flliot

[flliot]

. My main concept was and first idea was based on the generation and universal feeling of satisfaction associated with bright colours and the other sense of satisfaction felt with a sense of nostalgia. The overall feeling of visual satisfaction was a goal, a broad subject in which to focus but broken down into two core themes for the purpose of the final subject. The visual stylings I primarily chose to go for were reminiscent of 80s and 90s pop culture and the colours seen and the analysed in Warhol pieces. The intrigue in the satisfactory enticing use of bright colours arose from my intrigue in a bright pastel colours seen whist scrolling though Instagram. The idea of something so simple catching my eye intrigued me and is something I thought I could use to intrigue others when looking at my works. I decided not to just focus on pastel colours but the popular use of bright colours in media and in art as a whole. When I also focused on the visual elements and inclusion of nostalgia as a smaller accompanying theme to the use of colour I focused on editing the videos down to be reminiscent of 90s/80s graphic design styling. I myself felt nostalgia looking at the visual imperfections that show a lower standard of presentation and modelled the feeling of nostalgia to that what made me feel nostalgia and that I suspect others will too. The LO-FI aesthetic with the bright colours were important in the chemistry they had together as it made me feel like I was a child being bombarded with bright coloured media and advertisements to grab my attention. I aimed to subconsciously evoke the feelings of nostalgia through the combination of the two as the mix really made the bright colours a lot more effective in their purpose of gaining attention.

However, as I began editing the videos down in a LOFI fashion it got me thinking a little bit about technology and the growing quality and dependence. This lead me to thinking about how children’s toys and advertisements have changed as well as stayed the same in some areas. The growing dependence and consistent use of technology, especially in the new and younger generation, was something that inexplicably felt unsettling to me and the use of technology to create virtual objects, shapes characters and visuals was also something that made me feel quite unsettled. Possibly because the growing quality in technology makes virtual visuals feel too real and then deceiving in nature. The idea of recreating a children’s toy shape virtually in a way no one, not even myself, could not physically touch or play with is something that touched upon the unsettling yet enticing themes I aimed for as well as the themes of nostalgia. An enticing colourful display that could be satisfactory in a visual sense but never touched for physical satisfaction. The Lo-Fi single standing TV also in my opinion helped emphasised this thought process as the TV works as a cage almost imprisoning this virtually created object and restrain it from being felt on looked upon.

However, I am quite disappointed in the overall scale of the project as I have only just scratched upon the surface of an interesting theme that could be explored over so many different forms of media in so many ways. For example, I would’ve liked to work on using some actual footage and edited it into my video for a longer duration as well as working more with some still standing graphic design work and maybe even mixed media scans. I would’ve also liked to work with audio to accompany the video as music could’ve improved the overall video dramatically and is something I did experiment with when using some of my experiments, a satisfactory enticing audio made myself in logic could’ve brought a whole new theme to the project. I would’ve also like to have found a way on using multiple screens to increase the size of the display without using a projector as it would’ve developed more on my nostalgia theme that also could’ve been further developed in scale through more research on 90’s and 80’s culture for more visual influence and inspiration. But overall I am quite pleased with my end result and do think it touches upon all of my key themes (Satisfactory use of nostalgia, colour and unsettling technological dependency) .

[flliot]

For my final video I decided on combining a couple of my most successful experiments as well as the videos already chosen and exclusively made for my final animation the end result was a video spanning across my various and primary themes directed toward certain aspects with relevant and fitting styles I was overall very impressed with my final video file. There was a linear order of arrangement starting with a simple use of colour and style progressively getting more and more distorted and throwing more and more colours at the viewer with time to keep attention pulled onto the video at all time.  The display was also meant to appear innocent at first but progressively get a little more unsettling with every selection of clip, this was to get across the use of colour and intrigue that follows with bright colours masking the pointless meaning of the overall video and the unsettling nature of the technological failures. The repetition is also involved with the text and the bouncing ball original clip as I thought the animation of the ball with the message ‘buy’ was something that should remain prominent due to the inspiration of bright eye catching colours being used to draw attention over the actual purpose of the text. After multiple viewings you realise the text becoming more and more noticeable over the colour in the realisation that the colours of the video have completely dominated your centre of attention with the video along with the shapes homed by the colours.

