For the worthless object task, I was given the buckles from a pair of overalls. I didn’t want to make a sewing project with it because I didn’t want to introduce any new materials. So I wanted to transform the metal somehow. Either by bending it or by smelting it in some way. metal crafts are a new hobby for me and something I am still learning.
I thought about things that were worthless, and I thought about things that had a lot of worth. or even what is a measure of worth. So I started thinking about money and different types of money, like all the 1 cent coins my grandma gave me as a kid to use as play money. or bitcoin or other shitcoins that are only made to fool the first couple hundred people who buy them and then the value drops and they are worth nothing. So I wanted to make my own coin as a nod to that, but a physical one, because I haven’t used a physical coin in months. plus I was inspired by this work by. because of how beautiful the mass of them looked together. They looked so tactile and I just wanted to pick them up and drop them to hear the sound.
So i started with a coin made of polymer clay, with the words ‘WORTH ? VALUE’ and ‘WORTH $ VALUE’ .
I then pressed them into some damp sand to get an imprint. which is the traditional method when casting metal.
but the features of the letters got lost in the grains, so i tried again with some clay i harvested from my property.
which came out a lot better, i then used a toothpick to clean up some of the edges (we will see that this was completely unnecessary)
I knew i couldn’t turn the buckles from the overalls into molten metal as the melting point was too high. aluminium melts at 660.3 °C, which i thought was achievable in my forge as i have been able to bend steal with it. so i tried to melt some aluminium from a can.
I made a little wire contraption to hold it up.
This is what the aluminium can ended up looking like. funnily enough, it is still worthless, but not the kind of worthless I was going for.
So I went back to the chopping block because I had a group tutorial and couldn’t show some metal scraps.
I cut it up to have a better chance of melting.
I didn’t have a crucible so I used an unglazed ceramic.
except this didn’t fit in my forge, as I had made it only to fit knives.
so I swapped it to a steel lid of a steel bottle.
It did not work, I could get the metal hot enough to go yellow but not hot enough to melt and drop. also every time I pulled the little crucible out it would cool almost instantly. so I guess that’s why they use ceramic ones.
These plagues my social media and I would say most of these are terrible and a waste of plastic to create. So I wanted to create some fake ones.
so I went to my favourite AI image generator, MidJourney.
this was my prompt ‘pen attachment to hold lid, plastic, advertisement‘ and the result
pen attachment to hold lid, plastic, advertisement, useless
The goal was to make something useless with the most plastic.
these are two standouts.
I feel these encapsulate what i was going for. so much plastic, completely useless. but aesthetically appealing enough that you are almost tempted.
I tried a few more prompts
‘remote control plastic dust cover‘
Loved these, the prompt for the first one in no way did I mention wanting religious imagery. But somehow here it is. Ai is weird like that, it has a preference for certain artistic aesthetics.
I also brought some glitter and coloured textas to doodle on top of these.
I really like the feminist history of collage, and how it was often made for small circles. Or even personally.
2 things I wanted to focus on when making my own collage. Interesting juxtaposition in texture. I want it to feel rich but not overloaded. I often find the ones that have full images, end up all looking quite same-y. I also wanted to make it a bit silly, I wanted.
I decided to make a poster that I would imagine hanging up in some child’s bedroom. The same way girls make posters about film crushes. but about cars instead.
this is the whole piece; all of it came from the magazine. I didn’t use any base paper to begin with. I used only small text areas, so the large cars would really be obvious.
here are some close-ups
This one is my favourite, so silly.
Especially on the last two, I really liked how the text element was bridged between the background and the car because of the advertisements. it makes it look like the cars belong there, or this is where they came from.
I thought this was fun and cute, personally, I don’t think it is particularly impactful or interesting. nor did I super enjoy doing it. but it was a cool trial because you use a different part of your brain to make it. instead of making something from nothing, you have to deal with and scavenge through what you can find. and I found that a bit too limiting.
I was sick for this class, so I missed the lecture and had little time to make a project.
Although I did have an idea that turned into my final project.
I was inspired/shocked by all of the large corporation collaborations with this one Kpop group, that had all minors.
here are a few of the collaborations (you don’t need to watch them. They are proof if anything)
coca cola collab
Mcdonalds collab
Apple iPhone (the entire music video was shot on iPhone, and it has heavy product placement )
These were all released this year.
I had an idea to swap out the logos in the McDonald’s video for Rio Tinto, or try and rotoscope the dances out, then put them dancing in the middle of a mine.
But all of these options were quite difficult, out of my skill set and would have taken more than a week to complete, which was the time frame for this cover project task.
So I decided to focus on this theme for my final project.
It could be a resin bullet and just a collection of them, maybe in a bullet container. Or I could make a video shooting the bullets either in the frame as an ad or just showing how cool they are and describing the military advantages of glitter. Could be a glimpse into modern warfare, covered in dust and glitter. I could bedazzle a gun and then pretend to shoot glitter out of it.
I think what all I can think about is that the combination of war and glitter is a really weird, great juxtaposition.
Gambling in Australia
this is a topic I would like to focus on, and I am not seeing much art on it. And in Australia, it is a huge problem as opposed to other countries; we have some of the worst gambling, pokies and sports betting in the whole world. And my conversations with young men often include talking about their winnings from the weekly sporting matches (as young as 15) Because, in general, AFL and other sports are for families to watch; when you go to games, the crowds are composed of families or smaller groups of people that have bought their friends. It is illegal to advertise gambling to young people in Australia, but because these shows are televised later at night is considered appropriate even if it is family-friendly watching.
