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a conversation matthew jones
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introduction
This is my first studio project in my second year at university. In the brief, we were asked to develop a project which in some way related to ‘a conversation’.
biology, I found most interesting the interpretation of what happens when our brains are confronted with a situation which causes us to react subconsciously or instinctively. This can range from the feeling of being in love, to the emotional response sparked by someone or something angering you. Each of the examples I found all stemmed from the connections, or conversations, that occur between the synapses in your brain whenever you are faced with an engaging situation, resulting in certain chemicals being released.
We could interpret this in whichever abstract, imaginative way we liked as long as the outcome of the project was meaningful, relevant and compelling. I began by looking into what the most literal interpretation of a conversation could be; “a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people” - Oxford Dictionary. This direct definition of a conversation is how most people would initially interpret the brief we have been given.
Aside from a biological standpoint, there are forms of communication that we are subject to every day which, in a way, each converse with our subconscious. Everything around us from product branding and packaging to newspaper headlines, imagery and stories are all designed to make us thing in a certain way about what we are seeing, even if we don’t realise that our thoughts are being steered in a certain direction. This is one interesting matter that I’m interested in developing further - the subliminal, subconscious or sometimes misleading depth behind seemingly innocent and unbiased communication.
The conversation in question may come in a wide array of mediums, such as a face-to-face conversation, an online forum with a large group of individuals, or a mass marketing campaign. The latter of these can be recognised as a conversation of sorts between the marketing agency and their target demographic. The next stage of research was to focus on less direct interpretations of what a conversation might be. I began by searching for examples of communication that go on in everyday life without the majority of us consciously noticing. Within the vast spectrum of human
Each of these contrasting variations of what a conversation is could be taken forward and explored, to further develop my project.
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hypnosis and conversation
One point I mentioned in the previous page that really caught my attention, is the idea of subliminal, subconscious or sometimes misleading depth behind seemingly innocent and unbiased communication.
neurotic disorders, as an alternative to anaesthesia in World War I and II, and is still practiced today to help combat smoking, drug and alcohol addiction. The majority of methods used by modern-day hypnotists are based around a suggestive conversation with their subject, in which planted key words and phrases are intended to lead the subject into a deep, trance-like state. Derren Brown has become a global phenomenon through his TV specials and stage productions based on hypnosis and suggestion, and he is now considered an expert in the field. Paired with carefully orchestrated environments and scenarios, he has used the simple tools mentioned above to build an impressive portfolio of shows and stunts, each one outshining his last.
I decided to further explore this attention-grabbing idea, to the point where I found myself researching the methods and techniques of hypnotists and tricksters (such as Derren Brown) who exploit vulnerabilities in our subconscious to influence our thoughts and actions, even claiming at times to have complete control of our functionality. Since our early ancestors, hypnosis has been used in both healing ceremonies and ceremonies preparing for tribal war. The earliest recorded account of hypnosis was in 1500 B.C. Ancient Egypt. In 1840 a physician named James Braid studied the phenomenon, and it was only then that hypnosis began to be accepted as a legitimate practice by the medical community. Since then it has been used to treat
The idea that one person can lead another into unresponsive slumber, simply through the power of conversation, is astonishing to me and is something that I will continue to explore throughout the development of my project.
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There is no hypnotic phenomenon, no matter how remarkable it may appear, which cannot be re-created outside of a hypnotic state through such ordinary devices such as suggestion, hype and the exercise of charisma. - Derren Brown
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‘‘ reading between the lines Undoubtedly the most popular medium through which people are exposed to current affairs is through newspapers, however it is common opinion nowadays that the stories told within can’t always be trusted. Although there used to be a time where people trusted everything they read in the tabloids, as times have changed the public has become more sceptical of what they are presented with. In our modern era of readily available information and freedom of speech, the sometimes controversial and seemingly bias headlines and reports are pulled apart by the online community, linking the stories, the owners of the companies who are producing the media and their vested interests in the stories they report on. Here I have explored the relationships between the media organisations, their investors and investments, and their vested interest in stories which their products report on (according to the internet). This could make for a viable, relevant and engaging project to develop from here.
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oil giants
private militaries
allow the growth of controvertial companies
own
invest in
political party ‘x’
investors
have shares in
promote
media corporations
promote the use of
produce newspapers
accept the use of
read
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the public
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a conversation without speaking Another of the ideas I touched on in my introductory paragraph was the idea of a conversation where no words were audiably spoken. By this, I mean an actual conversation between two people standing face-to-face, but without exchanging any spoken word at all. There could be a number of different ways to execute this idea but the most prominent, well-known of these which is applied every day all over the world is through sign language. British-sign.co.uk is the go-to website for all things related to sign language in the UK. Here you can learn how to sign, put yourself forward as a professional signer, as well as looking up specific words, letters and characters. In order for signing to work as effectively as possible, there are different actions to represent specific words, then if a word or name needs to be spelled out there are also 26 individual motions to represent each individual letter of the alphabet. Sign language also has national variations in the same way that spoken language does. Sign language interpreters generally earn between £25 and £30 and hour, highlighting the importance of communication and conversation in our modern era. A project could comprehensively be built from this idea, or from the concept of face-to-face communication without the use of spoken word. Some other variations on this idea include miming your intention, lipreading, and even psychic communication.
