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Anna Musiol

Semester One

Nature

of course I am emotional

Week 2

Beginnings

What has struck me most during today’s lecture was the consistence of human’s presence in all art pieces presented. Human’s acknowledgment of things defines its value. As we are a part of nature but, just as well, we and nature are one. That concept hasn’t left my mind since I left the studio and unfolded for me in a simple resolution. It all comes down to self perception. To how we, as people, perceive ourselves against nature.

And we are a part of it. We influence it. We create it. We destroy it. We define it. We ARE it.

That’s where I got stuck. Such an enormous idea. So much to say… How to convey such message? And then I remembered one of the artists shown to us today – Agnes Martin. A abstract artist that astonished me in the subtlety and simplicity of her works. She focuses on feelings, a visual experience of a painting. Agnes starts with an inspiration in the size of a post stamp, and she enlarges it in the most secure, mathematical way. She visualises a sensation, an emotion, an inner response.

Paper from lecture with famous Agnes Martin quote

Her persona and unique approach to the painting made me restructure my whole approach to the subject of human’s perception about nature and self-image in the context of nature. I want to create a piece that will allow me to transform the message into a sensation, an experience…

cielesność

Cielesność is a Polish word describing a state ‘involving the human body’. It can only be translated to ‘carnality’ or ‘physicality’ but those words does not convey the lack of sexual subtext that ‘cielesność’ comes from. It’s merely focused on the sensations and feelings that come from the body and awareness of their existence.

By invoking Agnes Martin, an abstract painter that focused on the experience of the piece, I started to think about the way on how to transform the concept of ‘cielesność’ and body as a landscape in a virtual manner.

Because of Covid-19 we are unable to create an exhibition in a gallery or a studio and we are forced to translate our work into a digital version. This comes along with many limitations when it comes to experiencing the art-piece, what is my main intention, but can be freeing in a way I haven’t consider before. It’s not regulated by any specific time frame or location. It can be accessible to anyone anywhere for almost any device. The popularisation of art in this form can be helpful for young artists as myself.

After a sleepless night, when my brain was buzzing with ideas and worries, I created a visual mind map of things twirling in my head.

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That was the first time the word ‘cielesność’ popped in my head. But also an idea of creating a new dimension for the sole purpose of experiencing the body.

one with nature

Nadika Kai Naasz (B. 1997, Washington State) is a painter based out of Baltimore, Maryland. She recently received her BFA in General Fine Arts with a concentration in Painting from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Her work is a collection of paintings with a clear self representation trait. She captures her everyday life, her view on herself and the reality she lives in – all in a series of self portrait oil paintings.

The colour palette she uses is muted and cold as to transform the feelings of alienation and solitude. I got interested in her work because of the blunt honesty of her paintings, Nadika represents the reality with not only all of its extreme emotions but inglorious moments of stillness and boredom of everyday life.

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Body as landscape

The work I want to focus on is her painting Body as landscape. It is a corresponding work with Carl Warner photography series, presenting human body as a part of scenery. The subtle hints, just as in Warner’s Bodyscape – a toe or a bellybutton or in Kai Naasz’s case fingers – break the illusion and confirm the representation of a human body.

Looking at other people’s notes in the Creative Studio, I have realised I am not alone in my reflections about people being one with nature. Questioning our relation with nature was on everyones minds. While it is true human’s influence has been damaging towards nature, it is proven that over last years human’s power towards nature evolved into a moral sense of protecting and safeguarding the environment (Hodder K, Bullock J. Nature without nurture? Planet Earth, 2005).

While humanity, and indeed nature also, has not entirely escaped change, it cannot be assumed that all have been shaped by evolutionary mechanisms. Some have been shaped by what Radkau terms as the power shift between humans and nature, which is evolving, as it has and will keep on doing. As such, the human–nature relationship goes beyond the extent to which an individual believes or feels they are part of nature. It can also be understood as, and inclusive of, our adaptive synergy with nature as well as our longstanding actions and experiences that connect us to nature.