I also want to consider the people gambling and the culture around it; they are almost synonymous. If you are someone who can “understand” all the statistics, that seems impressive and cool. When people only talk about winning (because losing is embarrassing), they think it is a closer option than statistically. People tend to have the sense that “but I am different, I am inherently more special, and I have a better chance than other people”, which is nothing wrong with that. That is part of being human. I am not sure that any art piece could convince someone that that is not true, and I don’t think that I would want to.
So here lies the problem of how to draw attention to the Australian problem, whilst knowing that thousands of people and organisations are trying to do this. But how would an art piece become culturally significant or even just relevant? with this widespread and dangerous issue? Affecting youth and old people (pokies)
I could make some pokies pants (inbuilt odour-reducing nappies)
I could make a huge pile of unsuccessful scratchies or unsuccessful lottery tickets.
make a collection of Facebook groups or fliers for a youth sports-bet club
I could be boring and make a documentary of youth gambling (interview kids)
I could display some of these as ads in local newspaper (Gisborne Gazette)
Kpop x Woodside
I wanted for my cover project to make a parody video of the K-pop girl group NewJeans.
why I choose to cover this particular group is because I find its whole existence unsettling.
all members are minors (as young as 13)
they are forced to not live with their families
they have to drop out of high school
forced to get plastic surgery
are not paid until they pay off their debts from training (which is often multiple years)
regularly work 15 hour days, and when they get home their dorm is monitored with cameras
if they don’t agree or want to do something their company is asking of them, their jobs are threatened. i.e “if you don’t get this plastic surgery you wont be a part of the group”
And they are incredibly popular amongst young people and children
and this is the part that I want to specifically reference. Because of this mass appeal and especially to children. certain companies that are not allowed to advertise to children are flocking to this kpop group and sponsering them. this includes McDonalds, Apple, Coca Cola. with NewJeans even making a song directly for Coke zero. I find this all incredibly insidious especially when all this information is available to the public yet there has been no major backlash, people are okay with abusing these minors because the music and music videos they are a part of are trendy and exciting. I also wanted to make art on how overt these ‘sell outs’ are and make the most obvious and insidious sell out sponsorship of the Australian petroleum mining company Woodside !
I chose specifically this company and specifically mining companies because they are often sponsors of large high brow cultural establishments such as Opera and Ballet. as a way of showing how civilised ther companies are but also to gain access to certain sponsorship events.
So I wanted to combine these two concepts to create and insidious and uncanny creation, specifically a kpop photo album. Which is basically sold alongside a CD of the album to bolster sales as they often sell for $50. like the one I have included below
This one us a collaboration with the Power Puff girls. so I want to recreate this object with, using AI to make a fake Girl group and try and make it really overt that this is wrong in every way.
I plan on printing these AI photos into a small book, as well as having the ‘photocards’ and stickers that are essential part of these Albums.
For the final piece I think I will make an Unboxing video, which are super popular on youtube. i want to do this so I can contextualise the object more as not many people in Australia are well versed with this cultural phenomenon. I have left an example of one down below (you absolutely do not need to watch it, maybe just zoom through it to understand the format).
Beginning of trials
I have been using midjourney as I find having the two subtle variation buttons for subtle and intense variation are really helpful. it means I can refine it to something I actually wanted.
I plan on using AI and specifically midjourney
Because of the nature of AI I can never get the same face twice from the same prompt. I want the final album to look really clean and believable so having faces that constantly change wont work. I found that if I use prompts such as ‘in the style of a character page, or photo series, fashion editorial’ . i would get many faces that look like the same person.
these are the options it gave me. Number 2 (top right) was the most successful as it actually looks like a photo and the head is turned different angles. I then made 100’s more trying to refine the angles, lighting, expressions and faces.
These are some of the later results
Once I ‘made’ 5 of these ‘people’ I started creating fashionable bodies that i imagine would look good for a kpop concept.
these are what i landed on which i really liked, they looked very fashion forward anreferences ‘tech-wear’ which is very popular in kpop fashion.
the reason i created all the faces prior and the bodies second is so i can try and create angles that match the original faces so i don’t have to distort them. and so they can look consistent throughout the entire piece.
This was my first time ever using photoshop and this was the first result, luckily there are millions of videos on youtube and i plan to get better as that is integral to this piece working.
The ‘Team Woodside”, is because I want this concept to look like a sports team sponsored by Woodside, it will also hopefully highlight the youth element and allude to the fact that they are all underage.
This is my second attempt at photoshopping the face, which I am quite pleased with.
Now I will begin creating the final photos.
I began by making a plethora of photos on mid-journey, I then sorted through them and found which photo would match which face best. I found focusing on the angle of the nose was the best key to success.
As Journey makes images at incredibly low res, I upscaled all the photos multiple times. It did do some smoothing but not too noticeable so I didn’t mind.
I then made this set-up to plan how everything was going to go, this photo was from when I had done lots of work and needed to edit it .
I then started editing the photos to get ready for the final magazine. i took some ‘ stickers’ from Pinterest to make it more cutesy and align with the current styles in kpop.
I also wanted to include some physical stickers, for the album unboxing. as this is a staple in all kpop photo albums. but i have no ability to make convincing stickers, and if i were to order them it would take too long to be delivered. so I ordered some stickers online, then took the digital version and ‘”stuck” them all over the album so they would look liked they were made for this album. instead of the other way around.
