I was extremely excited to start class as through my research I began to realise how powerful and commutative interactive art is and really wanted to experiment with making my own. Firstly we were put into pairs and given a quote, ours was, 'words are not what make you see.'  Which I though perfectly encapsulated why most people are drawn to art, we can use tools other than words to create meaning and show a idea more powerfully and universally than words ever could. As both me and my partner shared ideas it was interesting to see how we each reached different outcomes through this quote, I focused more on how an image is worth a thousand words and in such a media saturated culture we rely on images to tell us a story effectively and quickly, for instance the photograph of the refugee boy washed ashore cause more controversy than any of the previous articles or news reports on the refugee crisis. My partner was more interested in how images are universal to everyone as even children know what images mean before they can read. 

We were given a bit of time to brainstorm an idea while we watched a presentation about interactive art and I kept replaying our quote over and over again in my head till something clicked and I thought of how Donald Trump is always using words to 'make people see' but is in fact shrouding them with lies and I thought about how great it would be to counteract his words with images and to take it even further images drawn directly on his face.  After the presentation was over I suggested the idea to my partner and she liked the idea so we started discussing how we would create it, I liked the idea of doing graffiti on his face and just leaving pens and paint for people to interactive with and to leave a sign simple saying 'don't use words.'  My partner had the idea of using symbols to prevent people from using words which they could do if left alone with pens but it became too complicated to create symbols that would accommodate how everyone might feel about Donald Trump and the key to interact art is to make it simple so the public will join in. 

I think our project will work because it incorporates everything interactive art needs: 

• By using a topical figure it becomes eye grabbing, therefore making the public want to stop, look and hopefully interact with.
• It's fun, which is essential in interactive art, the public will not stop if the activity looks boring and I think a LOT of people will want to express their opinions on Trump by drawing all over his face.
• It's simple and quick, most people won't want to stop for very long and our activity takes at most 2 minutes.

Here was how we summed up our idea by using a single image as we got the whole class to draw on Trump's face:  

We organised the day before what each of us had to bring in and as I was the only one who knew how to edit I brought in the cameras and the tripods and we both brought it a selection of materials for people to interact with. As I got there earlier I made some signs to put around the uni to really get people interested in interacting with our work. Then I started taping all 50 images together which took a lot longer than I expected, when my partner joined me we were still no where near done as we still needed to put up the sign and stick together abut 20 more Trump images which was a shame because we wanted to get the lunch rush to interact with our work. Instead some people walking by actually thought we were Trump supporters becuase all we had at the time were dozens of pictures of his face and no materials or sign and people got extremely upset! There was spitting and shouting which was quite alarming but a good indication to to how even before our piece was up people wanted to interact in any way they could becuase we had chosen such a controversial figure. 

By the time lunch was over the whole stall was set up and nearly every single person who walked by either started drawing or taking a picture which was exhilarating as people were happily interactive with our work without us asking them to. In fact we found that the further away we stood the more comfortable people felt drawing whatever they liked so we left the tripods where they were and headed off to our group tutorial.

During our tutorial we discussed how we were going to display the final piece and I suggested putting our Trump faces on the wall with the sign 'CSM opinion of Trump' over it but our teacher suggest implementing a subtle nod to Trump's campaign with his logos and his colour scheme to entice the viewer into thinking its a Trump campaign and then shocking them when they see the gratified Trump faces, I thought this was a brilliant idea and when I told her about my idea to put Trump's official song in the back of the video she gave the inspiration to also add clips from his speeches as well. 

When we got back we found that most if not all the Trump faces had been defaced and some of them in  very comical manner. But the interaction did not stop there because even after there were no more Trump faces to draw on so many people came up to take pictures to put on their social media so the interaction spread online.

