My final project was a music video for the songs “If I Had a Heart” and “Concrete Walls” both by Fever Ray. The main theme in my video is witchcraft and black magic, I was inspired by a book I found in the library of symbology, which featured a varied range of symbols from old civilizations such as: Aztecs, Egyptians, Chinese, Greek… etc. It was very interesting to look up some symbols we use in modern life and figure out they used to have a completely different meaning in the past. I also enjoyed doing some research about the occult and pagan belief and trying to revive what we have lost through modernity, technology and logic. for me art it self is not something logical, therefore I wanted this video to make no sense at all, but at the same time to make people experience different emotions and reactions while watching it. I used the Lowell lightning kit – which was really heave by the way 🙂 – but very useful, and helped me achieve the images I wanted to create. I played around with some candles, ink and water, filming myself and my electronic project 😛 (at least I got to use that) I also spent a lot of time editing it, which was really hard; I did it in Final Cut Express – which I learned to use in this class. and I am pretty happy with the results… I think if I would revisit this concept in the future, probably I would make the video much longer, not feature myself, and add lots of weird effects 😛 Thanks for everything, I think this class has been the most useful so far, I learnt to use a bunch of new programs and got lots of freedom to experience everything in my own way.

Best wishes                                                                                                                                                      Gabriel.

inspiration:

 If I Had a Heart – Fever Ray

Stranger Than Kindness – Fever Ray

I think my video is way to heavy, I’ve been having lots of problems trying to upload it, I’ve been trying since yesterday, as soon as I can get it uploaded I’ll post it…

My original concept was to create a film that would echo basic commonalities between people. I wanted to create this sense of similarity as I am fascinated by the idea of familiarity and sameness among people.  I feel like it has become a strong theme in my work.

I was originally going to rely heavily on symbolic imagery, as I did not want to use actors but it should have been clear to me that it may prove difficult to make a film about people without any in it. So that idea was quickly substituted.

As far as the symbolic imagery was concerned, I decided that I’m already quite tired of it, so I explored another avenue as I became interested in the idea of reflections and this concept of an alternative likeness. Out of this notion came my inkblot structure idea; the same film, twice, but opposite. This structure also enables the film to be played on a loop. In fact, the way I had originally imagined this project, was as a video installation with a semi-reflective/semi-translucent backdrop, with this film playing on a loop.

The footage was filmed in two afternoons, both back and forth scenes were shot at the same time to facilitate the camera placement and ensure that the shots would be as similar as possible.

While editing I desaturated all of the footage and slowed everything down to approximately 80 per cent speed. The soundtrack I chose consists of a piece called “The Chill Air” by Brian Eno and Harold Budd. I noticed a funny coincidence after the fact; this track is a part of the album named The Plateau of Mirror.

I believe the mood I captured is close to the one I aimed for; stripped, quiet, alienated, close, sameness.

It can be viewed here.

“You will not find it here” or Escapism through water.

Conceptually, my video represents a state of mind. Swimming is, in my personal case, not a physical activity but quite the opposite. For a moment, It liberates my body, my mind, and my imagination from my usual reality. Being surrounded by water puts me in a state of mind where everything becomes unimportant: matter, space, and time.

At the beginning, I thought that showing water, and how its appearance changes depending on light and the time of the day, was going to be enough to represent that state of mind. However, I realized that water was only the bridge. The important thing was how that element affects me and how my mind finds a way to escape. Some people use drugs and others need prayers and beliefs. There are as many rituals as there are people living on this planet. What I needed to say was… let’s escape through water.

With this in mind, I decided that still images, instead of actual video, was more appropriate for my purpose. Since the idea was to create some kind of illusions, and take that concept further to show hallucinations, I needed Photoshop to transform the images of water into something more dynamic and surreal. I needed to change its colour, its texture, and then combine images of myself, water and images of galaxies, fractals, and other illusions.

