IDEAS:
After throwing around a lot of ideas over summer, I came to a very vague conclusion: I wanted to do something about "things existing in the same spaces but having a totally different experience or awareness of the 'other'.
Last summer, I was reading A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: with A Theory of Meaning by Jakob von Uexkull which inspired my previous experimental animation. Uexkull says:
"Each bubble shelters other places, and in each are also found the directional planes of effective space, which give a solid scaffolding to space. The birds that flutter about, (...) all remain permanently enclosed in the bubble that encloses their space. Only when we can vividly imagine this fact will we recognise in our own world the bubble that encloses each and every one of us on all side." This idea of people living in their own bubbles stuck with me. This rang especially true with the political divides in the world happening at the moment. People seem to not be able to find common ground concerning the Corona virus pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, the Environmental crisis and much more...
Another influence for this idea of representing the isolation we have from one another came from the drama-documentary; The social Dilema. which talks about the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts whistle blowing on the impact of their own creations.
The Social Dilemma reveals that social media apps have no incentive to tell the truth or to show users anything outside of their political bubble. therefore, creating and solidifying two separate sides who don't “trust each other” or have conversations to find a common ground, because either side have a completely different idea of what 'reality' is.
GOALS FOR THE YEAR:
While I was in lockdown I realised that there were two elements that were important to me for this academic year: I wanted to spend less time on computers, spend more time outside and animating with physical objects or using a physical space in which I can create movement opposed to relying on AE for motion, (etc).
The second element was that I felt that the value of animation is reduced when watched on ones phone, especially in this time where we are stuck in doors on our phones and staring at screens all day. I can watch 5 animations on Vimeo each that took years to make, within just a few minutes, which I feel overlooks the amount of work that has been put into each animation, the phone more than any other devise has a 'binge' connotation to whatever you might be viewing. I can only assume with the way the Pandemic is going at the moment that this years degree show will be viewed online. This feeling also made me think about he fact that Animation doesn't have a place of 'worship', Fine Art has 'the gallery' and film has Cinema, and Animation filtered its way between the two, which is why I started to think about projection animation and installation art. Projecting Animations is appealing to me because it allows the medium to be experienced in different locations and contexts, opening up the meaning of narrative animation to a broader audience than its typical screen viewing.
I know from my previous work, that experimental animation is what I'm most interested in making, so this year rather than a typical narrative driving the structure of my project I want to start with a concept, which may or may not end up having a narrative structure.
CONCEPT:
From this book A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: with A Theory of Meaning byJakob von Uexkull, where he talks about the subjectivity of sensory perception and how this forms a spatial ‘bubble’ around the perceiver and therefore a spatial sense of ‘reality’. I decided I would explore and represent this idea of enclosed space, or ‘bubble’, of subjective experience and people’s lack of ‘shared’ reality.
WINDOWS
Projecting animations through windows was my first Idea to represent this idea of 'subjective bubble of experience'. In these particular isolated times, looking into people's lives takes often the form of peering into other people's windows, looking into 'their version of lockdown'. I liked this idea also because projecting onto windows from the inside would also allow anyone from the exterior to stop, watch the animation and continue on their journey, which ironically would bring people together and 'break' the isolation. Passer-byes could, together, stand outside the windows and experience the same piece of work for a moment, while also being 'socially distanced'.
To test this, I put up a sheet against one of the windows in my flat and projected and animation onto it, as well as played with shadows.
Public reaction: As soon as the projector turned on, the entire floor from the opposing building looked through their windows to see what was going on. There was a real sense of shared experience which was very exciting.
Multi-screen:
Using multi-screen is very appealing to me because think that it can represent well several perspectives and viewpoints at the same time, to emphasis the 'spatial bubble' of a character or the viewers experience. We are also extremely accustom to multiscreen representing different people's perspectives and different 'bubbles or reality', from having multiple tabs open on our laptops, using our phones, monitors and televisions all at the same, to even communicating on zoom where we see our colleges or classroom as a multitude of screens.
ARTISTS RESEARCH:
Rose Bond
I was inspired by Rose Bond's work because she also projects her animations onto windows. I liked her use of windows for story telling and her use of multiple windows as multi-screen. The whole face of the building becomes part of her work. The context of the building is the starting point for her narrative animation, which made me realise the importance of what you project onto.
DAVID HOCKNEY:
David Hockney’s photo collages that he called “joiners”.
The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods (2010-2011)
In this multi-part video installation, David Hockney shows a journey down a lane that he filmed on 9 screens, and in each season. He shows the experience of walking down this path from different perspectives and in different times. His use of collage and Multi screen video installation was also a visual inspiration for how I want to represent 'subjectif' perspectives and experiences happening at the same time.
Some visual thoughts of what I was thinking at this point:
CONTEXT IS IMPORTANT
I went on a walk around Edinburgh and took pictures of the University buildings which had interesting windows I'd possibly project into. I wanted to decide on what windows I'de project onto early on, to integrate the scale and shape of the windows as well as the architectural context of the building into the 'theme' of the animation.
Exercise to get started!
I decided I needed something/anything to start experimenting with the content of what my animation would be.
so I've decided to note down small behaviours that I see when I'm walking around Edinburgh that show a division and isolation between people.
notes:
-Lack of eye contact
-Isolating ones self with headphones
-Being on phones, phones are bubbles
-Cars are bubbles
-People stop talking, when others around (at crossroads or waiting around with other people)
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PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS:
I started doing some pre- experiments of projecting short animations and ‘multi screen’ live action through windows and onto people.
These tests were to see what effect the medium had and whether I wanted to go forward to create a narrative with it.
I e-mailed estates to use some of the university building but I realised after some communication with estates of ECA that projecting into windows wouldn't be as practical as I thought, as none of the bookable spaces (yet) faced the courtyard of ECA which means I wouldn't be able to project some of the footage and then film it from the outside, which is a problem. I couldn't really use my own flat because I live on the 4th floor and filming it is quite difficult. I did however do some tests of projecting into the inside of the window and also did project into the windows of my own flat to practice with scale and composition.
Day project to see what Animation looked like in the window.
GOING FORWARD:
Making a series of experiments, projecting animations and live footage onto people, objects and spaces, to give an insight into the ‘enclosed space’ or ‘bubble’ of the character or the viewer’s experience.
I want to combine live action and animation in this project. I want to project animation and live action onto the real world and then film this, creating screens within screens and a multiscreen effect.
The ‘characters’ which are real people being filmed would live in this surreal world where what is happening in their own minds can be seen, showing the viewer the bubble of experience in which the character lives in
Prepared Powerpoint for External pitch:
Further reference given to me during the external pitch:
"projection mapping within a space (this was a tribute to Robert Burns, the same group also did projection mapping on to anatomical statues in an earlier work)".
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