#practice-based enquiry

[viv-allen]

Prints for book

July 13th 

I collected the full length series of printed images from the digital print studio which I cut into the three lengths but decided to fold using my light box at home in order to get the images aligned and the page folds exact.

Outcome:

When cutting the lengths in three I saw that the top and bottom series on the roll were 0.5cm wider than the middle section, which meant that the images were off centre by this much. The technician said this was due to the roll width and she thought that since these were three separate documents it would not be problem. I will see what what they look like once they are folded and if necessary cut the 0.5cm along the length.

[viv-allen]

Editing digitised Super 8 scan

I worked on editing the scanned Super 8 film today, learning entirely new methods to try to achieve my desired effect. Firstly I cropped out the slice of telegraph pole to the right of the frame which made the composition much stronger.

I searched within the 2.32 minute length of digital moving image to find the section which caught the movement of the fabric from being fully extended in one direction to the point the fabric returns to a relaxed vertical position, cut this section and that became the piece to work on.

I experimented a lot with new techniques of cross dissolve and morphing to try to create a section with a smooth transition to be able to loop, but this proved difficult. I tried using cross-dissolve a technique where one frame can, with the addition of digitally generated images be blended with another. However the gap which I wanted to bridge was too big and the overall effect was that of ghosting, which felt very much in opposition to the aesthetic of the Super 8 film quality. Edges of fabric within the composition appeared abruptly from the background from no apparent source, because they were digitally generated.

Following this I tried morphing (another blending technique), which allows small areas of the whole composition to be worked on in isolation and feathering (which blends the edges of a join). The result was unsuccessful because when the fabric was still in one area it was moving in another. This cause what looked like a pixilated line to drift across the image and no amount of feathering would overcome this.

Finally I solved the problem by duplicating and reversing the original edited section so that the end of the repeated section would finish at the same point so that it could then be smoothly work as a loop. 

The resulting moving image can be found using the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym-vuoEBrcc

What next:

I will view again in a day or so to evaluate with fresh eyes.

[viv-allen]

Test concertina book

July 2nd 2018

I finished cutting and folding the images printed on rice paper to give a realistic mock up of my planned concertina book. I am pleased with square proportion of the images, the boarder width and the weight of the rice paper and it’s gently textured surface compliments the delicate feel behind the images and carries the heavy matt blacks successfully. 

What’s next:

To select the final combination of images and print to the length on the roll to minimise joins along the concertina. Decide on two or three versions depending on the roll width.

[viv-allen]

Selecting which images for the book

June 25th 2018

I spent a lot of time making initial decisions about the choice, size and arrangement of images, and decided on 15cm x 15cm images. These dimensions I felt contrasted the rectangular window of the barn and in doing so removed this association which made the images stronger in their own right. I liked the square image within a square page, and settled on a 2.5cm boarder, and a total of 12 images from which to be able to assess how significant and substantial it feels as an object when printed.

Selecting the images was difficult, I didn’t like the test print where the images appeared too unrelated so in order to make a collection I therefore had to group the images under some sort of heading. I identified 5 possible categories to unify a set of images, eg using colour, shape, abstracted detail, black and white or composition. I decided to choose images with a common composition as I had many of these images to choose between.

I designed and applied this information to another template with the following result, allowing blank pages at the beginning and end, and space to make tabs to join the sections.

[viv-allen]

Green Sway animation

June 21st 2018

I want to make a new animation to experiment with making the speed and duration of each image such that the shift between each image shows that transition to the viewer. This means that the previous image shows initially at the same time as it’s successor but soon fades away; this is called ‘ghosting’. When I considered this technique before (April 10th) it was an outcome which I happened upon and at the time worked against a smooth realistic effect which I wanted at the time. 

I have been looking more closely at time and duration as discussed by Bergson and I want to try to suggest with animation, the idea that each moment of experience is deposited and held as an endless bank of experiences which are available to draw on as a recollection or memory. I wanted to see if, using ghosting I could suggest this process of ‘archiving’ a previous moment before being replaced by the following moment. 

The following animation resulted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQqzMssWGmM

[viv-allen]

The Barn

February 24th 2018

For many months I have been aware of the sound of pigeons cooing from inside a large corrugated metal barn in the village, as I walk passed on the road 50m away. I was drawn to it because of the greatly amplified sound of the bird call but I couldn’t see the bird. I asked permission from the owner to access the barn with the initial intention to make sound recordings. Today visited the with the idea of getting to know the space, with my research on space, place and not knowing in mind I spent time in the space. Sitting, looking, writing

Inside it feels huge, and cold and stores several large pieces of farm machinery. I began to get a sense of the space.

Excepts of my writing:

Inside it feels huge, and cold. It just stores several large pieces of farm machinery and sawn logs. I feels a bit disappointing and not very interesting. 

Overhead, as I disturb a pigeon, it flies repeatedly back and forth, beneath the spine of the roof, the sound of its wings are amplified, it eventually escapes through the open roof vents.

I sit in shadow, above me patches of light shift almost imperceptibly on the wall. Each patch comes from the openings in the roof for ventilation, the vents are straight edged, but the refections fall wavy edged because of the corrugated surface.

Does imperceptible movement suggest silence?

Split, slit and tattered  lines divide the once intact fabric gauze over the large open window frame, the torn fabric piece are held horizontal at times, on the wind. A screen to look at and beyond.

Sitting in this barn, I am caught in, and part of, a conversation, a visual experience of inside-outside.