Some light after the cave's darkness...

Finally the MA is getting shape!!
I was really afraid about the workshops we were going to have and how the project was going to be.
Sometimes I thought it wasn't worthy. The money I was going to spend seemed not to be equivalent to the knowledge and skills I was going to achieve.
But suddenly, after the days passed by, after the welcome week end and all the academic schedule started... things began to fit. The volunteering fair, the Skills and Acceler8 awards and the Students in Clasrooms Schemes commenced to change my point of view.

I was really excited last friday when David Downes, our MA coordinator and tutor showed us the workshops we were going to have and the suggested list of books we needed to read so we could expand our basic knowledge and take on the MA project proposal.


After the lecture and the free event in Nottingham Playhouse "From page to stage" I ran to the Boots Library axious to start reading the books. Of course the general ones -for all the MA coordinated by David- ran away, so I looked for the ones that concerned my MA. I started with "The Animator's Survival Kit" and its amazing all the practical advices Richard Williams offers. A very good starting book for people like me that want to be an animator/digital animator but is in dipers!

Meeting Nottingham

After the Collaborative Project I still need to map the city. I went to the Goose Fair with René.
We didn't expected it to be there, we just wanted to have a picnic in Forest Fields but it surprised us with the fair.

It's really contrasting to compare an event that has also relevance in my country. That "fair" thing was in somehow, instructive. To see how people move in an environment that is common, well known and popular gives you another perspective of Nottingham's people. You can see a little bit more about their aspirations, desires and thoughts.

We are not so different, people of my country and Nottingham people. But at the same time we are really different. Kind of cultural, social and weather stuff. I don't know how to define it.


That is something to think about.

Zer8. The process for me.

School of Art & Design Collaborative Project Blog

I would only want to add some words about the process that we had as a group to reach this idea. After the talk with Kevin Love about the identity and all that philosophical reflection and then after you gave us the snowball, we started talking about the human necessity of remembering things or obtaining experiences, the idea of being permanent and that souvenirs had that functionality and of course they have also commercial objectives.

One of the first ideas was to make a puppet and it would be a medium sized structure and under its clothes you’ll see the photos we would took because the identity —as Kevin said- is more than “what is my name, where do I come from, etc.” and the idea of putting all Nottingham photos below the puppet clothes would be a hypothesis of how the identity could be configured and then I came up with the idea of fractality and how it fits with identity and how the puppet would represent that. So under the clothes would be also another puppet and under its clothes would be the same photos and another copy of the puppet with the same photos inside and with other puppet and that ad libitum but we thought it would be really hard to construct that thing because of the time and the materials so we decided to start the mapping of the city. And that’s when Mr Blackpool appeared and we decided that the souvenir became a tourist and that just, as we are students, his perspective has to fit with a student perspective.

Despite the fact that it is a collaborative project we can see the individuality or at least is clear for me. For example Amanda was our tour guide as she lives here, and we go to the places that from her perspective would be the most relevant for the work. When Nick took the photos in which we saw the city as the souvenir it was completely his idea and how he assimilated the proposal of Mr. Blackpool.

Anna made the white animations and Clémence the drawing draft. Radhika with the writing, it was Radhika’s Mr. Blackpool point of view, Riko, Tina and Niki made the installation and helped with the scouting and me, it was my own experience/perspective with/of Mr. Blackpool through the short film.

Mr. BlackPool's Journey

Mr. BlackPool's Journey

The finished short fil for the Collaborative Project at NTU School of Art & Design.

Collaborative Project

For the next two weeks, we, the MA students of the Art & Design School, will be doing a Collaborative Project about identity and how we see Nottingham. There wer some ideas about how to map the city. Carol Jones, Rihanon Jones and Kevin Love are the responsibles of the hole project.

My team is Zer8 and we came for very different backgrounds: Nottingham, France, Italy, India, China, Taiwan and of course Mexico.

Tomorrow we'll be mapping the zone.

F1rst d4y

Unt1l I f1n4lly s1t d0wn 4t th3 41rp0rt w41t1ng f0r th3 c03ch t0 NTU, r34l1ty h1t m3. 

4ll th3 3xp13r3nc3s I h4v3 b33n l1v1ng f0r th3 p4st 4 or 5 y34rs sudd3nly d5wn3d 0n m3.

Which were the things, the actions, the thougts that led me to that precise moment? Which was the precise moment in which I had decided to take the airplane and came to this country by my own? without any accommodation -even for that day!-? with a lot of speaking english problems 'cause my brain loves to think quicker than the movement of my tongue and I have to translate in my head at the same time and that's nuts!? plenty of doubts about my MA course and the life I would have...? pffff...!!! petrified... and then little drops, some breath, new people, a NTU coach and finally some sleep...

I found a room for that night and our "permanent" room during term time in my next day scouting. JA! and I walked several blocks with my two GIANT baggage (they are not so big but at that moment they seemed so). Then I finally arrived to Study Inn.

J3t L4g, c0nfus3d, 3xc1ted, hungry, w1th0ut cr3d1t c4rd 'c4us3 1t w4s st0l3n f3w d4ys 4g0 fr0m th4t d4y... cr4zyn3ss and 4v1d 0f 3xp3r1nc3s... th1s w33k pr0m1s3s...wh4t? I d0n't kn0w but sur3ly s0m3th1ng w0uld ch4ng3 0n m3.