Final Flesh Workbook

Woot.

2800+ words

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175 photographs, images, graphs, vector art files and graphicky things

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InDesign is now my friend

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a very long week of writing, structuring, re-writing, re-structuring, page layouts, and general fiddly page editing about 12 hours a day

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awesomely helpful print shop lady

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the workbook is finally finished.

development section excerpt that sums up book/the flesh project content:

"Eppie, and the Flesh story have grown over four months of intensive research of, and by design. As our understanding of taste, humanity, cultural values, and basic scientific data has deepened, so too has the complexity of our design. These images on the following pages illustrate the development of the flesh project from provocative yet basic ideas that sparked imagination to fully resolved designed concepts that illustrate just how beautiful our future could be. This is flesh."

process:

alot of writing and mindmapping to structure idea>

more research to back up initial biology, chemistry, sociology, psychology, language and culture, cannibalism etc, this time on genetics to develop how we will manifest the Eppie idea in people>

developing into linear workbook friendly format > INDESIGN used for document layout and editing, many many battles with indesign but we appear to have resolved our differences and managed to finish in time. >

more restructuring >

more re-writing >

many many many fiddly photoshop image and illustrator graphic issues tweaked. >

proof-reading >

individual numbering pages which was so much fun because indesigns auto page numberer failed on me. >

final editing process (Meredith and Scott read through workbook around 30 times on Sunday night being as picky as humanly possible until both lose their minds.)

Page examples below

hard copy handed in and link to download pdf on www.flesh2090.com website

Groups contribution

Scott - Research, writing, editing, structuring argument, page layout and design, photography, some basic photoshop, capture and compositing of internal anatomy images, vector graphic tweaking, exporting fun, and 5 awesomely fun runs to the printshop and back to school on print day (4 because of multiple file exporting issues, 5th running due to excitement of project finally being potentially complete :) )

Meredith - Proof reading! We did this MANY times. help with page layout and design, and tweaking of vector graphics. Photoshopping of final images and help with tweaking other images to match tone of book, research - conducted two of the interviews.

Kevin - Vector graphics in illustrator for contexts/phenotype section, and cover page patterns

Cam and Ron - Outdoor context photography and editing, help with final image photoshopping

Byron M - Rendering of Eppie for life cycle section and help with research and writing of scientific grounding for life cycle.

Workbook Complete and PRINTED!

Finally done, and its BEAUTIFUL. yay.

printing came to $119.40, or $17.10 each

Can everyone please put this in to account 12 3040 0662395 050

Cheers

Will post images later when presentation is sussed

chur

workbook

example of the final page layout for the final images.

whats in a name.

hi,

workbook is coming along well, been editing, restructuring and re-writing the document to make it clearer and a little more edgy and less academic wanky. One thing I think we should consider is a proper name for the slug/fruit/leech thing. been doing research on some words similar to the project. The organism is essentially a parasite, and organism that lives off another body, though the definition of a parasite states that the parasitic organism is usually detrimental to the host organism. So more specifically, the fruit thing is an epiphyte. The oxford dictionary definition for which is "a vegetable parasite on the surface of an animal body."

So there could be room to do something with words like this, will definitely be working them into the documentation, but there all quite impersonal, I almost think we need to give it a name like Gary or something... something abit more tongue in cheek, more to think about.

Shoot Planning

Mental State Colour

This is a graphic I've combined using a colour wheel and a diagram from the Designing Emotions book I borrowed from Edgar to create a reference point for how we colour the slugs on the body.

Contribution to hand-in May 24th

My part in this phase of our project involved conducted further research into more specific aspects of the project:

-Culture and Language
-Sociology
-Psychology
-Anatomy
-Chemistry
-Biology
-Cannibalism

This involved reading books and websites, aswell as conducting 5 of our 7 interviews with our experts and compiling research gathered at these.

I was also the photographer for this stage of the project, shooting all of our images and doing some of the editing. We took nearly 1800 photographs and large amounts of video footage for this stage of the project.

This work was then written and compiled into the report we handed in as my contribution to the presentation.

Anatomy, body systems and sweat research so far

Ok so this is a brief summary of the reading I've been doing this past week on body systems and sweat excretion etc etc. I have looked at sweat abit but more about the body systems that create and deliver sweat in terms of what they do and how it might be adapted to produce the growth that we are talking about.

Sweat, as an excretion, is predominantly made up of water (more than 99%) but contains many other minerals, mainly Sodium, Potassium, Calcium, and Magnesium.

