Week 5

This week I worked mostly on the visual as I am not sure that my approach to sound (for this project) is the right one. On Tuesday I had my little brother come in to read some excerpts from Jacobi’s ‘The Psychology of Jung’. He is possibly the worst person to do this kind of thing but I had nobody else who could come in. My reasoning being that a voice is a voice and I could at least see what I could do, effects-wise, with a human voice. I played a little but can’t feel enthusiastic about the sound at the moment. The Aural aspect is very difficult and I can’t put my finger on why that is, so instead of grinding to a halt completely I opted to work on the visual proportion of the project for the rest of the week.

I threw some of the animations together in AfterFX, which works particularly well with the shadows. I will want to process the imagery in different ways for the final animation. I would like to do more with water, maybe dropping different substances in water and also using things like glycerine and other clear fluids that have a different level of viscosity. I would like to project the images onto a surface and film that, those kinds of things, a mix of digital compositing and manipulation on top of more traditional layering techniques.

After having to step back from the sound I have found something that could be described as a working methodology. I took a break from the practical work and tried to analyse exactly what it is that is halting my progress at the moment. I figured that the aural and the visual feed off each other in a particular way. For me I need a visual aesthetic in order to imagine what tone/shape/character the sound should have. In a practical sense this means that I need to make a decision on the overall visual aesthetic before I can decide what the individual sounds (which will eventually make up the composition) will sound like. This in
turn will lead to the composition stage where the aural will lead the visual.

http://freepdfhosting.com/749cd05349.pdf

Above is a link to download a .pdf which shows a model for my working practice for the masters project.

Week 4

I have been thinking a lot this week about the theory side of this project, specifically the relationship between psychoanalysis and art. I have been reading more things about Jung and his theories and have come across some of the theory on dreams and their meanings. One of the things that has struck me is that Jung’s theories centre on a balance or harmony of the conscious and unconscious with the view that communication between conscious and unconscious is of paramount importance and that creativity one way of reconciling any imbalance.

“The creative mind plays with the objects it loves” – Jung

To begin with it was a big step to move away from character-based animation into something more abstract, but in a way it is something that I have been unconsciously preparing for some time. Looking at my photography work and other little bits and pieces I have come to find that I often take pleasure in ‘playing’ with certain sounds, substances or objects almost absentmindedly in everyday life. The idea of using the sediment from the bottom of the rabbit food came to me after playing with the henna sediment that is always left after I dye my hair. I like the way that the water makes its path through the grains and the way that the individual grains behave as part of the mass.

I enjoy the idea that parts of the unconscious regularly assert themselves in the form of dreams, fantasies and creativity. This actually fits quite well with my own personal direction, leaving behind vain attempts to storyboard in favour of a more instinctual approach to my practice. I have found that this suits me much better then trying to plan things that seemingly cannot be planned for. If psychologists like Jung were correct in their theories about artists, we have little control over our creativity anyway. For the most part I can accept that I am far happier when I am in a position to express myself creatively than I have been during times when I have had to repress those urges.

Part of me is curious as to what the materials that I use say about me as a person/artist. Elizabeth is macabre to say the least and she has been in the bulk of my character-based stop-motion, in fact I think it’s fair to say that she is a part of my own character. This is where my interest in Jung’s ‘shadow’ archetype really comes into play if I were to analyse myself, and my own practice, using his archetypal theory. I’m not sure where playing with light and texture comes into the theory. At the moment I am working on trying to make distinct definitions between what should be created for each archetype (persona/animus/shadow) and what their relationship should be. If we are to relate directly to the theory it would seem that the persona and animus have a fairly close relationship, with one feeding from the other.

Wednesday of this week has been given over to the sound aspect of the project. I am beginning to see that I may have been wrong to try and reign myself in to producing 3 sounds and 3 images in such a regimented way. I have found that instead of sticking to ‘the plan’ I have deviated slightly and although I have made valuable decisions about the project I haven’t yet done what I set out to do. Some of this relates directly to the decision to use voice for the sound design rather than instruments or other noise-making objects. As I hadn’t planned on doing this previously I have only really recorded sounds made using various objects. Today I have felt a little like I am at a loss as what to do with the rest of this unit. I could go through with what I proposed, using the artefacts that I have already gathered. This would mean that I am sticking to my brief and seeing it out until the end. I could also continue with the brief but re-record the sounds using only voice, this would be far more useful and I could start to investigate tonal qualities and look into how best to use voice in my Masters project. I could also ignore the plan entirely and let nature take its course as such, this would be a way of taking the theory literally and seeing what might pop out of my own psyche. I think I will probably opt to switch over to using voice and basically follow the brief that I set myself. However, this may be an indication that I should be less rigid in my next self-negotiated project and that I should give myself more room to experiment.

