What's the Story?: Bookbinding Tutorial

A group of use went down to Vernon Street today to learn the basics of book binding. This will come in useful for our Visual Narrative Module (OUIL405).

We ran through the process for Japanese fold stitch, concertina and. We were also shown how to use the surrounding equipment correctly too such as the guillotine, the book edge rounder and the hand drills etc.

I left the tutorial with three self made books. This tutorial will com in extremely useful as we later will create our own books for Visual Narrative.

What's the Story?: Peer Review

This morning in the studio we got into groups to discuss our research so far in preparation of our proposals on Thursday. This gave us the opportunity to talk about what we'd found out, what we still needed to do and other things such as common issues within the group.

(Notes from group crit)

My feedback was positive. However I was made aware that I have done a large about of primary visual recordings and secondary book based research so far and maybe need to look in a different area for information. I could also look at pigeons in different cities; are they different? If so, how? I also need to do more drawings of pigeons.

As a whole common issues were; how can we make researching interesting and make sure its relevant? It is so easy to get lost in information as I found out when I began over analysing the contradictions from different sources.

I have until Thursday to build my research further before I make an informed proposal to the rest of the studio.

What's the Story?: Contextual Research

Over the weekend I travelled to my local library and collected a variety of books about birds that I knew contained information about Pigeons. However, only three of the books were of much use.

Cocker, M. and Maybe, R. (2005) Birds of Britannica, London: Chatto & Windus
Taylor, M. and Arlott, N. (2008) Identifying Birds by Colour, London: Collins
Perrins, C. (2009) The Encyclopaedia of Birds, Oxford: Oxford University Press

(Research Books)

Whilst gathering this secondary source information I discovered that there are actually a very wide range of pigeon species, so for this project I will concentrate as much as possible on the feral pigeon (columba livia) which is most commonly found within the city. Furthermore, although I feel there is an element of humour to be had about how pigeons decide who to poo on, I feel this may end up only being a small aspect of my final piece and my proposal itself may well change over time too.

Whilst doing my research I found that there were minor contradictions about certain areas of pigeon biology, habitat and diets etc. I found myself getting lost in deciding which source to trust, however eventually I chose to simply draw a line under this area of research and move on. I may not ending up using this information anyway when it comes to my final piece for this brief.

What's the Story?: Museum Gardens and York City Centre

I partook in some more primary research today by heading out around the York Museum Gardens and later York City Centre to take photographs of Pigeons within the area.

In the park I was lucky enough to witness several people feeding the pigeons and seagulls and jumped on the opportunity to take photos of the 'kits' of pigeons.

This will benefit me when I come to produce my book as I can reference these images in my study of pigeon physiology. I found it quite interesting that in certain areas feeding pigeons is discouraged while it was quite actively happening here. It amuses me that years ago when pigeons were necessary for delivering letters they were well kept, now they are pretty much treated as vermin...

What's the Story?: Posing a Question Crit

(Self Evaluation Sheet)

Over the weekend I gave some thought to potential proposal questions for my book. As I stated in my earlier post the areas that I have chosen to look further into all have potential, however after some thought I have decided to push further with my idea 'How Do Pigeons Decide Who to Poo On?'

I feel that this has one of the stronger possible research areas and is something that I won't get bored of half way through, hopefully being reflected in my work. There are many things I can research concerning pigeons and their toiletry habits. I can do observational work similar to what I have previously done in this brief as well as researching pigeon history, biology, interaction with people. I can also interview people about experiences being pooed on or I could go out in search of the event taking place.

I'm feeling confident and excited by this brief, however at this point I must be aware that although my end product will be a book, it shouldn't be factoring into my research too much at this point.