Here is a link to my video on youtube, as well my written statement. thanks

– michael

Video Study of Color and Texture, By Michael Abraham Orfus
Conducted between 10:24 pm on December 1st, and 1:12 pm on December 3, 2009

Concept:
We experience color and texture all the time. Are senses are constantly bombarded by an array of tactile and visual information, however our conscious experience represents only a small slice of sensory possibilities (take for example different types of light or radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum outside of direct human perception; infrared, ultraviolet, etc). Due to the sheer volume of what we can still perceive, we cannot give most of this information our direct attention, and it goes unnoticed . . . what I propose is that we do absorb a considerable amount of these stimuli and their effects on a sub-conscious level, and that the feelings and sensations associated with these encounters are imprinted in our sub-conscious memory. As a result, even the most minute or passing tactile or visual experience has the potential to trigger a feeling, sensation, or even evoke an emotional response based on ones own past experiences of similar phenomenon and the events surrounding them. My film aims to provide the raw materials (color and texture) to stimulate the subconscious memory/experience in the individual viewer. The film also records a selection of my own visual and tactile experiences from 10:24 pm on Tuesday December 1st to 1:12 pm on Thursday December 3rd; a period of approximately 39 hours. The information is mediated through the camera, which when used freely can reveal to us what we can’t see on our own.

Methods:
Produced with a combination of stop motion and frame by frame digital photography, the film is composed of approximately 865 individually shot digital photos, shown at 1/10th of a second each; hours of visual information are condensed into in just over 2 minutes. Shot with a Canon Powershot SD780 IS Digital Elph, the subject is a selection of my everyday, or chance visual and tactile encounters mixed with more deliberate, generalized imagery intended to produce an emotional or cerebral response in the viewer. My notes record and list all materials in the order they appear, as well as by the time the photographs were taken.

Influences:
I have always been interest in the psychological effects of color – the idea that certain warm or cool colors or shades are associated with specific emotional or psychological states. My only conscious film influence is Stan Brakhage (1933 – 2003), who I was introduced to in this class. I love the abstract quality of his films and seeing his work has somehow affected the way I want my films to look. Mostly I am interested in his idea of revealing the universal in the particular. I sort of relate it to my interest in the way the camera can mediate our experience of the world and also reveal aspects of nature that we cannot directly perceive with our own eyes.

Challenges  / Successes:
The biggest challenge probably was taking the number of photographs needed to achieve the desired effect. As mentioned, the film is composed of 865 individual frames, which is maybe 1/4th of what I shot attempting to capture the correct compositions. At first deciding what to shoot and what not to was somewhat challenging, but as i got more involved in the process this became more intuitive. For documentary purposes I wanted the film to have a level of real-time continuity so I decided to shoot it straight through, in order, and with for lack of a better term, a sense of urgency. Needless to say the production consumed me completely for several days. Due to time constraints and the necessity to work on other assignments, I did not get to experiment with an audio track to supplement the visual aspect of the film. This may have helped to create an atmosphere of free association for the viewer. I do feel however, that the piece has a strong enough visual element to work in silence, and in the end I don’t think the lack of audio hurts the film, which is based primarily on retinal evocations of subconscious sensory-memories and their psychological and emotional associations.

For my final time-based media project, I have decided to create an installation piece. I thought of creating a spinning light source that projects images, or rather shadows of birds on walls. I also plan to accompany this with bird sound effects. I originally wanted the sound effects to be frightening but now I wouldn’t mind having a variety of bird sounds. For example: having peaceful sounds as well as creepy and terrifying. This will ultimately cause the observer to feel overwhelmed with different emotions and will allow the observer to escape into a different setting. This piece was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s film “The Birds.”

For the actual light, I have used two pieces of wood to create the base, a momentary switch, a motor, a piece of wooden stick to hold up the plastic container that is used as the shade that will evidently have the bird cut-outs (to create shadows). I also found these really large cheap Christmas lights that I will be using as the light source because LED’s wouldn’t help show the shadows. I would imagine placing this particular piece in a room with only white walls for a better contrast. If I had more money and time I would make the piece to be hung. Instead of it being on a stand I would want it to take as less space as possible, so that observers would not be distracted by the device.

Revisiting electronics was kind of a suicide mission from the beginning. I just wanted to challenge myself a little and make use of the left over materials I didn’t use for the electronics project. I thought that problem solving skills would work well here. As for judging the finish product as a piece of installation art, it really depends on whether the shadows are well shown and the combination of light, shadow and sound are effective for my presentation. There were definitely a lot of errors through the process of getting this assignment done. I did learn a lot and I will probably revisit electronics again, just not for school purposes. I think that there’s too much pressure, due to time restraints. Overall, I think that I did an okay job on the finished piece. I tried my best to make the idea in my head happen. I would change having the momentary switch to a dial switch so that I could control the speed of the motor and also I wouldn’t have to constantly push the button for the piece to work. I would’ve also experimented with different paper so that the shadows would show up sharper.
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So I completely forgot to take pictures of my project and left it in my locker after class. I’m a complete idiot. And i’m most likely gonna pay for being so forgetful.

sorry

My video, entitled From Cradle to Curtains, A Chronology, is a long, prosper life condensed into eighty seven seconds of abstract reinterpretations. Should I e-mail the powerpoint in addition to my written statement though? I’m not sure if I should. Let me know.

So even though I know what each scene means in this video I felt leaving it up for interpretation would be beneficial. At the same time however, I feel like people can’t link these to moments in life whatsoever. I guess to cause less confusion and yet not give it all away, I’ll use the pomegranate seeds as an example. These seeds are supposed to be seen as cells in the human body that could one day potentially turn cancerous. The unsettling and somewhat chaotic movement of the camera imply this tense uneasiness, realizing that things which make our bodies prosper and function could turn life-threatening at any moment, like those superheroes we read about in fables, suddenly falling transitioning over to the dark side. The individual I represented in this video actually loses their life to cancer, which can be understood by successfully interpreting the scene that follows, but before I get too ahead of myself I’ll just post the link to the video and leave it up to the viewer to understand. The video doth lay here.

Glad to be part of this class though, and thanks for all of it. 🙂

Final time based media project by Natasha Kennedy. Here are some photo’s.

For my final project I decided to make a video that focuses on color and movement, but also something that is visually pleasing to the eye. I was inspired by a Thomas Ruff piece, “substratum”, along with the swirling colors on my screen saver. These effects were obviously created by a computer, and I wanted to discover a way to physically create this effect of swirling colours. My solution was using food colouring and water. I tried to get a variety of shots, along with playing around with different lighting. I actually had a lot of fun with this project. Basically I filled a few different glass vases with water, along with my bathtub, dropped in the color, and film it’s movement and transition from one shape to the next, or one color to the next. Sometimes I would let the water be still, other times i shook the vase to see more drastic movement.

In the end I put all the clips together edited the speed. Sometimes the transition is fast, sometimes slow, simply because I edited the video to go insync with the song I have chosen “She’s a Rainbow”, which I thought was pretty appropriate considering the subject matter. I really enjoyed this project, and with probably continue with some photography of the movement of color. Enjoy the video.

My video wouldn’t load for some reason, and was timing out every time. Here is the link to my video:

The Movement of Colour