[flliot]

I tested the quality of the TV to see if it fit the theme I was going for by burning a DVD of one of my earlier videos and playing it on the TV without a DVD menu also to see if it would loop. I was very impressed with the results as the quality was exactly what I was looking for in terms of satisfactory nostalgia. There was also an option on the TV to increase the saturation and contrast. After doing this the colour was near perfect to how I imagined and it was successfully eye catching in a light and dark environment. The TV was also perfect size to transport as well as easy to set up with a long plug meaning I may only need one extension cord and splitter.

[flliot]

After exporting and converting the animation to MP4 I edited in SonyVegas again as I done for my other videos the finished result was something I was very impressed with addressing all of my themes more accurately than all of my previous animations and showing the medias use of bright colours for eye catching colours to promote their products, this was not my main focus in theme but I thought the ‘BUY’ was a nice nod to my influence in colour scheme as it adds the look of a vintage toy advert with the colour use. Although this may confuse some viewers into thinking that the video has been made to look like an advert. The overall theme of this animation is to draw attention by the use of colour in a childlike demander making the viewers of all age realise they are still enticed by such old fashioned ways of colour use. The LOFI is to give more of nod toward the colour method being used for multiple generations and connecting the difference in generation as most people are still bombarded with bright colours to draw attention still in this day and age.

[flliot]

Before I decided on which of my experiments I was going to incorporate into my final video project I decided on creating a video more relevant to my themes and a lot simpler in design that has more obvious visual connections to my themes. I decided to incorporate only one shape to this animation as I was primarily focusing on the spherical shape of a children’s toy e.g. a Bouncy ball or football. I also decided to make this object bounce in a repetitive fashion that would be almost hypnotic and entrancing in the repetition used. The idea for the repetition came from the way Warhol used sets of 4 and grids in his work as I previously pointed out the repetition works on searing an image into someone’s head and becomes a lot more noticeable and eye catching as the same image is use multiple times there will be only that to focus on. However, saying that I would like to position this animation in with my other experiments but use this as the forefront and head of the video beginning and ending with this animation. I also plan on editing the animation in the lo-fi fashion I have done with the rest of my works.

[flliot]

[flliot]

I went out and found a perfect lo-fi television in a charity shops, showing sign of usage and wear n tear. It was perfect and the quality was no way near high definition. The low quality visual display and the built in DVD layer means I had a perfect way of feeding my video onto the TV, if I was to create a DVD without a menu option it would loop infinitely until it was switched off making it very convenient for the exhibition space. I also picked up a small table suitable for holding the TV. A vintage looking single standing table that would suit the themes of a TV playing a brightly coloured video similar to an advertisement.

[flliot]

After thinking of ways to present my video in the gallery space I began drawing down some of my presentation ideas and ultimately making one that I think would be more suitable for my show space. I was very keen on the idea of using multiple screens of some sort to show my idea in the space. However, I was forced to think more practically with the supplies and finances I had I made a sketch of a more practical idea that I know I could create with 100% confidence and certainty as I could get a hold of the supplies needed easily and it would also work with the themes of my idea. The idea of using just one lo-fi screen instead of multiple monitors seemed like the best idea as it would directly support the idea of bright satisfactory colours being used in adverts by showing the lo-fi video I created and all its bright colours on an old TV that you might’ve seen a similar looking colour based advert on in the past. Also this idea would physiologically play on the nostalgia elements of colour use and video style as the model of TV I have in mind is one dating back to the 90s or early 2000s.