I photoshopped the images on the same page so i could make them look good together when they are folded flat. for example
This page is a ‘get to know’ page and shows personal information about the members. I took this directly from a group, and I altered some of the information to make it more insidious. the last or second last quote, is about Woodside. “Jiwon thinks more woodside means happier communities and Jiwon wants people to be happy” . I tried to write it so it looked like a child could say that, but a child would never say that.
so I made 20 more pages, including a front and back cover (this took 6 weeks). I had planned to get the album professionally printed, but with my timing, it wasn’t possible. I also realised since it is only going to be a prop for a video, the quality doesn’t have to be that good. it just has to be legible and clean enough for the camera.
I then tried to format it into a booklet so i could print it at home, but for some reason all the software that meant to be able to wasn’t working. I think my laptop had recently updated and put all the tutorials i had been watching out of date.
so i figured out the formatting myself (it was very stressful) but i succeeded.
Paper for the win!
This is how the formatted pages looked like.
This took me quite a while as I believed the printer could smell my fear and frustration and refused to cooperate.
once everything was finished, I started on the actual making of the physical album.
I covered the front cover with a clear film to make it look more professional and sturdy.
I then made the box that all of it is stored in using an old cereal box
I then printed out these photos of faces from two of the members. these are photocards, which come with kpop albums. they are often traded like sports cards and can sometimes be sold for a lot of money, depending on how rare the issue is and how favourable the idol is. So i made two using more cardboard and clear film.
I then covered the box with printed paper, and after that with more clear film.
I also printed some text of ‘woodside’ and ‘harmonicae’ and put some clear film on them to make pretend stickers. I think they are very convincing. I wish I had thought of that sooner, so I could’ve made lots. I also covered a cd envelope with some paper and a sticker, to cover up the original cover and to make more cute things to add to the goodies.
I then put all the goodies and photo albums in the box and cling wrapped the outside, then used a hair dryer to shrink it to the box. I found a barcode sticker on an old book and stuck it to the back for some realism.
This was also my lighting and filming set-up. I chose to film on my phone camera as that is how lots of YouTube unboxing videos are filmed, and I think the quality will help hide some of the subtle construction mistakes.
I used the pale chopping board as it is a bit cleaner than my water-damaged desk.
I tried to film it all in one go, so there were minimal cuts. I also tried to read every portion that referenced Woodside, so it isn’t too obvious or on the nose. It is still almost believable.
I wrote some music for this video, but only 2 minutes worth. So I used instrumentals of other K-pop groups, which is something that is normal in other unboxing videos.
The little green portion is the music I wrote.
And tada. my final piece. I would like to think you found it on YouTube after listening to some pop music and found yourself transported to another world. (yes, it is meant to look a bit dodgy. The video is meant to look homemade. But the book is professional)
What was successful?
I was really impressed with how good the photoshopping of the faces looked; that is something that took me weeks to get good at, and a lot of the previous versions didn’t make it into the final cut. Although I will say some of my earlier ones in this aren’t as good as the ones that came after.
all of the pieces that came with it looked so cute. Using pre-made stickers was such a good idea. And being able to link them to the photo album by using the PDF version. It created a really seamless connection.
I felt all of the colour stories and visual cues translated really well across the entire album. That is something I could only do near the end of the process when everything was properly formatted.
I am really proud of myself that I could make something I have literally never made before and do an incredibly sufficient job. Especially since I did it alone with no guidance. I learnt Photoshop from scratch, and I invented a way to create the same consistent faces in mid-journey. I was a graphic designer for a couple of weeks and made an entire magazine by myself. It was pretty cool being able to say every single thing in this entire project I created on my own.
What could be improved upon?
Truthfully, I don’t have too many qualms with this piece. I feel I achieved what I set out to. Honestly, it is probably better than what I thought I could do. The things I don’t like are small little things that, if I had a little bit more time, I probably could complete.
Some of the shadows on the faces were wrong, but I figured out how to remove shadows. But adding them was a bit too hard.
I think I could have added a few more official details to make it look a bit more realistic. Like ‘printed in China, using this ink’ ‘with permission by Woodside and blah blah.
I think some of my font choices were a bit weird. but I struggled so hard with the font. Graphic designers do not get enough credit
I quite liked the song I wrote, but then pairing it with the other real songs showed how weak and underdeveloped it really was. Something I would love to improve on next semester. Maybe over the holidays as well, as it takes so much longer for me than visual activities.
The one major thing I fear I have done wrong is that I was too subtle with the woodside references. I wanted the piece to feel like it could actually be real, and the audience go, “Wait, really… did they do that??”. but I might’ve been too subtle in not insinuating the evil intent of why Woodside would do that. I think I am bargaining on, that the audience is somewhat informed. or at least the question, “Why would a mining company sponsor a K-pop girl group?” would be enough of an impact. I think I would be able to tell if I showed a few people that 1, knew about the K-pop world, 2 knew nothing about the K-pop world, 3 knew about Woodside and how mining companies try to ‘culture-wash’ their brand. I would be very interested on what all those people had to say about the piece.
(these were all written out in my journal, but they were too chaotic to read, so I put them in words)
Shrine to self
Ideas for what the subject matter of the shrines should be
Visual interest and cohesiveness
woman in Australia, I feel tall, a brunette
I struggle w/ my addiction to my phone.
