VISA 0120 Foundations Media: Computation + Art

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My conceptualization of time relied on the ability to conceive of time in its most terrifying ways, its enormity and its continuous nature.  The Event is a piece that shows how time can be cyclical while remaining unified.  That time works beyond human control though remains as the basis for modern society causes man to be deluded in his quests, mapping his path through an abstraction that deceives him.  The structure of time gives way to the loop, the cyclical repetition of an event that cannot escape its own beginning or end.

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When thinking of time, I was most interested in how what seems to be a random, crazy, and chaotic combination of incidents at the time it is happening can shrink to a single frame of picture in memory. While the reality can be ugly, hurtful, or even meaningless, we tend to take different fragments of the real events to come up with a ‘false’ memory (in the sense that it only follows one part of the sequence as in movies, as opposed to the reality where every sequence is happening at the same time) and put it in our sanctuary, all edited and sealed and disguised as beautiful and ‘whole’.

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Using ‘waves’ as a starting point I carried the concept into the abstract and the surreal by taking ordinary notions, such as liquid spilling out of a bottle or stones rolling along, and paired them with obscure counterparts such as legs and wings. In doing so the inert becomes animated and objects begin to take on a life of their own.

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My first thought about time was its never ending repetitive quality. Through this video in which a boy travels and gets caught in a plant cycle, I sought to reemphasize the theme of the “timelessness” of time. The continuous death and births of all living things is apparent but also mysterious, mundane but also very interesting at the same time. There is no real end to things because in one way or another they continue to live on through different means. For example, the seeds from a plant blooms another plant, a person passes on the values of life and lives through his/her children, etc.

Wladyslaw Starewicz was Russian born Polish filmmaker who is famous for his stop motion animations using insects and animals as his protagonists. Here is an excerpt from Ubu.

Starewicz’ childhood passion for entomology led his career: he began producing short documentaries in Moscow around 1909-1910, beginning with a documentary about insects in Lithuania. In his spare time, he experimented with stop-action films using beetles, which he articulated by wiring the legs to the thorax with sealing wax! This, of course, led to his big breakthrough, released by the Van Kanjonkov Studio of Moscow: “The Battle of the Stag Beetles”, the first puppet-animated film.

Thanks for tracking down this link, Sean. I’m simply embedding it into the blog for ‘in house’ viewing.

DUE FEB 11

1. Assignment #3 – See below.
2. Post all drawings from the first day on the blog. Please remember to title your images and add the appropriate tags (choose from the most popular tags) and add your own and don’t forget to mark the category “Exercises.”

Good luck and have fun!

Amber

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Assignment #3 – Stop Motion Sound
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DUE Feb 11

The task for this week is to create a soundtrack for your stop motion piece (Assignment #2).

Collect or create a series of sound clips that relate to your piece. Your sounds must be diegetic, found, or self generated. You may use voiceover. This assignment asks you to express your concept of time through sound by creating a rhythm and/or procession of sound events that relates to your visual animation. Please listen to the sound in Chris Marker’s La Jetée for reference.

Use this assignment as an opportunity to improve your stop motion piece from Assignment #1, keeping in mind the class critique. Remember your original intention (word/s), but don’t be afraid to dismiss any components that are not working. This means that you should feel free to edit as you see fit.

NOTE: If you feel your animation simply does not benefit from sound, you have two options. 1) You may create a 60 second sound piece about time that stands on its own, or 2) you may create a new BLACK AND WHITE stop motion animation with your new sound track.

The final output should be a high resolution Quicktime “.mov” file.

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TECHNICAL TIPS
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- You can record/generate your own recordings or edit found sound through Audacity, which is free, open source, easy-to-use, and downloadable software for use on a Mac or PC.
- You may collect sound from the web. Search for free sound clips on Google. archive.org is also a good source.
- You can also use Quicktime Player to record sound.
- Once you have all your sound clips, you need to find a way to synch up the sound to your images. I suggest either using iMovie, “Keynote” for Mac, Powerpoint.
- Be resourceful – Ask Google, and if you still can’t find an answer, email me, ask your classmates or a friend to help you. Don’t be shy! We are here to help each other.

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BLOG TIPS
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- The login url for the blog is -> http://camp-er.net/teaching/sp09/foundations/wp-admin
- Please use the appropriate titles, categories and tags. Add tags as needed. If you have questions, please ask!

not sure if the last one worked…

follow this link and then when you’ve done all that go to share and select quicktime and then you’re done!