All of these minerals are considering essential "quantity elements" for bodily function, meaning we must ingest a certain amount of these to survive.

The body systems that create sweat are split into two main systems, The Eccrine system of sweat glands, and the Apocrine glands which form part of the Exocrine system.

The Eccrine glands are found all over the body, for the purpose of thermo-regulation or cooling the body. These glands are tiny coils of cells in the Dermis layer of the skin that turn into a straight duct of cells leading to the skin surface.

The Apocrine glands are found around the armpits, genitalia, anus and the areola of the nipples.

Their secretion is slightly different to normal sweat, and decomposition of the cells in this excretion is the main cause of body odour.

These glands form part of the Exocrine system, glands which deliver hormonal secretion directly to the external body or the skin.

The counter to this system is the Endocrine system which delivers hormonal secretion directly to the blood stream.

The human body is sweating all the time whether we notice it or not. If the body is in a positive mental state, free of stress or physical exertion, the rate of sweat is almost unnoticeable, this is because while the sweat travels up the straight part of the duct in an eccrine sweat gland the essential minerals (sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium) can be reabsorbed back into the body, leaving only water which can in turn be reabsorbed.

When the body is stressed, whether mentally physically or from heat, the rate of sweating increases. Because of the large increase in flow rate, sweat molecules are not in the straight duct of the eccrine gland long enough to be reabsorbed, resulting in mineral and water loss, which explains the increased need for hydration after large amounts of sweating.

Because we are talking about illustrating mental state through growth and taste, it seems viable to suggest that whilst in a positive mental state, our growth will be healthier, as the body has more nutrient content to work with, and as such we could have more growth to share with someone in more of a negative mental state where normally heavier sweating would be caused their growth would be less healthy and less desirable to eat. The odor caused by decomposition of these cells could also add another level of sensory development to the growth, not only taste but through smell it can tell us when someone is in a bad mental position and therefore less desirable to eat from, or more in need of help from people in positive mental states.

Scientific discussion of body odor is not all negative however.

Androstadienone is a chemical compound found in male sweat, which can influence the endocrine systems secretion of hormones into the blood of the opposite sex. Its odor has also been found to induce pheromonal activity in humans, and can 'significantly affect' the mood of the heterosexual woman and homosexual male. A pheromone is defined as a chemical excretion that triggers a social response in members of the same species, they are very often talked about in the breeding patterns of animals, less so in humans, supposedly because of the development of the human brain and our ability to consider other external factors? This branch of science could be much more relevant to our project however because we are talking more about reproduction and evolution, as well as the rather animalistic nature of cannibalism that loosely ties into the project.

Also important to point out that the female ovaries and the male testes are part of the Endocrine system, which could relate to Meredith's research on food, specifically fruit as the ovary of a plant.

Research applied to different social situations we are considering:

Male - Female sexual partnership

based more around the apocrine glands and compounds like androstadienone, this is where we could really push the erotic side of the project.

Male or Female - Peers or group

the Eccrine glands and growth based on mental state, healthy or not healthy, working in a similar method to the change in flow of sweat.

Male or Female - Child

less based on mental state more on development, as a child, there need for sourcing compounds such as calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium are much greater to aid there development, as such the interaction between these people could be more about healthy growth from the elder being passed down to the younger.

I think it could be really interesting to look at colour and texture for differentiating healthy from unhealthy growth based on mental state, or we could look at how the gelatin breaks down on the skin similar to the decomposition of cells in sweat and odor.

In terms of the upcoming handin I'll work on some visuals of body systems to accompany the physical models and images were doing this week. Would also potentially like to start a basis for the workbook to cover the research and development of the project that we'll have to write in full for the final handin.

New Actors/Models

Have just been up to Toi Whakaari, the drama school to ask about actors or models. The acting department of the school is still on their break this week so the receptionist gave me the phone number for their head of school to get in contact with him next week about giving a brief presentation of what we are doing to some students. I will sus out a powerpoint or something (I know, lame, but easy to present to a random group with), we will need to figure out what sort of people we want, and how many (at this stage I'm thinking around 8-10?). With the offer of a well crafted portfolio piece and potentially even a short film produced by Weta it should be a pretty lucrative offer to them I don't imagine we'll have too much trouble finding people. What are everyone's thoughts?

Team Meeting

Thursday after hand in.

