‘‘’’ A Conversation Jessica Kenyon
What is a Conversation?
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Conversations are subjective. Some pull us in, others glaze us over. Truth is, they are are important to our lives. A conversation might be a footing to the foundation of a life-changing relationship, or leads us on a turn that changes our course. We talk all the time, but we’re usually not aware of when conversation works, when it doesn’t, and how to improve it.
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Development of Initial Ideas
Video
Sound
Develop printed/animated images of what texts/social media/braille would look like if acted out.
Photo
Media
Content
Body language - how body language cant be expressed through text/social media/braille. How our body language changes dependent on age,place, feelings and the people you are around.
Artists
Video recordings of people of all ages in various locations transport, cafes, bars, shops, library.
Create short animations showing different body language - all abilities young to old.
Outcome Video
Printed
This is a mock up of what the idea might look like when visualised.
‘‘ Print
Video
Sound
Video recordings of people expressing different emotions and of course expressions.
Photo
Media
Use sound from videos to create soundwaves, use soundwave imagery to create posters for each different emotion or expression. As emotions are the main conversation starter. Link emotions with colour theory.
Content
Emotions - How different people express their emotions, through sounds and actions. The effect this has on those around them and how it causes people to talk.
Take photos of people expressing emotions or take frames from videos to show a stll of emotions/feelings.
Outcome
Artists
Video
Sound Poster
Photo
This is a mock up of what the idea might look like when visualised.
‘‘ Print
Video
Sound
Asking random groups of people what a single word meant to them, the content would be videod.
Photo
Media
Content
The meaning and feelings behind single words the effect they have when written on a page, how a single word can start a conversation? A blank page.
Artists
Create Posters, Billboard, Postcards with single words - for example - Cancer, to start a wider spread conversation.To make people question why? Raise awareness.
Eventually could be made into a video advertisement - e.g how does the word ...... make you feel?
Outcome Video
Printed
This is a mock up of what the idea might look like when visualised.
‘‘’’ Research
When visiting Barcelona over the summer I visited Camp Nou the home of Barcelona Football Club. Whilst there I videod and photographed part of the tour, this part of the tour involved various television screens, all playing different people singing the Barcelona football chant. The exhibition also had a display of headphones, each set of headphones played sounds of different crowds, that had been recorded in the stadium at different games. Visiting the tour helped me generate the idea for this brief.
What is an Emotion?
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Emotion is often defined as a complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behavior. Emotionality it is associated with a range of psychological phenomena including temperament, personality, mood and motivation. Emotions exert anincredibly powerful force on human behavior. Strong emotions can cause you to take actions you might not normally perform, or avoid situations that you generally enjoy.
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What is an Expression?
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So what exactly is a facial expression? Well, when a person experiences an emotion, it can trigger an involuntary reaction, which is expressed by changes in the facial muscles. These slight adjustments in proportion and relative position of the facial features are what make up an expression. The human face can make over 10,000 expressions, which is kind of overwhelming! Luckily, there are just six fundamental, universal facial expressions. And by universal, I mean that they are recognized all over the world. These six big expressions are happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, anger and disgust. Contempt often gets thrown in the universal category too, but can be difficult for some cultures to distinguish.
Sound Waves The absolute technical definition is that sound moves through vibrations created in the atmosphere. It is known to be a mechanical vibration traveling through a given matter as a waveform. Thus, it has an alternative definition as a series of compressional and longitudinal waves moving through air or a given source of medium. Sound waves tend to bounce off a given surface or an object and vibrate against that particular object, creating a sound. For instance, if two people are talking in an enclosed room, their voices bounce off the objects present in that room, like wooden furniture, walls, bed, etc., and thus a sound is created around those objects enhancing a possibility in turn for them to listen to one another. If you consider them travelling in space, its existence is a total disapproval. The reason being is pretty obvious. Space has no atmosphere. Hence, these waves have no particular medium to create a vibration. Sound travels through different mediums and materials, like solids, liquids, gases, plasma, etc. However doesn’t travel though vacuum and empty space mediums, this is a notable differentiation to consider.
