Protean Body

Recent project, in which we were given a random code number for a library book, could've been anything in whole university library, and have to make an A2 poster based on it.  Good variety for a project - some people got stuff about archeology, russian literature...I'll find out all the others on crit day ^^

Anywayy I got a book about 'rolfing', or more precisely 'The Protean Body: A Rolfer's Guide to Human Flexibility'. I had no idea what the hell that was -.- it turns out to be a kind of 'energy medicine'. This is copied from wikipedia:

Rolfing is a registered service mark of the school of soft tissue manipulation founded by Ida Pauline Rolf^[1] in 1971. It is also called structural integration.

The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration states that Rolfing is a "holistic system of soft tissue manipulation and movement education that organized the whole body in gravity".^[2] Claims include that clients stand straighter, gain height, and move better through the correction of soft tissue fixations or improper tonus.

As a form of energy medicine, Rolfing lacks any scientific evidence base.^[3] It is described by skeptic and former believer Michael Shermeras "A bunch of hooey".

 EXCELLENT >< I'd be lying if I said I understand rolfing now, but I'm fairly into the book now, and quite enjoying the whole idea. But it's probably the most wordy, sentimental and un-scientific piece of non-fiction I've ever read.

ANYWAY, a quote that basically sums up the whole book's concept in the nicest way is the one in the picture - the flesh is not a solid, dense mass.  It is full of life, consciousness and energy.  So after much (three weeks worth -.-) deliberation over using contortionists, Proteus or osteology as themes, I ignored them all and did a conceptual drawing.  Quite interested to see what my lecturers have to say about it....it's 'energy' or 'the inner self' (which is mentioned a LOT in the book) being contained by the natural - but also structured and fragmented - 'outer self'. So I made it a wooden puppet. Still not sure how to present the final image!

Left picture is Photoshop, the right one is a screenshot of Illustrator.  Usually Adobe Illustrator costs a bombbbb but through a lucky chain of events, I got it for free at my work experience :) but the downside is that I haven't any inkling how it works.  So although I managed to turn the outline into a vector, I don't know how to colour it, add new lines, or print it.  But there you go.  The very top image is the hard copy in biro and crayon.

In other news, I'm beginning to feel the mental list of deadlines in my head stacking up.  At the moment all's fine though, so long as I keep working -.- getting very skint and very lazy. But mostly dead happy :)