Curation of how I view the world, fragments from a
data mining
→ I am an object to be Sold things to
it is a shrine to worship
> It includes offerings and decorative
A triptych can represent/be formatted
•Begining, middle, end
escapism
fear.
Perception of self, perception from others, Perceived perception of others
Subconscious, conscious, unconscious
I want each one to have their own 30-second moment (whilst the other two remain Still or out )
More theme ideas
Gothic architecture
Shrine as a hallway
some Shrines are about love
It could be about fear (i.e. fear of god)
there is one issue, I am not christian
Ideas for what the subject matter of the shrines should be
musical spiritual + art deco + Modern a shrine for a non-religious person Maybe I believe in spirits Place •
Like Japanese Shrines that represent local Spirits Zoom in over the minute have it move slowly so there is visual interest and cohesion without it being too busy.
•Garden
I don’t like that shrines are usually a collection of objects it needs to be ideas.
Plus objects don’t do interesting things for 30 seconds, so there has to be movement of some sort.
I could “project” onto these objects.
A shrine is usually for other people and is about other people, for people to make their life easier or have hope (either religiously or if they are asking for luck)
I like the idea of a shrine where you go to ask for specific things, like there is an imaginary pilgrimage to these specific shrines.
I want to make it look feeling mystical and a bit special so it still feels like stumbling apon a shrine in the forest..
→witches objects:
it could Zoom into a window.
The video could be
• Writing flashes of Videos ・I want to avoid things i like “I like Critical roll!
-not interesting
• who would pray to these spirits? what would they ask for? the videos are visualizations of these 3 spirits.
they represent past, future and present, examples of the imagery could be о Wizard reading books and casting Spells o I could be opening different Journals and diaries and flicking through them. The journals could have poetry/prayers about each theme and they would be in different visual styles. i.e on a children’s journal and a moleskin and different handwritten fonts.
– what are people praying to ? ·why would people pray to anything but the future, things like luck or power. which are at normal shrines →mistakes (could represent past) happiness for → prosperity / dreams.
I wouldn’t consider myself someone o who thinks they have lots of mistakes and as this is a shrine to self, it doesn’t really reflect me.
I have decided the place of the filming. in a dark forest with trees, a light forest and down into a native forest.
-it exists in this fabulous magic world. and woo a mover and breather and is alive. place that it would almost be believable to have these magical things happen.
The first video represents relationships familial and friendship specifically
Symbols of this are roots and hands I would like to have some 3 lines or so of poetry in each one and they will break in and out of the footage.
It will be written in a notebook (past)
2. on some parchment(present)
It will look like a computer screen.(future)
3 locations 3 poems
(Part/family connections,
• Maybe, we could see each other longer
Smiles unnoticed are my favourite
I’m sure they are area yours too I just don’t notice
thank you for Staying near
First piece (past)
I initially wanted to take a video of me removing the first from some house plants. with the roots representing family roots and the hands representing connection to them. I changed my mind because the action of it felt a bit perverse and didn’t feel very clever.
I also wanted to change it to respond to Sofi’s week with images of houses as that tied in better with family and domesticity. So focused on parts in my house that show use and almost evidence of family life and history. which relates back to the past idea.
I am not particularly impressed by them, if I actually liked the concept I would refilm them with a tripod to stop the shaking and the need for stabilisers. But I just made this film to show a demo of what I wanted to make.
I also plan to do all the videos in a 4×4 format so that I can stack 3 next to each other and it would look a bit like a picture in a frame. So that the content of the piece is what the eye is drawn to. Because it will have a border of the garden, and I think stacking 2 squares will look better than two 16×9 rectangles.
this is the format of what I want the poetry to look like when it comes up on screen. It is worth mentioning that this photo is very beautiful and the writing (tho small) is crisp. When I tried to film this it was out of focus, thus began 2 weeks of trialing; different lenses (50mm and 24-70mm), different cameras(canon 60D (cropped frame)and canon (full frame) 5D mark 3 ), different lights, and many different aperture settings to try and widen the area of focus (because some of the words would be out of focus).
I also changed the wood because I was worried the contrast between the dark wood was blowing out the white paper. I also filmed all the footage on my home camera (the 60D), which has an issue with data compression, which means every shot I film will be soft because the final result is an incredibly compressed image. grrrr very annoying.
Ignore the framerate. I changed that to 50 when I started filming.
Once I started using the 5d mark 3 the shots started looking better, I also changed the white balance which helped as well.
In the end, I wasn’t too happy with the result because it wasn’t as crisp as I wanted and I was worried that it wouldn’t be legible. I showed Michael, and he said I was just being fussy. So maybe I am overacting.
I changed the idea for the past piece again as I saw my mum pulling out all her old knitting because she was looking for a specific sample she had made.
Also, I know that Sofi’s requirements were that it is meant to be areas of our house. And I would argue that my house legitimately looks like this all the time as there are blankets my mum has knitted on every bed. I just moved the knitting to one place to make it easier to film.
And the themes and Ideas I wanted to reference were that this shrine was meant to be a thank-you to my past, and a place to ‘pray’ or thank important relationships. The people around me who have taught me and taken care of me are very important to who I am.
this theme isn’t new and Mike Kelley uses women’s work as a similar means for making a message. Although I prefer mine as I know the crafter and it directly relates to me as my mother taught me to knit and my baby blanket is included in the videos. Whilst he was taking knitted and crocheted objects from op shops. He is focusing more on the devaluation of labour, and I am focusing on a celebration of generational love and art.
