. : Studio Brief 01 :.
A Conversation Autumn 2014
_An exchange of words between two or more people
This is the transcript of a natural conversation between myself and my flatmate. It has been copied from an audio recording word for word. I have also done my best to emulate the natural pauses and breaks in the conversation using commas and ellipses.
A Con versa tion is_
From the analysis of this conversation I have The beginnings of the statement may be noticed that our speech changes in velocity jagged and off cut. It is a point where as we progress through our ideas. our ideas are still forming and shaping themselves and we want to locate a good stance to speak from. Later when we are sure of our statements our speech flows with less interruption or need to pause for thought.
_The delivery of an idea
"Net 10 Microwave" Smuggler Digital This short CGI sequence narrates the evil presence that resides within mobile phones. The animation is grotesque, incorporating messy, overused microwave. The sequence builds from the start, gradually to a loud, attention grabbing climax. This reminds me
of the way speech in free conversation is slow to start with and reaches its peak later. This film could also be considered a conversation as it shows an object interacting with the person. A living or sentient part of the phone springs out to scream at the person/viewer. Though this is not as obvious as the back/ forth dialogue would be, I still consider this communication.
“Amnesty International: Death to the death penalty” - Pleix This film is a perfect response to a hardhitting issue. The conversation is between the viewer and the voice of video. It is saying ‘what if’ as it shows the death punishment literally dissolving away. The use of wax
figures rather than live action people distances the message from reality but makes it more poignant, especially with the main image of the charity being a candle.
_A Progression
wit
"En Contra De la linea recta" - united fakes This animation is progressive in that the images appear to grow yet there is no context. It is as if this is the speech of the bike wheel.
thout a statement
"Take care of yourself" - sophie calle This is an example of art being created from an aspect of the artist’s personal life. Many outcomes came from this: the breakup letter she received from her boyfriend. The conversation is between the letter-writing boyfriend and whichever woman is reading it. The letter was read and interpreted by many different women according to her own personal practice. It was reinvented, reperformed and psychoanalysed. Every new outcome becomes a part of the art piece with the letter as the central part and the original and changing stimulus to the many outcomes each input by the women who interact with the letter.
“Books, Nodes and Edges� - Studio Monika This piece is typical of the style in which Studio Monika creates its art. By creating a rule where tape can be placed on the floor depending on where in the grid a book has been taken from, they are essentially
creative mathematical rule which translates human interaction into art, or, at least, the data obtained from human interaction into a mathematical pattern. The conversation is between those who buy the books, choosing
them from the floor, and the mathematical rule. The outcome is influenced by the collective minds of the book buyers and the order in which they are picked up.
_A visual outcome of human interaction
peter crawley Peter Crawley uses stitching of waveforms to translate music into a visual piece. Of all the sonic to visual interpretations, the waveform is the most primitive. There is room for further innovation in this area however I do not believe that this was the artist’s aim. Instead it was to create a bespoke poster that captures a piece of music thatw stretched across time and present it in a piece that can be seen at one moment in time. The conversation is between the songwriter and Crawley who then translates it and communicates to his audience.
“Passage a l’acte“ Martin Arnold
_use of existing media
This piece is an example of using editing other primary production technique. Arnold manipulates a scene from ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ to create a sonic noise piece. Similar to Crawley’s stitching, the artist is creating a piece using existing media. The original conversation is between the film and the viewer. Arnold reimagines this communication by jumbling the sequence. The unusual images and sounds that come as a result are his outcomes.
If media is a means of communication then this method is the process of rearranging or translating the message so it means something new.
When a parent teaches their baby to speak, the infant learns through listening and copying This style of learning is found at different points throughout life as people learn skills from one another. There are elements of trial and error on the part of the learner, each time receiving reinforcements on the teacher, thus creating a conversational dynamic.
Sometimes when learning a new skill the learner can go on to become more skilled than the teacher. Or, more likely, they will pick up more than is taught simply through the experience of learning.
Examples of this type of conversation Child learning to speak Dancer learning a complex move Adult learning anew language Child learning to write Myself! Learning to use new software
01: the conversation of learning
02: Physical interaction
as conversation
How to we mentally and physically interact with the space around us?
