The start of Unit X

The Unit X theme this year is Manchester School of Art's 175th Anniversary. We were allocated groups (I am in PLAY 6) and asked to research 3 interesting facts linked to the number 175.

The bus I have to take to get to Hilton House is the 157, the middle shield is an American Route number (the first Google image result) and the Roman Numerals for 175 came up through the first Wikipedia entry for 175. Because we were asked to present the information on A2 paper, and I needed to get the bus I decided to fold and crumple it 175 times. This created a really interesting effect, which is more valuable research than the 3 facts themselves. Also it includes an element of play.

The members of our group are:

Textiles: Safia, Sue and myself
Media: Ollie, Jacob and Michael

When assembled as a group the 4 of us present thought that the idea of paper as a starting point was interesting; I thought that it could be fun to see what other people would do when handed a piece of paper, which indirectly led to the idea of interviewing them about Manchester School of Art. Jacob thought it would be interesting to film the interviews, and turn 175 corners, taking photographs of the first thing he saw each time. Safia suggested looking at 175 anniversaries, and Sue wanted to look at people from the past 175 years associated with the art school, and suggested I could find 175 quotes from people currently associated with the art school as well as alumni.

We were keen to include the element of play, and the methods by which we are gaining research are quite playful; we will get unexpected quotes, images and facts to work with, and will then experiment with 175 papers and 175 colours to produce interesting results. The colours could be based on those found in Jacob's photographs. Jacob suggested that he could find a piece of music 175 seconds long to play at the final exhibition, and include some footage from the films made.

We decided to name our group 'Jouer' which means 'to play' in French as it tells people about our methodology, is easy to say and sounds good.

So far we have worked well as a group, been decisive and creative, listened to each other well and agreed on most things. Everyone (textiles students and Jacob) had input and things to say, came up with ideas and is clear about our initial plan.