Valentine Seymour

Conveying the message that humanity is not receding from nature but is actually a part of it and wants to be part of it, is the objective of my project this year.

References: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2016.00260/full#B1

Body as Language

I decided to challange an idea of humans being one with nature and look at the subject from a different perspective. First, I focused on a literal representation of the idea that was wandering in my head. We ARE nature, our bodies are their own ecosystems. Always changing growing blossoming…

During previous lecture a particular realisation took place that all landscape we see has been fabricated by humans. Almost nothing that surround us is true to its original form. That made me thinking about impact of humans on Earth but how everything can be manufactured, manipulated by us to the extend that we begin to believe it.

During my exploration on the subject I found Carl Warner – a photography artist that challenges the perception of human body in the context of nature. His work is comprised of body parts organised in such a way that they resemble massive landscapes foregrounded against a neutral tinted sky.

His work is beautifully intimate. He gives us as viewers a completely new perspective onto human body but he tickles an idea of what part people play on Earth. The endless mountains of legs, hills of knuckles, valleys of hips… It’s as simple as that.

We ARE Earth. We ARE nature.

I see the body as a vehicle that is gradually worn down by age, carrying the scars of our journey through this life like a map. Whether they are looked after, abused, adored, drawn on, pampered or poisoned, they are often a record of how we have lived, and therefore offer an alternate form of portraiture. The external view of ourselves in this way becomes a more abstract and intimate reflection of ourselves, and when given a sense of place, it plays on the idea of the inner space in which we dwell.

Carl Warner

Bodyscapes is a series that moved me on a deep personal level. Since the beginning of my artistic journey I was searching a way or a medium to express and capture myself. From my first “Tea Cup Diary” project where I made cup marks on pieces of paper everyday, gradually creating an enormous collection of marks, through “I Tried to Make Myself Real” – an experimental video piece, in which I compared my experience of pain to my dad’s poems from the time he was my age. I am always looking for myself, my identity, my purpose. I am searching for the answer to a question “Who am I” and a method to convey that search. Carl Warner photographic series redefines portraiture and concentrates on the body as a place to live in, a home. “These images are a different kind of portrait where the bodies we live in are being portrayed as a place we can visit,” says Warner. “I think that there is a sense of spiritual contemplation and peace about looking at ourselves in this way.”

I want to focus on finding myself in the world, in nature through fining myself in my body. Appreciating what it does for me and for others. What impact it has on the world outside but inside me as well.

Week 3

the cycle

Creation & Destruction loop is a natural occurrence in nature. Picasso put it very succinctly: “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.” Breaking something down, exposing it – leads to a natural process of regeneration. The creation of something new and different, something that has not yet been, demands the destruction of the old and the typical, what is now and what has come before.

In the process of making there’s one problem hard to ignore – while human’s creative capacity is almost limitless, by default we do not want to destroy. Act of destruction is associated with something wrong, something we were reprimanded for when we were kids. People naturally do not want to take part in the act of destruction. But if we wont’t destroy, we will not be able to create.

One could in fact say that we don’t dare to imagine new possibilities and realities as doing so inherently destroys our cherished but limiting actualities and current modes of being.Scott Kiser

I do not mean, however, acts of destruction aimed to hurt self or others like emotionally or physically damaging behaviour, acts of violence or vandalism. I want to draw attention to activities with positive and constructive process of creation.

What interests me the most is playing with the idea of when the exact moment of creation becomes a moment of destruction and vice versa. I want to bend those rules and ask the question – when destruction ends and creation begins as well as when creation ends and destruction begins…

During my experimentations I made a short film as a visual representation of my thought process, my confusion and my ‘creative destruction’. It a very simple example of how complex the process of creation really is and what boundaries of destruction we need to push to create something.

peanut

I became a mother today.

I have my own little Peanut buried in the soil, warm and damp, ready to grow. I’m going to nurture it, water it and care for it, and one day it will become a real oak tree.

