ADAD1002 Assessment 2 FINAL WORK
The relationship between humans and non-humans, specifically environments, is extremely complex and infinitely faceted. Yet, the relationship between humans and their environments, although externally observable, are extremely personal and rely almost entirely on the human consciousness’ sensory perceptions. It is for this reason that my video exists. The individual perception of environment is almost entirely reliant on visual, auditory, olfactory etc sensory experiences. Because of this, the memory of a environment as a whole or at a specific moment in time is the only way that a human/environmental relationship can last beyond the breakdown of this relationship. Connected to memory is the emotional element of the relationship between humans and non-human environments. Human emotion has a very strong influence in this relationship due to how emotion can overpower intellectual or perhaps rational thought, thus the memory of environments an individual has are subjective, as with all perception. In order to translate these ideas into my work, I sought to depict the environment in the video as a combination of my memory and the emotional tone that are associated with them, hence, atmosphere was my foremost concern.
The footage in the video was shot by myself during a hail storm on Friday the 7th of September recorded with a Sony F1 camcorder. As hail storms are quite rare, at least in Sydney, I thought that this environment would be a good subject for the work. As well as this, it is a very unique feeling to be both inside and outside during these types of weather events. The footage contains shots from inside my home looking out and footage from me walking the streets of my neighborhood during the end, and aftermath of the storm. After deciding on making the hail storm the subject of the work, I began editing and arranging the footage in After Effects and Premiere Pro. This included stabilization, colour correction, time stretching, crossfading and applying initial audio filtering. For the accompanying audio track, I took the heavily filtered audio from the camera footage and in an DAW, added stretched samples of wind chime audio clips from youtube videos from the years 2006 and 2007. I’ve always found wind chimes to be very atmospheric in an ominous or sinister way, an atmosphere which I aimed for in the production of the video.
The majority of the choices that I made in making this video were stylistic, however, these stylistic choices were made on an emotional basis. The way the video looked and sounded were more instinctual rather than methodical. This allowed for the way that my memory and sensory information transferred to the video to be reflective of how I feel about it, rather than how it happened in reality. As well as this, my choice to project the video onto the walls of a dark room and play the audio throughout the room allowed for the recreation of the event on a purely subjective basis. The audience in the room have, in a sense, a window into my memory, specifically that memory of that environment, but instead of being a part of the relationship between me and that place they are in the relationship as a spectator. Even if the viewer watches the video elsewhere, they are still experiencing and interpreting the sensory information of the work.
As for inspiration for the work, much of the inspiration from my last project, the poster, carries over. Contemporary film photographers who capture urban and suburban landscapes like Mia Novakova, Thomas Jordan, Patrick Joust and Steven Siegel to name few, have a very dreamy and emotionally charged nature to their work. As well as these artists, several filmmakers formed basis for how I approached shooting and editing the work, namely Béla Tarr, Scott Barley, Terrence Malick, Leighton Pierce and Terence Davies to also name a few. All of these artists in some way or another depict environment with abstract and subjective style. There are also several musical inspirations in how I approached the audio component of the work. Artists like William Basinski, The Caretaker, Grouper, Tim Hecker, Boards Of Canada and Bohren & der Club of Gore are a few of the many musicians who informed my stylistic choices through the nature of their atmospheric and emotionally charged music.
Playing the World’s Largest Wind Chime [Online Video], 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mucgV7U2Tdc - Uploaded by user ‘aerocar’
Wind Chimes [Online Video], 2006, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsZH9QM7Dr4 - Uploaded by user ‘scub0y’
Japanese wind chimes [Online Video], 2006, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wA_hdCGw4E - Uploaded by user ‘photojpn’
Huge Wind Chimes in SLO [Online Video], 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzTs2akpUUI - Uploaded by user ‘Don Miller’
