The results of my survey, based around phobias and horror.

It completely slipped my mind to post this but here it is, the results of my survey (lots and lots of images, click on them to read in full). This was a really fun experiment and makes for an interesting read, I also noticed the participants were predominantly female, maybe men were a bit too uncomfortable to talk about their fears even through the anonymity of a survey.

Looking into Ancient Greece.

So, obviously if you don't know about a place, you do some research, that's where I begin my Orrery crusade. For this I'm not so much looking at the people as I am making an object and as such don't really need to delve too much into this side, however I will be looking into some clothing, the art and astrology to create my Orrery. Here is some small information on Ancient Greece.

"Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (c. 600 AD). Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in ancient Greece is the period of Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Classical Greece began with the repelling of a Persian invasion by Athenian leadership. Because of conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the western end of the Mediterranean Sea.Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean Basin and Europe. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered as the cradle of Western civilization."

And some info on the art and sculpture!

"The art of Ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods: the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. The Geometric age is usually dated from about 1000 BC, although in reality little is known about art in Greece during the preceding 200 years (traditionally known as the Greek Dark Ages), the period of the 7th century BC witnessed the slow development of the Archaic style as exemplified by the black-figure style of vase painting. The onset of the Persian Wars (480 BC to 448 BC) is usually taken as the dividing line between the Archaic and the Classical periods, and the reign of Alexander the Great (336 BC to 323 BC) is taken as separating the Classical from the Hellenistic periods.

Ancient Greek sculpture is the sculpture of Ancient Greece. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages. They were used to depict the battles, mythology, and rulers of the land known as Ancient Greece. 

Ancient Greek monumental sculpture was composed almost entirely of marble or bronze; with cast bronze becoming the favoured medium for major works by the early 5th century; many pieces of sculpture known only in marble copies made for the Roman market were originally made in bronze. Smaller works were in a great variety of materials, many of them precious, with a very large production of terracotta figurines. The territories of ancient Greece, except for Sicily and southern Italy, contained abundant supplies of fine marble, with Pentelic and Parian marble the most highly prized, along with that from modern Prilep in Macedonia, and various sources in modern Turkey. The ores for bronze were also relatively easy to obtain. Marble was mostly found around the Parthenon and other major Greek buildings. 

Both marble and bronze are fortunately easy to form and very durable; as in most ancient cultures there were no doubt also traditions of sculpture in wood about which we know very little, other than acrolithic sculptures, usually large, with the head and exposed flesh parts in marble but the clothed parts in wood. As bronze always had a significant scrap value very few original bronzes have survived, though in recent years marine archaeology or trawling has added a few spectacular finds, such as the Artemision Bronze and Riace bronzes, which have significantly extended modern understanding. Many copies of the Roman period are marble versions of works originally in bronze. Ordinary limestone was used in the Archaic period, but thereafter, except in areas of modern Italy with no local marble, only for architectural sculpture and decoration. Plaster or stucco was sometimes used for the hair only. Chryselephantine sculptures, used for temple cult images and luxury works, used gold, most often in leaf form and ivory for all or parts (faces and hands) of the figure, and probably gems and other materials, but were much less common, and only fragments have survived. Many statues were given jewellery, as can be seen from the holes for attaching it, and held weapons or other objects in different materials."

As I'm thinking about creating a statue for my orrery to stand on rather than just a plinth for a small object to sit on, I think this could look nicer especially as I'm going with a Medusa theme, she is often depicted as having a snake body, I think this could make for the stand and her head obviously as the main Orrery devise. I don't really understand the way snakes bodies work so if I do want to do a snake body instead of a plinth, I will have to do a bit of research on snakes and see which snake will make the best model.

Tackling task two!

Our next task (that was actually set on the 05/10/2015 whoops) we were given the word Orrery!

*crickets chirp in my head*

I had actually never heard the term Orrery before ... So I had to look it up, thank the lord for Google!

"An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons, usually according to the heliocentric model. It may also represent the relative sizes of these bodies; but since accurate scaling is often not practical due to the actual large ratio differences, a subdued approximation may be used instead. Though the Greeks had working planetaria, the first orrery that was a planetarium of the modern era was produced in 1704, and one was presented to Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery — whence came the name. They are typically driven by a clockwork mechanism with a globe representing the Sun at the centre, and with a planet at the end of each of the arms." - wikipedia.