On today’s workshop we got to plant our acorns. Naturally, first we had to go outside and find them. Walking through the mud and rain, looking for our babies in the ground, carrying them safely back – it was a whole journey. In the Creative Studio we had a whole set up to plant our acorns. Out of the lot I managed to find, I picked the smallest one because for some reason it resonated with me more then the others.

And I named it Peanut.

(when Focus won’t work :))))

Afterwards I realised it took a lot of effort and time, patience and attention to detail to give ‘birth’ to Peanut, however, when on the walk I didn’t resist to walk on and through other plants… I didn’t care for them, so in my head it was enough to justify destroying and stomping on them. I destroyed someone else’s ‘baby’. I destroyed something to create something else.

An endless cycle of creation and destruction and creation and destruction. Something dies so something else can live. Nothing comes from something. Something comes from nothing. Never ending loop of nature. This made me think of Cause and Effect we have on things and each other and what those things and others have effect on us. How can I manifest this cycle of ‘rebirth’.

Just like Joseph Beuys in 1982 involved so many people and the Kassel’s administration into his 7,000 Oaks project, I want to engage my whole Creative group into participating in the Creation & Destruction workshop. I want to capture to process of destroying something to create something new out of it and then destroying it once again. Visual representation of the cycle I have experienced during our Workshop. Inspired by Joseph Beuyes’ Social Sculpture I intent to create a series of video loops that present the process of Creation & Destruction.

workshop proposal sketch

Week 4

what? when? how? why? what if…

Simon Faithful has a distinguished body of work which combines nature and human experience. It often tackles environmental issues and risk. Water and fire are ongoing features and aspects of his subject matter. He researches carefully, planning, writing, sketching to aid his process. Simon’s practice is tremendously wide-ranging and varied, but always grounded in research and guided by an overall question. Sometimes these can be ‘what if?’ kinds of questions. Simon Faithfull often places himself in situations of risk and danger, pitting his strength against the elements, especially fire and water. But the risk is essentially a consequence of his curiosity. He has an over-riding desire to discover aspects of the way in which the world is affected by human histories, by human structures, by invention, measure and exploration, both constructive and destructive.

Inspired by his approach I begun to ask myself a set of similar questions. WHAT do I want to create? WHAT message do I want to convey? WHEN will I do it and HOW will I capture my progress? HOW do I want my project to be perceived? WHY am I doing it a certain way? WHAT IF I used a different material? 

About Me

Interdisciplinary Art student interested in experimental filmmaking and painting

Social media

Some of the answers are still not completely clear to me. Some of them will come with experimentation, some I will only know after finalisation of my project. But, as Simon Faithfull does, I want to keep asking those questions. I want to improve from my own mistakes, and maybe discover something new on the way.

The Workshops I will be introducing to the group I see as a minimalistic collective exercise during which each group member can play with the material in their own individualistic way, as well as be a part of the creation/destruction cycle. It’s a collaborative process of endless transformation, rebirth through morphing.

Side note:

The mellow atmosphere and meditative vibe of his work is what I would like to capture in my own main project.

project room

On October 21st, along with Maï-Lyng, I spend a whole day in a Project Room. In a trans of creative madness we were flooding ourselves with new ideas. Among the vastness of them, one in particular connected with me. The creation of a human size nest across the cold floor of the Project Room was a scaled up demonstration of the idea in my head. The ripping apart branches to twist them back together. The meditative movements and, of course, the spherical shape of the nest reminded me of the cycle I am so fixed about. The endless cycle. I have captured our progress and created yet another short loop video to prove the visible connection between creation and destruction.

What I love most about this sequence is the fluidity with which the video presents the process. The continuity of formation and dismemberment. Barely visible change that takes place between the two stages is what makes is intriguing and thought provoking.