History of Sound and Waveform The history of sound is intrinsically linked to the history of waves. One of the first references of sound as a wave is found in a statement made by Aristotle when he indicated that air motion is generated by a source, trusting forward so that the sound travels unaltered in quality as far as the disturbance in the air manages to reach. Galileo is another one of the greatest contributor to our understanding of sound. He demonstrated that the frequency of sound waves determined the pitch. This was done by scraping a chisel across a brass plate producing a screech. Galileo then related the spacing of the grooves induced by the chisel to the pitch of the screech. Marin Mersenne was the first to measure the speed on sound on the air in 1640 by measuring of return of an echo. His determination of the speed of sound was in error by less than 10%. This is a remarkable achievement considering the technology at the time. Robert Boyle’s classic 1660 experiment on the sound radiation by a ticking watch in a partially evacuated glass vessel provided evidence that air is necessary, either for the production or transmission of sound. However, the mathematical theory of sound propagation did not begin until Isaac Newton published his Principia book in 1686, where he included an interpretation of sound as being pressure pulses transmitted through neighboring fluid particles. The invention of calculus by Newton provided a new tool for scientists and mathematicians to study sound. Significant theoretical developments were achieved during the 18th century by contributions from Joseph Louis Lagrange, Johann Bernoulli, and Leonhard Euler among others. However, the complete mathematical treatment of sound was not possible until the 19th century when Georg Simon Ohm applied the harmonic analysis developed by Joseph Fourier to sound theory. During the 19th century the theory of sound continued to develop. The invention of devices such as the microphone, the phonograph and the telephone was very useful in the study of sound. Further technological advances during the 20th century allowed the recording and reproduction of sound at high-fidelity. The speed of sound was also a benchmark in the 20th century. Several pilots tried to fly airplanes faster than the speed of sound. However, it was not until 1947, when Captain Chuck Yeager was able to accomplish this goal. Technology and knowledge were both critical in this accomplishment. In fact, Captain Yeager took advantage of the relationship between the speed of sound and temperature in order to set the historic record. He was flying at only 293 meters per second when he set the record. However, since he was doing so at an altitude of 12,000 meters, the temperature of the air was so low that the speed of sound was 290 meters per second.
Peter Crawley
Peter studied and continues to work in the field of Product Design. I particularly enjoy his Stitched Illustrations. The illustrations are created by hand piercing various stocks of paper with a pin and then stitching the paper with a needle and cotton thread. The first piece was inspired by a road trip across America, and the desire to illustrate the journey. His illustrations have been used commercially by world leading brands, publications and advertising agencies.
Moritz Schwind
Moritz Schwind is motion graphics artist & designer. He currently lives and works in Munich and does mainly freelance work. He graduated from HS Ulm‘s digital media program and his main focus is on Animation, Video, 3D Graphics and Photography. The work in which I am interested in is his collection of movie color palettes which are a quick sketch done in Processing to extract the predominant colors from video files. Time is mapped along the X-axis while main colors are plotted vertically.
Adrian Newell Adrian Newell is currently at True North in Manchester working on various projects for branding, print and screen.He has over 3 years industry experience working for a variety of clients such as The Land Trust, Envirolink, WBC, Salford University, Leeds Met, Langtree, NHS as well as EMI, Sony and Polydor. I was intrigued by his scoreline work as I enjoy his use of white against the coloured backgorunds. I also like the idea of mapping, I think this would be good to map sounds. His work will inspire me in development.
Patricia Povoa Patricia Povoa has been designing since 2008, she has a degree in Tourism and Graphic Design. Freelance design is her job and fulltime job, she works mainly in London, but also works closely with people in Brazil and Portugal. She sells her workings on her website. I first came across Patricia’s work online, I enjoy her use of bright background colours, silhouettes and negative space.
Orlagh O’brien A graphic designer with over thirteen years experience in branding, corporate presentations, annual reports and promotion. Orlagh graduated with a first class Masters degree in Graphic Design from London College of Communication, specialising in the development of research methdologies and data visualisation of emotion experience. The data visualisation work to the right was presented in the States to the innovation and social entrepreneurial conference Pop! I really like the idea behind the work and her work will be a useful reference when completeing my project. I am particularly interested in the colour relation to the emotions and also the wording related to emotions.
Colour Theory I decided to take some colour theory books out from the library to help me when defining the meaning and moods behind different colours. Pantone Communicating with Colour and The Complete Colour Harmony. These books were very useful. Color theory encompasses a multitude of definitions, concepts and design applications. However, there are three basic categories of color theory that are logical and useful : The color wheel, color harmony, and the context of how colors are used. A color wheel, based on red, yellow and blue, is traditional in the field of art. Sir Isaac Newton developed the first circular diagram of colors in 1666. Since then, scientists and artists have studied and designed numerous variations of this concept. In reality, any color wheel which presents a logically arranged sequence of pure hues has merit. The colour wheel to the left is a tertiary colour wheel, these are the colours formed by mixing a primary and a secondary color. Colour and Semiotics Colours and how they can express coded information is an area often focused on in field of design, art, physiology and philosophy. Easily identified iconography in conjunction with color can quicklybe understood by its market. By associating colours with the different emotions and expressions this will allow its viewer to instantly make the connection between the colour and expression/emotion.
