Methods of Inquiry Blog

I am Meredith Kratochwill, a student at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, and this is my blog for Methods of Inquiry.

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(Re)Mapping (Final Post)

Here is the final product of my (re)mapping project.

Statement:

Over the course of this semester, there have been several periods of time where I have felt a lack of control in my life, in both a positive and negative way. To map out these periods of the semester, I chose to create gifs with abstract representations of these controlling forces. I created a character to move throughout the gifs to represent how I interacted with these forces. 

In the first gif, the character is pulled into the gif by the force along the side of the square, and is eventually pulled from the side and dropped into the next gif below. While at home before this semester began, I took comfort in reconnecting with my family and friends from home, and readjusted to the lifestyle I had before college. Though I loved my life in Michigan, it was difficult to be pulled once again from my lifestyle at home. I sought to represent this removal from a place of comfort through the motions in the first gif. In the second gif, the character is dropped to the bottom of the square, and brings herself to stand up and begin walking. At the beginning of this semester, I found it difficult to adjust to my new schedule and workload. The movements in the gif represent how I slowly brought myself to adjust to the new semester, and evenly put myself on a steady, successful routine. In the third gif, the character continues to walk, then cartwheels, and is eventually swept upwards by a force. The cartwheels represent how the track I put myself on early in the semester led to me to perform well in my classes and achieve my goals. During this time, I also gave myself more time for social experiences, and allowed myself to go with the flow more in my free time, which lifted my mood. In the last gif, the character is quickly sucked upwards out of the square. This movement represents the quick end to the semester, and how I was rapidly forced to leave Michigan at a time where things were going well for me there. 

For the character’s design, I chose to make her appearance simple and aerodynamic to make her look light and easily moveable. Since the character moves throughout the gifs, I chose to place them all together in a square formation so they can be viewed as a sequence rather than separate pieces. I have always been interested in animation, though I have minimal experience in both digital animation and digital drawing. I have created gifs in the past, so I was familiar with the general process, though those projects were all far less complicated than this. Due to my lack of experience in the medium, I had to overcome many challenges during this project, such as figuring out how to time the movements of the character to make them look natural, and how to use shape, color and timing to make the movement of the abstract forces dynamic and fluid. Though these challenges made the project time consuming and frustrating at times, I am glad that I chose to do it, as I was able to further explore and gain more experience in a medium that has always interested me. Overall, I am really proud of the outcome this process produced.

[meredithkratochwill]

Body Extension (Final Post)

Here is the final documentation of my body extension project. Unfortunately I was unable to post the documentation video here since the file is too large, but it will be in my google drive folder.

Statement:

For this project, I wanted to explore how visibly blocking my ears could allow me to control when people approach me in social settings. Before this project, I had observed how people with blocked ears (usually due to wearing headphones or earmuffs) were far less likely to be approached by others in public spaces. I enjoy social interaction, though I often prefer to keep to myself as I go about my day, even in public spaces. I began using these methods of ear blocking as a way to experience public spaces while remaining isolated. For my body extension, I wanted to create a device that allows me to control when my ears are closed off or not, therefore giving me control over the level of social contact I am open to in public settings. To give my body extension this function, I used strips of cardboard and string, and underwent a trial and error process of calculating different lengths for the pieces of cardboard and testing how fluidly the pieces would open. While constructing this project, I faced many other challenges, such as figuring out how to use the string to hold the open cardboard strips in place, how to securely attach the string to the cardboard strips in a way that still allowed the cardboard strips to move fluidly, how to use the string to gather and close cardboard strips, and how to attach the cardboard strips to the head band in a way that gave the strips free movement. I am proud of myself for successfully solving these problems, and for producing a body extension that is well crafted and reflective of my personality. 

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Here are the photographs I took to document my body extension. To set up the background for these photographs, I moved around furniture in my living room to make a clear space, and hung a white sheet from the curtain rods. (Thank you Mom for letting me completely rearrange our living room!)

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(Re)Mapping Project: Individual Gifs

Here are the finished gifs for my (re)mapping project. I wanted to post each gif individually as well so that you can take a closer look at each one.

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Character Movements

Here are the finished animations of the character from each gif for my (re)mapping project. I wanted to post these separate from their gifs so the movements can be viewed more clearly. It was challenging to figure out how to draw and time each frame of the movement, though I’m happy with the way it turned out.

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Color Movements

Here are the finished force movements animations for the gifs in my (re)mapping project. I wanted to share these animations isolated from the rest of each gif so that they can be viewed more clearly. It took lots of time to figure out the best way to time and draw these movements, though overall I found the process of drawing these frames rather relaxing. 

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Movement Sample (2)

Here is another sample of how the character will move in one of my gifs. Overall, I planned to be further along with the gif by today, but it took me a lot longer than expected to figure out how to animate the walk cycle. I’m not sure if I’m completely satisfied with how it looks, so I may revisit it later if I have enough time. 