Also working alongside with Maï-Lyng showed me how valuable and insightful someone else’s perspective can be. We understood each other almost without words, pushing and merging our visions till the perfect outcome. What I wasn’t expecting was how well two people from completely different backgrounds, and with two extremely various artistic visions can work as one unit. Perpetuum Mobile – endlessly working machine, fuelled by their own creation.

material

Since the beginning I have been sceptical about using paper as material for the Workshop due to its limited plasticity. There would come an end to its usefulness and in this particular idea I was looking for something more durable. To strengthen my concept I needed something mouldable. Another issue was the origin of the paper, manufactured bleach sheet didn’t convey the message of nature – rather something complete opposite.

During our creative session, inspired by Maï-Lyng I started playing around with clay. First we started creating small sculptures that we were displaying on her body. After creating a small collection of those tiny sculptures I realised clay would be an ideal material to use for the workshop.

Clay is a fine-grained natural soil that develops plasticity when wet. Clay is used to make pottery, both utilitarian and decorative, and construction products, such as bricks, walls, and floor tiles. Different types of clay, when used with different minerals and firing conditions, are used to produce earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Clay has a deep historical meaning as it was also used to make art objects, smoking pipes and even musical instruments. It comes from earth and gives back to earth, and with that – I had my material.

Workshop idea:

  • Cycle of creation and destruction – the group sits in a circle
  • Time limited sculptures
  • Medium: Performance/Film
  • Material: Natural Clay

Week 5 & 6

group project

As my Workshop proposal has been chosen for our collective project I need to think about technical aspects of our group work:

Project 1 

Title of the project – The Cycle

Handful of clay each – I am ordering clay – white or brown/red

Go Pro Camera attached to the ceiling

Individual smart phones – each person needs to make sure they are charged and with data

Desktop computer to edit personal films

We all wear black 

We sit on cushions on the floor

Schedule the event with Mayu – work out and schedule timings

MAKE SURE EVERYONE CAN ASSESS THE DESKTOP

At the end of performance we put the clay back in the bag, letting “others” continue our work.

During the lecture we broke down the main concept into multiple smaller ones to help us with further research and experimentations. I loved hearing other people ideas and themes they saw in my work. It’s absolutely incredible how different our perception can be of the same one thing, and it can be completely different for everyone in the room.

As this is the main theme of this project I will continue my research on construction/destruction. However, I adored discovering so many new meanings to the pitch I gave. Each person had their own individual connotation to The Cycle and I cannot wait to dig into all of them.

Greg Haberny

Haberny, a New York-based artist, is deeply attracted to the idea of using destruction to constructive ends. He destroys, guts, glues, staples, shoots, burns, deconstructs, dismantles, and blows things up in order to achieve new levels of the sublime. His approach to creation is less out of a love for fire than it is for reincarnation. He integrates every component of existing paintings and sculptures into his processes, from paper towels to frames and bits of chainsaw.  Haberny makes a work of pottery, like the Joan Mitchell piece in the show, for instance, by smashing existing potteries, taking the dust, and reassembling all the pieces back together again.

He takes a very specific steps towards creating his artworks. Everything begins with the chainsaw. Then, he burns the results into ashes. These are then mashed with a weight in order to produce a kind of watercolor pigment. Finally, Haberny uses only his fingers, intentionally avoiding brushes.

I am attached to some of the works and I would lie if I would say that it is not an emotional moment for me to pull them down. [But] in order to get to the next level, you should get rid of everything

The show expresses Haberny’s idea that his works are not about a love for destruction but the power of reincarnation.

art of destruction

All physical works of art are slowly affected and degraded by the natural elements. Some may survive long enough to allow the slow processes of erosion to act on them. Works of art may also be destroyed by natural disasters.

wikipedia entry on natural destruction

During the mid-20th century, the ‘art of destruction’ emerged as a theme in the work of many celebrated artists. Although this tendency has existed for centuries – Claude Monet allegedly slashed at least 30 of his water lily canvases – the 20th century heralded a new age for creative auto-destruction. 