The second piece (present)
This photo is one of my initial tests, I wasn’t happy with all the shadows behind the shelves. also, the shelves looked incredibly bare because the props were sitting too low on the shelves. I put a light in my lap to light up my face so I can get a centralised light. I also made the wizard hat using hot glue and glitter craft foam.
This was the final lighting set-up. It included a light sitting on my lamp and a big light with a makeshift orange gel taped to it.
I didn’t want to make more of this nasty polystyrene, so I cut up some blocks from packaging and made a sphere-ish object with a kitchen knife and hot glue.
This is how it looked once finished, and it was really stunning, and I was very happy with it.
I positioned the camera not too far away and zoomed in to lessen any distortion from the camera.
I also changed the aperture so that 80% of the ball was in focus, with the peripheries just a little bit soft. So it felt a bit more magical. Because of the short depth of view, it meant that the background was entirely out of focus, Which is perfect because I didn’t want the pattern on the tablecloth to take up too much visual attention.
because the frame would be cropped to square, it meant that i could get the light really close. as you can see in this still>
After the tutorial Ash showed me this artist
The green part! (drone footage)
I wanted to make a really magical and seamless single shot. inspired by Daniel Crooks’s video ‘Phantom ride’
I asked Michael from the Loans department if getting rails would be an option. He said they wouldn’t work in anything but perfectly flat land. Which forests tend not to be. Then he jokingly said ‘if only we had a drone’. I realised that my uncle has a big fancy one, so I called him up and we discussed how we would go about it. This drone also shoots in 4k and we were able to change the iso for the different shadowy areas. We also filmed at 60 frames per second. Which was great because I had to slow 2 of them down to fit better with the timing.
For this type of drone, you need to have a license (which my uncle had) and I didn’t. He also said he would rather break it than me. I had no problem with that, so he flew while I directed.
I chose 4 locations in case one didn’t look very good(very glad i did that because one of the main ones looked terrible)
When learning how to edit 3 videos at once, I made this trial triptych.
Final shrine for self Triptych
What was successful?
I felt the pace of the video was beautiful, a 1-minute was a nice limit. Also means you can watch the piece a few times and it feels interesting each time.
I love all the textural elements of imagery. With the contrasting colours, I find they sit really well together.
The colours were stunning; the combinations felt really powerful and bright.
Shooting in 4k was such a luxury, as well as putting 3 1000 pixel squares on the same. it becomes a big file, but I find it just looks so crisp and beautiful. Especially upscaled.
I also loved how the future sphere ended up looking like a planet. which was so cool. I loved seeing the light bounce off and shine through all the different materials.
And whilst I was going through the knitting, my mum told me stories of why she knit each piece. My mum has an incredibly stressful job, and she said that she would unwind at the end of the day by knitting when she was looking at the knitting, it stressed her out because it was a reminder of those awful times. But as her daughter, I saw them as these beautiful creations that she often created the pattern for. it is a reminder of all the beautiful labour of love that women do and is often passed off as a craft or hobby instead of the art that it is. so this piece is about that and also an opportunity to thank people like that in our lives.
More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages of Sin 1987
This piece is about wanting to spend my present learning and bettering myself. Spend time reading and listening to others, so I can better myself as a person. “this is something I would pray to” was my thinking. To actively make time to better oneself. Like a wizard learning spells!!! Also when I am studying I only listen to dungeon synth, which is a genre that sounds very medieval but uses lots of synthesizers, so I like to feel like a wizard when I am studying.
This photo was the vibe of the lighting I was trying to accomplish. Warm, all-encompassing, slightly darker to the edges of the frame.
I made the set more cluttered whilst still having it central around the figure. I also lifted the main light to lessen the shadows. also shooting at night so the windows wouldn’t flatten the light.
With the light from the lamp being diffused with some packaging stuff.
The filming of the book was much the same as the first one, using the same set up just a different book and font. so I won’t double up and include it.
3rd piece (future)
I was trying to think up imagery that would represent a future for myself. (normal stuff like job, house, amount of dogs owned) annoyingly, I couldn’t really think of anything solid/meaningful. so I wanted to think in more abstract terms and use this as an opportunity to let the imagery be less obvious. I was tempted to go down the route of ‘future tech’, especially as someone who intends to be in a tech-focused field. But I don’t think my musings are particularly interested in this aspect, especially in a almost kitsch shrine-type thing. so I went for vague Ideas of personal growth. a lot of them did end up looking like “get a job where the boss isn’t mean to me” and such but there were two that stood out.
to be week rounded and textured. so i decided to create exactly that.
I then hung up the sphere with fishing line and stuck things in the crevices.
I actually painted it blue after this because i didn’t want the white to show through, but i didn’t grab a picture of it
I collected moss, bark, Hellabores, leaves, fern fronds, lychen and ivy from my garden. I stuck them all on with hot glue.
I also intended to put on non-natural objects like wool, screws, plastic figures. it ended up looking like literal trash so i pulled them off.
This is the set up i made. two lighting tripods with a broken curtain rod, stuck together with gaffer tape. I hung the pink floral table cloth on a pull up green screen. then misted it with water to remove some of the wrinkles. I also pulled the edges taught with more tape.
I then taped two lights to the lighting tripods, one pink and one blue.
I positioned the blue one on the side where there was a window, so the natural blue light will help out too.
I also angled the blue light to slightly behind the sphere, and the pink one in front. so it was more dynamic and the split between the colours wasn’t 50\50
in the camera tests it started looking too dark so i put a warm ambient diffused light underneath to brighten it gently.
