Introduction eality is a concept which some people find hard R to grasp. This is why many explore different avenues to escape the reality they live within.
These explorations can be absolutely anything. disturbance is a monthly e-magazine which will exhibit my personal breaks to reality. In this first volume, we will explore what happens when The Simpsons invade our world and its repercussions. Cartoon characters aren’t made for our world, but when they do, expect a disturbance. The real world is no place for two dimensional fictional characters. Flick through this lookbook and see what it would be like if we shared our urban environment with urban Simpsons. Don’t expect it to be a smooth transition, two worlds colliding are bound to have a glitch or two! Each image in this e-magazine was created by myself using the adobe programs Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Some of the landscapes are photos I have taken myself, some are photos I have sourced off the internet. While creating these images, I constantly referred to the Creative models of Rossman, Obsorn. I noticed many similarities between the two creative models and attempted to utilise all stages to try get the most out of my designs. Obsorn’s 7 steps of Orientation, Preparation, Analysis, Ideation, Incubation, Synthesis and Evaluation made were a great contribution while creating my work.
The Skate
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his image was taken by myself at a local skatepark in Epping. The initial image in itself was quite difficult to take. Capturing as much light as possible required quite a large aperture setting on the camera. The photo features a few friends of mine skating. However, it appears that Bart and Lisa have invaded the skatepark in order to have an altercation. This has created a disturbance. Vision is slowly blurring. People have slowly become silhouettes and blurs. Trees are breaking, becoming one with the clouds. While creating this image, I thought about what I needed to do. It all began with Preparation. When my friends and I went to the skatepark, I decided to bring my camera in order to take a photo for this assignment. I want to have a strong emphasis on urbanism and how I see Melbourne. Because of this, I tried capturing places or situtions that are relevant to my life. Epping skatepark is a place I am very familiar with, somewhere where I have had many memories. After Preparation is Imagination. So what would it be like if The Simpsons were at the skatepark with me? Well they’d need to dress like skaters, for starters. Nothing beats some baggy hoodies and shorts. Following Imagination is putting these ideas into Action. Using Illustrator, Bart and Lisa got themselves a new look, a more relevant, urban look. Using photoshop, they found themselves at Epping skatepark. Going with my theme, this created a break in reality. I was going to attempt to have Bart skating through the park, but after a few sessions of trial and errors, I found this harder than expected.
The Spray
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elbourne has a very strong graffiti culture, so what would happen if The Simpsons were apart of Melbourne? Who else other then Bart, hey? Any opportunity to be a rebel. To complete my vision, I managed to find a graffiti piece of a Santa-esque Homer, strangling Bart. I have created this image to portray Bart spraying this graffiti on the wall, with his sidekick Millhouse to carry all the spray cans, of course. However, if you’re going to spray cartoon onto a real wall, expect a disturbance. Breaks and repetitions fall throughout the entire art piece. Faces have started dissappearing, along with fists, surrounding posts are being glitched into multiple, inset window arches are seeing double. To bring Bart and Millhouse into the modern real world, Bart has scored himself a camo Bape hoodie to blend into an urban environment. Bart and Millhouse are also rocking some adidas running shoes for a speedy get away if the 5-0 become present. When creating this piece, as the reading ‘The Art of Digital Storytelling’ taught me, I asked myself “What is a defining moment of this experience?” My answer would have to be the irony of Bart spraying himself getting strangled. To me, this portrays why many people graffiti, usually it is to get a message across to society. This can be perceived as an expression piece for Bart, projecting his own issues, putting them on display to the world. This is my perspective of my own image though. Each person is entitled to their own perception. This is the beauty of art, it is up to the individual to take what they find out of it.
This Can be seen as remixing, as demonstrated in our week 5 lecture. In fact, this entire e-magazine is a form of remixing. Remixing can be seen as ‘taking cultural artefacts and combining and manipulating them into new kinds of creative blends.’ The fact that this digital artefact has been edited and re uploaded demonstrates this.
The Snap
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ith this particular image, I tried to incorporate something with great relevance to current society, Pokemon hunting. While creating this image, I thought about which current movements are taking over society. If The Simpsons were to be a part of our real life, they’d be doing the same things we do. This image demonstrates Bart going to extreme lengths in order to catch a Pikachu. The original image is a picture I had taken a year ago on the Great Ocean Road. I found great difficulty with the shadows of Bart and Pikachu in this image. The fact that they were not on a flat surface made this task harder than first imagined. In terms of the disturbance in this image, I decided to take a different approach. I used the Clone Stamp Tool on photoshop to bring certain parts of the image into other places, creating floating orbs of disturbance. I felt that this form of image manipulation was appropriate for this image, not only do they resemble miniature pokemon balls, but it created a contrast in comparison to my other images. It was also hard to use a patch blend manipulation method in this image as it did not create a significant recognisable disturbance. Not only can these images of mine be seen as mixing, but also a mash up. This is due to the nature of combining preexisting images in order to create a new image. This can spark the common question of whether the internet has made us less creative as a society. The internet has introduced us to many resources which can be used as tools to become creative individuals.
