Maps and Networks comes to an end

I have now come to the stage of this project where I have to think thoroughly about my installation while also finishing my project. I have my clips, and I just have to edit them properly - maybe remove some noise without losing too much information. But that comes further down in this post, first I want to talk about installation. 

Hallway Gallery - advantages/disadvantages

During my first presentation I said that I simply wanted to have three screens right next to one another in the hallway. A simple way of showing all three colours and the contrasts between them. Since then I have a thought about many different way of doing it - projection, have the screens on top of another, make a three wall thing in a corner - but they all sort of do the same, they just show the pictures without adding anything. The whole point of putting thought into your installation should be to a) give additional meaning to the project, and b) make people who pass by want to stop and have a closer look, preferably standing there for a while. At this point in my work I decided to do two pictures instead of one. This lead me to think about duality, and how I could show this through my installation. Red and blue are very contrasting colours that both catch the eye, and it is my thinking that if you put them right next to one another you might lose some of that, because they lessen each other. Another thing I wanted to show was that these emotions that the images are based on don't necessarily flood your mind at the same time - they usually linger in intervals. When you're extremely sad and lonely, you feel less passionate, but it is still there in the back of your mind waiting for its chance at the wheel again. 

To portray this I want to place my two screens on opposite walls. 

Considering that its a narrow corridor, and that at multiple point there is a wall directly on either side, I think it would be perfect to have one screen showing the blue footage on the left wall, and one screen showing the red footage on the right wall. That way when you look at one of them you have to turn your back to the other one, just the way emotions do. I think this definitely adds to my project and I hope it can be done. 

Completion of my work 

As I discussed in an earlier post I decided to switch over to Premiere Pro for my editing, as Photoshop didn't quite work out. To be honest that did simplify the process of my videos a lot, and maybe it very easy to complete this task. I simply made sure I had the point of where the screen/phone flickers off, and then alternate between normal footage and reversed footage to make it look more fluid. I did this in Premiere Pro, so that I also could add the tone and bars, and countdown clock. 

This is my finished work: 

Blue

This my final blue piece, without bars and clock. I feel like this video accurately depicts loneliness through colour and visuals. I am also satisfied with the flickering of the screen. Although a lot of people won't realise that it spells out S.O.S. I think it adds a lot to the project. 

Red

As you can see the red is slightly noiser than the blue. I tried very hard to get rid of this and by adjust the original light source, but what you see in the final version is the best I could get. I like the colours, and I like that it has captured an "intimate moment". I also think it works very well in comparison to the blue. 

-TJ

"were you ever happy? and if you were, did you realise at the time"

- the best years of our lives (2016-2026)

Loneliness, anger, happiness - and the headache of it all

After the presentation for this project I left that room with a number of thoughts swirling around inside my head. There were so many things I wanted to do with this project - things I wanted to accomplish, things I wanted to explore. One idea I liked a lot was the idea of changing the haiku I had planned to something a lot simpler, like "help" or "sos". No only does simplify my editing process, but it also fits the simplicity of my idea - the emotions I want to explore are after all basic; the primal feelings that we all feel. 

RED - SEX AND PASSION, image from foot end of bed, raised back, hand on wall, bathed in red light,

BLUE - LONELINESS, asleep in front of computer

YELLOW - HAPPINESS, two people eating together having a good time,

Later in the project I decided to not do yellow, as I feel like red and blue have a nice duality on their own. They are both darkly lit, and portray strong passionate emotions, while yellow might look like an odd out. I also had an idea for how to present it in my installation that would suit two screens better than three. More on that in my post about installation choices.

I've decided to do these images because they represent those different emotions and feelings to me. I am the happiest when I socialise with friends, I am the loneliest on late nights on my own, and I feel the most passionate during sex. 

I've looked into cinemagraphs for this project as well. A cinemagraph is essentially a gif, were the image is frozen, but one aspect of it is moving. I think this would look really cool for the morse code, as it is a subtle way of implementing it into my installation. 

I think this would look awesome

After looking into cinemagraphs, and how to make it, I started thinking about how to use it in my images. In subtle ways, that makes it seamless and not out of place. For the red I was thinking about having the light under the door go on and off, for the blue I want the monitor in front of me to flicker, and for the yellow I want a phone on the table to flash. 

I think I'm ready to do my first shoot, to see how they turn out. 

I decided to first try with the blue image. Right of the bat I ran into some trouble as I had to redo all my setting in my camera to make the quality as good as possible. These shots will happen in very little light, and with that comes noise, thats pretty much unavoidable, but I can try to make it as little as possible. My first try was horrendous. 

As you can see, there is a lot of noise and grain. But I did choose to use this clip to experiment with cinemagraphs. 