Unlike the insect task brief, this one was not as brief, we were given a little more information

"Concept Art:

Design an Orrery. Submit: Iteration / development PDF Final Concept (300dpi) Model sheets (Inc. material analysis and photographic reference)"

I have to admit I done so well with the last task that I feel bad that I'm not so on the ball with this one. I'm going to be taking the same path as with the first task, but working to the requests listed above. Last task I went cultural and tried a style I'd not tried before, this time I'd like to do the same again. Here is a collection of images to start the creative process!

Whilst pondering my ideas I noted a few things with my classmate Maxine down in my notepad as we both felt we needed to help each other figure out what we were going to do ...

(Excuse the doodle, me and Maxine were trying to work out, what someone would look like with a chimney on her. #howtogetcreativejuicesflowing)

For me I want to either go down the Roman or Greek route, I'm leaning more toward Greek though, especially with the mythology surrounding these cultures, also its the era of Archimedes who was a great inventor and Astronomer, I showed these ideas to my tutor Mark and he liked the idea of creating an Orrery from this time period and suggested I look into how people from this time viewed space, and how many planets they were aware of at that time, so my Orrery could look very different and unique in comparison to other people.

I admitted to Mark that both me and Maxine were a bit overwhelmed by our work at this stage, it always feels massively scary to admit that you are a bit in over your head but it felt good to say it. Mark explained a few things about doing researching and stopping ourselves from getting bogged down, he suggested we do a little bit of research, then implement that and do some creative work, then learn from that creative work and apply that to the next stage of research. I have to admit I'm of the do loads of research and then apply that and create, might have to start unlearning that and get into a new mindset with my creative process.

I really like the idea of going back in time for this task, as with the last task its a culture I've never really focused on before and I've always been interested in myths and weird stuff so .... now to start mood boarding and creating!

Looking into Phobias

I've done some research into torture devices, so now its time to look into the secondary part of my studio work, the phobias!

Here is a summery of what a phobia is.

"A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational. In the event the phobia cannot be avoided entirely, the sufferer will endure the situation or object with marked distress and significant interference in social or occupational activities. 

The terms distress and impairment as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV-TR) should also take into account the context of the sufferer's environment if attempting a diagnosis. The DSM-IV-TR states that if a phobic stimulus, whether it be an object or a social situation, is absent entirely in an environment — a diagnosis cannot be made. An example of this situation would be an individual who has a fear of mice but lives in an area devoid of mice. Even though the concept of mice causes marked distress and impairment within the individual, because the individual does not encounter mice in the environment no actual distress or impairment is ever experienced. Proximity and the degree to which escape from the phobic stimulus is impossible should also be considered. As the sufferer approaches a phobic stimulus, anxiety levels increase (e.g. as one gets closer to a snake, fear increases in ophidiophobia), and the degree to which escape of the phobic stimulus is limited has the effect of varying the intensity of fear in instances such as riding an elevator (e.g. anxiety increases at the midway point between floors and decreases when the floor is reached and the doors open). 

The term phobia is encompassing and usually discussed in the contexts of specific phobias and social phobias. Specific phobias are phobias to specific objects or environments, such as arachnophobia or acrophobia, and social phobias are phobias within social situations, such as public speaking and crowded areas. Some phobias, such as xenophobia, overlap with many other phobias."

I found a website listing several different types of phobias here http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/08/a-list-of-phobias-from-atelophobia-to-zelotypophobia/. for easy viewing I screencapped the list to post here.

As phobias are such a personal thing and vary from person to person I need to ask a varied bunch of people of people about what frightens them. I've created a survey on 'surveymonkey' asking for specifics such as age, gender, favourite types of horror genre, what phobias do you have, first
experience of fear in life, What is your worst Fear, do you watch/play horror movies/games, What is your favourite horror game/movie, In a horror game/movie what scares you the most? 

I will post the results once I hit 100 replies.

Research Report Starting point.

I seem to have forgotten to make a post about the CS section of our third year, it wasn't deliberate I just feel that my head is still full of fluff that I completely sidelined it .... however let's rectify this!

