Create an implied narrative through historical artefacts from the ROBOTS story.
‘Robots' began life as a short ‘nonsense’ bedtime story made up with my children. They decided we had to draw the machines and from those drawings the seed of an idea was born. I drew more detailed versions of the machines and the seed of the story began to grow. A fascinating discussion with a friend and Historian, over a few pints, gave the idea even greater impetus and the ‘ROBOTS’ story was born.
Precis
Leonard ‘Lum’ Hogarth is a young corporal sent to the front with a secret unit of amazing new super weapons. He initially fears the metal giants but comes to trust them as he learns they have amazing hidden depths. As the robots grow into free thinking beings he finds that to save the world from humanity he has to turn to humanities greatest inventions to help him do it.
‘Robots’ is the working title of a graphic novel telling a story set in an alternate history of the The Great War. It is a silent book, that is without dialogue or narration, so it will be through letter’s home, notes to fellow soldiers, orders, newspapers, War Office posters and booklets that the reader will learn about the world in which it exists. The human protagonist is Sapper Leonard ‘Lum’ Hogarth. Lum had been a school teacher before the war, had enlisted in The Corps of Royal Engineers. He was wounded within hours of seeing his first action during The Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915. After his convalescence Lum was attached to a new and mysterious, top-secret unit.
In 1837, following Charles Babbage’s successful demonstration of the Analytical Engine, the War Office had immediately purchased it and had set up a top-secret facility at Bletchley Park, The Royal Institute of Code and Cypher, in order for Babbage to carry on his work. Babbage’s successors, Tommy Flowers and Alan Turing (both born a generation earlier), made huge leaps forward and created Colossus, an autonomous mechanical thinking man who became known as the Iron Man. Colossus was driven by steam and fed hole punched paper sheets of algorithms that allowed it to carry out sequences of actions semi autonomously. It was never Flower and Turing’s intention to create a weapon but the War Office was keeping a close eye on developments and once war broke out they quickly revealed their true intentions and modified Colossus onto a weapon. This initial adventure failed disastrously and Colossus was destroyed but Turing reluctantly forged a new line of purpose-built war machines. However Turing wasn’t ready to let the Generals have it all their own way …
The machines were designated Mechanical Fighting Units by the British Army but the machines are called Stahlmänner or Steel Men by the German soldiers and subsequently as The Tallmen by the British soldiers. The deployment of the Tallmen in the 1916 Battle of the Somme won an almost bloodless victory and the break through brought the war to a swift end, fulfilling the Governments promise of “over by Christmas", saving the lives of the countless millions who were in reality lost to the slaughter. But it was during the chaos of the German capitulation and subsequent occupation that Lum begins to notice something changing in the Tallmen of his section. Turing had planted the seed of sentience within their mechanical minds and as Hogarth realised the possibilities he realised the Generals would not allow anything to subvert their war machines. He did all he could to hide and protect the childlike minds of the machines as they rapidly grew until, finally, their increasingly strange behaviour was noticed by High Command and they were returned to Bletchley Park to be fixed.
For a time the Generals were able to use the threat of the Tallmen to achieve their goals but they knew that if the Tallmen couldn’t be fixed then they would need a new and greater weapon to maintain their control over the world. However Flowers and Turing had never been fully trusted by the military establishment and whilst they worked on Colossus in Bletchley Park the War Office had been following their every move and attempting to recreate their work hidden away in the shadow of Dartmoor at Willsworthy Barracks. It was from here that the War Office deployed their new weapons to intervene in the Russian Civil War and with them went a reluctant Hogarth. As the intervention with these new machines succeeded, he began to realise the War Office and the Generals were not peace keepers. The victories only fed the desire for more, even greater victories and for more, even more powerful machines to provide them. In order to stop them Hogarth escapes from Russia and returns to the Tallmen in Bletchley Park to appeal to them to stop the Generals carrying on the bloodshed.
Possible story arc
ACT I
The Coming of the Tallman. Colossus and its demise mirroring Hogarth’s wounding in action
ACT II
The Return of the Tallmen. The deployment of the RMC to France and Hogarth’s introduction to the machines. The beginning of the ‘Big Push’ at the River Somme.
ACT III
What’s to be done with the Tallmen? The conclusion of the Battle of the Somme and the collapse of the German Army. As they push into Germany and on to Berlin Hogarth realises the Tallmen are far more than simple machines. After a number of ‘incidents’ and the German surrender the Tallmen and Hogarth are returned to Bletchley Park and Turing.
ACT IV
The Space Being and the Tallmen. A new and far more dangerous British weapon is sent to intervene in the Russian civil war but it threatens to destroy far more than the Red Army. Hogarth escapes from Russia and returns to Bletchley Park.
ACT V
The Tallmen’s challenge. Hogarth appeals to the Tallmen to turn on their masters and save the world from the impending disaster. Finally victorious the Tallmen tear down the old order and establish a new and fairer world order governed by a League of Nations and policed by themselves.
Development of more complex issues
The story explores the alternative timeline a rapid German defeat might create and the subsequent knock on effects. What would a far less punitive peace treaty mean? The survival of a militaristic European ruling elite and a successful western intervention in the Russian Revolution? What about the social consequences, such as delaying universal suffrage? Would a victorious ruling class pass the Representation of the People Act of 1918 or the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 if the social and cultural changes caused by women taking on traditionally male jobs as the war continued?