I want to reframe the concept of the person and the room to be more like the person and the volume around them, contained by the rooms boundaries.
How does our voice echo in the volume of space that surrounds us? I could investigate acoustics and the way sound is dispersed in an area. Alternatively I can investigate the same concept but simply with breath.
I am also thinking about conversation in the form of words and expression. Not directed at any individual but more like a broadcast of thoughts or display of personality. This style of open ended conversation I am particularly interested in when it comes to architecture. And what this says about the city or area it is from. I looked at the shape and colour of buildings around the university and compared them to the rest of Huddersfield. I liked the relationship between the traditional town and the burst of contemporary architecture that lay in the heart of it. I want to investigate how I can translate architectural form into communication. Not necessarily a font but maybe something like a series of glyphs or icons. These could be presented on a map, of the University and Huddersfield, not for function but more for the sake of visualising concepts.
03: the conversation of architecture
04: silent istruction If I can find some theoretical studies to back up and guide my investigation into these concepts it would help to accelerate my project forward. Alternatively I can go back to the drawing board and find some new concepts through research relating directly to conversation.
How much do we allow inanimate objects and markings to influence us?
This concept is not a new one to me. It was an idea I generated as part of my streetgraphic project. It focuses on the influence of written instruction on human behaviour. I am interested at how road markings and signs can be so passive yet have such a big influence on human movement and actions. I also want to investigate the boundaries of this influence and at which point free will is enough to override instruction.
I can see some clear paths forward in these 4 concepts. The only two issues I have at the moment is that 1: I am not feeling terribly motivated by these ideas, as they lack innovation and 2: these are concepts I came up with myself and I want to include more secondary research. Not just in the artistic sense but in the theoretical sense too.
Alvin Lucier
I am sitting in a room
i looked at “I am sitting in a room” as a prime example of literal interaction with a room
Alvin Lucier’s (1969) ‘I Am Sitting in a Room’ is a piece surrounding a monologue and how it transforms into a conversation between himself and the room. He does this by recording and then re-recording the playback of his narration from one end of the room to the other. As the audio goes through this process each time the words become more distorted and the piece becomes sonic art. I am interested in creating a visual representation of the ideas that Alvin Lucier is trying to express. I also want to hold onto my original narrative ideas of shifting from a normal experience to a more distorted one that corresponds to the interaction between the person and the room. My representation of this interaction with the room required some kind of distortion to help communicate the shift in paradigm from room to volume. The distortion I had in mind to start with was created purely by the narrative. The experience of normality
was to be represented by a person’s regular interactions with the room and the shift into an ethereal experience of the room’s volume would be represented by the subject beginning to float.
When exploring ways to introduce this distortion, I considered a less symbolic method than simply implying through the narrative. Inspired by Lucier’s methods, I decided to incorporate distortion in both the audio and visual delivery of my narrative. It is paramount, however, that these distortions are influenced by the room. This shows that after the shift from normal experience of the room to and an ethereal experience of a volume, the room’s response is what takes over. Though a room cannot be seen without the input of light, or heard without the input of sound, which is why my narrative begins with this ‘normal’ input.
Further Artist research
"Mothlight" - Stan Brakhage Though this idea is similar to mine in that we are exploring new things that can come to form as a result of interactions from reality, I don’t feel like there is much else this artist can offer me of my attempt to find a good way to visually represent my idea.
Fantasia (1940s) Fantasia is a good example to me as it shows how animation can represent intangible themes and more abstract forms/ transformations. This is something I feel I can benefit from if I wish to visualise the space reacting with the person.
