I N V E R S I O N

DOOR EXPERIMENT AND MIRRORING

Above one can see a development of the image making process, wherein the door has been rotated manually, filmed, and digitally rendered and glitched to revel an apex, mountain effect. 

Colour & Shadow Experimentation

During an experimental session wherein we as a group tried to creatively apply substances, experiences, sounds and tactile sensations to our physical object, the factor that stood out to myself was the colour palette of the scene, captured above. 

The Resonance Box informed the ways in which sound could be used to heighten ones experience of a video. Using javascript code, the box reacts to the music placing, creating an environment of pattern, intensity and experience, similar to the effect we want to evoke as a group with our final film piece.

Ryoji Ikeda’s - Test Pattern

Ryoji Ikeda’s work informed the process of our project this week, in that it broadened our exploration of how pattern and glitch effects can be used to engage and annoy the viewer. 

This pattern was projected onto our door, creating a framing effect and allowing the crevices and patterns on the physical door to merge with the digital ones.

A literary reference used for the development of the project was “The Doors of Perception” by Aldous Huxley. While the literal meaning of the piece is an exploration of the effects of Mescalin, a hallucinogenic similar to LSD, one can find metaphorical meaning in the way the brain draws connection between image and sound, reality and fantasy, and inner and outer senses. Huxley writes that “the mind does its perceiving in terms of intensity of existence, profundity of significance, relationships within a pattern”, and this is reflected in the development of our filmographic piece in the use of pattern, symbolism and intensity. The use of the door as the surface for which projections, mark making and sounds are housed allows for a deeper exploration of what it means to symbolise the ‘doorway’ between perception and experience. Huxley further writes “But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience”. The symbol of the door in this instance can have a litany of different meanings depending on the viewer, environment and context – these “things” and “events” described by Huxley stand by themselves as islands existing on either side of a lacuna – the door. To conclude the author includes a final quote by Huxley

“The other world to which mescalin admitted me was not the world of visions; it existed out there, in what I could see with my eyes open. The great change was in the realm of objective fact. What had happened to my subjective universe was relatively unimportant”. 

DISTORTING SOUND

Daniel Blog 10

It became quite apparent that the sounds we were implanting into the video was just too obvious.  It was so obvious it was a fan, and that shouldn’t be the case. We were going for this sense of ambiguity and trying to find the perfect mixture of both abstract and the unknown. The best way to accomplish this, was to distort the sounds. When I say distort the sounds, we really had to distort those sounds. This blog post contains a small snippet of experiments that were conducted in terms of distorting sounds, and how they can be overlapped to great effect. 

SOUND ON

Daniel Blog 9

After watching the many snippets of film that we had shot, it became apparent that there was something missing. That was sound. The overriding silence made it overly boring to watch and engage with over a lengthy period; as the silence became unbearable. Sound needed to be injected into the film in some way. 

Blog 4

We came to class hoping to play around with the physical shape of our maps. After our walk in Petersham, we all recorded the shape of our maps which Georgie placed into aftereffects to create a motion graphic of pathways. From this we had the plan of using pipecleaners, string and light to create a shadow from the physical object of our maps layered together. However, while presenting we realised another group had a similar idea of incorporating journeys/walks into their experiments so we decided to go down a different route.

Being shown the work of artist Tehching Hsieh, where he spent 1 year punching a time clock every hour, on the hour for 24 hours a day, we decided to reframe our idea and experiment down a different avenue (Marks 2014).  The act of punching a time clock was so simple, yet the scale and intensity of the amount of dedication and persistence placed into the work gave it such significance.

Tehching Hsieh Time Clock

What could we record everyday that seemed like such an ordinary activity, yet we could gather a large amount of data with. We decided to collect footage of doors – opening or closing, locking, shutting softly, or slamming with force. From this collection we experimented by cutting all the footage together and playing with the audio –enhancing and distorting– to create a jarring experience for the user. By taking such a simple known object as a door, we wanted to evoke an almost journey-like experience for the user as they were taken through each scene layered upon each other.

