#textual research

[devoradraws]

The Fool

The Fool is card 0. It can be placed at the beginning or end of the Major Arcana. The Fool is the main character, going on a journey, meeting the other Major Arcana characters. He often has the appearance of a jester. The rose in his hand “represents his purity and innocence. And at his feet is a small white dog, representing loyalty and protection, that encourages him to charge forward and learn the lessons he came to learn” 

It is the card of new beginnings and experiences and can be seen as a sign to take risks.

[devoradraws]

Plague Doctor

A plague doctor was a doctor who treated victims of the Bubonic Plague. The plague doctor costume was created in 1630, first used in Naples and then spread to the rest of Europe. 

The costume and perception of the plague doctor, fit with the themes of the death tarot card and could also be used  as a commentary on the current pandemic.

copper engraving of Dr Schnabel - 1656

[crownpuppet]

Some extra notes

[crownpuppet]

Alan Watts 1915-1973 was a British philosopher who popularised eastern religion in the west, he was an author and speaker who often spoke on non duality. He described it as like “being two waves in an ocean”, and that once you experience and understand non duality you no longer have to fear death, as their is no line between life and death, everything is just two sides of the same coin.

[crownpuppet]

‘Selki Girl’s album [for the profane] and her podcast ‘The Qabalista podcast’, the album takes a journey through the qabalistic tree of life which is a map of spiritual development.

Jewish mysticism, appropriated by western esoteric tradition, adapted hermetic qabalah which consists of a philosophical framework with ideas borrowed from a group of separate spiritual traditions, mainly using the kabalistic tree of life. The first stage on the tree ‘Keter’ (crown), is explored in the song ‘You/Me/Us/We‘, keter being the energy which all things originated from goes hand in hand with her exploration of non-dualism as we all are from one substance. Lyrics which show this are, “the Crown is in the Kingdom And the Kingdom in the Crown...There's no "i" in team There's no line between”.

[crownpuppet]

Here is a mind map from when I first started thinking about this project, I didn't originally start with this idea but knew from the beginning that I wanted to make a film with puppets.

I knew I wanted to promote a positive message and make a comment on how we think of each other in a prejudice way. my original story was going to be a retelling of the wizard of oz but changing it to make points about :climate change, politicians and poverty but eventually decided to go down a more simplistic route.

Although changing the narrative and direction of the project, relevant research was still made. I ended up looking at costume design and the dark crystal which carried inspiration into the further project.

[crownpuppet]

I looked at two different methods for storytelling, The heroes journey by Joseph Campbell and Dan Harmon’s story circle.

The story circle is much more simple than the heroes journey however the latter is much more popular in narrative storytelling. Each one follows a set of rules and guidelines in order to create a meaningful journey with: denial, acceptance, test, triumph and reward. 

https://youtu.be/GNPcefZKmZ0

https://youtu.be/CoUSX4Y_WS0

I then tried going through each step and writing what it would be for my story.

Although not perfect I feel that this research has given me an idea of how to structure or create the foundations of my short narrative.

[crownpuppet]

Crown puppet is my final year uni project on non-dualism.

Non-dualism means “not two”, the knowledge that our mind can only think in dual terms such as you and me or life and death but that is an illusion and that infact things such as life and death are not opposites but two sides to the same coin.

I want to use this concept to help people change the way they think about the world, people and themselves, as when you realise we’re all of the same thing many obstacles can be evaporated. I’ll be doing this through a short mixed media film.