Red is the color of energy, passion, action, ambition and determination. It is also the color of anger and sexual passion.
Turquoise is communication and clarity of mind. It can also be impractical and idealistic.
Orange is the color of communication and optimism. From a negative color meaning it is also a sign of pessimism and superficiality.
Pink is unconditional love and nurturing. Pink can also be immature, silly and girlish.
Yellow is the color of the mind and the intellect. It is optimistic and cheerful. However it can also suggest impatience, criticism and cowardice.
Magenta is a color of universal harmony and emotional balance. It is spiritual yet practical, encouraging common sense and a balanced outlook on life.
Green is the color of balance and growth. It can mean both self-reliance as a positive and possessiveness as a negative, among many other meanings.
Brown is a friendly yet serious, downto-earth color that relates to security, protection, comfort and material wealth.
Blue is the color of trust and peace. It can suggest loyalty and integrity as well as conservatism and frigidity.
Grey is the color of compromise - being neither black nor white, it is the transition between two non-colors. It is unemotional and detached and can be indecisive.
Indigo is the color of intuition. In the meaning of colors it can mean idealism and structure as well as ritualistic and addictive.
White is colour at its most complete and pure, the color of perfection. The color meaning of white is purity, innocence, wholeness and completion.
Purple is the color of the imagination. It can be creative and individual or immature and impractical.
Black is the color of the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, creating an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world.
Colour Harmonies and Culture Below are some examples of colour harmonies, I have used black lines to show which colours fit into the different catergories. I thought looking at colour harmonies would help when combining colours in my work later on.
Primary Colours
Secondary Colours
Tertiary Colours
Complementary Colours
Analogous Colours
Triadic Colours
Rectangle Colours
Square Colours
I decided to take a look at colours in culture, as when designing certain colours can have different meaning dependent on the culture. As a designer I wouldnt want to offend anyone, this chart to the right shows the culture and the colour that represents each emotion for them personally.
Jill Greenberg
Since the age of 10, Jill Greenberg has staged photographs and created characters using the mediums of drawing, painting, sculpture, film and photography. She is known worldwide for her uniquely human animal portraits, which intentionally anthropomorphize her subjects, as well as her infamous series, “End Times” which struck a nerve in its exploration of religious, political, and environmental themes exploiting the raw emotion of toddlers in distress. Looking at Jill’s work will help me when photographing people throughout my project. I particularly like the silhouette with an image inside.
Tadas Cerniauskas In spring of 2010 Tadas wanted to try something new and stopped being an architect. So he started producing what he calls art. HIs projects ‘Blow Job’, ‘Revealing The Truth’ and ‘Comfort Zone’ got a lot of media attention and been published on many newspapers, magazines and web sites including Daily Mail, Guardian Weekend, Photo, The Telegraph, The Sun, BILD, La Repubblica, View, Quo, Zeit, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, Trend Hunter, Installation Magazine, Ignant, Cultura Inquieta, It’s Nice That, The Photo Brigade, Bored Panda. Designboom, Colossal, Demilked, Artrebels and many more. The first exhibit of his work was in 2014 at Saatchi Gallery, London. He has previosuly worked with companies such as Samsung, BMW, New Yorker and Claro.Today he travels around the world with his own personal projects and commissions.
Idris Sultan
Idris Sultan is a photographer and graphic designer who I came across on Behance. I was really drawn to his work, mainly because of his Big head and We come in peace projects. I think his work could be adpated to really show expression and emotion in a persons face, and would work well with my project.
Mark Simon
Facial expressions, babies to teens: a visual reference for artists I took these books out from the library to help me define which emotions I would choose. Mark Simon’s books will also help me Photograph my models when expressing the different facial expressions and emotions. I have chosen to go with laughter, giddy, anger, scream, adrenaline and shock.
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Existing Video and Colour I decided to look into existing video and colour to see how I could film and develop my own videos. These screenshots are a few ways in which I could represent colour and emotion through video.
I used vimeo and youtube to look into exisitng work. From this I decided that either using paint splats or colour overlay would represent colour and emotions well together. I will experiment later.
Video Recordings
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Soundwave Development
Expression Photos
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Combining Wave & Photo
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Further Development