Jacinta L-W

The concept for my major work was to built a little town which was placed in an ambiguous era. I tried to achieve this by jumbling the types of buildings that were present, for example there were little victorian shops and terrace houses, a space age style tower, and a McDonalds with the original 50’s style arches. I tried to achieve the idea of timelessness by having space visible above the town, with protruding planets and glowing stars, with the intention of giving the setting a surreal and mysterious feeling.

The sounds that accompany my work are of the night which, unlike buildings and built history, doesn’t really change over time. The feeling of a still night is universal. It’s experienced the same by every generation, past, present, and future. The structure could represent how everything seems to move quickly, but some things are constant and safe. I wanted the experience of viewing the work itself to feel safe and lighthearted.

I drew on the technique we used for our group project which was to have the lights off and the door closed over in order to provide a space where a considerable amount of attention could be given to the audio.

My major work!

Sounds:

Brainstorming for my major work. I went for loads of walks trying to come up with inspiration for the final assessment. I had the idea of making a mini town when I found a lot of discarded, colourful cardboards and a stack of Pantone colour tint overlays from the late 60′s in the Marrickville neighbourhood center. These looked way too cool to cut up so I only ended up only using the ones that already had small slices made in them. They worked perfectly for window frames. 

I remembered reading years ago about an artist that made a mini diorama of a Latin American town and managed to track it down!

Serrano, A. (2019). Cartonlandia. [cardboard, paper, acrylic, inkjet prints, acrylic, balsa wood] www.anaserrano.com.

I remember completely loving this when I first saw it so once I had the paper and recalled this work I had to make a village.

I knew I wanted mine to look kind of magical, timeless, surreal, and even cosmic. I have been watching loads of videos about space recently... So I definitely wanted to incorporate the planets into the town. I wanted them to occupy a fair amount of the space rather than just be a drawing in the background. I thought by doing this it would raise questions about where exactly the village was meant to be. I really wanted to give the audience a kind of mystical, warm feeling by showing a place that was not quite reality but which felt safe and inviting. I think the crafty, handmade, colourful element always helps to achieve this; something about the material reminds you of being a kid! I knew I wanted it to be lit up. I wanted it to be fun to look at! In the end some of the details were not quite so noticeable due to the fact I had to keep the lights dim. By the time I saw the glow-in-the-dark stars above the work achieving their purpose I made maintaining the effect a priority... 

The idea for our presentation was to have each of us record something from our weekend, separately, and experience the sounds simultaneously once reunited. We regarded our own recording as a representation of the situation we were in. The act of recording these moments allowed us to recognise, and be present with, the sounds going on around us, something we don’t usually give our full attention to.

The concept was that each recording represents one individual experience; a comment on the way each of us approach situations and interactions with others by relying on our own unique collection of past experiences.

Our recordings were played all at once on four different speakers with each speaker occupying its own corner of the room. The room was dark to ensure an immersive experience and to allow the audience to make up their own mind about what they thought they heard in each recording.

We aimed to recognise the way our state of mind can be affected by sound. We don’t usually pay conscious attention to the constant noises that occur around us, but we found that playing the recordings all at once forced us to be aware of them. This was particularly the case when experienced in the dark which encouraged a heightened sense of hearing.

Screen Arts Workshop: Capturing and Manipulating Sound

Positive image!

Negative image: 1 3/4 minute exposure time (overcast)

Negative image: 4 1/2 minutes exposure time (under cover + overcast)

Very difficult! The paper is supposed to be blown up like a balloon to create a box but the paper was too small and stiff. 

Practicing the folds before going into the darkroom.

2 min exposure time- mysterious black spot in the middle of every pic!

1 minute exposure time- light leak somewhere in camera. (?!)

Left: The First picture of a pinhole camera obscura by astronomer Gemma Frisus' De Radio in 1544.

Chernewski, A 2010, Pinhole History, Viewed 1 March 2019, http://www.alternativephotography.com/

Right: Basic geometry of a pinhole camera- Source unknown.

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http://olimanson.com.au/

  - Interesting website with info on pinhole photography including history, gallery, how to’s, and links.