Cyborg Identity in AI Art
In our second workshop, we were tasked with creating ten AI-generated images based on the theme of Artist as a Cyborg, but the challenge was to incorporate our personal identity into the pieces, making sure it wasn’t just the machine’s work. For my contribution, I decided to blend elements of my own design style. I used my favorite color palette of cyan and orange, which frequently appear in my other designs, and added grids and straight lines, reflecting my preference for structured layouts and geometric forms. These familiar design elements helped personalize the AI-generated art, making it a blend of human identity and machine creativity. It was fascinating to see how the AI could interpret my style while also creating something entirely new.
Post-Digital
The Post-Digital concept reflects a world where digital technology is no longer seen as novel but deeply embedded in everyday life, influencing how we create, share, and experience art. It moves beyond the excitement of early digital experimentation, focusing instead on the critical, cultural, and material implications of living in a digitally saturated world. Post-digital artists often engage with both analog and digital techniques, questioning the impact of automation, algorithms, and the overwhelming presence of screens. Rather than rejecting technology, post-digital art explores its limitations, imperfections, and unexpected intersections with the physical world.
The Internet After Us
For our short Crit project, I created The Internet After Us, which explores a world where digital technologies continue to exist long after humans have moved on. The project envisions a future where the internet, websites, and online spaces persist without human presence or interaction, creating a sense of eerie abandonment. Through this concept, I aimed to reflect on how technology might evolve and outlast its creators, questioning the role of the internet in a PostDigital world and what happens when human influence fades away. It’s a reflection on the permanence of digital spaces and the eventual disconnect between humans and the systems we’ve created.
Visit to Sample & Hold
We had the opportunity to visit Sample & Hold, a 3D scanning service company based in Central London. With over 16 years of experience, the studio specializes in providing detailed 3D scanning services for the creative industries. During the tour, Sam showed us their custom head and body photogrammetry systems, which they use to create highly accurate 3D scans of people. Additionally, we saw their advanced photogrammetry tools. The studio’s recent projects include creating characters for AAA games, developing products for high street fashion brands, fabricating sculptures for Turner Prize-winning artists, and head scanning for historical archives. It was impressive to see how they combine technology with artistic expertise to bring a variety of creative ideas to life.
My Cyborg Personality Workshop
For the student-led seminar, I participated in a workshop called My Cyborg Personality. In the session, we discussed the concept of technological extensions and how they could shape our personal and artistic lives. I imagined having a brain-implanted chip that would project a small screen into my vision, answering any question instantly, translating languages, and even capturing and reliving memories like a personal archive. This kind of technology could transform my art by allowing me to visualize and manipulate 3D models or compositions in real-time, enhancing my creative process. However, such a cyborg existence would also raise social issues, especially around privacy and surveillance, where concerns about ownership, consent, and the potential hacking of personal experiences come into play.
Theme Five: Artist as Surveyor
