There were good and bad things about this presentation, the good were mainly to do with the process of producing and doing a timed and themed presentation. The experience is as important as the theory. And although I have talked in front of groups of people this presentation was the first time I have done spoken formally, with a prepared speech and a fairly strict time limit. I had prepared my speech and practised at home I thought I timed it well but overran the ten minute slot by four minutes. I’m still quite surprised by this as I barely deviated from the written word. I had thought of running a clock on the podium to check the timing but was worried that I would lose concentration. Two things become obvious:
1. Use a clock, it would be better to openly take time out to check the pacing, I (and probably many people) speak more slowly when speaking publicly. I had thought I compensated for this when practicing, I now have a much better idea of how fast I talk and so how much information I can fit in.
2. I should have put the important bits in somewhere in the middle. I left this until the end and the overrun meant that I didn’t mention the artists and theorists who had influenced my work (most annoyingly I panicked when time was called and flicked through the two remaining slides without speaking and briefly said ‘and this is what I hope to do for my MA show) I can add a third – DON’T PANIC – although I didn’t think I was very nervous I obviously was because my immediate reaction on being told that I had overrun was to stop, rather than to wind up the presentation coherently.
I think my panic is the thing that concerns me particularly as I’m concerned that if I do something similar any unexpected happening could throw my concentration.
I don’t think I wilfully misread the guidelines for the presentation so I’m still not sure how I understood it to be guiding us to write about our progress over the course. I had the guidelines next to me when I was writing the presentation. I shall be much more careful about reading a brief in future.
Paul said the presentation was repetitive, a fair comment in the context of the actual guidelines. I could have left the slide of Castle Mall out and given the small sculptural shapes more time. My reason for showing the box so much was that my progress over the year and a half feels circular; play with the box then move on to something else, then back to the box, and each iteration has been a progression.
Rob’s remarks were interesting; he thought it a bit ‘scattergun’, which actually was the feel I was trying to get across. It’s possible that if had finished properly it would have been clear why I presented like that. I have deliberately allowed myself to freely experiment and take on things that may be a dead end. What he said most interested him were the ‘survey’ and the audience/viewer in an art gallery conundrum. If I were to have done different presentation I could have gone into this and the ‘collaborative’ work more. But I am still a little unsure how I want to treat (or deal with) this area. I need to be more confident about my direction with this work before laying it out for discussion.
All in all doing the presentation was thoroughly useful. I don’t think my presentation was very good (for the above reasons) but if – when – I have to do something similar again this will have helped prepare me.