Final Presentation - looking at video and stills -

• video of a traditional couple, looking at communication and honesty, but also needs to be to the extreme, of emotion and expression.
• Integrated first person experience through the website
• Series of stills of intergenerational communication, and communication between non-social norms

Ross liked the leeches.  we need to know what we want to compose.  look at how we pull it off the skin.  CRAFT - with material, and people.

Associated Experts

Paul Hillier - Photography; Technical Staff, School of Architecture

We had three meetings with Paul Hillier to consult him about tone and lighting our photography. He granted us access to his camera and studio and we shot the majority of our photos over three days. He helped us with the camera settings, and spatial and technical set up to shoot skin tones.



Anne Galloway – Anthropology; Senior Lecturer, School of Design

Anne Galloway gave us some avenues to explore how different cultures interpret the different parts of the body, and cannibalism. We had initial email contact and then verbal discussion a couple of times for this project.



Celine Reisser - Marine Biologist/Geneticist, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Sciences

We have talked to Celine about the wider implications of changing human eating patterns and the possibility of editing our genes to grow extra features.



Aaron Williamson - Chef de partie, Martin Bosley's Restaurant

Has provided expertise on chemical reactions used to create different mediums to present foods on the body.

Literature Reviews

Lundqvist, Lars-Olov Lundqvist, Fredrik Carlsson, Per Hilmersson. “Emotional responses to music: experience, expression, and physiology”. Psychology of Music, vol 37(1): 61–90. Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research, 2009.

This book, while reasonably scientific gave insight into the power of music. It encouraged a ‘less is more’ approach when combined with another media. Recently music and emotion has been looked at specifically in terms of whether music provokes genuine emotional responses in listeners or whether listeners simply perceive the emotions the music is expressing. One of the most common reasons for listening to music is that it induces strong emotions and can be used as a means of mood induction in music therapy.




D. Västfjäll. “Emotion induction through music: A review of the musical mood induction procedure”. Musicae Scientiae, Special issue: pages 173–211. (2001–2002)

Because this is a review, it was very scientific. This writing was probably less helpful the previous because it did not leave very much room for artistic development, beyond the basic rules and understandings of music therapy. Lars-Olov Lundqvist believes that: “Music is a potent elicitor of emotions in listeners.”



Blackman. Lisa. “The Body: The Key Concepts” (New York: Berg Publishers, 2008)

The Body as a text highlights the importance of perceptions of the body to societies understanding of power, ideology and social and cultural process. It is paramount to our project to understand how individuals interact with physical understanding currently, so we can expand on this for the future. This text looks at the body as communication, sexuality, health, the senses, and other social and cultural variables. The chapter titled the feeling body is interesting to our work, looking at the bodies capacity to affect and be affected, and 'the intelligence of the flesh.'



Reeves Sanday, Peggy. “Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a cultural system”. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)

This book was the main reference point for research on cannibalism and the surrounding issues concerning the body. The text seeks to understand the views and values behind cannibalism in different cultural contexts, beyond the common western viewpoint of barbaric gruesomeness. The most effective research coming from this book which has driven the theory behind our anatomical concepts is around the study of cannibalism in Fijian and ancient Aztec cultures. This was very helpful for understanding the different areas of the body and their potential purposes beyond the purely physical elements of our body. This has helped to look at the growth we can create on our bodies anatomically whilst still maintaining a strong poetic element.

Cam and Ron's experiments

More photos of Cam and Byron's Experiments, some of the shots taken this morning will need to be done again but heres a start.

top 3 photos are Byron W's work, bottom 3 photos are Cameron's work. Photography done by Scott.

More

Scott's work. Meredith and am are the models.

Compositing with Male and Female

Experiment with compositing anatomy onto people interacting, will start experimenting with looking at how growth on both partners can interact with each others anatomy.

Title Image?

GOLD.

Thursday's shoot

A few of the shots we got yesterday, we're now 3 days and 11gb into shooting, is there anything else we still need?

Slugs are Byron W's work. Photography by Scott. Shot composition - Meredith & Scott













Hexagon shape designs are Kevin's work

More Compositing

Wednesday Photo Shoot

More photography from yesterdays shoot of experiments in different contexts.

Hexagon designs are Kevin's work. Slugs are Byron W's work. Photography and editing by Scott. Shot composition - Meredith & Scott

Anatomy compositing experiments

Here's my first experiments with compositing anatomical images and possible growth images on to people.