jademessihadad1002-blog

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Audio Tracking

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Our Final Meditative Script

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Research

In writing our script, we have taken some inspiration from teacher, author and clinical psychologist Sarah Edelman (PhD). Her relaxation audio’s offer great insight into an accredited source in creating relaxation, self-reflection, and for releasing anxiety. 

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‘A meditative experience’

For our group task we are going to be focusing on the concept of a ‘meditative experience’ including recording of audio, projections and script delegating our event. Our key themes are going to be reflection and /or desire. The plan is to hire out the black box room and bring in experience based objects such as incense to set the scene. 

the idea is to inspire a cognitive experience, where stimulation of the cognitive mind is engaged and the viewer feels a sense of tranquility. The video is aimed for the viewer to have a 3rd person experience and gather information that gives the viewer that sense of meditation. This focuses on the human experience, and the virtual experience.

I have referred to the text “The Embodied Mind: Cognitive science and human experience” found through UNSW library which speaks of concepts such as mindfulness, the function of the cognitive brain and how we experience being what we aim to encapsulate through our video. The book states 

“This is the era of body, particularly of the brain. New techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and an enhanced electroencephalogram (EEG) have made it possible to observe changes in blood flow and electrical activity in the brain in real time, thus providing a window into the relation between thoughts, emotions, and brain activity. Increasingly the prevailing assumption in psychology, cognitive science, and many other fields is that the mind (and hence experience) is just the brain and that the gold standard for studying anything human is to observe changes in the brain.”

This touches on the human experience and the way that our brain registers perception in experience. Our meditative experience is about external influences being experienced in the internal and the philosophy behind meditation itself and its effects.

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James Turrell specialises in light and experience installations. One of my favourites was his permanent installation in Canberra as part of his ‘skyspaces’. These serine environments created a meditative experience in themselves and explore the theory of light in a really interesting way.

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Osmose, Char Davies

Char Davies’ work Osmose, is an interactive virtual reality work that looks at the individual's place within the world and ecosystem, instigating self-reflection. The VR work explicitly connects its users with the interactive oasis they are submerged in through the process of navigation via breathing.  Additionally, Osmose utilities localised music to magnify the user-experience.  These heightened sensations of sound, breathing, and movement allows users to rediscover forgotten aspects of themselves re-establishing their perception of their lives within reality. 

I really like these aspects in Davies work and think it would be really interesting to use these ideas to promote self-reflection in the creation of our event.

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The group has decided to work with a live experience for the class rather than a video, this is a much more effective and immersive approach, experiencing our made environment first hand. I found this video which was a really interesting and engaging example of a live experience.

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Pipilotti Rist - Sip My Ocean

Pipilotti Rist's, Reflective Installation Sip My Ocean. The space she creates establishes a reflective, meditative environment and it would be good to include aspects of her works in the creation of our own meditative event. 

- Sound, audio track

- Beanbags, beds, spaces to recline

- Immersive projections

- Lighting 

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Meditation

“Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique, such as focusing their mind on a particular object, thought or activity, to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state”

Our group has decided to do a mediation event for Assessment three, where we would have audio, and a script to send our class into a relaxed and reflective zone. We are thinking of hiring a room to create a little space that has meditative aspects in it, such as beanbags, fairy lights, and ideally, we would have incense or candles, but because the fire alarms we might just have to use perfume. 

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Glitch exercise with photoshop and audacity 

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Interference/ glitch

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Final Work - Glacial Glitch

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Concept Statement

Glacial Glitch, 2018

Oil on Canvas, video, projector. 

July 2018 I visited Alaska, visiting glaciers in Juneau, Skagway and along the Tracey Arm Fjord. Their sights weren’t only breathtaking but inspiring. Researching into the glaciers I found that they are facing massive retreats, losing meters and meters of ice a year all as a result of global warming. The negative repercussions of this loss of glacial ice means there will be detrimental to both society and the environment. Rises in sea levels will lead to flooding of coastal homes, the loss of glacial runoff will cut off clean water supplies for rural communities and the globe will be at a loss of a spectacular ruin of the ice age. 

The organic and synthetic are intrinsically connected to each other. We could not have the synthetic without the organic existing before it. When looking at the two binaries it is important to realise that they are not distinct from each other but correlate. The synthetic is an adaption of the organic often to enhance qualities of the organic. Through my work Glacial Glitch I aim to analyse and question the potential impact synthetic forces would have on organic structures such as glaciers. Could they potentially preserve the environmental ruins? Synthetic recreations of environments are seen all over the world, creating virtual spaces of both man-made and environmental structures. Las Vegas exhibit an indoor Venice and Disney Lands Epcot showcase a series of different cultured lands. Would it not be possible to recreate glacial landscapes in order to preserve their aesthetic qualities to promote tourism? Or is there the potential that synthetic devices could be put in place to preserve segments of glaciers?