Conceptual artists sabotaged, ruined or destroyed their artworks, either as a deliberate, artistic strategy, or as a result of malaise, anxiety, or displeasure with their work. To destroy an art object was not only radical but iconoclastic – a gesture that disavowed the artwork as a material object that could potentially sell for vast amounts of money. 

Contemporary artists, from Gerhard Richter to Banksy, have followed in the footsteps of their predecessors. Ironically, some of these artists have proved that destruction isn’t always defeatist, or for the purposes of sheer vanity, but allows for liberation, which in turn, inspires new bounds of creativity.

body in nature

Natalia Miedziak-Skonieczna, a Polish photographer, crates a series of photographs called Bodyscapes (from polish Ciałobrazy) and she’s on the search for similarities between us and nature through learning to listen to it and letting it guide her. Her work is strictly intuitive.

I like to observe the freedom of the body when it’s close to nature, when the sun’s rays can be felt by the whole surface of the skin, the earth’s humidity in the morning. When I took [this] shot the sun came out, for which we waited a long time, and women lying so close to each other were purring low sounds, which made their bodies vibrate in like a Buddhist mantra. The grass was crushed and warm after that, I love such traces of our activity.

She challenges the perception of nudity around nature. The primal state of mind and the body around it. The models rarely show faces, the body becomes a sculptural clay, which harmonizes with its surroundings. This is a story about returning home and turning back to (our) nature. Nature in her photographs manifests itself in many aspects. Even if it does not appear directly, there are many references to it and extensions of it in the shapes of the bodies.

Miedziak-Skonieczna’s work shows incredible amounts of sensitivity and maturity. Her painting-like photographs emanate peace and represent deep human connection (and in some ways dependency) to nature.

micro and macrocosmos

Some magical force keeps introducing me to various Polish artists this year and I have to be honest – I am not disappointed. By pure chance I keep finding exactly what I’m looking for in the works of my Polish folk. While browsing through various websites I discovered one that, just like me, was astounded by works of this young Polish photographer Alicja Brodowicz.

I photograph the human body – the microcosm,” Brodowicz says. “Its’ fragments: hair, scars, texture of skin, wrinkles. I am interested in individual particularities; I look for distinguishing features and irregularities. Imperfections are my favuorites.”

In parallel, she photographs nature, surfaces of water, grass, tree barks, leaves – the macrocosm. And then she looks for the unity between the human body and the nature; looking for converging lines, textures, similarities in layout and analogies , creating compositions of micro and macrocosms.

The series of photos is the visual re-enactment of my ever-increasing desire of being close to nature. The older I grow, the more intense this desire is. It is also the expression of my growing concern for the environment and the human impact on it. By combining images of the human body and elements of nature I am trying to show that we are inter-connected and that our separate existence is impossible.

interview for PetaPixel

week 7

down the memory lane

Reflecting on my main project I started to think about the title I would like it to have. It is obviously connected to body and to nature, the sea in particular, but it is deeply personal to me as well. As a person who struggles with my body, with the image of it, with functions and needs of it, I wanted to make my project a subtle admiration of a human body. To go against my private issues and focus on the beautiful aspects of it.

Today I went to the South Beach, to film waves, their movements, the light… and while battling with the wind I felt a strong connection to the nature around me. The powerful whitecaps crushing into the pebbles, heavy wind shacking my coat, sea droplets hitting my face. I was part of it all. That’s when I remembered a poem I read once by Rupi Kaur:

I am made of water.

It all made sense then. The connection between the sea and the body. The water elements coexisting in harmony.

workshop 4

the sea

During this week I went to the beach to film movement as a part of my main project. I wish to focus on the fluidity of movement, the constant flow and gracefulness of nature.

Afterwards I began to modify the image, enhancing the colours, playing with the speed of the video, and focusing on the sensation that can be experienced from the clip.

Those types of modifications are crucial to evoke an inner response from the recipient. I want focus on the affect the video might have on the viewers, the feelings it invokes.

Modifying the original video is to give out a dream-like impression. To create a meditative space with mellow, yet colourful, background.

the body

On the 13th November Mai-Lyng and I took over the Project Room once again. During our three hour creative session, we managed to film most of the material needed for my main project (that still remains without a title).

