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Creative Research
Some aspects of the development of our installation are not featured here but are featured on the portfolio of my partner Gijs.
You can find his portfolio here:
Week 1 - Choosing our Image & First Prototype
To begin our Main Mission we were first tasked with choosing our Image from the winners of the 2024 World Press photo competition. I was partnered with Gijs. We had to choose individually some images we liked and first ask some questions about the image itself without reading their descriptors.
Following on Jelke tasked us with learning about the 'When, Where, Why, Who and What' for each image we chose in the time we had. This was so we could learn the purpose the image has. We then chose our three favourites and brainstormed different perspectives to view it from in our installation
We began to write themes for these images from said perspectives. Gijs and I just wrote everything that came to mind and gave each other theme ideas for each others images.
Our chosen image in the end was 'A Day In The Life of A Quebec Fire Crew' which you can see here.
To finish we verbally brainstormed ideas for installation ideas for Thursday as this week was the week we could test the waters with any themes and perspectives we had as we had plenty of time to change this later on. Our chosen theme in the end was Ignorance.
In Sarahs class on Thursday even though we had chosen a theme for our installation we had to make mind maps of said theme alongside others as well as analysing the image through a mind map.
On Thursday we had Stef, who was a former director and owner of the Amersfoort Museum come visit us to view our installations. Stef was there to provide us with feedback on our projects as he has a background in digital media installations. I was not expecting much due to us only having put 4 days of work into the project so far but he really provided us with some excellent feedback.
During this installation Stef can hear entirely different audio to what is playing from the monitor. The idea was that we'd place the viewer in the shoes of somebody with power and wealth who chooses to ignore the issue that is climate change and live a blissful life as if the problem didn't exist to them while we the public have to endure the consequences through wildfires and other disasters around the globe.
Stef loved the concept as did others in the class who got to see it. He told oust avoid cliches such as the visuals we showed. He loved the use of different items that Trump himself has said on the topic of climate change and general ignorance and the idea of leaving it to the viewer to take off the headphones themselves to take the 'first step to stopping ignorance and actually listen'.
Gijs created both audio tracks as well as the footage of the wildfires. I created the footage of the rich lifestyle and the animated speaking lines you see coming from one of the mannequin heads. I was quite happy with what we could create in such a small time frame.
Headphone audio:
ignorance audio RICH
00:00 / 01:20
Week 2 - Narrowing down the message + Prototype 2
During Monday's class I spoke to both Nils & Pjotr about our projects and any confusions we had so far. Once I told them that one of the goals we had was to invoke a feeling of guilt in our viewers they directed us to attempt to make our viewers feel that emotion and to ignore the actual installation itself and only focus on that aspect and to do the same going forward during the process phase. So we did just that.
After a brainstorming session on Wednesday we finally had a plan on how we wanted to invoke this feeling. We had this idea that we make it seem as though the viewer themselves are causing destruction in their path through means of Visuals with focus on abstract colour and audio to support it. The audio would be what keeps the topic and meaning behind the installation clear for the viewer.
Gijs was not present during Monday due to him feeling a little under the weather so I had some time to research the topic of ignorance in reference to climate change and additionally to look at it from a positive and opposite perspective.
I read this article you see on the left and took out some points I quite liked and added explanation to the perspective and point we were aiming to make. It mentions how ignorance is used as a means of gaining and maintaining power. Additionally it talks about how elites use this to satisfy their own interests and that the truth did not matter to them. You can read this in the image on the left.
In the second image you see on the left I found examples of where ignorance is actually useful and morally good along with a story to show this. I found this useful for our installation as it gives us pointers as to not stating incorrect points or showing a perspective that is not 100% truthful.
Shoeprint:
I created the visuals you see along with the narration audio which we felt was the main item that could invoke the guilt emotion. Additionally I used foley sounds to create the sound of the footsteps. Gijs worked on creating a fitting backing track audio to amplify the installation and they key moments of colour you see in the animation.
Feedback Received:
Most people didn't get the message behind the installation this time around which was okay as it wasn't our mai goal this week. They stated things such as it feeling like an inner voice telling them that they're not a good person or that it was a variety of hate comments on social media. However, they all said they felt guilty and that the installation made them feel an uneasiness too. But they did not know what they felt guilty for except maybe their own personal experiences. It was also said about changing the visuals to be different and not repeat. They loved the idea of using abstract colour to portray our message. This was great news and a big step for the development of our installation.
In terms of the actual installation itself we got some nice feedback too. Romen told us to look into agency in game design and to attempt to maybe gamify the footstep aspect. Malaika said to add a tutorial element for the footsteps too. We loved these ideas and aimed to add them in the future.
Week 3 - Further Installation Development
This week we were supposed to receive our red, orange or green light from Stef but he couldn't make it which worked out as since the previous lesson I had traveled back home to Ireland so we had more time to develop our installation for next Mondays' class.
