The Fabrications and Documentation: Online Submission Only

Hi All,

As you'll soon be uploading images and video of your work to your blog for the next two assessments (note: this is an online submission only, you are not required to submit your physical models) you might be wondering what you should upload to have your Fabrications assessed compared to what you should upload to have your Documentation assessed.

The short answer to this question is that you should focus on the finished product for your fabrications and focus on the process for your documentation.

But to fully answer this question it's good to return to the course outline.

The assessment criteria and weightings (in brackets) for the Fabrications are as follows:

Quality of Fabrication (30%): are the models well made?

Accuracy (20%): do the models accurately reflect the geometry of their selected element?  

Ambition (30%): are the models conceptually as well as technically ambitious?

Range (20%): do the models demonstrate a good range of scales/materials/techniques?

In this assessment, focus on the finished product. You'll see that the different criteria seem relatively evenly weighted; but Quality of Fabrication and Ambition are actually weighted 50% higher than the other two criteria. This means you should pay extra attention to demonstrating your models are well made and were challenging to make (the more difficult the challenge the higher the ambition). You don't need to show every part of the model, so focus on the parts that are made the best, or present as the most tricky to make. In terms of accuracy, show us that you haven't made curved surfaces square to make it easier to make, for example. You might include images of the precedent alongside your work to demonstrate that your work is an accurate representation. In terms of range, this variety should have been established in your matrix (under scales/materials/techniques) so all there is to do here is show examples of each. You can use short explanatory texts or captions under each image/video to draw attention to aspects of the image or video you would like us to notice ... in other words, help us to see the significance of what you have done.

The assessment criteria and weightings (in brackets) for the Documentation are as follows: 

Thorough (40%): is the documentation comprehensive?

Imaginative (30%): is the documentation imaginative?

Repeatable (30%): would the documentation facilitate repeatability?

In this assessment, focus on the process. In terms of being comprehensive both Daniel and I have often reminded students in the workshop to take images and video of their work as they progressed. It was this exact assessment criteria we were referring too. If you didn't take pictures/videos/drawings/etc as you went along you might consider redoing some processes to capture them now. So what is imaginative documentation? Some examples are: different perspectives (detail close ups vs panoramic views of your work in context of the whole workshop), different aspect ratios (tall and skinny shots for tall and skinny processes for example), time-lapse video, edited video, edited stills, 360 stills and video, drawings, sketch models, digital models, renders, technical writing, poems(?!? who knows!), audio recordings. Finally, the last assessment criteria is repeatability. Wouldn't it have been nice if someone showed you all the ways you could go wrong, and then gave you great tips on how to save time and money by doing it the way you figured out how to do it in the end? Here is your opportunity to help someone else out; which might actually include your future self when you revive some of these skills to make a great model for graduation studio, or for work. If by reading through your Documentation we can get a clear sense of how to do your project ourselves you will get a good mark in this criteria. 

Our last class is next week, so if you have questions on any of this feel free to ask us in person in the workshop, or below in the comments.

Regards

Russell