Body art in relation to nature is the main interest of mine. I want to explore the coexistence and codependence of those two elements in a way that emphasises the body. It is a form of a love letter to the body. It is more than just a vessel, it allows us to experience life, the outside world, it allows us to touch and smell, we are able to create art with it, hug a person we love, the body gives us the sensations of cold and warmth and is our first and primal home.

Thought the centuries Body has inspired artists, used to explore allegory, beauty and sexuality. To question the physicality, pain and pleasure. To investigate the effect and the affect. I, however, want to simply appreciate the body. The beautiful strength it gives me to exist.

During our experimentations I have created a series of short films, in which the waves video, I have prepared earlier, is being projected onto the Project Room’s wall and Mai-Lyng, following my instructions, is dancing in the foreground. Her movements imitate the movement of the waves, and in calm symbiosis they merge into one image.

What was challenging at first was the shadow’s reflection that was interfering with the image, but after looking back at the shots I think it adds an interesting effect to the wave movement, and makes us pay more attention to the main figure in the video.

week 8

group workshop

The Cycle was a workshop lead and designed by me for the 1st group of Creative Arts. All participants sat in a circle in the Creative Arts Studio with their phones taped to the floor in front of them and a bag of clay in the middle. Each participant got a piece of that clay and for a limited time they got to mould it however they please. When time had passed they moved their sculpture to the participant on their left and the whole process started again. For around two minutes the participant could do whatever they want with the clay in front of them, they could destroy their former owner’s work or re-shape it accordingly to their wish. For those two minutes they were creating something completely new while destroying something that previously existed. The workshop lasted around 20 mins and through this whole time the participants were recording their progress with the phones in front of them. The recordings were then taken by me to be edited at home. When the workshop ended the sculptures were destroyed and put back in the bag.

The aim of this workshop was to once again look into the creation/destruction cycle. To question and challenge the endless loop of creation and destruction. The final act of putting the clay back in the bag symbolise the continuous transformation of the object, that it will be used again and the cycle will never end.

I loved listening to the feedback about the workshop from the group – and, as we all agreed on, it should have lasted way longer than just 20 mins. The intuitive nature of the workshop proved to be effective for everyone, each person got into the rhythm of destroying and creating and destroying and creating and wanted to keep going! The playful aspect of the workshop was most enjoyable for everyone as well, the individuality of it and curiosity of what will come next.

Overall I think it was a very successful idea. It worked on so many levels and for each person differently. Even with our limitations like tech issues or low budget solutions it went exactly as planned and forced participants to reflect on the deeper meaning of the cycle of creation/destruction.

tutorial

During my tutorial with Miranda, I pitched an idea of creating a virtual space for my project. A 360 degrees image that the audience can ‘enter’ and be IN the film. I want the viewers to experience the film as one experiences a real like space such as a forest or a beach.

As an example of artist using a virtual reality, Miranda proposed Marina Abramovic‘s piece The Life. Over the course of six days in February 2019 the performance artist Marina Abramović (b. 1946) invited members of the public to London’s Serpentine Gallery to witness something that had never been done before. The Life — a 19-minute performance realised through volumetric capture and presented in Mixed Reality — was the first large – scale public exhibition of anything in this new medium. 

It was a natural extension of The Artist is Present  at MoMA, which in 2010 set the record for attendance at the museum with 850,000 visitors over three months — a record that remains unsurpassed. For The Life the concept was altogether different: can presence be conveyed even when the artist is elsewhere? The implications were both universal and eternal.

The artist performs in the virtual space in the gallery where really lies only a circular carpet among white walls. The event is choreographed to the specific capabilities of the technology — and feels absolutely real. Abramović explains that the work is about immortality: ‘Because you are there, preserved for ever.’

