Studio Practice 2A METHODS OF MADNESS EGRD2009 NIELS ESELGROTH
Online portfolio of studio practice for semester one, year two of Graphic Design. Briefs: 1.Shooting Stars 2. Paperco 3. Serial Thriller 4. Biogrpaphy
Shooting Stars video - London Riots
This video, in answer to the brief, poses questions about how, in the greater view of the earth, the riots were a very small issue that held no weight at all. Using videos from nature programme Human Planet contrasting with the ‘backwards’ riots one can start to think about humans role in nature and their necessities in life. The images of landscapes purposefully have no humans or animals in them to emphasize on how desolate these places are. The video snaps from one seemingly lifeless area to another, capturing various locations across the globe, such as the glaciers in the Arctic, the plains and deserts of Africa and the jungles of Southern America. It then changes somewhat unexpectedly to a building in flames and varios other clips being played in reverse of streets and vehicles on fire. The idea behind the video is to show up certain contrasts; urbanized locations and natural ones, ability of others to live calmly and sophisiticatedly in very desolate ares against those who live in cities and have a destructive and angry personality, peace and harmony against violence and anger. The main objective was to point out that for every second of the riots there was thousands of seconds of beautiful natural occurences. Making clear the lack of necessity of the riots and their negligible effect on the world as a whole. So why did we have 5 days of non-stop news repeating the same story?
Two different versions of the video were made, the original was modifed after feedback from tutors. The brief stated that the music had to be made personally but for the initial version of the video I was very keen to use a certain song to go along with the glorious images of earth at its finest. Obviously this was changed to fit better with the specifications. The music or sounds used was a mix of a few different sources. Parts of the different layers of noise were audio clips of the riot videos slowed down 800 times. The other noises were coins dropping in water and two glasses hitting eachother. Each noise was either slowed down or sped up, possibly pt in reverse and had effects added to it. This creates a spooky noise when all layered on top of eachother but works well with the strange feel of the video. It is unexpected as is the end. The clips of the video come from two different locations, the first 20 seocnds are clips of 1 to 3 seconds long taken from three different episodes of the BBC’s Human Planet series. These episodes are Oceans, Deserts and the Arctic. Each are rich in information and are the primarial inspiration to do this piece this way. The beautiful shots and images that each filming crew captures are breathtaking. This is a series that documents humans living in some of the remotest places on earth and surviving happily. The other clips come from two different youtube videos by London Reign Media and Russian TV. These are played backwards to emphasise the stupidity of destroying your own society without any meaning or reason. It shows societys backwards ways.
Shooting Stars video 1 - London Riots First version.
Video sources:
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1. The six sides of the hexagon are used to represent each of the main sectors of the Virgin company. 2. The hexagonal form also mimmicks the way these companies fit perfectly together, building upon one another, always developing the Virgin brand. 3. The idea of hexagons that fold outwards stemmed from the manner in which Virgin is always branching outwards, always creating a bigger and bigger picture, laying new territory.
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These are two different variations of the informational map piece. Here the map stems from a centre piece and the other hexagons would all fold out from the inside. This piece could be used as a poster or even an interactive web piece in which each hexagon would appear whilst hovering over one of the sides.the top hexagon can also be replaced with Space, but since Virgin also does Arctic holidays I decided to use that option as well.Once again the hexagonal shape is used but in a different manner. Here each hexagon represents each of the continents that virgin have ‘conquered’, all stemming from Europe, obviously the continent of Virgins origin. On the previous pages are the final piece and its variations, consecutively. The first template is that of the informational pack addressing each of the six main sectors of the Virgin Brand. As the piece unfolds you go through a form of timeline, starting from now going back towards Virgin Atlantic, passing through the six sectors and a couple other interesting yet less influential dates such as the founding of Virgin Records and Virgin Cosmetics. This timeline is made so that when the piece is fully unfolded you can read downwards through the progression of Virgin leaving the end open so as to add more in the future if necessary. The way
each company rests underneath of the previous one emulates the way Virgin work together to build further, onwards and upwards. The second template is the rear side to the written information. Once folded, upon oopening the brochure the first thing you will see is a small celebratory poster of the 25 years of Virgin Atlantic. Then, once fully unfolded, a map appears where the worldwide reach of the six companies is colorfully represented using colour coded lines stemming from each of the companies logos. To try and keep it as simple and easy to read as possible I’ve placed the logos at the top and bottom of the space so as to use lines only going up or down to minimise confusion. On the far side the last hexagon folds out to be space, representing Virgin Galactica. The next three versions are variations of the main informational piece. I have taken the hexagonal theme a bit further on these, making it resemble a honeycomb, reminiscent of all the people around the world working like bees to keep the company underway and with such good service. I really enjoy the way the timeline snakes through the hexagons, making it seem as if the flow of Virgins growth was never ending.