It is by Tara Selios, a photographer whose works are about death.
So the slow movement was timed so that each (3) segment would move in different directions and swap every 20 seconds. timing it up so it is still when the book opens.
for one of the shots we weren’t able to actually fly the drone, as it was flying too close to trees. It has an internal monitor if it senses something coming too close it will stop flying to preserve itself. So I held it by hand for this shot and zoomed it through myself. The stabilisers on the drone are excellent but it was still a lot more shaky than if we could have flown it.
Hand-held drone footage in birch
I put an adjustment layer on the three videos once I had formatted them, just to make them a bit greener and more similar in darkness/lightness.
I recorded Audio from my garden using the Zoom mic. I recorded 20 minutes at different times of day; when editing it I found the microphone picked up car noises I couldn’t hear. So I edited them out, as well as dogs barking. I wanted it to seem extremely peaceful. I set it up to be surround sound. with certain birds coming from different directions.
for the bells, I found some copyright-free bell noises on YouTube. I chose to include bells because I wanted to bring a sense of rituality to the piece. something to break up the video, and signal change throughout the video.
What could be improved upon?
With hindsight, I think I could have chosen different backgrounds for the green parts. What ended up being more important was what was happening with the foreground and, specifically, the foliage. The scenes in person were really stunning, but the squares in the middle covered up the most beautiful part of the scene.
This is finicky, but there was one corner of one of the shelves in the wizard shot that I accidentally didn’t put anything in. Every time I did a camera test I put my wizard hat there, so I never noticed it was a bare spot till I started editing.
The filming of the words in the book was a huge challenge. I changed cameras, lenses, lighting, tripods, locations, books, and pens. Just to try and get the words to be as legible as possible. Part of the issue is that as there was too much contrast between the white of the paper and the dark of the writing, the writing became blown out and soft. I think one fix I didn’t try was using more ambient lighting that was sitting further away from the page. So, it is less likely to reflect. I would also try a smaller book with bigger letters and a microlens. Or a really big book with really big letters and a normal lens. The problem with up or down-sizing the book is how it will look with a hand turning the pages.
For the wizard panel, I tried to create a candlelight effect, where the light moves and shifts. I couldn’t find a reflective enough surface to bounce the light around the room. And I already had five lights going, so I couldn’t handle another. I wish I had; I think it would have been a wonderful effect. I think making the costume, the entire set, lighting set up and organising camera settings. It was all enough for one day. Prior planning could’ve meant that I could do the candlelight effect.
I really like the poems I wrote, but I think they were too long for the time allowed. Or they might not have needed to be included. I do prefer them in, though, maybe just altered.
I started off with a mind map because, intend to be a person that has too many ideas and too many things i am interested in or feel passionate about. boiling it down to one important concept that makes for a compelling piece, is my mission!
A lot of it is gobbledygook, but it is basically me trying to sort my brain out. I landed on the idea that I care very much about climate change, overwhelmingly so. I also think a lot of climate change art can look very similar. But also I am aware my own pessimism/trauma associated with studying ecology, leaves me with a very specific outlook. That might not be helpful or interesting.
I also wanted to focus on a specific facet of climate change, as most people are quite well-informed with overall information about climate change. I also wanted something that I had experienced, so I wasn’t reaching too far away.
I landed on specific phenomena my friends and I experienced. Before the pandemic, it felt like there was so much discussion about climate change, in ordinary conversations and with politicians. During the pandemic, climate change policy and talk of climate change completely fell by the wayside. This is understandable, we can only comprehend one world-ending situation at a time. After the pandemic, I felt that there was next to no discussion about climate change, and school strikes for climate have completely stopped in Australia. That makes me feel quite distressed, as prioritised action is necessary.
I then wanted to create a filmed piece, as I enjoy all the techniques involved with that.
visual texture
fun colours
interesting/dynamic lighting
editing (I didn’t end up doing that for this piece)
less of a focus on music, I feel to get a good enough song (because I am so new at it) it takes quite a while. often more time than I have in a semester.
So I started doing some drawings and more mind-mapping/self-questioning. I also wanted to think about a triptych again, I really like the idea of feeling encompassed by the work. Which is something I also tried last semester.
For this piece, I wanted to attempt to subvert the cutesy nature of my previous work. I did some introspection and think I can’t cut out being cute; it’s just natural. So I intend to transform it to help further my vision. I wanted to insinuate that this topic is insidious. There is an underlying wrongness to the situation. so I was trying to find ways of making it sinister. (also yes I did spill ink all over the paper, and no it is not a Rorschach test. But it is interesting that you thought that…).
Some more storyboards.
I decided on a colour theme very early, so that I could implement it fully. I went for primary colours. The blue of the wizard’s outfit, the yellow of the raincoat, and the red of the workers’ outfit.
I also wanted to try different sizes of textures. Like the coloured blocks of photos in the yellow channel. And then contrasting black and white in the red channel, as well as the natural textures of the forest in the blue channel.
I wanted to keep this piece to be visually interesting. I also really liked the captivating quality of ‘Lady Gaga X Robert Wilson: Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière’
I imagine it feels quite gentle in a gallery space. That is something I am interested in exploring.
Wizard channel (representing escape/regression into media and books)
I had already made the wizard hat and had the beard from the first semester. So, I wanted to make a cloak because the back of the wizard would be prominent in the shot. Another reason for making the outfit is I really like making absolutely everything in the shot. Similar to what I did with the last triptych. I find myself an incredibly hands-on person.