We are talking about something which is really capturing performance in its essence

Marina Abramovic

Main themes in The Life

  • immortality
  • the artist’s presence
  • experience of the piece
  • essence of performance
  • ‘real time’

Another artist that Miranda suggested I should look into is Ron Mueck. His work is highly different from mine – he creates a detailed realistic human figure sculptures, while playing with the scale making them smaller or bigger than normally. However, the aim of his work is  to capture the feeling of key moments in our passage through life which is illusively similar to my own. He wants the audience to focus on the unspoken. On merely an emotion. Through the sculptures of human body he presents new sensation, the ‘out-of-body’ experience that leads to contemplation about the body itself and its role to the understanding each other.

week 9

of course I am emotional

Concept :

Of course I am emotional is a meditative video focusing on a visual experience. It explores the perception of human body in the context of nature, while being a subtle admiration of the body. This short experimental film visualises a sensation, an emotion, it is a love letter to the body. It’s main focus lays in realising how important the body really is, how impactful on the outside world, on other people and on ourselves. It is a reminder that the body is a reflection of our lives and a place to live in, a home.

Stills from my almost finished project:

inspirational Aber

I was astonished by the variety of projects and ideas presented by my peers. While talking to Maï-Lyng and Anna S. I noticed that somehow almost every project was connected to the sea. Either it was as pebbles on the beach, a sea creature or pictures of sea foam, every piece was inspired by the place we all stuck in during the pandemic – which is here, Aberystwyth. Being here plays an enormous part in our creation, through inspiration to realisation, the atmosphere of this town fuels our creativity in multiple ways!

week 10

the last touch

While editing my film I was using the green screen technique, since I have recorded all of my videos on a blue/green sea background I was able to use this technique to create somewhat of a collage in a moving image. My goal was to create an illusion of continually transforming body, merging with the background and other figures visible in the video.

I have noticed, however, that the quality of the video drastically drops when using this method. This is a matter that I will work on in the second semester. Maybe using a better camera or changing the surroundings (the dark room with just projector light) of the shooting will improve the final quality of the video.

As for the sound for my video, I went with Miranda suggestion and messaged my classmate Isaac, who was making sea and water recording earlier in the semester. He was using a Hydrophone that allowed him to take a clear sound recordings. His experimentations and process is on his page under the name Isaac Peat.

week 11

instalife

As a member of a Marketing Team, I was in charge of maintaining the instagram page for the exhibition. My project was finished so I could focus on gathering informations and pictures about my peers projects, and uploading them on instagram. As it usually happens during short deadlines like this, not all of participants send their projects descriptions, however, it doesn’t influenced the promotion much. Here came the last week before the big event.

week 12

THE WINTER SHOW 2020

Unfortunately I couldn’t participate in the Winter Show rehearsal due to some technical problems with my computer (meaning I have forgotten to bring to Poland an adapter for my laptop charger and had to run to the shop in the search for one loosing all the rehearsal…).

The Winter Show itself was a quite disappointing experience for me. The visual quality of every piece drastically dropped, was blocky, not mentioning about loosing the sound in almost all the projects. All my friends and family who watched the exhibition felt like as an audience they were excluded in many parts from getting the proper feel of the projects.

As an artist, I was extremely nervous about my presentation so I prepared a list of talking points to make sure I won’t forget to mention any of the crucial aspects of my work – for that I thank myself, because in the right moment the stress got the best of me and my mind went blank, if not for the cheat sheet I would not be able to put together the however miserable introduction I have given.

Even though I was aware the quality of my video dropped due to exporting issues I have encountered, I must admit I was pleased with my final project. Unfortunately the audience was deprived (or maybe spared) from it. The sound, especially the beginning of my video, was drowned out and distorted. The video itself was lacking any fluidity of motion, and was almost presented frame by frame. For obvious reasons I was absolutely devastated by that outcome. I tried focusing on the positive sides of the Winter Show exhibition, but the negatives have won and I am left completely dissatisfied and discouraged… For now, I am hoping that soon enough we’ll be able to present our work in a regular manner, in a gallery, around people.


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