Originally I wanted to follow on from what I wrote about last project, to explore relationships that get created within the online worlds of MMO(RPG) games. I found this area rather interesting, I also have friends who have first hand experiences with online love affairs and such so I could have gotten some very interesting first hand accounts of the perils of this large online world. I also had a collection of links and books that I used.

However I just wasn't feeling it, once I had picked my main project it just didn't seem to flow well with what I was doing for the studio work, a few other students were linking their projects with their Research Report so I decided that I would too, not only would it give me additional research that I could share between projects. So I decided that looking into how sound and image create scares within video games. As a on/off 'let's player' I have the terrifying experience with horror games and having my fear reaction shared to all and sundry, the way we react to certain situations is such an awesome thing, I thought it would make for a very interesting topic to write about!

I was struggling a bit with this as I'm not very creative with titles, and I've always been told the title will help guide you through the essays. Fortunately during a CS lecture about UKIE (which was very helpful) Marie-Claire asked us to write down our general idea of what we were planning to do, and she sent us all emails with title and general ideas, she told me to look up horror games and scores and suggested these ...

"Here are some title suggestions..

• How Does Sound Enhance Player Experience in the Video Game Horror Genre?

• How do Sound and Image Work together Successful to Provide Tension in the Video Game Horror Genre?

• Horror Games:How do Sound and Image Contribute to The Horror Experience?"

This was really helpful and I've decided to tweak and go with this as the title.

“How does sound and image work together successfully to provide tension in the video game horror genre?”

All I need to do now is start my research and find my topic points!

Looking into Torture Devices!

To begin this project I will be looking into which torture devices I would like to concept further into, whilst I look into each one I will obviously have to think ahead on how gruesome each item is, how much would I be able to concept from the item, will it end up being too much to be displayed in a public setting. I also have to think of them from a gaming point of view, would the initial idea be enough to create a believable character?

First let's take a look at the definition of torture.

"Torture is the act of deliberately inflicting severe physical or psychological pain and possibly injury to an organism, usually to one who is physically restrained or otherwise under the torturer's control or custody and unable to defend against what is being done to him or her. Torture has been carried out or sanctioned by individuals, groups, and states throughout history from ancient times to modern day, and forms of torture can vary greatly in duration from only a few minutes to several days or even longer.

Reasons for torture can include punishment, revenge, political re-education, deterrence, interrogation or coercion of the victim or a third party, or simply the sadistic gratification of those carrying out or observing the torture. The need to torture another is thought to be the result of internal psychological pressure in the psyche of the torturer. The torturer may or may not intend to kill or injure the victim, but sometimes torture is deliberately fatal and can precede a murder or serve as a form of capital punishment. In other cases, the torturer may be indifferent to the condition of the victim. Alternatively, some forms of torture are designed to inflict psychological pain or leave as little physical injury or evidence as possible while achieving the same psychological devastation. Depending on the aim, even a form of torture that is intentionally fatal may be prolonged to allow the victim to suffer as long as possible (such as half-hanging).

Although torture was sanctioned by some states historically, it is prohibited under international law and the domestic laws of most countries, as developed in the mid-20th century. It is considered to be a violation of human rights, and is declared to be unacceptable by Article 5 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Signatories of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols I and II of 8 June 1977 officially agree not to torture captured persons in armed conflicts, whether international or internal. Torture is also prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which has been ratified by 158 countries. Although torture is universally condemned by all democratic nations, there have been many suspected or known instances of its sanctioned use - regardless of its legality. An example of this is the use of euphemistically-named enhanced interrogation techniques including water-boarding, known to have been used by the United States after the September 11 attacks."

I don't think I want to look too much at modern methods of torture, these modern methods are more psychological and human driven rather than using an actual item to inflict the work, and when an item is used it's derived from an old age device. I find the ancient torture devices more visually appealing for this kind of work and I feel will be more recognisable to an audience. It would also be hard to make something visual out of something that is completely all in the mind, I'm not sure if I have the skills enough to characterise something like white room torture.

There are different categories of torture devices (psychological and physical) so I have listed the information here by what the two types.

Psychological.

Physical.

I have also collected several images of different torture devices to create some mood boards.

Who knew there were so many different ways to hurt another person, really makes you think about the mentality of those who do such things.