For our design studies assignment we were asked to pick three completely random pictures from a stock photography site and ask several people to connect the photos in a story. The story could be as nonsensical or literal as the person liked as long as they linked all three photos, there was no order they had to begin or end with, they had complete free reign.
Some people I asked found this a lot easier than others.
From a male Tools Developer age 25:
"These are flamingos, they are on holiday - you can tell it's an all inclusive one because they all have bands.
It is a very expensive holiday.
Their god looks down and approves of their holiday, despite the window above the god, as far as the flamingos are concerned, there is no higher entity than their stone god.
All is well on the flamingo holiday, and they are looking forward to getting some prawn crackers tomorrow, from the nice lady that ships their bedsheets from China."
From a male dental student age 20:
"Chinese woman is taking a leisurely boat ride when she hits two flamingos with the front end of her boat. A mermaid comes and saves the flamingos and takes them to a flamingo paradise. The ancient Peruvian people then made built a building with a sculpture of the mermaid in her honour as they worship the flamingo."
From a male medical student age 20:
The flamingos are to be transported from an inner city zoo (indescribable in place or time) on an ancient oriental boat to be slaughtered and cooked by the descendants of an ancient queen. The queen is remembered by her family in the form of a stone sculpture on their house.
From male software developer aged 45:
Mabel & Doris had got to talking about how they had never been to Hong Kong to visit their great aunt Flo.
“No time like the present” said Mabel and they made a MAD decision to leave right away on a cut price ‘bring your own bedding’ cruise.
Unfortunately when they arrived Great Aunt had passed on BUT they were VERY pleased to see she had been remembered in a by a loving sculptor friend the harbour wall….."
From female primary school class room assistant aged 43:
"Pete Neon and a band member from the Neon Needles were in down town Hong Kong when they got stoned."
(This story is a reference to a Mighty Boosh episode)#
From male high school student aged 17:
"Two fridge repair men, Roger and Steve, decide to go hunting for flamingos so they can keep them as pets on their farm. This farm is a noodle farm but is not very successful as it is located in Yorkshire. They are convinced that the noodles will grow there and are certain that it is ghosts which are stopping their farms success. To fix this problem they contact an evil wall goblin named Carl who wasn't so much evil as just not well liked. Mainly because he rarely bought people drinks and was no fun at parties. They asked the spiirt for help but he declined because he was in a mood, and Roger fell into such a deep spell of depression that he jumped from a cliff but miraculously survived and now runs a McDonalds franchise in Shetland. Steve got lost in Ikea and was never seen again."
(I'm not sure if this one actually fits the brief as it doesn't seem to connect all three photos? But it's quite funny.)
I also emailed the photos out to a few people who I wouldn't be able to see in time, and one of the few people who got back to me was my old college tutor who kindly stopped her class for a 5 min break to ask them all for their stories.
Unfortunately I don't know their gender or age, only that they study graphic design. Here is a selection of their stories:
"As I was flying on my flamingo across the world I made a stop at china to have my breakfast when I heard about a statue of a head that I must see. I searched high and low but could not find this statue. The only thing I never found."
"I looked up at the mermaid's head on the pub wall and decided to go on a flamingo quest. We will take a raft and go to Flamingo Island, using our white sheets we'll build a tent fit for a princess. Maybe I shouldn't of had that last pint..."
"This is a story about Miss Nootchie and Patch's adventures in Thailand on holiday. the first day they went to the zoo and saw everything pink, it was a short visit but Noochie now does a good impression of a flamingo. Patch demanded that he bought some cheap white fabric so they went on a snorkelling trip to catch one of the ladies on the boats to give us her material. The found the mermaids head above the hotel door very amusing as it looks like the building is giving birth to a fully grown mermaid."
"Once upon a time we lived in a hunted house. The house was very scary and had a woman's head made from stone sticking out the side of the wall. It turns out the woman was a farmer who bread superhuman flamingos to fight terrorists. But one day a boat arrived from Hong Kong and the people left the boat and killed all the flamingos. The woman was very sad and went into a deep depression, eventually turning into stone. A builder was so inspired by her story that he placed her stone head into his first house, this upset the dead woman and caused her to haunt the house forever."
"There was once a woman in Thailand rowing her boat, she was in a peaceful place and rowed past a garden that was beautiful and radiant. Within the garden she spotted flamingos fishing. Their heads bobbing in the pond that was positioned in the middle of the garden. The flamingo walked forward and presented a fish to the woman. She took the fish and row back to shore. At the fish market the woman sells this fish. The fish market is an old building with a stone carving of Possidons wife at the entrance."
"There was an old man who lived in a boat, he was cold and lonely and the boat was very emty with just him in it. One day he decided that he no longer wanted to be lonely so he went ashore to the town and went to the old 'Face-building', so named because of the large stone face above the door.
When he approached the door the face called out, "who goes there? What do you want?"
The old man replied, "I'm just an old fisherman, I came ashore to find a friend"
"Oh really?" The head said surprised. "Fair enough."
Smiling the old man went inside, there in the building the old man decides to buy himself a flamingo.
Never at any point did he bother to ask himself why there was a talking stone head above the door of a shop that sold flamingos, but I'm sure you didn't either, did you?"
Although I cannot tell the age or gender from these stories they help give me an idea of some other view points, reoccurring themes and story lines
Some of the recurring themes in the stories are depression, mermaids, royalty/god and holidays. Most of the stories start with the picture of the flamingos or use the flamingos as the main focus of the story. I feel that the more "creative people" like the HNC graphics students did come up with longer and more detailed stories than the "non creative" people, such as the doctor and dentist who found the exercise difficult and struggled to link the photos even in the most literal way. This is probably because graphics students are used to problem solving and 'thinking outside the box'.
For the second part of this assignment I had to pick one story and find a fourth image that I felt summed up it's main message. So that whoever I showed it to would be able to come up with the same or similar story as the original.
I chose this story:
"Chinese woman is taking a leisurely boat ride when she hits two flamingos with the front end of her boat. A mermaid comes and saves the flamingos and takes them to a flamingo paradise. The ancient Peruvian people then built a building with a sculpture of the mermaid in her honour as they worship the flamingo."
I thought that a photo which represents the Peruvian people worshipping the flamingo would be good and with a small bit of research found that the Peruvian flag is red and white which is to represent the colours of the flamingo, it was chosen to represent the country's new found freedom in 1820. As flamingos represent so much to Peruvian people, I think it would be quite possible that they might build a sculpture in a mermaid's honour for saving them. So for that reason I chose a picture of the Peruvian flag as my fourth image.
Unfortunately I did not have enough time or know enough people to ask them the final parts of this assignment.
I have been finding the workload pretty heavy at uni the past couple of weeks, combined with a large amount of studio work and deadlines and it taking me longer to understand and read assignment 2a, plus reading our design cultures book, I have run out of time. Studio work is not really a problem but combined with the design studies side of things which is a completely new way of working for me, I feel it demands much more of my time than the module hand book suggests, especially combined with the amount of work we have in the studio. I'm upset that I could not finish this assignment.
(Sorry I don't know why the pictures have gone weird, I wont be able to fix this till next week)
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