The story could also have allegorical threads running through it. I want to avoid it becoming a cliched cautionary tale about the threats of technology. I prefer the Robots ‘lives’ to mirror our own. Naivety and vulnerability as infants/children; rebellious adolescents rapidly changing and seeking their independence; a purposeful but sometimes impulsive adulthood; wisdom and authority in old age. Hogarth's relationship with the machines will reflect our own natures; fear of the unknown, growing understanding, regret, forgiveness and finally trust. The ‘Space Being’ of act/chapter/book 4 will most likely be some kind of ecology threatening ultra-weapon or machine. It threatens not only humans but the planet itself and is analogous to climate change. But in the end even the machines sacrifice alone can't save us, they need Hogarth to make the final sacrifice. Technology alone cannot save can save us from ourselves; we cannot surrender our responsibility to it. It is only a tool, like the lever, the wheel, the lightbulb, the internet, that we have to use responsibly and effectively to achieve a balanced and sustainable existence. And that for as long we allow it to be controlled by a few it will be used for individual profit and not universal benefit.
02 Nov 18
Development
After discussions with my Illustration lecturers I have decided to be ambiguous in setting the story in The Great War and to avoid the explicit use of actual persons. Instead I will create representations of them instead. This will allow me to clearly imply a time, location and identity without opening the story up to criticism. It is quite possible that not reading it in the spirit of speculation with which it is written and drawn it could draw unneeded criticism or even cause unwanted upset. It is not the intention to trivialise or dismiss the actual events; the story is intended as a speculative ‘what if’ to prompt thought and discussion and as a stark contrast to the brutal reality. I hope that the reader might take a step back and consider which is really the most absurd; the story with giant machines striding across no man’s land or the story with seemingly never ending lines of men marched into the path of machine guns?
01 Dec 18
Module Introduction
Full Time and Part Time Year 1 students
This is a brief overview of your first MA module: a Negotiated Practice Project which will span the first Study Block of your MA year. Using the attached MAI 120 module proforma to set out both your intentions and your needs clearly, the first thing that you will asked to do is to write a Proposal of Study, to be submitted on Friday 12th October.
This delayed submission of your Proposal of Study allows for initial time to research, discuss and experiment before making a commitment to a direction of travel. Once submitted, you’ll be expected to follow through on your proposal’s stated intentions, and at the conclusion of the module, to offer a 300-500 word Project Evaluation to accompany your work, that reflects on how the Proposal’s stated intentions have manifested, in terms of both research and practice.
The submission deadline for the module work is 5pm on the last day of term, Friday 14th December. Your submission will need to include both your studio project work, and supporting Research Journals. In both these cases, you may submit your work as hard copy and\or as digital files, as appropriate.
Booking tutorials
The staff team will be regularly available for tutorials, which you will need to book online, via The Learning Space. It’s a good idea to plan ahead with these, as the slots tend to fill up by any given week. Full Time students are expected to book a tutorial once every two weeks, Part Time students to book one every three to four weeks. You’re encouraged to approach us at other times if that feels necessary, but we have to register academic tutorials through the Learning Space, so its essential that you become proficient at managing this process. It’s fine if you wish to work with one team member more than another, but we would ask you to have the occasional tutorial with the rest of the staff team as well, to keep us in touch about your work’s progress.
Weekly Group Crits
From Week 2 of term we will be running weekly group crits. These will always happen on a Tuesday, beginning Tuesday 2nd October. FT students will have a crit every week, PT students every other week. You’ll be expected to actively engage in a critical discussion of each others’ ongoing research and practice - its achievements, problems, possibilities. All crits are led and moderated by a course tutor, whose principle role is to keep things focussed on your work and on your stated concerns, and to encourage critical discussion that’s both searching and constructive. You’ll need to take ownership of the presentation of your work, including the means by which your peers can see it clearly (eg screen-based Ppt, or PDF, if required), as well as setting out your current needs, concerns and questions succinctly and clearly.
Please read the MAI 120 module Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria, which are listed below. These show you what rubrics we will be using to evaluate your achievements at the end of the module; you will need to consider these in planning research and practice over the coming weeks.
After an assessment period spanning three academic weeks (the first three MA weeks in January 2018), assessment grades will be returned to you along with written feedback.
Any questions meanwhile, do ask – either in person or by emal.
On completion of this Module you should be able to:
Identify and research the field of practice relevant to your project
Define, specify and deliver an achievable project that is relevant to your individual practice
Solve problems through imaginative and innovative creative practice
Demonstrate discernment with regard to visual editing and presentation of work within relevant contexts
Demonstrate professional competence and self-direction in realising project intentions
Demonstrate critical, analytical and reflective skills
Communicate effectively with a range of audiences using appropriate media
To achieve the learning outcome you must:
Demonstrate the identification of, and research into the field of practice relevant to your project
Demonstrate the definition, specification and delivery of a project relevant to your practice
Demonstrate an ability to solve problems through imaginative and innovative creative practice
Exercise discernment with regard to visual editing and presentation of work within relevant contexts
Produce work which demonstrates professional competence and self-direction in realising project intentions
Produce work which demonstrates critical, analytical and reflective skills
Produce work which communicates effectively with a range of audiences using appropriate media