SEMESTER TWO

LAUREN DECLASE

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How to Lucid Dream

Great social website which gives us an understanding on Lucid dreaming and the techniques one can undertake to achieve this state of dreaming

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The music we plan to use during our meditative aspect of the Presentation

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PROCESS ASSESSMENT 3  Inspiration for our Meditation aspect for Assessment 3 

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Week 11

My group and I decided to storyboard 3 of the character descriptions on pages 56-59 in Philip K Dick's, Ubik. 

This is my representation of Tito Apostos.

His description consists of:

A bald headed man, wagging a goatish beard, pointed to himself. He wore old fashioned, hip hugging gold lame trousers, yet somehow created a stylish effects. Perhaps the egg sized buttons of his help green mitty blouse helped.

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Alien Methods Reinterpreting this image from Jessca’s Tumblr. The concept is using the human body to highlight city connotations . I represented it using natural connotations. I used drawing which is slightly alien to me.

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Final Piece Part 1 

Repeat more than once 

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10. Conclusive Analysis

My final piece and process documentation cover several aspects of the course. My final piece is a clear outcome of divergent thinking. Where as the process itself involved alien techniques and convergent processes. Wholeheartedly my final piece also held a touch of uncreativity to further explore my concept. 

So where does my piece stand? The project I have chosen is almost an entree to a whole new story, of animations, art forms, installations and so forth with a similar concept of  'Gracless Gorgeous Animation'. What I produced was only an introduction, leaving the viewer wanting more. I find this piece is an on going process for myself, as it does not really end. It is a concept I can further extend and deepen. I could go on to reflect specific issues which we are facing in regards to the world of drug intake. Not only could I explore drugs, but I could continue to question when does cute become submissive due to the explicit context it produces. 

Conclusively, I see my project as teaser trailer, to a whole new art form of animation in a new environment. 

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9.

Overview of rotoscope method

  ADAPTATION TO THE COURSE?

Rotsocoping was undertaken as apart of my process as it reflects uncreativity. The idea of uncreativty involves remaking, re editing, re constructing. I have clearly done this as I have taken something that is not mine and put my own spin on it. Conclusively it achieves my concept of illicit drug use being a gorgeous activity. 

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8. Clay Animation Process

Original figure:

Young boy (dressed appropriately to recognise innocence)

Skewered on a temperature gauge (uncreative material)

Colourful clay (highlights the youth)

Materials:

Clay 

Colours

Knife to shape

Cardboard to knead on 

  Workplace:

A work space which i created with the objects within my home 

  Trial and Error:

Potential outcome, but in the end it did not support my concept

ADAPTATION TO THE COURSE?

I am using a variety of materials, such as clay as one aspect of my final piece to highlight the power in using different outlets to achieve my conceptual idea. There is a stronger sense of engagement and aesthetic achievement by using a variety of different materials. 

Also I have decided to achieve this part of the project with very inconvenient techniques. Books, temperature gauze, no wiring in the clay, over exposed light. This was to challenge myself, and see if I could successfully achieve my idea by using alien techniques for the process of clay animation .

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7.

Sketching/Draft for my clay animation idea

Experimentation with what can/can't work

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6. Storyboard

A pre-requisite in the process of animation. Breaking down the concept

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5.

Original piece from 'Requiem for a Dream' directed by Darren Aronofsky. This film dwells on the different forms of drug addiction and how they can turn your world upside down, into a place of delusion and desperation.

This part of the film, provides a montage of the different ways one can take drugs. It then skips to the aftermath of this binge use where they are 'muzzed' out, feeling completely intoxicated.

My aim is to maintain the context within this piece, but colour it with things that will make us smile and excite our innocent eyes.

ADAPTATION TO THE COURSE?

By using such a significant film in regards to its drug connotations, I have allowed my audience to really get a taste of the negative encapsulated through the positive. I would represent this under divergent thinking, as one does not usually aim to compose negatives and positives and a symbiotic relationship, thus creating the irony in my final piece

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4. Cuteness of the Avant-Garde by Sianne Ngai

A philosophical analysis of the nature of aesthetic relation in regards to art and mass consumerism during the twentieth century. This essay gives light to my concept of the irony in ‘cuteness’. It draws light to cute aesthetics having a façade of beauty but also an inner vulnerability, meaning it is interconnected to the ‘ugly’ in order for it to maintain its innocent aesthetics. This is expressed through the statement:

“Philosophers have adopted Kant to generalize as a special kind of attention paid solely to an object’s appearance or “aspect” (as opposed to its origin, identity, or function) accompanied by an appraisal based on the positive or negative feeling that its apperception elicits.”

And again:

“From here it is only a short step to see how the formal properties associated with cuteness; smallness, compactness, softness, simplicity, and pliancy— call forth specific affects: helplessness, pitifulness, and even despondency.”

Gertrude Stein’s was a poet who also had similar ideas in relation to my concept, naming his work ‘indecently cute’. I found this essay to help me comments on cute as the ‘infantile and feminine’, which is where I have focused on too. Overall, the power of cuteness again is being explored within this essay and also my final piece. 

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3. Disney Princess' Graffiti 

Here we have street art of selected Disney Princesses by an unknown artist, who are depicted as a femme fatale. Again this is the notion of gorgeous characters undertaking illegal acts. 

This is slightly different in comparison to Happy Tree Friends.  It is in my best interest to to study a variety of artistic mediums, as I am taking the divergent approach of experimenting with different disciplines. 

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2. Happy Tree Friends

Through my research I explored the notion of cute connotations depicting negative acts. This is a televsion series, Happy Tree Friends, by Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode Montijo, Kenn Navarro and Warren Graff for Mondo Media.

Watch this clip to understand another media artist who has a similar concept to the one I plan to achieve. The cartoon uses animation, specifically to achieve gorgeous, colorful animals taking part in violent acts. 

However my idea will differ in the negative context, as I plan to focus on illicit drugs, rather than violence. 

  ADAPTATION TO THE COURSE?

This example excapsulates the concept of divergent thinking. They are thinking outside of the box by juxtaposing the two extremes, cute and violence. This example clearly highlights what I aim to achieve.

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1. Introductory Breakdown of my Concept

Gorgeous, Graceless Animation 

By using divergent thinking I came up with the idea to interrelate a variety of mediums in animation to uniquely depict serious issues. More specifically, I will be depicting serious issues such as illicit drug intake in a light hearted, overwhelmingly cute manner using animation tools. I am using juxtaposition to confront my audience but also communicate the irony within my concept.

Break down using my conceptual map

Expectation of final piece

Outcome is to have two animations.

The first one will be clay, with a young boy consuming ecstasy and watching his eyes expand but then his body physically morphs away

The second one will be a rotscoped cartoon of a scene from ‘Requiem for a Dream’. I will reinterpret the scene to have cute and colour connotations which will juxtapose the drug based context in the scene

ADAPTATION TO THE COURSE?

By providing an overlay break down of my previous map, you see that I am not convergently thinking, breaking down my idea, pulling out the positives and negatives.