For two days I took several pictures of the pool, during different times of the day. I added images of myself walking, touching the surface of the water, etc. After that, I spent some time putting everything in order, creating different folders that I called “walking morning”, etc. That helped me a lot to create some sort of narrative.

Since I didn’t want to have any kind of dialogue or sound effects, I started looking for a soundtrack. I listened to different options carefully before deciding that “Heaven”, from the band HEALTH, was the appropriate song choice. What I liked about it was that it was not the stereotypical sound for introspection. Before importing images into iMovie, I put the music in and that gave me the rhythm. The music lead me to the idea of dividing the story into three segments.

The first segment was going to be the moment before getting into the pool, and then the images of me walking inside the water, kind of the first steps into another world. At that point I decided to add some kind of text, and after some research I came across a part in the movie “Caravaggio” by Derek Jarman. I thought it was perfect, because it was poetic, kind of surreal, and very descriptive of a specific moment right before waking up, like coming from a dream to reality.

From that moment the process became more difficult in terms of work. I had the concept and the other two segments very clear (2nd segment: hallucinations, final segment: coming back to reality). I spent three days mixing all the pictures, searching for images of fractals, caves, and other kind of resources, and kept adding them into iMovie. Keeping the same palette of colours and the same dream-like texture was very important.

The final segment, which is the shorter one, was a challenge, since I wanted this to use pictures without any retouching, to show somehow that the mind was coming back to reality. But I needed them to match with the rest, especially with the segment of hallucinations, which is very vibrant in terms of colour and texture. The key was to find the perfect rhythm.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the end result and the experience of this project. It achieved what I wanted to communicate, as well, aesthetically it is very pleasing in my opinion. It was a challenging project, but it was a nice ending for a very interesting class.

Thanks!

The intent of my piece was to illustrate the finer side of vegan cooking because the majority of resources concerning it exhibit the cuisine in a poor light and encourage its own bad reputation. It may not seem like matter or great import, but to myself it is something that needs to be handled with haste. If people considering veganism, a lifestyle based on what one refuses to consume (that being animal products), see that their culinary options will be limited to substandard fare they will be much less likely to change lifestyles. They will also continue to support the general belief that vegan food is lackluster.

As a four-year vegan myself, I find it unacceptable that the appearance of my community’s cuisine impedes our growth. The visual presentation of our food by unaccommodating chefs and unskilled cooks has made it much more difficult to convince others that the vegan lifestyle does not sacrifice the pleasures of an omnivorous lifestyle, and as such we cannot spread our message of compassion successfully. Many people will be averse to the switch to a herbivorous diet even if they do share some of the morals quintessential to this way of life simply because they do not want to submit themselves to poor eating.

Why is this? Food is both fine art and high fashion. As people do not want ugly clothes, furniture, housing, or anything else for that matter, they do not want food that tastes or looks inadequate. This is why people will flock to luxurious restaurants and happily pay exorbitant amounts to savour master chef’s dishes; what can be experienced by the tongue is as important as what can be experienced by any of the other sensory organs, and this explains my devotion to the culinary arts.

With the plate as my canvas, my goal is to aid the vegan community in the adequate representation of a critical aspect of our lifestyle. This project has inspired me to do online cooking demos as my method of changing the common misconception that our fare leaves much to be desired. Simply by making vegan food attractive my endeavours could potentially save thousands of animal lives, and that is what motivates me to continue producing HERBIVOROUS.

…Maybe with just a bit of help from a real camera. Cooking in front of my laptop’s webcam and getting flour in the keys isn’t probably such a good thing.

RECIPE

cornish pasties – vegetable

SHORTCRUST
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup vegetable shortening
a few tablespoons of cold water
salt

FILLING
potatoes
onions
carrot
peas
+ salt and pepper

prepare shortcrust; mix flour, salt and shortening ’til sandy. add water to form a dough. chill for half an hour.
prepare filling; clean and chop veggies, mix with salt and pepper.
prepare pasties; make rounds out of rolled dough, put mound of filling inside, fold into half-moons, crimp edges.
use oil and corn starch mixture for a wash.
bake at 420 degrees Fahrenheit for about 40 minutes, or until the pasties are browned and crunchy.