Making the cinema itself didn't turn out to be very difficult, but that doesn't mean it was successful. I did it in Photoshop by importing it as frames, then deleting all the frames I didn't need. I then created a copy of the first frame in the sequence - this would be my static layer mask that keeps the video frozen. To then only make the computer move I selected the brush tool and marked the entire area of the computer so that the remaining frames could be seen through the mask. This was all well and good, but after that I encountered two problems. 
1. Because the top frame was a still, the light from the computer would still light me up, even after it was turned off through the mask. This just looked weird, and out of continuity. 
2. I could only save this as a GIF file, which would only be accessible through the internet. This in turn gives me a lot of trouble for the installation, as it would be dependent on the internet. 

How can I improve this, and make it work? 

Well, first of I can change my camera settings. I kept my ISO under 1600, and turned my aperture down to 4.0. Ideally I would use a lens that can go as far down as 2.8, but I don't have that at this time. (I also discovered that my camera was only recording in 720p this whole time. I of course turned it up to 1080p)  Furthermore I can make sure the frame is slightly better lit. I do want the image to be low lit, and moody, but to make up for the reduced ISO, I will have to increase the light. 

Instead of using Photoshop, I will move over to Premiere Pro to keep it as a video, instead of turning it into a GIF. Because of this choice I will have to limit the movement in frame as much as possible to still almost create the cinemagraph effect. The tiny amount of movement might even be in my favour, as it could give the image more emotions. 

-TJ

"try to think of a new colour"

What do colour means to us, and why?

"Notes on a page" (2016) by TJ Tvedt

For this unit I want to do a lot of research into colours, and why they mean what they mean to us. I mean, I feel like personally know they mean for me, but that might not be universal. I think a lot of people will have different connotations to the colour than me, just based of memory and experience. For me, red is the colour of anger and passion, but for someone else it could represent fire. This could be for number of reasons; maybe their house burned down. That's an extreme example, but you understand what I mean. 

BLUE.

Blue has been used in art and decorations since ancient times. It is a primary colour, and because it can create such a wide range of other colours by being mixed it has been heavily used for a long time, for an example in making up all the colours in screens. Blue has been used to represent the sky in paintings for as long as we have been able to dye stuff blue, and in modern times it has been used in flags that represent harmony and togetherness, like the European Union, and NATO. When asked through surveys people say that they associate with intelligence, harmony, coldness, distance, and sadness. It is also considered to be the most masculine colour, and dark blue is the most common colour for business suits. In Europe it was also chosen as their favourite colour by almost half the population. 

In modern times blue is considered a colour of royalty, which is ironic as in Greek and Roman times, blue was the colour of the working class. This was because blue was a colour that was quite difficult to make, and thus came into popular use lone after other colours like red, yellow, white, and black. It was also considered a barbaric colour as Julius Caesar reported that the Celts and Germans dyed their faces blue to frighten their enemies- quite a different meaning from today's "harmony". In Egypt on the other hand, blue was considered a divine colour as it was the colour the gods painted their faces to fly invisibly across the sky. This could be because Egypt had earlier access to blue, as it imported lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. I would not be surprised if these contradicting associations with blue are connected. The Roman Empire especially was famous for alienating every other nation that wasn't Roman, or "civilised", which would cause colours that for an example Egypt considered divine, to be uncivilised in Rome. 

But I think that the reason blue today is associated with tranquility, harmony, and sadness, is because of the sky. Staring up at it and its vastness you can feel calmer, but if you're sad already, it will only make you sadder. It is after all a very solemn colour, although I doubt you would feel calm if you had a barbaric Celt running towards you, screaming, with his face painted blue.

The Colour Circle

RED.

Red has been used in art for even longer than blue due to it being fairly simple to create. Iron oxide has long been used, and it is also what gives the Grand Canyon and Mars their colour. Because it is the colour of blood, red has since ancient times been associated with war, anger, passion, and sacrifice. The word red actually goes back to the Proto-Indo European word rewd, which is Because of this association with passion it was chosen as the colour for the ideologies communism and socialism - not to be confused with the original meaning of the Red Square in Russia, as red was considered to mean "beautiful" long before the Russian Revolution. But similarly, red was used to evoke passion during the French revolution, because they used a simple red colour as their banner. Red was used as early as the Egyptian Empire as make up to redden cheeks, and dye hair. 

YELLOW.

"Sunflowers" (1888) by Vincent Van Gogh

According to surveys in America, Europe, and Canada, yellow is the colour most often associated with amusement, gentleness, joy, happiness, but also envy, and jealousy. This duplicity of meaning took place because yellow became the colour associated with Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, in the Middle Ages and renaissance. This "trend" evolved into marking non-Christians with yellow, which in turn is the reason why Jews would have to wear a yellow star of David during the times of Nazi-Germany. 