This project entailed having to tell a story, ask for it to be retold and then retell it again to someone else etc...We were to find the story oline or make up some rumor. I decided to take a slightly different approach and found a story I had read about recently. I had found a story about a dancing plague in France and Europe between the 1400’s and 1700’s. I collected all the information I could find about this phenomenon. After reading up on the authenticity of the story, I found it had in fact been documented by priests, politicians and doctors, so it was then I an idea came to mind.
I told the story to various people, trying to keep it as similair as possible each time. I would then after maybe 5 to 10 minutes would ask people to write down what the remembered (there is a selection on the prvious pages). This way I managed to get the same story as if it were from different viewpoints. I also told it in different situations, at a cafe, in a pub and at home. My initial idea was to create a book with all the stories in as if it were a witness report from everyone there. This idea didnt completely please, and after telling the story to a friend who is a tattoo artist and interpreted it visually the concept came to mind.
With such a visual image I used the texts I had collected and made a typographic poster. I think it reflects well on how each story was quite different although it was in fact the same one just retold with different levels of attention. The words are layered on the image and its quite hard to make out what is going on in the painting or to understand the writing. Certain words jump out such as Europe, people,1400’s,dancing.
Research is a corner stone to solving any brief. This one in partcular challenges the natural urge to just ‘google’ someone to find out about them. New and unknown research methods must be implied to find a solution to create a piece based on somebodies life. The person in question that was assigned to me was Louise Bourgeois. Initially I did not know who she was, although after a quick look at google images (I allowed myself 30 seconds to gather initial information) I recognised her sculptures almost immediately. In 2006 I drove from where i lived in Mallorca with my parents across Spain to come to England by car. On that trip we passed through the Guggenheim Museum, home of one of Louise Bourgeois’ most famous sculptures ‘Maman’. I took a picture underneath it and thought nothing more of it untill those thirty seconds on Google.
My first thought was to get hold of the picture I had of myself and it, but that was unsuccesful due to the travelling of my parents. I then went into the library and rented out two books about Louise Bourgeois. From there I made the discovery that in fact there are many of these spider
looking sculptures across the world. I also managed to track down a few of the places they are permanently or temporarily installed. From there using Google Earth I located some of them and started to download various pictures of each. I find the form, material and size of these installations immense and quite breathtaking. I remember being taken aback when I was it at their simplicity and roughness whilst being so majestic. Since I was fascinated in the form and structure i decided to search deep and far to find as many images of each spider i could to then create mosaics such as the one on the opposite page. Using different mediums such as Google Earth, Panoramio, magazines and books i managed to find a large amount of photos of a few of the different installations. I also used youtube to find videos people had uploaded from the spaces in which the spiders are installed or being installed and took stills from all different angles. With all the images collected I passed them through a programme which automatically generates mosaics. Finally I hand wrote the name of the sculpture and place and scanned them in turning the mosaic into polaroid format. I decided to use this format because it has a feel of having been there or having experienced it, which I have. I made one polaroid of each of the places I could find the most pictures of, if there was a low amount of pictures it makes no sense to try and make a mosaic.
Guggenheim Museum: 134 different photos. National Gallery Canada: 96 different photos. Foundation Beyeler, Switzerland: 114 different photos. Burkliplatz, Zurich: 121 different photos.
These are two other mosaics created for the National Gallery in Canada and the guggenheim in Spain. The programme used to make the mosaics is MacOsaiX which allows a lot of personalization on how the mosaic looks.