Here’s my link again. pasties

For my final Project I made a video called Prelude, it is the name of the song I chose to use. I initially intended to make a stop motion video of apples going bad over the course of 7 days. I thought it would be interesting to play with process of time and the effects over a curtain time period. Also, I made 2 other process videos; tea and ice, although I decided not to include the tea because it looked unpleasant. I did however include the ice dissolving in water at the beginning of my short film.

I uploaded all my pictures onto iMovie, and after speeding the clips up to an interesting pace it was a little less than 30 seconds long. I then decided that I would include my ice melting to make up for more time.

When I watched it on its own I was honestly bored, so I took some of the footage I had of my friend from a previous idea I had along with some other videos I had taken in the past and included them as well.

My final piece turned out to be more abstract than I originally planned, but I liked it. I increasingly duplicated more clips and distributed them throughout to keep interest in the decaying fruit. To me, when I watched it, if the fruit went on too long by itself, then I would get bored and I didn’t like that.

In the end, my movie made me feel like I was lost in memory and I also felt, at moments, time was passing by slower, and others faster.

I hope it was enjoyable.

To see DEAF LIKE ME, follow this.

Description:
The idea behind the film “Deaf Like Me” came from my personal life experiences as a hybrid of both deaf and hearing cultures and my salient belief in the concept of “trying on other people’s shoes”. In essence, Deaf Like Me is not just about what it’s like to be me, but about seeing what kind of obstacles disabled people face every day, down to the most basic necessities like communication. By leaving the audience wanting more with only a trailer, I hope to encourage people to expand their horizons and explore each other’s lives – which is ultimately the “main movie” I am trying to create in their minds.

If you have any questions, leave a comment and I’ll get back to you. Hope you all enjoyed the movie trailer!

Thanks,
Brooke Wayne

For my final Time-based media assignment, I planned to create some form of an art piece that functioned in two ways. I planned to create something that crossed a personal boundary of mine in one way or another and to create something that could be seen as a gallery piece. Initially, my intentions were to make a video documenting the way light reflected off the curves of the body and how light can silhouette the body, however I decided after learning about several projects to change the direction of the project and work on a project that documented the relationship between the choices we make about our undergarments and our moods, day of the week, etc. Underwear is an incredibly personal aspect in most of our lives and I felt that by focusing on that rather than footwear or actual clothing choices, I was zeroing in on a more intimate part of my life (as well as baring it all). In terms of format, I was inspired by Lorna Simpson’s Stereo Styles done in 1988 in polaroids illustrating different hairstyles and another piece of her work called Five Day Forecast also done in 1988. Both pieces make a commentary on the relationship between self and either style or day of the week. My final choice to execute the idea through photography was based around the simplicity of the way I wanted it to look in the end. I took seven photographs, edited them to black and white, had them printed at Blacks and mounted them on black and white boards. Each photograph is labelled with a day of the week and each can be related back to the way most of us feel on certain days of the week (ie.  Wednesday – the middle of the week and the choice to wear one’s least attractive, yet most comfortable pair of underwear or the choice to simply stay in pajamas on Sunday so as to not need to get dressed.) I really enjoy the end result of my photos and feel that they represent an aspect of time-based media, perhaps solely by presentation but the concept in combination with the subject matter and presentation definitely come together to make the viewer think about time and our relationships with the days of the week.

alright. so i have successfully completed my final project! it was a long process of editing, but i think it was worth it! i created a stop-motion video to the song “starstruck” by santogold. its made up of over 300 still images and 3 video clips.

heres the link to go see it;

hope you enjoy it! i had some difficulties and challenges while making it, but in the end it was all worth it.

i emailed my written statement, i hope it attached properly!