I also had the idea to suspend multiple monitors up to create a subtle correlation in scale to when the viewer might’ve been younger and bombarded with brightly coloured adverts as they would be looking up at the screens and as there was multiple it would make the picture seem a lot larger as well as force them to feel small by having to look up. However, supporting this many screens may be hard to achieve as well as compromise the rail structure its on as the gallery space’s lower rails are only made to support the lights placed on them. It would also be difficult to connect all of the power cables as well as connect them all up to the laptop playing the video.

[flliot]

After adding the displacement and lo-fi editing including the level altering, colour correction, selective colour, alpha channels and rendering I realised that this was a video perfectly capturing the essence of my themes on colourful unsettling retro looking advertising graphic design style. It managed to address all of my themes directly by bring bright as well as simultaneously distorted in an artificial unsettling fashion. The colours bounce of each other even more with the altered levels and the key framed colour correction.  He backgrounds 80s grid graphic also works well in suggesting he satisfactory nostalgia factor I was looking for. The subtle themes I was striving for with the collaboration of satisfaction taken in through visuals has been achieved with the nostalgia and bright colours to match. The bright coloured FUN in the middle of the sphere contributes toward the themes of bright enticing videos used for children’s toy adverts, playing on the visual power of bold colour use.

[flliot]

I began combining some of my most successful concepts that met my themes most accurately, I used a series of MP4 and alpha channels to create a layered system of video merging along with some distinct and edited Chroma key layers working as green screens for designated colours on the video. I also rendered the video multiple ties in a preview format to decrease the videos quality of a whole and make the videos look like the fit together more suitably.  However, I was still far from editing the video down in my lo-fi fashion with the displacement mapping and various other colour key framing. I think that this video works to address the colourful, enticing themes with success, the mix of colours works well and still manages not to not look dull even with the incorporation of black. The colour black helps to bring out the purple lines and colourful ball in my opinion as well bringing attention to the cinema 4D animation and the FUN floating around inside. However, the small areas of blue that I couldn’t managed to Chroma key stands out as an imperfection but I suppose that this minor inconvenience supports my themes of technological dependency and imperfection that can become unsettling .

[flliot]

After establishing the kind of theme that I was going for in presentation I began experimenting by merging some of my cinema 4D project files together and brainstorming how I was going to combine them to create the final video I would like to present with the exhibition. I was surprisingly confident in all of my experimentation and only wanted to merge the ones I had the most interest in relating to my spherical theme. I merged the two FUN text animations in the transparent sphere to create a seemingly abstract presentation with drastic changes in colour and style frequently occurring approximately every second of the video. The idea was by using the text FUN in the spherical shape was meant to suggest a certain playful theme to that reminiscent of a vintage toy advertisement using digitally created graphics in a colourful and enticing display. I however incorporated the unsettling aspects of digital dependence with the visual glitches and the ruff transitions and cut loop back to the beginning. This representing the themes of technological dependence and development of what our new generation depends on for entertainment.  This was a strong contender for my finished piece as the seemingly positive music with the distorted painful to listen to audio distortion compliments my enticing yet unsettling themes, it also touched on all of my themes and ideas and was one of my most strongest visual pieces that was relevant to my overall project.

[flliot]

Inspired by how Nam June Paik displayed his digital works I put together a design in Photoshop of an idea on how I could present my animation lo-fi video, I decided to attempt to recreate the way in which Paik uses multiple monitors to display his works in added detail and size. Granted I will not know how hard it is to put together and work until I have all of the equipment necessary to do so. I have thought about using multiple hidden DVD players and looped burned DVD discs. I think the videos would be out of sync in theory but I think this would add to the theme of technological dependence. I do see a lot of problems this design could pose also though. For example, old lo-fi televisions are very heavy and to have 4 as well as 4 DVD players would take up multiple power slots around the room as well as being hard to transport to the space. It would also be quiet expensive as well as being not worth putting together if I was unsure. I will take this idea into account and expand on it as I am very keen on the idea similar to Paik’s on using multiple monitors to display my idea. I may have to think of other forms of technology in which I could do so and failing that I shall use a projector but first I would like to experiment further with the video and the way in which I present it.

