Reframe The Past, Pattern Magnification: Final Evaluation (1165)

For the first project of part two, I would say that there was a strong start showcased in the primary research that was carried out by myself, documenting members of the public whose outfits/garments were unidentical to each other (which had a range in features and silhouette arrangements) and therefore allowed for original ideas and shape generation. Lots of observations could be made too and the practice I feel was carried out to appreciate our current status quo when it comes to function within the accessories we choose to use in our everyday lives. When carrying out the pattern estimations of the bags that people were wearing in and around public, I was able to begin to understand the reasonings that were possibly behind those that constructed it and appreciate the connection between the wearer, the wearer's wants and the accessory. I would say that the accessories in the form of bags have an extremely functional nature and conflict with the adornments such as jewellery or unnecessary stylistic choices that wearers decide to add to themselves and it raised a point: which garments will us (we people) of this period in time (let's say from 2000 to present day) consider to be artefacts of our time and which silhouettes or designer's creations will be deemed to be best representing of the time we are in. Being able to envision the 'skeleton' (?) of the accessory also gave me the time to question whether the construction could have differed to serve a different function to which the accessory currently has. For example, could the bag in the shape of the musical instrument have considered that in time gone by (10 or so years) that there was space to be considered for an additional add-on to that particular instrument. Let's say a new invention or technoglogical piece of hardware which augmented the playing of that instrument.

Alongside this, our visit as a group to the Wellcome Collection gave us insight into historic and culturally relevant objects which each had their own influence and story to them which gave me a good understanding into the importance of an objects relevance and meaning of existence. I'm sure Virgil Abloh has often stated in his lifetime that "context is paramount" and without, an object can have no real effect on those who interact with it. This made me look to the clothes that I wear and question how much I knew about them from their origin to design to pure existence and whether it had the right (?) to be worn. I mean imagine I had entered the archive and the exhibition that was on at the time and there was no description as too what I was looking at and why it was there - I'm sure there'd be confusion and argument over what it was and what it was doing/existing. I guess that's why there's lots of art critiques who question what the meaning of a certain piece is, with artists commonly not discussing or refusing to comment on what the meaning is behind their pieces. Artists like an Andy Warhol bring up interesting discussions around origin/meaning of a piece's existence with his works famously being copies of already existing objects, designs or concepts. Reinterpretation and adding to the historical significance of something was a common notion for him. This definitely highlights how my outcome, although explaining the importance of provenance of garments, could have had more of a function to it as often without function the object or thing is considered to be up for interpretation or pointless in it's nature.

With most of my prototypes/works, I'll most likely come back to it at a later date and carry out an update on it - NFCs will have to be added to these so with time people will be able to study them and gain the relevant information from them.

I would say that my secondary research didn't necessarily suffer but due to it being my first project on the interest in patterns, the references used were definitely all over the place and slightly irrelevant to the idea of making my object a military artefact. As in, much of the research seemed surface level and inert with myself being more focused on how I could move onto the process of experimenting with the shapes and constriction of the artefact I had chosen. The research didn't necessarily relate to historic military moments in time. So, I would saying moving forwards (when it comes to secondary research) although I was interested in the references I was making, I need to consider how they are contributing to the explanation and meaning of my outcome/concept I'm trying to explain.

In terms of the choice of my artefact, I decided to choose a RAF helicopter winch personnel set of gloves. The choice was made when I found myself at one of Raeburn's military artefact sales in which I couldn't help but notice the attention to textile detail within the immersion-looking-like gloves. Almost instantly, by noticing the worn yet pristine look to the leather and neoprene wearable, I wanted to know the history behind them and what function they had once served as/for. With regards to the brief, the assignment was to design a wearable which responded to a historical artefact in a contemporary manner and I thought that by taking a military artefact and reinterpreting it's construction (whilst still maintaining it's historical context, in the documentation of it's original form/size/use case) would develop itself into something that an observer could question and later value it's original function and even then go onto reinterpret it's possible new construction. And by doing so, I believe I've been able to alter the perspective of how people may review the design of the body in showcasing a possible way in which garments can be reinterpreted, but rather by styling or manipulation or even recontextualisation (in a sense of changing the environment) one could reconfigure and dimensions of an existing artefact to utilise it's geometry in a different light.

Continuing on to the experimentation of this project's process, I was pleased with the initial idea of deciding to deconstruct the gloves as this led to the realisation that the shapes that contributed to the assembly of this accessory, are all methodically connected in some shape or form which allows them to perform a certain function and exist in a certain network, circuit or even system. And thereby, rewiring this so called system by taking the shapes and duplicating/magnifying them into the body allowed for new systems to come into purpose. I feel that the experimentation however fell short as I decided to leave them in an almost unaltered way. Of course, no actual functional new accessory was developed from the original glove and I think if I was able to have created a new system from an old one, my concept would have been able to communicate to stronger lengths.

In all, I think being able to have reimagined the textiles and dimension of the artefact, (whilst still attempting to maintain it's originality) I've showcased, explained and explored a concept which can later be reimagined by someone interested in furthering the historical story of the set of gloves.

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