Although this test is quite crude, I think it displays quite powerfully the violent force of ripping the paper to reveal the real message. Perhaps it would be more effective and less overt if the photograph being torn was not directly related to the subject of knife crime.

I created this in attempt to work on feedback and suggestions from my tutorial session. The aim was to create a motion piece that could be displayed on D6 screens, on bus stops or advertising screens, for example, that I could then prototype (by ultimately "faking" the interaction for the purpose of showing how it could be). I feel that my intentions were good, however I have crossed a line in terms of turning the serious subject of knife crime somewhat into a game. I created this in a very long winded way. I was unsure of what software to use, and so created each from on photoshop as a different image, and pieced it together on premier pro. Having tried and tested and experimented with these adobe platforms, I discovered I could've achieved a better result quicker on Adobe After Effects. This is something I could work on from now on, however I have decided to move on from this concept of creating a motion based interactive response. 

Tiny crimes is a concept I made for the scale session in class. The level of interaction comes from the act of having to use a magnifying glass to view the photographs printed so small on the paper. 

I really like these experiments using the scanner and police tape. Police tape, as a material, is something I want to explore more, as I have planned to screen print my own tape barriers, except using messages collected from the actual crime scenes that I have visited. The designs for these will be below, after I have finished them.

To conclude my phase one, which felt really unfinished and not concluded, I returned to the idea of making a large scale poster addressing the number of identified and unidentified people who were fatally stabbed last year. This more minimal piece reminds me of the data designs from the likes of Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec in their project "Dear Data". I wanted to display this from a skyscraper styled tenement block, because the design reminds me of these buildings, however I have no connections to someone who lives in this sort of residential or access to one.

In association with the #handitin campaign posters [above] I created a facebook page for people to interact with. On this virtual space, people can share comments, experiences, and photographs of them using social media safely, positively and progressively, to juxtapose the Home Secretary's view that social media is only contributing negatively to the issue of knife crime amongst young people. To me, his proposal to ban social media and make curfews stricter for people that the police simply believe to be an issue seems irrelevant. The concept of my posters is to emphasise the point that if people just handed in their lives, they would not lose out on the privilege of online freedom.

I have expended the range of stickers supporting my campaign by photographing and editing 3 more stand-out images: a phone, someone listening to music through headphones, and a bike - all of which are associated with youth, and have connotations with gang activity and knife crime. Furthering from the home secretary's policy proposals about banning social media from suspected offenders, the phone seems rather fitting, but could only be recognisable if in the hands of someone after being wrapped in police tape. Reports also have grime music to blame for the rise in violence in society - something that shouldn't have blame placed upon it, as many artists write about the consequences of violence, or about their past - thus the headphones become symbolic of that. Grime is not a crime. Lastly, the bike is something I came across quite a lot at the scenes these crimes. Youths would cycle past, stop and read the messages, have a moments silence, then continue to cycle around in a mob of bikes. Even in my initial site visit to the scene of Glendon Spence's murder, there is a young man with a bike in the photographs I took, therefore this seems appropriate to continue in my collection of stickers as part of my "just hand it in" campaign. 

Above is the template for my screen print onto a thick, cotton ribbon/tape like material, to create my redesigned 'police tape'. I took the words from my visits to actual knife crime memorials set up by family and friends, leaving these genuine messages for their lost loved ones. Vocabulary was taken mainly from the scene's of death for Glendon Spence's [23 Feb] and Charlotte Huggins' [1 Jan].

I have chosen to somewhat mimic the iconic design of typical police tape - 'police line do not cross' - as it is so recognisable, but my using alternative words and messages, it creates a different voice and manipulates the purpose of the tape. The way in which regular police tape interrupts the setup of an informal memorial is continued with my striking piece, yet the language lends to the context of the setting. What I have explored most here is the nature of interrupting a specific environment with design, in order to be louder with my message. Also the tangible means of creating a physical outcome, as well as the way in which it can be set up as more of an installation, rather than a 2d piece. 

This is a compilation of all the footage I took on the first day/attempt of filming my screen printed police tape. I feel like some of the shots are really affective and impactful, especially some of the more minimal ones with undirected interaction and movement, whereas some actions in others are not so successful because they feel quite staged. I need to consider sound.

The second attempt of shooting footage for my video was much more coherent, cohesive and fluent in terms of the visuals connecting thematically, etc. I focused on more minimal shots. The most important movement is that of the tape, to emphasise its physicality as a material, rather than a 2d piece of work. The flow and pace of the video is pretty slow though, and so perhaps mixing with the best footage from the previous film would be most beneficial. 

I finally got printed my illustrated publication that I have been compiling for a while now. The cover is not the colour I had hoped - for some reason it came out grey despite choosing black on indesign - and the bind would have been better if it was not ring bound, however I understand because of the thickness of the book, I had to compromise. It contains 25 sheets of acetate inside the centre pages, dividing the victims of February and March, each sheet of clear plastic having a tiny detail that comes together in layers to build one face representing the missing identity of all unidentified 25 knife crime victims from February and March 2019.

I incorporated the heat sensitive paper. I placed it over the names of all illustrated victims, so that people have to use their fingers - synonymous with fingerprint identity, something I investigated earlier in my project - to reveal the names. It's like using your identity to give them theirs.

Drawing together my installation-type set up for the memorial of the victims (including my tape, balloons, flowers, my stickers, cards, etc) I have created these balloons. I used the same text and font as from my screen printed police tape to also screen print on these balloons. I like the idea that it becomes quite haunting, with the words from the loved ones floating like their thoughts of their lost ones lingering, and the idea of their murder always in suspension, inconclusive in a lot of cases. The idea of balloons, for me, in mass evokes echoing tones and feelings of peaceful yet eeriness.

Working from the trials and errors I made in my first attempt at screen printing on the balloons, my second attempt (and outcome for the final foundation exhibition) was much more successful. I allowed the foil non-inflated balloons to dry for the length of the entire weekend before inflating them, 24 hours before the exhibition opening. The shop suggested they stay fully inflated for around 6 days, however because they weren't filled to the maximum in case the screen printed ink cracked/peeled, the inflated life is already cut short. From my judgment of time, they should remain successfully inflated for the length of the show. I am happy with the way this experiment has progressed to become a cleaner finished outcome !

I felt the most appropriate and successful way on contextualising not only my final outcome(s) - my short film, memorial tape and balloons - but my entire unit 7 project was to place and locate it within a newspaper/tabloid layout. The newspaper is a platform in London that is published and exchanged so frequently around the city, multiple times a day, and so by utilising the fast pace and placement of a newspaper, theoretically I would be able to reach a huge number of Londoners - my ideal target audience, considering my topic of the London Knife Crime epidemic directly effects them most. 

This image [above] was my initial portfolio slide, depicting purely the digital template of my tabloid design. I chose to progress this idea by scanning and editing the design to look more like the newspaper scans that I used - and subsequently put on the following slide to build the context of my newspaper situated in and amongst the others. For this reason, I have documented it here in the experimentation section, as the updated version is in my outcomes tab.

Appropriately, newspaper articles and headlines are something that fuelled and informed my project research, so it seems even more fitting to situate my own project article within the collection of key report pieces [see image below]. This is also an experiment with the layout and appearance of my article image, and the finished result is also in my outcomes tab.