[flliot]

Looking for more inspiration on how I could present my idea I visited the Tate modern in London to gain more inspiration. There were many ways in which digital displays were showcased around the gallery spaces. The first image showcasing the wall to wall projection spanning over every wall leaving no blank space. This made for an encapsulating piece that was impossible not to look at as it was everywhere totally immersing the audience viewers with an array of colour. This played on my initial ide of projection as seen here when it is done right it can make for an incredible presentation, however I do not have an entire room to my disposable and wouldn’t be able to make an engaging experience such as this one. There were many pieces all the way throughout the gallery using lo-fi televisions, in such a modern gallery space the presence of old school televisions made the works on them stand out a lot more compared to some of the other pieces I my opinion. This got me thinking about how I could make me piece stand out more as well, also using old school televisions would play on my theme of satisfactory nostalgia in its aesthetic and sound. The use of a television or old school technology is something that I should think about when deciding to present my work.

[flliot]

For inspiration on how I could present my idea physically on display I visited the Ikon gallery and focused on how the space was used. The Roger Hiorns exhibition was displayed heavily by objects being suspended from the ceiling the representation being an eye level making a more personal engagement between the work and the viewer audience. I think making a piece eye level as he has done makes for a really interesting representation as having a table or platform underneath sometimes takes away from the individual subject representation. This meant there was only the subject to be focused on which in my personal opinion worked in favour of his show. It also helps the space to appear to be more open although it would be in the same space if it were on a platform or stand. The ‘Untitled 2014’ piece I have presented images of was my personal favourite piece for this reason as it really made me feel as though I had entered a unique space although it was only a blank room at first. Again as I previously talked about, the repetition of this piece really ads to the effect making it a lot more intense and making the space really have an atmosphere that can be felt upon entering the room. However, I do not like the spacing between objects and don’t think, in my opinion, that it worked all too well. I think a more densely populated display would really increase the effectiveness of the space and work, bringing it a greater emphasis.

I also added a picture of a glitched out digital billboard I came across in the bullring as it intrigue me with its prominent and almost unignorably presence. So much so that the glitch was something that caught my eye instantly in the technological failure.

[flliot]

These are some pictures I taken after my first initial visit to the gallery space. I noticed the spacious environment and the natural lighting through the big window. One of my initial ideas on how I could present my idea in this space is using a projector as the white walls would be very useful in housing the projection presenting a clear image. This is probably the easiest way in which I could display my idea with the littlest possibly chance for failure in set up as there were many power supplies. I also noticed the beams on the ceiling beams. This means there is potential to keep some work suspended if light enough. After this visit I then realised that I should shift my focus on ideas on presenting the video before the initial rendering of the final video.

[flliot]

I decided to use a software with a much more flexible use and one that has much more potential uses. I used Adobe After effects to create a replica of the grid I made in Blender, however in After effects there was much more freedom to edit and to create animation as it specialised around video it would be of more use to me. Admittedly this programme was a lot more complex taking me a lot longer to get used to it. I also struggled to animate as it was like nothing I had used before. Nether the less I experimented all day with the software and managed to create a more accurate representation of my grid by altering the angles of a 3D pain I made and turned into a grid. I also added a glowing texture effect like I did in blender and then elongated it. Whilst editing the timeline animation I duplicated the channel so I could make it almost seemingly endless with slight imperfection. There was a gap and it did irritate me as I spent hours trying to fix it but ultimately could not find a way. I accepted this and then proceeded to duplicate what I had created and flip it in a 180-degree angle creating the illusion of an endless grid tunnel. I also proceeded to add some dynamic lighting to the scene using the plug in that came with the software. I then proceeded to render this animation as an MP4 and then open it into Sony Vegas before editing its saturation and quality to make it look convincingly lo-fi.