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lemons Since the first ‘artists’ in history scrawled chronicles of their daily lives on cave walls, there have been ways in which we hide secondary messages or meanings within our productions. Delving further into this theme, I researched the idea of either hiding a secret message or image within another design, or making them invisible. The most inspiring idea I came across was using lemon juice to write a secret message, which turned invisible until revealed by the viewer. Lemon juice is acidic and weakens paper. By writing in lemon juice then heating the paper once it is dry, the weakened paper turns brown before the surrounding area burns. Before the image is revealed, the page looks like an innocently crumpled sheet of white paper. Once I’d confirmed that this idea works with the top-left example, I went one step further by using lemon juice as paint, creating a number of images comprised of simple brush strokes, then blasting them with a blow-torch for a few seconds all-over. It is recommended that you use a hot lamp or an oven to reveal the images slowly, but using a kitchen blowtorch was much quicker and also gave a more uneven texture, which I like. I would have preferred them to be more intricate in places, but it is impossible to produce such a delicate design when you can’t see what you’re painting a few seconds after laying it on the paper. Across the page are my favourite, most successful examples of painting with this ‘secret message’ technique.
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‘‘ liu bolin Liu Bolin is a present day artist from Beijing, China, who is garnering a worldwide reputation as ‘the invisible man’. His work is relevant to my project as he also uses the idea of hiding within design and using illusions within his work, although the way in which he works is very different to anything I’ve seen before. Rather than hiding a meaning, message or alternative viewpoint, he hides himself within the surroundings and backdrop of his exhibitions (with the aid of his team of painters and photographers). Although this style of art has been done before, no-one is as notable or impressive in the modern era as Bolin. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, in Beijing, Paris, New York, Brussels and Milan. His first solo show was in 1998, and since then he has delivered a total of 14 solo shows, as well as featuring in 37 other exhibitions around the world. He also worked with Ford to create an advert for their Fusion release, which has since gained over 35,000 views on YouTube. He says that his work is about “the relationship between me as an individual and those slogans which are used to fool the public” which is similar to the meaning I aim to get across in my project.
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Although he might be hard to find, Liu is somewhere in every one of these photos.
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red reveal When researching how I could hide a message within a design, I came across a technique I was often exposed to in my childhood in magazines, on posters and even on product packaging. This technique is known as ‘red reveal’. This method of design has been around for years. It involves the layering of certain colours, to hide an image which can only be seen through ‘decoder glasses’ - usually paper glasses with lenses coloured in co-ordinance with the design, generally either red or blue. If executed correctly, this technique can effectively hide both text and images, only viewable through correctly coloured decoder glasses. To the right of this page, I have designed two pieces which when viewed with decoded glasses reveal the text ‘this is an example of red reveal design’, and a sketched image of a woman. Below the top set of images, I have added a red bar to the image which was set to the ‘multiply’ blend mode. This replicates the effect of decoded glasses, revealing what you would see if you were to view the images through them. It is also possible to use blue decoder glasses, as in the bottom image, if the top two ‘distraction’ layers are set to blue and cyan, and the layer to be revealed is set to yellow. This makes the image underneath more difficult to see through normal vision, but isn’t quite as clear when revealed on the dark blue background.
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‘‘ Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece ‘Mona Lisa’ has always been shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Some believe that da Vinci modelled her enigmatic profile to match his own. Here, I have used the red reveal technique to hide his famous self-portrait behind a scrambled version of the Mona Lisa.
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When viewed with decoder glasses, his portrait is clearly revealed in-line with her face. Although scrambled, the original image is still comprehensible and the hidden original portrait stands out well. This is how I could use red reveal in my project to put a hidden image behind another.
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subject matter
A vital part of my project is finding a relevant subject matter for each of my hidden messages. I decided to look into this month’s top news stories then search online to see if any of them had alternative versions, published by sceptics or conspiracy theorists. While researching the stories, I found that almost every topic on a popular news website would have a conspiracy alternative somewhere, no matter how ridiculous. Therefore I have compiled a batch of the most unusual theories and reports that I could find related to the most popular news stories on the BBC news website.
ebola WesternJournalism reports their take on the current Ebola outbreak. They claim the strain was ‘invented’ by the US government, who are now intentionally spreading the virus before eventually producing the vaccine, cure or antidote which will be snapped up by pharmacies nationwide, equating in a massive financial gain from their end.
mh370 Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 vanished on March 8th 2014 on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Since the disappearance, there have been a plethora of theories about what happened to the plane. The most popular theory on social media, particularly Twitter, is that the entire plane was abducted by aliens. Other theories include the plane being shot down by military jets, a massive life insurance scam, and the use of ‘cloaking technology’ (invisibility) to secretly land the plane.
syria As with every war in the Middle East, there are a vast array of conspiracy theories to choose from. The most common theories propose that each tragic situation is part of a huge orchestrated plan through which the US government can gain access to the riches of oil which lie beneath this wartorn continent.