This was the start of the pattern I made, I didn’t want to just make a cloak because some of the front of the outfit would be in the shot. I also made the front piece because the weight of the cape could pull on my neck. In historical cloaks, they often had a tie that crossed over the front and tied at the back. So that the cloak wouldn’t keep riding up on the wearer’s neck. I instead made a yoke underneath the cloak at the back that connected to the front piece. Which joined in the middle with some gold trim.
I then drew out many stars onto gold glitter foam. I cut them out and stuck them onto the back of the cape with hot glue.
I had planned to have all three shots filmed before our group tutorial. The only day I had free to shoot the wizard was one, which I had planned to do at a local sequoia plantation. It was storming. So I filmed a week later, after the tutorial.
I included the wizard reading a book because I wanted it to appear like a fantasy. But specifically one where the wizard was going into. The wizard was escaping into fiction. i.e. the person started as normal and then felt more like a wizard after spending all their time engrossed in fiction. I chose this cartoon/storybook version of a wizard because it is inoffensive, it doesn’t single out any type of media/ it also emphasises the silliness of it all, or maybe the levity that is being looked for.
This was one of the first camera tests for this shot. I got my dad to help me focus because clambering through the forest between every shot to check focus was not an option, or at least a feasible option.
I wanted slightly wider framing, even though this is the size of the people in the two other corresponding shots. But because this shot has less movement, I don’t mind that it is slightly different to the other shots.
I also intentionally had my back to the light, even though I knew this would’ve been an incredibly beautiful shot. I didn’t want it to be thought of as a positive situation. i.e. looking into the light. This is another cue to a sad/insidious situation. where the character is turning away from the light.
Shot 2 – red shot.
The concept for this channel is inspired by the journal I read as inspiration. The journal I read highlighted a few specific types of escapism, some of them rather scary. But one in particular that I had never heard about or thought of indirectly that light was ‘right-wing escapism’. It talked about people who had a hard life(lots of people do) and feel the need to create a fantasy where they feel empowered or important. This is not that crazy; I personally imagine how my life would be different if I sporadically grew wings or found 1 billion dollars. The difference is that the ‘right-wing’ tries to enact its ideals on other people. This is highly problematic and contentious, as we are all aware. An important part is that there is a very vocal community. This makes these people feel as if everyone agrees with them. Making their ideas more righteous.
I chose to use this type of art style in this piece (these are all drawings I did a couple of years ago; I took an art subject as my breadth). I make these drawings by initially looking at a picture and painting what I can see very quickly with black calligraphy ink. I would then use a light box, and paint on a new piece of paper, either the outlines of the original piece or the white parts. I would then get this cool abstraction that kind of looked like the original, but all the more varying texture. I would use many different techniques to create variation
folding over the page and then outlining the folded over drawing
Multiple designs onto one piece of paper, so the flow of the lines would change.
using different types of paintbrushes and pens that would create different marks
I made more of these for this piece(actually, every one in the final shot I painted for this piece.
the original intent of the work was ‘echos’ of each other. I combined photos from two locations and altered them with my drawing till they were indistinguishable. It was about looking for connection. The piece was called ‘Echo’.
It was perfect for this work because now it creates an echo chamber. Where it represents discussions that are transformed between online media and conversations till they barely look like the original image/message. This is referring to misinformation and the weird inside jokes/online culture, where people fall further and further away from reality. I chose to keep with the natural theme of the original work, as I wanted to create an abstraction away from nature.
I wanted to give the red character something to do, but I also wanted to highlight the conspiracy-like, out-of-touch nature of these people I was trying to emulate. So the character threaded string around push pins throughout the art. I was also trying to do it subtly without writing or saying things like ‘they are putting chlorine in water to make the frogs gay’. As that is not something I want to address explicitly in my work. I hope that the red cap is a visual cue to American MAGA hats.
I wrapped the red thread around the push pins 5-10 times. As we saw in Sophia’s piece, small red thread can be quite hard to see on camera. So I tried to make it as thick as possible so it could be seen fully on camera.
This is a still of frame, once all the extra thread had been put up.
The Yellow raincoat person.
This character symbolises denial. They are covering up the outside window with more idyllic pictures of nature. The large fabric North American animals are larger; this is so it can be seen in the frame. As some of the smaller printouts aren’t, particularly visible. The reason the character is wearing a rain jacket, this represents a further layer of separation from the outdoors.
I trialled a few windows in my house, but ultimately I chose this window because I could move the camera far back enough to create a wide shot
I used a broken curtain rod to make the middle fabric panel float in front of the other. I wanted to bring some more dimensionality into it.
I pre-taped all of the images so it was seamless in the video and I could cover everything within my 6-minute time limit.
This is me gathering the hem and placing it around the neckline so it would sit right. I also wrapped it closer to the front of the garment so that the cape would sit nicely around the shoulders.
I made a gradient with the stars so they look like they are falling from the sky.
I also like this art aesthetic
This is the final shot. I filmed this at 7 am, as I knew the more horizontal light would cast really beautiful and dramatic shadows.
I am glad that the light lit up all the mossy rocks and branches. It feels very magical.
In this shot, there was a really beautiful dawn chorus of birds and no cars driving around, as we were deep enough not to hear them. The sound was picked up really well on the camera mic, so I was able to use that in the final audio.
I made the drawings/paintings above in 2021.
I used a white bed sheet to block out the window so I could create a room with 3 walls.
