cfcamproposal-blog

[cfcamproposal-blog]

Sublime Meme Proposal For my CAM projection I’d like to create a kinetic figural compositions. Each composition will stay on screen for a significant amount of time, and will move only slightly. Formally speaking, the compositions will be strongly horizontal, spanning the entire length of the given stage.  The figures themselves will be stagnant beings  that breathe, turn, maybe even gesture but ultimately exist in limbo. Each image will be itself plotless but when stringed together, the images will form a subtle narrative (which I will go into later). The compositions will engage time, cutting, and cropping as elements of filmic representation. The environments will be captured with a camera then manipulated digitally using motion graphics and VFX techniques to supply the movement. The figures will be cartoons superimposed into the environments. I’ll be working with various photographs for each composition to create depth through layering. Certain compositions may be purely environmental, to heighten the sublime effect. This will partially be an exercise in character /environmental design (what/who is being depicted, where are they and what they do.), and partially an exercise in filmic formal articulation (how is screened figure constructed in our minds, etc. how ). 

Tonally, this piece will draw from the excess of internet/digital visuality without itself being cluttered or overwhelming in any way. It will attempt to be sublime, weightless, ethereal and “timeless” (in the way that the sea is timeless) while using contemporary imagery & character. I intend to accomplish this through pacing, lighting, and quality of movement, and environment choice. Figural scale may also play a role here (large environments with small figures, contrasted with more close up shots). I may also want the piece to be funny.The subject matter of this project has to do most generally with religious experience and technology as analogues. The two characters will reoccur: a mortal human and an angel. To say that the angel “represents digital technology” is not exactly true, but I want the two to be associated. The mortal character will be androgynous or female. Over the course of the piece the angel will emerge from the human, the human will worship the angel as it changes form from naturalistic to loosely representational to abstract, then the two figures will merge (perhaps the human like eats the angel, I’m not sure). On a symbolic level, these steps follow a track of nature worship / animism, to idol worship/ image veneration to the worship of a unifying/universal concept. The formal quality will do most of the work of connecting these concepts to technology, but there may be actually depictions of machines or machine-like versions of the angel as well. I’m also considering having certain compositions contain multiple mortal figures to hint at the social or even political aspects of religion, but this won’t be the focus of the piece. The movement of the piece is analogous to humanity’s progression from thoughtless animal (apes) to thoughtless god (endless worship in heaven, meditation, nirvana) , with consciousness and the supremacy of representation sandwiched between.