Sketchbook

(Media Arts, Semester 2 Block 2, 2018)

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Workshop Notes

Organised as best as my memory serves, but unsure which days were which exactly.

Camera experiments:

- tested aperture, shutter speed, and focal length in courtyard using thrown water and long shots of multiple people (brought my own camera to this. It was interesting experimenting with the different capabilities of my mirrorless camera and the school’s DSLRs). Also learnt basics of white balancing a video camera, mounting it to a tripod, and shooting smoothly w/ Glen. 

Video experimentation:

- Shot a short film with Glen using multiple different types of shots (unfinished, but we managed to get all the shots done). 

Lighting experiments: 

- Used lights in multiple positions (key lights, back lights, etc.) to light a figure for both photography (w/ Izzy) and video (w/ Glen). Managed to stay after class and experiment with gelled lights to shoot photos of peers/still subjects (some other people might have these photos but I don’t). 

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwmK9V3RJYQ)

Our final video for the group project, media arts, semester 2, 2018

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Documentation of space / final project, SCA, 2018

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Media Arts 2018- final project

Our group project grappled with the ideas of the environment (and climate change) as well as involving itself in the space within which it was installed. For my individual project, I wanted to work with lo-fi documentation of this installation as a starting point. I focused a roll of 35mm film on the unique elements of the auditorium space within which we performed, the bits which defined it: the low light contrasted with bright signage and cathedral windows. I combined this with a few other shots united by the lack of natural light within them. What I found was by combining and layering negatives, I could produce work which had a ghostly, ethereal, and ephemeral feel to it, with many of the shapes semi-translucent or floating in space. I displayed this inside the underground tunnels of SCA within which we did our original piece and which inspired me also owing to the natural darkness and softness of the light. I think the fleeting, ghostly elements of the photos, combined with how I displayed them– on the floor as if discarded– came together to provide some kind of insight into the fleeting nature of structures which can seem permanent and unchangeable. I think this also had a particular resonance in the face of our original work’s focus on climate change and the changing environment. 

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Final project for media arts, semester 2, 2018

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the work up and painted in the original location + the location we projected our process video and rearranged the work.

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the video that's forming the basis for our project and as inspiration. it's aggressive and direct but also retains subtlety to keep it approachable.

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first day in the SCA dungeons for media arts. too many worms in the walls but otherwise easy setup. could have done with cleaner adhesive to the wall (spray adhesive/wheat paste?) but can't because it's heritage.

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Photo-montage/-graphy, El Lissitsky. I want to attempt something similar with overlaying and re-printing multiple negatives onto one silver gelatin print sheet using the photography from our exhibition; the geometric forms/graininess present here will also (hopefully) be on those photos.

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Inner-right wing of Matthias Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece (The Temptation of St. Anthony), 1512-16, oil on wood panel + Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (detail), 1533, oil on oak

Attention to the picture plane is brought through the irregular shape of the canvas and the anamorphic perspective; viewers are forced to reckon with the flatness and the boundaries of the object. I like the contrast of the relatively modern attention to the picture plane contrasted with the heavy metal, antique aesthetics of the northern renaissance style.

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Imaginary Bands-- Artist Statement

Imaginary Band is a manic, pop video-scape layered from my own footage, the Ren & Stimpy Show, Julius Sumner Miller’s Demonstrations in Physics, and multiple layers of glitching and compression artifacts. The layered, dense result of this combination was intended as an expression of my experience returning home to Australia after growing up in the US. A dissonance occurred when the vague memories and idealistic expectations I possessed clouded and warped the reality I returned to. I gave the viewer access to an impression of the exhilaration and confusion I experienced. The multilayered, off-beat visuals and music leave no time for the viewer to relax. Jerking glitches and sharp cuts evoke a sensation of two identities trying to reconcile their immense dissonances. Ultimately, the appeal of the video lies in the tension between the glitched and un-glitched, old and new, and real and distorted, which neatly summarises my emotional experience. Existing somewhere in a half-remembered childhood, a homemade Rage video, and psycho thrill ride, Imaginary Band does not encapsulate my situation so much as expresses what the highs and lows can feel like.

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one run-through of the Imaginary Bands video installation i did for my final media arts project, semester 1, 2018.

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Imaginary Bands, media arts final project, semester 1 2018.

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Imaginary bands video on display, thursday june 7th.

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Practice setup. I wanted to use the distortion that came from projecting so far back in such a narrow, long room. The disconnect between expecting a flat image in such a platonic space and getting this distorted, 3-dimensional one spoke to my work. 

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storyboarding // sketching.

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Concept: Expectation and Reality

Developing this piece has naturally had me explore my own experiences relating to my “situation”, and especially since I’m defining that by my recent move from America it’s led to a lot of personal resolution and a “working through” of my own thoughts. One thing that I’ve recently become conscious of is the difference between expectation and reality– how or what I think things are versus what they truly are. Part of my experience has been trying to separate the two and identify what’s just a projection or what i want things to be, versus what things actually are. 

Glitching the footage kind of hits that note on a metaphorical level– the computer is trying to reconcile how it expects the data to be versus what it actually is, resulting in confusion, distortion, and violation of image. The technique I’ve used is a relatively basic one I found here but the file type I’m using is .MOV not .mp4, resulting in different visuals:

( these are the result of me cutting glitched footage with unedited footage; the problem with glitching a video is that everything after the edited/broken section is glitched to the point of unusability, so it requires a light hand).

The idea is to cut between the true image (as far as the computer understands) and the confused, distorted, faulty interpretation of the image as the video plays and perhaps carry a kind of narrative through what’s distorted, what’s not, and when.