SlowDownGetReady

[slowdowngetready]

Project 2

This experimental film explores being powerless in the ocean and submitting to vastness through expansion. Using both material and digital film techniques, I explore themes of resistance and freedom as well as fear and safety. There is no clear narrative presented here. Instead I use image and sound to evoke feeling and experience. The use of words has is an intentional anchor in the middle of the film to further guide the interpretation.

I have used additive techniques on clear 16mm film, submersing the film into the ocean to capture traces and fragments of the sea. I have also used subtractive scratching techniques on black 16mm film to create a kinetic effect which emulates movement under water and imagery of strands of seaweed emerged in these scratching unexpectedly.

The soundtrack is comprised of field recordings of the sea, of lapping water, of bubbling water and of ambient sounds in the environment. The sounds alternate between vast and spacious sounds to intimate and close sounds.

[slowdowngetready]

THOUGHTS ON PROCESS

I am thinking of creating an "underwater" effect with the footage of my clear film seawater residues. I want to create depth and the feeling of slowly floating through water. Stillness and suspension.

Although the following Norman McLaren film has a very different aesthetic and pace (and crazy upbeat musical track) it has a number of techniques that may help me create this effect. I think there is layering of clear film here to create a three dimensional depth. There are also some kinetic lines in this film which are similar to some of the abstract scratchings I made. My scratchings interestingly look like small seaweed strings - seaweed scratchings.

Norman McLaren - A Phantasy in Colors (1949)

[slowdowngetready]

Experimenting and preparing the 16mm film - Project 2.

1. Clear film (Additive) - In order to "add the sea" to my clear film I coated the clear film with a thin layer of clag glue and then rubbed the film into the edges of the water... in sand, seaweed and other residues of the seawater. I let the film dry in the sun on my washing line and then covered both side of the film in clear tape to keep the sea residues on the film when they run through the projector.

2. Black film (subtractive) - Using scratching techniques I scratched lines and abstract patterns as well as words into the emulsion.

[slowdowngetready]

THOUGHTS AND IDEAS - Project 2.

[slowdowngetready]

13 Artists Who Highlight the Power of Words

From Jenny Holzer to Ed Ruscha and Lawrence Weiner, these artists have taken the written word off the page and into the museum.

This is a good article highlighting some artists who use words and text in art. These artists are often interested in re-contextualising and de-contextualising words with a view to subvert or challenge the meaning of words. Some of these artists even strip meaning away completely to undermine convention.

Words can be mundane or they can be powerful, it all depends on the intention, the context and how the words are read.

[slowdowngetready]

WORDS

Playing around with words and thinking how the arrangement of words visually in a space can change the intention and their meaning.

[slowdowngetready]

Final Project Proposal CAEL3016

I would like to create a poetic film, exploring storytelling, narration and poetry through moving image and sound using experimental techniques.

The main focus will be on words (text) with additional images, shapes and sounds used to create mood - lightness & dark, push & pull, fast & slow. The film will be aesthetically simple, quite pared back and refined.

Conceptually I would like to relay a narrative around being powerless in the ocean, the terror of not being held, being let go, the submission into that feeling of powerlessness. I will explore themes of resistance and freedom as well as fear and safety.

Two important reference works are below:

Tomonari Nishikawa sound of a million insects, light of a thousand stars (2 min., 2014)

This film was created by exposing film to nature and the elements in Fukushima Japan. The film was buried under fallen leaves near the Fukushima Nuclear power plant in 2014. This is similar to how I would like to experiment with exposing to the ocean, imparting traces of the ocean onto the film. Exposing the materiality of the film.

Su Freidrich Gently down the stream (1981)

This film tells a story. It is a non-linear story and creates moments that are experienced intensely rather than a directed linear narrative. There are themes of water, holding and fear. Conceptually and aesthetically this film is very much related to the work I would like to create.

CLIP: Gently Down the Stream (1981)--SAMPLE CLIP ONLY

Available in full on DVD Vol 4, HIDE AND SEEK from Outcast Films,http://outcast-films.com/hide-and-seek/ or to stream in full on Vimeo throu

[slowdowngetready]

Statement on Experimental Rhythm film - Project 1

Currently untitled film.

In this film, the meaning came through the process of experimentation. It is a purely abstract experimental film with no explicit narrative. Rather, the film is a series of raw shapes, patterns and colours which evoke a dark and moody experience. The images (and sound) are rhythmic and unrelenting which creates a hypnotic almost trance-like quality. The rhythm of the sound and the image come in and out of alignment. The editing of the film imbues further meaning onto the images - the mirroring of the image reinforce the patterns and shapes that came out of the process which references a kind of inkblot (Rorshach) series of shapes. This further plays on the ambiguous nature and open interpretation of the images. The sound is a continuous and regular rhythmic tapping which occurs in a space together with the background hum of the projector as a reminder that we are watching a physical film reel.

[slowdowngetready]

Jennifer Reeves - Fear of Blushing (2001)

Reference work for Project 1

This is another hand painted film. Reeves has added an interesting soundtrack to this work with a mix of found sounds, instruments and synthetic sounds.

[slowdowngetready]

Stan Brakhage - Stellar (1993)

Reference work for Project 1

This is a hand painted film by Brakhage. Effects were achieved by rephotographing the painted fim.

[slowdowngetready]

Manipulating film - Process

I have used scratching, bleaching (subtractive) and pvc glue, dyes and nail polish (additive) techniques to manipulate 16mm film with emulsion and clear film. It is very experimental, using intuition to guide the process. I have used materials I already have at home. The colours are bright and playful. The bleached marks are bold. I have also done some more delicate scratching. These are all very different mark making techniques, expressing different expressive gestures.

[slowdowngetready]

Found film - I may make use of this in my final work. Looks like there is a street scene and a couple of office scenes. I don’t yet have a clear idea how I will use this footage.

[slowdowngetready]

Experimental Film - CAEL3016

UNDER THE HEAT LAMP AN OPENING, 2014, 16mm film by Zachary Epcar. Film on lightcone.org

This is an interesting abstract, non-linear, narrative film. Moments of extreme tension and a sense of impending doom and drama are created through sound and a series of disparate, though seemingly connected, scenes and images. The film is edited with deliberate cuts which highlight the unseen, including obscured faces, intimate segments of conversations and bodies, interspersed with secretive, spy-like views of people and their private interactions in a restaurant. The soundtrack uses a combination of percussive instruments, drums, sounds of birds, water, voices and music to create moody moments and further drive the interpretation of the disparate imagery.

"An expanded view of the lunch crowd at an open-air restaurant, from a bird's-eye of the exterior to the depths of the interior."

Light Cone - UNDER THE HEAT LAMP AN OPENING

[slowdowngetready]

Alexandra Spence is a sound artist / musician from Sydney, Australia. She works within the fields of composition, improvised music, and soun

[slowdowngetready]

Testing the instrument

[slowdowngetready]

Remote Laser Interferometry Microphone

An interesting twist I came across while researching my instrument was the historic use of lasers to pick up on sound vibrations through windows as a tool used by spies to eavesdrop. This technique uses the same fundamental principle as my instrument, and interestingly ties in with my first work for this unit which was based on the premise of eavesdropping.

This link here is to a group at Princeton who replicated the spy tool using laser light as a way of detecting sound waves.

[slowdowngetready]

Instrument in action… It is surprisingly effective at realising sound through light. You really can “see sound”