Midproject critique
Another piece of advice that particularly stuck with me was not to be afraid to reproduce an artist’s work. I have always tried to avoid doing this to discourage myself from being ‘lazy’ and not making something innovative and my own. I was struggling to find a way to represent a distortion in sound that relies on the characteristics of the room it is playing in that delivered the concept as clearly as Alvin Lucier’s method did. At this point I was reminded not to try to re-invent the wheel. Lucier’s method fit perfectly into my project and I was taking it far enough that I shouldn’t worry abut stealing ideas. I will probably still want to name my project In the Crit session this week I found that something that is a nod to Lucier is a way people were interested in the idea of a that acknowledges his influence on this conversation between person and room but piece. I do need to clamp down more on that side of the concept so I can confidently say what I …I am floating in/talking to/conversing with/ mean about the ‘conversation’ with a room. experiencing with a room
"different story" Matty grimes This week I began refining the concept side of my final piece. I started with what I had and challenged each part of it. I knew I wanted to stick with the floating theme, as it represents a total (mental) immersion in the space but being represented physically. I saw this music video by Matty Grimes that includes a ‘zero gravity effect’ that is almost exactly what I am looking to achieve.
what my project
The person detects the interaction between the room and themselves. At a basic (normal) level, this is simply hearing and seeing, and does not affect us much hence why there will be is no audio or visual distortion at this stage in the film. As we ether a more ethereal, hyper-aware state (represensted by floating as this expessses a total immersion in the space) the interaction or hightened hearing and seeing is so much at the forefront of our minds that it is sometimes the only thing we caan register. Hence why visual and audio distortion is used.
illustrates
I can make an animated version of the poster with the text as a voiceover. This is a form of delivery of information that is easier to understand.
Thoughts: I will need to storyboard this. It would be delivered as a film same and my outcome. Would the exhibition even need to be in a room? It could just be online. I do want the viewer to experience or at least influence the distortion of the room Do I want one video or a series of videos?
the potential for Exhibition
If my final outcome were to be exhibited I would want the audience to understand the concept behind it. So I think I would want to publish the diagram shown earlier as a poster or leaflet to graphically communicate my concept
the paradigm shift a storyboard This is a storyboard for the supporting informative graphic that will accompany my final piece.
I also want to see how I can make this piece I am looking at heightened sensory into an interactive exhibit. I want the user to experiences activated by accessing states of experience the same effect. higher awareness. Activities like meditation can be associated with this paradigm shift from regular experience. There are more interesting ways to visually represent the interaction between person and space. For instance through live performance. L’homme Assis Dans Le Couloir is a beautiful example of a staged dance that communicates an interaction with person and room in an abstract way.
Project recap
I am investigating a person’s experience with a room reframed as an exchange between person and room.
tEST SHOOT
I had not previously storyboarded this shoot so when I got to location, I quickly define the camera angles. I also had limited time to write a transcript. The content was not too important as the audio would be distorted. However I do not want to pass up on the opportunity to incorporate a brief explanation of what I was saying. Overleaf is the transcript I read during the shoot.
View video
vimeo.com/120478183
on vimeo
Reflection
How the next shoot could be better I did want to storyboard the film and secure an appropriate video location before shooting my film but I felt it more important Next time I do a shoot, I plan to create the to shoot as soon as possible so I could have effect in AfterEffects but edit it in Premiere Pro for these 3 reasons: something to pitch by the deadline. This is why I made the decision to do a test shoot on Sunday and organise a full one for after the deadline. This would also give me the chance to learn from mistakes, get as much footage as possible and finalise my storyboard in time.
I have a lot of raw footage and I expect that even after creating the floating effect I will still have a lot of footage to sift through. Premiere is designed more to deal with this amount of footage I want to keep the zero gravity effect and editing separate processes as it will help me focus on discrete stages of post-production I would like to practise more editing in Premiere Pro
Bates Mill If i’d had more time on this project I would have been able to secure a more interesting location to shoot. I originally wanted to shoot my final film in Bates Mill. Not only because this place is more visually interesting but it also may have offered a more complex outcome when the audio is run through the space.
I also did not intend to be the subject of this film and I still intend to seek a professional model to replace the role I stood in for in the test shoot.
Northern Portrait I have recently been given the opportunity to submit a piece of work to the Northern Portrait exhibition. This project I feel would fit well into the brief as long as I continue to find interesting spaces in West Yorkshire.
Future plans for this project
. : Studio Brief 01 :.
A Conversation Autumn 2014