Critical evaluation

At the beginning of this course I wasn't sure how I wanted to continue my work. Earlier I had focused a lot on digital illustration and creating animations using old techniques on new technology. I figured this was a good course for me because I have a big interest and passion in merging traditional art and digital advancements.

It took me a while to find the project I wanted to focus on in this course. I wasn't sure which direction to take. I kept producing illustrations, but admittedly they were lacking in purpose and were not very profound.

Luckily this changed when I created Philbert. He started out as a normal illustration, one of many. But he caught my attention in a different way, and I kept creating for Philbert. I wanted to keep exploring Philbert and his universe, but at the same time I had this idea of not planning out my illustrations, or his story. I didn't plan his friends, family or world, instead I just made illustrations showing myself small glimses of who Philbert is.

The key to my practice, and The Philbert Project in its whole, is exploration, discovery and adventure. The whole reason it started out like that, is that I was afraid that when I was "done" planning him out, and planning out his story, I would be "done" with Philbert. And I didn't want that to happen. So instead, there is no ending planned. There is no middle either. We have absolutely no idea on when, where and why things happen in The Philbert Project.

I want an outsider to look at a collection of images from The Philbert Project and feel like they're looking over an unoriganised, undated photo album full of strangers. I want the outsider to try to place when, where and why things happen, and to put an order to the images themselves. If I dictate the order, some of the magic of Philbert might be lost.

In the final piece for the exhibition, I am however, dictating the order. I am creating a video where I show all the illustrations, including cropped versions. While I do edit the video myself and therefore dictate the order, I am trying to not choose images for a specific reason. When I choose images, I consider crop vs uncropped, but keep colours and theme random.

While I have been creating Philbert, it is almost impossible to not think of new scenarios. I am tempted to write a book aimed for young teens about Philbert, and am considering doing this right after the MA. Due to my freelance work I have contacts in the biggest publishing firm in Norway, and could contact them about the book when its in progress. But I must admit, it is a scary thought to finally write down the story after actively avoiding it for so long.

Overall I am very happy with The Philbert Project, and I have a big place in my heart for this project. I am happy this course led me to this project, and I feel confident talking about this practice. I can see a future working on Philbert, and I feel taking this course has opened up a side of my work that I haven't really noticed before.