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Color Movement Sample

I wanted to give you all an idea of how the movement lines will look in the final gifs, so here is a gif I put together with a sample of the movement lines from one of my gifs. The lines take quite a bit of time to animate, but I’ve found it relaxing to draw, and overall I’m happy with how the movement looks.

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Here is the color palette I chose for the movement lines in my gifs. When planning the colors, I was inspired by the abstract paintings by Jeremy Blake in the movie Punk-Drunk Love, which Endi recommended I watch. If any of you haven’t seen the movie, I definitely recommend it too! I found the bright, whimsical colors to be an interesting way the break up reality in the movie, even during mundane or intense scenes, and I feel this idea relates well to my (re)mapping project.

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Animation Tests

Here are some of the test animations I made for the movement of the character. It took me a while to find the correct resolution and file size to get the quality I want that is still usable on the web (since I had to reanimate the movement for each test), but I think I landed upon one that works well! 

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Project Update

Hello! I hope everyone is getting through finals okay! For me, with all of the exams, papers, and final projects I’ve had over the past two weeks, I found it difficult to make time to work on these projects. However, now that I’ve had the time to fully focus on Methods of Inquiry work, I’ve been making progress a lot quicker! It’s been difficult to share my progress on my remapping. Since the gifs take a lot of time and work to export, it’s difficult to share my work in a way that is efficient and an effective use of time before the the gifs are fully completed. To make up for this, I am going to gather and post pieces to show my process. However, these posts may take a bit, since they are time consuming to put together and export, and I am mainly focused on putting finishing the final piece. As I have very little experience animating with Photoshop, the learning curve for this project has been a little frustrating at times, but overall I have had a lot of fun with it and I’m really excited about the work I’m doing!

[meredithkratochwill]

I’m happy to say that I finished my body extension! I made some adjustments on the placement of the ear covers, and hot glued them to the head piece. I’m really happy with the way it looks! However, there is still a lot left for me to work on with this project. My next step is to create a space in my house where I can take some higher quality photographs of my body extension. I am currently using pieces of paper taped together as a backdrop for my photographs, but I want to have a smoother, less distracting background (possibly using a white sheet) where I can take photographs of the piece on me and as an object. I also need to create the video documentation of interactions my body extension. I am planning on trying to recruit my siblings to help with these interactions, so hopefully they will be willing to help!

[meredithkratochwill]

Here is an idea I had for the background of my gifs. Each square would have a different color and different directions of the lines depending on the direction of the forces in the square (represented by lines in the sketches I posted before). I’ve been thinking that it could be interesting to have the lines appear and disappear as the forces appear and disappear. My next step is to figure out how exactly I want to animate the lines so that they appear to move in a direction that moves the character in the desired direction (as seen in the previous sketches).

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Here are some new sketches I’ve made to brainstorm how I want to arrange my gifs. I decided it may be a good idea to cut down the number of squares I include so that I can focus on the quality of each one. I am still between these two layouts, so if you have a suggestion I would love it hear it!

[meredithkratochwill]

I wanted to share some of the work I have been doing for my (re)mapping project. Since I am better at working out my ideas on paper, I decided to plan out my project in my sketchbook. Creating these images has really helped me work out how I want to arrange the squares, and what I want to depict inside them. I chose to arrange them in a wave-like shape to reflect the cyclical nature of both the gifs and the events they represent as a whole. I have found working on this project so far--finding ways to represent the events of this semester and my emotional state throughout it in an abstract way--to be really therapeutic. As I am only in the beginning stages of this project, this positive effect planning it out has had on me makes me really excited to go further with it.

[meredithkratochwill]

(Re)Mapping Proposal

For my (re)mapping project, I want to create a series of animated gifs that will represent the many emotional changes I underwent this semester. This past semester has been filled with many new educational and social opportunities for me, which have led to many emotional highs and lows. There have been times where I have felt happier and more accomplished than I have ever been, while other times I have felt completely overrun by stress and out of control. To convey these changes, I will create different square gifs to represent different periods of this semester. These squares will be arranged in a linear order, connected by a character who will travel through them. In each box, the character will either move on its own, or will be controlled by an invisible force. The color of the squares will match the mood of the action happening within it. The actions will be timed in a way that the gifs appear to be one large looping animation. With the timing of when I had to leave campus, it felt as though all the progress I had made this semester had been cut down, leaving me where I had started in the beginning. I feel that gifs will work best to display this idea, as it reflects the cyclical aspect of this semester. I will create these gifs using Photoshop, which I have done briefly in the past. What I will have to figure out is how to display the gifs together as a sequence. 

[meredithkratochwill]

Body Extension Update (Part 3)

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Here is a video showing my interaction with my body extension. Unfortunately, when I looped the video the file was too large, so I was only able to upload one iteration here. I put a lot of time into figuring out the movement of opening the ear cover, and I’m happy with the way it looks. Right now, the movement of closing the ear cover isn’t as smooth as I would like it to be, so next I will work on adjusting the method I am using.