Chelsea Blog 5

Branching from our recordings of opening and closing doors, we began to experiment with the physical object itself. Purchasing a door from Bunnings warehouse, we started exploring the unknown through the known object of a door.  In the dark studio we experimented with light & shadows, sound and touch to evoke an unexplainable sense of uncomfort.  Knocking on doors evokes a strong sense of visitation and knowledge of someone on the other side, so we wanted to invert that idea with the unknowingness of who that visitor may be.  As can be seen in our experiments, we explored abstract camera angles in our compositions of the door, how the use of music can evoke an eerie sense in the viewer and how the use of light and shadow can also evoke feelings of suspense. From these experiments we used the projector to project our mediums onto the door itself, further exploring the concept of the unknown through the known object. 

Chelsea Blog 3

What was the purpose of the derive? Is to feel something? There's beauty in everything until we get too accustomed to notice it.

For research we started looking into contemporary artists who push themselves out of their comfort zones, placing themselves and even their audience in uncomfortable and evocative positions.  Performance artist Mike Parr pushes boundaries with his evocative work that challenges himself and the audience. In one of his most controversial works, Parr hacked off an arm with a meat cleaver in front of a horrified theatre of people. Later revealed to be a prosthesis filled with fake blood and liver, the intense of the work aimed to shock and evoke a strong reaction from viewers.

Mike Parr hacks off an arm to elicit a chocked response from the audience

For this week we challenged ourselves to explore the feeling of getting lost alone. Starting at the same point in Petersham, we met at the station and walked for half an hour, mapping our journey via google maps.

Why by ourselves? There's comfort in groups. To further push ourselves out of our comfort zone we wanted to experience that feeling of walking somewhere unknown, placing ourselves in situations where we weren't in control. You never know what you encounter? We wanted to feel lost.

For me, as I walked around the suburb I started noticing the amazing graffiti which covered the fences of the houses and shops I walked past. I started to document my derive through images of this graffiti. 

A collection of graffiti I observed on my derive in Petersham

Chelsea Blog 2

After bringing all our ideas together as a group, we decided that we wanted to explore the idea of Lacuna in relation to things being off in society.  The paranormal, feelings you can't describe, the gap in human experience and the search to feel what is missing.  Our tutor pointed us in the direction of the situationists, so I decided to do a bit of research on what it was about.

A bit of background – WHO ARE THEY?

The Situationists were a group founded in 1957, but were most known for the Paris wildcat strikes and riots that operated in the late 50s to early 70s by avant guard artists, intellectuals and political theorists. They believed that capitalism bred dissatisfaction, and thus the human desire needed fulfilment from other alternatives.  Society was experiencing a shift from living through individual, first-hand authentic experiences to a world where we are represented through the consumptions of commodities (Plant 1992). They also believed that technological advancements places a barrier between people and their experiences, emotions, creativity and desires.

Guy Debord, one of the leaders of the movement explains the society of the Spectacle. The world we see is not real, but the world we are conditioned to see. Capitalism has created a materialistic and objective world where the mass media has become the dominant model of life (Debord 1977). Situationists explain how the nightmare works so we can wake up.

Debord invented the Derive – the technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances and the activity of drifting.  In derives, persons let themselves be drawn to their surroundings and encounters (Debord 1956).  The purpose of the derives is to become more observant with our physical surroundings.  Our lives are oversaturated with consumption and media that we forget to take a step back, disconnect and live in the moment. Debora recorded maps of his derives (which can be seen in Daniel’s Blog 2 post).

So that's what we did.

We attempted own derive and let ourselves explore the feeling of being lost around the suburb of Redfern. On our derive we didn't have a set direction of where we were heading, we let ourselves walk about and be drawn in by the sights and sounds of our surroundings.  As a group we mapped our experience individually in different ways and collated our data at the end.

I mapped my sound journey.  This involved a line journey that resembled a sound wave dependent on our surroundings.  Sounds that we encountered included:

• the sound of cutlery clinking as the café was washing up

• loud traffic on the road – cars, trucks, motorbike etc

• music from cafes

• pedestrian lights

• Kookaburra

• Wind in the trees

• Bubbling water from the fountain

• Horns

• Kids playing football

• Crunch of leaves that we stepped on

• Dog barking

<insert picture of sound map>

This was an interesting way to map my derive as it allowed me to consider my surroundings in a more abstract way. So often our main goal is to get from A to B, the fastest way. We don't take the time to immerse ourselves in our surroundings and really live.

References

Debord, Guy. Theory of the Derive (1956) in 1996, Theory of the Dérive and other situationist writings on the city, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona: Distribution, ACTAR, Barcelona.

Debord, G. 1977. Society of the Spectacle. Black & Red, Detroit, Paragraph: 35-53