| Introduction |
Catalogue is a summary of ideas drawn from an exhibition called Catalogue held
at Plymouth Arts Centre in June 2002. Through a collection of artists' work the
exhibition explored the range of issues relating to the commercial catalogues we
come across in our everyday lives.
The exhibition also initiated the creation of the computer software The Playroom
included in this pack. Artist Fiona Bailey helped develop this with students from
Stoke Damerel Primary School, Plymouth, and their work was exhibited in the exhibition.
This software can be used to explore the suggested Catalogue themes.
This project was funded by Architecture Week 2002 and made by Fiona Bailey, Frances Crow,
George Grinsted, Ian Hutchinson and Chris Speed.
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The views and ideas put forward in this education resource pack are held by the people
involved in developing the Catalogue exhibition. This teachers resource pack suggests
a number of, but not all ways of approaching the many issues that arise from looking at
catalogues.
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| Activity summary: |
- To investigate how an understanding of interior design, architecture and landscape can be shaped by the logic and style of commercial catalogues
- To encourage students to think about the spaces and places that we often take for granted
- To appreciate artworks by contemporary artists that address a range of related themes
- To develop activities related to the contemporary artists' work
- Playroom Case Study: Pupils investigate the interior design of their bedrooms, using ICT they collage their ideas to reflect their personal, identity, ideals and interests
- Using the software Add-Text they add an interactive dialogue to their image that articulates the intentions behind their choice of design
- The artists references can be used independently to develop other schemes of work
- Add-Text can be used independently to stimulate a dialogue in response to other images
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| An Introduction to Catalogue Themes
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Catalogue
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| Image from Add Text software © limbomedia |
Photography G.Duddridge © Dartington Hall Trust |
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| Images © Pletts Haque |
Photography Simon Cooke © Stan Bolt |
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Catalogue images often present us with a 'perfect' ready-made, vision of an ideal
home and 'perfect' people live in these ideal rooms. By choosing to buy an object
shown in the room in the catalogue we buy into the lifestyle that the shop is selling.
However, once the object is taken home and placed in our room it becomes part of a different
story, part of the catalogue of our own personal identity.
Popular TV shows, such as Changing Rooms and Groundforce provide a new form of catalogue.
They present quick fix ways of changing our homes and gardens. Product placements in films
project an image and may offer a culture we wish to adopt. The increasing numbers of CCTV
cameras in our town centers, means that we are being watched all the time. As we become more
aware that we are being watched, do we become more concerned with what we look like and the
places we are seen in. All these subjects are explored further in the different pieces of
work that were shown in the exhibition.
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Exhibition as a Catalogue
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The design of the show at Plymouth Arts Centre, embodied the ideas of catalogue in its
design. The artists' work was presented like the pages of a catalogue. Still graphic
images were combined with video and web-camera projections that linked the viewer to
projects 'outside' the gallery, either virtual or real. The result was that the viewer
could see themselves both in the real space, the exhibition, and the 'projected' space,
as described in a catalogue image. The exhibition made real, virtual and imaginary
connections to people and places beyond the gallery, just as catalogues invite us to
shape our living spaces out of collections of materials and ideas.
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Architecture as an exhibition space
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The exhibition presented the six artists' works superimposed on real exteriors,
interiors or landscapes of architectural interest. The images of the architectural
spaces were collected from around the Plymouth area and visitors to the exhibition
were encouraged to visit these places once they had been to see the exhibition.
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| The Artists' Work
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The Catalogue artists' work explores the divide between different kinds of spaces:
real/virtual, outside/inside, commercial/non-commercial, public/private, past/present,
here/there. By looking at these spaces in more detail the artists explore our relationship
with catalogues and investigate how they influence the way we see, shape and live our
personal and shared environments.
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1. Postcards by Lucas Bambozzi
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Postcards are collections of images that catalogue the places where we live, visit,
or have spent time on holiday.
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2. Reflected Reflections by Pletts Haque
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Shop windows are explored as the 'spatial' equivalents of a catalogues.
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3. Cinema Space by Hilaire Graham
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Graham argues that film has become a catalogue for interior and architectural design.
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4. Decoy by Jane Prophet
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Prophet explores historic landscape design through digital media. We look at how the
natural and artificial are explored in catalogues.
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5. The Deliverance and The Patience by Mike Nelson
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The objects we choose to put in our homes can catalogue - tell a story about - the person who lives there.
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6. Library by Keith Wilson
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Using references to CCTV and surveillance explores how we see ourselves and how we catalogue our appearance.
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| Add-Text
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What is Add-Text?
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| Stoke Damerel Primary School Year 6 pupil |
Add-Text uses dialogue boxes to add text to an image |
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Add-Text is a software package that enables students to add text to an imported image.
The text is revealed when the viewer rolls the mouse over the 'live' areas of the image,
so creating a 'talking' picture. This 'dialogue' enables students to reveal and communicate
their views about an image. The image can be found and scanned in, from a digital camera or
created in another program.
The Add-Text software was designed and produced by limbomedia.
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Download a free copy of Add-Text as a.zip file (for WINDOWS)OR .sit file (for MAC classic)
Download a pdf of Installation Guidelines for Add-Text software
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Playroom is a case study developed using the Add-Text software that was exhibited in the
Catalogue exhibition, created by Fiona Bailey and Year 5 pupils from Stoke Damerel Primary
School, Plymouth where students have used Add-Text to explore interior design catalogues and
create their own bedrooms.
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Add-Text System Requirements:
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Add-Text is designed to run on computers running Windows 98, 2000, ME and XP or Mac OS 8.6 or higher including OS X.
There are three different versions of the software, one for Windows, one for Mac OS 8.6-9.2.2 and one
for Mac OS X, make sure you have downloaded the correct version to run on your computer - you can tell
from the name of your download.
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Add-Text Installation Instructions:
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Once downloaded you need to copy the 'add-text (copy to your hard disk)' folder to your
hard disk. You will need a copy of the whole folder for each user so it's useful to rename
the copied folder to something like your name or the user's name.
Now you have your own copy of add-text, you can open the application by opening the folder
and double-clicking the 'add-text' icon.
To import your own picture into add-text make sure it is saved as a jpeg file and called:
background.jpg. Put it in the folder called 'background' replacing the existing file (the
folder called 'background' is in the 'add-text' folder).
Finally, double-click the 'add-text' icon again.
To reveal the add-text interface, click just below your picture or the instructions
picture if you haven't imported your own yet.Once the interface is revealed you can
add and remove text boxes, stack them closer
or deeper if they overlap and add text to any text boxes you have created. You can
also resize any text box by holding down the shift key, clicking on it and dragging
the mouse (without letting go of the button).
Once you have added some text boxes and text you can save your project by clicking
the 'SAVE' button and view it by clicking the 'VIEW'
button. When you are in view mode the interface will disappear and moving the mouse
around your picture should reveal your text.
Click below the picture again to get the interface back.
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Known Bugs!
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You cannot type single or double quotes into text boxes, they will
appear and then immediately disappear, this is normal.
If you try to open add-text and see this error message:
Unable to load movie playlist. Does the .INI file exist? It must contain a
section '[Movies]' with an entry 'Movie01=Pathname.dir'.
Try moving the 'add-text (copy to your hard disk)' folder to the desktop and
opening it. This error occurs when the length of the path to the projector exceeds 127 characters.
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RIBA Architect in the House
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