Having further play with how to implement some movement into stills, again the fact that these are stills and not video footage is making the movements far less subtle as well as highlighting the fact that they are separate images. but a test worth while. I’ll probably have to do his in after effects possibly as I have no idea how Processing handles Gifs and whether or not you can control the speed, playhead position etc.
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CrudeTest
Playing around very crudely and quickly with how to initiate some subtle movements into final piece. Cinemagraph made form crappy stills camera…..video footage works so much better as you can break down subtle movements into frames and get a more subtle effect, plus a tripod would have been useful. This again is an attempt to make the viewer aware of their own presence and create some self reflection. From project meeting it was brought up that subtle movements by themselves will make the viewer self aware. As a quick sketch I think that this is something that I can incorporate into project but obviously need to work on the technique a bit more and use video footage…even quick shutter and fps will not look smooth.
Reality/ Simulation/ Hyperreality
As a photographer – I come from a background of being absorbed by the debate – from the beginning of the photographic process there have been discussion about the truth of the photograph. Now technology with digital photography things are openly fake, i’m interested to see how much we are willing to believe. The balance of truth in todays photography.
Critics have said that we use (Robins) this new technology (digital) to escape form the real World and our fears and to substitute an interaction with the World. With digital media hyperrealities are therefor created. I’m interested on how the dialogue of truth has progressed.
Chemical photography may construct a reality but at least it was the result form an encounter with the real World. This process has now been broken down into binary numbers taking the real and representing it as numbers. It therefore suggests that this process can be reversed and that the numbers can create a reality of their own. Where those the truth lie in this ‘derealised’ (Lister, Martin) World.
These hyperrealities and simulations are not there to imitate the real as photography set out to do, but are creations of their own.
Idea Development
My idea is to create an interactive postcard like image. Traditionally a Postcard shows a view that the individual can purchase and claim as their own. They own it, they have seen this. They are not saying that it has seen them. They are in control of it. They buy a postcard and send it as part of their experience of the place, they are fully in control of the event even down to how they describe it and who they send it to.
A view that is bought, translated by an individual and invites others to view their interpretation. I wish to subvert this… the closer they look the less in control the viewer is. Creating an open discourse of who is the viewer and who is the viewed.
From afar the image will take the form of a recognisable seaside scene. As the viewer approaches the image, the image will zoom into a character that looks at viewer and tracks them around the space if they walk back again the image will return to its original format. If they approach another area of the image another area will be uncovered and zoomed into where another character reacts to the viewers position. I visualise this happening in three stages. Each level closer the viewer gets more becomes apparent of what the image holds.
I’m also hoping to touch upon several Irish legends and myth again to play with this idea of hyperreality. The Banshee and the Selkie would be interesting characters to elude to.
Modern Viewer
The process of a spectator spending hours in front of a single image absorbed in its narrative is being replaced in the digital era by a process in which the spectator expects “the stimulus of continual visual transformation” (Vaughan, 2005:5).
Idea progression
Found this very interesting implementation of Flash that just so happened to coincide with reading that I’ve been doing.
http://www.kubikfoto.de/Kubikfotos/Kegelbahn//Kegelbahn_full.html
Coming form a photographic background the image/ photograph to me still has a resonant truthfulness/ reality or power over the viewer. However, from its invention people/ artists/ photographers have played with this idea of reality. This has resulted in the questioning of the photographic image as fact.
There has always been discourse on the ‘truthfulness’ of the photograph, even more so now with digital technology. Now with digital technologies where hyperrealities can be created I am interested in drawing upon this. Hyperrealities have many critics who mention that these are a means of escape from actuality or a form of fantasy. I wish to draw upon the themes of ‘truthfulness’ and escape by creating a power struggle between the image and the viewer. I wish to highlight that these discourses are forever in flux as our technologies change. My initial idea is to create some sort of little brother system that is integrated within an environment that is recognisable as safe or traditional within the medium of photography. Questioning who is the viewer and the viewed.
“There is a natural suspicion of environments that seem to be ‘alive’, and aware of the visitors presence It is unnerving to feel that free and spontaneous actions are being recorded and that they have become active agents within an unseen world” (Colson, Richard The Fundamentals of Digital Art p64)
Code Play 2
Sketch for drawing matrices from James Davoll on Vimeo.
video of image render … still need to link to video capture for dynamic image that is never finished. the idea of a computer continually drawing using pixel analysis to make connections within screen.