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Some of these ideas would never be taken seriously by any general member of the public. In addition to this, reading up on such matters and publishing them in a project feels uncomfortably controversial and distasteful. As an alternative to pushing these controversial views, I have decided to instead pose an open, inquisitive question for the audience to investigate themselves within each news story. For example, instead of stating “the government is creating war in order to reach oil supplies” I would rather ask the viewer “is there more to this than you’re being told?”
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ideas for a final piece At this stage in the process I feel as though I am ready to start working on my final piece. These are a selection of the best ideas I’ve had so far, each taking a different approach to the theme of secondary meaning and subconscious manipulation.
My favourite concept to go ahead with at the minute is to produce a copy of an actual mainstream newspaper, but once I’ve scanned in each page I then use red reveal to hide questions or hints behind each controversial story. I could then print out the newspaper to scale and re-assemble it to produce a full scale re-imagining of the original
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My second idea is to generate a series of designs using an acidic medium such as lemon juice, as I did with my experimentation earlier on in development. I’m not sure where I’d go from there, but it would be an effective way of hiding a message or meaning which can only be revealed on the viewers request.
or
Finally, I’ve thought about taking further the idea I touched on in my ‘hypnosis and conversation’ page. I like the idea of developing a project surrounding the power of conversation, however I feel as though my development at this late stage has taken a route much more relevant to either of my two previous ideas.
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colour testing After a review session with one of my tutors, I have decided to go ahead with the red reveal and decoder glasses idea. In order to make my red reveal illusion work as well as possible, I tested out which of the following combinations of red & blue/green worked best. When I apply this effect to layers of newspaper scans, some images will work better with green and some work better with blue depending on the texture and shading of the red image. I therefore used a bright bold colour, a light pastel colour, and a dull less saturated option to test for both blue and green. Factors I had to consider were the invisibility of the hidden layer in plain vision, and the visibility of the hidden layer through decoder lenses. My conclusion is that the pastel colours work the best.
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final piece production The next stage in my development was to begin production of the final exhibition piece I have bought a sheet of red acetate with which I will produce a batch of red lens decoded glasses to go with my design. I started by selecting and clipping a number of articles from The Sun which I felt may be there for more reason than what is presented at face value. I scanned them in then re-sized and rearranged the clippings in Photoshop, before using a number of blending modes, adjustment layers and masks to create a red reveal canvas. Onto this canvas, I then added a scattering of text layers and typographical elements, which were warped and formatted to blend seamlessly into the red and yellow background. I also adjusted the hue of certain original aspects from the clippings such as the ‘panic’ title and Russell Brand’s portrait. These made for successful integration with the original image as they disappeared into their red counterparts almost invisibly. Finally I wanted to add a touch of iconography to the product. I used the icon of a skull and partial torso of a skeleton to represent death, fear and danger on the story about Ebola. I blended this into the image of a man in a protective suit, which in its self is quite disturbing and eerie. When viewed through red reveal glasses now, the man in the suit transforms into an image representing the danger and the imposing threat which is being conveyed by the story. Across the page is the arrangement of clippings in their unaltered form. Over the next two pages I present the red reveal version of the articles, along with a simulation of them in their revealed state.
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further expansion Upon presenting the piece above to a tutor and my peers, it was agreed that it could still go further, as if it left you wanting more. So from this, I explored and played with the idea further. I almost tripled the area of work that was produced, now filling an A2 space which I intend to print out in time for presentation. I also used Adobe InDesign and ISSUU.com to produce a digital newspaper of my own, within which were hidden the 11 red reveal illusions. My final step before presentation is to produce a batch of decoder glasses, to reveal the hidden layers behind the image over the next page. I am happy with the final outcome, although would have liked to possibly take it further into another are of design, such as plastering the designs to a relevant sculpture or mannequin to represent the moral of my piece in some way. I feel the overall look of the product is very postmodern, with the overwhelming complexity of layered images and texture paired with intense colouring and bold typography. This is a theme which I don’t often embrace in my work, but have enjoyed doing so in this project so may refer back with less aprehension in the future.
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click here to view the virtual newspaper on ISSUU
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bibliography
www.restcounselling.com lovewithlogic.com www.communiquepr.com Royal Navy archives www.clear-talking.co.uk uk.eonline.com washingtonpost.com The Sun newspaper archives Sun+ tonywrighton.com Google Play / Skype www.british-sign.co.uk morallowground.com KiSS 95.9 Calgary (Radio station) Time magazine nola.com www.enteresan.com Seamus Ryan Liu Bolin BBC TED The Sun ISSUU
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