Instead of the internet being seen as a source which kills creativity, I personally believe it should be seen as a tool, a fresh set of ideas when looking at creating something. Being an architecture student, I have learnt how crucial it is to converse with others and gain inspiration from others. This should not be seen as manipulating other people’s ideas and making them your own, but a way of making yourself think in a different perspective.
The Dab he original image from this photo is a screencap T from the movie ‘Project X’. When I had the idea for this photo, I had the idea of having Bart in a
house party environment, being social and a lively part of the party. Unfortunately, I did not have any suiting photos that I had ever taken from parties. I decided to create Bart performing a current trending dance move, the dab. This as all to make The Simpsons relevant to current society within these Photoshops. I could have a lot of fun in this photo in terms of its disturbance. Arms have become de-attached and floating, heads have gone missing, the entire image has become one big party of a blur. Lets be honest here, most house parties are a drunken blur for adolescents anyways, right? Its good to see Bart being the life of the party though and blending in quite well with his environment. In my eyes, the entire Photoshop is seamless, people are facing him and he appears to be interactive within the party. This is exactly what I was trying to achieve with these snaps, having these non existent cartoon characters seem to be a part of reality, but with a disturbance. When thinking about what exactly I would do with this assignment, I thought about Boden’s definition of creativity, ‘Creativity is the ability to come up with new ideas that are so surprising yet intelligible, and also valuable in some way.’ I kept this quote as a focus when designing these images. I could have easily recreated something that has been done before, or even something that I had done before. However, I decided to take a completely new approach to this assignment and have a go at something I had never done or seen before.
The Drift
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n this image, I decided to incorporate another passion of mine, automotives. Since these compilations are my interpretation of urban Melbourne, I felt it was necessary. When I first found the image of homer driving his car, I knew I could have a lot of fun with it. I decided to load his car up with a load of shoe boxes after a big shopping spree, then hit the track with another car. Playing with tire smoke was specifically entertaining. I decided to not only add some cartoon smoke to Homer’s car, but also to the drift car behind him. I like the idea of a real life car blowing out cartoon smoke. I also decided to add a second homer head to the second car, implying that Homer is racing a real version of himself. I turned the track into a wavy mess of distortion. Homer also loses his real wheel in turn for further disturbance. This entire assignment is an expression of my identity. This photo is just another chapter in my life and another way I can express the person I am today. My favourite part about being creative is having the ability to project my identity onto people and showing people who I am as a person, my passions and what I believe in. I am a strong believer in people finding their own identities. I am not ignorant to ignore that there will always be influences to everybody’s identities, but everybody should take what they are passionate about from these influences, and make them into their own. Who I am today is a reflection of all my past influences and experiences, sculpting me into who I am today.
The Surf
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elbourne has a great festival culture. During summer, there are always concerts and festivals to attend. Because of this, I wanted to incorporate this into my assignment to appropriately project what Melbourne is to me. In this image, Bart is having a little too much fun, crowd surfing at a massive festival. This was an interesting photo to make. Finding an image of Bart that could be used as a crowd surfing photo was very difficult. I struggled to find exactly what I was after and had to result to manipulating Bart, bending his arms and legs into appropriate positions in order to make the crowd surf seem authentic. While completing this image, I noticed another crowd surfing party goer which I thought looked quite humorous. Because of this, I decided to make him my main theme behind this image’s disturbance. This resulted in a train of croud surfers along the back of the mosh pit. After I finished this, I took a step back and analysed the entire photo and couldn’t help but laugh at the image, this was a good sign. I decided that it still wasn’t enough and decided to stamp tool him into a couple other locations within the image in a very raw, obvious photoshop. This was to add emphasis on disturbance, making it look unnatural and out of place, almost as if your computer had frozen and glitched through a motion.
The Conclusion
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ll in all, this assignment was quite an enjoyable experience. I learnt a lot about design and how to be truly creative. There were many themes within this subject that were so relevant to my life and really made me think about what potential we all have within the digital world. Producing this e-magazine was challenging at times but with every challenge comes a way to overcome it. There are many tools and programs that I have learnt a lot about this semester, I hope that I can further grow these skills in the future.