My work encompasses an oil painting of Mead Glacier, adapted from a photograph I took when I hiked along the glacier. Additionally a video work of the same photo but glitched is projected onto the painting. I worked with both the mediums separately at first in my experiments, testing out ideas and different mediums, however, I felt that combining the two together would make for a cohesive, resolved work that would successfully convey my ideas. The two components together question the relationship the synthetic has over the organic, and how there are un-engaged possibilities that the synthetic could have over preserving the organic. It additionally looks at synthetic reproductions and in reverse organic reproductions related both to materiality and conceptuality. 

The process of my work involved with manipulating a photograph I took of Mead Glacier. I went into photoshop and edited the image to illustrate a painterly quality that I could translate into my oil painting. I primed my canvas, painted an underlayer in acrylic and then added multiple oil layers to resolve my painting. For my glitched video, I used the same photograph, editing different layers with distortion filters and playing it in a timeline setting on photoshop. It is then that I exported it to be displayed on the painting using a projector. I researched many different artists, first looking at artists who played with different mediums that deteriorated over time however moved on from this idea and looked at youtube artists who manipulated photographs and heavily looked into research of glaciers around the world to help inform my work. 

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Bibliography

Global Greenhouse Warming, "Glacial Retreat.". in Global-greenhouse-warming.com, 2018, <http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/glacial-retreat.html> [accessed 14 September 2018].

Photoshop Tutorials | Photo effects, How to Create GLITCH ANIMATION in Photoshop | GIF Effect Tutorial. in , , 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anDvD_qzbOM> [accessed 10 September 2018].

United Nations Environment Programme, GLOBAL OUTLOOK FOR ICE AND SNOW: HIGHLIGHTS. in, United Nations Environment Programme, 2007.

Interactive Multimedia Design, "Time-Based Art.". in Interactive Multimedia Design, 2011, <https://mcparlandp.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/time-based-art/> [accessed 8 September 2018].

O'Sullivan, J, "Artist interview: Tim Silver - Art Collector.". in Artcollector.net.au, 2011, <http://www.artcollector.net.au/ArtistinterviewTimSilver> [accessed 8 September 2018].

tutvid, How to Create 5 Amazing Glitch Effects in Photoshop!. in , , 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmxf3m2o13k> [accessed 7 September 2018].

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Experiment 4

For this experiment I wanted to try working with a different medium being paint. My aim was to reproduce a photo that had been synthetically manipulated using photoshop in an organic nature. I used oil paint, first priming my canvas, underpainting using acrylic and then building up layers with a minimised oil pallet. I really like the overall outcome and abstract aesthetic of the painting however I feel as if the photo and the painting are missing a sense of correlation and connection. For my final work I will aim to bring these two together.

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Research

Glacier Study

Recently I travelled to Alaska and had the opportunity to hike along and view a few Glaciers. They are fastly retreating due to Global Warming.

 ‘Since 1980 a significant global warming has led to glacier retreat becoming increasingly rapid and ubiquitous, so much so that many glaciers have disappeared and the existence of a great number of the remaining glaciers of the world is threatened.’ - (http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/glacial-retreat.html) 

“With few exceptions, all the alpine glaciers of the world are losing mass and it is predicted that this trend will continue as global warming progresses. Glaciers in alpine areas act as buffers. During the rainy season, water is stored in the glaciers and the meltwater helps maintain river systems during dry periods. An estimated 1.5 to 2 billion people in Asia (Himalayan region) and in Europe (The Alps) and the Americas (Andes and Rocky Mountains) depend on river systems with glaciers inside their catchment areas. In areas where the glaciers are melting, river runoff will increase for a period before a sharp decline in runoff. Without the water from mountain glaciers, serious problems are inevitable and the UN’s Millennium Development Goals for fighting poverty and improving access to clean water will be jeopardized” - United Nations Environment Programme, 2007 Global Outlook for Ice and Snow.

It is through this research that I begin to wonder...What will havppen to these organic feats of ice when they no longer exist? What synthetic structures will have to be put in place in order to fufill their function to society and the environment. Is there a way synthetic devices can be used to preserve glaciers and their function?