We came in on the Wednesday becuase I needed some more content for the film and I also really wanted to try out our fake Donald Trump campaign idea in our presentation and to see how people would interact with it. This is when working in a pair became a bit difficult as we both had different interpretations on how to present the final piece as my partner just wanted to hang it up on the wall in the studio whereas I wanted to display it outside with the sign to people's reaction. We settled on trying both our ideas but by the time it go to mine it was late and my partner had to leave so I had to set up the display myself which was a bit of a challenge because i wanted to display it at the entrance of the university but that was all brick wall which is extremely  difficult to stick anything onto let alone 50 faces of Trump's face so it was very fiddly but luckily someone lent me helping hand so it final got up on the wall. I also printed out the sign in Trump's classic navy and white colours with in his bold font and added red banners. If I had more time and was not so terrified of it falling down I would of added more precision to sticking it up and only used red tape (the red tape was not strong enough at the time so the white double sided tape had to be used) becuase I think it would of looked more aesthetically pleasing but overall I think the appearance is bold and eye catching which is what I intended. 

Even though it was really hard to put up I am so happy I did as I left my tripod and just watched people interact and it was amazing as I saw it bring a smile to some people's faces and burrowing frown to others an dso many people to pictures that I didn't even realise someone from the CSM facebook page taking one as I set up the work. I don't think I have ever created a piece that has effected so many people and it was fascinating to watch, I stayed for quite a while after the piece was put up, not only to get footage for my film but I was so content just watching people walk by and interact with the Trump faces. 

However as much as I enjoyed the filming people interacting with Trump faces I did not get home till 10 due to traffic so I had to stay up all night editing the Trump video which was not difficult becuase I've edited many times before but becuase quite a lot of the footage was extremely long due to us leaving the camera to film people reaction for up to 30 mins, which worked well when I increased the speed and used it in the film but it meant that the footage took 3 hours to upload! So I was really tight on time with finishing the piece which is annoying becuase I felt I could of made it better if I had more time.

Today was critique day and I was bit nervous becuase I had never done one of these before and I'd made the final video quite comical to emphasise the ridiculousness which is Trump but I was worried that perhaps that would not come across well. Thankful it was a success and people liked the comical juxtaposition between the peaky pro Trump music and the many shots of his face covered in penises, devil horns and blood. The critique was also really useful to help consider different options such as doing this with the public instead of CSM students and what effects that would of created and we also had a chance to explain the meaning behind our choices and the difficulties we encountered. I also loved looking at other peoples work as I felt I'd been in this weird Trump bubble the past week and I could finally see what other people had done. The one I found the most interesting and ingenious was the video exploring gender inequality in which they had two pieces of paper, one had female written on it the other had male, however the women had to draw on this paper with a blunt pencil while the men got a pen and the women drew on a unequal surface whilst the men had a smooth one. I thought is was such a cleaver way to look at gender inequality and the ending shot was so haunting as the marks the women left were barely recognizable whereas the mens were a clear as daylight. 

Again I was very excited to start the assignment due to my research as I began to see white space in so many things from photography, film, book covers, landscapes, it was absolutely everywhere! So when we first got there we had to have blindfold discussions about our research which at first was really fun as I had to use only my words to explain the images in my mind and for other people to pitch in without  me seeing their expressions was interesting, however I think my group ran out of idea a couple of minute too early and then it was very difficult to keep conversation going as we couldn't see who was about to speak and we also had exhausted the conversation of white space but overall it was a really interesting, fun experience. After that we were sent out to take photographs of white space from around the area which I enjoyed as I love photography but I must admit I think I went down the worst possible road as there was very little white space. Once we came back we had select a couple of the white space shapes from the photos and recreate them and the photography them in a new environment, my efforts were not very successful. By the time I got to the materials the had all gone and the materials I had brought were mostly fabric and cotton wool which is near impossible to form a sustainable shape so I improvised with the one piece of card I had a adopted the shape of the white lines on the road and then took 10 different photos of it in front of different surroundings. However once I got back I realised that was not really what we were supposed to do so I did a couple more shapes in the time we had left. Even though I did not really like my end product I did learn a lot from looking at others work and I really enjoyed the end activity of forming the idea of our manifesto and talking to other student s about how they interpreted it. 

It was really interesting seeing each others manifestos and how we all interpreted white space, my manifesto was based of my research more than my work the day before becuase I was not really fond of it so I focused more on the images in my workflow I found interesting which were the ones were there was a singular piece of bright colour in a white background, I think it really  highlighted the isolation of the white space which first came into my mind when I heard the word 'white space.' When developing my idea my initial plan was to go home and take pictures of fog to work with but the weather would not corporate so I had to use a mixture of Photoshop and collage to create the desired effect.