Gijs and I spoke on two calls this week and met up in our Thursday class to discuss our next steps. Our plan was to change the visuals to differ from one another and to change the ambience and sound effects to match the new visuals.
Additionally we wanted to merge our two previous installations into a newer version. This would include making the viewer wear headphones as they walked around the scene with separate audio being played in the headphones to what is coming out of the speaker. We reused the 'rich' audio from the 1st installation for the headphones like previous but without the dialogue from Donald trump.
To the right you can see jack testing our prototype this week and the more updated visuals that were created but they were created after our test installation. As you can see it combines the previous two installations but we had some issues.
One major issue was the shadows being casted by the viewer from the projector above. This was something we had noticed before but hadn't found or put in a solution yet but received feedback on methods of doing so one being to use two projectors.
We received some excellent feedback this week and people were really starting to understand our concept and message which was great. Inside the headphones is the same audio from the 1st installation except with some reassuring voice lines Gijs created and added, however Caro asked us to play some upbeat dancing music just to test a theory. I chose a Mac Demarco song I quite like and she loved it and said it worked even better than the music we chose. We tried it ourselves and she was absolutely correct especially due to it causing participants to dance which delivers the message even more so.
The visuals were created from the three images you see above each depicting natural disasters or using a series of colour I feel best describe chaos or destruction. I used abstract effect tools inside After effects to create unique animations for each respective image.
Week 4 - Red, Orange, Green light
We had now reached the halfway point of our installation and this week was a big one. Stef had come back to give us a 'red, orange or green light' which would tell us the position we were at in terms of having a clear and successful installation by the day of our expo. Plenty of work had been put in by Gijs and I to date and we were hopeful to receive good feedback from Stef.
Stef provided us with a "green light with spots of orange". Both myself and Gijs were very surprised with this as we were one of two groups who received this rating. Although we were confident in our installation to date we didn't expect any higher than an orange so you could imagine we were over the moon with this information.
One of the first bits of feedback he gave us was that there was no start and end point which was way due to the abstract side of the installation but he thinks it would be more fitting as he felt as though he was gonna dance forever and we both agreed with this. Secondly he said the installation does a great job of fooling you and does make you question your own ignorance in the installation which was of course a goal of ours. The headphone/speaker having separate audio works very well was something he also added. Furthermore he stated that he'd like a bigger 'dance floor' (technical issue on the day) and that the abstraction works very well. This feedback we received was great and would help us really nail down our installation.
This week we added the dancing music we used with Caro previously and added two projectors. Both worked excellently and were received well.
week 4 footprint audio HEADPHONES
00:00 / 01:40
(Apologies for this video being sideways)
Later this week we took some of steps feedback and improved on our installation but nothing to crazy to this point. I updated the footsteps to be more detailed and adjusted their size in their respective scenes.
Week 5 - Refining
We used this week to really nail our installation. We had a great concept as it was and this week was about making sure we can make it the best it could be. We had some experiments of what we can add, adjust or even change. One of the things was adding a quote into the video to clarify our project a little more which you can see on the right.
We also changed from using two projectors to using one with a mirror attached to make it project downward. This helped make the setup a lot simpler and less messy. We unfortunately forgot to record or take any photos our installation this week so I can't show how it looked.
Week 6 - Final Test & Feedback
With one more week until our expo Gijs and I were confident we'd end up with a great and bespoke installation for our expo. But we still had some ideas and refining to do yet. During this week we were able to adjust the visuals and audio in a significant way such as improving the narration in both the headphones and the speaker. A new but similar ending was added in the visuals along with adjusting one of the sequences in the full animation. We were hoping to receive positive feedback from viewers on each of these and then some feedback to tweek these to be far more improved.
In the animation above I also added cracks to appear on the screen to show an irreversible damage in an abstract way of sorts. Additionally I added an animation of the earth being completely engulfed. This was from Stefs feedback where he wanted us to have a start and finish. The third video you see above was an intro/tutorial we added to help instruct the viewers on what to do and to begin the installation.
We received some excellent feedback this week. Caro and Nils both felt the visual of the earth was too on the nose and didn't fit the rest of the installation due to its cartoonish look when the rest of the visuals are realistic in a way. Arne gave us the idea to include the quote in our Artist Statement and it's too clunky inside the installation. Caro also said the two separate audio tracks could be synced a little better but on the contrary Nils said he felt it was a very good balance and loved it.
Caro suggested for an ending that week keep the screen cracks and add the floor breaking completely and crumbling. Nils suggested that if possible we create an almost supernova style animation using the particle systems as an ending and we loved both these ideas.
With all this great feedback to work with we were finally ready to have a fully refined and bespoke installation for the public to view in our final expo.
You can find the final expo here on this page: https://clearyy16.wixsite.com/avdm/copy-of-abstraction
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