Vincent Van Gogh was an especially fan of the colour yellow as he expressed that it reminded him of sunshine, although he also felt that the word "yellow" did not thoroughly enough explain the beauty of the sun - bright sulfur yellow, pale lemon gold. I have to say that I agree with him. I think yellow is a beautiful, very awake, colour. Because of this "awakeness" it is often used in warning signs. But even more so it reminds me of happiness, daytime, sunshine, and good memories. 
In China it is also seen as the colour of glory, and wisdom - which is funny, because in Europe more people associate wisdom and intelligence with blue. It is actually seen as a colour of nobility. Chinas compass has five directions; north, west, east, south, and the middle. Each direction is symbolised by a colour, and the middle is symbolised by yellow. China again is called the Middle Kingdom, and the Emperors palace is seen as the exact centre of the world. 

Thoughts:

I feel like I now know a whole lot about colours that I did not know before. Did I need this knowledge? I'm not sure, but either way, I know have it. One thing is for certain, this has given me a new perspective. I had no idea that one colour could mean such different things for people living around the world - how blue could be considered a divine colour in Egypt, while a worker class colour in Rome. But, although this is all very interesting, and knowledge that I might use in a future project/ future game of Trivial Pursuit, this specific project is very personal to me, and my own feelings. Therefore it is important that the representations of the colours I end up using are my associations, based on my experiences. So I'm sorry Egypt, you might think that blue is divine, I think it's loneliness and sadness, and that's what I'm going with. 


-TJ

".. cause you're on your own from here, 

so are you happy?" 

- Bo Burnham, "Make Happy"

MAPS AND NETWORKS 

I'm not gonna be little liar - it took me ages to come up with my idea for this project. Call it what you want; struggles getting started again; summer brain syndrome; lack of talent - the list goes on. But my brain just couldn't come up with anything from the trigger words "maps" and "networks". I mean, sure, I saw plenty of connections to what the two words could mean, and possible uses within art, but nothing struck me as "Holy molasses! I've found my idea!" I honestly didn't know what to do. 

It got to a point where it was physically affecting me in a negative way. I think all artists have those periods of self doubt. 

"How can I be cut out for this course, or this profession, 

if I can't come up with a single idea?"

I was desperately looking for someone to tell me what to do next. To tell me what artists to look at to get inspiration. Just someone to help me on my way. But that wasn't happening. I'm 20 years old now, and for every year that passes I've got more responsibility, without a manual for how to deal with it. I'm moving into uncharted territory. I'm in control of my own life. Sure, I'm still in uni. I know what I'm doing tomorrow, and I know what I'm doing next week because I have a timetable. But in two years - what am I doing then? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. The future is literally a blank piece of paper that I somehow have to make sense of. Stressful thought eh? Yeah, I feel. 

"In a way my project isn't about maps, 

but rather a lack thereof."

So, how do I portray this in an art installation? This feeling of insecurity, and "on your own-ness". What I decided was actually pretty coincidental. I recently watched Marvels new series, Luke Cage. And there is this thing that all those series (Daredevil, Jessica Jones) do so so well, and that is colour themes. Daredevil has a reoccurring red tint, while Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage have purple and yellow respectively. Because this fascinated me so, I've played around with this in my personal photography a lot recently. This is why I want to portray my project through colours. How is the question. 

This lovely assortment of colour is a still from Simon Payne's work "Colour Bars". Rosie referred me to him after our tutorial, and I found his work quite inspiring. The minimalistic idea of colour and human emotions was something we both agreed would make an interesting installation, so seeing Payne's work, and how simple but impactful it is gave me some ideas for how I could do my own. 

I've decided I want to do primary colours. There are multiple reasons for this. 

• Colours are often linked to emotions. Red - anger and passion. Blue - sadness and tranquility. Yellow - happiness. All emotions we go through every day. "But how does this relate to your project about insecurity in your twenties?" I'm glad you asked! Not only are your twenties the years when you need to figure stuff out, but also "the best years of your life." So make sure you enjoy them! Right? We have so much to think about, worry about, enjoy, relax, party, experiment - is it too much? 
• They are primary colours. If you look at the colour wheel with creative eyes, it starts to look like your life. You start out simple - three colours. But then you mix them, and you have nine! And so on. It gets more complicated. This project is a requiem to leaving those first colours behind. Even if it is scary. 
• With multiple colours I can tell three stories. A sad one, a happy one, and a passionate one.

But how are you gonna tell these stories? 

I want to use morse code. I want to have each colour tell a poem or haiku that relates to that emotion through morse code. Three stories that together tell a story of growing up.

Thank you for reading.

TJ