AIFA is a short picture book that I created for my year 12 Visual Arts major work in 2023. The project began at the end of 2022, but it wasnt until March the next year that I came up with the idea that would eventually become AIFA.
I was originally planning on creating a series of writings from the perspective of a young boy as he experienced the Great War, however I didn't feel as if I was bringing anything new to the topic, and the series as a whole felt a bit uninspired.
I eventually came up with the idea for the automas while in modern history class. I really like Shaun Tan's works and have been inspired by them for assigments in the past. I thought that adding an element of fantasy or something "other worldly" would help seperate my story from other WWI stories. With this in mind, i drew these sketches of the automas at the top of my history book.
My original concept for this new story was "Highlighting humanity by contrasting it with something that isn't human."
This concept can be seen in two short stories I created to explore the idea. Originally, I was not planning on making a picture book, but instead displaying the drawings alongside short writing pieces. You can read these stories here.
By this time, I had already started creating drawings. To imitate the style of sepia and black and white photographs of the time, I decided to create the drawings with graphite pencil on light brown paper. All of these images revolved around the intimate relationship between humans and automas.
The more I developed the story, the more difficult it became to figure out how I wanted to display my final work. It was with conversations with my art teachers and my mum that I decided to turn AIFA into a picture book.
Now with a proper focus, I planned out all the story, pages and pictures on a mock up book, this was the blueprint from which I created my final product. After this, I focused my energies on creating more pictures for the pages, because the time it took to get to this point left me quite far behind compared to my peers. below is a section of my artist's statement, that details how I went about making my drawings.
My process for creating my artworks was to start by gathering a reference image. With it, I move the image into a digital art program and edit the reference to fit my goals for the artwork. I then trace over the image, and add automas in the place of some humans. After that, I trace the printed image onto the final paper, and create the drawing with graphite pencil.
- AIFA Artist statement. August 21, 2023.
While making more drawings, I also worked on how to create the actual book itself.
It's at this point that I'd like to thank my mum, who was a massive help in making this whole project come to life, she was there from the very beginning helping me with ideas and applications and the more tedious and laborious parts of creating this book. She helped me throughout the whole process of creating the final book, which I will discuss below. Without her, this book wouldn't be as nearly as polished and professional as it is now.
The plan was to hand bind the pages together with a cover that was created by a local bookbinder. To make the pages, the actual story would be typed with a typewriter onto a brown sheet of paper, this paper would be layered and glued over the top of the drawing, with a window cut out to frame the picture itself. this step would be repeated for every page. The dimensions of the window and the space to be typed would be measured up (by my mum) and I would type the page up with the typewriter. If either of us messed up with a miss cut or a typo, the page would have to be discarded. Once we got through all the pages, all that was left was to bind the book.
Once the pages were complete, we took them to a print shop to have them scanned before the book was stitched together. We did this because it would allow us to use the digital files to print off multiple copies of the book. These digital files are also the ones you see when viewing AIFA on this website.
In order to stitch through the pages, we needed to create holes in them evenly. To do this we clamped all the book pages together and used a drill press to create six even holes across all the pages. Atfer this, we could get to binding. To bind the book we used what is called a coptic stitch. Essentially, any given page is stitched to its two neighboring pages, causing a book that can flip normally, but it doesn't have a spine.
Once to it was bound, we all breathed a sigh of relief: the book itself was finally complete! Since I had to submit it for the school assignment, I still had another week to work on the art. After that was done, I packed it into a box and sent it to the HSC marking centre.
So that's how AIFA came to be, the whole process took about 6 months, and the dining room table was a mess the entire time. It was incredibly stressful at times, but overall, I am incredibly proud of how it turned out. I think it's one of, if not the best piece of art I have created.
My mum is on the left. The person on the right is my mum's friend Barbara, who helped me with my drawings while I was attending her art classes.
Thanks again to my mum, to Barbara, to my art teachers, and also to my dad, who took all the photos that let me document this. Now, I'll leave you with my artists statement that went alongside my book for my school submission of my major work.
AIFA explores the subject of racial segregation through the symbolism behind the automas, and how waiting for change will ultimately result in it never happening. In an attempt to prove their worth to humans, the automas are unknowingly reinforcing humans' ideas about them being machines that solely exist to obey humans. The character of Aifa represents the rejection of this idea. Instead of acting solely to prove themselves to humans, Aifa believes that they shouldn’t need to justify their right to exist. Only by challenging the humans' pre-existing notions of what automas are, are they able to break free from the stereotype of unfeeling machines, and truly be seen as people.
- AIFA Artist statement. August 21, 2023.