Instead of abandoning my time in the MA sound room I decided to look at what I have got in terms of sound and look at applying the sounds to some of the animation that I have done over the last few weeks. I find myself looping sounds quite a lot. I applied a fat EQ to the 1st sound clip that I had and found that it was actually a space in between the performed sound that I liked the best. I looped it and looped a part of the rabbit food animation to see how they would exist alongside each other. I’m not sure that this has been that helpful so I will probably need to step away and reassess how to approach this.

Week 3 photos

Here are the photos that I mentioned in the diary for week 3. I have been taking this type of photograph for a while, just for fun. Looking at the photos has given my some further inspiration and will hopefully help me decide on the right techniques/look for the animation.

Week 3 Animation1

Week 2/3 Mindmap

This is the mind-map that I produced to help keep track of some of my thinking during the project. The only issue with using the mind-mapping software is that the document can become to large to view everything at once. However, once a mind-map has been produced you convert it into an essay plan

Week 3

I booked the animation room on weds to play with some shadows and other materials. It wasn’t a particularly productive session as I am not sure I like much of what I produced but I think it has brought me a step closer to deciding on a working method. I like the idea of limiting the type of animation that I will use, that way the project will be concise and there won’t be too much meandering. I would like to use mainly shadow, light, water and reflections.

I have come to realise that some of my photography work, which I previously believed to be relatively unrelated to my animation practice would be extremely relevant to this project. Some of my photography over the past few years has focussed on light/dark and reflections. I have large groups of images that have been obtained in several different ways but have a similar quality. These images, though removed from my animation work, reflect the aesthetic that I would like to achieve for the Masters project.

On Thursday I had a tutorial with Tom and we discussed several option for sound design. Using water, both visually and in the sound track would be interesting and we talked about using underwater microphones to record the sound of running or moving water. I feel that there needs to be something to tie the image and sound together if I am to just use voice for the musical composition. If I recorded water noises and then use them kind of like a filter to give any other sounds a water-like quality this would go further to help tie the sound to the image.

Friday was spent on research and more software training, this time on text reader program, which will certainly help with written work and some of the reading that needs to be done. I feel that I should see if I can talk to someone who is more knowledgeable than me in the field of psychoanalysis, possibly one of the art school critical studies tutors or someone at the UEA. I feel that I should try and further my understanding of this area of psychology before I get too into the masters project. I have read some bits here and there but a discussion would probably help a lot.

Week 2

Unfortunately most of this week was taken up with work at City College and waiting to get my new laptop etc delivered. I wasted a whole day on Wednesday waiting for a delivery that eventually arrived at 8.30pm! Fortunately I was able to reschedule my installation and tuition for Friday so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

We had a surprise critique on Thursday that was helpful. I presented my work last and we were running out of time so I didn’t get much feedback but I did get the chance to put some of my ideas past people. After the crit I have decided to limit the sounds used on my masters project to human voice sounds, possibly speech as opposed to other mouth sounds. I feel that this sits better with the psychoanalysis theory as it pertains to people/humans.

So far I have made a few decisions that mostly relate to the masters project as a whole rather than just this self-negotiated unit.

I have decided to apply the following structure:

• The triptych will be based on Persona/Animus/Shadow with a view to the whole project representing The Self.
• The sound will be produced using voice.
• The animation will appear organic in some way.

There are other things that I haven’t made a decision about.

• Colour, am I going to use colour as a tool?
• How abstract should this be?
• What order to do things in?

I think that maybe my brief for this unit should have been less restrictive. I shouldn’t have reigned myself in to producing a set amount of animations/sound clips I should have just given myself freedom in order to hone down my ideas. Its like I need the space to expand before I can work on being concise.

Friday. Today I met with the software trainer and went over the new hardware/software that was provided through the DSA. The software that we looked at uses mind maps as a basis to devise essay structures. I have started to make a mind map of my masters project which is divided into the self negotiated units so that I can see what needs to happen where. It was relatively quick and simple to create a complex mind map with quite a lot of detail on it. I also learned how to organise my citations in MS Word.