I chose to use the studio at the front because it has this little hallway area, where I could better position my camera. so that all of the paintings were in frame.
These ledgo lights were perfect for a bright, indirect light. They helped with making the walls seem really flat.
I cut out photos from these four beautiful nature photography books, carefully picking photos with no human intervention. They were very nostalgic photos and felt very old school. I think they were mostly shot on film. Or at least early digital, where it all looks a bit flat and overly texturised.
I had a very interesting dilemma because the shot is so backlit by the window. I had to use four lights to try and match the outside light so the photos don’t appear completely in shadow. also interestingly, as I covered up more of the window, the darker the shot got, and it eventually became under-exposed. It was only slightly, and it was in line with the message, so I didn’t mind. I had to bring in a second fluro light to light up my body as I had to use so many lights on the wall/window.
Tape was integral to this piece, as hot glue was to the wizard outfit.
This is the video I showed for the group tutorial; the wizard was just a placeholder as filming was delayed.
I felt the Group tutorial was quite helpful, as it showed my artistic intent wasn’t obvious. Which was something I was worried might be the case. I didn’t want to spell everything out for the audience so that they could have a good think and come up with their own ideas. Maybe I should’ve spelt something out for them.
I decided to include some explicit imagery that signalled climate change and not just nature. as that seemed to be part of the confusion. so I found some extremely terrifying footage of Australian fires from 2020 on news channels.
I found clips that were longer than 4 seconds and showed complete and utter destruction. I wanted it visually to look nothing like the other footage so the audience could extrapolate the footage and possibly apply it to the other footage. or notice that the three characters are ignoring it (not blissfully).
I used the camera sound of the birds and the wind in the calm portions of the video and re-used the ‘1-hour ambient forest fire – DnD’ for the fire clips. Hoping that, sonically it would wake up and energise the audience.
I interspersed five clips about 1 minute apart. as the audience becomes calm and understands the pace of the piece, with the three characters moving gently. They are shocked and surprised by what was just unleashed onto the screen. It then snaps back to the calm footage; it no longer feels peaceful. It feels sinister. The once seemingly harmless movements become malicious. The audience questions why the characters ignore this calamity, ‘what on earth could possibly be more important than this??!?!’.
Or at least that is the reaction I hope I can create. Even if the audience doesn’t understand or know of the theme of escapism, they can understand that something is amiss. And hopefully, the turnedbacks will solidify this message.
Set up and final adjustments
I used three projectors and 3 bright signs and set them up in the mezzanine.
I initially set up with the wizard to the left, as I had shown it in the tutorial. as I wanted it to show an increasing distance from nature. Wizard, in nature. Raincoat separated from nature. Red, complete abstraction/disconnect from nature.
However once I set up the projection, the action looked lop-sided as the wizard only gently turned the page of the book every now and again. so I moved the wizard to the middle. It was symmetrical and very satisfying.
these are the three separate final videos:
What was successful?
The red person channel felt beautiful to me. Having nothing to frame it and having the white blend into the walls made it seem like it was almost painted onto the walls. It could be an interesting effect for a different project. Working maybe with coloured walls, or at least try this black-on-white effect again.
Also the effect of even lighting on a space. It became flattened and distorted. Very cool, I would like to try and work with different spaces maybe. And having the individual in different sizes relative to the space and screen.
I am very proud of the wizard outfit; making a pattern from scratch from a drawing was so fun. I wanted a specific look, and I was able to get exactly what I wanted! So fun.
What could be improved upon?
Something I consistently notice with my art is that I am visuals first. I want to create an exciting and dynamic visual piece. I then get overwhelmed with the intellectual part of the piece, either because I feel a great sense of urgency and passion about many things, or it is a muscle I am just not very good at flexing yet. I would say this piece is the epitome of that. I have very few qualms about the visuals, as most of them came out exactly how I wanted (one I will say something about). I feel the piece’s intent is cloudy; it’s a niche topic, and it was addressed like a mainstream topic where the audience was very educated and had a lot of skill to read between the lines.
In future, I am not sure how I will fix this, I think I will try to have a longer time to focus on lots of different concepts. I think it would be better for me to make lots of ideas, and then scrap the bad ones. instead of trying to put too much into one idea and being too precious with it.
The yellow raincoat channel, I think, was the most conceptually well-done but technically lacking. The reflection of the glossy photos obscured what was in the pictures. I also think it could have looked more dynamic. I think if I could’ve hung the photos at different levels with something like fishing wire. or I could’ve found a window that was much flatter. as mine had very pronounced window sills, which meant a lot of the pictures hung at an odd angle.
also, I think the juxtaposition between the high-res still image and the very low-res fire image is quite annoying. I think it would’ve been very powerful if the fire was crystal clear. (but I will not be filming any bushfires like that any time soon) so I just have to make do. or I could’ve tried some video upscaling AI, but I haven’t seen any that are particularly successful.
there is a lot of personal distress with the lack of resolutions within this piece, as you can see through my criticism . I think one of the reasons that I cant be excited or proud of this work, is that I still feel very emotional towards this subject, and am still quite stressed about it. I have not made any personal resolutions on the matter, my lack of reconciliation on this topic reflects the complexity and dire nature of the dilemma I am exploring . there is an ongoing dissonace between my distress at the urgency of the situation, and the ‘fix’ that is my art piece. which i would deem in the scale of things, not enough.
although i still think i did a good job, and i tried immensely hard. Working everyday.
