Nicole Hosking

January 21, 2020
Aphorisms
For my senior thesis, I started by exploring conspiracy theories and fact vs fiction. I also explored the statement “believe or not” by making list of events and things from mine, and my classmates lives. The phrase “believe it or not” took me into “Ripleys believe it or not book of women” by Gordon Donaldson. After this research I started to become interested in using text plus image, but Ripley’s forms was to contrasting for me.

I started looking at aphorisms from my favorite TV series “Criminal Minds.” I made a list of them, and played around with text and image. For my imagery, I used a 16 second video of trees along the highway, that I took this summer while in Canada. I started to explore movement with in the video, by taking screenshots. With those images I matched them up with relating phases. I broke these phases up and started really thinking about brakes, pauses, spacing, and how the phrases are read.

Accordion books is a way I have explored the video with structure, timing and use of grid. I choose to do accordion books because they almost reminded me of film, by the way the pages turned. I became more and more interested in the language aspect of my work. In particular I wanted to explore spacing and pacing. I made four books primarily focused on spacing of the phrases. For the content of these books I left the criminal minds aphorisms behind, entering the book Short Circuits: Aphorisms, Fragments, and Literary Anomalies, by James Lough. The content in this book gives me a lot of options and ideas for the way aphorisms are used.

I’m going to continue exploring aphorisms and use of language, inducing spacing and word/phrase brakes. I will continue making books, of different sizes and kinds. These will contain text and images. Over the break I became more interested in photography than video. I am now exploring how image and text contrast with each other, even when they are not related at all. I have also taken more of an interest in the design of the interior of the books, there for putting a pause on the over all type of book. I am also taking an advanced creative writing class, in which I hope to focus on screenplay, another way of combining language and text. I'm hoping my creative writing class can relate my Aphorisms project, so I can start creating my own aphorisms and phrases, and really explore my writing

Fact vs. Fiction
14 October 2019
For my senior thesis, I started by exploring Fact vs Fiction. In addition I have been looking into the meaning of the phrase “Believe it or not.” The truth sometimes scares and confuses people, and that's what I want to investigate for the creation of this project. I want to explore the question, is it easier to believe in a lie than believing in the truth? For this idea I want to put more of a psychology aspect on it. I am pulling quotes from the tv series Criminal Minds. For example, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” I am seeing what I can learn from pulling them from their original contexts, and putting them in new ones. Part of this idea involves putting a fact v. fiction spin on the design. The interest in this topic comes from the idea of mixing images, graphic design, words, and typography. 
To properly convey my thesis, I want to explore making images out of type, but also using actual imagery. I am studying typography and the alteration of typography. Also, drawing by hand vs drawing on the computer. I've been doing experiments with digitizing my sketchbook drawings. 
I would like to know where the strengths and weaknesses are in this concept and body of work. I have worked on independent projects before, and found that it was hard for me to focus on just one subject. That's why for this project, I want to keep my possibilities open. I believe starting out thinking about fact vs fiction, “believe it or not” and truth vs lies leaves me with a wide range of ideas. 
Thesis Tweet 
My senior thesis will be exploring fact vs fiction and the phrase “believe it or not.” I am exploring a psychology point of view, using content from the tv series Criminal Minds. 

May 2019
For my senior thesis, I want to explore Fact vs Fiction and conspiracy theories. I want to focus primarily on separating fact from fiction. I want to explore children’s shows and historical events. Conspiracy theories scare and confuse people, and that’s why I want to go deeper in when doing research and creating this project.
One example of a children’s show to explore further is Winne the Pooh. There is a conspiracy theory that each character represents a different mental disorder: Pooh, Impulsivity; Piglet, Anxiety; Roo, Autism; Tiger, ADHD; Eeyore, Depression; Rabbit, OCD; Kanga, Social Anxiety; Owl, Dyslexia. For an example from the media, 9/11 has a lot of conspiracy theories. Some people believe that 9/11 was an inside job, and George Bush is the one who’s actually responsible for it.
To properly convey the idea of fact vs fiction, I want to explore making images out of type, but also using some type of actual imagery. Within this concept, the words would be the fiction, and the fact would be the image. My goal would be to make it seem like the words are the thoughts of my subjects, and the images are the actual facts of the situation. I have the illustration skills and the computer skills to complete this idea.
I have worked on independent projects before, and found that it was hard for me to focus on just one subject. That’s why for this project, I want to keep my possibilities open and at a wide range. I believe starting out thinking about fact vs fiction and conspiracy theories is good because there’s a lot of research I could do throughout the year, and many different paths my ideas could go down.
I plan to display this idea in posters, made digitally and printed to hang. However, I also want to explore collage materials. I want to combine the two and see how far I could take it. I also want to explore drawing this by hand vs drawing it on the computer, which would also tie into the message as well.
For artists, I’ve been looking at Christian Goldmann and Blair Davidson. Their work is images based out of words. Davidson is the one who inspired me to not focus on just type, but to add in some imagery as well. I thinking doing a lot of research and putting in a lot of time I can complete my goal with this project.

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